Peter Handke - The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays

My head hurts. Besides, I like you better when you wear pants.

PAULA

Your head is also hurting me, yes, your whole life … (QUITT pats her arm .) You pat me the way a conductor raps his baton … ( She caresses him. )

QUITT

Your caresses tickle me.

PAULA

Yes, because you don’t want to enjoy them. (QUITT’S WIFE enters. She is wearing the same dress as PAULA. She notices, stops, and leaves again .) Now caress me too. (QUITT caresses her and steps away from her .) That was one too few. (QUITT returns and caresses her once more .) Oh yes. ( Pause. ) Tell me about yourself.

QUITT

( Animatedly ) I was thirsty a few days ago. ( Pause .) It just occurred to me.

PAULA

Look at me, please.

QUITT

I don’t like to look at you.

PAULA

Well, what am I like?

QUITT

Unchanged.

PAULA

Before I got to know you better I thought you were unfeeling and tough. I once heard you say of me — the brunette there — as about a whore.

QUITT

You always tell yourself stories like that afterward.

PAULA

What would you say I would say now? Mr. Quitt?

QUITT

Don’t call me that. ( She puts her hand on his shoulder. Suddenly she begins to choke him. He lets her do so for some time, then shakes her off. QUITT’S WIFE has returned in a different dress. She watches, giggling inaudibly, sucking her thumb. QUITT seats himself in the deck chair and lowers his head. PAULA squats down and wants to take his head in her hands. He gives her a kick. She falls down and gets up, warbling. He kicks her again. She gets up, warbling. He wants to kick her again, but she eludes him, warbling .) Your slimy tongue. Your absurd hips.

PAULA

( Lifts her dress .) Look at the way my thigh is twitching. Can you see it? Why don’t you come closer? (QUITT grunts. ) Come on.

(QUITT puts his hand on her thigh. PAULA presses her head close to him. Pause .)

QUITT

All right, get lost now. ( He steps back. Pause .) The saliva in your mouth will run over in a moment. And the way your eyeballs jerk back and forth! ( He turns away. Pause .)

PAULA

I’m going already. It’s no use. I’ll sell.

QUITT

(Regards her.) And I’ll determine the fine print.

PAULA

Only promise me that you won’t clean up the moment after I’ve left.

QUITT

Buying yourself a hat can be very comforting.

PAULA

Now I know why I like you. It’s so easy to think of something else when you’re talking.

QUITT

Tomorrow at this time it will already be lighter, or darker. Perhaps that will comfort you too.

PAULA

( Suddenly embraces QUITT’S WIFE, releases her, and tosses QUITT a friendly as well as a serious kiss as she walks out .) “No hard feelings …”

(QUITT throws a stool after her. PAULA exits.

QUITT’S WIFE comes closer. They stand opposite each other, not saying anything. The stage light changes after some time. First sunshine, then cloud shadows moving across the two of them. Crickets chirp. Far off in the distance a dog barks. The sound of the ocean. A child screams something into the wind. Distant church bells. Woolly tree blossoms blow across the stage. Both of them as silhouettes in the dusk against the backdrop of city lights, which are just coming on. The noise of an airplane engine, very close, slowly receding — while previous stage lighting comes back on. Quiet. )

WIFE

( Softly ) You look so unapproachable.

QUITT

Remembering does that. I’m just remembering. Let me be. I’ve got to remember to the end. ( He sits down on the deck chair. She steps closer. He touches her lightly with his foot .)

WIFE

Yes?

QUITT

Nothing, nothing. ( He leans back and closes his eyes .)

WIFE

( Sighs. ) Oh.

QUITT

( To himself ) So that it crashes and splinters …

WIFE

What will you do?

QUITT

( To himself ) Stop. Destroy. ( He looks back at her. ) Strange: when I look at you, my thoughts skip a beat.

WIFE

I’d like to speak about myself for once too.

QUITT

Not again!

WIFE

Why, are you listening to me?

QUITT

You could have been talking about yourself while you asked that. Did you wash your hair?

WIFE

Yes, but not for you. I am not well.

QUITT

Then scream for help.

WIFE

When I scream for help, you reply by telling me a story how you once needed help. ( Pause. She laughs a few times in quick succession as though about something funny. QUITT doesn’t react.) Help!

QUITT

You have to shout at least twice.

WIFE

I can’t any more.

QUITT

( Gets up. ) Then do away with yourself. ( He turns away. )

WIFE

( Mechanically wipes the dandruff off his shoulders. ) You’re up to something. I can’t look at you for too long, otherwise I’ll find out what.

QUITT

What do you want? I have a pink face, my body is warm, pulse eighty.

( Pause. )

WIFE

My eyes are burning. I’m so sad I forgot to blink.

QUITT

What’s there to eat today?

WIFE

Filet of veal with truffles.

QUITT

I see. Well, well. Interesting. What is there to eat today?

WIFE

But you just asked that. Why are you so distracted?

QUITT

( To himself ) Because every possibility has been tried except the very last one, and that one shouldn’t turn into just another idle mental exercise! Of course, filet of veal with truffles, you said so — I hear it only now. Why am I so distracted? I have to tell you something, my dear.

( A pause. She looks at him. )

WIFE

No, please don’t say it. ( She shies back .)

QUITT

I have to tell someone.

WIFE

( Shies back and holds her ears shut .) I don’t want to hear it.

QUITT

( Follows her .) You’ll know it in a moment.

WIFE

Don’t say it, please don’t. ( She runs away and he follows her. Quiet. Pause. She returns, slowly, walking backward, and goes off again, not that one sees her face .)

(KILB storms in. HANS appears behind him, wearing the chef’s hat. KILB is holding a knife and runs back and forth .)

KILB

You have to die now. It’s no use. I’m alone. No one pays me. Not even they. It’s our last way out. Don’t contradict me. ( He notices that there’s no one present, and puts the knife back in his pocket .) He isn’t even here! And I rehearsed it so well! Into the room and right at him! One, two. A picture without words, only dashes for the caption underneath.

HANS

You have to try again.

KILB

I have to concentrate once more for that. If I’m as unconcentrated as I am now, everything could just as easily be something else, I think, even I myself. And that is a hideous feeling. Leave me alone.

HANS

But look at me first: because it’s really me now. People used to say about me: That fellow, it’s eating him up inside, but one day he’ll blow his stack and the walls will come tumbling down. That moment has come. So I will leave the room and cook the truffled filet with special tenderness, thinking how it will be left over for me. I leave Mr. Quitt to his fate, he believes in things like that. First of all, I’m going to stick to myself and I am curious what that will bring. My big toe is already itching, a good sign; I’m becoming human.