Read The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays Online

Authors: Peter Handke

Tags: #Fiction, #Literary

The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays (6 page)

And again it becomes bright, and both of them are sitting at the table. The warden gets up and goes where? Apparently he doesn't know where he should go.
No, he doesn't want to go to the calendar.
He turns around, turns around, is turning around.
The ward gets up and walks after him; he shows how he shares the warden's indecision and imitates the warden's
gestures, his leg movements as well as his indecisive arm movements, although the imitation need not be a complete aping.
They almost collide when the warden suddenly changes direction—he is probably avoiding the pieces of the broken bottles and plates; more than once the ward steps on the warden's heels. They continue moving about the stage, pretending to have a goal which, however, they never reach, because they always give it up just before they are about to reach it.
Suddenly the warden is by the door, is already going out, reaches for the outside door handle to shut the door behind him—the ward seizes the door handle on the inside, wants to follow the warden, but the warden pulls without letup.
The ward pulls in the other direction.
The warden, by giving one hard pull, pulls the door shut behind him and in front of the ward, who has been pulled along by the violent pull.
The ward stands briefly in front of the door, his hand around the handle, then his hand merely touching the handle.
The ward lets his hand drop.
The warden is outside; it is quiet.
The ward gets down on his knees, without falling down on them, however, and is already crawling out the door, quickly: we see now that the door has an extra outlet, as if for a dog.
Once the ward is outside, the stage slowly becomes dark.
By now we have become accustomed to the music.
 
The pause is longer this time, for the ‘scenery is being turned inside out.
A revolving stage needs only to revolve.
Otherwise, the scenery is turned around in the dark.
It becomes bright: it is a rainy day.
Warden and ward set up the objects on the stage: the
large, longish object, covered by the black raincoat, which they have to bring onstage together, the stool, beets, melons, pumpkins.
When everything has been distributed on the stage, the ward sits down on the stool while the warden stands next to the mysterious object.
Without an actual beginning the play has begun again: the warden takes the rubber coat off the object, so that we see that it is a beet-cutting machine.
The warden puts on the raincoat (he is still barefoot) and, to test the machine, lets the cutting knife drop down several times without, however, cutting any beets.
The ward gets up and walks to the machine. The warden bends down for a beet, shoves it into the machine, and pulls down the cutting knife with one brief, effortless movement, as he indicates with a movement: the beet falls down, its top shorn off.
The warden repeats the process in detail, demonstrating: another beet falls down.
The ward watches, not completely motionless, but without moving very much.
The warden repeats the process.
The ward fetches a beet but makes many superfluous movements and detours; we can hear his hobnail boots on the floor as well as the bare feet of the warden, who now goes to the side and straightens up.
The ward raises the cutting knife, shoves the beet up to its top into the machine, and hacks off the top.
The warden steps up to him, stands beside him, steps back again …
The ward goes and fetches a few beets and puts them into place …
The warden steps up to him and stands there.
The cat suddenly slinks out of the house.
The ward's next attempt to cut off the top of a beet is so feeble that the beet does not fall on the floor at once.
The warden stands there watching him.
With the next attempt, the beet falls on the floor.
The cat does what it does.
The warden stands there.
The ward has problems with the beet again: he makes one attempt to sever its top, a second one, and then, without looking at the warden, who is starting to walk about the stage once more in his bare feet, a third attempt; then, after a certain time, when the warden is standing next to him again and is watching him, once more; then, later—it is already becoming darker on stage—a fifth time (the warden is starting to walk again); then—it is already quite dark (is the warden standing by the machine?)—finally once more, and now —we can't bear watching it any more—once again, and we don't hear the sound of anything falling on the floor; thereupon it is quiet onstage, for quite some time.
After it has been quiet onstage for some time we hear, quite softly at first, a breathing that becomes increasingly louder. We recognize it. It becomes louder, that is, larger and larger—a death rattle? A very intense inhaling? Or only a bellows? Or a huge animal?
It becomes steadily louder.
Gradually it becomes too large for the house.
Is it here, is it over there?
Suddenly it is quiet.
 
