The Wall (96 page)

“Sometimes it feels like you are a first-semester student and not a mature scholar. There’s nothing simpler than that. In the panopticon we find the contemporary museum, which is equal to the most modern scientific achievements, for which we have the trailblazing work of our colleague Herr Saubermann to thank. Consider the word: ‘panopticon.’ That means everything is seen, a museum that is not just for the purpose of true learning but, rather, also speaks to the experience of the broad masses. And that is applied sociology.”

I cringed when the Professor talked of the “broad masses,” for I didn’t like this unuseful misnomer. It prodded me to want to ask what he meant by that, but then I decided it was better to avoid a lecture from my benefactor and kept quiet until we were before the gaudy sign of the booth that said

in brightly colored letters. The entry price was cheap, but we didn’t have to pay anything and were immediately met at the door. Herr Saubermann greeted us wearing tails, his long face beaming, and clapping his hands. I thought at first that it was with pleasure he was doing so, but it soon became clear that this was a sign to his two assistants dressed in black coats. To my pleasant surprise, they were none other than Herr Schnabelberger and Frau Dr. Kulka. He bowed deeply, and the doctor nodded delicately, yet neither said a word and needed me to speak to them first before they mouthed their spare, almost submissive phrases. Herr Saubermann, to whom I raised my left hand while continuing to wave him off, patiently suggested that I
should take a little time to speak with my old colleagues, though he also longed to have my undivided attention for himself. I didn’t wish to wear out his patience and thus looked for the Professor to engage Saubermann for a while. Then I told my co-workers from the museum that I had seen Herr Geschlieder already and was surprised that he was not among those working at the panopticon. Herr Schnabelberger explained to me that Geschlieder had applied. He had been turned down because he seemed too uneducated, he not having understood how Saubermann had wanted to renovate the museum. Instead, Herr Woticky was employed as an assistant.

I would happily have talked longer with Dr. Kulka and Schnabelberger, but Saubermann was being difficult and wouldn’t be distracted by either my gesture or Professor Kratzenstein’s efforts. Saubermann took me confidently by the arm and said that we should be good friends, to which I didn’t say anything. Then he explained that Herr Schnabelberger and Frau Dr. Kulka had come around entirely to his notion of museumship and had been happy to follow his directions. He, along with these co-workers, would be happy to support my research in word and action whenever I needed them to. In addition, he was also ready to supply me with any kind of private help that I needed, and to grant this to me at any time. While normally visitors were led through the panopticon by my former co-workers, Saubermann was ready to do it himself in this case, though Schnabelberger and Dr. Kulka went along to help him. The panopticon was filled with many objects that were familiar to me from my own time at the museum. On the other hand, the treasures that Larry Saubermann had shown me at his house were not on view here. We came upon bundles of badly torn prayer books, just as we had once piled up in the cellar; here they were displayed neatly, and one was left open. Then I saw paintings that I remembered. They hung on the wallpapered walls, which I recognized as the brand Kolex, from my former friend Konirsch-Lenz, everything now free of dust, the frames repaired and everywhere useful labels that could not have been more informative.

The portraits of the Lebenhart couple hung in a prominent spot. Having in mind Lever’s request, I asked why Saubermann’s panoptical approach wouldn’t allow them to at least hand over the paintings to the Levers so they could hang them in Johannesburg. Frau Dr. Kulka asked Saubermann if she could respond. He nodded that she could, and I was informed that,
because of history, this wasn’t possible, for it couldn’t allow for any such return. I should understand that any dumping of stored-up treasure would mean a decrease in the true awareness of the history of those terrible years. The supposed reparation of an injustice should involve, if one understands it properly, really the injustice itself and no right to anything else. Frau Dr. Kulka didn’t want to disagree with me, but that was the panoptical approach, which, no matter how brilliant my scholarly achievements might be, I had not yet sufficiently absorbed. Then Herr Schnabelberger asked to speak in order to support Dr. Kulka and note that Johannesburg was much too far off the beaten track. It is psychologically telling, I would have to agree, that the Levers ran the coconut toss in such a way that, through unusual cunning, they deftly kept the conference participants far enough from the barrier in order to prevent the possibility of a direct hit. If he, Schnabelberger, could suggest something else, he would urge them to consider whether the Levers should be involved with the work at the panopticon, in case someday they might wish to put on an exhibit in Johannesburg.

