Homo Faber

by Max Frisch

  15 July, Düsseldorf.

  What the young technician whom the gentlemen of Hencke-Bosch placed at my disposal thought of me, I don’t know; I can only say that I kept a grip of myself that morning as long as I could.

  A multi-storey building with chromium fittings.

  I considered it my duty as a friend to inform the gentlemen in Düsseldorf what their plantation in Guatemala looked like, that is to say I flew from Lisbon to Düsseldorf without thinking what I was really going to do or say in Düsseldorf, and now there I sat after a friendly reception.

  ‘I’ve got some films,’ I said.

  I had the impression they had already written the plantation off; they were feigning interest purely out of politeness.

  ‘How long will your films take?’

  I was really only a nuisance.

  ‘What do you mean accident?’ I said. ‘My friend hanged himself – didn’t you know that?’

  Of course they knew.

  I had the feeling they didn’t take me seriously, but there was no getting out of it now, my coloured films from Guatemala had to be shown. The technician who had been detailed to get everything ready in the board-room only irritated me; he was very young and a pleasant fellow, but superfluous, I needed a projector, a screen and a cable, I didn’t need a technician.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Not at all, sir,’ he said.

  ‘I know the projector,’ I said.

  I couldn’t get rid of him.

  It was the first time I had seen the films myself (none of them cut yet), well aware that they were full of repetition, inevitably; I was amazed how many sunsets there were, three in the Tamaulipas desert alone, anyone would have thought I was travelling in sunsets, ridiculous; I felt downright ashamed of what the young technician must think of me, hence my impatience…

  ‘It won’t go any clearer, sir.’

  Our Land Rover on the Rio Usumancinta.

  Zopilotes at work.

  ‘Go on,’ I said, ‘please.’

  Then the first Indians who appeared that morning and told us their señor was dead, then the end of the reel – change of reel, which took some time; while we chatted about Ektachrome. I was sitting in an armchair smoking, because I had nothing to do, beside me the empty directors’ chairs; only they didn’t rock to and fro in the wind.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Carry on.’

  Now Joachim dangling from the wire.

  ‘Stop,’ I said, ‘please!’

  The shot was unfortunately very dark, you couldn’t see at once what it was, there was not enough light, because it was taken inside the hut with the same stop as had been used before for the zopilotes on the donkey outside in the morning sun. I said:

  ‘That is Dr Joachim Hencke.’

  He looked at the screen.

  ‘It won’t go any clearer, sir – I’m sorry.’

  That was all he had to say.

  ‘Go on, please,’ I said.

  Again Joachim at the end of the wire, but this time from the side, so that you could see better what was going on; it was curious, it not only made no impression on my young technician, it made none on me either, it was just a film such as one had seen many times before, a newsreel, the stench was missing, it lacked reality, the young technician and I discussed lighting, meanwhile the grave appeared, surrounded by praying Indians, the whole thing much too longwinded, then suddenly the Palenque ruins, the Palenque parrot. End of the reel.

  ‘Do you think we could have a window open,’ I said. ‘It’s like the tropics in here.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  The trouble was that the customs had muddled up my reels and also that the more recent reels (taken after my sea voyage) had no labels on them; I only wanted to show the gentlemen of Hencke-Bosch, who were due at 11.30, the films dealing with Guatemala. What I was looking for now was my last visit to Herbert.

  ‘Stop,’ I said. ‘That’s Greece.’

  ‘Greece?’

  ‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘Stop!’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  The young man was getting on my nerves with his obliging ‘Very good, sir,’ his condescending ‘Very good, sir,’ as though he was the only man who understood a projector like this, the nonsense he talked about optics, which he knew nothing about, but especially his ‘Very good, sir’ and his air of superiority.

  ‘There’s nothing for it, sir, we must run them all through and look at them, if the reels aren’t labelled.’

  It wasn’t his fault that the reels weren’t labelled; I had to admit that.