After a long time it becomes bright again.
The house, the cornfield, the beetfield.
We see neither the cat, nor the warden, nor the ward; not even the beet-cutting machine remains onstage—except for the three backdrops, it is bare.
Now someone enters from the right: it is the ward.
He is carrying a small tub in front of him, and wound about his upper body is a rubber hose.
He is no longer wearing his coveralls.
The tub is placed on the floor, the hose is unrolled.
One end of the hose is placed in the tub; the ward takes the other end offstage, straightening the hose in the process.
We hear the water running into the tub for some time.
Then the ward returns, a sack of sand in one arm.
He puts the sack next to the tub.
He reaches into the sack with his hand.
He straightens up and lets a handful of sand fall into the tub, without letting the sand slip between his fingers first.
He again reaches into the sack and, standing, lets a handful of sand fall into the water.
He again reaches into the sack and, standing, lets a handful of sand fall into the water, nonchalantly, irregularly, unceremoniously.
He again reaches into the sack and, standing, lets a handful of sand fall into the water.
Now we hear the isolated chords again.
The ward reaches into the sack and, standing, lets a hand
The ward reaches into the sack and, standing, lets a hand
ful of sand fall into the water.
ful of sand fall into the water.
The curtain closes.
 
 
Translated by Michael Roloff
Translator's note
 
 
More than any of Handke's plays to date,
Quodlibet (written
in 1969, between Kaspar and The Ride Across Lake Constance) requires fairly extensive adaptation to an American linguistic, cultural, and historical environment. Why this is necessary is made apparent by the play itself. What finally surprised me, though, was the comparative ease with which indigenously German allusions—allusions to the various manifestations, public and private, of fascism—can be replaced by American equivalents. In further adaptations, which a cast may want to make, it would be worthwhile to consult the invectives at the end of Handke's
Offending the Audience (Publikumsbeschimpfung)
simply to see how “not to overdo it.” This translation is meant as a basic model for American productions.
M.R.
 
