Peter Handke - Crossing the Sierra De Gredos

In that hour of departure, her rejected suitor had also crossed her path. In spite of the early hour, he was sitting on a bench by the railroad tracks, and she changed course to meet him, as if even from him she expected to receive a portent, as earlier from a flight of birds high in the sky. He gazed right past her, however, and not intentionally: he had simply failed to recognize her. Had the two of them ever really exchanged a word? And besides, he was not alone: at second glance he could be seen to have a small child on his lap, the child and he forming a pair — the pair on the bench, above a long, swooping curve in the rails, following, with simultaneous and perfectly coordinated head movements, the trains, of which one came into view every few minutes, gathering speed as it reached the city limits or already at full throttle.

And that morning she had also wanted to find an omen in the idiot of the outskirts, who had been circling, as usual, starting early in the day, with his long stride, back and forth and going nowhere in particular, and this all day long and all days long. She plucked at his jacket sleeve as she passed, thinking that she would give him a coat if she ever returned to her region (an odd thought, since the journey was planned for hardly more than a few days, and besides there would be no ocean to cross).

As always, the idiot had been marching down the middle of the street, in goose step and swinging his arms, playing the part of a local dignitary, walking and walking, and he had continued on his rounds with sovereign indifference to her plucking, showing the world his Caesarian profile, like that on a coin. He merely turned his bald, spherical head toward her as he sped past (his round face looking back between his shoulders) and burst out with one of his oracular utterances, to which others, and she as well, usually paid no attention. He bawled it out with all his lung power, his lips smeared with black as if with coal: “Ablaha! That means: idiot woman! For other women the sex foam, for you the octopus cloud! Octopus in the mountains! Madness is my currency. And what is yours?” (The author’s comment: “Ablaha — a good name for you. That’s what I’ll call you from time to time in your, in my, story.”) And then the idiot suddenly stopped dead, drawing in air with his throat and head, and saying: “I have a long story to tell about you, too. Woman, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and without fury!”

Time and again, thresholds of departure before she finally set out. Much time has elapsed since that morning, but at least two of these thresholds still exist, in memory and physically, in that location, and someone familiar with the place will gladly guide one reader or another to them. One of the thresholds consists of the rows of stalagmite bumps on the bottom landing of the staircase that leads up to the small suburban railroad station; for as long as anyone can remember, there has been dripping from the rails above down through the leaky ceiling, and the dripping will continue: up above it takes the form of whitish, nail-shaped stalactites, dozens of them, crowded together, while on the ground below it forms round humps or bumps, which, when one makes a point of walking on them, fit into the tread of one’s shoes and give one’s steps a sort of bounce — the steps of those departing as well as of those arriving: in short, a threshold.

And the second threshold: in the most densely built-up area, a patch of unpaved road, impossible to pave, for the roots of two enormous chestnut trees protrude mightily from the ground, grown into and crossing each other, forming a root skein wider than a brook, diagonally across the road, poking up majestically like mountain ranges, and the hollows between them gorges, and one of the roots, all knobby, surmounting the others, skyward, forming what geologists call the Gipfelflur , the summit plain: as if prefiguring the mountain range she planned to cross in a three-day hike on her way to the author in La Mancha — the Sierra de Gredos: the pointed knob here representing the highest peak there, the Pico de Almanzor.

Now and back then, balancing from root to root, from ridge to ridge, committing to memory distances and footholds. Fortunately the hurricane had left both chestnut trees standing, and since that time no storm remotely as violent has swept through the area around the riverport city.

Other departure thresholds that had no external form and no visible existence, that exist only in the telling?: a glimpse into a garden familiar and beloved from before the storm because of the cedar there: no more cedar, which meant that the house had become a different house. And, on the other hand, houses that had always looked completely abandoned — and now after the storm it became apparent that they had been secretly inhabited, and would remain inhabited, and obviously so in the future. And the layers of the past revealed around the houses by the storm: in a garden, as if behind a curtain suddenly ripped away, the spoked wooden wheel of an antediluvian farm wagon; in the next one the outdoor pump that had been heaved out of the ground; and on one of the houses here on the outskirts the porch roof, supported by round granite columns that had remained hidden all these years, their capitals carved before most of the city’s monuments: an eagle with eyes wide open and wings also spread wide — whose dance she imitated without anyone’s being able to tell that she was dancing.

The smallest pretext used for delay. Was there such a thing: energetic delaying? Gathering energy from delaying? Narrative delaying?

Back on her property, turning off the switches (even the light switches, in the latest style, actually turned again), and turning on one of the lights again — let that lamp stay on for her not-distant return. Stopping at the door and going back to shake out her bedding, all the bedding, as if for the evening of that same day. Likewise half-opening the closed shutters. Taking some leftover food out of the freezer again. Amid the meticulous order left behind by the janitorial crew — she used the same one as her high-rise bank down by the confluence of the two rivers, the entire crew for just one hour each month — messing things up in one or two places (it looked almost like an escape route). Slicing an apple (the cut surface would turn brown even before nightfall). Turning off the alarm. Putting logs in all the fireplaces, ready to be lit. Switching on the radio on the kitchen table (at the lowest volume). Putting milk out by the bush for the hedgehog (several bowls at once). Retrieving some of the balls hidden everywhere in the bushes and rolling them back and forth between the fruit trees. Sniffing the withered quince. Unlocking one of the garden’s side gates (after a period of electronically operated locks, keys had come back into their own; everyone in the riverport city carried a bunch on his belt, or somewhere else — the idiot of the outskirts had the largest bunch). Pausing in front of the boy from the gatekeeper’s lodge, who was standing just then by the main gate, had the hiccups, and held out his two fists to her: Left or right? Picking one fist (one hand seemed as left as the other): Is this crumpled-up drawing supposed to be her? As a girl? Pocketing the drawing and placing her key in his open hand, the one and only key to open almost all the doors on the property.

On the side streets — with the exception of the road leading out of the city, which becomes a gleaming highway at its vanishing point, just past the city limits, there were only side streets “in my town”—moving vans could be seen in several places that morning; unusual for people to move away from here, and evidently to somewhere entirely different. What has got into them that they are leaving “my area”? No, they are not doing this of their own free will; they must go, driven from their homes, poor things, especially the children! The piano hoisted out the window, the four-wheeler next to the tricycle, next to the bicycle: What good will they be far from “my land”? And that clan setting out with the heaviest luggage imaginable — even the wheels make it no lighter — for the railway stations: Why must you leave this place, you pathetic figures, and why for so long? why going so far? But isn’t she also one of these figures, dragging themselves with stooped backs out beyond the city limits? “No, I am traveling light, with my hands free. The one you see over there is only my double.”