Herr Saubermann pressed his lips together in frustration. He had already made the Levers a generous offer, saying that Frau Lever could sell tickets, and Herr Lever could succeed Herr Geschlieder, yet that was scoffed at by the arrogant upstarts. The way Herr Saubermann saw it, such an upstanding man wasn’t at all interested in ongoing access to the portraits of his grandparents; he wanted the paintings themselves, and that was that. There was no working with the Levers, so only under the Saubermanns’ personal leadership and control would the objects see the light of day, such as here in the panopticon. Then our skillful leader added that that was enough about those paintings and we should see the rest of the exhibit. So we moved on and came to some objects that I remembered from the hermitage. One had to admit that everything was presented much more vividly. This entirely convinced me that the splendid exhibit represented the high point of the tour, for there was the coffin, surrounded by the artful figures that had so carefully been stowed away in the hermitage, and afterward had been so ignobly hauled away. Here, however, the mannequins didn’t sit around the table during the Passover feast but, rather, haphazardly around and at a considerable distance from the coffin, such that one could easily walk between it and the families with plenty of room. Each mannequin could be
observed from any side, each detail clear, there never having been such access to these figures before. Indeed, I heard within me a voice say, “Away from here, away!” But there was no chance of that, for my companions and everyone else standing around would prevent it, though I didn’t just feel as if I were under arrest but, rather, a feeling awoke within me that said, “Stay, stay!” It was as if I were under a spell, everything preventing me from moving, a hammering sense of amazement that took away any thought of escape, such that my legs, which wanted to run far away, were stripped of all power to flee. Also before me was what I had long not allowed my eyes to believe, the mannequin of an old man standing up, though his raised hands grasped nothing, presumably not having been entrusted with the laws. Herr Saubermann seemed to know why the old man stood up, looming in all his shakiness, only looking off into the emptiness and attending the coffin, beyond which any gaze was swallowed up in the fathomless measures of past and future time. This was the end of history. It was arresting and surpassed everything that I recalled from the days of the hermitage. I didn’t look at the mannequins for long, for they did not live for those who had died and the coffin reminded one that this was so, and thus I gave it my full attention. The proper state of reflection occurring within me, it was soon interrupted by an exultant voice.

“Look, Landau,” said Herr Saubermann. “That is my greatest triumph. First of all, it was not easy to save this memorial and move it here at great cost and against the wishes of the local authorities and those back there, and then to restore it at even greater expense. Second, I needed all my skills of persuasion in order to convince my dear assistants and colleagues, Dr. Kulka and Schnabelberger, of the extraordinary worth and educational value of this unique object. But now they both hold the same opinion as me. The past has been saved for good, and not just brought into the present but also through some measure of care preserved for the future. So it was, so it is, so it will be.”

As a special favor, I was allowed to touch the figures and then the coffin as well. I shied away from touching the mannequins and only lightly touched the grandfather. Then I drew closer to the coffin, it looking similar to the one that I had ridden to the Sociology Conference while accompanied by Brian and Derek. I quietly mentioned this coincidence, though my
voice all but failed me. Everyone looked at me approvingly, as if it had taken me to reveal this to them.

“You have good eyes,” explained Herr Saubermann. “It is, of course, highly symbolic. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you whether that really is the coffin on which you rode here, for I don’t have the authority of an expert in furniture, which among us only Mrs. Mackintosh would have. What’s more, without basic archaeological training it would be hard to know. It’s all such a long time ago. Do you remember? I don’t, that I will openly admit. Everything was wiped out, then everything was good again. It ends up forgotten, no matter if one has the best panopticon in the world. Everything gone, for our memory is poor. But if your hard-nosed scholarly nature should be intrigued by this question, then Herr Birch, whom you know, would be the one to decide the identity of the coffin. It would certainly be worth asking. Though you’ll have to agree, it’s not a matter of outward truth but, rather, inner truth. And so you are right—the similarity is striking.”

“We virtually buried you,” Frau Dr. Kulka claimed when Herr Saubermann allowed her to speak. “You have changed so much that you either don’t exist or someone totally different now lives.”

