Absence (4 page)
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Her back to the window, whose drawn curtain captures the sun, the young woman is sitting on a suitcase in the attitude she had taken as a child when sitting on the linen chest in her bedroom. Just as silent, hands folded in her lap, her legs crossed, she stares into space, blind to her surroundings. Instead of being worn in a pigtail, her hair hangs loose, and instead of a dress with enormous buttons, she is wearing a tailored suit. Silent, yes, but with frequent interruptions. As though at predetermined intervals, she honors the outside world with an outburst which may be serious and may be playacting: “You people! Always telling
me to change. But I don't
want
to change ⦠But I don't
want
to work. Work would only destroy me. Work makes people stupid. And you, too ⦠But I don't
want
to know anything. I don't want to go to museums, and I don't want to learn a foreign language. I like to see pictures by chance, without planning to, no matter where, and I can only be myself and act like myself in my own language. I can't love in a foreign language. Knowledge would destroy me the same as work, it would make me cold and stupid. When I was a child, the moment you people started lecturing me I stopped my ears. One reason why I was never able to read your books of knowledge was the way the sentences are constructed; all I could get out of them was the droning of the lecturer. You lecturers are sucking my blood. Your knowledge shouldn't be allowed. Your knowledge is taboo. Admittance to knowledge should be prohibited. You clever people should keep quiet about your knowledge and come out with it only in cases of urgency, and then in the form of poems or songs ⦠But I don't
want
to go out. What should I do out of doors? I need my ambience and it's here that I can have it. Walk, run, ride, travel. With the words âwalk' and âout of doors,' you've always driven me into the farthermost corner of the room, behind the folding screen. Every time I went on a trip with my parents I fell asleep the moment I sat down in the car, and I don't remember one thing about any trip except an Eskimo pie somewhere or a seatless toilet in some gas station. Trains stink even if they're called Loreley; and even if airplanes are called Trans World and fly across the international dateline, all they can do is take me to a concrete runway, where the skyline of the identical city will only make me homesick. I have no
desire whatever to see your Tristan da Cunha or your Antarctic or your river What's-its-name, where Plato is supposed to have taken a walk. I don't believe in foreign wonders. All your sacred springs and grottoes and trees should be turned into playgrounds with paper boats and flashlights shining into every oracle cleft. And don't bother me with the grandeur of nature. Even the wordsââlinden,' ârose,' âfleecy clouds'âstick in my craw, for one thing because they were done to death in the rubbish we used to write in our poetry albums ⦠Only for love would I leave here; only for love would I travel day and night, climb mountains, ride horseback, swim, always in a straight line, straight ahead, without any of your detours ⦔
me to change. But I don't
want
to change ⦠But I don't
want
to work. Work would only destroy me. Work makes people stupid. And you, too ⦠But I don't
want
to know anything. I don't want to go to museums, and I don't want to learn a foreign language. I like to see pictures by chance, without planning to, no matter where, and I can only be myself and act like myself in my own language. I can't love in a foreign language. Knowledge would destroy me the same as work, it would make me cold and stupid. When I was a child, the moment you people started lecturing me I stopped my ears. One reason why I was never able to read your books of knowledge was the way the sentences are constructed; all I could get out of them was the droning of the lecturer. You lecturers are sucking my blood. Your knowledge shouldn't be allowed. Your knowledge is taboo. Admittance to knowledge should be prohibited. You clever people should keep quiet about your knowledge and come out with it only in cases of urgency, and then in the form of poems or songs ⦠But I don't
want
