Across (10 page)
I took a long shower. Under the warm water, my body gradually grew out of itself. Stationary leg and free-moving leg took form. I took deep swallows of the liquid that would have choked me a few hours before.
In the kitchen, I ate a whole package of zwieback and recalled a saying I had often heard as a child: “Dizziness
takes the appetite away.” I had been dizzy for days and now I was hungry. I ate an apple and knew at the first bite that I would go on eating.
takes the appetite away.” I had been dizzy for days and now I was hungry. I ate an apple and knew at the first bite that I would go on eating.
Seated at my desk, I put my manuscript, “Thresholds of the Roman Villa,” into an envelope, addressed it, and affixed stamps. Only a short while before, I would have looked on without lifting a finger as every page of it burned or flew out the window. I read a letter from the school principal, who had once been my teacher and later became my friend. In it, he said I was expected back after Easter vacation, that the students had been asking for me, that the undersigned missed meâand not just in his official capacity. A postscript followed: “Please don't forget that you're a teacher. Even if your manner isn't right, you are nevertheless an effective teacher, precisely because you are not entirely of the profession. What enables you to teach is your slight embarrassment, coupled with your total immersion in your subject. There are more than enough competent teachers. But students get the feel of a subject only from those who are at times visibly embarrassed at being teachers, from stutterers and thread-losers. Only such a one remains fixed in the student's memory as âmy teacher.'
Quin age
. Let us then be up and doing!”
Quin age
. Let us then be up and doing!”
The reader of the letter sat down and wept; not over the praise, but over the salutation, “Dear Andreas,” for it seemed to me that for years no one had called me by my first name.
Still seated, I opened the window. The west wind grazed my neck and temples. In inhaling, I was taken
with a violent coughing fit; all those days, I hadn't once breathed deeply. A horse snorted beside me; that horse was me, as if my nostrils had suddenly grown.
with a violent coughing fit; all those days, I hadn't once breathed deeply. A horse snorted beside me; that horse was me, as if my nostrils had suddenly grown.
The word “vision” has gone out of fashion. But a vision is just what I had then. I saw the ship of my life, caught in pack ice and already half under water, suddenly rise to the surface and go dancing away. Though the water might be no more than a rivulet and my ship a scrap of paper, perplexity was instantly transformed into a cheerfulness which was anything but caprice and which for the first time could be relied on.
At the same time, though, I realized that the murderous stone I had thrown a few days past marked the beginning of my own death. Since then, there had been something deadly in me, something that could be played downâas I was doing nowâbut not eradicated. I was no longer in a state of suspenseâand my present lightheadedness had grief as its companion. To play down meant power. “Power” meant: “I have time.”
I sat down at my desk, picked up a pencil, and wrote in the flyleaf of Virgil's
Georgics
: “Not an unfortunate accident, but destiny. Take accident as destiny. Not mine, but everyone's. Destiny as man's lot. Not his human lot, but his share. Distinguish two sorts of human destiny: lot and share. Man's lot: as everyone knows, to die. His share? All I know is that if I haven't had my share, I shall die without having fulfilled my destiny. My share is up to me; to obtain it, that is, I must challenge it. From disaster to destiny. Through destiny to self-awareness. I am determined and self-determined.
Surrender? Yes, but not to any judge. No, I will not âsurrender,' I will seek out a witness. What for? To ask for advice. Who will be my witness? And time and again âthe threshold'; lest you pass it by, slow down to a child's pace. No, don't slow down; restrain yourself.âSunflower in the mist.âThe epithet for hibiscus in Virgil: slender.”
Georgics
: “Not an unfortunate accident, but destiny. Take accident as destiny. Not mine, but everyone's. Destiny as man's lot. Not his human lot, but his share. Distinguish two sorts of human destiny: lot and share. Man's lot: as everyone knows, to die. His share? All I know is that if I haven't had my share, I shall die without having fulfilled my destiny. My share is up to me; to obtain it, that is, I must challenge it. From disaster to destiny. Through destiny to self-awareness. I am determined and self-determined.
