War & War

by Krasznahorkai, László

  5.

  The whole document, Korin said to the woman, seemed to be speaking of the Garden of Eden, every sentence of the manuscript that described the village and the shore, he said, dwelling on the unsurpassable beauty of the place, as though it were not some message it was conveying but more as if it were wanting to conduct itself back into paradise, for it not only mentioned this beauty, elaborated on it and proclaimed it, but lingered on it, in other words it established, in its own strange way, the fact that this peculiar beauty, Korin stressed the word “beauty” in English, was not simply an aspect of the landscape but all it contained, that calm, and, yes, delight, the calm and delight it radiated, suggesting that whatever was good was indisputably eternal, and in this way, Korin continued, embellishing the picture for her, it established the fact that, having been created good, everything continued very good, all of it, the brilliant red sunlight, the dazzling white of the cliffs, the subtle green of the valleys and the grace of the people inhabiting it, commuting as they did between the cliffs and the valleys, or, to put it another way, said Korin, everything—the red and white and green, the grace of the mule-drawn wagons as they trundled along, the octopus nets drying in the wind, the amulets around people’s necks, the ornamental hairpins, the workshops offering pots and pans, the fishing boats and the mountain shrines, in a word the earth itself, as well as the sea and the sky (the sky, he said in English)—but really everything was calm and delightful, and, what was more, real, real in the full sense of the word, or that at least was how Korin described the state of affairs, when, having finished the morning’s work, he attempted to sketch the place out for her, though his efforts as usual were doomed since it was clearly pointless describing anything to her in whatever painterly detail, now or at any time, for she not only stood there as indifferent as ever, but, as he saw when she happened to turn a little, she had been thoroughly beaten up, in other words it was not just a matter of having no idea in what language to speak to her, that is if she was listening at all to the monologue Korin had been trying to deliver in Hungarian since about eleven that morning to about half-past twelve, going on to one, that afternoon—a monologue supplemented with the odd English word he had gleaned from the dictionary—but that the blown veins were clearly visible on her face, her eyes were swollen and there were abrasions on her brow, possibly because she had ventured out at night and had been attacked by someone on the way home, it was impossible to tell, though it was deeply disturbing to Korin, who, for that very reason, pretended not to have noticed anything and went on speaking, picking up his monologue in the evening until the interpreter finally appeared in the kitchen when, summoning his courage, he rushed over to him and asked him what had happened, and who was it who had dared assault the young lady: assaulted her! the interpreter expostulated, beside himself, to his lover, her! he bellowed at the figure crouched, wide-eyed with terror at the end of the bed, while he paced furiously up and down the room, for God’s sake, who does he think he is? what business was it of this dumb asshole what they did or didn’t do with their lives, for God’s sake, who does he think he is, does he think he can sniff around us like some damned dog and try to hold us to account about our lives! well, excuse me, but that’s not okay! he growled at his lover, yes, he sent him on his way all right, the sly pitiful asshole, let him rot up someone else’s ass, he told him all right, until there was hardly any breath left in him, left him gasping, saying he only meant to this or only meant to that, to which he, the interpreter, replied simply that if he wanted to avoid a busted nose like hers, he will shut the fuck up right now with questions, at which point, naturally, Korin slid off like some damn snake, into his own room and closed the door behind him so quietly it would not have disturbed a fly, the interpreter insisted, for that door made no noise, no sir, no noise whatsoever.

  6.

