And what did she have back there in her apparently weightless bag, that of a parachute jumper? A parachute? Whose cord she would pull when she needed it? Certainly none of the following were in it: a hairdryer; flares; a framed photograph; a gold-plated ballpoint pen that could double as a flashlight; a bathing suit; a sleeping bag; a compass; suntan oil; today’s newspaper; a nightgown; binoculars; a magnifying glass; a microscope; a lighter; a razor blade; a novel, a volume of poetry, a travel guide (at least not an ordinary one); small gifts; slippers; a survival kit; a spare hat, a spare vest, a spare pair of pants, spare boots, a spare vial of perfume.
So she was wearing perfume? No. But as she passed me that time on the highway, she seemed to be surrounded by an invisible nimbus, a nimbus made up of the breeze caused by her motion and coldness, a perfume of unparalleled freshness, and she positively exuded this breath of coldness, her lips most of all. I wanted to turn back at once and follow it, follow her; catch up with her. But she moved too fast for me, and not only for me. (This kind of narrative, too, dear reader, this bowing and scraping, is supposed to remain a rarity as events unfold, if it in fact intrudes at all.)
5
The day of her departure fell in the middle of the week. At any rate, Sunday was still far off; she already knew where she wanted to be by then, and was looking forward to it. The sudden change in the weather, the break in the cold, also swept away the last obstacle to her wanderlust: perhaps in compensation she would experience the frost, the continuation of pure winter weather that she had wanted to last as long as possible, as all the more persistent on her expedition, even if this expedition would be taking place far down in the south, which, with a view from the Pico de Almanzor, was almost all the way to Africa (didn’t al-manzar mean “the view” in Arabic? or did the name come from al-mansûr, “the victor”? hadn’t a victorious Arab general and king during the Middle Ages borne that name?).
In the Sierra de Gredos, the summit plain, extending from the eastern massif across the particularly high central massif and all the way to the western massif, a distance of almost two hundred kilometers along the ridge, would certainly (or “without a doubt,” one of the phrases in common use at the time of our story) be snow-covered, with the snow extending down into the highland valleys, and would no doubt remain so well into springtime. And when the January sun, so consistent during all the weeks leading up to her setting-out, veiled itself and then disappeared behind cloud banks moving in quickly from the west, that only contributed to her old, new, returning high spirits. The inky gleam of the asphalt, the clear, dark horizons, so far, far off, and the blue of the olives, covering the ground in a circle under the trees on the Sierra’s southern slopes, where the time for shaking them to the ground and harvesting them would just have arrived! Even now, a thousand miles from there, up here in the northwest, she jogged a few steps toward that blue-shrouded world.
From the beginning she had been one of the pioneers of new ways of life (which in turn might represent the return of ways of life that had been forgotten or seemingly rejected for good). But ways of life did not mean sensational carryings-on, a whole new terminology, ear-shattering parties, dreamlike couplings, futuristic organizations; did not mean anything generally considered future-oriented, but rather present-oriented or present-enhancing practices; did not mean anything public or officially sponsored, either, but arose only from her and for her, without any reference to society or even to a community, and it became a way of life only through example and suggestion, and because it was perhaps already in the air; nor did it lead to anything more than having something in common with this person or that, without any sense of belonging to a clique, an avant-garde, an elite; such nonconspiratorial and sporadic sharing with people who were otherwise strangers, who could go back to being strangers after an amused or timidly deferential meeting of the eyes, such sharing represented to her during that period not exactly the most lofty but just about the most truthful feelings; at any rate, people like her, she thought, did not need — at least for a transitional period — a sense of community, let alone a sense of society; what she was aiming for was a sense of life independent of society and all systems (except, of course, in her profession, but for now that was to appear in her story only as a blank, unwritten, white space, making the adjacent passages — everything was adjacent to it, after all! — appear all the more vivid and colorful). And from such a sense of life the new or revived old ways of life usually took shape on their own, and in turn preserved the sense of life and kept it vibrant.
What ways of life? Neither climbing trees nor plunging into holes chopped in the ice. Neither running marathons nor retracing old pilgrimage routes. Neither mushroom hunting nor sleeping in caves. Neither spiritual exercises on Mount Athos nor journeys on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Neither love-ins nor joining the Peace Corps. One example (which, truth be told, is no example at all): as a child in the Sorbian village, when it was raining, she had often dashed from her grandparents’ house across the courtyard to the woodshed, because there, behind the slats that let in every wind gust, with her head almost bumping against the thin tin roof, she was so much closer to the action, the experience of “rain,” and it surprised her that she was always alone there, standing among the stacks of firewood, within earshot of and facing the rain: a way of life! — but no one followed her and shared it with her. No, it did not merely surprise her but after a while actually infuriated her that she did not get anyone to share the experience with her: so even as a child she had the sense of mission that later appreciated in value with each article written about her.
A further example (which again is not an example): as a schoolgirl, and then as a university student, too, on all official occasions and at all public or political speeches, she made herself scarce as soon as possible, yet without leaving the halclass="underline" she would stay there, but would render herself invisible by going to sit or stand behind a curtain. And at such times there was always a curtain suitable for hiding behind — she would spot it immediately, and if it was not a curtain, then a blackboard, a screen, a map rack, or a wardrobe would serve the purpose. But it worked best, was most full of life, behind a real curtain, if possible a stage curtain, in front of which, at a lectern or such, the solemnities or whatever were taking place. Through the years, the schoolchild and later student of economics crouched in the dim light behind just such a stage curtain at every “event” (though in those days they did not yet use the English term), and felt surrounded by a space entirely different from the one out there in the social realm, felt that an entirely different time was in effect — but why did no one ever join her here, either? for wouldn’t even her enemies — from childhood on she already had a large flock of enemies — if they had only stepped behind the curtain where she was hiding, have promptly if not forgotten their enmity, at least put it aside for a few moments — decisive moments?! Where are you, you fellows? Why do you not come out and admit it: This is the right way!? What do you expect to accomplish out there in that phony light; have you forgotten the rest of the world? Was she a Cassandra? No, to people like that she would not have pointed out impending disaster. No catastrophe-early-warning mission. No treason. No messing with destruction. But all the same, a child, a girl, a woman with a mission?