The Last Wolf & Herman Read online

  TRANSLATED BY GEORGE SZIRTES

  Copyright © 2009 by László Krasznahorkai

  Translation copyright © 2009 by George Szirtes

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First published as a New Directions Book in 2016

  Design by Erik Rieselbach

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Krasznahorkai, László, author. | Szirtes, George, 1948– translator. | Batki, John, translator. | Krasznahorkai, László. Utolsó farkas. English. | Krasznahorkai, László. Herman, a vadőr. English. Title: The last wolf ; & Herman : the game warden, the death of a craft / Laszlo Krasznahorkai ; translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes and John Batki.

  Other titles: The last wolf and Herman

  Description: New York : New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2016. | “Originally published in Hungarian as Az utolsó farkas (The Last Wolf, originally published 2009), and Herman, a vadőr, A mesterségnek vége (Herman, originally published 1986)”—Title page verso.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016022374 (print) | LCCN 2016035509 (ebook) | ISBN 9780811226080 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9780811226097 ()

  Classification: LCC PH3281.K8866 A2 2016 (print) | LCC PH3281.K8866 (ebook) | DDC 894/.51134—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022374

  New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

  by New Directions Publishing Corporation

  80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

  The Game Warden

  (first version)

  The assignment — although exactly what he had been secretly counting on, despite a lurking fear that his retirement might make them decide they no longer needed him — in the end came unexpectedly, one might say caught him unprepared, for at the time when in the plainest terms sparing all empty formalities he thanked the “wildlife management experts for their trust,” and accepted their mandate, he had felt almost panicked, as one who reached his goal too easily, practically unhindered, without any struggle, for not only had he “privately counted” on this, but this was in fact what he had been expressly planning when years earlier he had first entertained the idea of retirement, hoping it would bring real liberation and a certain latitude “absolutely necessary for the unimpeded unfolding of his abilities, smothered as they had been by fatuous requirements, rules and regulations.” As he himself later recognized there was certainly nothing surprising in his being chosen, though it would have been gratifying to know that it was his well-known perfectionism, endless perseverance and unflinching work ethic that convinced the authorities about his indisputable rightness for the job, but he was aware nonetheless that in selecting him the experts were paying homage to a peerless virtuoso of trapping who — as Herman more than once remarked with bitter irony — was in a way “the last of the Mohicans,” guarding the splendid mysteries of an ancient craft gradually sinking into permanent oblivion. Of course beyond the personal considerations the decision was also justified by the nature of the task: the Remete woods in question (a mere couple of hundred acres of hornbeam and oak) had for decades been absent from the forefront of their attention — all forestry activities had been focused on the vast hunting range only five kilometers away — with the consequence that this inexcusable neglect (in Herman’s words, “the alarming laxity of the authorities”) had turned the Remete by the time of the assignment into an unmanageable and impenetrable jungle, a veritable “sore on the well-groomed body of the region” where no right-thinking hunter or hiker would ever set foot. But the matter had turned really grave only after it was discovered that in this forest left to its fate and gone feral in an almost menacing manner the incredible proliferation of noxious predators worried not only the region’s farmers but had come to seriously threaten the nearby hunting grounds. A quick decision was made to give Herman a free hand. He plunged into his task and went about his work like a stubborn shadow, “on location” from crack of dawn till late afternoon, clearing scrub, trimming trees, building salt-licks and feeders, restoring ranger trails, or, where deemed necessary, blazing new trails; using ancient ways — by reading the tracks leading into and out of the woods — he estimated the numbers of wild stock, both beneficial game and pernicious predators; relying on intuition and experience, he examined the system of trails usually taken by animals as well as alternate side trails, resting and sleeping coverts, and finally — after it became clear that he would be up against mostly stray dogs and feral cats, as well as a few badgers and foxes — he repaired and de-scented his available stockpile of round traps, steel-jaw traps, dogcatching traps, and, while the local blacksmith, following Herman’s clear and precise specifications, fabricated ten of the so-called Berlin swan’s necks which, as