The Wall (27 page)

She lifted a hand and pointed over the border.

“Not me, I’m from over there. But there they …”

She didn’t say what she was thinking. I had no desire to explain, but Anna nodded at her sympathetically.

“I know it’s not right. But we don’t feel at home there either.”

The girl looked at us as if she would have liked to say something about not wanting anything to do with us. She placed her hand back on her hip.

“It’s fine by me.”

Cold and hostile was how she had spoken. Then she walked back inside the building with a strident gait and closed the squeaking door behind her, though she wasn’t happy about being stuck inside and leaped up to open the door a crack. The girl didn’t look at us again. Soon we left. Anna had hardly emptied half her glass.

I thought of the slow-witted girl who on the first day at the tank station had offered us fresh eggs with pungent boletus mushrooms, a delicious meal. The woman belonged to another people. Perhaps she had regained control of her property from the regime that had stolen it, having had to forfeit it when the border fell, or perhaps she stole the inn from someone else once the border had been restored. The woman herself did not bring the food; instead, a local girl who worked for the proprietor was sent out in a little Cinderella dress, carrying a bowl, a small young girl of grace and mercy, who worked for the expiation of her unconscious acts, as long as she remained in that country. Meanwhile, Anna had been upset by the incident, and I didn’t wish to remind her of it. I kept quiet, both of us quiet and concentrating on the path ahead of us.

The open peaks now lay behind us, the forest surrounding us again, the path leading steeply down, the border behind us. We sank into the King’s Forest, huge, lovely, proud, and protected from sharp winds. Soon the craggy path downward was behind us, the way now more moderate along the length of the hillside. When we reached the forest road, we began to walk fast, a long stretch between us, as if we weren’t walking together. I had seen enough for today, and knew only that forest followed forest, that I was one with the forest, a forest without end, a forest possessed of the goodness of its own loveliness, a forest that I would no longer be able to experience after leaving it, though there were still many wonders awaiting me along the way: famous tall trees, old beeches, ancient lindens, the wild Klammerloch waterfall, with its swift cold water, the lake black in the late light, as if spun from the evening itself. All of it was still there. I looked on at it, yet I needed nothing more, for it repeated itself with the same pulse and spoke to me, sucking me into its changeable permanence, wearing me down, mocking
me, talking me out of who I am and tossing me as a little speck of shadow into the fullness of its unfathomable richness, such that I sank away into it, into its deeply secret and exalted night, into the mottled coolness that rises from the bell flowers, the burial song of the immortals, a humming knowledge, spreading its spirit in the dance of dying thoughts that, empty of desire and fleeting, quietly twine themselves ominously around that which stands tall, grasping the bark, sensing the strong taste of the hidden in the swaying height, carefree and undisturbed, yet always gathered in the splayed needles of the young shoots, cradled in the crackling sway and higher yet, where the squirrels skitter away in fright, where no bird nests any longer in the loneliest treetops.

Forest, forest, and the forgetting that cannot be conquered, yet, below, the sure step that trusts the ground without paying attention, without having to think about it at all. Forest, forest, in the evening, in the weariness branching through one’s limbs, in the secret stroll of sleep that would find a home among society, in dwelling and the transformation of dwelling, forest of the dead, forest of the living, forest of those who return and those driven out, the same for all, since only the dreams differ, each possessed of a face and its grave expressions that we grasp with our eyes between the eyelids, calling out a name when we remember it or when a book or a list reminds us, witnesses to our past and to everyone’s past, carried over into the sorrow and length of our hours, since everywhere we are met by a face looking at us, demanding and fixed upon us, having tossed away its unexamined questions so that we don’t boldly decide to take on their most imposing demand, but such that we also have the heart to stand upon our feet and take hold with our hands, and that we force the lazy lips of our no-good oafishness to heartfelt avowal. Here we are, the children of the forest within every border, ourselves walking entities of the days denied us, and there you are, children of the same forest, all of us foreigners made brothers, ourselves entities, yourselves images as caught by the nimble artists, the confident pencil capturing your expressions, they then painting your faces, always a look followed by a brushstroke, careful, intent, as good as can be, flattering and yet fatuous, but it almost seeming as if done with love, a memorable work to be handed down to your children, who then gather up the likenesses and place them in frames, a sacred legacy, a drawn-out inheritance passed from tree to
tree, carved and always kept in the same forest where the houses stand with their many dwellings.

