The Left-Handed Woman

by Peter Handke

  The father gesticulated again and shook his head. “Shall we go out for a while?” He pointed in various directions. Then he said, “When you were a child, you never wanted to go walking with me. I had only to utter the word ‘walk’ to turn you against it. But you were always ready for an ‘evening stroll.’”

  In The darkness they walked along the driveway, past the garages—the hoods of some of the cars were still giving off crackling sounds. When they reached the phone booth, the father said, “I’ve got a quick phone call to make.”

  The woman: “You can phone from the house.”

  The father replied simply, “My companion is waiting.” And then he was in the booth, a blurred, gesticulating figure behind the translucent glass.

  They walked uphill past the sleeping colony. Once a toilet flushed; there was no other sound.

  The woman: “What does your companion say?”

  The father: “She wanted to know if I had taken my pills.”

  The woman: “Is it the same one as last year?”

  The father: “This one lives in another city.”

  They walked along the upper edge of the colony, where the forest began. Small snowflakes fell rustling through the withered oak leaves and collected on frozen puddles of dogs’ urine.

  The woman and her father stopped walking and looked down at the lights in the plain. In one of the boxlike houses at their feet someone started playing the piano: Für Elise.

  The woman asked, “Are you happy, Father?”

  The father shook his head. Then, as though a gesture were not sufficient answer, he said, “No.”

  “Have you some idea about how one might live?”

  The father: “Oh, cut it out. Don’t say such things.”

  They started walking again, skirting the woods; now and then the woman leaned her head back and snowflakes fell on her face. She looked into the woods; the snow was falling so lightly that nothing moved. Far behind the thinly spaced trees there was a fountain; the thin stream of water that flowed into it tinkled as it fell.

  The woman asked, “Do you still write?”

  The father laughed. “You mean will I keep on writing till the day I die.” He turned toward her. “I believe that at some time I began to live in the wrong direction—though I don’t hold the war or any other outside event to blame. Now writing sometimes strikes me as a pretext” —he giggled—“and then again sometimes it doesn’t. I’m so alone that before I go to sleep at night I often have nobody to think about, simply because I haven’t seen anyone during the day. And how can anyone write if he has no one to think about? On the other hand, I see this woman now and then, chiefly because if something happens to me I’d prefer to be found fairly soon and not lie around too long as a corpse.” He giggled.

  The woman: “That’s enough of your silly jokes.”

  The father pointed up at the forest. “The mountaintop is back there, but you can’t see it from here.”

  The woman: “Do you ever cry?”

  The father: “I did once—a year ago, sitting at home one evening. And afterward I wanted to go out.”

  The woman: “Does the time still hang as heavy on your hands as when you were young?”

  The father: “Oh, heavier than ever. Once every day it seems to stop altogether. Right now, for instance. It’s been dark for hours, and I keep having to remind myself the night is only beginning.”

  He moved his hands around his head.

  The woman imitated the gesture and asked him what it meant.

  The father: “I’ve just wound heavy cloths around my head at the thought of the long night.” This time he didn’t giggle but openly laughed. “You’ll end up the same as me, Marianne. And with this observation my mission here is fulfilled.”

  They smiled, and the woman said, “Wouldn’t you say it was getting cold?”

  They went down the slope on the other side of the colony. Once the father stopped and raised his forefinger. The woman kept going but turned around to him and said, “Don’t keep stopping every time you get an idea, Father. Even when I was little, that used to get on my nerves”.

  The next day they passed through the women’s clothing section of a large department store in a nearby shopping center. A foreign woman came out of a dressing room, wearing a green suit. The salesgirl said to her, “It looks just lovely on you.” The father stepped up and said, “That simply isn’t true. The suit is hideous and it’s not at all becoming to her.” His daughter hurried up to him and pulled him away.

  They rode on an escalator, and he stumbled at the top. As they walked along, he looked at her and said, “We really must have our picture taken together. Is there a photo machine in this place?” When they found one, a man was busy changing the developer. The father bent over a strip of four sample photos on the side of the booth: in them a young man bared his upper front teeth in a smile, and in one of the exposures there was a girl with him. The maintenance man closed the box and straightened up. The father looked at him, then pointed with an air of surprise at the photos and said, “That’s you, isn’t it?”

  The man stood beside his pictures: he had aged a good deal since then; now he was almost bald and his smile was different. The father asked about the girl, but the man only made a gesture as of throwing something behind him, and went away.

  After snapping their pictures, they roamed about, waiting for them to develop. When they came back the machine ejected a strip of photos. The woman reached for it, but the pictures were of a man, a total stranger.

  She looked around. The man in the pictures stood behind her and said, “Your pictures were ready long ago. I’ve taken the liberty of looking at them. I hope you’ll forgive me.” They exchanged photos. The father took a good look at the man and said, “You’re an actor, aren’t you?”

  The man nodded silently and averted his eyes. “But I’m unemployed at the moment.”

  The father: “I’ve seen you in films. You always seem embarrassed at the thought of what you have to say next. That’s what makes it really awkward.”

