Peter Handke - Crossing the Sierra De Gredos

From their seats high up in the bus, now, in this hour, the passengers’ gaze as if sharpened by the slightly curved glass all around: clear across the Polvereda more and more wild dogs’ cadavers on the road; a bull’s head impaled on a thornbush, the eyes seeming to open and shut in the dusty wind; in a freshly dug ditch all along the road, the skull of a ram, not slaughtered, not separated from the — missing — rump with a knife, but as if torn from it with great muscular force, likewise the hooves and legs lying nearby, a single last puff of breath bursting from the encrusted nostrils after a blast of sand.

And the falcon, pursued through the air for ages by the army of ravens, has meanwhile landed in one of the shrapneled trees, on the stump of the sole remaining lower limb, and in the next moment all the ravens have fallen upon the sick or old, or perhaps in fact young, animal — here no enchantment by a whirl of dust was necessary; for a change, this was completely clear and up to the minute — a gigantic, dense black murder machine, with a sound exceeding that of any chorus of raving ravens, absorbing all possible sounds made by even the most powerfully destructive beings and, like a machine, leaving behind a rumbling, bashing, ramming, banging, stamping, and, finally, pounding.

And while this pitch-black execution machine’s pistons moved up and down, more and more regularly as time passed, its steel joints bending and extending, and its wheels sliding powerfully back and forth, there appeared once more, caught in its mechanism, the seemingly quiet gray of the falcon feathers, the yellow of an eye or talon, bit after bit, and then not the slightest bit anymore.

And in the bus, the driver and his little boy were still carrying on their conversation, if now no longer in such soft, dreamy voices. The child was even quaking from head to toe, to borrow a comparison in the tale from the Polvereda that had survived the centuries, “like quicksilver” (when this was still an important metal, used to extract gold and silver from less valuable substances), and this quaking also imparted itself to his speech.

And it thus became apparent that their earlier conversation had its roots in fear and terror. When the father and son talked to each other so unusually quietly and evenly, almost in a singsong, and uninterruptedly — anything to avoid a pause — it had been in order to keep the monster from awakening. — … The father: “Do you remember the time we saw the snake exhibit?”—The son: “Yes, that was before we went to the movies. And then I sat in the front seat next to you in the car for the first time.”—The father: “You never wanted to wear short pants.”—The son: “One time Mother left me alone all day in a clearing in the woods.”—The father: “When she came for you, it was already getting dark.”—The son: “But I was not scared even for a moment, or if so, only for her.”—The father: “You went on picking berries, even after the two buckets were full.” —The son: “One with blackberries, the other with firaulas , with strawberries. And Mother cried, but not because something bad had happened but from joy and amazement that I was still there.”—The father: “And at the very spot where she had left you that morning.”

Son: “And one time you were nowhere to be found, supposedly over in America.”—The father: “That was someone else, a brother of my grandfather’s, and besides, that was sometime in the last century.”—The son: “Yes, he emigrated, and we never heard from him again.”—The father: “Perhaps he became rich, and someday you will be the owner of a brewery in Milwaukee or Cincinnati.”—The son: “But poling through the reeds in a boat that time, that was you and me, wasn’t it?”—The father: “Yes, in the summer, long before sunrise, and one plank was leaky.” —The son: “And black water seeped through, or was that black stuff leeches, and click! they bit?”—“Our ancestors used to earn extra money with leeches. Those insects were exported to the northern countries, where they were coveted for medicinal purposes.”—“And even more coveted were our swine here; remember how your grandfather’s grandfather herded a hundred of them in night marches over hill and dale, crossing the border, sleeping by day with them in the oak underbrush, and sold the chinzires at the famous livestock markets of Toloso, Hajat, and San Antonio.

“How long we have been living in the Sierra de Gredos now!”—“Were you present when I was born?”—“Yes.”—“Did I laugh?”—“Yes.”—“Were you happy to have me?”—“Yes.”—“Did it snow that day?”—“Yes.”—“And do you remember that time when we were walking on the road through the fields when the first drops fell?”—“We sat down side by side on a milestone into which a king’s crest was incised.”—“Was there enough room?”—“Oh, yes.”—“And when the first drops carved deep craters in the thick dust, they were so heavy?”—“Yes, Son.”—“And how I did not need glasses anymore from that day on?”—“Yes, my son.”

“Where are we now, Father?”—“Still in the Polvereda, and we will turn off soon to the village of the same name there.”—“Will we stay in the Sierra all our lives, Father?”—“I probably will, you certainly not, Child.”—“Will I learn to ride soon?”—“Tomorrow, or next week.”—“What day is today?”—“Friday. Viernes. Jaum-al-dzumha .”—“Friday already! Will you let me drive again?”—“After the next stop, Child.”—“After Polvereda, Father?”—“After Polvereda, Child.”—“Have the ravens just done something to the falcon?”—“Which ravens? Which falcon? There have been no ravens here for centuries, dear child! …”

To the accompaniment of these and similar exchanges between the bus driver and his son, the travelers reached the village, which, like most of the small settlements in the Sierra — not one city, not even a very small one, in that whole large area — lay hidden in a basin between high cliffs.

From the main road, which, as usual, passed the village at some distance, there was hardly a tumbledown stone barn to be seen; but then — this, too, no particular surprise by now — as they made their way past the first houses, a succession of several distinct districts, and each time they rounded a building, a section of the village that was clearly larger, covering more space than the charming one they had just passed, would lie there spread out before the windshield, until finally the bus rolled into a central square that in no way resembled that of a village, but not that of a town either, and indeed defied all comparisons: with colonnades, a well (half fountain, half drinking trough), and a covered market, unpaved, sandy, intended to serve also as a bullfighting arena; here, too, eddies of dust, though unlike those out on the vast, empty high plateau, en miniature .

And like most of the pueblos situated north of the crest of the Sierra, alias sela , also known as qurjas , Polvereda — the village — lay just below the tree line. The Plaza Mayor or arena —didn’t arena mean “sand”?—was deserted, although at this late-afternoon hour one would have expected strollers, even in the villages, even up in the mountains, albeit exclusively elderly ones here. Only behind the windows of the Plaza Bar, far into the otherwise seemingly empty interior, could one see, picked out in the dusk by the slanting rays of the winter sun, at one of the occupied tables, the hands (rather old) of card players, and at the other table the hands of dice players.

The bus stopped by the livestock trough, which had ice around the edges, also a beard of icicles hanging from its wooden spout; in the middle of the square, which was surrounded by buildings, constructed of massive blocks of worked stone, that nonetheless left the sky visible (one of them the rectory, the other the town hall, the third a stable, another a ruin), the square that formed the village within the village in the village of Polvereda.