Surrender? Yes, but not to any judge. No, I will not âsurrender,' I will seek out a witness. What for? To ask for advice. Who will be my witness? And time and again âthe threshold'; lest you pass it by, slow down to a child's pace. No, don't slow down; restrain yourself.âSunflower in the mist.âThe epithet for hibiscus in Virgil: slender.”
A pyramid of wood for the Easter bonfire, heaped up at the point where the road passes into the meadow, was illumined by the last light of day. I went from window to window, this way and that, through the whole apartment. Now and then, on the slopes, a trial cannon shot rang out. A freshly washed bus was waiting at the terminus; with its two long, thick arms, it looked like a great stag. For a moment, the portholes of a plane taking off became transparent, revealing the bright blue sky behind them; for a long while, flocks of black crows followed its sooty trail, just as gulls follow the wake of a ship. Below, a child popped paper bags while walking in the streetâhis version of an Easter salute; while a teenager ran back and forth in an orchard, snapping a whip, which at every crack sent little clouds of smoke rising between the treetops.
This time, a different couple were sitting on the bridge railing: an elderly man in a double-breasted suit with a pocket handkerchief, tie, and white shirt, holding a younger woman close, murmuring and whispering as he rubbed his head against hers, and occasionally prodding her with his forehead; if they should fall into the canal, I thought, the water would hiss as if something red-hot had been dropped in.
Otherwise, the streets were deserted. But, undoubtedly, crowds were pouring into the churches for the Feast of the Resurrection. The mountains looked blue; then gray; then black. The rows of light at the airfield suggested a fiery cross, traversed by a constantly renewed arrow. The border station on the horizon gleamed like a factory decked out for a holiday.
Love welled up in me for this city in the plain. Its cityness. Substance of joy. The earth awakened within me, with a white Mayan city on the chalk cliffs of Yuca-tán, and with Heraclitus, warming himself by his stove and calling out to visitors: “Come in. Here, too, there are gods.” I wanted to throw myself on the ground, but not alone. At that moment, a single word sufficed: “Here!”
At length, the cathedral bells rang out in the distance. There the ritual of transubstantiation was being enacted: bread into “body,” wine into “blood.” The bell sounded twice, both times very briefly. It was as though a heart that had stopped beating began to beat again. A horse raised its head and showed its great eye with its light-colored, bristling lashes. The beaks of the gulls were at their sharpest and most hooked.
Little by little, the bells began to ring throughout the city area. I distinguished the bells of Elsbethen, of Aigen, of Persch, of Gnigl, of Sankt Andra, of Maria Plain, of Bergheim, of Freilassing (across the border), of Bayrischgmain, of Grossgmain (back on this side), of Liefering, of Wals, of Gois, of Taxham, of Grödig, of Anif, of Morzg, of Gneis; the bells of the Meadow Church, of the Moos Church, of the Old People's Home
Church, of the Dormitory Church, of the Poorhouse Church.
Church, of the Dormitory Church, of the Poorhouse Church.
Â
During the night, there was a violent knocking on the water pipes. The hibiscus blossom rolled up and fell off its stem, with a very soft sound. A warm wind blew through the wide-open room. There was a smell of wood smoke. Even before the first bus arrived, I heard a twanging in the wires like a catapult in action, followed by a crash, as between two hockey sticks. Up until then, it had been so quiet that the waterfalls in the mountains could be heard. Later on, a strange melody sounded from end to end of the plain. In my half-sleepâwhich was more like a special kind of wakingâseparate sounds answered one another and thus became music. A train whistle was followed by the rumble of a steel grating under rolling wheels. The rumbling was taken up by a barking dog. The dog's barking took on the tone of the wind in the trees, which in turn blended into the enveloping sound of a short rainfall. Actually, it was not so much a melody as a leitmotif prolonged indefinitely. Every new sound took it up and intensified it. Every object that emitted a sound swelled, as it were, in my imagination and vibrated, converted into a musical instrument. Plucked instruments, percussion and wind instruments rang out, interspersed with an infrequent but precisely timed violin tone, as though from a mountain lake freezing over. The sound of the rain was rhythmed by a vibraphone-like ringing far below the road, rising from the round openings of the manhole cover. I had once taken the children to see a film in which terrestrial
and extraterrestrial beings conversed by means of such a persistently repeated motif. Had extraterrestrial beings landed now, and was this sound their signal? No, this was an earthly sound, an earthly creature lay dreaming, and his breathing through a single orifice fed the earthly orchestra. Dreaming? I had never felt so wide-awake. A more delightful wake-up music was unthinkable.
