Laszlo Krasznahorkai - War & War

My feeling is that nothing follows it , said Korin quite unexpectedly after a long silence, then, without explaining what it was he was referring to or why the phrase just came to him, he looked out of the window at the desolate rain and added, Only a great darkness, a great closing down of the light, and after that how even the great darkness is switched off .

It was pouring outside, a blast of icy wind blowing off the sea, people no longer walking but rather fleeing down the streets, seeking some warm place, and it might also be regarded as a form of flight when Korin or the woman ran down to the Vietnamese, stopping just long enough to buy whatever they usually bought, Korin his accustomed can of something to heat up, along with wine, bread and some sweet confection, the woman a package of chili beans, lentils, corn, potatoes, onions, rice, or oil when any of these things had run out and a cut of meat or a bit of poultry on top of that, after which they immediately hurried back into the apartment that neither would leave till the next such excursion, the woman settling to her cooking, doing a little cleaning or washing in between, Korin sticking to his strict routine, having bolted his dinner to return to the table in order to work till five, when he saved the file, turned off the set and remained in his room, doing nothing, just lying on the bed for hours without moving as if he were dead, staring at the bare walls, listening to the rain beating on the window, then drawing up a blanket and allowing his dreams to flood over him.

Then one day he burst into the kitchen to announce the fateful day had arrived though the nature and manner of its coming was impossible to predict, he said, even immediately before the event; for of course there would be considerable anxiety in Kommos, a constant stream of visitors bringing every kind of sacrifice to the shrine but questioning the priestesses too, their watching with concern the fate of the animals, looking for signs in the plant world, examining earth, sky, sea, sun, wind and light, the length of shadows, the wailing of infants, the flavor of meals, the breathing patterns of the aged, everything just so as to get some inkling of what was to happen, to discover which day might prove to be the fateful one, the decisive day , though no one anticipated it when it came and only once it had actually arrived did they realize it was here, the circle of attendants recognizing it in an instant and rapidly carrying news of it far and wide, for truly it was enough to catch a glimpse of it in the main square, said Korin, enough to take stock of it, frozen as they were in terror as it appeared in the approach to the square, teetered forward then collapsed in the middle and remained there, perfectly still; enough for them to acknowledge that this was it, the final sign, that there was nothing more to come and that it was the end of all terrified anticipation and agonizing worry: for the time of fear and flight had arrived, since if a lion, a lion, for this is what happened, descended into a place of human habitation only to die in the main square then nothing remained but fear and flight, and asking the gods time and again what it meant, this lion in the main square, what it was doing there clearly in agony, limping and gazing into the eyes of tinkers and oil-workers as they rushed to and fro, gazing, it seemed, into the eyes of each and every person individually and then collapsing, rolling over onto its side on the cobbles, what could all this mean, they asked; and this was the last sign, the very last and clearest sign that told them disaster had struck, for it certainly had struck precisely as they thought it would, precisely as they understood disaster to strike, all of them, everybody , so Kommos fell quiet and children and birds began to squawk in the silence while men and women started packing, getting their things together, storing their belongings away and considering what to do — and carts were already standing by their dwellings, shepherds and cowherds already driving their flocks, and all the ceremonials were concluded, all the farewells said, the prayers said at the shrine before the last hesitation at the topmost bend in the road to look back, to shed a tear, to feel the bitterness and panic of that last look, said Korin, all this happened and within a few days everyone had gone and Kommos was deserted, everyone having gathered in the mountains in the hope of security and better defense, of explanation and escape, and that’s how it happened that within a few days everyone was on the road to Phaistos.