he repeatedly told the blacksmith, he “expected to work wonders,” Herman shut himself up for days in his home workshop making sure there would be no shortage of deadfall traps and snares when the need for them arose. Next came a long period of habituation until the day arrived when Herman felt certain that predators no longer shied away from his well-camouflaged traps and he decided that his plan would “go live” on the morrow. He had no doubts about success, having familiarized himself with the predators’ trails, observed the directions of the wind, concocted his own de-scenting mix of ripe fish-heads, intestines, diced giblets and other scraps of offal; he employed artificial scents, a variety of baits and lures, and where needed, built chutes of sticks and stones to guide the animal toward a trap, especially for dog-traps — nonetheless he awaited the results with anxious trepidation, for he believed that in his person “an entire profession stood to be judged . . . ” and that the prestige, which in the case of a profession such as this has been fading for some time and losing relevance, would now regain its former glory. For the authorities who, by offering Herman this paid position, mostly intended to allay their own consciences without expecting serious results, were surprised to find that after two years the almost frightening primal jungle that the Remete had been was now a bright and wholesome spot of color in the landscape, and the experts could hardly believe their eyes reading the summary report submitted by Herman at the end of two years, although in view of the data they had to agree with Herman according to whom “the population of noxious predators has been reduced to a minimum while the stock of useful game has shown a marked increase.” A hastily got-up delegation, sent to express the appreciation of the authorities, found him on location engaged in setting up a deadfall trap in a thicket, but Herman’s behavior was so unsociable or, rather, so unfriendly, that they thought it better to defer the matter to a later occasion. And when, accompanied by a brusque, rather flippant note (“No need for this!”), he promptly returned the invitation from the game managers’ and hunters’ association to their usual mid-year awards event, the authorities wisely decided that it was better not to disturb him until he’d had a chance to get some rest since obviously this was nothing but a case of severe exhaustion which, at his age — and after such prolonged exertions! — was “really not surprising” . . . although in fact it was the calamitously oppressive masses of noxious predators exterminated over the past two years that caused Herman to have second thoughts. Toward the end of his second year a horrendous nightmare ambushed him for the first time: he glimpses the carrion pit in the distance . . . (which in fact he himself had dug at the outset in a carefully maintained clearing, where he flung the carcasses of dogs and cats, and which had the additional advantage of its pestilental stench exerting an as it were “mesmeric attraction” on the predators that had lately become exceedingly shy) . . . then, slowly approaching the pit,
he becomes aware of a certain hideous stirring . . . he hears frightful, nauseating sounds of slurping and sliding, popping and splaying, until . . . at last he must confront in the depths of the pit the enormous putrescent hairy mass of dead meat quivering like jelly . . . At this point he would jolt awake bathed in sweat, gasping for breath and staring terrified for minutes on end into the dark, and from then on not a night passed free of this recurring horror which soon began to weigh on him in the daytime as well, until one day in the course of his morning rounds, obeying the hunter’s unwritten code of ethics and removing and killing the animals caught by his traps overnight, suddenly all his strength evaporated and for several long minutes he had to look on helplessly at the convulsions of a soiled mongrel in its death throes. As far as that goes he knew numerous ways of killing a trapped beast: for a small animal such as a marten he pressed down the animal’s head with a stick and stepped on its chest; with foxes, badgers, cats and dogs (provided they survived the night) he first clubbed them on the nose and then with a firm motion he drove his knife between the skull and top vertebra of the stunned beast, thereby severing the spinal cord. At this point however all of his expertise failed him, he was simply unable to take the decisive — and humane — action; as he stood by the dog in extremis, he himself was stunned at this unexpected paralysis, nervously mopping his sweating brow, now and then spitting to the side, unable to overcome his inexplicable weakness. After this came days and weeks, days and weeks spent in an oppressive, unfamiliar daze; his vision began to deteriorate and his ears rang, at times it seemed he would be totally deaf the next minute, and because some malevolent inner force compelled him to constantly tense his muscles like a dog or cat ready to leap from danger, in