On a Dark Night I Left My Silent House

by Peter Handke

  * * *

  Shading their eyes with their hands, the three looked around the street festival. The door they were seeking was closed, the only one on the street that was. What appeared to be many lights inside was merely the reflection of those outside. Otherwise the building matched the others—long and low to the ground, no higher than a hut, it blended seamlessly with the houses to its right and left, and, white-stuccoed like them, formed an unbroken row. True, smoke was puffing from the chimney, from a wood fire. The customary curtain of glass or metal beads was missing from the doorway, and there was no doorbell.

  The poet seemed in no hurry to knock and enter. It was as if he were waiting to make a grand entrance on the street, with the other two as his entourage. But although he’d spent several years here, and supposedly had also been a celebrity in these parts, no one recognized him anymore, or they overlooked him (even when he drew attention to himself, as now, he wasn’t conspicuous). At most, someone might be taken aback for a moment, but then didn’t know what to do with him. Nor did he recognize anyone. “They’ve all moved away,” he said. One time he was about to greet a former neighbor, and it was the neighbor’s son, who even when the poet introduced himself and provided some unmistakable information about himself, the former neighbor, and the history of the street, remained a stranger, as much a stranger as a person can be to anyone.

  “Nothing gets passed down anymore,” he said, and then, when it happened again, and the person he took for a former neighbor turned out to be her granddaughter, “What time am I living in? Have I completely lost track of time?”

  No one at the street festival recognized the former Olympic champion, but there was one obvious reason for that: Even if you’d remembered an earlier photo of him, you would never have connected it with the picture he presented now; in the quarter century since, the gold-medalist’s appearance had changed so much that not a single feature in his face was the same, as if he’d had an operation, yet without a real operation; and not only his skin color but even his eye color was different, or altered; hence the shock would be all the greater if someone did recognize him, this man who in the guise of someone-or-other wasn’t shocking at all: “No, it can’t be you! For heaven’s sake!” At any rate, the champion skier had heard this exclamation a few times in his own country. But here: no chance, or also no danger of that.

  The only one of them who was spoken to in the crowd, and not just once, was the one who walked behind the other two, half in their shadow: their driver. “You were on TV recently, in a Western!” — “I know you: You’re the doctor who found the cure for whatever-it-was, aren’t you?” — “Hi, what brings you to our godforsaken country and our out-of-this-world region, and to this dead end of all dead-end streets?” But he, for his part, didn’t respond to any of this, acted as though he didn’t speak the language, and thus managed to avoid revealing the fact that he’d lost the power of speech; the poet and athlete helped him out by playing along with the mistaken identities and taking on the role of his bodyguards, interpreters, and general spokesmen.

  * * *

  But most of the people on that long street, which every few steps changed into another festival venue, weren’t just entirely preoccupied with themselves but also served as their own stars. That was a fairly familiar phenomenon among the many young people gathered outside, and there was even something cheering, occasionally gratifying, and then endearing about this, also because of the way they traveled in packs. “The world’s their oyster,” the poet remarked at the sight of one such group of youths clearing themselves a path—all the others had to squeeze by them—or at the sight of a couple, both of whom were trying to find their reflection in each other’s faces, and, once it was found, growing more intimate and waxing doubly or triply tender, or at the sight of a person standing alone in the semidarkness and caressing him- or herself, or allowing the nocturnal wind to do it.

