Peter Handke - Crossing the Sierra De Gredos

Another image flash: it pertained to the adolescent in the gatekeeper’s lodge at the entrance to her estate. Like all the images that flew to her so unexpectedly, this, too, was thoroughly peaceful; was set in peacetime; generated peace — the image was peace itself. And at the same time the image-spark that lit up the boy, Vladimir, for her appeared, like that of the village brook, accompanied by, or primed or shot through with, a lack — something was missing, if not from the image itself, then all the more tangibly from the subject of the image, the person in the image, and dreadfully missing!

The boy was sitting, just as he had one time in reality, at the kitchen table in her house, not as an intruder but instead very matter-of-factly, as someone who belonged there. He was reading. The kitchen was clean, sunlit, and warm. The large wooden table was bare except for a bowl of quinces, yellow as only quinces can be. Peace? Silent contentment. And nevertheless she sensed, at the very moment the image passed through her, empathy, no, pity, for the actual distant figure there in the, in his and her, in their northwestern riverport city. It — it? a surge — drove her to him; or he was supposed to be here with her in this instant. That he was so distant — from her? from what might it be? — simply far away, separated, isolated — was her responsibility, struck her as her own omission, her (unspecified) guilt.

The image, along with its powerful calm, meant: she should be close to the boy, this other person. Contrary to appearances, this burly Vladimir, who passed her in her own space as if she were not there, was as much at risk of going under as any human being could be; the very personification of a need for attention. He was in danger of falling out of the picture, and she had to rush to his aid. (“I must,” and that smile of hers.) His parents alone would never be equal to the task, ever, and for anyone. (Her “sense of mission.”)

And this lightning image, too, was also followed after a few moments’ hesitation by an audible conversation with herself: “If I ever return from this journey, I shall open an account for you at my bank, Vladimir. For a boy, that kind of thing can be as important as his first bicycle or motorbike. And for you it will be something else besides. And for your sake I regret that I cannot turn back: if this is not my last journey, at least it is the decisive one. And I would like to bring something back for you. What that will be, I do not know yet. But it will be right for you. And you will continue to look right through me, though perhaps in a different way.” As she said this, she turned her head, still driving in a southerly direction, and, accelerating now, she glanced as usual along the axis formed by her shoulder, and blew into the air with a breath that would have extinguished a candle from a great distance or would have made a small branch sway.

A different image — an interpolated image, intersecting the others — lit up her vanished daughter like a flash of lightning. It, too, told of peace. It, too, and that was the unusual thing about this wild succession of images, seemed weighed down by dark embellishments. She saw the girl, grown up by now, as a child. (What she saw in this fashion was always something she had also experienced; usually long ago; the images represented a kind of unexpected and astonishing recurrence, an addition to the usual memories.) The child was sitting on a sofa in a corner of the room, playing the guitar. The music was inaudible; the image was silent, like all the others; but in that fraction of a second she saw that her daughter was not playing a proper tune but rather isolated chords: this was evident from the child’s eyes, focused more sideways on the hand holding down the strings on the instrument’s neck than on the fingers plucking the strings farther down. She was just learning to play. And nonetheless that simple sequence of sounds made the impression of accomplished playing. That had to do with the girl’s gaze, now, in the moment between the last chord, its reverberation, and silence: still completely engrossed in playing and already full of enthusiasm for what had just been played, and full of joy at the anticipated praise, and full of eagerness to continue playing — if not the guitar, then another instrument — eagerness to play, play, play, on and on forever. (It was in fact not a guitar but an oud , an Arabian lute.)

And again an awareness of guilt came over her, though this time a less unspecific one. For she saw and simultaneously reflected (images of this sort could be counted on to bring about insight) that, when it came to her child’s infinite passion for play, she, the mother, had if not betrayed her daughter at least not taken her seriously enough. She had shown no interest in her games, or merely a fleeting one. Even on the occasions when she had played with her, she had rarely given the game her full attention. In contrast to her daughter, who had paid constant and rapt attention to the ball or dice, and likewise to her, her grown-up partner — as witness the little-girl eyes gazing straight at her, with a presence of mind found only in children at play — most of the time she had merely pretended to be playing. She had hardly ever succeeded, even with the best will in the world, in becoming truly involved in the game.

She felt it would be imperative to tell all this to the author when she reached La Mancha, and she actually began now, during her solitary drive; launched her words with great intensity into the air, into thin air, consistent with the way she wanted her whole book to be, setting the air currents in motion: “Just as one speaks of playing at being serious, people could speak of me as playing at playing with my child. And in doing so, I was not doing her any good. I took care of her. I protected her. I caressed her, yes, caressed her. I hugged her. I loved her. I adored her, yes, adored her. But when she played, I was criminally negligent of my child, in my capacity as spectator and playmate. If you ask me whether that is my secret guilt, I will say no. But there is something to it. Perhaps.

“Listen: my child was the personification of play. Whether she was speaking, studying, eating, or walking, whatever her activities, she could not help playing. For her, as well as for anyone who became her audience and/or playmate, that was a joy and a source — yes, a source — of exhilaration. This ability to play meant, and this I came to recognize too late, a magical gift. To be able to transform anything in life into a game, even simple breathing, or turning one’s face into the wind, or blinking, or shivering in the cold: that strengthened the existence and the presence of the player and at the same time that of her playmates and/or observers. It was my child’s playing and my being-in-the-game that made us a family in the first place; would have made us a family. How the house, with all its rooms, was aired out by my child’s playing — there was no need to throw open the windows. How our property became enlivened. What singing had been to my grandfather, playing was to my child. Even when she talked about something that hurt, she talked excitedly, as if it were a game.

“And thus my daughter’s wanting to leave me was also part of her game, part of her inability not to play, as I also recognized too late. Just as she played at shaking her head as a child, as an adolescent she played at being sad, being bored, despising money (and hence my profession), and then wanting to leave. While as a child she was fully aware of my inadequate involvement in her play, yet graciously ignored it — that was how self-sufficient and total her play was at the time — as an adolescent she increasingly needed me not merely to play at joining in, needed me to participate fully as the number-one playmate and/or observer! If that person had laughed heartily at her wanting-to-leave game, she would have moved on to the next game, and so on, as before. As it was, as a solitary player, she became the prisoner of this one game, increasingly dangerous, and then one day had to play it out—”