Slow Homecoming Read Online Free PDF

including the village, was largely wilderness. The area had never been cleared; fields and meadows were unknown, as were all other features of civilized landscape; apart from construction sites, the natural relief of the earth’s surface had rarely been tampered with; even the wider roads followed the irregularities of the terrain, which seemed flat only when seen from the air (except for the landing strip, the only level space of any size was the short, wide gravel road, formed by alluvial deposits, which was off-limits to the civilian population and led to an army base in the swamps). And since most of the huts were raised on blocks, the original contours of the earth had been preserved even in the built-up areas, in the little hollows, ditches, and humps under the houses.
    As though adapted to the rugged, primeval landscape, the houses scattered through the woods showed no systematic relation to one another; they were placed higgledy-piggledy, without regard for their neighbors, and many not only were far from the road but also faced the other way. An overall view of the colony was nowhere obtainable, though it was known to be the only settlement
far and wide. Each dwelling seemed to appear out of the void, as though nothing came after it.
    Only from a plane might one have unexpectedly discovered the design of an almost charming little town between river and virgin forest, a rectangular network of streets traversed by a diagonal avenue, a kind of Broadway—an ideal spot, civilized yet elemental, with here and there a brass doorknob sparkling in the morning light while at the same time mist arose from the measureless light-brown pine forest.
    True, this friendly, fertile-looking valley—the bushy little conifers might have been grapevines—showed no sign of field or meadow (their absence seemed incredible at first sight), and the great overland road leading into the horizon was also absent. (Seen from the air, most of the huts, surrounded as they were by beaten-up cars and rusty electrical generators, were transmuted into vandalized garbage cans.)
    Except for the white wooden church, the gabled house was the tallest structure in the region; it alone had an attic, which the present tenants occasionally used as a darkroom; the gable was useful as a landmark, because even within the village area it was only too easy to lose one’s way among the swamps and thickets.
    Sorger got up early, eager to be doing something. The sun had not yet risen, but the smooth pebbles on the shore road where he was standing were already glistening and a nearby sandbank, marked with swollen lines composed of leaves, bits of branches, and pine needles, showed how the water level had fallen overnight. There was a nip in the air, but he wasn’t cold; all kinds of weather made him feel good, as long as he could be out in the air and active.
    Even in his work, he preferred drawing to photography,
because it was only through drawing that he came to understand the landscape in all its forms; he was invariably surprised to see how many forms revealed themselves in what seemed at first sight to be a dull and monotonous vista. A place took on meaning for him only when he drew it line for line—as faithfully as possible, without the schematizations and omissions that had become customary in his science—and it was only then that he could claim with a clear conscience, if only to himself, to have been there.
    As usual at that time of year, the river valley was deserted, yet on that morning, which might have arisen out of the depths of the earth, it seemed everywhere to have caught fresh fire from that short period at the turn of the century when, traveled by side-wheelers, parceled out by trading companies, swarming with gold diggers, it had made its mark on history: all that had passed irrevocably into plastic sieves from the phony Trading Post, into miniature dog sleds carved by Indian home workers, and inscriptions on