  “It’s not true,” the poet commented, “that Narcissus was in love with his own reflection. What actually happened is that he was gifted or cursed with an overwhelming love for the world. He was born and grew up filled with tenderness toward all beings and phenomena, from his fingertips to the most remote corners of the universe. Young Narcissus was the soul of devotion and affection, and wished for nothing more than to take the whole world in his arms. But the world, at least the human world, didn’t permit that, recoiled from him, didn’t return his loving gaze. His enthusiasm for existence and his devotion to the known and unknown alike couldn’t find an anchor anywhere. And so, as time passed, he had to find an anchor in himself. And so Narcissus, that great lover of the world, clung to himself. And so he ultimately came to grief. But it was good that way after all, better that way: He could have become a world conqueror, a winner of battles, a statesman, sociologist, a preacher, a scourge of God, a prophet, the founder of a religion, a national or universal poet.” — “I assume you know what you’re talking about,” the Olympic champion replied. — “Yes,” said the poet, “and I myself never set my heart on creating something beautiful or exemplary or useful, or even immortal. Maybe that would have been the right thing for me eventually. But first and foremost I always wanted to do good, just good. Yes, do good. Except that I didn’t realize this until it was too late.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t just the young people at the nocturnal street festival who took the part of protagonists. Next to one of the bonfires was an infant in its carriage who had apparently just learned to sit up and kept pointing at a lamb the adults were roasting over the fire and shouting at them, as if he were in charge there, and at the same time he would look around the circle of bystanders for an audience, to see whether people were admiring him sufficiently. The priest, waiting out in front of the church there on the street, which was hardly larger than the houses, for the people who would attend the evening festival Mass, was standing on a rock pushed up to the entrance, since the little church had no steps, and scrutinizing everyone who strolled by, and even more closely those coming in, like the patrolman on duty. One older man with leprosy—so they still had that here? yes!—noseless, lipless, almost earless, stood on the brightest spot on the street—in the spotlights intended for a musical group that wasn’t there yet—and kept turning his head in search of people he could approach, not for a conversation but only for his, the faceless one’s, tirade, consisting almost entirely of obscenities: Amidst the formless blur of his features, his sharply outlined, youthful eyes sparkled all the more intensely; while next to him, in the beam of light, an ancient madwoman danced, her face turned up toward the night sky; anyone who tried to ignore her she punished with a most supercilious gaze.

  * * *

  Thus they made their way to the end of the street. What came after that, if anything, couldn’t be made out, because of the wall of light. Besides, the last summons to Mass was now sounded by the church bell, actually more like a hammering on an empty tin can suspended there, and with these few strokes the street emptied out. Only here and there was a fire watch left outside.

  The strangers also found themselves swept along for the service. And it seemed as though the priest, now inside at the tiny little altar, dressed in his festal vestments, teetering on tiptoe as if prepared for battle, had been waiting just for them. After he’d looked searchingly at all the others—amazing how many visitors had found standing room in the church, which the hundreds of candles made even smaller—they suddenly received from him a profoundly cordial, welcoming glance.

  Similarly, the people from the street seemed transformed during the celebration of the Mass, or at least each lost his noticeable and idiosyncratic features, and that for a while afterward. A picture hung above the altar, apparently painted and mounted just for the occasion, showing the ascension of the Blessed Virgin; all you could see down below were her naked feet, the soles black like a peasant woman’s, and, up above, her eyes, gazing heavenward. In between was a large, colorful cloud, probably easier for an amateur to paint than the whole body
.

  While the poet, like most of those in the church, went up to take Communion, followed by the athlete, who simply imitated him in this, as in so many things, the third man finally had time to read the letter that had been planted on him. It read as follows: “You threw your son out in a wrongful fit of anger. As punishment, a mark grew on your forehead, from which you will die. True, it has been cut out for now. But I shall see to it that it grows back. Even if I have to strike you another ten times. Yes: have to. For it hurt me, too. And have a good night in Santa Fe, on the edge of the steppe!”

  * * *

  After Mass he stayed in the church a while longer. His two traveling companions had gone out to find the poet’s child. And despite the aura of candles and incense and the aroma of roasting meat wafting in from the street, here that other smell, borne from far away by the nocturnal wind, again proved dominant. “I pricked up my ears,” he told me, “as if smells and listening were somehow related!” And at the same time he watched two young women who were standing in a specially lit corner of the church by a statue of the dead Son of God stretched out there.