to go out. What should I do out of doors? I need my ambience and it's here that I can have it. Walk, run, ride, travel. With the words âwalk' and âout of doors,' you've always driven me into the farthermost corner of the room, behind the folding screen. Every time I went on a trip with my parents I fell asleep the moment I sat down in the car, and I don't remember one thing about any trip except an Eskimo pie somewhere or a seatless toilet in some gas station. Trains stink even if they're called Loreley; and even if airplanes are called Trans World and fly across the international dateline, all they can do is take me to a concrete runway, where the skyline of the identical city will only make me homesick. I have no
desire whatever to see your Tristan da Cunha or your Antarctic or your river What's-its-name, where Plato is supposed to have taken a walk. I don't believe in foreign wonders. All your sacred springs and grottoes and trees should be turned into playgrounds with paper boats and flashlights shining into every oracle cleft. And don't bother me with the grandeur of nature. Even the wordsââlinden,' ârose,' âfleecy clouds'âstick in my craw, for one thing because they were done to death in the rubbish we used to write in our poetry albums ⦠Only for love would I leave here; only for love would I travel day and night, climb mountains, ride horseback, swim, always in a straight line, straight ahead, without any of your detours ⦔
The last part of her declaration is addressed to a fly on the back of her hand. She jumps up and lets the fly out the window. In so doing, she catches sight of a taxi in front of the building. It seems to have been waiting there for some time; the driver, standing beside it smoking, reaches through the open window and blows the horn emphatically. The woman runs into the living room, where she consults the video horoscope for the day: “This is your day of decision. Don't miss the favorable moment. Make up your own mind. Accept help only in the event of a crisis. A crisis is more than a bind that you can get out of unaided. You will know it's a crisis when you try as usual to get help from the first person who happens to be around and find that you can't.” She goes to the mirror and runs her hand over her cheek; her eyes are dilated, her shoulders are crooked. She clings to the frame of the mirror with both hands, as though fearing to be dragged out of her four walls to the ends of the earth.
But already she is on her way to the taxi, transformed
after a few steps, as though stepping onto the stage from the wings. She moves vigorously, swinging her aluminum suitcase as though it were empty. Her eyes widened by the wind, her nostrils flaring, her teeth flashing. Mollified at seeing her there, the driver hastens to relieve her of her suitcase, which in his hands seems twice as heavy as before. As she gets in, she turns around toward the buildingâa showy concrete façade with dark-stained wooden balconies and roof gardens planted with stands of dwarf cypressesâand exhales audibly. At the same time, she unclenches her fist and a bunch of keys falls to the ground. Opening fanwise, they lie on the sidewalk near a lone ginkgo leaf, blown from far away, a small leaf with a very long stem, more like a flower petal than the leaf of a large tree.
after a few steps, as though stepping onto the stage from the wings. She moves vigorously, swinging her aluminum suitcase as though it were empty. Her eyes widened by the wind, her nostrils flaring, her teeth flashing. Mollified at seeing her there, the driver hastens to relieve her of her suitcase, which in his hands seems twice as heavy as before. As she gets in, she turns around toward the buildingâa showy concrete façade with dark-stained wooden balconies and roof gardens planted with stands of dwarf cypressesâand exhales audibly. At the same time, she unclenches her fist and a bunch of keys falls to the ground. Opening fanwise, they lie on the sidewalk near a lone ginkgo leaf, blown from far away, a small leaf with a very long stem, more like a flower petal than the leaf of a large tree.
The taxi speeds away. Already it has disappeared around the corner. Then, on the highways, come scenes of indecision: change of lanes to the left; back to the middle; change of direction, sudden hairpin turn; reverse gear on the open road.
At length the taxi stops at a crossroads; the light turns green, but the cab stays right there, while cars pass on both sides. High overhead, hanging from wires: a traffic light, constantly swaying, despite its great size, in an unearthly rhythm which enables it at certain moments to embody a menacing thousand-eyed goddess glaring red-yellow-and-green in all directions and demanding human sacrifices.
