Die Wand Page #4

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without being asked.

Maybe people are more regrettable,

because they have enough sense

to defend themselves against

the natural course of things.

This has made them angry and desperate

and a bit unlovable.

It would have been possible

to live differently.

There is no rational emotion like love.

Love makes the life of the lover and

the beloved more bearable.

If only we could recognize, in time,

that this was our only option.

Our only hope

for a better life.

An infinite army of the dead

has missed this human possibility,

forever.

Again and again I have to remember.

I can't understand

why we follow the wrong path.

I just know that it's too late.

This fall

a white crow has emerged.

She always flies apart from the others

and settles herself on a tree

her companions avoid.

I don't understand why the other

crows don't like her.

For me she is a very beautiful bird.

But she is an abomination to her kind.

This should not be such a

sad absurdity

A white crow.

She remains on her perch,

until the other crows depart,

and then I bring her a

a little food.

She can't know

why she is rejected.

She knows no other life.

She will always be rejected and lonely,

until she is less afraid of people

than her black brothers and sisters...

Every day I wait for the white crow,

and attract her.

And she looks at me attentively with

reddish eyes.

I can do very little for her.

My effort may extend a

life that should not be extended.

But I want the white crow to live,

and sometimes I dream

that there is a second one in the

forest and the two will find each other.

I don't believe it

but I wish it.

Step by step I began to

forget my own past

and grow into a new order.

Until the weather finally improved,

and it was May.

Two years had passed in the forest,

and it occurred to me

that I almost never thought about the

possibility of being found.

I decided to move to the mountain

very soon.

In June I was finally ready

to get used to the mountain pasture.

But it was never like last year.

That first summer on the pasture

was gone forever.

I did not want to be let down,

so I curbed my expectations.

The old magic might not return.

But the Alp made it easy for me.

She had closed before me

and showed a strange face.

I often sat on the bench and looked out

over the meadow, as I did a year ago.

It was no different then it ever was,

and it smelled just as sweet,

but I never felt the same delight again.

I took no more big trips,

because I already found

my limits last summer.

It didn't matter to me,

where the wall was.

That summer, I completely forgot that

Luchs was a dog, and I a human.

I knew it, but our separateness

had no meaning.

Luchs had changed too.

Since I dealt with him so much,

he was quiet and didn't seem

to worry all the time,

If he turned his back, I could

just as well dissolve into thin air.

When I think about it today, I think

this was his only fear

of his dog's life:

to be left alone.

I had learned a lot also,

and understood the meaning of almost

all his movements and sounds.

Now finally a tacit understanding

prevailed between us.

I carried Luchs to the hut

and laid him on the bench.

He became small and light.

And then I heard,

as if from afar, Bella's roar.

She roared in fear.

I tried to calm her.

It was only then I noticed the

man again.

I knew he must be dead.

He had been such a big target,

I couldn't have missed him.

I was glad that he was dead.

I would have been difficult to accept

the killing of an injured man.

And I couldn't have let him live.

Or could I?

I don't know.

I didn't want to leave him on the lawn.

Not next to the dead bull

and the uncut grass.

So I grabbed him by the legs and

dragged him to the vantage point

Where the rocks hang

steeply into the scree

and rhododendrons bloom in June,

and I let him roll downhill.

I made a grave for Luchs that evening.

I made a deep pit,

and put Luchs into it.

I covered him with earth

and laid grass over it.

And then I was very tired.

As tired as I had ever been.

Then I sat down on the bench

and waited for the long night.

It was a bright starry night,

and a cold wind rolled down

from the high rocks.

But I was colder than the wind

and did not feel it.

At first light I got up and left

the mountain pasture with Bella.

The next day I resumed my work.

In October I harvested potatoes and fruit.

The meadow had to be mowed,

but that lasted only one week.

Finally, physically beaten and broken, I

gave up my senseless thoughts of escape,

and my mind was free.

I want to know why

the strange man killed my animals.

I'll never know,

and maybe it's better that way.

Now I am completely calm.

I see a little bit further.

I see this is not the end yet.

Everything goes on.

Taurus, Pearl and Luchs

will not return.

But something new is approaching,

and I cannot escape it.

The memory, the grief

and the fear will remain

and there will be hard work

as long as I live.

Today, 25 February,

I finish my report.

There is no paper left.

It is now about five o'clock

and already it is so bright

I can write without a lamp.

The crows have risen and they are

screaming and circling above the forest.

When they are no longer visible,

I'll go into the glade

and feed the white crow.

She is waiting for me.

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