Mastemann vanished, a local fisherman explained to Toót up in the mountains, quite simply vanished from one moment to the next, and the strangest thing of all was that nothing remained of him, not his cloak or his cart, not even a cat hair, though many people were willing to swear that up to the moment before the lion died he was still there but as soon as it died he had vanished, and Toót must understand, said the fisherman, that not one person recalled seeing the cart trundle away anywhere, no one had the faintest clue where the cart was or what happened to the cats, or even heard the cats make any kind of noise, the only thing they were certain of being that by that first evening in all the panic as people set to packing up their houses and drawing up their boats on the strand, the spot Mastemann had occupied was perfectly empty, as empty as if this had been the moment he had been waiting for, as if the dead lion were the sign for him to depart, and in the light of this it was no surprise if people felt that being rid of Mastemann was just as unsettling as his presence had been, and stranger still, said the fisherman, no one felt that they had truly got rid of him, it was merely that he had gone absent, and that’s how it would always be from now on, some people said, for wherever Mastemann’s shadow falls it remains forever, the fisherman concluded, while Toót waited for his companions to pass on all he had heard to them but they were not to be bothered with it at the moment, so he waited to speak until they had finished their conversation, waited so long in fact that he forgot it all, or rather, noted Korin, that he lost the desire to communicate it, because he preferred to listen to Kasser speaking about time and to the squealing of the cart next to theirs as it worked its slow way up the steep path, then turning his attention to the breathing of the oxen drawing the cart, to the buzzing of the wild bees above and the evening light catching the tack and gear close to the ground, and lastly the song of a solitary unknown bird from somewhere in the dark among the dense trees.

It was a slow procession, the path steep and narrow, parts of it only just accommodating a single cart, and in many places narrowing at some water-drenched point, or gulch , that was altogether too narrow to pass through, so they had to support one side of the cart and hold it in the air while the two inner wheels rolled on, first unloading any heavy items, of course, so that the six to eight people following each vehicle could lift it at all, to get hold of it, raise it and convey it past the dangerous stretch, no wonder then that their progress through the mountains was slow, as slow as you may imagine, said Korin, nor should one forget that it was impossible to move at all in the heat of the day, the sun being so hot that they had to withdraw into the shade, lead the animals to shelter and throw damp skins and canvas over their heads so they should not suffer from brain fever; and so they continued, day after day, the weakest among them already dizzy with exhaustion, an exhaustion clearly visible in the animals too, until they finally reached the Messene plain and saw the mountain rise above it with the palace on the mountainside, and here they could comfort their tired children by muttering, see, there is Phaistos, we’ve arrived, encouraging each other too before settling in a shady wooden glade, a grove , said Korin, and spending the entire day staring at the gentle slope of the mountain ahead of them, admiring the palace walls as they glimmered in the sunlight, observing the mass of roofs above, all but Kasser growing silent and meditative, Kasser, from whom, now that they were lying in the shade of a cypress tree, words began to pour in an unstoppable stream, his utter exhaustion being the likeliest cause for this flood of speech, the probable reason why he talked and talked, saying that if a man systematically thought about everything he had to leave behind the list would be practically endless, for one might as well begin with one’s birth, in his opinion, that birth being as much a miracle as the chance of him perishing in this beautiful place, for here, after all, was this wonderful building towering above them, one side of it overlooking the Messene plain, the other facing Mount Ida, with Zakro, Mallia and Kydonia in the far distance, and, of course, Knossos too, never mind the stone shrines, the temples of Potnia, the workshops where vases, rhytons, seals and stamps were made, the jewels, the murals, the songs and dances, the ceremonies, the games, races and sacrifices; for they had heard of all these in Egypt, Babylon, Phoenicia and Alasiya, for the true marvel and the real loss, if everything was indeed to be lost, said Kasser, would be Cretans themselves, the man in Crete , said Korin, that people who had vision enough to bring these wonders into being and who now, it seemed most likely, were about to be lost along with all their ideas, their infinite capacity, their temperament and love of life, their skill and courage: unprecedented miracle! unprecedented loss! Kasser exclaimed and his companions remained silent because they understood that Kasser deeply felt what he was saying, and so they watched the torchlights , said Korin, of Phaistos, as evening slowly descended in awed silence, and even Toót remarked that he had never seen a more beautiful sight, then cleared his throat, lay down on the ground, resting his head on his linked hands, and before falling asleep warned the others that they had had enough awe for one day, because tomorrow morning they would have to find the great harbor, ask whether there was an available ship and find out where it was going; that their task was precisely this and nothing more, that this should be their first concern in the morning, he said, his eyelids drooping before eventually closing.