Crossing the Sierra De Gredos by Peter Handke Page B

litter because of his gout, of the Sierra de Gredos, on the way to his retirement in the cloister of (San) Yuste, in the southern foothills. And where was that? In the largest Spanish international port of the time, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, also a kind of riverport, on the río Guadalquivir, below Seville, where they hauled in the Indian gold from afar. The gangplank was not yet positioned vertically, fastened to a wall with ropes, as later in the museum, and it was also not creosoted, but scoured white by salt (from the famous salt mines of Sanlúcar, with their “salt unequaled for drying cod”), and she had walked up it barefoot, like the sleeping family from overseas today, or whenever, on another morning of departure here, or wherever, in the airport terminal.
    She was famous in a way that allowed her pretty much to decide for herself whether people would recognize her or not. And thus she usually went unrecognized, even though someone always stopped short in front of her and involuntarily traced her face and her outlines in the air—and was then at a loss as to what to do with her: the drawing erased.
    Becoming blurry and interchangeable in this way was difficult to sustain in airports, however. That was where she was always most likely to be
recognized, for better or worse. Usually for worse. It never happened immediately upon her being recognized that people wished her ill. At the first sight of her, many eyes even expressed surprise and pleasure. Someone or other seemed almost happy to run into her. Even those who had some prejudice against her were at first taken aback and barely refrained from greeting the woman warmly. She looked completely different from the impression people would have formed from yet another report, article, photograph, news item, portraying this devious string-puller and puppeteer.
    First of all, in real life she was infinitely more beautiful. And then, in contrast to her occasional staged appearances on television, where she displayed a grimly noncommittal expression, she was open and accessible. The very way she moved revealed that from everything and everyone she passed she absorbed some feature and took it with her, in her swinging shoulders, at her temples, behind her ears, in the curve of her hips, in her wide knees, and it was precisely that feature that stood for one as an entire person—the feature discovered by her in a flashing glance and scanned into memory, that reminded one of oneself as a figure that bore no resemblance to a type or to one’s role in the current situation.
    A jolt, and just as quickly it was over. The attentiveness and empathy shown by that person were all an act. Didn’t everyone know that in her youth, before she took up her few previous professions—before her present one—she had starred in a film (a film, by the way, that was still shown, not only in certain movie theaters in Europe but also in clips during her television appearances: a tale from the Middle Ages in which she, one lay performer among others, had played Guinevere, the wife of King Arthur and at the same time the mysterious beloved—was she or wasn’t she?—of the knight Lancelot).
    This era, the time in which her present story was taking place, was one of distrust, by now unprecedented. No one believed anyone anymore. Or at least people did not believe others’ displays of affection or friendliness, compassion or desire, let alone love, of no matter what kind. If a person beamed and expressed joy, others did not accept his assertion of happiness—even when the person in question was a child. A person might scream in pain—but after a moment of hesitation and concern, all too brief, the person he was with would look at him askance: not just with distrust but also with disdain.

    None of the true or perhaps primal emotions were taken at face value for long, with the exception of hate, disgust, contempt. Were those primal emotions? The