The curtain rises. On the bare stage, one by one, talking quietly to each other, appear the figures of the “world theater”: a general in uniform, a bishop in his vestments, a dean in his gown; a Maltese knight in the coat of his order; a member of a German student corps with his little cap and sash; a Chicago gangster with his fedora and pin-striped double-breasted suit, a politician with two heavily armed CIA bodyguards; a dance-contest couple—he in a dark suit and white turtleneck sweater, she in a short, pert dress; a grande dame in a long evening gown, carrying a fan; another female figure in a pants suit, a poodle on the leash.
These figures come on stage in no particular order, separately or in pairs, arm in arm or not. Chatting, they slowly walk about the stage, step here and there, laugh softly at some remark or other, walk on again, not that one hears them walking of course. Each chats with the others at some point; every so often one of them stands apart alone as though struck suddenly by some thought before starting a new conversation; only the bodyguards take no part in the conversations; they nod to each other occasionally, that's all; otherwise they keep peering away from the figures on stage into the surrounding area, once up into the rigging loft, then—this without bending down—into the prompter's box,
then into the vault of the theater as though up into the fifth tier of an opera house—at any event, never at the audience itself: the audience does not exist for the figures on the stage. One notices that all the figures briefly come to a complete stop, but the next moment one or two are walking again. At moments the general conversation almost lapses into complete silence; there are also moments during which only the rustling of garments on the floor is audible, whereafter the conversation resumes more vociferously and insistently than before.
The figures walk about making almost no sound, lost in themselves, stand still, are still, chat: that's actually all there is to it. It's entirely up to the actors what they want to say. They can talk about what they've just read in the papers, what they've experienced that day, what they want to experience, about what just occurred to them, or about something that gives the impression of having just occurred to them … a few times one thinks one hears them speaking a foreign language, probably French: C'est très simple, Monsieur. —Ah merci … oh! ma coiffure! … Ah! Ce vent! … Cette pluie! … Or something of that kind, invariably uttered by the women. The audience of course strains to listen, but only occasionally gets a few words, or snatches of sentences.
Among the words and sentences that the audience does understand—besides the irrelevant and meaningless ones like “Do you understand?” “Not that I know,” “Why not?” “As I said,” “And you?”—are some which the audience merely thinks it understands. These are words and expressions which in the theater act like bugle calls: political expressions, expressions relating to sex, the anal sphere, violence. Of course the audience does not really hear the actual expressions but only similar ones; the latter are the signal for the former; the audience is bound to hear the right ones. For example, instead
of
napalm
they mention
no
palms
onstage; instead of
Hiroshima
they speak of a
hero
sandwich;
instead of cunnilingus
of
cunning fingers ; instead of psychopath of bicycle path; instead of leathernecks of leather next
; instead of
Auschwitz of house wits
; instead of
dirty niggers of dirty knickers .
.. Or the actors use double-edged words in sentences with invariably harmless connotations, but in such quick succession that one listens to the ambiguous words instead of the sentences, for example:
thigh, pick, member, spread, panties, tear, pant, cancer, victim, fag, rag, paralysis, stroke, frag
… Many sentences, which appear to be quite harmless, are also uttered in quick succession; however, they contain words which, when they appear in clusters, begin to give the illusion of an allusion: A sentence with the words
tiger cage (
“I didn't want to put my tiger in the cage but the cops insisted.”) is followed by a sentence containing the word
gook
(“I wasn't completely satisfied until I had wiped the gook off the wall.”), which is followed by a sentence with the word waste (“Sad to say, but we had to waste a lot of … time”), which is followed by a sentence containing the words anti-personnel
weapon
(“Anti-Americanism is a weapon I personally refuse to use.”), which is followed by a sentence with the word
infrastructure
(“The infrastructure of the organization, if I may say so, consists of living bodies, all you have to do is count them”), which of course also contains the words
body
count
in slightly different form, and which is followed by a sentence containing a distorted form of the words
Tonkin Gulf
&
Saigon
(“Tom's kinfolk made a resolution not to take the Gulf Line steamer to
Saigon
.”) and finally a sentence containing the proper name
My Lai
, also in distorted form because of the proximity of the event (“As the old bastard of an Irishman used to say to me about Dora: ‘She was me last lay before me prostate operation, and she was me very best lay.'”) .
The
hit
turns out to be a
two-run
hit, the
beating
is a
b
eating
a
round
t
he
bush
, the
bomb
turns out to be
what
a
bomb this play was, the smashed brain on the stone turns
into
mashed potatoes alone
, where someone
spread blood
it
turns out that the
old beer-belly actually sweated Bud
; when
shot
is mentioned it only refers to a
shot
of
whiskey
; and what
shot through his head
were only
thoughts
; “Shot through the head!”—“Shot through the head?”—“Yes, thoughts shot through my head.”
Syphilis
is
Sisyphus
& the
clap
is a
thunderclap
& a dildo becomes
dill does it too.
“Cashes in!”—“Cashes in pretty good!”—“The cops?”— “By the cops!”—“Cashed in?”
“ … broken!”—“with grief …”—“The neck?”—“A bottle!” —“ … the neck!”—“Broken …”—“ … and stuck the finger in …”—“Good!”—“Cut off!”—“What kind of head?”— “The conversation?”—“What?”—“He's one good head shorter.”—“Off.”—“What kind of head?”—“Good, good.”
“ … three, four:”-“One, two, three—go!”—“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven …”—“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven (
pause
) eight (
pause
) nine (
pause
) ten—finished!” “Once, once more, a third time, four times, five times, and once more …”—“And then it was already getting bright outside …”—“Twenty-one, twenty-two-it's uncanny, uncanny.” —“And then I stopped counting …”
“Corpses in quiet waters …”—“Oh, what a pretty title”—“Like an O?”—“ … laying their eggs there:”—“Like
Story of
O?”—“As
though
it were nothing …”—“Shame!”—“ … ‘and didn't say a single word!'”—“What a beautiful title!”— “Oh!”—“ … the carps lay their eggs in quiet waters …”—“In Lake Erie?”—“Shame! shame! and shame once more!”—“Let's say it was nothing!”—“According to the Geneva convention, o.k.?”
“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
) …”

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