  Night fell and the stars came out, but the four of them would not return to Kommos, for after carefully and repeatedly checking the security of the place they remained where the sunset found them, to the north of the village and a little above it in the olive grove where they leaned against an ancient tree trunk and sat for a long time, silent, in the deepening darkness, until Bengazza spoke in that low murmur of his and told them it might be as well to say something to the villagers, he had no idea what, but didn’t they think it would be proper to invent something assuring about what they were doing here, to which, for a long time, he received no answer, for it seemed no one wanted to break the silence, and when it was broken it was on a different subject, a remark of Kasser’s to be precise, to the effect that there was nothing lovelier than this sunset over the hill and the sea, to which Falke replied that nothing could be finer than these extraordinary colors in the deepening darkness, this wonderful spectacle of the interplay between transition and permanence, for all interplay between transition and permanence has a remarkable theatricality, being like an enormous performance involving a beautiful fresco of something that does not exist and yet suggests evanescence, mortality, that sense of dying away, perfectly encapsulating the idea of extinction; not forgetting the ceremonial entrance of color, added Kasser, the breathtaking glory of scarlet, lilac, yellow, brown, blue and white, the demonic aspect of the painted sky, all this, all this; and so much else, suggested Falke, since they had not yet mentioned the thousand significant tremors of the soul such a sunset occasions in the viewer, the deep trance-like state certain to be produced in the viewer by contemplation of the phenomenon, in other words, said Kasser, the sense of hope suffusing the moment of parting, the setting forth, the spellbinding image of the first step into darkness; yes, but also the sure promise of calm, rest and the approach of dreams, all this, all at once and so much more, added Falke; and how much more, echoed Kasser, though by that time the grove was cooling, and since the linen loincloths they had been lent by way of raiment were inadequate against the chill they started back toward the village, making their way down the narrow path between the tiny stone cottages to occupy the one that had stood empty at the time of their arrival and which they had been offered by their brave rescuers and the squid fishers of Kommos as a temporary shelter for as long as they needed it, they were told; and so they entered and lay down on the beds, on what, inside the shelter, felt like a pleasant evening at Kommos, their entering and lying down being followed, as usual, by a short uninterrupted sleep, by which time it was dawn already, the new day arriving rose-hemmed, the very first light of course finding them up and about, outside the hut, beside a fig tree on the dew-drenched grass, all four of them squatting and staring at the early veils of sunlight, watching the sun rise across the bay in the east, for they all agreed that the earth had nothing lovelier to offer than sunrise; dawn, in other words, said Kasser, that miraculous ascent, the breathtaking spectacle of the rebirth of light, the distinguishing of objects and outlines, the wild celebration of the return of clarity and vision; in fact the celebration of the return of everything, of the very idea of wholeness, said Falke, of order, of the rule of law, and of the security they both offer; of birth, and the primal ritual of the dawn of things in general, and nothing surely can be more beautiful, said Kasser; and they hadn’t yet spoken of what happens to a man who has seen all this, the silent observer of this entire miracle, said Falke, for even if all this meant the going down of the sun, dawn, with its own reason and clarity, would still signify a beginning and appear as the wellspring of some benevolent power; and of security too, added Kasser, for there was this sense of complete security about each and every morning; and so much more, put in Falke, though by that time it had grown bright as daylight and the morning had entered Kommos clad in its own splendor and magnificence, and was bidding it welcome, so one by one the castaways slowly stirred themselves, returning to the hut, for they all agreed with Toót when he quietly remarked that yes, indeed, it was all very well, and it was all true, but perhaps it was time to start on the food the people of Kommos had presented to them, the food—the dates, the figs and the grapes, time, in
other words, to eat.

  7.

  Twelve days had passed since the ship ran aground in the storm, but the people of Kommos, wrote Korin, knew no more about the four survivors than they had that first day, from the single answer they had succeeded in eliciting from one of them, other than which they hadn’t much clue how to set about the matter, for when they asked them to say something about their original destination or at least how they had got here, they were told that this was the very place they had set out for, since, as far back as they could remember, all four castaways, this was the shore they had always desired to wash up on, and they smiled as they answered the people of Kommos, then promptly began questioning them, with pretty specific questions at that, such as where the strategically most important defense works of the island were situated, about how many troops comprised the regular armed forces, what the locals generally felt about war, and what their opinion was of the martial prowess of the Cretans, this kind of thing and when the Kommosians answered that there were no defense works, no regular army just a fleet at Amnissos, and that weapons tended to be used only on ceremonial occasions by the young men, the castaways nodded and smiled knowingly as if these were precisely the answers they had been expecting, and having finished this conversation all four of them were in such good spirits that the fishermen were at a loss to understand why, and so they went on, observing them as, day by day, they grew steadily calmer and more at ease, as they tended to spend ever more time with the women at the mill and at the oil wells and with the men in their boats or their workshops, always offering to lend a hand, so that every blessed evening they could climb the hill above the olive groves and spend part of the night under the starry sky, though what they did there and what they talked about remained a complete mystery to the villagers, and even Mastemann could do nothing but continue listening, sitting all day by his cart in the square at Kommos, simply sitting and staring while the cats he kept in their various cages occasionally let loose a maddening squall of yowling because, as people explained to the four castaways on the boats and in the workshops, Mastemann, who was supposed to be this cat-dealer from Gurnia, tended to pretend that he was waiting for a customer to buy a cat off him, though the cats he had first brought with him were all gone, though really, said the Kommosians, he was waiting for something else, but what it was, he, naturally, refused to reveal, so Mastemann’s appearance in Kommos, Korin pointed out, was generally regarded as a sinister phenomenon, and they looked on him now with apprehension even though he was only sitting there next to his cart, stroking a ginger cat on his lap, for since he had come things had gone badly in the village: there were no fish in the sea and there was no luck to be had in the olive grove either, which had begun to dry out, or so the women muttered among themselves, and even the wind there was acting strangely however they climbed to the highest shrine bearing sacrifices, however they prayed as they had been taught to Eileithyia, for nothing changed, Mastemann remained casting his shadow across Kommos, though they very much hoped that whatever Mastemann was waiting for might come to pass, because Mastemenn might leave then, and they might perhaps have their old lives back along with the luck, and even the birds in the sky might find some rest, for just imagine, as their frightened husbands said, even the birds, the gulls and the swallows, the lapwings and partridges were flying hither and thither, banking and swooping, screeching and flying into the houses as if they had lost their minds, seeking some corner as if they wanted to hide, so no one could understand what was happening to them, but everyone hoped the day would arrive when Mastemann left together with his ginger cat and those others in their cages, that he would get into that cart of his and vanish down the road he had come by, that led to Phaistos.

