Crossing the Sierra De Gredos (34 page)
Read Crossing the Sierra De Gredos Online
Authors: Peter Handke
“Sometimes I have the same sensation,” the author is said to have replied, “when I see portraits of people from earlier centuries, paintings, copper engravings, woodcuts: initially the faces usually look not only remote in time, but also entirely foreign, alien, incomprehensible, belonging to a human type diametrically opposite to me, as a man of today, but as I gaze at them, they often come alive for me as wonderfully approachable,
colorful, lively beings, such as are now revealed to me in my daily surroundings only at sacred, or rather blessed, times. Goodness gracious!”âHer reply: “That evening only one person was entirely rooted in the present, in nothing but today. But I do not want you to have him appear in our story until later.”âThe author: “A photographer?”âShe: “Yes, a photographer, among other things. But how do you know?”
colorful, lively beings, such as are now revealed to me in my daily surroundings only at sacred, or rather blessed, times. Goodness gracious!”âHer reply: “That evening only one person was entirely rooted in the present, in nothing but today. But I do not want you to have him appear in our story until later.”âThe author: “A photographer?”âShe: “Yes, a photographer, among other things. But how do you know?”
The earlier writer of the magazine story, constantly turning toward her earlier heroine, began to speak and revealed herself as follows: “Once I was a friend of other people's stories.
Fui una vez amiga de historias ajenas
. At least I played that role, or wanted to play it, or had to play it. Now I know nothing of others anymore, and have no desire to know anything, and above all do not pretend to know anything about this person or that or about you.
No sé nada
. I know nothing.
Fui una vez amiga de historias ajenas
. At least I played that role, or wanted to play it, or had to play it. Now I know nothing of others anymore, and have no desire to know anything, and above all do not pretend to know anything about this person or that or about you.
No sé nada
. I know nothing.
“And I am no longer a friend of knowing about others' lives.
No soy amiga de saber vidas ajenas
. How alien, cold and abruptly alien, clearly alien for all time, every person, in truth, appeared to me from the outset, men as well as women, also children, closer relatives as well as much more distant ones, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, once to three times removed. Especially the aunts and uncles, the nephews and nieces. How incomprehensible people appeared to me, and how little I understood how anyone could describe another person, tease out traits, characteristics, and idiosyncrasies, and knit them into an ostensibly recognizable figure. What I perceived instead was a cloth doll. Even when someone did this only in the presence of one other person, even when I recognized the person being described, or thought I recognized him, it seemed to me that the whole thing was a swindle, and that even aâwhat is the term?âlifelike description of a person was simply not right, was indecent, presumptuous.
No soy amiga de saber vidas ajenas
. How alien, cold and abruptly alien, clearly alien for all time, every person, in truth, appeared to me from the outset, men as well as women, also children, closer relatives as well as much more distant ones, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, once to three times removed. Especially the aunts and uncles, the nephews and nieces. How incomprehensible people appeared to me, and how little I understood how anyone could describe another person, tease out traits, characteristics, and idiosyncrasies, and knit them into an ostensibly recognizable figure. What I perceived instead was a cloth doll. Even when someone did this only in the presence of one other person, even when I recognized the person being described, or thought I recognized him, it seemed to me that the whole thing was a swindle, and that even aâwhat is the term?âlifelike description of a person was simply not right, was indecent, presumptuous.
“Just as there is a prohibition on images that is rooted in our consciousness, or in instinct, above all in respect to the human face, it seemed to me that there was also a sort of prohibition on description, again where the human face was concerned.
“And all the more so when the describing no longer occurred only in the presence of one other person but in society! And all the more so when it became public! And all the more so when it was done in writing, in an article or even a book! And why did it have to be me to whom all the individual strangers became even more alien, if possible, in descriptions, or ceased to exist altogether!âthe pseudo-descriptions and imitations,
especially those considered most successful, had the most devastating effectâwhy did it have to be me who came upon or stumbled into a profession or business whose stock in trade was public description, captured in black-and-white, of individuals, of âpeople'!
especially those considered most successful, had the most devastating effectâwhy did it have to be me who came upon or stumbled into a profession or business whose stock in trade was public description, captured in black-and-white, of individuals, of âpeople'!
“If it had at least been a question of capturing a nation, or of people in the aggregate. Human masses and crowds were alien to me, too, but alien in a different way, at least sometimes, not as indescribably foreign as all the nine hundred ninety-nine individuals whom I pried loose and nailed to the page, from the color of their eyes, to their gums, to their shoe size, to their way of walking, shaking hands, brushing the hair back from their forehead, their voices, the shape of their ears, the shape of their chins, their shoulders, their furniture, their pets, their gardens, their vehicles, their preferences, their recurring dreams, their perfume, their failed suicide attempts, their hidden guilt, their forbidden love, their secret ambition in life.
