Peter Handke - Crossing the Sierra De Gredos

Suddenly, after stopping, starting, then stopping again, one was in Nuevo Bazar and surrounded by buildings, tall ones, as if already in the center of town. No actual center: every street corner could be central, also a side street, a passageway, a stone staircase with four or five steps. Because the town was located in a hollow, which unexpectedly dropped off even more and at the same time formed a curve, perhaps following the meanders of one of the rivers that had at one time been numerous on the mesa, it remained hidden up to the last moment, until one turned onto the steeply descending curve, where, instead of the barren, wide steppe, one was instantly surrounded by façades close enough to touch, and instead of the uninterrupted highland sky saw narrow ribbons of sky following the configuration of the streets below.

And after a long day on the road, often fraught with uncertainty, that could be a blessing. It could be pleasantly stimulating; stimulating and calming at the same time; welcoming without a welcome sign. And like an evening corso in a southern city, the sidewalks, earlier completely unpopulated, once one reached the first cornerstone of a building, were black, white, colorful with pushing, crowding, or merely standing and leaning pedestrians (as in a corso ), the unwritten law being that they could not venture one step beyond the boundary of the prescribed evening promenade, in this case the edge of the settlement, and if an individual by mistake violated this law, he had to turn around immediately.

As a result of this welcome, a surge of appetite: a desire to taste this town for an evening. And what had the author of that travel guide meant by that reference to daily tons of blood-soaked sawdust in Nuevo Bazar? Certainly it was not to be taken literally, but there was also not the slightest indication that the image was supposed to be interpreted metaphorically. The pedestrians, and likewise the people in cars, driving by very slowly, had nothing evil in mind and simply wanted to enjoy the moment. As a group, they even made an unusually carefree impression; and that had to do with the convertible tops, open in spite of the January evening at this altitude, the rolled-up sleeves and sleeveless blouses: an innovative feature was the streetlamps, which not only produced light but also heated the air. The streets, including the side streets, were as bright as day, and that, too, in marked contrast to the area before the entrance to the town, already shrouded in night: light coming from the many floodlights on poles towering above the town, whose gleam, even when one looked straight up, remained mild instead of blinding; reminiscent of a veiled sun on a morning just before the onset of spring.

And listen: even a few cicadas could be heard, as loud as in summertime, a grating and warbling, though not from actual live insects but rather from deceptively good imitations of them, dear little machines in the shape of cicadas, attached way up on the streetlamps here and there, even programmed to make artful pauses, so that no chorus of shrill sounds resulted; just sporadic bursts of sound, which then continued in a casual, even rhythm. And look: olive trees in cask-sized pots, and feel: genuine, proper, olive-green fans of leaves that one could break off, and even ripe, genuinely bitter fruit.

Should she make her way to her bank’s branch in Nuevo Bazar, where, as at each of the branches throughout the world, above the lobby a visitor’s apartment was maintained for her use, to be accessed by means of a series of codes, stored in her hand telephone, for the four or five doors? This time that was out of the question. After all, this journey had to do with something other than an article or a feature: with a, the, her, our, book. Spending the night in such a comfortable, and, what is more, familiar apartment did not belong in the book; and besides, she was not traveling on business. The story forbade that, and consequently she forbade it to herself.

She did not even have to make a point of forbidding herself. It went without saying that she must hunt down a place for the night. (Smile.) The bank apartment “did not count.” And besides, for a while, “or for good?” she thought, she was more than merely “not in service”; for the book she had to be someone other than her everyday role — not necessarily someone different: someone in addition, who could, to be sure, provide service if necessary. The book, the adventure, required that she be a stranger here, a nobody. And at this thought a hand was placed on her shoulder. Katib was Arabic for shoulder, and kitab was the book.

Searching for a bed for the night provided a foretaste of the pending adventure. The many hotels, at least three times as many as the last time she had been here, were all full, or, conversely, were empty: “Waiting for the Refugees,” as the vacancy sign outside announced. But at first she did not even inquire about a room. That was as it should be. Parking the car on what was apparently the only lot in the entire settlement not yet built up, and setting out on foot. A sort of happy anticipation of a night without a bed, among the glass shards in the car, or elsewhere. Easy does it: in the course of events that will not fail to come about.

Eventually she found a room in a place that was neither a pension nor a private home, and, in spite of the first impression, also not a shelter for the homeless. Crammed in among dozens of identical buildings, it called itself a venta , even though it was in the middle of the town (as everything in Nuevo Bazar suggested the middle), venta like a hostel out along the highway, standing alone, the only building far and wide, at a crossroads that had been important centuries ago, but in the meantime was no longer important, and perhaps not even a crossroads anymore.

A venta without rooms: the floors above the ground level, where the taproom and dining room were located, consisting simply of four corridors that met at right angles, opening onto an inner courtyard, actually more like a shaft, at the bottom of which was an empty square of concrete, hardly as big as a Ping-Pong table, called the “patio.” Nothing but corridors, without doors to any rooms — so where to sleep? In the sleeping compartments along all the walls of the corridors or galleries: an unbroken succession of wooden sleeping cupboards or boxes or cabinets (the ceiling so low); looking very narrow from the outside, but inside halfway roomy, even if one’s head or feet bumped against the adjacent bed-cupboard; a heavy, dark curtain to close off the compartment; and these berths, suitable only for sleeping alone, like litters, stacked as in a litter storage shed, lined up around the four corridors, and almost all of them already booked for the night.

She (does the ventero even notice that she is a woman?) is given one of the last berths, one with a wall lamp, so that with the curtain closed she can do her usual after-midnight reading. And also, as usual for travelers, a key, in spite of the unlockable litter, in case she comes in late. And how small this key is in comparison to the one she had the other night, how light and inconspicuous, like the key to a mailbox or a bicycle.

After the evening meal in the venta I saw her outside, mingling with the passersby, whose numbers had at least doubled in the meantime. The drivers from earlier are among them; hardly anyone is driving now. And no one notices her; as if she were still invisible, or — this, too, a trait she displays occasionally — utterly nondescript.

As part of such casual strolling in a crowd, there is a common phenomenon, or natural occurrence: time and again, a face, a voice, even a mere gesture, reminds one of an acquaintance; usually someone from earlier in one’s life, a person one lost sight of long ago, often someone already dead. But here not one such an encounter. Instead the pedestrians all resemble each other, probably as a result of the artificial lighting from high above, like people hurrying, some in one direction, to a stadium for a game, and others in the opposite direction, toward a bullfighting arena or an open-air concert.