Read Crossing the Sierra De Gredos Online
Authors: Peter Handke
Crossing the Sierra De Gredos (19 page)
After the arrival of that word imageâ“It flew to me, came sailing to me”âshe had driven on at her steady speed. She drove on. She is driving. The highway over the upland plateau is bumpy, and the car bounces and sways like a carriage. While driving she pushes back the Santana's canvas top. She sticks something between her lips, something that suits her even less than a cigarette: a toothpick, and not even one made of ivory, let's say, but a wooden one. She takes off her hat and lets down her hairâwhich does not suit her either, or does it now?
Empty blue sky, devoid of airplanes, devoid of the kites and buzzards so common on the mesa, with that motionless dark cloud still hanging there, though by now low on the horizon, sinking out of sight, like a mountain. In her open rough-terrain vehicle the heroine shows herself to the author for a moment from high above (although he has never written a film script). Then she moves in close again, in a veritable close-up, or a torso shot. And for the first time now he sees her eyes, as if they had always been veiled to him previously, even though he has been preoccupied with her story for so long, including their color, which again does not seem to suit her at all; or perhaps it does, and how! though not her origin and her country, but then what did that have to do with her story?: an indescribable black.
“Indescribable”? How could he, such an experienced writer, let a word like that slip out? And now he tried at least to describe that black, at first mainly for himself, as usual: it was a black that could resist any light, even the most glaring, even the winter sun hanging low over the
fallow disk of the earth. The adventurer's eyes did not merely face down the sun; they literally absorbed itâperhaps, too, because although they were open wide, they did not dry out, at all, at allâand sent the rays back, transformed, and how! A black like the black of the eyes of the white-robed angel on the medallion, whose one finger pointed sideways toward the empty tomb? No! How extinguished those eyes appeared now, almost wondrously extinguished; for how they would flare up again whenâ. In ancient books, the word for the black of her eyes was
gagat
or
azabache
, meaning something like pitch black. But not that either: this was no film. After all, hadn't the movies made it impossible to find a color and a face? These were supplied ready-made, in close-up? Besides, our heroine bore no resemblance to any angel, including the fallen ones, and least of all at such moments! This black sucked in the light, absorbed it; tasted it; savored the aftertaste. Her entire face, then her neck and shoulders as well, were engaged in silent tasting, motionless, without biting, chewing, or swallowing. Along with the light of day, the air was tasted, the airstream, the hues of sky and earth. And also striking to the authorâwhich subsequently struck him again and again, if anything at allâwas how, in addition to her eyes, all the parts of the woman's body, even the smallest ones, unveiled and unclothed, revealed themselves in the light surrounding her; as aspects of the light, stretching, billowing, arching, even when the woman did not raise her face as she drove along, but rather kept it lowered. Visible even now the seemingly eternal abrasion on her brow, always in the same place. Visible, too, her hardworking villager's hands: she was strong. But the physical strength was not her own. And nonetheless the many scars on her body.
fallow disk of the earth. The adventurer's eyes did not merely face down the sun; they literally absorbed itâperhaps, too, because although they were open wide, they did not dry out, at all, at allâand sent the rays back, transformed, and how! A black like the black of the eyes of the white-robed angel on the medallion, whose one finger pointed sideways toward the empty tomb? No! How extinguished those eyes appeared now, almost wondrously extinguished; for how they would flare up again whenâ. In ancient books, the word for the black of her eyes was
gagat
or
azabache
, meaning something like pitch black. But not that either: this was no film. After all, hadn't the movies made it impossible to find a color and a face? These were supplied ready-made, in close-up? Besides, our heroine bore no resemblance to any angel, including the fallen ones, and least of all at such moments! This black sucked in the light, absorbed it; tasted it; savored the aftertaste. Her entire face, then her neck and shoulders as well, were engaged in silent tasting, motionless, without biting, chewing, or swallowing. Along with the light of day, the air was tasted, the airstream, the hues of sky and earth. And also striking to the authorâwhich subsequently struck him again and again, if anything at allâwas how, in addition to her eyes, all the parts of the woman's body, even the smallest ones, unveiled and unclothed, revealed themselves in the light surrounding her; as aspects of the light, stretching, billowing, arching, even when the woman did not raise her face as she drove along, but rather kept it lowered. Visible even now the seemingly eternal abrasion on her brow, always in the same place. Visible, too, her hardworking villager's hands: she was strong. But the physical strength was not her own. And nonetheless the many scars on her body.
And how the author will stare when these patches of light he is contemplating on the woman's body are suddenly joined by one that is considerably more extensiveâthat is, when a few milestones after the arrival of the aforementioned word image, one of her shoulders, again seen from above, is suddenly bared, her shirt having seemingly slipped down to her elbow of its own accord? And although the bunched material perhaps interfered with her steering, she did not pull the shirt back up. She drove on quite some distance with one shoulder bare. Her skin reflected the light. The lashes above her black eyes stuck out distinctly, without mascara, ever more distinctly, like the acacia thorns from the windshield. And finally she bit the toothpick in two.