“And even when all the details were correct, and as a rule they were, I knew that my descriptions, my descriptions of people and persons, were nothing but a deception and a distortion. How did I know that? I just knew it. I knew it if for no other reason than that every detail had to be striking. There was no demand for a detail that was not striking. I knew it? My disgust knew it, my disgust at describing your lips, your skin, your nostrils, your way of driving a car, your way of crossing your legs, or not, as the case might be, of opening the door for others, of keeping your eyes closed for a long time, of remaining constantly attentive, of reading people's lips and eyes, of suddenly clenching your fists, of striking your head with your fist. My disgust at describing, and then at you and at me.
“But now that I no longer need to find anything striking about my subjects, now that I do not need to publish such things, these people have become a tad less alien to me, and above all alien in a different way. Now that I no longer pretend to be a friend of others' lives, to understand them, to write and put in circulation true stories about them, I have begun to discover a new world. Now that I do not need to know anything about youânow that I no longer have to focus on someone as the subject or object of a story that must be written, I know that I can be more open with you, with himâ” (turning toward the stonemason) “before himâ” (turning toward Carlos Primero, alias Charles V) “before all of youâ” (opening her eyes and taking in all the others at the table at a glance) “more open in general.” (With each gaze now, and now, and now, a
blushing deeper than ever before, as if on the verge of a great anger or some other powerful emotion.)
blushing deeper than ever before, as if on the verge of a great anger or some other powerful emotion.)
“Only now, with my fundamental ignorance, my ignorance as my foundationâheaven knows, facile paradoxes and plays on words still crop up from my story period!âinstead of writing
about
you, I could write you
up
, write you
off
, write
around
you.
about
you, I could write you
up
, write you
off
, write
around
you.
“And I was never as frank as tonight in Pedrada, here in the innermost Sierra. I sense, I know, that today I could discover you, you and you, and all of you, instead of revealing this or that about you, guessing, and putting it into a false context. During the bus ride, with the first rotation of the wheels, everything I had known about you earlier was already canceledâno previous life, no roles, no position, and in its place the desire to discover you, to tell your story again in discovery mode, the very opposite of the scoop that was once my first commandment.
“Except that now I no longer write, not out of disgust at writing, at writing implements, at paper, at the computer. My not-writing-anymore comes from a sort of lightheartedness; giving up writing has left me more light of heart and friendly. And now that I keep my hands off anything remotely connected with script and texts, I see that I am, in fact, yes, fact! a friend of others' lives. The more alien your life, your lives, the more open I am to them.
“And how strange our story seems to me, precisely here;
¡Soy amiga de vidas ajenas! ¡Soy amiga de historias ajenisimas! Mi emperador
, let us see a few moments of your unknown story. And you, you are not really the banking empress I once had to interview across three continents, are you? Or you are no longer that? Ah, goodness gracious, I still have all these questions. But at least they are only spoken and are not intended for publication.”
¡Soy amiga de vidas ajenas! ¡Soy amiga de historias ajenisimas! Mi emperador
, let us see a few moments of your unknown story. And you, you are not really the banking empress I once had to interview across three continents, are you? Or you are no longer that? Ah, goodness gracious, I still have all these questions. But at least they are only spoken and are not intended for publication.”
Now the response of the woman to whom these remarks were primarily directed: “And you ask different questions now. For I recall how in the old days you talked almost constantly, always in the same soft, childlike voice. But simultaneously, gazing into my eyes with your own large eyes, you were ready to pounce. You were intent on trapping, catching, pinning downânot necessarily me as a person but a predetermined, predictable, printableâwhat was the word I used at the time?âscenario, extending beyond me to a situation, a state of affairs, a current issue. You also talked constantly about your own stories, worries, dreams, adventures, including your adventures in love, perhaps not entirely made up on the spur of the
momentâfor the purpose of worming corresponding confessions out of strangers.
momentâfor the purpose of worming corresponding confessions out of strangers.
“Not even for a brief second were you free of suspicion. The suspicion implicit in your questions was the very foundation, the basis of your profession, and once your suspicions were confirmed in one way or another, you stripped me, and all the others, of my, and their, little and not-so-little secrets and then left us there, the way a pickpocket, or rather a nest-robber, leaves his victims, even if the word âvictim' is not entirely appropriate? No, it is. And what are you living on these days? How are you earning your living now that you have given up describing people?”
The fellow passenger: “For a while it was an important piece of information in a story whether a person had money, and where it came from, and so on. But for this story of ours, this evening's story, that has become irrelevant.” Did that mean that she was in on the undertaking?