On the walls hang the family trees, reverently dusted off, always branching out from the main trunk, Father and Mother, each of them looking alive and present with serious faces projecting from the past into the present, the sweet eyes meaning something to the grandchildren, the offspring in the forest comfortably gathering around and holding their breath before them. The first reverence paid by gazes that can barely understand, looking up questioningly toward the walls, their own strange future gazing down from the preserved faces, their own hearts full of wonder. A people born of a memory renewed in each new generation, as down through the parents, the grandparents, and the ancestors the first parents continued on, about which the Holy Book spoke, no longer as being in the forest but as sand from the ocean, each a grain created by the same law. Human beings have treasured that which has been; though it might have been in vain, it was also dear to them and, indeed, one often heard it said how important it was to remember. That’s why such memories were cherished in those rooms and protected with touching diligence.

Then, however, the destroyer arrived, calling out to the living and leading them from rooms in which the last warmth glowed, the hunted taking with them only a little travel bag, no longer a settled people and also this not an exodus toward salvation but, rather, aimless wanderers, cool and matter-of-fact, almost athletic, hardly having taken one last look around the decrepit dwellings, drawers, and wardrobes standing open and ransacked, only the ancestors remaining undisturbed on the walls, always looking down, steady and true, their mien not in the least withdrawn, though not letting on whether they noticed the horrible changes and the sudden emptiness. No one carefully wiped the frames any longer; no one dabbed tenderly with a white cloth over the similarly colored canvases, with their spreading cracks, or over the faces behind glass. Since the ancestors were frail and old, they could not help themselves and relinquished all responsibility, such that they drowsily turned gray with dust. The faces became wizened, the eyes dull, the hair dry and thin, and the throat weak, their garments meager—a poor people, encased in several coats of grime and soon invisible. Even the frames suffered and broke, gold fading, flaking off in an ugly manner from the wood.

Thus the old time came to a sudden end, and it lasted a long while, until a couple of strangers noisily pressed their way into the dwelling. They stomped coldly and insensitively through all the rooms, their hands raw and wrapping their uniforms tight. They strode around confidently, and yet not at home, and wrote down things as being so long and so wide, so tall and so short, not paying any attention to things, counting, measuring, turning this way and that and knocking things over. Finally one of them looked at the pictures, shoved his way over, growled and whistled, a finger leaving a mark in the dust.

“Hey, look at this! Worthless, everyday stuff.”

Then the bunch of them tramped off, having noted down everything that slept fitfully in the dwelling. Again, many months passed before another loose regiment showed up with a thrashing bluster. The men chalked letters and numbers on beds and tables, lifting the groaning pictures off rusting nails in the walls and marking them with the same fat red pencil and signature on the back of each. In crates, suitcases, boxes, sacks, and bundles they packed it all up, schlepping the weight with shuffling steps down the stairs and out to the street, loading the decaying goods into the back of an empty van. Things tossed in any which way, coming apart at the seams, breaking into pieces, dumped in all together, all of it worn and tattered. One wearing a cap looked intently in all the corners of the ravaged dwelling and clapped his hands as if he wanted with the echo to tease out anything concealed in all the hidden niches. Yet nothing appeared, and now the inspector reached up to grab a window’s crossbar, rapped on the wood of the swaying doors, then closed up the emptied site, hurried to the truck, gave the driver a nod, and already the load was off to the warehouse. It was to the ceremonial hall of a cemetery outside the mountain town that they traveled. When they arrived it was raining; otherwise, it was still all around. The men jumped from the truck, the turnkey heard them from inside, scratched his head, and came out to have a look at the load. He nodded a greeting, complained about the weather, wrapped a broken dish, his bald head wrinkling with a smile. The inspector handed the turnkey his consignment book, everything written down in it, the names as well.