the evenings having bicycled home he would collapse upon his bed fully clothed, with aching muscles, totally exhausted. In vain he tried to understand what could have happened to him but remained without a clue. By now he had become utterly incapable of calmly thinking over the calamity that had befallen him and so — at least he would not have to acknowledge his alarming condition — he resolved to throw himself into his work with redoubled effort. He constructed deadfall traps at various suitable spots in the forest but — even as he drove in the struts and measured out and sawed lengths of pine poles — not only did his former serenity and pride abandon him, he now labored persecuted by evil forebodings as if about to be overtaken by suddenly falling darkness. In vain did he shut himself up for days at a time within his lodgings in town, hoping to find peace at last, surrounded by stuffed birds, dilapidated furniture, and antlers mounted on the wall, and it was no use to get dead drunk in the grimy back recesses of taverns on the outskirts — it appeared he was beyond all help. At this point he decided to consult a physician. At first he complained about his liver but it was found to be in “perfect working order”; next he suspected a stomach ulcer, but the physician assured him it was out of the question, his digestive system was flawless. Finally — practically in despair, after laboratory tests and screenings failed to indicate the least disorder — at the doctor’s office he confidently announced that “he now felt dead certain about where the problem lay” and pointed at his heart. At this the doctor — who by no means could be charged with not having done everything possible to arrive at a diagnosis — barely suppressed a smile but did not object to further examinations. But the results were dismal, and, when a few days after the exams the doctor cheerfully notified him that “You passed with flying colors! You, sir, have a heart of iron!” — Herman completely lost control, and with an angry sweep of the hand at the flabbergasted doctor, stormed out of the office, swearing profusely. Once more he shut himself up at home, but no matter how hard he tried to hunt down the images produced by his troubled mind, they dispersed like shooting stars until he suddenly realized that the thought of the Remete woods filled him with tremendous longing; he stopped fretting, got dressed, pumped up the bicycle tires that had gone flat, and set out in feverish haste. Evening was falling when he arrived. Even though some half-light remained he groped his way as if blind through the thicket, following ranger trails to their end with bated breath and a peculiar, swaying gait, for even now, no longer fueled by the old ardor, he walked on tiptoes lest some twig crack under his boot heels and frighten the predators setting out to hunt in the darkening woods. He considered it unlikely he would find a catch, since the late November rains of the past few days had most likely completely washed out his traps and the shy beast of prey is careful to avoid such places; and while — mostly with a forester’s eyes — he made the rounds of feeders and ranger trails he veered between annoyance and a not quite unpleasant anxiety, seeing that after a mere week or two of neglect weeds were already rampant in the woods, here and there broken branches impeded his progress, and most of his iron traps had gotten rusty. He was aware of an invincible, stifling power already busily attacking his manicured paths and trails from all sides, crushing feeders, moldering the box- and pole traps and settling over the entire forest like some enormous infernal serpentine vine in mockery of the spasmodic human will that endeavors to tone everything, all that is complex and unknowable, down to its own heroic simplicity . . . Instead of being frightened and surrendering, Herman felt liberated from his oppressive burden and with great relief he noticed that already life seemed to be returning to him, and the austere combination of decisiveness, determination and a serious penchant for order once more filled his spirit with strength and so there was nothing else left than to get home as soon as possible, dry himself, and sleep through the night so that tomorrow — forgetting the shame of the past few weeks — he could set to work afresh. He was about to leave when, four or five steps from the path, under a bush — in the silvery gloaming of a suddenly appearing moon — he noticed a shadow of unusual shape and mass. Careful not to stumble in the dark he stepped closer and turned on his flashlight. The swan’s neck trap that loomed relentlessly skyward had completely escaped his mind. The sight nearly leveled him . . . the thought flashed through his mind that the past hour that had just restored his peace of mind had merely been God’s cruel and vicious joke, now to crush all the more effectively everything in him that had still remained intact . . . and in a flash of despair he buried his face in his hands. The huge male fox with a thick coat of fur had frozen stiff in a most