Peter Handke - Absence

That day nothing could happen to us. Of the snakes in the rubble we saw only the dark tips of their tails as they disappeared between stones, and the gambler, despite his lack of exercise, proved unexpectedly nimble in jumping from boulder to boulder. The woman, with the old man’s cape over her shoulders, danced as surefooted as in a dream through the rocks and stumps that encumbered the dazzlingly white riverbed. And when the soldier, racing up to the bare hilltop ahead of us with the knapsack bobbing up and down on his back like a child’s schoolbag, staggered and fell as though shot, he was merely acting out a scene from his past.

Instead of pausing at the summit, we descended directly to the lake; in addition to walking and jumping and climbing that day, we kept arriving . At first sight the lake was only a pale-yellow forest of reeds. At its edge we found a boat, chained to a tree. The view from above had shown us that the other side could be reached most easily on foot; but we followed our scout’s directions and took the boat, though we first had to bail it out and then use our hands as paddles. The unusual things about this small lake were the trees half submerged in it and the clear water that rose in visible whirls from the stony bottom. The woman soon left the paddling to the others, draped herself in the cape, and stood erect in the bow. Though the breeze was barely perceptible, the leaves of the tall alders all around the lake rustled incessantly, and the rustling grew louder and louder, more and more tempestuous, until it seemed to do away with every other sound; no waterfowl screamed and no fish leapt out of the water. When in the apparent jungle on the far shore we saw a signboard — the first indication of human presence in a long while — were we relieved? Weren’t we equally disappointed?

On landing, we found that the sign was rusted through and barely legible; we finally deciphered BEWARE — HORNETS; to judge by the style of lettering, the sign dated from before the war. The dock, too, was rotten; the remaining piles were crooked, some driven more deeply than others, and overgrown with moss; in addition, the dock was well out of the water, because the lake had shrunk considerably over the years. The dead willow trees had great holes in them; the moss line on their trunks indicated the former water level.

Our first sign of the present time was the “log cabin.” This was a café with its own adjacent generator, which — CLOSED FOR THE DAY — was not working just then. In the dim light behind the large glass window we saw a bar and behind it a fireplace piled with logs ready to be lit. Outside, among scattered garden benches, there was a table-soccer game; in passing, we turned the knobs, and when we left, all the little wooden men had their feet in the air.

Although the path shown on the map proved to be a wide grass walk and we had plenty of room to spread out, we stayed as close together as we had been in the boat. The slightly raised green path was springy; from time to time the woman would take the soldier by the wrist and the two of them would dance along in wide spirals, while the gambler, smiling, brought up the rear. For a while it was possible to imagine that this was a region offering an escape from history, yet at the same time a new country where something might be begun.

On the “old road,” which our descending path suddenly joined, the plateau reverted to stone-gray. Though the gravel surface seemed well kept and even new, we saw no trace of any vehicle, nor was there any dust on the bushes. As sudden as the transition from green walk to desert track was the change from sea air to heat unstirred by any breeze. For hours we were directly under the sun, as in an everlasting noon. Outlook there was none; the road, straight on the map, rose and fell at such short intervals that there was never a distant horizon. The few clouds, somber with bright edges, remained motionless, grouped together in a sea-blue sky like a cluster of islands seen from a space capsule high overhead: the Sporades. The abundant blackberries by the sides of the road brought no refreshment; a whole handful slaked our thirst for hardly the time it took to swallow them. The silence in which we had been at home up until then degenerated into soundlessness; even the soft familiar hum of the crickets was gone — at our approach, their black heads disappeared into holes in the ground; the only sound apart from our own was that of the grasshoppers darting from under our toes.

Suddenly, like everything that happened in this high country, a crackling and whirring as of rain came from above, though the sky was still bright. The road narrowed and became a mere passage through head-high underbrush, which on one side had the appearance of a hedge purposely planted there. Here the old road met the “new” one, but did not merge with it; the two ran parallel for a short way, then the old road, now no wider than a smuggler’s trail, lost itself in the prairie grass. A hare appeared, sniffed the air, and vanished. The sound of rain came from a power line; no sooner had we climbed the embankment than its wires, leaping from otherwise empty space beyond the new road, came so close to us that for a few steps their crackling was a downpour.

Narrow and winding, the road was more like a track, but a sturdy one, built for the centuries, as though it were the only thoroughfare in the land, comparable to a segment of the Silk Road or the Pan-American Highway. Surfaced with neither gravel nor asphalt, it was a stone track which its builders had developed into a road merely by scraping the layer of humus off the rocky base, as the shoulders, barely a foot wide, indicated. This natural road was compact, without cracks, and so smooth from the very start that there was no need to roll it; the few bumps had been worn down. Who but ourselves had traveled this road in recent years? Perhaps a few vehicles, covered wagons laden with heavy sacks, barrels, and emigrants. (In spite of ourselves, we kept looking back over our shoulders for the next trek.)

The steady rise of the road encouraged us and made us breathe deeply. Because of the many bends, there was still no outlook; we were confident that the country would open out at any minute. No road marker, no indication of distances. Only the dead butterflies stuck to the ground here and there and the spots of oil showed that this was a motor road. Certain that we were alone on it, we walked side by side until, on rounding a curve, we saw a handcart parked in a recess in the rock and automatically stepped aside, as though it were coming toward us. The impression made by the presence of this cart in our no-man’s-land was strangely contradictory; on the one hand, it suggested that the familiar rhythm of time had caught up with us only too soon — we ought to have stuck it out a lot longer in the land of uncertainty and explored it; on the other hand, those two wheels in the otherwise total wilderness struck us as amazing inventions, made in that moment and thanks to us!

Then suddenly the landscape became a battlefield. On both sides of the road tanks appeared, their guns apparently aimed at us. From every opening, fire and thunder shot out in our direction. Soldiers laden with clanking metal came charging through the bushes. An observation tower glittered with binoculars. No more bird sounds.

After the next bend our eyes fell just as suddenly, in the midst of the long row of natural caves, on an improved cave dwelling, recognizable by the wooden props at the entrance and the barred gate. On the clay floor lay not stones but a great heap of potatoes. In front of us we saw, instead of the expected field, a stand of spruces, young trees that seemed freshly planted, their dark-green tips in serried regular lines. The road that led through them, straight and unexpectedly wide, appeared to be a farm or a forest path. Again our delight in all this warred with our distress at being back so soon in familiar Central European surroundings. We were therefore well pleased when suddenly, after the reforestation, we found ourselves surrounded by prairie grass, and out of the corners of our eyes we saw the mirage of a wheat field. In this phase, such optical illusions became more and more frequent, and in the end we saw nothing else. The cause of this, more than fatigue, was our searing thirst, which dulled our senses and scorched our mouths and throats. In vain we waited for the gambler, who ordinarily had something handy for every emergency, to conjure up some liquid; one great desert extended from our throats to the horizon.