  8.

  He had read it through countless times, thought Korin as he sat in the kitchen next day—when, after a long period of silence behind the door, he judged that the interpreter must be out of the way—for really, he had been through it at least five, maybe as much as ten times, but the manuscript’s mystery was by no means diminished, nor did its inexplicable meaning, its curious message, become any clearer, not for a second, in other words, he said, his position now was as it had been in the beginning, for that which he did not understand at the first reading was precisely what he failed to understand at the last, and yet it cast a spell on him, and would not allow him to escape the sphere of that moment of enchantment which constantly drew him in, even as he continued devouring the pages, and as he devoured them the conviction grew ever stronger, as it would in any man, that the mystery obscured by the unknowable and inexplicable was more important than anything else could possibly be and because this conviction was, by now, impossible to shake he felt no great need to try to explain his own actions to himself, to ask why he should have dedicated the last few weeks of his life to this extraordinary labor, since what after all did it consist of, he asked the woman rhetorically, but getting up at five o’clock in the morning (five o’clock, he said in English), a time he had naturally woken at for many years, drinking a cup of coffee, hoping not to disturb anyone with the minimal chinking and tinkling this involved, and by half past five or going on six to be sitting at the laptop, pressing the appropriate keys, everything going hunky-dory until about eleven when he would rest his back and neck, lying down for a while, and, as she knew, this would be the time that he gave an account of his morning’s activity to the young lady, keeping her up to date with his progress, and once he had done so he would grab some canned food at the local Vietnamese downstairs, have it along with a roll and a glass of wine, then carry on working flat out till five when, according to their agreement, he would turn the computer off, pass the line to his kind host, the interpreter, put on his coat and go for a walk in town till about ten or eleven, not, he must confess, without a touch of fear, for he felt afraid but had got used to it because, in any case, he wasn’t frightened enough to abandon this daily five o’clock excursion, because … and he couldn’t remember if he had mentioned this or not, he had this feeling, how to put it, that he had been here before, or rather, no, he shook his head vigorously, that wasn’t the best way of putting it: it was not that he had actually been here but rather that he seemed to have seen the town somewhere before, and he knew how ridiculous this must sound, since how could he have seen it from Körös-part, but what can he do, however ridiculous it sounded it was the truth, he said, that he had a quite extraordinary feeling when he was walking around Manhattan gazing at these enormous mind-boggling skyscrapers, no more than a feeling it is true but one he could not forget or dismiss, which was why, every day at five, he made the decision to explore it all, though exploring it all, in the literal sense, was of course out of the question, for he was dog tired by then, and at ten or eleven at night he would return and there was the computer so he could read all he had written that day, and it was only then, after he was finished, having checked that there was not one single mistake just before he went to bed, only then could he put it from his mind, as they say, and that was how days passed, or rather how his life here in New York passed, that is what he would write home if there were someone to write to, and that is what he is saying now, that the fact is he would never have thought the last weeks could have been so beautiful, he said, stressing the words the last weeks in English, after all he had gone through, but that he did not think about at all now, which was precisely why he was telling the young lady all this, since it might happen to the young lady too, that there might be a bad time in her life, a bad period, said Korin, but then would come a change, a turning point, when, from one day to the next, life would be different and everything would work for the good, for whatever might occasionally happen to a person, Korin said to the woman consolingly, this change, this turning point could happen to anyone from one day to the next, that was the way things were, for you can’t live your whole life, he said gazing at the woman’s thin bent back, under the same terror, that shudder, then, noting with alarm how the woman’s shoulder gradually started to tremble
with an ever more violent sobbing, he added that one must believe in the transformation, hope and turning point and shudder, and he now would beg the young lady to try to believe in this kind of turning point, because things would turn out for the best, he said, dropping his voice; for the best, of that you can be sure.