“But even this image or word,” she indicated to the author later on, “had a black mourning border. It arrived as pure energy and was accompanied by impossibility. The more insistently it called for unity, the stronger was the echo, and that proclaimed: separation, once and for all! Not mere mourning: pain, almost screaming; pain at the impossibility of staying together forever. So then I tossed the falcon's wing, picked up in the devastated forest after the hurricane, out the roof of the car.”
And here the moment has come in her story to indicate that, according to tradition, her clan does not belong only to the Sorbian, i.e., Slavic, minority in the easternmost reaches of Germany. More notably it descends from a minority within this minority: from an Arab trader who came to the region even before the turn of the first millennium and conducted his business there. Hence her vanished daughter's Arabic book? Hence the blackness of her eyes?
Myriads of images, constantly brushing past her, plummeting down on her, shooting up inside her, shining through her, tickling her awake during that solitary drive. As much internal as external, high above as down low, horizontal as vertical. And each of the images, even if it was switched off after a microsecond and at most had a bit of an afterglow, was tangible, and accessible to both the senses and the mind, both leaving an aftertaste and clarifying one's thought processes; was each image, albeit surrounded, as now, and undergirded by the glow of missed continuity, a treasure that would never be lost, even if one allowed a particular image to disappear again without making a point of tasting and contemplating it, and a treasure whose valueâshe of course knew all about “value”âexceeded anything one could ever “have” in life or call “one's own”; the fundamentals underlying any “goods”?: “love” (was love a good?), “loyalty,” including to oneself (was loyalty a good?), “beauty,” and “goodness” (was goodness a good?), “renunciation” (was renunciation a good?), and of course “peace”?
At any rate, each image among the thousands was under the control of its receiver, even if it had flashed by in the twinkling of an eye, as if the receiver were also the transmitter. What remained of the image was the imprint, which, before it faded, sooner or later, and in some cases not at all (in this respect comparable to an unusual dream), could “bear fruit,” and this without exception (whereas with dreams this was the exception). And one could decide which of these images would bear fruitâas the
selection and utilization of those just described rested on the intensely personal choice made by the one “image person” in question.
selection and utilization of those just described rested on the intensely personal choice made by the one “image person” in question.
“Those images,” she dictated, for the moment more a
“banquière”
than an
“aventurière,”
to the author, “are a form of capital. Capital without any exchange value, but with all the more use value. Capital whose owner one remains only if one chooses to use it to the utmost. If one allows this capital to sit unused, it collapses, andâthis is the unique feature of these moveable and/or immoveable image assets, my most liquid holdings and at the same time my soundest real estateâone collapses with it, even if the opposite appears to be true. Having and owning as a process of constant trading, yet not speculating and lining one's pockets but rather pure usufruct, as much to one's own benefit as to others'. By putting the image-capital to work, and why shouldn't one?, for profit and enrichment, shared profit and joint enrichment, without claiming to be an owner, without the title of ownership: a way of handling property that has hitherto gone unrealized in any economic and banking systemâ” She broke off; end of dictation. But had the author taken it all down? His scribbles indecipherable; his private shorthand.
“banquière”
than an
“aventurière,”
to the author, “are a form of capital. Capital without any exchange value, but with all the more use value. Capital whose owner one remains only if one chooses to use it to the utmost. If one allows this capital to sit unused, it collapses, andâthis is the unique feature of these moveable and/or immoveable image assets, my most liquid holdings and at the same time my soundest real estateâone collapses with it, even if the opposite appears to be true. Having and owning as a process of constant trading, yet not speculating and lining one's pockets but rather pure usufruct, as much to one's own benefit as to others'. By putting the image-capital to work, and why shouldn't one?, for profit and enrichment, shared profit and joint enrichment, without claiming to be an owner, without the title of ownership: a way of handling property that has hitherto gone unrealized in any economic and banking systemâ” She broke off; end of dictation. But had the author taken it all down? His scribbles indecipherable; his private shorthand.
Over time the lightning flashes of images had become sparser. In this barren countryside all one saw, as far as the horizon, was this barren countryside. The cloud behind her had dissipated, as clouds sometimes do over the ocean. Oh (in Arabic,
ja
), how fruitful this interlude had been: it was right that now the images dwindled and finally disappeared altogether. Although outwardly nothing was happeningâwhich, given the rocky baldness of the mesa, perhaps contributed to the hail of images?â, the lone driver felt like someone who had just crossed a newly discovered and at the same time tranquil, strangely familiar continent. This had been the time for images, and now there would come a time without. Yet she could have spent an entire day, even an entire month, alone in their company. And hadn't she just experienced an entire month, an entire year?
ja
), how fruitful this interlude had been: it was right that now the images dwindled and finally disappeared altogether. Although outwardly nothing was happeningâwhich, given the rocky baldness of the mesa, perhaps contributed to the hail of images?â, the lone driver felt like someone who had just crossed a newly discovered and at the same time tranquil, strangely familiar continent. This had been the time for images, and now there would come a time without. Yet she could have spent an entire day, even an entire month, alone in their company. And hadn't she just experienced an entire month, an entire year?
