Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Foreword
Of Walking in Ice
Copyright
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781473521957
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Vintage 2014
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Werner Herzog has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
English translation © Tanam Press 1980
First published in German under the title Vom Gehen im Eis in 1978
by Carl Hanser Verlag
First published in translation in 1980 by Jonathan Cape
Vintage
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
www.vintage-classics.info
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781784870379
Foreword
At the end of November 1974, a friend from Paris called and told me that Lotte Eisner was seriously ill and would probably die. I said that this must not be, not at this time, German cinema could not do without her now, we would not permit her death. I took a jacket, a compass and a duffel bag with the necessities. My boots were so solid and new that I had confidence in them. I set off on the most direct route to Paris, in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot. Besides, I wanted to be alone with myself. What I wrote along the way was not intended for readers. Now, four years later, upon looking at the little notebook once again, I have been strangely touched, and the desire to show this text to others unknown to me outweighs the dread, the timidity to open the door so wide for unfamiliar eyes. Only a few private remarks have been omitted.
W.H.
Delft, Holland, 24 May 1978
Saturday 23 November 1974
Right after 500 metres or so I made my first stop, near the Pasinger Hospital, from where I wanted to turn west. With my compass I gauged the direction of Paris; now I know it. Achternbusch had jumped from the moving VW van without getting hurt, then right away he tried again and broke his leg; now he’s lying in Ward 5.
The River Lech, I said to him, that will be the problem, with so few bridges crossing it. Would the villagers row me across in a skiff? Herbert will tell my fortune, from cards as tiny as a thumbnail, in two rows of five, but he doesn’t know how to read them because he can’t find the paper with the interpretations. There is the Devil, with the Hangman in the second row, hanging upside down.
Sunshine, like a day in spring, that is the Surprise. How to get out of Munich? What is going on in people’s minds? Mobile homes? Smashed-up cars bought wholesale? The car wash? Meditating upon myself makes one thing evident: the rest of the world is in rhyme.
One solitary, overriding thought: get away from here. People frighten me. Our Eisner mustn’t die, she will not die, I won’t permit it. She is not dying now because she isn’t dying. Not now, no, she is not allowed to. My steps are firm. And now the earth trembles. When I move, a buffalo moves. When I rest, a mountain reposes. She wouldn’t dare! She mustn’t. She won’t. When I’m in Paris she will be alive. She must not die. Later, perhaps, when we allow it.
In a rain-sodden field a man catches a woman. The grass is flat with mud.
The right calf might be a problem, possibly the left boot as well, up front on the instep. While walking, so many things pass through one’s head, the brain rages. A near-accident now a bit further ahead. Maps are my passion. Soccer games are starting, they are chalking the centre line on ploughed fields. Bavarian flags at the Aubing (Germering?) transit station. The train swirled up dry paper behind it, the swirling lasted a long time, then the train was gone. In my hand I could still feel the small hand of my little son, this strange little hand whose thumb can be bent so curiously against the joint. I gazed into the swirling paper and then wanted to rip my heart apart. It is nearing two o’clock.
Germering, tavern, children are having their first communion; a brass band, the waitress is carrying cakes and the regular customers are trying to swipe something from her. Roman roads, Celtic earthworks, the Imagination’s hard at work. Saturday afternoon, mothers with their children. What do children at play really look like? Not like this, as in movies. One should use binoculars.
All of this is very new, a new slice of life. A short while back I stood on a flyover, with part of the Augsburg motorway beneath me. From my car I sometimes see people standing on the motorway flyovers, gazing; now I am one of them. The second beer is heading down to my knees already. A boy stretches a cardboard barricade between two tables with some string, securing it at both ends with Sellotape. The regulars are shouting, ‘Detour!’ ‘Who do you think you are?’ the waitress says. Then the music starts playing very loudly again. The regulars would love to see the boy reach under the waitress’s skirt, but he doesn’t dare.
Only if this were a film would I consider it real.
Where I’m going to sleep doesn’t worry me. A man in shiny leather jeans is going east. ‘Katharina!’ screams the waitress, holding a trayful of pudding level with her thighs; she is screaming southward: that I pay attention to. ‘Valente!’ one of the regulars screams back. His cronies are delighted. A man at a side table whom I took for a farmer, suddenly turns out to be the innkeeper, with his green apron. I am getting drunk, slowly. A nearby table is irritating me more and more with its cups, plates and cakes laid out, but with absolutely no one sitting there. Why doesn’t anybody sit there? The coarse salt of the pretzels fills me with such glee I can’t express it. Now all of a sudden the whole place looks in one direction, without anything being there. After these last few miles on foot I am aware that I’m not in my right mind; such knowledge comes from my soles. He who has no burning tongue has burning soles. It occurs to me that in front of the tavern was a haggard man sitting in a wheelchair, yet he wasn’t paralysed, he was a cretin, and some woman who’s escaped my mind was pushing him. Lamps are hanging from a yoke for oxen. In the snow behind the San Bernardino I nearly collided with a stag; who would have expected a wild animal there, a huge wild animal? With mountain valleys, trout come to mind again. The troops, I would say, are advancing, the troops are tired, for the troops the day is done. The innkeeper in the green apron is almost blind, his face hovering inches from the menu. He cannot be a farmer, being almost blind. He is the innkeeper, yes. The lights go on inside, which means the daylight outside will soon be gone. A child in a parka, incredibly sad, is drinking coke, squeezed between two adults. Applause now for the band. The fare tonight shall be fowl, says the innkeeper in the Stillness.
Outside in the cold, the first cows; I am moved. There is asphalt around the dungheap, which is steaming, then two girls travelling on roller skates. A jet-black cat. Two Italians pushing a wheel together. This strong odour from the fields! Ravens flying east, the sun quite low behind them. Fields soggy and damp, forests, many people on foot. A shepherd dog steaming from the mouth. Alling, five kilometres. For the first time a fear of cars. Someone has burned illustrated papers in the field. Noises, as if church bells were ringing from spires. The fog sinks lower; a haze. I am stock-still, between the fields. Mopeds with young farmers are rattling past. Further to the right, towards the horizon, many cars because the soccer match is still in progress. I hear the ravens, but a denial is building up inside me. By all means, do not glance upwards! Let them go! Don’t look at them, don’t lift your gaze from the paper! No, don’t! Let them go, those ravens! I won’t look up there now! A glove in the field, soaking wet, and cold water lying in the tractor tracks. The teenagers on their mopeds are moving towards death in synchronized motion. I think of unharvested turnips but, by God, there are no unharvested turnips around. A tractor approaches me, monstrous and threatening, hoping to maul me, to run me over, but I stand firm. Pieces of white polystyrene packaging to my side give me support. Across the ploughed field I hear faraway conversations. There is a forest, black and motionless. The transparent moon is halfway to my left, that is towards the south. Everywhere still, some single-engine aircraft take advantage of the evening, before the Goon comes. Ten steps further: the Goon will come when Hell freezes over. Where I am standing lies an uprooted, black and orange signpost; its direction, as determined from the arrow, is north-east. Near the forest, utterly inert figures with dogs. The region I’m traversing is infested with rabies. If I were sitting in the soundless plane right above me, I would be in Paris in one and a half hours. Who’s chopping wood? Is that the sound of a church clock? So, now, onward.