peculiar pose: his tail, butt, and rear legs had come to rest heavily on the sodden ground, and the two upright curved irons that slammed together to catch him by the neck, crushing it (in a single horrendous instant, as Herman was well aware) also lifted the beast’s upper body and held it in the air; only the head frozen in a snarl and forelegs resting one on the other in a deathly tame gesture were pointing at the muddy ground, downward, surrendering, conquered. Herman slowly lowered his hands from his eyes, his stern countenance unable to turn away from the bedraggled, fraying body, and now he could no longer hold it back, that scorching heat not easy to call by name, for it was an emotion rather than a taming recoil, now it swooped down on him and caught him utterly defenseless . . . This upwelling elemental compassion was filled with remorse but at the same time also with a frightening stubbornness, that obduracy of the misled which follows in the wake of a wrong committed in ignorance. The almost physical anguish that the sight produced in Herman was presently washed away by the sudden rush of blinding light that — as if his heart had given a throb — made him glimpse in a flash his entire life like a landscape; he was not aware of, for he could not now register, the perilous furrows of darkness receding into the far distance, and saw only this relentless splendor, this piercing light as it delivered judgment upon each fallible act. He overcame his emotions, forced the curved irons apart, freed the animal, and taking it in his arms, carried it to the carrion pit. With a dull thud the fox landed in the depths, and he was unable to let go of that sound all the way back to town — as a refugee in an enemy zone — bicycling home on the mute streets; he locked the gate and the door behind him, turned on the kitchen light and stood in thought in the redeeming silence under the
bare bulb. He envisioned the forest wrapped in thick darkness standing still in the night like a ship at anchor, with shadows scurrying past trees — badgers, foxes, cats, and dogs stalking, lying low . . . The next day he collected all of his traps, filled the carrion pit with earth, and for weeks after that slept only by day, roaming the forest by night, and following with an ever deepening attention the hunting ways of beasts of prey, at times half dug-in, observing from a foxhole, at other times tracking fresh trails, or lurking behind brush and scrub, in softly falling snow toward mid-December. And by the time real winter arrived, and Christmas came, he finally understood that he had been living his life steeped in the deepest ignorance, allowing himself to be led by the nose, firmly believing he was obeying the order of divine providence when he had divided the world into noxious and beneficial, while in reality both categories originated in the same heinous ruthlessness that had infernal light lurking in its depths, just as he realized with a pang that it was not a fragile peace, nor the “ancestral commands of the heart” that ruled the human world because all that was merely like some transparent film shielding the pullulating “mass of murderous chaos” below. A burst of compassion thus swept him among the fallen, and this same compassion made him revolt against that loyalty that had till now shackled him to the tyranny of the law, and since he now believed that there had to be a higher law beyond human reckoning, he had crossed the borderline past which — he realized — he would remain forever alone. All this time however he did not know what to do until one early morning, bicycling home on the snowy highway, and re-imagining with a measure of pride the badger’s hunting foray recently witnessed, it struck him with a pang that he was “already one of them.” Once again he was overcome by the guilt that had in fact been unquellable from the beginning, and now he was certain: he would wreak vengeance. He knew there was no one with whom he could share his burden, for who would understand the train of thoughts that led from his nightmare to this realization (“I must deliver justice”), and in any case he understood that a game warden who feels pity for noxious predators was inconceivable. And so, pretending to carry on his former activities, he ordered more swan’s neck traps from the blacksmith, one and a half times the size of the earlier ones, and then set about his work along a carefully laid-out plan of action. He packed up the little that he would need to take, shouldered his two Mannlicher-Schonhauer rifles, locked the door and the gate, and deployed himself in the forest, to build himself a winter shelter in a nearly inaccessible part of the Remete. He made an agreement with the dam-keeper whose house stood about two kilometers away on the bank of the Kőrös that he would buy food from him once a week, then — after making the man promise to not say a word about his presence to anyone — he took the “necessary security measures.” He secured the entrance of the path from the highway to the forest with a so-called Selbstschuss consisting of