“Eugene Lebenhart and Emmi Lebenhart. Hey, that’s the Lebenharts from Ufergasse! They must have had some nice things.”

“Not really.”

“A lot of it is broken. Sure. Yet they had money once.”

“You always know everything, and everyone.”

“Of course, I knew them. You don’t believe me? Who, I ask you, didn’t know them! Fancy goods, that was quite a shop! They did a tremendous business!”

“Buy something for yourself!”

“I can’t buy anything. But they used to be rich, that I can tell you.”

“No, what did they have left of it?”

“Left of it.… You got it all!”

The men said nothing more about how good things had once been for Eugene and Emmi Lebenhart, nor did they say anything much, for they had to hurry. The cargo had to be quickly unloaded and stuffed in the ceremonial hall. All the furniture was carried, carpets were piled up, mirrors, glass, and such stuff handled with some care, so that it all didn’t rattle to pieces, books stacked on one another, kitchen stuff placed in the foyer, sewing stuff in the morgue, though for miscellaneous things there was no room. The turnkey complained that it was high time all this junk was cleared out, which the Department for House Clearings had to get through its head, what with every day more loads showing up and no room for all the plunder, which also needed to be sorted through. The inspector nodded, yes, there was no telling where to take it all. But the turnkey said that everything here was a mess, and he knew it. The workers pushed and shoved the load into the storehouse, the pictures also hauled in and placed in a corner where many others lay in the dark. Then the inspector left with his workers. Soon after the warehouse was so full that finally others listened to the turnkey and hauled most of the rest away.

The pictures went to the school, three classrooms filled with them. They were hauled upstairs, one after another, not very gently or orderly, only the big ones being watched out for. Thus all the things from the house were stacked up and banished, thirty and fifty of them at a time. With battens they cut from laths, the stacks were secured so that they didn’t collapse, narrow passages between remaining free.

Herr Schnabelberger opened up and led me into the first room. The air was muggy and warm, a sweet gray mustiness rising up in the darkened room, into which daylight wearily spread its yellow through windows half
blocked off by shades. My eyes would soon have gotten used to this darkness, which felt a bit odd, but Herr Schnabelberger snapped on the light, it flooding the room with a brownish-yellow glow that reminded me of mellow apples in bins from the previous year’s harvest.

“You’re not really an art historian, but that doesn’t matter, Herr Dr. Landau. It’s good work. And you are intelligent and know how to help yourself. Otherwise, I will help you out when necessary. Here and in both rooms that I still have to show you is our collection of family pictures. All in all, there are around five thousand pieces. Some excellent examples, in which one recognizes right away the hand of a good painter, were separated out right away. The loveliest one is already in the exhibition room and is museum quality. But, also, the paintings in my room and what you see in the staircase are worth hardly less. We hope that someday we can hang it all in a dignified manner, restore any damage, and make them available to the public in a gallery of our museum. What’s here in this room and what otherwise might show up among the inventory of portraits is probably not worth very much, most of it weak, nothing more than trash, simply useless kitsch. People let themselves be painted by mawkish, fashionable painters, by ridiculous dilettantes, sometimes not even from life, but just from photos, flatteringly, and therefore clumsily flattered. There are even photos painted over with oil paint.”

Herr Schnabelberger stopped. I didn’t know whether he was expecting me to speak. In order just to say something, I quietly said, “So many, many terrible paintings of our dead.”

“One can’t say that without knowing more. Certainly there must still be something good to find. I’d say that, among over five thousand paintings that have hardly been touched, there must be something decent. That will indeed be your task, and perhaps, even most likely—I have no doubt about it—amid the entire crowd you’ll uncover real treasures.”

“A treasure hunter, then?”

I smiled in bemusement and moved to lean on a stack of paintings.