Crossing the Sierra De Gredos by Peter Handke Read Free Book Online Page A

vegetable gardens or fields or terraces along both rivers, which had long been left fallow, now, wherever they had not been turned into building lots, were experiencing a second spring—summer—fall. The varieties once planted there were being supplemented and enriched by imported varieties or varieties moving on their own into the area as a result of the abrupt warming of the climate all over the continent. Of course exotic fruits, as well as olives, wine grapes, pistachios, and such, continued to be imported into this northwestern region. But in the meantime it had become customary—this, too, part of the new way of living—that once the locally grown crops had been sold, used up, consumed, no substitutes were flown in from another hemisphere. No more fresh cherries or blueberries from Chile in the winter. No more early fall apples from New Zealand in the spring. No more cepes from South Africa with lamb at Eastertime. And in her two-river city, the ripening of the local fruits, rather than being accelerated, was actually held back.
    And soon hardly anyone missed such luxuries. Now the very absence of a familiar vegetable, an accustomed fruit, imposed a rhythm on the year; this periodic absence could add a kind of zest. New ways of living? The return or recovery of the old ways? (Though without folk costumes, customs, songs and dances.) What a historian had characterized as the phenomenon of “cultural continuity,” the most reliable rhythmic recurrence in history, indestructible (or was it really, over time)? Be that as it might: how the old varieties of apples, now brought back, stood out from the interlopers, on the trees, in the orchards, but also under the artificial lights of the huge warehouse-style supermarkets. How they gleamed, how fragrant they were, and this was no humbug. Or was she the only one who noticed, with her eyes and nose from childhood, from her Sorbian village?
    On the other hand, it was not she who created the demand, and with it the return of the continuity phenomenon, but rather her odd, evasive neighborhood. And equally odd her sense of being at home there. She knew, after all (had experienced), that it took only a tiny jolt, a phrase picked up in passing, and one would tip from presumed continuity into an isolated moment, not historical in the slightest but torn out of any temporal sequence, into a unique instant of complete isolation.

3
    She had many enemies. And she had made almost all her enemies through her work. And they were far away. But one enemy was stirring things up in her vicinity; nearby. It had begun as love. At least this was the word the man used, the moment they met, or the second moment. They ran into each other in a clearing deep in the woods. She entered the clearing on a corduroy road whose logs were already half-rotted. Without warning, the image of a deserted beer garden, shaded by chestnut trees, in the hills above Trieste on a midsummer morning came to her, and she spread her arms. Just then the man slipped out of the dense underbrush on the edge of the clearing and was right next to her. She did not start. Perhaps she would have jumped under any other circumstances, but with the image present nothing could harm her. It was out of the question that anything should affect her. So she stood there, arms still spread, and even smiled at the stranger. It was a spring evening, long before dark.
    It was the man who uttered the word. Was he a foreigner? For he spoke the word with an accent. The majority of those living in the area were foreigners. Or did his excitement act as an accent-generator and tongue-twister? His outfit resembled that of an escaped prisoner, not because of the fabric or the cut, but because of all the rips (along with his disheveled hair), probably from his running through the woods. And he did not say, “I love you,” and so on, but rather, “You must love me. You are going to love me.” And continued at once,