by Peter Handke
“The project died …”—“‘Dying’ is a typo, actually it should say ‘dried’!”—“Of fear?”—“A projectile with a cross-notch at the tip …”—“Quietly!”—“Died?”—“Very quietly!” —“I’m dying.”—“What was the name of that bar?”—“DumDum!” —“Of laughter?”—“I can’t go on!”—“Blood?”—“Into the blood!”—“As for me, he died!”—“Died for all of us …”—“Quiet!”-“Psst!”—“Silence!”—(silence)—“An angel walked through the room!”—“Oh, Harlem … !”—“Yes.” —“Unforgettable those tulip fields!”—“Haarlem …”—“Yeasz …”
“ … shaking with fear!”—“Pardon the question: ‘Shaking with fear’?”—Someone else in the background: “ … shake well before use!”—“Excuse me!”
“ … could be seen from far away: fucked the cows …” —“Fucked?”—“Forgot the cows, John Wayne. I believe, I forgot the name of the film.”—Someone farther away: “Knocked out her teeth!”—“Who knocked her up?”-And someone even farther away: “Knocked them down with bombs.”
Continuing at once: “Rammed a rod up his ass!”—Louder: “Ramrods have passed.”—Quite comprehensible but not too loud, recited negligently like verse: “ … rambling through the brambles of glass … / … roaring through the riptide of grass …” To his partner: “Do you still remember?” The partner lowers his or her head, smiles, and walks on: “Whether W. C. Fields slipping freely …” The first one, more softly: “Sipping.”—Even more softly: “What simpering?” The sound of someone becoming louder emanates from an altogether different spot: “ … . chalice of sorrow …” Now the first of the two partners walks on smiling. And on: “And a bit of spit on the fly which …” The lady with the fan in the background.—“Yes, the tits of my girl Friday.” One thereupon thinks one hears one of the two partners saying.—“No, a dog that bit off my clitoris(?) …”
While stepping-slowly-forward: “ … and I tasted …” Correcting himself while approaching: “ … which tasted me …”—“ … tasted the soft inside of a … cyst …”—In front by the footlights, humming elatedly with lowered head: “ … a foretaste of heaven …”—A character who is just walking past the lady with the fan says: “Tested me to the utmost,” and one thinks one can still hear the lady with the fan’s partner say—one can’t really make out who is speaking-while the two are edging into the background: “ … cash his cut … taste buds … spit and polish … soft insides got sick … fucked watery corpses at Easter …” while all around on the stage many other characters are walking around chatting, though more softly, and smiling.
Then they recount: “‘Cold,‘he said, ’cold, completely cold.‘”—“‘Ice,’ as she used to say then.”—“‘Like a glance out of a ranch house in Nebraska,’ they told us.”—“‘Where the train got stuck in the snow,’ she wrote back to me.”—“‘Indescribably white!’ she exclaimed.”—“‘No!’ he screamed.”—“‘Light, nothing but light!’ she squealed like a pig on a spit.”—“He cabled: ‘In the chest-high snow where the two, who had become snowblind in the meantime, were surrounded by St. Bernards …’”—“And I replied: ‘And what are you?’”—“‘Put in cold storage,’ I still understood, then the line went dead.”—“‘A mouse?’ I couldn’t resist asking.”—“‘For New Year’s Eve in the fridge!’ he wrote in so many words though the stamp allowed room for one more.”—“The note said in Gothic script: ‘Born dead …’”—“‘The ice pick already lodged in his head,’ I read, ‘he still bit his murderer’s hand.’”—Someone then produces a poor imitation of the sound of “croaking,” a chocking noise with the gums—kch—and his female partner emits a quick light laugh.
