by Peter Handke
I too need an order, Keuschnig thought.—But an order presupposed a system.—But for him a system had ceased to be possible.—But then again, what did he need an order for?—To conceal the fact that he no longer had a system.—The only ideas that occur to me are ones I can’t use, he thought.
The next policeman he passed was alone—but even alone he was in harmony. Maybe the uniform does it, Keuschnig thought. Then he passed a solitary man in civilian clothes; his face, too, was in harmony. How human they all seemed in comparison with him. The wind upset a no-parking post, and again he began to see signs of death. He had already passed, but then he went back and set the post up again, as though that might invalidate something.—The next thing he saw, through a slit in the park wall, was a row of empty, overturned sentry boxes on a gravel path. Again he retraced his steps, this time to examine the sentry boxes in every detail—the sight slits on both sides, the little radiator on the rear wall—and turn them back into man-made objects. He even counted the ribs of the radiators: six—that couldn’t mean anything, could it? The next omen was the restaurant on the corner: If it’s recommended in one of the diner’s guides, he thought, nothing can happen; if not—none of the three guides so much as mentioned the place! A police car approached with its blue light and siren operating, and turned into another street. At least the keeper of the newsstand he was just passing, who was putting plastic covers over his papers to shelter them from the impending rain, might for a few moments regard him as an innocent bystander, and for a short while they had something in common. A glass half full of beer stood precariously on a pile of newspapers! Keuschnig wanted to go on, deeper and deeper into space, twirling a cane like …
Borrowed life feelings, which that day the organism instantly rejected. His organism had stopped doing anything but rejecting; once he had eliminated all simulated feelings, there was nothing left of his self, nothing, that is, except the dead weight of an unreality at odds with the whole world. Rejection as aversion to all impulses breathed into him from outside, to the charlatanism of internationally certified forms of experience! True, he could go to see a Humphrey Bogart movie; it was summer, the revival season; Key Largo, for instance, was playing all over town that week. After the picture he would climb the stairs side by side with Bogart and his troublingly moist upper lip, but he also knew that after his first few steps on the street, if not before, he would be alone again, with nothing and no one for a companion, asking himself why he bothered to go on, and where to. No, he wouldn’t delude himself; for him the time of revivals was past; there was no article to be had for money that could help him to cope with his new situation, nor would any system whatever or any amount of research ever get what he needed off the drawing board. What then did he need? What was he looking for? Nothing, he replied; I’M NOT LOOKING FOR ANYTHING. With that thought, he suddenly felt in the right and wanted to defend his right against all comers. Why was he still going under false colors? Was he a public menace? Almost all that day he had only wanted to do things—to bellow, to show his nakedness, to bare his teeth—but except for the one incident with the girl (no particular of which he remembered) he hadn’t actually done anything. Coward, he thought. And at the same time he was terrified of giving himself away the very next moment.
He realized that he wanted to look at the soldier with the bayonet over his arm, who was standing in the sentry box at the entrance to the Elysée Palace. What’s more, he thought, I’m going to do it! He watched the tip of the bayonet swaying back and forth; but when the soldier suddenly began to look at him, he quickly averted his eyes and looked at his watch. How imperturbably the second hand kept running along! There was something almost comforting in the passage of time. Keuschnig went on acting as if; he looked around as if … No, no one to call out to as if he’d been waiting for him. What about that street sweeper —it must be all right to look at him? But in this neighborhood even a street sweeper seemed to sweep as a mere pretext, and someone who watched him couldn’t be an innocent passer-by.
He would have preferred to pass through the gate with other people. Could he be the last? Is that why there was no one else? What time was it? (He had looked at his watch before, as if a mere glance sufficed to tell you the time!) Had he come to the right place? In any case, he could see the French Television truck in the courtyard. He showed his invitation and was waved through the gateway. On the top floor of the Palace a window banged; behind another window a waitress in a white cap passed; the driver of a black Citroen limousine at one of the side entrances pushed down his radio antenna while looking up at the dark sky; a man on a motorbike disappeared through a small gate in the park wall. These happenings made the building seem almost homelike; looking at things was tolerated.—An officer frisked him, another examined his attaché case. Looking between his upraised arms at the lid of the case as the officer carefully reclosed it, Keuschnig thought: At last something is being done with no help from me—something I can watch without taking part. A free second! He wanted to be grateful to someone for something … At that moment, to his surprise, the impersonal touch of the hands patting his shoulders had the feel of an encouragement, and in the next free second, under the spare professional movements of the officer feeling his chest, the ugly, prolonged suffering of that day dissolved into a pleasant, compassionate sadness. This time, thought Keuschnig, I mustn’t forget everything so quickly. Today, at six o’clock in the afternoon, I experienced the touch of those hands, which were only doing their job, as a caress.
He trembled. At the same time his face went blank with anxious self-control. The empty, pompous solemnity of a Fascist, he himself thought. The officer glanced at him in astonishment, then he and his fellow officer laughed very briefly at that stupid face.
