Absence by Peter Handke

Author:Peter Handke [Handke, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780413638304
Google: HwyoAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 2070386279
Barnesnoble: 2070386279
Goodreads: 27895
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1987-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

The walkers did not cross the bridge but followed an old mule track along the river. We were heading downstream, but sometimes, when we looked to one side and the waves came fast, we seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, that is, upstream; in the end, the picture became so reversed that we were confused—as at old Westerns, when the stagecoach wheels appear to be moving backward.

Our first stop was at the point where the river emerged from its valley and the bank on our side flattened out into a plain, while the opposite slope, though still steep, receded from the bank in a long arc, leaving room beside the water for a road, a railroad line, and finally fields, before turning into a long mountain chain paralleling the river at a distance.

Here, at the end of the defile, we crossed the river on a high footbridge so narrow that we had to proceed cautiously step by step. From then on, it was a different river, bathed in southern light, shallow, its water dispersing into rivulets between broad banks of gravel. Sparsely inhabited; as far as the eye could see, only an occasional lone fisherman, none of whom so much as raised his head as we hove in sight.

When we came to the road on the other side, we saw why it was unused: it had long fallen into disrepair and had never been open to ordinary traffic; it had been specially built during the world war to carry troops and supplies to the front. Grass was growing in the cracked asphalt; whole bushes and small trees had taken root, and their tops had joined to form a leafy roof. We could have walked comfortably on this straight empty road, with an elastic ribbon of moss under our feet, but our leader motioned us to the railroad embankment that ran parallel to the road.

The railroad had not by any means fallen into disuse. Trains kept passing, those heading upriver gathering speed, those heading downriver slowing down, as though approaching a considerable city—though of such a city we saw no sign. In the trains moving away from the invisible city, the passengers were sitting still, while in those approaching the station, a jolt went through the cars from first to last, ushering in a general rising from seats, and there were also repeated scenes of conductors in seven-league boots racing through the corridors from back to front. After crossing the embankment through an opening shaped like a portal, we took a gently winding path up the mountain slope, wide enough to have permitted us to walk abreast. But all of a sudden our aged leader was in a hurry and apparently wanted to be alone, so that even at the start of the climb we walked in single file. A little later the woman passed him with a cocky side glance, signifying that she no longer needed a leader, and vanished around a bend, only to reappear much later on an open stretch, silhouetted against the sky, high above her companions.

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