For a short while one hears the characters leave out one word in their sentences and sees them casting significant and conspiratorial glances at each other: “You remember how (smirking and nodding of heads) … used take lonely walks with his dog?”—“I don’t need to tell you that … held different opinions on the matter.”—“I often thought of … when I sat in my deck chair.”—“When the radio announcer says … I drop everything at once.”—“For days after … had squeezed my hand my whole body would break out in hives.”—“I can’t forget how … dangled on his suspenders on the hotel room door.”—“It’s unthinkable that … would have gone out on the street without his umbrella.” —“What would have been different if … had succeeded in getting a hit at that time?”—“Not only when I sat on Plymouth Rock did I have to cry about what … told me about death.”—“I often worry myself nearly to death whether Paraguay is really the right place for …”—“Usually one glance by a dark-eyed foreigner in an Indonesian restaurant is enough and I can’t breathe any more and only see … (outraged recollection) in front of me—how he suddenly stepped out from behind the column toward (melancholy recollection) …”
Or they use the wrong instead of the correct word under the assumption that they understand each other anyway. “One should herd them together and then—‘treat them to a good meal!’” (Smirking and gentle laughter.)-“Go after them—‘and slap them on the shoulder!’”—“ … because his ‘shirt tail’ hung out of his ‘door’ …”—“ … When she came up to me and told me that I could ‘visit’ her.”—“All I had to do was ‘smile’ at him and blood began pouring from his nose.”—“ … grabbed between his legs to help him ‘get upstairs.’”—“His dentures fell out of his mouth even before I’d ‘said a single word.’”—“The ‘slight draft’ when we entered the room was enough for him to catch his death of cold.”—“Up on the platform ‘I kissed him on the forehead,’ so that he suddenly lost his balance.”—“Drove him, ‘drove him out of his wits.’”—“Got caught in the fan belt and—‘woke up!’”—“I sent him a ‘get-well card’ registered mail and the man thanked me and dropped dead!”—“He aimed at—‘progress and change!’”—“ … I tried putting the ‘cookie’ in his mouth!!”—“Across the barbed wire—‘into the soft moss of the Okefenokee, …’”—“Cut a ‘piece of bread’ off for him!”—“ … will give her a teaspoonful of ‘cinnamon,’ ‘to taste!’”—“ … so that these bastards will let her ‘come.’”
Then one of the figures in the background tells a joke of which again one only hears the key words, such as “then he said,” “the second time,” “again nothing”; all the other characters except maybe for two or three and the bodyguards are assembled around the narrator at this point. They listen quietly and finally, each in his own way, smile quietly to themselves, scream with laughter, shake their heads in puzzlement, inhale deeply (one of them perhaps out of turn), and then continue to circle about the stage.
From the conversations one has also managed to pick out with increasing frequency sentences which a figure speaks with a slightly raised though not overly excited voice: sentences from the repertoire of politicians when they are forced to defend themselves against catcalls from the audience, and which are useful to them as defense against interjections from the audience but are employed even when there are no interjections. For example: “Anyone who shouts shows that he doesn’t have anything to say.” “I would die to defend your right to speak, but would you do the same for me?” “What you don’t have in your head gets stuck in your throat.” “Your parents don’t seem to have brought you up to let other people finish what they are saying.” “Take one look at these characters and you get a permanent itch in your trigger finger.” “I won’t take back one iota of what I said.” “Our economic accomplishments give us the right not to be constantly reminded of the past.” “Oh, I see the lady is a gentleman!” “Those people with their caveman feelings and their Stone Age laughter want to set back our discussion by a thousand years.” “You don’t even notice how useful you are to us!” “Long hair and dirty fingernails are no proof that you’re right!” “Just take one look at them, that’s what they all look like!” “All I say is: Stalin, Stalin, Stalin!” “There’s only one weapon against radicalism, and that’s the vote.” “They should first con
demn the torture of the prisoners in North Vietnam.” “We are controlled by the iron law of history.” Plus what other set rejoinders of this kind exist [campaign speeches contain some rich pickings.—Trans.]. Not that the characters exaggerate them or address them directly to the audience or someone particular in the audience—rather, they speak them as asides, almost in a monologue, quietly and with finality, while they walk about the stage in their state of extraordinarily malicious and melancholy solitude. If someone fails to recognize this, and wants to join them on the stage, the bodyguards gently and without hurting him or her should lead the person off. To let the person remain on stage would only be a show of disdain.