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The gambler is lying face down in the meadow grass under a springtime sun. The place where he is lying is scrubland even more remote than where he was before, without puddles or mounds of rubble; the few trees on the
fringes are all stunted, most of them withered; the only sound to be heard is the whistling of the wind, which, unobstructed by any settlement or plantation, blows evenly from desert spaces; the man would seem to have been wounded and to have dragged himself to this place where he thought no one would find him. And yet there was once a civilization here; behind the trees there is a ruin that might be mistaken for a hill or a great rock; a white-rimmed hole that was once a portal and the lower half of what was once a window. But it is not a place of pure antiquity; to one side of the recumbent gambler there is a stone fireplaceâthe ashes are still fresh, showing the traces of a few drops that did not develop into a proper rainfallâand on the other a rubber band, as usual shaped like a figure eight.
fringes are all stunted, most of them withered; the only sound to be heard is the whistling of the wind, which, unobstructed by any settlement or plantation, blows evenly from desert spaces; the man would seem to have been wounded and to have dragged himself to this place where he thought no one would find him. And yet there was once a civilization here; behind the trees there is a ruin that might be mistaken for a hill or a great rock; a white-rimmed hole that was once a portal and the lower half of what was once a window. But it is not a place of pure antiquity; to one side of the recumbent gambler there is a stone fireplaceâthe ashes are still fresh, showing the traces of a few drops that did not develop into a proper rainfallâand on the other a rubber band, as usual shaped like a figure eight.
Suddenly the gambler jumps up and goes to a box tree, at the foot of which a stone surrounded by clumps of grass indicates the former boundary of the estate. Setting his foot on the stone, he contemplates the box tree, which is unusually large for its kind, at once delicate and untamed, and towers far above him. The tips of the branches, which have not been pruned for a long time, have splayed out into untidy tufts, all pointing in different directions like the clusters of road signs at the ends of the earth. The one wild shoot in the crown, as long as an arrow and crooked, moves incessantly, nodding in the direction of a bare tree which, cloaked with ivy from top to toe and bereft of branches, is no longer recognizable as any particular kind of tree and looks rather like an unkempt post. It fans out at the top and the ivy mingles with tree shoots; the post seems to have a nest on top of it. No, there really is a nest. Something is moving in it, something climbs over the edge, a peregrine
falconâpossibly fledged only a few days ago in the north ârecognizable by its almost eagle-sized, storm-cloud-gray outline, out of which peer round yellow eyes. It shows no sign of wanting to fly away but just sits there with smooth, unruffled plumage, even its eyes unmoving, not at all ready to start out, settling down to a long rest after a long journey. But something happens inside the beholder on the ground: what seems at first to be a tic or grimace turns out to be a laugh, a quiet laugh that spreads over his whole face. He hasn't laughed like that since he was a baby. He breaks into a slow run, which doesn't even make the falcon in its nest turn its head.
falconâpossibly fledged only a few days ago in the north ârecognizable by its almost eagle-sized, storm-cloud-gray outline, out of which peer round yellow eyes. It shows no sign of wanting to fly away but just sits there with smooth, unruffled plumage, even its eyes unmoving, not at all ready to start out, settling down to a long rest after a long journey. But something happens inside the beholder on the ground: what seems at first to be a tic or grimace turns out to be a laugh, a quiet laugh that spreads over his whole face. He hasn't laughed like that since he was a baby. He breaks into a slow run, which doesn't even make the falcon in its nest turn its head.
Running, the gambler turns around from time to time and looks at his surroundings. Barely a moment seems to have passed and already he sees the first sign of human life, a slip of paper that scouts have stuck on a bramblebush. On it is written in a childlike hand: “Follow this sign.” He turns in a different direction and a moment later sees another slip with the same words, this one in the vicinity of some houses, woven into the wire mesh of a trash container. He heads back into the thicket and in the next moment comes across a group of men and women in track suits, doing knee bends at the knee-bend station of a fitness course. Again the gambler runs off and a moment later, in a parklike cemetery on the edge of the city, a funeral procession crosses his path. Bells start ringing, the procession circles around a mausoleum, and he joins it, welcomed with a nod by a stranger. At the graveside he takes his leave of the stranger and runs out of the cemetery. In the bustling inner city, he keeps up a steady pace. Just once, on a short open stretch,
he stops for no reason, so abruptly that several dice fall to the sidewalk. He stops their roll, gathers them up, and disappears around the corner. He seems to have doubled back. And, indeed, the vapor trails in the sky are moving in a different direction, a cigarette butt is rolling in another, a young music student is walking in another with her instrument case, and a toy motorcar, controlled by an invisible hand, is careering across the asphalt in still another. The runner looks back over his shoulder and cries out: “Follow me!”
