PETER HANDKE
593
smell from under the shrubs and from holes in trees, the worst smell of
all, like a dog's cadaver, being that of the stinking morel, which, when
it's young, no bigger than a pigeon's egg, is a delicacy not described any–
where as yet, for instance cut up raw and served with salt and olive oil."
Thus the second thing the pharmacist pursued in his laboratory, or
rather his kitchen, was his mushroom studies, where he was sometimes
the self-assured chef, sometimes the diffident apprentice, slow on the
uptake; yes, he was even preparing a very special mushroom guide, in
which he planned first to highlight the virtues of some generally
despised varieties and then explore the effect of certain mushrooms on
the eater-but he wasn't concerned with the psychoactive species, the
so-called consciousness-expanding ones, so much as with the "dream
mushrooms," the "dream-expanding" ones.
Yet at the beginning of the time when his story takes place, the area
around Taxham, and not that area alone, was suffering from a major
drought. There were no mushrooms far and wide, and since the phar–
macist needed actual samples for his project, especially for describing
their smell, on this particular morning he didn't get far with his mush–
room fantasies; at most he could cross out observations in his notes that
he intended to omit or skip.
From the counter running the length of the wall with the large plate–
glass window, he could see the parched lawn in back of the building,
onto which a blackbird trotted again and again-only blackbirds could
pop so unexpectedly into nowhere-with a black, shiny, seemingly eye–
less bead, a knight in search of single combat, his visor already closed.
The hedge from which the bird always burst forth formed the beginning
of a series of staggered hedges extending all the way to the high hedge
on the horizon marking the end of the village, where, as the pharmacist
could clearly see, only one leaf was stirring, but that all afternoon, a
furious flickering and fluttering, standing for an entire tree and, in time,
for an entire forest .
In
between he could be found in the front room helping out, even if
only bringing a glass of water.
At noon the pharmacist went out for a snack, as was his habit, to the
wooded area between Taxham and the Salzburg airport. Habit?
It
was
more a matter of certain rituals or self-imposed rules that he observed
strenuously, even though he sometimes had to force himself.
A stranger coming through these woods would have perceived them
as shady, in every sense of the word. Even for the local residents, they
weren't a destination. At most they drove by fenced portions of it on a
road that was oddly winding for this plain. The fencing was unusual for