But at the end she pursued a final image, one that had filled her with particular astonishment. With it came the idiot from the riverport city at home, the “idiot of the outskirts.” He was perched on the site of the weekly fish market. As befitted such an image, she had actually once seen him sitting there in just this way. She walked past him, and he looked at her. He was bald and barefoot. The day was windy and coldâeven if in the image now neither wind nor cold played a role. Or, rather, yes, at least
the wind did. For between the woman walking past and the idiot, papers and plastic bags are swirling around, intermingled with the gleaming of fish scales. The market is closed. The stands are dismantled; the square is empty, although not yet cleaned up. Fish heads and lemon slices in wooden crates, or littering the ground. The idiot not perched as usual by the side of the road or on the curb, but on one of the hydrants that will be used to wash the trash out of the marketplace. He sits there as on a throne, at eye level with her, the passerby, who has known him, as he knows her, for a long time.
the wind did. For between the woman walking past and the idiot, papers and plastic bags are swirling around, intermingled with the gleaming of fish scales. The market is closed. The stands are dismantled; the square is empty, although not yet cleaned up. Fish heads and lemon slices in wooden crates, or littering the ground. The idiot not perched as usual by the side of the road or on the curb, but on one of the hydrants that will be used to wash the trash out of the marketplace. He sits there as on a throne, at eye level with her, the passerby, who has known him, as he knows her, for a long time.
And one day the idiot had been standing beside her in the narrow little Armenian church on the outskirts, both of them equally strangers there, or perhaps not? the others at the mass not any less strangers, only less noticeably so? More than once they had crossed each other's paths on the way to the forest, he meanwhile riding a motor scooter without a muffler, and now and then with a woman, a different one each time, all of them appearing normal, so to speak, at least in comparison to him, who was constantly throwing his arms in the air and babbling in fits and starts, either in a deep guttural voice or a falsettoânormal, and, in the idiot's company, in such high spirits that one would not have recognized them if earlier one had happened to run into these particular women or girls alone. And one time he had shouted enthusiastically into her car, from one of his favorite spots, a coach's brake-chock inscribed with a king's crown, left centuries earlier along the road leading out of the city: “I know everything about you. I've read all about you, everything!”
Now there/here on the market hydrant the idiot is trembling. He is freezing. His teeth are chattering. In a moment he will be shooed from his perch and soaked through, which will make him freeze even more. Far and wide no female companion in sight. And his elderly parents, who have taken care of him for decades, have both died, she the day before yesterday, he yesterday, or at least, mortally ill, were taken away, and now the idiot is living in the house all by himself, an excessively spacious old building with espaliered fruit trees out in front, and many paths through the rear garden, where one sometimes saw him strolling with a small book in hand, like a priest praying from a breviary in earlier timesâthough merely pretending to read, or perhaps not?
The square smells of fish, the often rather oily kinds from the rivers. The sky northwest-gray. The idiot hungry. And without any money either, except for the two coins he has always jingled in his pocket; which he lays
on the counter in the suburban bars; and which would not pay even for the sugar in the coffee to which they always treat him, which he sweetens with so many cubes that the cup almost overflows. And how strange that outside of the office she almost always ran into people who had no money and, stranger still, had no interest in money, and that this suited her, strange or not?
on the counter in the suburban bars; and which would not pay even for the sugar in the coffee to which they always treat him, which he sweetens with so many cubes that the cup almost overflows. And how strange that outside of the office she almost always ran into people who had no money and, stranger still, had no interest in money, and that this suited her, strange or not?
In contrast to the others, that shower of images with the idiot as its central figure was not set in peacetime. The figure on the hydrant there was suffering. Not merely that he was cold, and so on; there was also a terminal hopelessness; the imminent prospect of being dragged away from his house and from the region where he had spent his entire life; of being removed, perhaps in an hour, from the only sphere of existence halfway possible for the idiot.
And yet, also in contrast to the rest of the current image series, not a trace of grief in his face; no sorrow at parting; no hint of fear of dying or perishing. In the midst of the swirling market debris, and his dire straits, the idiot remains untouched, and untouchable. On his temporary perch there, he is the essence of untouchability, beyond peace and war, heaven and hell. He crouchesâno, sits “enthroned”âthere, defying deathâand life as well? no, transcending all our stupid thoughts of imperfect continuity, transitoriness, and irrevocability; the epitome of presentness, beyond my sorrows and joys; the embodiment of the current moment; simply there, and above all, as only an idiot can be, there and then.
And thus one sees oneself perceived by that figure on the cistern in a manner unlike any other; a form of perception that accompanies one, step for step, and meanwhile registers one, word for word, or sentence for sentenceânote the movements of the idiot's lips; if not narrating one, then enumerating one, in an impartial, merciless, seemingly inhuman manner; precisely the kind of enumeration specific to an idiot, which, however, can occasionally validate and acknowledge one like a particular kind of narration; a registering that does not categorizeâa blessing. How affirming such enumeration by the idiot is, in that it challenges one to do a better job at anything one does in his field of vision, or at least to do it more clearly, which means more rhythmically! And so, as she passed him back then, she set her feet down more firmly and let her shoulders roll back a bit more. And now on the highway she does nothing for the time being but drive.
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