  The man laughed and again averted his eyes.

  The father: “Are you such a coward in private life, too?”

  After laughing and averting his eyes yet again, the man met the father’s gaze for a moment.

  The father: “Your trouble, I believe, is that you always hold back something of yourself. You’re not shameless enough for an actor. You want to be a personality, like the actors in those American movies, but you never risk your own self. As a result, you’re always posing.”

  The man looked at the woman, but she didn’t come to his rescue.

  The father: “In my opinion you should learn how to run properly and scream properly, with your mouth wide open. I’ve noticed that even when you yawn you’re afraid to open your mouth all the way.” He poked the man in the stomach and the man doubled up. “You haven’t been keeping yourself in trim, either. How long have you been unemployed?”

  The man: “I’ve stopped counting the days.”

  The father: “In your next film make a sign to show that you’ve understood me.”

  The man smacked the palm of his hand with his fist. The father made the same gesture. “That’s it!” He walked away, but called back. “You haven’t even been discovered yet. I’m looking forward to seeing you grow older from film to film.”

  The actor and the woman looked after the old man; before going their ways they began to shake hands, but instantly recoiled from the slight electric shock.

  The woman said, “Everything’s full of electricity in the winter.”

  They separated, but then they found that they were going the same way and proceeded side by side in silence. At the parking lot they overtook the old man. They nodded goodbye but went on together when it turned out that their cars were almost next to each other.

  On the road the woman saw the actor pass her; he was looking straight ahead. She turned into a side road.

  The woman stood on the station platform with her
father and the child. When the train pulled in, she said, “It has done me good to have you here, Father.” She wanted to say something more but only stammered. Her father made various gestures, then suddenly said to the child, who had picked up the suitcases, “You know that I still can’t distinguish colors. But there’s something else I want you to know: I’ll soon be an old man, but I still don’t wear carpet slippers around the house. I’m almost proud of it.” He hopped nimbly up the steps backward and vanished inside the train, which was already in motion. The child said, “He’s not so clumsy after all.”

  The woman: “It’s always been an act with him.”

  They stood on the empty platform—the next train wasn’t due for an hour—and looked at the gently rising mountain behind the town. The woman said, “Let’s climb up there tomorrow. I’ve never been to the top.” The child nodded. “But we can’t dawdle. The days are still very short. Bring your new compass.”

  Late in the afternoon they were at a nearby open-air zoo. A good many people were moving silently through the grounds. A few were standing still and laughing in a hall of mirrors. The sun went down, and most of the visitors headed for the exit. The woman and child stood looking at one of the cages. It was getting dark and windy; they were almost alone. The child drove an electric car around a circular track, and the woman sat on a bench at the edge of the concrete surface.

  She stood up and the child called out, “It’s so nice here. I don’t want to go home yet.”

  The woman: “Neither do I. I only stood up because it’s so nice.” She looked at the western sky, the lower edge of which was still yellow. Against it the leafless branches looked barer than usual. A sudden gust of wind drove some leaves across the concrete. They seemed to come from another season.

  It was dark when they reached the bungalow. There was a letter in the mailbox. The woman recognized Bruno’s handwriting on the envelope and gave the letter to the child. She put the key in the lock but didn’t open the door. The child waited; then finally he asked, “Aren’t we going in?”

  The woman: “Let’s stay out here a little while.”

  They stood for quite some time. A man with an attache case came along and kept looking around at them after he passed.

  That evening, while the woman cooked dinner, slipping into the living room now and then to correct her manuscript, the child read Bruno’s letter to himself in an undertone: “‘Dear Stefan, Yesterday I saw you on your way home from school. I couldn’t very well stop, because I was caught in a column of cars. You had a headlock on your fat friend.’” At this point the reading child smiled. “‘Sometimes it seems to me that you never existed. I want to see you soon and’”—here the reading child frowned—“‘sniff you …’”

  During the night the woman sat alone in the living room and listened to music—the same record over and over again:

  The Left-Handed Woman

  She came with others out of a

  Subway exit,

  She ate with others in a snack bar,

  She sat with others in a Laundromat,

  But once I saw her alone, reading the papers

  Posted on the wall of a newsstand.

  She came with others out of an office building,

  With others she shoved her way up to a

  Market counter,

  She sat with others on the edge of a playground,

  But once I saw her through a window

  Playing chess all alone.

  She lay with others on a grass plot,

  She laughed with others in a

  Hall of mirrors,

  She screamed with others on a roller coaster,

  And after that the only time I saw her alone

  Was walking through my wishful dreams.

  But today in my open house:

  The telephone receiver is facing the wrong way,

  The pencil lies to the left of the writing pad,

  The teacup next to it has its handle on the

  Left,

  The apple beside it has been peeled the wrong way

  (but not completely),

  The curtains have been thrown open from the left

  And the key to the street door is in the left

  Coat pocket.

  Left-handed woman, you’ve given yourself away!

  Or did you mean to give me a sign?

  I want to see you in a foreign continent,

  For there at last I shall see you alone among others,

  And among a thousand others you will see me,

  And at last we shall go to meet each other.