  ‘It begins with Herbert Hencke,’ I said, ‘with Herbert Hencke, a man with a beard in a hammock – as far as I remember.’

  Lights out, darkness, the hum of the projector.

  It was a game of pure chance! The first few feet were enough: Ivy on the pier in Manhattan, Ivy waving taken with my tele-lens, morning sun on the Hudson, the black tugs, Manhattan skyline, gulls…

  ‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Next one, please.’

  Change of reels.

  ‘You must have been half-way around the world, sir, I’d like to do that…’

  It was 11 o’clock.

  I had to take my tablets, in order to be fit when the gentlemen of the firm arrived, tablets without water, I didn’t want anyone to notice.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘not that one either.’

  Another change of reels.

  ‘That was the station in Rome, wasn’t it?’

  I made no reply, but waited for the next reel. I watched keenly so as to be ready to stop it at once. I knew there would be Sabeth aboard ship, Sabeth playing ping-pong on the promenade deck (with her friend with the toothbrush moustache) and Sabeth in her bikini, Sabeth sticking her tongue out at me when she realized I was filming her – this must all be in the first reel that began with Ivy; so we put that aside. But there were another six or seven reels lying on the table and suddenly, as was only to be expected, there she is – as large as life – Sabeth on the screen. In colour.

  I stood up.

  Sabeth in Avignon.

  But I didn’t stop the film, I let the whole reel run through, although the operator told me several times that it couldn’t be Guatemala.

  I can still see that film.

  Her face that will never exist again.

  Sabeth in the mistral, she is walking into the wind, the terrace, the Jardin des Papes, everything is fluttering, her hair, her skirt like a balloon, Sabeth by the balustrade, waving.

  Her movements.

  Sabeth feeding pigeons.

  Her laughter, but silent.

  The Pont d’Avignon, the old bridge that breaks off in the middle. Sabeth is showing me something, the face she makes when she notices that I am taking a film instead of looking where she is pointing, the way she wrinkles her forehead between the brows, she is saying something.

  Landscapes.

  The water of the Rhône, cold, Sabeth tries it with her toe and shakes her head; evening sunshine, my long shadow shows on the film.

  Her body that no longer exists.

  The Roman amphitheatre at Nîmes.

  Breakfast under plane trees, the waiter bringing us a second basket of brioches, Sabeth chatting to the waiter, Sabeth looking at me, she fills my cup with black coffee.

  Her eyes that no longer exist.

  The Pont du Gard.

  Sabeth buying postcards to send to Mamma; Sabeth in her black jeans, not knowing I am filming her; Sabeth tossing back her pony-tail.

  The Hôtel Henri IV.

  Sabeth is sitting on the low window seat, her legs crossed, barefoot, eating cherries, looking down into the street below and spitting out the stones, it is raining.

  Her lips…

  Sabeth talking to a French mule, which, in her opinion, is too heavily loaded.

  Her hands…

  Our Citroën, Model 57.

  Her hands, that no longer exist anywhere, she is stroking the mule, her arms, that no longer exist anywhere.<
br />
  Bullfighting at Arles.

  Sabeth combing her hair, a hair-slide between her young teeth, once more she realizes I am filming her and takes the slide out of her mouth so as to say something to me, she is probably telling me to stop filming her, suddenly she can’t help laughing.

  Her healthy teeth…

  Her laugh that I shall never hear again.

  Her young forehead.

  A procession (also in Arles, I think), Sabeth is craning her neck and smoking with eyes narrowed because of the smoke, her hands in her trouser pockets. Sabeth standing on a plinth to see over the heads of the crowd. Baldachins, probably the sound of bells, but inaudible, the Mother of God, the choir boys singing, but inaudible.

  An avenue in Provence, an avenue of plane trees.

  Our picnic by the roadside. Sabeth drinking wine. She has difficulty in drinking out of the bottle, she closes her eyes and tries again, then she wipes her mouth, she can’t manage it, she hands the bottle back to me with a shrug of the shoulders.