and extraterrestrial beings conversed by means of such a persistently repeated motif. Had extraterrestrial beings landed now, and was this sound their signal? No, this was an earthly sound, an earthly creature lay dreaming, and his breathing through a single orifice fed the earthly orchestra. Dreaming? I had never felt so wide-awake. A more delightful wake-up music was unthinkable.
Â
I arose with the first light and washed the windows and floors of both my rooms. Outside, the bog appeared with its earth colorsâgreen, brown, ocher, and black. It was blanketed in haze, purple in the dawning light. The great flank of the Staufen emerged from the western horizon, shimmering white like a strange star. “Beloved colors! It is by contemplating you that we live.”
I dressed after laying garment after garment over my arm like my own valet: blue-and-white-striped shirt, silk tie, double-breasted summer suit, black low-cut leather shoes, long, light-gray “dustcoat”; and into my breast pocket I slipped the hibiscus blossom, which had shrunk to a reddish cigar. I went to the mirror, looked for a long while into my eyes, and for once found myself beautiful. I filed my nails to a perfect roundness. With a single unbroken movement, I put my hat on. I leafed through my paper money, rolled it up, and thrust it into my trouser pocket. I left my apartment without locking the door.
On the street, an old crone, her face and neck a network of wrinkles forming innumerable tiny hexagons, approached and said: “Here comes Mr. Springtime.” The cracks in the asphalt at the edge of the street also
formed a hexagonal pattern. A young man in uniform, wearing pointed shoes and carrying a suitcase, crossed the canal bridge. As the sun rose, a dog ran down a path through the meadow, swaying from side to side against the light like a covered wagon in the Wild West. And I did indeed bear westward, though from time to time I veered off to the north and south; or just stood there for a while. Now and then, I walked backward and then I had the eastern sun in my face. The sun didn't disperse the ground haze but gave it a bright color. Later, it took on a lasting lilac hue, against which the branches of the trees looked intensely black.
formed a hexagonal pattern. A young man in uniform, wearing pointed shoes and carrying a suitcase, crossed the canal bridge. As the sun rose, a dog ran down a path through the meadow, swaying from side to side against the light like a covered wagon in the Wild West. And I did indeed bear westward, though from time to time I veered off to the north and south; or just stood there for a while. Now and then, I walked backward and then I had the eastern sun in my face. The sun didn't disperse the ground haze but gave it a bright color. Later, it took on a lasting lilac hue, against which the branches of the trees looked intensely black.
On the Untersberg, there was snow only above the tree line; the plateau at the top was mottled with it. The whole mountain was sharply outlined; every gully and every crag stood out distinctly; only the hollow below the summit seemed a caldron of clouds, sending out spiral after spiral of mist. One of these took the shape of a giant eagle and went flying over the plain, hunting with talons outstretched and an eye of azure blue.
In crossing the thinly settled area, I met no one. Only once I saw someone on another path, and we greeted each other with upraised hats. On my way, I stopped into the Moos church, where services were in progress. Only a few people were there, at a certain point in the Mass, they gave one another their hands. Each of those present was expected to make a holiday wish. A woman with a polka-dotted head scarf said: “May Austria never die.” A young man said aloud: “May we become holy.” Two children looked at each other and grinned.