  The corpse was almost naked, life-sized and in all the colors of life, yet also glazed so that each feature of the body of Christ, wrought by the sculptor with utmost delicacy, acquired a special sheen. And, as was apparently customary in the latitude of this nocturnal-wind town, the two girls now bent over this lifelike body, and kissed it from top to toe. They did so gently, almost without touching the forehead, eyes, mouth, and so on with their lips, and with their praying hands pressed to their breasts. Only at the end, when they straightened up and cast one more glance at the man stretched out there, did one of them run her hand quickly across the dead man’s hips, tracing the curve there with her fingertips, then cast up her eyes at the second young woman, who eyed her back, one suddenly the spitting image of the other, eyebrows raised, both smiling with lips closed, as if they were accomplices, both in the know. And they wouldn’t have been surprised if upon another such caress their supposedly dead god had suddenly begun to rouse beneath their hands.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, there was a reviewing stand outside for the street-festival queen with her ladies-in-waiting and pages. And here he also found his passengers.

  In the minutes of growing stillness that preceded the appearance of the royal retinue, the poet again talked quietly, as if conversing with himself, and yet as if he knew the driver’s thoughts and had read the menacing letter addressed to him. He said more or less the following: “Lately mutual hostility has been planted between woman and man. These days men and women are furious at each other, without exception. I, for instance, haven’t had an enemy in a long time—and am no longer suitable to be one myself—but if I have one, it’s a woman. It’s not only that we’re not loved anymore; they’re fighting us. And if love enters the picture, all it does is unleash war. Sooner or later the woman who loves you will be disappointed, in one way or another, and you won’t even know why. She’s seen through you, she’ll explain, but without telling you in what respect. And she won’t let you forget for a minute that you’ve been seen through. For at the same time she’ll hardly ever leave you alone, or at any rate far less than before in lovemaking. And with her constantly there, you can hardly get away from the bad opinion she has of you. Of course, you don’t think of yourself as a swindler, liar, and cheat, and would still like to be a good man in her eyes, as in the beginning. But you’re forced to see yourself as all that and worse: in and with her eyes, which from now on won’t let you go, and in which, no matter what you do or don’t do, you’ll find confirmation of her bad opinion, her bitter disappointment. Try as you will: You are and will remain the one who’s been seen through. Nothing about you can surprise the woman now. Even if you manage to fulfill her most secret dreams and wishes in life, she’ll merely raise her eyebrows as her gaze comes to rest on you. And if you die for her, she’ll still be there bending over you, thereby keeping you from seeing anything else, even in your last seconds. Yes, nowadays hatred is the lot of man and woman from the beginning. Never was there as much filth and contamination between the sexes as there is today. And the only ones who aren’t filthy are the stupid ones. Maybe that was always the case. But if so, certainly never so blatantly and so nakedly. Did we use to suffer each other in silence? And perhaps what we have now is better? At any rate, it’s happening all over, not just to me and you. There’s not a single couple, whether touchingly young or old and dignified, that couldn’t suddenly experience an outbreak of dissension in some situation or other, and that happens today without exception—even if it gets covered up afterward—dissension for which the potential existed between woman and man from the beginning, at least in our own era. And in that case it’s better to hit each other immediately, the first time you meet, don’t you think? Instead of a penetrating look, instead of blushing and going pale, instead of feeling a stab in the heart, you should go at each other tooth and nail, don’t you think? And why don’t modern men and women leave one another in peace—at least for a while? I, at least, have been left in peace for a long time now.”

  * * *

  Then they sat at one of the long outdoor tables and dined with the residents from the street. And at last the royal entourage assembled on the reviewing stand across the way. They were all very young people, some of whom they’d already seen standing around by themselves. The girls and boys had lost their earlier allures and seemed perfectly natural, and not just by virtue of their costumes, dark ones. The way they were now, and the way they behaved with each other, was the way they were in reality. Up on the platform they weren’t playing roles, didn’t need to pose. They were all noble damsels or noble gentlemen by birth, or whatever the names were for such folk. And it wasn’t their robes, diadems, or fans that did it, but the way they took their places and let themselves be looked at.

