An Offering for the Dead Read Free

to speak to him as I now speak. To give each other names in which all the conflict in the world could be forgotten forever. Where was he? For he was here. His image was inside me, therefore his being had to be somewhere outside me. And I frequently spoke his name. And I sometimes heard the name he gave me. Did we pass one another? Were we blind and hardened by the futilities of the days that hatefully surrounded us? And now, with these hands, which wanted to do good to one another, we would have strangled each other, because it was too late.
    We must avoid talking about it. I have done so only because I no longer have a name that says anything about me, and because nothing gives me a name that compels me to imagine anything. But you are to know what I am.
    However, I did not meet that other. I was all alone and I walked through the large, empty city. I do not know how long or what gave me the strength. I do not believe I could do it a second time. Have I not said: There are things that are more easily done than thought. Thus I came to the center of the city and to large squares that were surrounded by gigantic buildings. Earlier, the country had been governed from here. One can walk past them and forget them; there is nothing real to be found in them except for the anxious efforts that people have always made to capture all reality in laws. They do not say: If you are distressed, come to me! They say: You are not to feel distressed! From proud galleries, they proclaimed to the populace what it wanted to hear: that everything was in order. And next door there was a theater, where people actually watched performances of their destiny such as they never dared to live it. All this is very bizarre.
    Finally, I stepped into a home. It was a not very large one- family house, which stood in a garden. I entered the house because it happened to be in my way. Or because the garden gate and the front door were open. Or also only because I was fed up with running around and it was time to put an end to it. One should not assume that there is more to it. In hindsight, of course, it would seem as if this house had been my goal and had been expecting me. But that is not true. I had no goal. I could just as easily have entered any of the thousand other homes; after all, everything was mine, and I do not know what I would have encountered there.
    You see, this house was awaiting guests, although not me. I made a point of wiping my shoes on the mat in order to avoid dirtying the polished floors. But I would have left no traces anyhow. I walked down a hallway, various doors stood ajar, but I went past them without peering inside. I headed straight for the kitchen, which was located in the back of the house. I have no idea why I did that; even now, it makes no sense. Perhaps I felt that I was not appropriately dressed to enter the front rooms as a visitor. But all that is unimportant.
    Pots stood on the stove. They looked as if they had only just been cooking something. Naturally, no fire was burning. I raised a lid, it was not hot. Yet I did not have the impression that the food had cooled off. No, the fat had not coagulated. I did not notice whether steam was emerging from the pots. Nor did I try any of the food. Most likely nothing would have had a taste. They must have been about to carry the food to the table. The meal could begin. Everything was clean and unspoiled. After all, there were no flies.
    And that was good. For a fly would have probably been unendurable. Imagine that the persons with whom you always lived together and most closely have suddenly left you.
     
    And now you are standing in what used to be the household kitchen. And all the indifferent objects that were heedlessly employed day in, day out, and that were so modest as not to intrude, even though they were somehow necessary — should not they too have shared our destiny? A lid no longer quite fits a pot because it is twisted, or the front of a spoon is worn smooth from