two firearms with reversed locks aimed horizontally at each other, affixed at chest height in a bush on each side of the path, with the triggers connected by a length of strong, transparent fishing line, so that when someone unsuspecting intended to turn into the woods and reached and triggered the line the Mannlichers would go off and the victim would execute himself. This “Selbstschuss” was originally used for big game, primarily bears, but of course Herman had other targets in mind, as he installed at the head of each path leading into the woods one enormous, superbly camouflaged swan’s neck, because he feared the authorities would soon descend upon him. For the time being his caution seemed superfluous, since for months the authorities had failed to connect the peculiar events taking place in town with the disappearance of the retired game warden whom the wildlife management association had in vain sought to reach at his home, in order to at last hand over his well-deserved reward, for Herman had “vanished without a trace,” then they believed that he most likely must have departed to stay with relatives for the winter months. The first sporadic cases of broken legs did not cause the hospital to notify the proper authorities, until in early February law enforcement got wind of rumors being retailed far and wide about the nocturnal depredations of a maniac at large among the residences of peaceful citizens, or possibly it was some kids too young to realize the gravity of their acts. The investigation soon established that the culprit or culprits were using standard, if extremely dangerous, steel-jawed traps, placed in front of the homes of unwary people with the most perverse cunning and inexhaustible inventiveness, superbly camouflaged so that a person leaving the house in the morning was bound to step in it. The doubtless understandable bewilderment that at first characterized the crime-fighting organs soon ended, as the increasingly frequent incidents were creating panic in town, and a special task force was created for “the earliest possible elimination of the problem.” This squad at first focused on finding the perpetrator through the identity of those victims who were hospitalized with severe fractures and contusions, but no connection whatever could be established between the injured gym teacher, tax official, florist, forestry officer, truck driver, tailor, several school children, and finally a butcher, and so the investigation came to focus on the traps. The hunters’ and wildlife management associations both denied any responsibility for the traps and brushed aside with a certain measure of indignation the notion of any connection whatsoever between these groups and the perpetrators. However — and independently of this response — it was evident that these devices were, so to say, homemade, and therefore the special task force next took into consideration every workshop and machinist capable of fabricating such items, but without any result. Meanwhile further incidents kept occurring and the perpetrators (by now the unspoken consensus was that it must be a gang) evinced extraordinary skills, since in the face of stepped-up nocturnal patrols they escaped apprehension. By the end of February the task force was working in near despair, when unexpectedly it came upon two important pieces of information: first, outside town, they found the rural blacksmith who admitted having manufactured the objects in question, and even though he could not provide an exact identification since he had not known the person who placed the order, in his opinion “he must have been a hunter for sure”; and second, in response to a notice published in the local paper, the dam-keeper from the banks of the Kőrös presented himself, having decided after much mulling that he “could no longer remain silent” . . . He related that he had realized weeks ago that the man behind the events must be the retired game warden who had been buying food from him once a week and who was camped out in the Remete woods. One time he had even asked the man, “I can’t say I understand what those people did wrong, but if you must punish them, why do you use these ridiculous traps that can’t really do them in?” whereupon reportedly all the game warden said was, as it were admitting culpability, “This is the only way, unless I use my bare hands. I’ve no other means at my disposal,” and then once again he made the man promise to remain silent, and ever since then, as the dam-keeper repeatedly emphasized, he hadn’t seen him. After this it was naturally child’s play to obtain the wildlife management association’s retirement list, and when it came to light that since the end of December they had lost track of Herman, all the pieces came together, and everything was clear as day. As a matter of course they sealed up his apartment after finding that the two Mannlichers, registered in Herman’s name, were missing, and, beefing up the task force, they deployed a large detachment around the periphery of the Remete woods. By then Herman had not left his perfectly camouflaged winter quarters for days, halfway dug in, strictly rationing food and eating only once a day, because he no longer trusted the dam-keeper ever since the man had realized that Herman was “the trapper,” and he had only a week’s supply of food left. He’d put on all his clothes under his thick winter coat so he would not freeze, and on top wrapped himself in two blankets; he had grown a beard on his wind-chapped face, and his entire being had as it were metamorphosed over the past two months; breathing with open mouth he sat hunched over, motionless on his bedding made of burlap sacks an
