The Journey by H. G. Adler Page B

fell on the snow-covered chestnuts in the courtyard and on the arcades in front of the casemate. Things couldn’t be so bad. You could open your eyes, only memory could not be set free. Meanwhile Ida had to be held up, though she was brave and happy that her son was alive. She would have preferred to see him die rather than see him caught. The borders were drawn more prominently than ever, but though they were open everywhere no one could cross them. Zerlina lifted all of Ida’s bags and laughed. Things would work out, one mustn’t despair. Caroline had emerged victorious; no longer was she hallucinating, but rather constructing a future. Where there is a future there is life, and belief is what created the connection between.
    Paul watched the departure of the women and did not feel unhappy. He was busy. Next he turned his attention to Leopold, who was also considering many plans for the future. Then Leopold was also led away, which he expected. He said a quick good-bye to Paul. “Now we will all have to get to work.” Leopold was firm in his conviction, his belief had not faltered. His advanced age didn’t worry him, for a healthy man can also stand quite a lot despite his age. His was an occupation that called upon him to ease the sufferings of others. Here they would need Leopold, his lengthy experience would not be for naught. He left the casemate with some other old men and glanced back at Paul once more with a feeling of triumph. He, too, did not stay long in the casemate and left behindthe sawdust that had already been mashed together into a brown smelly paste.
    Months went by, a year has passed. Sitting in his room, Paul had often thought that the connection we feel to our surroundings is frequently built on belief. When this belief is violated then the connection is already dissolved and the consequences are incalculable. It doesn’t matter whether or not such belief is true if indeed it exists only as belief, for it preserves much more than its possible truth, namely the truth of belief in itself. To the extent that belief is refuted by real conditions it is indeed not enough in itself, but when it fails, nothing is enough. Yet one must be patient. Each rash measure poses a threat and hinders the order of the world. All conditions, even the bad ones, are equal and cannot be changed in nature by merely willing them away. Destructive incursions are a mistake, for they accomplish and mean nothing, even when they lead to annihilation. There are always witnesses left behind whose memory is enough to survive any annihilation and restore the chronology of events even when hidden for centuries or millennia. Then everything reverts back to belief, which the transitory discards, and the past must reduce itself to an apparition upon which not much appears to rest.
    In the meantime, sacrifice yourself and expect nothing. Everything will come to you. You indeed approach closer and closer, your every step ordered onward until you are there where your work has been arranged for you, though in fact it is just the opposite, the wall stands before you and demands that you set to work on it. It should be demolished, its history is over. But that only seems so, for walls and histories will be perpetuated through you. You can press at them until you are exhausted, their dust trickling onto you and sticking in your pores. The old bricks rest in your hand, crumbs of mortar clinging to them, though you can’t take them away, for they simply remain. Perhaps you’d like to hold on to one and thereby do harm to the edifice in order to stave off history. But the others don’t understand you and warn you to keep up the pace. How little you think about your work, and that’s for the good, because if you did how easy it would be to stop. Hand over your bricks, pass the next one down the line!
    This is the Earth. Once it was on fire, but it has long since cooled and settled into a general state of coldness, the clumps having turned to