While all characters begin to busy themselves more and more with themselves—stroking their hair, forehead, cheeks, lips; cracking their joints, picking lint off their clothes, slapping themselves on their arms, stomach, neck, and throat, stopping occasionally to tug at their earlobes—one also hears fragments of monologues which keep breaking off or become inaudible, as though the speakers were ashamed of what they were saying: “ … I decided to join the company as a silent partner …”—“Last night I dreamed of Arizona …”—“ … I saw the people’s faces change color in the completely sold-out stadium …”—“ … I wrapped the boa around my neck and winked at him like Jane …”—“ … I suddenly saw a landscape as quiet and dreamlike as the transparent wing of a butterfly …”—“ … I kept the option of taking further steps …”—“ … at that time when I slipped off a pile of logs in my dream …”—(A lady slowly raises her dress, beneath which she is completely. naked, and slowly lets it fall again.) “ … and I heard my baby sister sighing in the kitchen …”—As though remembering, a few characters shake their heads one after the other and walk on. And while they are already walking again one of them says: “ … while I was about to fall asleep I saw two hanged men dangling from one noose …”
For some time, that is, at least until the audience begins to pay attention, the characters move quietly around the stage like this, with their belt buckles, their collar patches, brooches and rings glinting in the muted light. Then while the chatter gradually subsides, because more and more characters stop talking, one can still hear one of them say: “What, when the pain becomes unbearable you want to simply waste them like animals?” And another replies: “Yes, should animals be any worse off than human beings?” And a little later someone else: “Yes, if I’d defended him at the trial, he might even have been able to wriggle his way out.” And after the chatter has even further subsided—only now does one notice how heavily made up the characters are—the lady with the fan says softly but distinctly: “Even before he touched me I began to cream.” And the two bodyguards, who stand quite far away, exchange obscene gestures. One pushes his thumb out between the middle and index finger of a closed fist; the other immediately replies by making a fist and whopping quickly up and down on the other fist. From the lady with the lapdog one hears, already as a memory, a pretty, long-drawn-out “Ahh …” and at this point it becomes gradually dark on stage and the curtain drops.
Translated by Michael Roloff
The Ride Across Lake Constance
It’s a winter night. A man rides across Lake Constance without sparing his horse. When he arrives on the other side, his friends congratulate him profusely, saying: “What a surprise! How did you ever make it! The ice is no more than an inch thick!” The rider hesitates briefly, then drops off his horse. He is instantly dead.
M.R.
Characters
WOMAN WITH WHITE SCARF
EMIL JANNINGS
HEINRICH GEORGE
ELISABETH BERGNER
ERICH VON STROHEIM
HENNY PORTEN
ALICE AND ELLEN KESSLER
A DOLL
To avoid character designations such as “Actor A,” “Actor B,” “Actress C,” and so on, for reading and other purposes the characters in the play have been given the names of well-known actors.
When the play is staged, the characters should bear the names of the actors playing the roles: the actors are and play themselves at one and the same time.
“Are You Dreaming or Are You Speaking?”
The stage is large. It displays a section of an even larger room. The background is formed by the back wall of this room; the wall is covered by a brownish-green tapestry with a barely perceptibly pattern. Along the back wall two parts of a staircase lead down from the right and left and meet in the center of the wall, where they form a single set of wide stairs, of which a number of steps lead forward into the room. The audience therefore sees persons walking down the stairs first in profile, then from the front. In the wall beneath the right and left parts of the stairway are two barely visible tapestry doors. The staircase has a delicately curved, slender bannister. The floor of the room is covered with an unobtrusive carpet whose color matches the tapestry; a wine-red runner leads down the staircase steps.
