from Vol. #7, Issue 1: Spring 2016

A synopsis of Karl Keinz Ott’s Endlich Stille
prepared by translator Peter Sean Woltemade

Silence at Last begins with its narrator returning alone from a journey from Basel to Liechtenstein on which a momentous event has occurred the nature of which will not be revealed until the novel's end—and will even then remain obscured by significant ambiguity. The unnamed narrator is a professor of philosophy at the University of Basel.

Earlier that year, he had decided to spend a night in Strasbourg on his way back to Basel from a stay in Amsterdam in order "to delay his return to Basel by another day." Shortly after alighting from the train in Strasbourg, he had been addressed by a stranger with the question "Are you also looking for a hotel?" The narrator had allowed himself to be deflected from his intended agenda in Strasbourg, which had included a visit to a gourmet restaurant he had previously visited with his then-girlfriend Marie.

The stranger, who would eventually introduce himself as Friedrich, had opined that it would be best to take the first hotel they come to, as they would not be sleeping much in any event, which they had done, after which they had eaten at a restaurant chosen, like the hotel, because it had been the first one they had run across, and had then, at Friedrich's suggestion, visited a brothel. When Friedrich's provocative behavior at the latter establishment, after heavy drinking, had threatened to get them ejected forcefully, the narrator had fled by himself and taken his train to Basel without having spoken to Friedrich again.

The narrator had given a made-up telephone number and address when Friedrich asked him for this information, but the narrator's real number was public, and the determined Friedrich obtained this real number and called the narrator to announce his imminent arrival in Basel and intention of getting together with the narrator. The narrator had a strong desire to avoid another encounter with Friedrich and spent a night in his office at the university in an attempt to convince Friedrich that he was traveling, as he had claimed on the telephone that he would be, and thus trick Friedrich into giving up any plan to spend time with the narrator in Basel. The narrator's own plan failed, however, when he met Friedrich at the railway station in company with a friend of the narrator's, Benno, whom the narrator was there to pick up and who had come for a previously agreed-upon brief visit to the narrator. When Benno left Basel again, Friedrich installed himself in the narrator's apartment and indeed in the narrator's bedroom, which he got the narrator to move out of and turn over to Friedrich by claiming that he, Friedrich, would be able to sleep better there than in the narrator's guest room.

Friedrich remained in the narrator's apartment for several weeks during which the narrator became increasingly desperate to get Friedrich out. During this summer period, the narrator fell into the daily habit of eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant with Friedrich and going with Friedrich to a seedy bar in the evening. The narrator was intent on avoiding meeting colleagues and acquaintances to the greatest extent possible, as he was embarrassed by his subjugation by Friedrich; the narrator's professional life had gone relatively well up to this point, though we learn that one of his colleagues at the university, the generally hostile Grandstetter, had been opposed to the narrator's being offered a full professorship in the philosophy department. Eventually the narrator did encounter Grandstetter and his wife when he and Friedrich were on their way home from another night of drinking (see my translation of the relevant excerpt), and the narrator's hope that his choice of drinking establishment would preclude coincidentally meeting colleagues in the evenings proved not to be entirely justified.

Friedrich's consistently provocative behavior in connection with such encounters and the prospect that Marie, who had regularly been visiting the narrator and spending the night in his apartment during periods when her new boyfriend was traveling, would return from a trip to Sumatra and discover the transformation that had been forced upon the narrator by Friedrich caused the narrator to regard the imminent ejection of Friedrich from the narrator's apartment as an absolute necessity. Finally, however, Marie did return from her trip while Friedrich was still staying with the narrator, that is, without the narrator having been able to pull himself together and order Friedrich to leave. The narrator refrained from telling Marie the whole truth about what had happened in her absence from Basel, saying that Friedrich had been staying in his apartment for a week when he had in fact been there for four weeks. Nevertheless, Marie appeared shocked and outraged by the narrator's story and demanded that he turn over the keys to his apartment to her immediately, apparently intending to confront Friedrich and throw him out. The narrator declined to give Marie the keys but realized that the situation with Friedrich threatened the status quo in the narrator's relationship with Marie, with which the narrator had been fairly satisfied.

The narrator now fled from his own apartment, telling Friedrich that he had to attend the funeral of a friend and might be gone for some days. The narrator was reluctantly allowed by Marie to spend a night in the apartment she shared with her current boyfriend, who was once again away.

Subsequently, the narrator stayed in an inn in a nearby village and hoped that in his absence Friedrich would leave, that is, that the situation at home would work itself out without his having had to confront Friedrich. When the narrator returned, Friedrich was still there, however, and told a story involving a woman who had come to the narrator's apartment with Friedrich and a taxi driver who had threatened him, who Friedrich feared was now looking for him with the intent to do him harm.

At this point the narrator perceived a weakness in Friedrich and seized the opportunity to be rid of him: the narrator insisted that he and Friedrich should depart for a hiking trip to Liechtenstein, which the narrator maintained would do them both good. Friedrich claimed not to like hiking or mountains and did what he could to interfere with the narrator's agenda, including suggesting checking into a hotel in Zürich when the pair stopped there for lunch, but the narrator rejected all efforts to delay their arrival at his intended destination. When they arrived there, the narrator was tempted to spend some time satisfying his curiosity with regard to the books in the library near the Vaduz train station but succeeding in overcoming this urge and remaining focused on the project at hand, which was to drive Friedrich up a mountain with a view to ensuring that he and Friedrich would never encounter each other again.

The two started up a trail and the narrator insisted again and again that they continue upward despite the fact that a storm appeared to be gathering and despite the fact that Friedrich's judgment and sure-footedness were clearly impeded by his (usual) state of inebriation. Ultimately they reached a point at which they had to go around an outcropping on a narrow path in order to continue, and the narrator commanded Friedrich, who appeared very fearful and unsure about this undertaking, to take the lead. Friedrich hugged the outcropping and began inching his way around it, finally falling into the abyss despite or because of his hesitant approach. The narrator then walked back down the mountain (as it turned out, the apparent storm clouds dissipated and the sun appeared), thinking upon his return to the town from which he and Friedrich had departed that it was just as well that none of the people who had been out of doors when they arrived were in evidence, as these people might otherwise have wondered why he had returned alone after having gone up the mountain with another man.

To the reader, the narrator remarks that he remains uncertain as to whether or not he has committed murder, apparently implying that insisting that Friedrich undertake the hike despite the weather and Friedrich's drunkenness and inadequate shoes did not necessarily itself constitute murder in a legal or moral sense. We return to the point in time at which the novel began: The narrator is on his way back to Basel, and he is occupied by the thought that he will never be able to tell anyone what has happened. His feelings about the resolution of his relationship with Friedrich are ambiguous, but tend toward the positive, that is, the narrator now feels that the entire period during which he was imposed upon by Friedrich may well have been worth enduring for the sake of this outcome, which has granted the narrator a special status setting him aside from other human beings. ◻

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