Peter Handke - The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays

(KOERBER-KENT wants to follow him but returns again. QUITT paces up and down. )

KOERBER-KENT

( With lowered head ) I don’t envy you, Quitt. I could also tell you about myself, like the others, but that’s not my way. I never talk about myself. I’m proud that I eliminated myself from my own calculations long ago. I’m not interested in poking around the lint in my navel. I’m glad that I can be replaced. (Pause.) I pity you, Quitt. And I’m afraid for you. I recently saw a drawing a painter made of his dying wife: the pupils had lost almost all their color in the fever, and the iris, too, had become very pale. Nothing but a dark circle separated it from the white of the eye around it, and the centrifugal force of dying had even thickened this circle. It was as if the eyes sighed toward the observer. The artist’s pencil had hatched an endless sea of sighs from a mortal seeing hole, as I called it. And the following morning the woman is supposed to have really died. ( A popping sound backstage. ) What was that?

QUITT

Hans is at work. He isn’t very good at uncorking bottles. There’s almost always a pop when he opens the cooking wine.

( Pause .)

KOERBER-KENT

Aren’t you afraid to die? ( He raises his head and wants to transfix QUITT —but QUITT happens to be standing behind him .)

QUITT

Over here.

KOERBER-KENT

Don’t you ever quickly push everything away from you just because you are deathly afraid? (QUITT steps away from him and comes to a halt with his back to him. KOERBER-KENT lowers his head again and closes his eyes .) Someone once told me how he dreamed he was dying. He was sitting on a sled and said: I am dying. Then he was dead, and at some point they closed the coffin lid over him. And only then did he become deathly afraid: he didn’t want to be buried. He woke up, his heart was fibrillating. Besides, he was very ill, the dream wanted to kill him. Cause of death: a dream, you could say. ( Very loudly ) You see, dying in your sleep isn’t at all peaceful, but perhaps the worst death of all.

(QUITT has kept pacing around in the meantime, absentmindedly, and now stands in front of KOERBER-KENT.)

QUITT

( Very softly ) Really?

KOERBER-KENT

( Is startled. Looks up at QUITT now .) I know from other stories ( One can hear a key turning in a lock backstage and a door handle being pressed down .) that a dying person keeps looking away whenever his eye catches a specific object, as though he could postpone death in this way … ( He listens. ) Someone pushed down a door handle just now, no? Why don’t I hear a door opening? ( Pause .) Once during a meal I personally sat opposite a man who suddenly started putting the table in order: put the knife and fork parallel to each other, wiped the edge of the glass with his napkin, shoved the napkin into its silver ring. Then he keeled over dead.

QUIIT

( Distracted ) Who kneeled on the bread?

KOERBER-KENT

He keeled over dead, I said. ( Frightened ) You’re afraid too.

QUITT

( Scratching his pants absentmindedly ) Damnit, the cleaner didn’t get that spot out either. Yes? I’m listening.

KOERBER-KENT

He was still smiling beforehand — ( Two or three distinctly audible steps backstage. ) but in his deathly fear he bared his lower teeth instead of his upper teeth, as you would expect. Nothing wrong with a dead dwarf, that’s still a vegetative process, almost. But a fully grown corpse, just imagine that! It’s monstrous. ( He listens .) Why doesn’t he walk on? Wasn’t someone just walking back there?

QUITT

My baby fat starts growing back when I listen to you. You and your deathly fear — at the moment everything seems thinkable to me and also beside the point.

KOERBER-KENT

What? What?

QUITT

It was just the floor creaking, I’m sure of it.

(PAULA appears in a dress and with a veil in front of her face. At the sight of her, QUITT unzips his fly halfway down and up again. A garbage can cover bangs loudly on a hard floor backstage .)

KOERBER-KENT

As I said, I’ve got an eye for those who are marked. (He points to QUITT.) It’s that thin line on the upper lip … ( He notices PAULA.) It’s you! How good that you are here. Perhaps you could … him … ( He tries to find the word .) What’s the word?

QUITT

Congratulate him?

KOERBER-KENT

No.

QUITT

Work on him?

KOERBER-KENT

Something like that … no.

QUITT

Take him over your knees?

KOERBER-KENT

( Panic-stricken ) Oh, God, how did this happen? I can’t find the right word any more. What are they doing to me? Come down, eclipse of the sun! Hellfire, burst forth from the earth!

(QUITT walks up to PAULA and whispers in her ear .)

PAULA

( Loudly ) “Deathly afraid?” (To KOERBER-KENT) You are trying to make him deathly afraid? Do you think he’ll admit us back into the market?

KOERBER-KENT

( Screams ) I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen thousands die in the war. (QUITT sighs. KOERBER-KENT resumes normal tone of voice at once.) Am I keeping you from something?

QUITT

Not at all.

KOERBER-KENT

( Screams ) I can read signs. I know why you hunch up your shoulders when you walk around. But soon you will shoulder the necessary weight of death, no matter what, Hermann Quitt. Even if you dangle your arms back and forth like that and scurry every which way. Even if you sit up straight as a candle in your deathly fear! ( He begins walking out backward. HANS appears, wearing his chef’s hat. ) You won’t even be able to imagine the moment. There will be nothing but abrupt, animalistic, anxiety-ridden anticipation. You will be so afraid you won’t even dare to swallow, and the spit will turn sour in your mouth. Your death will be gruesome beyond all imaginings, complete with moaning and bellowing. I know what I’m talking about. With moaning and bellowing. ( He walks backward into HANS and emits a scream. Exit .)

(HANS also exits. QUITT and PAULA look at one another for a long time .)

QUITT

If you keep looking at me, I will lose the rest of my feelings.

PAULA

I won.

QUITT

Why?

PAULA

Because you were the first to talk.

QUITT

Now it’s your turn.

PAULA

I love you, still. ( She laughs. )

QUITT

Why are you laughing?

PAULA

Because I succeeded in saying that.

QUITT

I can’t buy myself anything with that.

PAULA

You are so artificial. You’re sacrificing the truth now for a slick cliché.

QUITT

Moreover, I didn’t give you any excuse for it. ( Pause. ) I keep having to get used to you all over again. ( He looks her over from head to foot. )

PAULA

I’m not one of those.

QUITT

Who, after all, is one of those? ( Pause. ) I’m tired. When I take a step I feel as if my real body has stayed behind. I don’t need you. When I saw you I was happy, but I also was a bit turned off. I took that as a sign that all my desire for you is gone.

( She laughs. He regards her considerately until she has finished. )

PAULA

What you say is supposed to humiliate me. But the voice that I hear flatters me.

QUITT

You’ve changed. You’re out of breath. Before, when you used to show your feelings you used to be much more self-assured. Why can’t it be that way now? Stop playing the humble woman. I only want to touch you when you talk matter-of-factly. ( Spitefully ) Incidentally, why are you by yourself and not with the team? Do you call that creative?