Most of the furnishings in the room are covered with dropcloths; these are extremely white. In the center of the room, not precisely center of course, rather almost downstage, stands a large dark table, partially covered by a lace tablecloth; on it are an ashtray, a cigar box, a teapot or coffee pot covered with an embroidered cozy, a longish cutlery case, also of embroidered cloth, and two candlesticks sheathed in protective covers. To the right and left and behind the table stand three fauteuils with white dropcloths; next to and behind them are an easy chair and a straight chair, dropcloths over both. In front of one of the fauteuils stands a stool upholstered the same and the same height as the fauteuil that may serve as a footrest; a smaller footstool stands in front of the second fauteuil; the third fauteuil stands by itself. To the right of the table, a few steps away, stands a small bar, not covered, with several bottles whose forms indicate their respective contents. To the left of the table, a few steps away, stands a newspaper table, not covered either, with a few bulky magazines, some of which are still rolled up; on top is a record player with a record on it. Looking further to the left and right behind the newspaper table and bar one sees two sofas, also concealed by white dropcloths. To the left side of the left sofa is a brown-stained chest, with several drawers; on it a small statue covered with a white paper bag. On the right side of the right sofa leans a guitar in a bag embroidered like the tea cozy. Beneath the sections of the staircase hang two pictures on the wall concealed behind white sheets. Downstage to the extreme right, in line with the table, is a Japanese screen of the kind one usually sets up in front of beds. It is small and has three panels; two of them are slightly pushed together, the third is open and visible to the audience. The screen has the same pattern and color as the back wall.
All objects are in such a position that it would be difficult to imagine them standing elsewhere; it is as though they could not bear being moved ever so slightly. Everything appears as though rooted to the spot, not only the objects themselves but also the distances and empty spaces between them.
The light is that of early morning.
After the curtain has opened, two portieres to the right and left of the proscenium are revealed, as portieres to a chambre séparée.
A WOMAN, her hair wrapped in a WHITE SCARF, moves quickly but not hastily among the objects with a vacuum cleaner. She is in blackface. The vacuum cleaner, which was turned on the moment the curtain began to open, makes a more or less steady noise.
On a fauteuil beside the table, his legs on the appropriate footstool, sits EMIL JANNINGS, his eyes closed. He is quite fat. His boots stand next to the stool. He is wearing red silk socks, black pants, a light-colored shirt, open at the collar. He seems costumed although only hints of a costume are visible: rather long frills on the sleeves of the silk shirt, a wine-red silk sash around his stomach.
He is heavily made up, the eyebrows are painted. On the right hand, whose nails are lacquered black, he wears several large rings.
He has not moved since the curtain opened, and the WOMAN has nearly completed her work.
Pushing the vacuum cleaner back and forth near the newspaper table with one hand, she turns on the record player with the other.
However, one hears only a few isolated sounds; the vacuum cleaner is too noisy.
She takes the cleaner to the back wall and turns it off so that the music becomes audible: “The Garden Is Open” by T. Kupferberg. She pulls the plug out of the socket, rolls it up on the machine, and places the machine behind the tapestry door.
While the record continues to play, she walks from object to object and takes off the dropcloths, except those on the paintings and on the statue. Although she moves fairly slowly, her work is proceeding quite rapidly; at least, one barely notices it. She pulls the cover from under EMIL JANNINGS with a single movement and walks off to the left while the record is still playing.
Then nothing moves onstage for a while except for the record.
The record player turns itself off, and after a moment JANNINGS slowly opens his eyes.
JANNINGS
(With a cracked voice) As I said—(He clears his throat once and repeats in a firm voice.) As I said. (Pause.) A bad moment. (Someone behind the screen with a cracked voice: “Why?” He clears his throat twice; the second time he does so he steps out from behind the screen, repeats then in a firm voice: “Why?” It is HEINRICH GEORGE, quite fat, his clothes also suggesting a costume, with braids trimming his jacket and with lace-up shoes. He stands there. JANNINGS has turned his head away slightly.) It’s over already.
GEORGE
(Takes a step toward JANNINGS and collapses. As he slowly rises again) My foot has fallen asleep.
JANNINGS