he stops for no reason, so abruptly that several dice fall to the sidewalk. He stops their roll, gathers them up, and disappears around the corner. He seems to have doubled back. And, indeed, the vapor trails in the sky are moving in a different direction, a cigarette butt is rolling in another, a young music student is walking in another with her instrument case, and a toy motorcar, controlled by an invisible hand, is careering across the asphalt in still another. The runner looks back over his shoulder and cries out: “Follow me!”
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The train in the middle of the city, two steps from the department store, also seems like a toy. There isn't any station, the tracks it is standing on merge with a marketplace right after the last car, and this enhances the toylike impression. But the train is crowded, and more and more peopleâunlike streetcar passengers, loaded with baggage âcome running and get in. Like certain international expresses, it is made up of sections of different trains. The locomotive is far ahead of the platform. The unusual length of the train, and still more the excitement and bewilderment of the passengers, who cannot be seasoned travelers, give it for a moment the air of a special train, reserved for a group of emigrants or pilgrims from all over the country.
It is still high noon; the noonday, springtime light shines most brilliantly on the rounded tops of the cars. A signal rings outânot a train whistle, more like the tooting of an ocean liner, so long-drawn-out that a child on the platform treats himself to a kind of radio play by rhythmically stopping and unstopping his ears. But, surprisingly at
the departure of so long a train, few people have come to say goodbye, and hardly anyone is looking out the open windows. Consequently, the gambler has no need to twine his way through a crowd as he runs past the market stalls; he is able to head straight for the compartment, which is reached not through a corridor but directly from outside. The door is thrown open for him even before he gets there, and closes after him like that of a funicular cabin once it is loaded to capacity.
the departure of so long a train, few people have come to say goodbye, and hardly anyone is looking out the open windows. Consequently, the gambler has no need to twine his way through a crowd as he runs past the market stalls; he is able to head straight for the compartment, which is reached not through a corridor but directly from outside. The door is thrown open for him even before he gets there, and closes after him like that of a funicular cabin once it is loaded to capacity.
Yet a number of seats are still vacant after he has sat down. There are only three other persons, who, though thrown together at random, seem to acquiesce in the arrangement. With the gambler the group is complete. The woman at the window does not favor him with so much as a glanceâher attention is concentrated on her aluminum suitcase, as though it were in danger; pencil in hand, the old man across from her is immersed in his notebook; and the soldier's back is turned, for he is standing at the door as though to guard it. True enough, some others try to get in: first a loudmouthed couple, who at the sight of the four fall silent and go away; then a priest in travel dress who, after a greeting all around with one foot already on the threshold, vanishes as though to resume his greetings in the next compartment. Only a child strong enough to open the door by himself pushes past the soldier, and his parents have to stick their heads in and order him out with the words: “Not there. Somewhere else.” The child complies with a shrug.