  Pine trees in the mistral.

  Her walk…

  Sabeth goes over to a kiosk to buy cigarettes. Sabeth walking. Sabeth, in her usual black jeans, she stands on the edge of the pavement looking to the left and right, her pony-tail swings as she turns her head, then she crosses the street diagonally towards me.

  Her springy walk.

  More pines in the mistral.

  Sabeth asleep, her mouth half open, a child’s mouth, her loose hair, her seriousness, her closed eyes.

  Her face, her face…

  Her breathing body…

  Marseilles. Bulls being shipped in the port, the brown bulls are led on to the outspread net, then it is drawn up, their terror, the way they suddenly lose consciousness as they hang in mid-air, their four legs sticking out through the meshes of the great net, their epileptic-looking eyes.

  Pines, in the mistral; again.

  L’Unité d’Habitation (Corbusier).

  By and large, the lighting of this film is not bad, anyhow it’s better than the reels of Guatemala; the colours have turned out superb, I’m amazed.

  Sabeth picking flowers.

  This time (at last!) I have waved the camera about less, hence the movements of the objects come out much more distinctly.

  Surf.

  Her fingers, Sabeth sees a cork oak for the first time, her fingers breaking the bark, then she throws it at me!

  (A defect in the film.)

  Surf at noonday, nothing else.

  Sabeth combing her hair again, it’s wet, her head is tilted back as she combs, she doesn’t see that I am filming her and talks to me while she combs, her hair is darker than usual because it’s wet, more chestnut, her green comb is evidently full of sand, she cleans it, her marble skin with drops of water glistening on it, she is still talking to me.

  Submarines at Toulon.

  The young tramp with the lobster that moves. Sabeth is frightened when the lobster moves.

  Our little hotel at Le Trayaz.

  Sabeth sitting on a jetty.

  More surf.

  (Much too long!)

  Sabeth out on the jetty again, this time she is standing, our dead daughter, and singing, her hands in her trouser pockets once more, she imagines she is absolutely alone and sings, but inaudibly.

  End of the reel.

  *

  I don’t know what the young technician thought and said about me when the gentlemen arrived; I was sitting in the dining car (the Helvetia Express or the Schauinsland Express, I can’t remember which now) drinking Steinhäger. I can scarcely remember how I left the Hencke-Bosch building either; without an explanation and without an excuse, I just got up and walked out.

  Only I left the films behind.

  I told the young technician I had to go and thanked him for his help. I went into the antechamber, where I had left my hat and coat, and asked the young lady for my briefcase, which was still in the directors’ office. I was already standing by the lift; it was 11.32 and everyone was ready for the performance, when I asked them to excuse me because I was suffering from pains in the stomach (which wasn’t true at all) and got into the lift. They wanted to take me back to my hotel by car, or to hospital; but I hadn’t pains in the stomach really. I thanked them and went on foot. Without haste, with no idea where to go to; I didn’t know what present-day Düsseldorf looked like, I walked through the city with traffic bumper to bumper, disregarding the traffic lights, I believe, as though blind. I went to the booking-office and bought a ticket, then I boarded the first train out. I sat in the dining-car drinking Steinhäger and looking out of the window, I wasn’t crying, I just didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want to be anywhere. What was the use of looking out of the window? There was nothing for me to see. Her two hands, that no longer existed anywhere, her movements as she tossed the pony-tail towards the back of her head or combed her hair, her teeth, her lips, her eyes that no longer existed anywhere, her forehead – where could I look for them? All I wished was that I had never existed. What was the use of returning to Zurich? What was the use of going to Athens? I sat in the dining car thinking. Why not take these two forks, hold them upright in my hands and let my head fall, so as to get rid of my eyes?

  My operation has been fixed for tomorrow.

  PS.