And the lady banker, replying only now to the question posed at the beginning and showing her hand: “It is true. Or at least it is likely that my banking days are over, and not only since this evening. It seems to me that all of banking is in a bad way, and not only since today. Yet I know that the core of my profession remains sound. It embodies, and continues to be, an idea that is not merely useful but essential. And this idea is almost unique, in that it pertains entirely to others, my contemporaries, and it can be summed up thus: being a big wheel. Wheeling and dealing. The banker as a trustworthy driver, with both hands on the wheel, moving other people's money. Showing forethought, foreseeing, forecasting, forestalling. Launching initiatives. Managing. And primarily seeing to it that you, my contemporaries, have time; that you do not waste your time worrying about money, hoping for profits and dreading losses.
“At present, however, a person in my profession manages less than he gambles. We gamble, and we gamble whether we want to or not. We are forced to gamble with money, with numbers, with products, with the markets. If our activity previously may have included an enjoyable element of play, in the form of an element of adventureâno, not of adventure, simply of entertainmentâour work now consists of an excess of gaming; of gambling for profits, a compulsion to gamble for profits.
“And I reject this game. It is a misuse of the hands on the wheel, of the trusty driver's role. It should be prohibited. But who would prohibit itâwhen it is entire countries and the powerful who are most deeply involved? It has become a game that not only does not get things moving or
move things in the right direction, but actually destroys them. I myself do not enjoy playing games, have never really learned to play. Yet the form of play that has been required of me recently is even more evil, cold, and lethal than chess: it is true that its main moves continue to consist of exercising forethought, foreseeing, forecasting, and forestalling, but all this has acquired a profoundly different significance. Banking and the stock exchange have come to consist almost exclusively of a cold, ruthless gambling for profit that has nothing to do with my idea of how I should be working.
move things in the right direction, but actually destroys them. I myself do not enjoy playing games, have never really learned to play. Yet the form of play that has been required of me recently is even more evil, cold, and lethal than chess: it is true that its main moves continue to consist of exercising forethought, foreseeing, forecasting, and forestalling, but all this has acquired a profoundly different significance. Banking and the stock exchange have come to consist almost exclusively of a cold, ruthless gambling for profit that has nothing to do with my idea of how I should be working.
“Being forced to play the game leaves me hardly any room for free play. And those who have recently entered our profession, because, as natural gamblers, or whatever they are, they have come to expect of it, and rightly so, a life like a game, now live in constant fear, even when they assert the opposite to their paying public. For this game cannot be mastered by even the most skillful players. In their dreams, and perhaps all too soon in reality, they are devoured by it from head to toe. They do not want to play anymore. But once started â¦
“Anyone who starts this game has to play it through to the end, and that is its most damaging feature. Luckily for me, in this case at least, I do not know how to play, and thus never began ⦔
The former magazine writer: “In our interview you did not so much as hint at any of this. Nor did you want to answer any questions about your brother in prison, your vanished child, the child's unknown father, and/or your lover at the time / at present. The only things you agreed to discuss were sturdy shoes, fruit treesâyou favored me with a complete lecture on the particular white of quince blossomsâ, chefs, seasonings (O saffron, O coriander), mountain-climbing techniques, the most remote island in the Atlantic, children's toys in the Middle Ages, weight distribution while one is ascending and descending mountains, the fragrance of linden blossoms in Juneââthe fragrance that seems to come from farthest away'â
My Darling Clementine
, and Westerns in general, hedgehogs, the beauties of night hiking, the best pencils, and so on, for days and nights on end.
My Darling Clementine
, and Westerns in general, hedgehogs, the beauties of night hiking, the best pencils, and so on, for days and nights on end.
“And now this brutal franknessâwhich would not have been suitable for the magazine anyway, or would it? And what will you do without your profession, without your wheeling and dealing? Establish a different kind of bank? An anti-gambling bank? Make a second film? Write a story about different types of pencils?”
She: “What I plan to do? Practice even more forethought. Do even more foreseeing and forecasting. Forestall even more usefully and necessarily. Make even more sure that along with me, now that I myself have time, plenty of time, this person or that also has time, plenty of time, time and more time. And perhaps learn to play at last. Not the profit game but a finder's game. Or simply become playful. And find my daughter again, here in the Sierra de Gredos. And find, here or elsewhere, my unknown lover. For he is alive, and he exists, just so you know, just so all of you know. And speak with my brother, not as I did during the last few years from the visitors' perch in the prison behind the dunes, where a dozen of us had to shout, and could not hear our own voices, let alone those of the people we were visiting. And perhaps also find the various small items I have lost here in the Sierra over the years, a scarf one time, a hair comb another time, a cap, a shawlâespecially the shawl. Each time I was sure when I set out that along the road one of the objects from the previous year or the year before would gleam up at me, unharmed, in spite of storms, rain, and snow, and each time I ended up losing something else. But this time, just wait!
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