  In the morning the woman and the child, not conspicuously dressed for the mountain, which was not very high, stepped out of the house. They walked past other bungalows, and once they stopped outside one of the almost . windowless housefronts and looked at a brown door to the left and right of which two black-stemmed lanterns had been affixed, as though to decorate a gigantic sarcophagus.

  On the gently rising forest path the sun was perceptible only as a somber light. Turning off the path, they climbed a slope and passed a fishpond, which had been drained for the winter. Deep in the woods they stopped at a Jewish graveyard; the tombstones had sunk halfway into the ground. Farther up, the wind whistled on such a high note that it almost hurt their ears. Here the snow was pure white, while farther down there had been grains of soot on it, and here dog tracks gave way to deer tracks.

  They climbed through underbrush. Birds were singing on every side. Fed by the melting snow, a little brook rushed loudly past. A few dry leaves stirred on the thin branches of the oak trees; strips of white bark hung trembling from the birch trunks.

  They crossed a clearing, at the edge of which some deer stood huddled together. The snow was not very deep; stalks of withered grass peered out and bent in the wind.

  The higher they climbed, the brighter grew the light. Their faces were scratched and sweaty. At the top—it hadn’t been very far—they made a brush fire in the lee of a boulder.

  In the early afternoon they sat by the fire and looked down into the plain, where now and then a car sent up a flash of sunlight; the child had his compass in his hand. Once, far below, a spot shone bright for a time and then vanished—a closed window among many open ones.

  It was so cold that no sooner had the clouds of smoke rising from the fire left the shelter of the boulder than they dispersed into wisps and vanished. The woman and the child ate potatoes that they had brought along in a little sack and roasted in the coals, and drank hot coffee out of a thermos bottle. The woman turned to the child, who was sitting motionless, looking down into the plain. She stroked his back lightly, and he laughed, as though that were the most plausible thing to do.

  After a while she said, “Once you sat by the sea like this, looking at the waves for hours. Do you remember?”

  The child: “Of course I remember. It was getting dark, but I didn’t want to go. You and Bruno were angry because you wanted to go back to the hotel. You were wearing a green skirt and a white blouse with lace cuffs, and a wide hat that you had to hold on to because the wind was blowing. There weren’t any shells on that beach, only round stones.”

  The woman: “When you start remembering, I’m always afraid you’ll confound me with something I did long ago.”

  The child: “Next day Bruno pushed you into the water with your clothes on as a joke. You were wearing brown shoes that fastened with a button …”

  The woman: “But do you also remember the evening when you lay motionless on your back in the sandbox outside the house and didn’t stir a muscle?”

  The child: “I don’t know anything about that.”

  The woman said, “Then it’s my turn to remember. Your head was resting on your hands and one leg was bent at the knee. It was summer, a clear moonless night; the sky was full of stars. You lay on your back in the sand and no one dared say a word to you.”

  After a time the child said, “Maybe because it was so quiet in the sandbox.”

  They loo
ked down into the plain, ate and drank. Abruptly the woman laughed and shook her head. Then she told him a story. “Years ago I saw some pictures by an American painter. There were fourteen of them. They were supposed to be the Stations of the Cross—you know, Jesus sweating blood on the Mount of Olives, being scourged, and so on. But these paintings were only black-and-white shapes—a white background and crisscrossing black stripes. The next-to-last station—where Jesus is taken down from the cross—was almost all black, and the last one, where Jesus is laid in the tomb, was all white. And now the strange part of it: I passed slowly in front of the pictures, and when I stopped to look at the last one, the one that was all white, I suddenly saw a wavering afterimage of the almost black one; it lasted only a few moments and then there was only the white.”

  The child tried to whistle but couldn’t manage it in the cold. The woman said, “Let’s take a picture before we go.”

  The child photographed her with an ungainly old Polaroid camera. The picture showed her very much from below, looking down; behind her there was only sky and the barest suggestion of the treetops. The woman pretended to be horrified. “So that’s how grownups look to children!”

  At home she got into the bathtub and the child got in with her. They both leaned back and closed their eyes. The child said, “I can still see the trees on the mountain.” Steam rose from the water. The child whistled in the bathtub and the woman looked at him almost severely.

  Later she sat up straight at the typewriter and typed rapidly. In the twilight the colony looked as though it belonged to the forest, which rose up behind it, and to the darkening sky.

  In the morning the woman, among others, walked about the pedestrian zone of the small town; she was carrying a rumpled, tired-looking plastic bag. One of the people up ahead of her was Bruno. She followed him. After a while he turned around as though by chance, and instantly she said, “The other day I saw a sweater that would be just right for you in that shop.” She took his arm and they went in. A salesgirl was sitting, resting, with a mannequin behind her. Her eyes were closed and her hands, which were somewhat red and rough, lay in her lap; her brows were drawn together as though relaxation were painful, and the corners of her mouth drooped. She jumped up as they came in, upsetting her chair and stumbling over a clothes hanger that was lying on the floor.