“Yes,” explained Herr Schnabelberger, forgetting to ask permission to speak. “You have survived completely. It’s just as you want. You now belong to our panoptical museum as a coffin. You also happen to stand here before us, and you feel fine. That’s all that a person can wish for.”

“So it is!” the Professor asserted joyously. “Precisely! So the coffin is nothing but you as old Adam. You are separated from it as if by a wall and walk about in seeming freedom as an honorary member. A rare achievement. I believe it is even unique.”

I ran my hands lightly over the coffin.

“I bequeath you this box,” I said barely aloud and for no special reason. “I give it to you this very day. Where, indeed, are all the wreaths and flowers? It all needs to look good in order to serve your approach.”

“A very fine remark,” the factory owner and director of the panopticon agreed. “We’ll take care of the flowers.”

“And pearls, many pearls …” I whispered.

The moment seemed to have arrived to leave the museum. I was ready to leave the conference as well. Unfortunately, that was not possible, for as
an honored guest one is trapped within his paradise and cannot shrink from it, but Kratzenstein was ready to leave the people of the panopticon in order to get me some fresh air. I held out my hand to the workers, and as I left the museum booth I had to sign a special page of the visitors’ book, which had also been hauled out of the hermitage. Once we were outside, I heard a shrill roar that could only have come from Roy Rogers. I wasn’t wrong, as the Professor confirmed, explaining that this blossoming enterprise had been transformed into an Institute for Quick-Change Artistry, which had grown in essential ways such that it now displayed the greatest achievements of the Sociology Conference. A visit was really called for. From the esoteric scientists’ slide I had been lured over to Roy Rogers, and so we found our way there, where in front of the entrance most of the people I knew had gathered, they having been relieved of their responsibilites for the purposes of taking a special tour. A shimmering spectacle then proceeded, one like my ears had never before had to endure. A level of noise was reached that could hardly be taken in by my hearing. That’s what I said to myself while truly dazed, though the sound did not oppress me. I also attributed this to the fact that I could already see Roy Rogers, the incomparable man with the assistants already familiar to me. He held forth with his famous skills, while the onlookers were herded into the tent accompanied by constant hoopla and boisterous calls.

Roy Rogers had found a partner equal to him who was billed as the quick-change artist of all time; he was a fast painter, a paperhanger, a prize shot, and much more that was rattled off. He was introduced as Hopalong Cassidy. He spread out a roll of wallpaper and held it up across from Roy Rogers, who tossed shimmering daggers and knives at it, though all the weapons bounced off the wallpaper that was quickly swung back and forth, and on which, through the unexplainable magic of Roy Rogers’s knives, the word “Kolex” appeared in bright red. I had already been amazed to see the brand name Kolex in the panopticon, where it seemed to me ingenious, but here it had such an odd effect that the word appeared to me new and unknown and I couldn’t remember it, for I had no time, as I was still breathless and besotted with the brilliance of the free performance. Roy Rogers drew his two pistols and wildly shot at the wallpaper, releasing pops and smoking clouds. Once he had emptied his guns, the word “Kolex” disappeared.
“Unbelievable!” I heard someone next to me call out. “Unbelievable! It has to be a trick, but one I’ve never seen before!” It was Oswald Birch who said this, and I agreed with him.

Then I looked up at the stage again, where I recognized my greatest benefactor and supporter. Hopalong Cassidy was my unforgettable friend Siegfried Konirsch-Lenz, while the lady who had helped him with rolling out and rolling up the wallpaper was Minna, his wife. By then Konirsch-Lenz had also noticed me and waved cheerily to me, called me by name, praised me to those gathered as the man of the day, and vigorously motioned for me to join him onstage. I hesitated and had little desire to follow the worthy request, but because of the entreating calls from the mouths of those above—the gathering also supporting this wish and urging me not to dally—I finally climbed up. Siegfried Hopalong embraced me and kissed me before all the onlookers, Roy Rogers doing the same. At the same time, Roy playfully threw his lasso over me, while Konirsch-Lenz kept loosening and tightening it. Then all the other artists onstage greeted me, among them two tall girls, Patricia and Petula, who were introduced to me by their mother.