The Wall Read Online Free PDF Page A

of being anyhelp with moving in. Pleadingly I looked at Johanna to ask whether there was anything I could do, but she wouldn’t hear of it, and instead stroked my hair, hurried out, and returned with a little something to eat.
    “The men are much better at this than us. They’ll take care of it all.”
    Johanna said that all she had to do was tell them where to put things and it would be done. Then I recovered a bit and realized that it was only because of me that nothing was being carried into the back room. Because I didn’t want to linger anymore in the empty room in my chair, I felt stronger and considered how I could make myself useful. As I stood up to look at the workers, I still felt weak in my legs, so there was nothing I could do. I wandered over to the door that led to the little yard and pushed at it, it giving way only after some effort. I slipped out and stood in sleepy delight amid the overgrown grass.
    This little garden, Johanna was pleased to see, returned me to my childhood. I know nothing about gardening, but a desire awoke within me to take pleasure in this little patch of garden. I began by putting in some plants, which resulted in a comical mishmash that any proper gardener would have laughed at. The soil is poor, nor before we arrived had it at all been taken care of: shards, bits of brick, rubbish, and rubble were intermingled with the paltry soil. But it was precisely this neglect that roused me. I culled the ugliest bits and in good spirits, which it certainly helped to bring on, I proceeded to fashion a modest measure of peace amid that patch of garden. Johanna was happy to leave me to it, for she knows nothing about gardening, nor did she have enough time to set everything aright out here. Thus I controlled my own little realm along with the children, to whom I granted a corner sandbox that I filled with fine-grained yellow sand, Eva and Michael a welcome presence as long as they didn’t step on the flowers. Such a lovely little world it was, full of primroses, wallflowers, safflowers, vetches, cresses, and other wonders! It all took some effort, which I was surprised to find I could muster. Whenever I bend over the weeds, or pick snails off the lupines, or weed out some ribwort by applying lime, or tie up scarlet runner beans, or prop up noble delphiniums with stakes, or water the soil, I know for sure that it’s all an unsuitable folly which anyone in the know would smile at. But I also know that a hopeless city boy is at play, one who remains clueless, and yet in no false manner has transformed his cramped littlesquare into a realm magically aburst, and who now celebrates the victory of the guardian over a conquered land. None of this is what I intended. No doubt things don’t run amok inside my little compound as they do beyond my lazy and broken fence, or the way that something wild shoots up in the middle of the city, unfolding its grayish green here and there among abandoned stretches and abandoned lots, where the realm of the meadow does not spread its protective cover across the earth through the densely packed soft grasses that blossom within it. Alas, such a realm is far off, whereas the abandoned lot is nearby. Still, it’s not so bad so long as with my own hands I can try to get this ridiculous patch of earth to please us, the power of chance continuing to surprise me. Which is why I tolerate having the strawberries underneath the thorny rosebushes. No doubt the neighbors probably had a good laugh together over that, but it doesn’t bother me, and the berries ripen beautifully.
    I can’t help enjoying the almost forbidden peace and comfort I cherish in this shrunken world in which I remain secluded from sharp-toothed fears and deadly misapprehensions, an island estate inside an archipelago for other landowners whose fate I do not share in the least. But the fact that I can live here means that I still have an almost invisible relation to our neighbors. Speaking to them,