Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

Thea was carried across the street by the momentum of her resolve, but as soon as we were in the car I could see that the little scene had upset her and put her in a bad mood.

She said nothing until sometime after we got out again — I don't remember which way we left the city because, as I did with Melchior when he was driving, I relied completely on her knowledge of places, and in this way every feature of her face, every move she made, became part of the unfamiliar landscape I was always delighted to rediscover; first we sped down an almost empty highway, then unexpectedly she turned off onto a dirt road, where the area's unusual flatness under the sky's silent dome was relieved only by the soft outlines of occasional woods, razor-sharp outlines of lakes, canals, or other bodies of water, and the dirt road we were driving on seemed to be leading straight to the center of the earth's flat dish; the car rattled and jerked and began to cough as it tried to make it up a very gentle rise; not wanting to push her luck, Thea let the motor die and engaged the handbrake.

Once we were out of the city, it didn't really matter where we ended up.

It was one of those deceptive inclines that will have you believe, with their long, gradual rise, that they won't take much to climb, yet by the time you get to the top you're out of breath; from the dirt road a narrow wellbeaten trail led to the top, then although it disappeared near the flat crest, it seemed to continue somewhere up in the sky, appearing to the eyes like a gentle invitation the feet could not resist; sinking her hands comfortably into her coat pockets, Thea proceeded slowly up the hill, lost in thought, while I looked down, wondering who trod here before us and packed the dirt so hard, and also trying to figure out how such trails are formed.

I seemed to be stuck with having to ponder the useless questions of how one ensnares the world in the net of one's secret desires and how one becomes captive in the net cast by others.

The westering sun appeared for brief moments behind enormous, swirling, spiraling, dark-gray clouds, through the opening between which the sky's dome shone through in yellows, blues, and reds; a strong wind was blowing, but since it had nothing to cling to on this flat terrain except us, the whole landscape appeared to be silent.

Only now and then could the sound of birds be heard; long, blurry shadows and deeply burning cold lights streaked by.

In the mistless air, the distant horizon with its gentle curves and dips appeared to the eye sharp and close up, and our bodies sensed the air's chill in a similar way; it wasn't an unpleasant cold, because it nicely encircled each limb, gave strength and vigor to our movements.

It's in the northern regions that one experiences this, where the clear transparent cold has a way of isolating the body's warmth, which can then transmit its inner energies, endow one's acts with firmness and simplicity.

She stopped for a moment, I followed a few paces behind; being closer to her in the infinite distances of this vast open space would have seemed out of place; she didn't wait for me to catch up, only turned around to make sure I was still there before walking on, and then she said, You must never be angry at her, Sieglinde is a very decent girl, and she is always right, always, in everything.

When we reached the top of the leisurely sweeping rise, beauty stretched its new face before us with such serene majesty that words would only have marred it.

From here the trail descended more precipitously to the softly undulating land directly below, beneath a sheer drop, as if pulled down by its own immense weight, where deep in its lap it harbored a shimmering little pond, while farther on, bright strips of farmland and dark-crested woods stretched to the horizon, the intimate grandeur of their smooth lines made even lovelier by the orbs of a few solitary bushes.

For a while we stood on this seemingly lofty though rather low hilltop, admiring nature's spectacle from that well-known pose of casual strollers who usually report, in emotion-filled voices, with phrases like No, it was so beautiful, so infinitely beautiful, I thought I could never tear myself away, I had to stay to the end of my days! which, whether we like it or not, is also an admission, full of nostalgic pain, that much as we may like such a spectacle of nature, we don't know what to do with it, can't identify with it, we'd love to but can't, it's too vast, too distant, we ourselves are too alien in it, maybe too alive, and maybe in death we'll be able to move away and look for a different vantage point, perhaps the ultimate one, though we really ought to stay here because, with or without us, this is nature's ultimate landscape; then, after taking that steep trail down to the pond, to the more reassuring and more prosaic level, where the view was no longer so infinitely beautiful and inhuman, Thea stopped and turned to face me.

Sometimes I could scratch her eyes out, she said in a very calm, deep, earnest voice.

As if with her voice she were continuing the tranquillity of the wind, the clouds, and the undulating lines of the land; the sound of her voice was also twisting and winding, though in the opposite direction, back to the very near present.

But if she wasn't there for me, she said, I might have done myself in long ago.

And now, lurking in her voice, there was a nostalgia tinted with some self-pity, for which the beautiful setting had to be responsible, for it filled us both with a kind of anguished yearning, and she had to break with that, too, for she didn't really feel sorry for herself, she always did what she wanted, what her life as an actress demanded, and whatever self-pity she did feel could be neither expressed nor shared; amused by her own insurmountable curiosity, she broke into a sarcastic smile and came out with the question, after all: What sort of gossip was Frau Kühnert spreading about her this time?

I was taken aback by the smile, her pettiness was out of place in this sublime setting even if she knew it, and I didn't feel like answering her, for to betray Frau Kühnert just then would have run counter to my plans; Nothing special, I said, and, opting for the safety of a general observation, added, Though I've never met anyone who's had a chance to observe, in such a primal form, how a role takes shape within an actor.

Her response to my evasion was a wry smile; Within any actor or within me, she asked.

An actor, yes, any actor, I said.

No, there was nothing primal in what she did, she said reflectively, but I had the feeling she was wondering about my refusal to give her a straight answer; True, she went on, she was unschooled and uncouth, but also intelligent enough to know a lot about a lot of things; and then her face reverted to her sarcastic smile.

Did Sieglinde tell me, by any chance, she asked, that she sometimes let herself go completely and was capable of doing the most dreadful things? she could have, of course, they were so close she knew all about her gutter behavior.

I looked at her quizzically, but she only nodded, perhaps wanted to go no further; she put her hand lightly on my arm.

There were only two people in her life, she said, everything else was just one big stupidity, no matter what she did, she'd always go back to them, and they would never let her go.

I know, I said.

We looked at each other for a long time, a little as we had looked at the landscape before, because I did know what she'd meant and she could be sure I knew; this was the moment when she neutralized not only Frau Kühnert's emotion-driven maneuvering but also my machinations, the emotional dishonesty with which I tried to further Melchior's interests.

Two human beings were standing in a landscape breathing with a life infinitely greater than theirs, and they understood each other, not with their minds or emotions, for in this understanding the central function was assigned to that naturally accepted given to which we hadn't paid much attention before, neither intellectually nor emotionally, namely, that she was a woman and I was a man.