Keuschnig had never expected to see anyone run in these surroundings—and now he himself was running across the courtyard, past the potted trees to the main entrance. No one blew a whistle and summoned him to halt. Some men in dark suits approached in the opposite direction, and the moment he saw them he slowed to a walk. He remembered that, as a child, if people came along while he was running he had always stopped and continued at a walk until they passed. Then he had broken into a run again. Now the men had passed—why didn’t he start running?—So many situations, so many places in which he had stopped for people had suddenly occurred to him—so many different people as well—that in recollection he could only walk. And something else had surprised him: that with his first running steps the surroundings, which had receded from him until nothing remained but a number of vanishing points—nothing there for him to look at!—were again surrounding him protectively. Where previously he had seemed to be passing the backs of things, he now saw details, which seemed to exist for him as well as for others.—Running again, Keuschnig noticed glistening puddles in the gravel beside the freshly watered potted trees and in that moment he had a dreamlike feeling of kinship with the world. He stopped still outside the entrance and shook his head as though arguing against his previous disgruntlement. Now he was able to look freely in all directions. Before going in, he cast a last hungry glance over his shoulder to make sure he had missed nothing. How his surroundings had expanded! It took free eyes to see them so rich—so benevolent. Now the sky with its low-lying clouds seemed to be sharing something with him. Keuschnig gnashed his teeth.—As he ran up the stairs, he was surprised to find himself reenacting a run that had happened in a dream. Then, for the first time in a dream, there had been actual motion in his running.
As a participant in a press conference devoted to the program of the new government, Keuschnig had nothing to worry about for the present. In such a place the omens of death seemed unthinkable. He no longer had to picture his own future, there was no further need to fear surprises; just to sit here—and better still, to sit here ecstatically taking notes along with so many others—was today his idea of peace. Up front, far in the distance, the President of the Republic was explaining the program, and as he spoke Keuschnig was conscio
us of an animal certainty that everything would get better and better. When a journalist asked if a certain project wasn’t absurd, the President replied: “I cannot afford to look on what I am doing as absurd.” That answer struck Keuschnig’s fancy and he wrote it down. Here nothing was said that was not meant to be taken down; that in itself was comforting! Keuschnig no longer understood why he had been so relieved some months before when after the elections the good old advertisements had replaced campaign posters on the city’s walls. Had the campaign posters represented a threat that something would HAPPEN? Why at the time had he felt the elections to be meaningless and unreal? Now he felt strangely secure in the thought that a policy was being formulated for him. It was so comforting to be able to think about oneself in terms formulated by others; the program he, along with the others, was taking down told him what kind of person he was and what he needed; it even prescribed a specific order of succession! And that part of him which was not defined in the program could be ignored—since it was only a holdover from rebellious adolescence and he himself was to blame if he hadn’t got it under control. I’ve been defined! he thought—and that flattered him. Being defined had the advantage of making him inconspicuous, even to himself. How could he have let a stupid dream upset him so? Who was he that he should presume to see meaning in life only on high holidays? He had indulged his strictly private caprices long enough! He set too much store by mental games that other people simply couldn’t afford.—And what if he found himself in danger again as today? Then, if only he could learn to see everything in its proper place like an adult, he would have a foolproof system by which to redefine himself at any time.—If I can manage that, Keuschnig thought contentedly, no one will ever find out who I really am!—The President’s THOUGHT-MOLDED face … Through the most tortuous sentence he found his way to a sure conclusion. To the most surprising question he had an immediate answer, and once it was uttered he shut his mouth as though EVERYTHING had now been said. Keuschnig felt he was in good hands. He heard the succession of questions and answers, the hum of the TV cameras, the baying of the Nikons, as utility music devised especially for him. But then a flashbulb exploded. A bird outside bumped into one of the high narrow windows, fluttered away, and collided with another window. A panic broke out in Keuschnig when he thought of the lengths he had again gone to in feigning to feel secure. There was no more room for diversions. This was really a life-and-death matter.—The wind had died down, but when in the stillness a flock of pigeons flew up from the court, it sounded to him like the first squall signaling a hurricane. The President, who had been made up for television and wasn’t missing a trick, thrust out his lips; he had planned every move in advance; that was his charm. Now Keuschnig knew what was troubling him: that the government’s program existed for everyone and not for him alone. He took refuge, as he had done when attending lectures at the university, in looking out the window: the white, looped-back curtains—but that swishing sound—where did it come from? Ah, he thought with pleasure, it’s raining. It had begun with a crackling, as when a heavily loaded hay wagon is set in motion. Then, high above the Elysée Palace, thunder rolled, and a sudden sense of security made his skin tingle.
The President took off his glasses and said: “I am a lover of change.” This remark was followed by a pause, and Keuschnig was afraid the journalists wouldn’t have any more questions. He leafed quickly through his notebook—the sound was like that of the pigeons a moment before. Nothing relevant occurred to him. Mr. President, would you like to see blood? The television lights went out, and no sooner had he taken advantage of his last opportunity to do what other people were doing and put his hand over his eyes, than the President of the Republic vanished. (The how-manyeth Republic? Keuschnig thought. Once again, counting proved helpful. It seemed to him that he too was being counted, which at least gave him the satisfaction of feeling himself to be a contemporary.)