I left right after the blessing and went my way. The
bog was rather bumpy in spots where peat had formerly been dug and which were now overgrown with grass. Here and there a patch of fallow land had been fenced off to form a community garden; from a gate that put one in mind of a ranch, a long, wide gravel path led to wooden cottages in the background.
bog was rather bumpy in spots where peat had formerly been dug and which were now overgrown with grass. Here and there a patch of fallow land had been fenced off to form a community garden; from a gate that put one in mind of a ranch, a long, wide gravel path led to wooden cottages in the background.
The airport control tower, the tallest building on the whole plain, looked like an armless robot in the distance. I started toward it on a railroad track that came from the loading platform of a brewery. The warehouse was a long, yellow building with only blind windows in front. The sun shone on the great empty triangle and was reflected back. Momentarily overlapping, the shadows of two butterflies moved about on one of the blind windows as on a dance floor; the empty triangular space around them was a shimmering symbol of freedom. The railroad tracks in the meadow grass gave off a dazzling light. The ties forced me to take short steps like an old man; afterward, on the road, away from the tracks, I continued to move in their rhythm. A lone locomotive had once traversed this meadow, covered from roof to running board with homeward-bound workers.
The road enters a long tunnel which passes under the airport. Just before the tunnel, there is an athletic field, screened from view by a dense crowd, over which for a moment a white ball appeared. On a recurrent billboard, a blond woman posing in violet lingerie informed all comers: “These curves are for loving.” The highway was heavily traveled. Cars emerged from the tunnel with their headlights on; some turned them off at once, some a little later, some not at all. (“That's the way we are.”) One
car still had skis on top; the next, flowers; the third was already carrying a boat. A woman, perceptible only as a tapering hand on the wheel, held a long, skin-colored cigarette between her fingers and left behind her the image of a praying mantis. Utterly soundless in comparison to the crashing and honking on the ground, an enormous flying object, a commercial plane coming in for a landing, entered the air space above the endless column of vehicles. For a moment, it seemed motionless; only when it put down on the runway did it fill the countryside with its howling.
car still had skis on top; the next, flowers; the third was already carrying a boat. A woman, perceptible only as a tapering hand on the wheel, held a long, skin-colored cigarette between her fingers and left behind her the image of a praying mantis. Utterly soundless in comparison to the crashing and honking on the ground, an enormous flying object, a commercial plane coming in for a landing, entered the air space above the endless column of vehicles. For a moment, it seemed motionless; only when it put down on the runway did it fill the countryside with its howling.
In the tunnel, the noise of the cars swelled to a roar and a blast, which passed through the portholes in the concrete wall and spread to the parallel foot and bicycle paths. A chain of fluorescent lights made the tunnel into a seemingly endless sequence of light and dark chambers, where pedestrians were by turns luminescent and invisible. The walls were covered with graffiti. The firstcomers had spread out freely, the rest had to squeeze in:
Young man seeks young woman, view to sexual intercourse; Zion, devil's-bread tree; Mother, your son is still walking under the sky; Kondwiramur.
Two soldiers in caps and laced shoes saluted me in passing and called out: “Morning, Colonel. At your service.” Then came an unshaven man on a bicycle, who just said: “Hey, you.” (I, in turn, said to a woman who was running: “What's the hurry?”) There was a cool, fresh smell in the tunnel. At the other end, it opened out to the west wind. The asphalt, pockmarked from stiletto heels and hobnails, looked, if you kept your eyes on it, like a dusty country road, spotted with raindrops.
Young man seeks young woman, view to sexual intercourse; Zion, devil's-bread tree; Mother, your son is still walking under the sky; Kondwiramur.
Two soldiers in caps and laced shoes saluted me in passing and called out: “Morning, Colonel. At your service.” Then came an unshaven man on a bicycle, who just said: “Hey, you.” (I, in turn, said to a woman who was running: “What's the hurry?”) There was a cool, fresh smell in the tunnel. At the other end, it opened out to the west wind. The asphalt, pockmarked from stiletto heels and hobnails, looked, if you kept your eyes on it, like a dusty country road, spotted with raindrops.
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