  All the time I was travelling I had no idea what Hanna did after the calamity. Not a single letter from Hanna. Even now I don’t know. When I ask her, all she replies is ‘What can I do?’ I no longer understand anything. How can Hanna stand me, after all that has happened? She comes here and goes away and comes back, she brings me anything I need, she listens to me. What does she think? Her hair has grown whiter. Why doesn’t she tell me I have ruined her life? I can’t picture her life after all that has happened. For one moment alone I understood Hanna – when she hammered my face with her fists beside the deathbed. Since then I have never understood her.

  16 July. Zurich.

  I believe that I travelled from Düsseldorf to Zurich merely because I hadn’t seen my native city for several decades.

  There was nothing for me to do in Zurich.

  Williams was expecting me in Paris.

  In Zurich, when he drew up alongside me and stepped out of his car to greet me, I once more failed to recognize him; just like the last time – a skull with skin stretched over it, the skin like yellowish leather, his balloon-like tummy, his protruding ears, his cordiality, his death’s head laugh, his eyes still alive but sunken. I only knew that I knew him, but for the first moment I didn’t know who he was.

  ‘Always in a hurry,’ he laughed, ‘always in a hurry.’

  What was I doing in Zurich?

  ‘You don’t recognize me again?’ he asked.

  He looked ghastly, I didn’t know what to say, of course I recognized him, it was only the initial shock and then the fear that I might put my foot in it. I said:

  ‘Of course I have time.’

  Then we went together to the Café Odéon.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you that time in Paris,’ I said.

  He bore no ill will, he laughed, I listened, my eyes on his old teeth, it only looked as though he was laughing, his teeth were far too large, his muscles were no longer strong enough for a face that wasn’t laughing, it was a conversation with a death’s head, I had to pull myself together to prevent myself from asking Professor O. when he was going to die. He laughed:

  ‘What’s that you’re drawing, Faber?’

  I was drawing on the little marble table, that was all, a spiral, there was a fossilized snail in the yellow marble, hence my spiral – I put my propelling pencil away and we discussed the world situation, his laughter disturbed me so much that I simply couldn’t think of anything to say.

  I wasn’t very talkative, he remarked.

  One of the Odéon waiters, Peter, an old Viennese, still recognized me; he thought I hadn’t changed.

  Professor O. laughed.

  He thought it a pity I had
n’t delivered my dissertation (on the so-called Maxwell’s demon) before I left Zurich.

  The Odéon tarts were just the same as ever.

  ‘Didn’t you know,’ he laughed, ‘that they are going to pull down the Odéon?’

  All of a sudden he asked:

  ‘How’s your lovely daughter?’

  He had seen Sabeth as we said good-bye in the café after meeting in Paris – ‘the other day, in Paris’, as he put it. That was the afternoon before Sabeth and I went to the Opéra, the eve of our honeymoon. All I said was:

  ‘How did you know she was my daughter?’

  ‘I just thought so!’

  He laughed as he said it.

  I had no reason for being in Zurich, that same day (after my chat in the Odéon with Professor O.) I went out to Kloten to complete my journey by plane.

  My last flight!

  Another Super-Constellation.

  It was really a smooth flight, the foehn was blowing only gently above the Alps, which I knew to some extent from my youth but had never flown over before, it was a blue afternoon with the usual wall of clouds piled up by the foehn. the Vierwaldstättersee, to the right the Wetterhorn and behind it the Eiger and Jungfrau and possibly the Finsteraahorn, my knowledge of our mountains is a bit rusty these days, I have other things on my mind…

  What exactly?

  Valleys in the slanting light of late afternoon, mountainsides covered in shadow, gorges filled with shadow and streaked by white streams, willows in the slanting light, haystacks red in the sun, a flock in a hollow full of scree beyond the edge of the forest – like white maggots! (Of course Sabeth would have thought of some other comparison, but I don’t know what.) My forehead against the cold windowpane filled with idle thoughts…

  The wish to smell hay.

  Never to fly again.

  The wish to walk on earth – there beneath the last firs standing in the sunshine, to smell their resin and listen to the water, which is probably roaring, to drink water.