  This effortless nobility communicated itself to the audience. It was the festival queen above all who, without lifting a finger, united the individuals on the street into a people. That came from the kind of beauty displayed by this young woman, who outside of the festival was probably just an adolescent, almost a child still. Nothing about her way of being beautiful was provocative or exciting. Or if it was exciting, then in the sense of getting things moving, of stirring up memories of something undefined, unclear, which became clear only now, in this moment. A beauty streamed from this queen-girl that touched everyone watching down below, as if this child were a close relative, the closest.

  And then someone in the audience actually identified himself as such a relative. While the musicians began to play their trumpets and clarinets at the feet of the royal entourage, the driver heard a completely unfamiliar voice ring out right next to him, shouting an incomprehensible name. It was the poet shouting—the name of his daughter? Whom he was seeing for the first time? And he bawled in her direction that he was her father, almost screeching: “I’ve come, it’s me, your father.” And to the people who turned to look, “Yes, I’m her father!”

  The queen turned toward him without losing her air of being-there-for-everyone. For a moment she showed joy, very briefly, yet in such a way that if this joy had had time to spread across her entire face, it would have been the most beautiful part of the festival.

  “But that didn’t happen,” the pharmacist told me. “All of a sudden the girl became ugly. It was shock that did it. While she was apparently still looking at her father, in truth it was something in the back. I must describe this briefly: In the background a couple of policemen had just appeared. And then they arrested the little queen, in front of everyone. As they led her away, she looked back over her shoulder, seeking out her father. He promptly dropped everything and ran after her, accompanied by the athlete. After the poet and his friend had shown their identification, all three of them drove off in the police car. I stayed sitting there alone, motionless.”

  “And then? What then?” I asked. “Wasn’t the girl’s mother also nearby, the poet’s
former lover?”

  “No.”

  “Had she died?”

  “In my story no one dies,” the pharmacist of Taxham replied. “Sometimes sad things happen, occasionally almost desperate things. But a death is out of the question.”

  “So: what was going on with her?”

  “Have you forgotten? Leave it vague. Let’s leave the business with the queen’s mother vague. — Though I won’t leave vague my reason for remaining seated, motionless, as the girl was taken away. You see, one time I witnessed just such a scene with my son. The gendarmes came to the house and took him away, with his hands twisted behind his back. And he looked back at me just like the poet’s daughter. To this day I don’t know why she was arrested. But my son was a thief. I mean, the first time he was arrested, he’d just been copying the little thefts his schoolmates pulled off for fun. He wasn’t exactly an outsider, but in his age group he was always the last one to experience the things that solidified their group identity, and did so clearly without conviction or pleasure—just to be included. They phoned me to come and get him from the police station. For the moment he received only a warning, and was supposed to attend a few ‘reeducation sessions’ at the youth services agency. Out on the street in front of the police station I took my son in my arms. When I’d tried that at other times, I’d always felt him stiffen. This time he didn’t. And we both cried. But then I hit him, hard, in the face. I can’t explain it, except perhaps that of all illegal acts the one that always disgusted me the most was stealing. I even despise the gestures that go along with it—the sticky fingers, things being tucked into a pocket or jacket. And the facial expressions and twitches of a thief, even just an occasional thief, as he does his deed—a professional thief probably doesn’t move a muscle—also disgust me, as if I were witnessing the most unnatural act imaginable. On the other hand, my sense of solidarity with my son had never been as strong as during those few minutes in front of the police station. One time, later, after his departure and disappearance, I even committed a theft myself, just a tiny little one—pilfering a pack of chewing gum, or a pencil. Still! Yet that didn’t bring him back to me, either.”