He didn’t want to go home yet. He felt that if he got there too soon Stefanie wouldn’t be ready for him. (And today he too would have to rehearse, to rehearse the act of seeing her and the child again.) Maybe he would surprise her in some secret if he opened the door ahead of time. So he bought a paper at the stand on the Avenue Marigny—from my friend, he thought—and holding it over his head to shield himself from the rain, walked as slowly as he could without its getting on his nerves, this way and that way, through the streets of the 8th arrondissement.
In a bakery with little left to sell, a bakery girl was sitting alone, gazing round-eyed into space. He bought an oval loaf of bread, and she waited on him patiently. She gave him his change and started cleaning her nails as he was leaving. The sight gave him a feeling of lightness. He passed a lottery stand that looked as if it had been closed a long time; all he could see inside was a knitted vest on a hanger. In a laundry, pale-faced women were sitting with their hands in their laps, laughing now and then. In a restaurant the tables were set but still unoccupied, except for one in the far corner, where the boss and his helpers were sitting with elbows firmly propped, pouring themselves red wine out of bottles without labels.—A bus came along—jiggling straps, steam from the passengers’ wet clothing—passed and continued on, as though taking some part of him away with it. I’m going to think up something! Keuschnig thought. A sign by the door of the bus had said: SERVICE NORMAL.
He followed a woman who was pushing a shopping cart down the rue Miromesnil, curious to see what would happen if he just kept following her. Here it was so quiet he suddenly noticed how deeply he was breathing. He heaved a sigh. The few sounds to be heard—the occasional scrape of the woman’s high-heeled shoes, the buzz of a door buzzer farther away, the click of the almost simultaneously opening door, an apple rolling to the street from its pyramid in a COURS DES HALLES shop—seemed to give assurance of his own quietness. He still hadn’t seen the woman’s face, and that aroused him. He waited for her in front of a butcher shop; she had left her cart on the sidewalk, a bunch of parsley was sticking out. But then his gaze lost itself in the agglutinations of sawdust that had formed on the tile floor in the course of a long day, and when at last he looked up, the woman was turning into another street, where there was noise again. He followed her to the Champs-Elysées and into the PRISUNIC. It calmed him to go up and down stairs to the accompaniment of music and amplified announcements of PRISUNIC specials; his independent existence slipped away in the process.—At the pet-food section the woman turned around while some cans of cat food she had bought were being put into a brown paper bag. By that time his curiosity about her was nearly gone. She made a face, as if to say that she had expected no more of him. It wasn’t him she saw but SOMEONE LIKE HIM. Only a moment ago, Keuschnig reflected, I was genuinely unhappy at the thought that in another minute this woman would vanish forever from my life. And now the pleasant feeling that I haven’t missed anything.—Relieved, he had his picture taken at the Photomaton. The flashes of the color machine were so intense that the warmth touched his face like a soothing caress.—Then the PRISUNIC closed, and he had to go out into the street again.
He sat down on a bench near the playground in the Carré Marigny, hoping for some accident that would finally give him an opportunity to think about himself, for as soon as he tried deliberately to think, his thoughts ceased to be credible—they were not his own. As usual in Paris, the rain had soon stopped, and the puddles in the sand were flashing under the setting sun. The pigeons had flown up into the trees. Sitting on his outspread newspaper, he looked straight ahead, because he didn’t want to notice anything in particular. On the ground everything was so close at hand. Ahead of him only the dark foliage of the avenues of chestnut trees, behind them the roof of the Grand Palais, and off to the right the top of the Eiffel Tower: nothing to hem him in. The sun went down, and a moment later things began to glow as though from within, while at the same time the air between them darkened. For a time they glowed intensely, as though radiating their essence and energy. In the shimmering dusk details were blurred. A
different system had descended. Then the glow was gone, but things were still as bright as before; they merely ceased to radiate brightness, and the twilight between them became daylight again.—And now this light refused to pass. Everything persisted in staying the same. A hellish everyday world settled in, as though forever. This day, it seemed to Keuschnig, would never end. The unchangingly murmuring trees in the bleak, eternal light made his head ache. Objects seemed so immovable that the mere sight of them amounted to a concussion of the brain. He cringed away from them as from a blow. If he should try to start one of these swings moving with a kick, his foot would bounce back, for the swings like everything else in the playground were locked, clamped, screwed tight. They had little sand clocks fastened to them; the sand wouldn’t start flowing until a child paid for the use of a swing—not today. Keuschnig cursed the dead light, which made him feel like his own ghost. He jiggled his hands in disgust. He wanted to complain about the world, which had again become so bare, so barren, so cold and wet, so cramped. Please, let it be night, he thought through the pounding in his head …