  9.

  What they were discussing in the grove that evening while watching the vast mass of the sea swaying far below, was the fact that there was a hard-to-define but potent relationship between man and landscape, between observer and the thing observed, a kind of marvelous correspondence by the light of which man could understand everything, and furthermore, said Falke, this was the only time in all human existence when you could genuinely, without the least doubt, comprehend everything, all other attempts at universal comprehension being no more than a fond fancy, an idea, a dream, whereas what we have here, said Falke, is all real and genuine, no fleeting illusion or mirage, not a conveniently fabricated, devised, dreamed-of substitute, but an actual glimpse into the very processes of life, that being what a man engaged with the landscape was offered a brief glimpse of, of life in its winter quietude, of life in the explosive energies of spring, a sense of the greater whole perceived through its details; nature is itself in fact, said Kasser, the first and last of undoubted certainties, the beginning and end of experience and at the same time of rapture too, because if anywhere, it was here and only here, before the unity that is nature, that one could begin, that one could be shaken by something whose essence is beyond our comprehension, but which we know has something to say to us; the only way to begin and be shaken, said Kasser, is in the unique position of being able to observe the radiant beauty of the whole, even if this very observation involved no more than rapt wonder at this very same beauty, for it was indeed beautiful, said Kasser indicating the wide horizon of the sea swaying below them, and beautiful too the unbroken infinity of the waves, the evening light glimmering on the foam, though the hills behind them were beautiful too, and beyond them the valleys, the rivers and the woods, beautiful and rich beyond all measure, said Kasser, for when man properly considers what he means when he talks about nature he finds himself at an utter loss, for nature was rich beyond every measure, and that’s only taking into account the millions of entities that comprise it, leaving out the billions of processes and sub-processes at work in it; though one should ultimately point, added Falke, to the single divine manifestation, the omnipresent immanence, as we refer to the unknown end of that process, an immanence that while remaining beyond proof, nevertheless, in all probability, permeates those untold billions of processes and entities; and so they conversed on the hill in the olive grove that evening when, after a long silence, Toót mentioned that there was something they should discuss regarding the disturbing behavior of the birds, and from that point on, said Korin to the woman a couple of days later, the question of what that behavior meant, what should be done about it and how they themselves should respond to it, cropped up ever more frequently, until the day arrived when they had to admit that these so-called disturbing signs were evident not just in the birds—the birds, he said in English—but in the goats, cows and monkeys too, and that they had to keep an eye on this frightening change in the behavior of animals, on the goats, for example, who could no longer be kept on the mountainside because they’d fall to their deaths, or the cows who for no discernable reason lost control and started running, or the monkeys who swept screaming through the village, but apart from the screaming and the scampering, did nothing else out of the usual; and once this was pointed out of course there remained little of the joy and harmony that had characterized their early days, and while they continued to work beside the men and women, and though they visited the oil mills and took part in the torchlit octopus fishing, when they visited the olive grove after that, they made no secret of the fact that the joy had gone forever, a fact no one could deny, the time being ripe for them to admit it, as Bengazza did in the end, however painful it seemed, for it meant they had to leave this place and he claimed to see the harbingers of some terrible cosmic cataclysm, a heavenly war, he said, in the transformation of these animals, a war more terrible than anyone could imagine, as if there really existed something that could not be identified with nature, something, he said that would not allow this beautiful corner of this beautiful island to remain, that was impatient with these Pelasgians who had founded a peaceable domain and would not give themselves over to destruction, ruin, as they regarded it a scandal, said Bengazza, as something wholly intolerable.