d scraps of fabric, and if at times he ventured forth, or set out for the town at night, he moved stealthily, without a sound, eyes flashing left and right, and at the slightest suspicious noise he was able to leap into the first available hiding place with a limberness that belied his age. During the past three days however he had not moved, not so much out of precaution, but because he sensed the time had come to soberly think over the events of recent weeks. He felt the need for this all the more because lately, especially since the last trapping . . . it was if something had broken in him, as if . . . all of a sudden his strength had abandoned him, the strength that had sustained his sense of justice, and when he heard that his traps had caught several children, he began to suspect that maybe he was “on the wrong scent” . . . Up till now he had been acting in the belief that he would be the one “who would pay them back for having been misled,” having been forced to slaughter with his own hands like “a blind man groping in the dark,” but by now — on the third day of his anxious soul-searching — he could no longer keep putting it off: he had to confront the possibility that he might have been wrong, and instead of restoring the “missing order,” perhaps he and none other had begun its final breakdown, working from the inside, like a woodworm. A sharp pain stabbed into his shoulders, the darkness where he sat suddenly became frightening, and he now sensed he could no longer master his frantically racing thoughts, whereas that was precisely what was needed first and foremost: to once more create order in the chaos of words fleeing helter-skelter, forestall this menacing collapse, stem the weakness growing inside him. With eyes glowing inward he stared straight ahead, cowering motionless in a disastrous free fall, having by now given up on his chance to calmly resist this all-obliterating power, just as one is unable to circumspectly evaluate the situation while hurling down a steep path with only one’s feet for a brake, when running of any kind is no longer possible, given the infernal speed of the downslope. There was no need to respond, for the question already smashed with a single blow his rock-solid resolve and any effort to find words would have been useless, for the lurking awareness that he had committed a wrong that “possibly not even God could forgive” was merely obvious by now, and incontrovertible, like some long-withheld judgment. He did not even notice the increasingly unbearable burden weighing on his shoulders, for by now he felt that in place of the benumbing heaviness of guilt he had arrived at the boundlessly free space of a shining where everything was clearly visible and the “heart’s commands” were distinctly audible . . . Shutting his eyes in a lightheaded spell he could already see himself setting foot on the forest’s tranquil paths to once more walk down the old ranger trails in the gently falling snow, and in this liberating spaciousness he was at once filled with a deep joy, for he saw a sign of grace in his sudden ability to behold everything with new eyes, the eyes of the sinner who knows that everything that surrounds him carries exactly the same weight . . . He was not the least bit surprised to hear the voice squawking from a megaphone nearby, in fact as one perfectly aware of the true meaning of these words (“resistance . . . hopeless . . . resistance . . . ”), he stood up nodding, and since he was unaware that a special team of the manhunt had already dismantled the Selbstschuss as well as the traps positioned at the trailheads, he immediately flipped back the well-camouflaged door of his lair, the sooner to warn his pursuers of the hidden dangers, and, at the same time as surrendering himself, to call attention to “the need for universal compassion” and to have “this announced on the radio as soon as possible.” The gigantic and frightening hulk — wrapped in blankets, suddenly popping up from underground, tottering under the weight behind his back, like one all alone barely able to hold up a world about to cave in — abruptly materializing in front of them was so unexpected that the team advancing in a semicircular formation — taken by surprise — instantly opened fire. But Herman, like an indestructible monster, for quite some time refused to topple into the snow, until the shooters suddenly realized that the body riddled through and through was held up in the air only by the hail of bullets.