The hubbub outside dies away. But the train doesn't move. There's plenty of time. The soldier sits down, pulls himself up again as though in expectationânot of an event
but of a first word. It's the woman who turns quite casually to the others and says: “When my childhood was over I began to wander around. I left the house and went farther and farther away, until I didn't know where I was anymore. When they caught me in some small town or out in the country, I didn't know my name and address. I usually took the train, never one that was going very far, always a local; no matter where it was going, I never bought a return ticket. What did I do when I arrived there? They told me I just sat around in the waiting room at the last stop or on the loading platform, and sometimes at the edge of a field, in a gravel pit, or by the side of a brook, regardless of the season. People began to notice me because of the way I'd sit there for hoursâbefore that, when I was wandering around, it seems I walked like someone who knew his way and was going somewhere. Men often stopped their cars and told me to get in, but none of them touched me, they never laid a finger on me; there was never any conversation, because my answer to everything was the same: I don't know. So they took me to the police. I couldn't be a tramp, that was out of the question; even the village constables came out from behind their partitions when they saw me, and all of a sudden they stopped talking dialect. I always had plenty of money on me. And that is what made them think I was crazy. Instead of sending me home, they took me to an institution. There I was exhibited to students in a lecture hall shaped like an amphitheater. The professor showed me off, not because I was sick but because it was me. Though I only answered his rehearsed questions with yes or no, he always shook my hand with both of his and held the door open for me when my act was done. The students were
crazy about me, too. My wanderings can't have made me very happy, because often when they found me sitting there I'd be crying or even shouting for helpâbut my act must have opened the eyes of the onlookers to something they'd never known before. While the mental patients were performing, I'd be sitting in the cubicle waiting my turn, and I'd hear the listeners coughing or laughing, but when I appeared, they'd all fall silent. They didn't feel sorry for me, they envied me. What they heard about me filled them with longing. If only, instead of moving in crowds through familiar streets, they could wander around like me in a dream and alone. My adventures made them long, not for other continents, but for the towns and villages nearby, which up until then had meant nothing to them. Thanks to me, the names took on a resonance and the places became possible destinations. Though I was standing there barelegged in an institutional gown, for them I was a heroine. And it's true that, though actually I wasn't so very well off, I was better off than those people, who thought they were well off. One of you was there, too, as a visiting student. He only attended my demonstration because he thought I was the kind of person that moved him. He came because he respected me.”
but of a first word. It's the woman who turns quite casually to the others and says: “When my childhood was over I began to wander around. I left the house and went farther and farther away, until I didn't know where I was anymore. When they caught me in some small town or out in the country, I didn't know my name and address. I usually took the train, never one that was going very far, always a local; no matter where it was going, I never bought a return ticket. What did I do when I arrived there? They told me I just sat around in the waiting room at the last stop or on the loading platform, and sometimes at the edge of a field, in a gravel pit, or by the side of a brook, regardless of the season. People began to notice me because of the way I'd sit there for hoursâbefore that, when I was wandering around, it seems I walked like someone who knew his way and was going somewhere. Men often stopped their cars and told me to get in, but none of them touched me, they never laid a finger on me; there was never any conversation, because my answer to everything was the same: I don't know. So they took me to the police. I couldn't be a tramp, that was out of the question; even the village constables came out from behind their partitions when they saw me, and all of a sudden they stopped talking dialect. I always had plenty of money on me. And that is what made them think I was crazy. Instead of sending me home, they took me to an institution. There I was exhibited to students in a lecture hall shaped like an amphitheater. The professor showed me off, not because I was sick but because it was me. Though I only answered his rehearsed questions with yes or no, he always shook my hand with both of his and held the door open for me when my act was done. The students were
crazy about me, too. My wanderings can't have made me very happy, because often when they found me sitting there I'd be crying or even shouting for helpâbut my act must have opened the eyes of the onlookers to something they'd never known before. While the mental patients were performing, I'd be sitting in the cubicle waiting my turn, and I'd hear the listeners coughing or laughing, but when I appeared, they'd all fall silent. They didn't feel sorry for me, they envied me. What they heard about me filled them with longing. If only, instead of moving in crowds through familiar streets, they could wander around like me in a dream and alone. My adventures made them long, not for other continents, but for the towns and villages nearby, which up until then had meant nothing to them. Thanks to me, the names took on a resonance and the places became possible destinations. Though I was standing there barelegged in an institutional gown, for them I was a heroine. And it's true that, though actually I wasn't so very well off, I was better off than those people, who thought they were well off. One of you was there, too, as a visiting student. He only attended my demonstration because he thought I was the kind of person that moved him. He came because he respected me.”
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