The Wall Read Online Free PDF

however, is not allowed, nor can I approach them; instead, I have to keep my eyes lowered, gazing only at my allotted ground, if only to show in understated fashion that I’m not up to anything suspicious nor do I have anything to hide. Whenever a greeting from the next little garden hops over to me, I have to answer in an unselfconsciously even tone, making sure to squash any urge toward a friendly smile. I don’t have to suppress such gestures for long, for the good neighbors are satisfied and want nothing more from me, such that I can once again continue on inside the borders of my garden, and no one will dispute my right to do so. Thus I am transformed into a proprietor to whom belongs the tangible residue of his property, an owner who has paid for what he owns, this leading to the miracle of such freedom.
    But how do I really feel, and what do I think about it all? I prefer to head inside and to my workroom. Johanna had arranged for me to have the biggest one, the front room on the ground floor, with the wide window behind which stands a narrow fringe of untended grass and a bushy hedgeof evergreens that protects me from the street. Here I am left to myself, my misery is almost entirely protected from searching glances, one needing to be almost rude or have to dare to come up the tiled walk to the front door in order to look in at me at my desk. Thus I can carry on as I wish and no one bothers me. Many hours stretch out in which I need listen only to myself. Eva and Michael are in kindergarten and at school, or they cavort around outside; Johanna is busy somewhere else in the house or has gone off somewhere. Everything is well arranged, and yet I feel at sixes and sevens, and staying in my room makes me anxious. Outside, everything is quiet or just scurries by, unaware, having no idea that someone might visit me, someone who might seize the chance to speak to me.
    “I know you. You got away from me and my clutches, but now I have found you again here behind your wall. Why have you tried to hide for so long? Do you mean to deceive me with your little family idyll? You stupid swindler! The wife and children don’t belong to you; you don’t even belong to you, for you are mine, mine! You are completely mine, for I am your destroyer. I let you get away in order to feed upon your powerlessness, as you helplessly and fearfully struggled to get away, as if there were some way to escape. Not a bad idea! But there is no cave in which you can hide, into which you can crawl with all your filth. You’ll look suspicious no matter where you are, you old rat. A sweet, numbing scent rises from the sewers in which you must stow yourself. Just you wait, I’ll smoke you out, in much the same way I always destroy your kind.”
    It’s much better if no one visits and all the noises just rush by the house. If a policeman comes along, walking slowly and intently, I feel nervous. I have often told myself that he’s making his rounds to protect me as well, and he means me no harm, but that’s hard to believe when, behind the most harmless of miens, there still lurks a threatening presence that wants to do away with me, to abolish me. For when did I come by the right to be tolerated? Have I done so much good that I need no longer feel any menace? I take stock, realize that I am here, think of the legal principles that promise my safe existence, but I can never be certain that everything will turn out right.
    Is it now two years or is it longer since Johanna and I were ordered to appear before the immigration police? It was an official, somewhat dutiful-lookinglittle note done in the manner that is common to the local authorities here. The simple words seemed gentle and suggested nothing ominous. It just said that I should appear; the day was named, but the time was up to us. But what had I done that would cause them to want to see me? I searched inside myself, probing the deepest folds of my unrenounced feelings of guilt, but they were