Cow Read online

  ‘What are you talking about!’ Knuchel took up his fork in his left hand, and kept his right under the table. ‘Pour me some more wine instead, would you.’

  ‘You know you should be more careful, otherwise you’ll get blood poisoning. Ugh, watch yourself,’ warned the farmer’s wife.

  ‘Bah. Stuff! Have another piece. We won’t want to be heating these pigs’ ears up again. What about that tail, no one want it?’ Knuchel pointed at the meat platter. His neck muscles moved as he chewed, and fat dribbled from the corners of his mouth. He swallowed and nodded, ‘You know what? We could keep one of the piglets in the third pen for ourselves, fatten it up for the autumn. Pork and beans, lovely.’

  ‘So you want to have the butcher come round again after all?’ asked the farmer’s wife.

  ‘Why not? They’re a fine litter, and you’ll know what they’ve been eating. And you can keep an eye on the butcher, so you know what goes into the sausages. I’ll go and mark one of them with a blue riband. Then you can see that he gets the best stuff to eat, and roots around in the fresh air a bit.’

  ‘But once Überländer actually shows up, you’ll hardly be able to wait till he packs his knives and goes again. You just about chased him off the farm the last time he came.’

  ‘He got through half the wine in the house! Everything, even the sausages, had to have wine mixed in, and he was always having to try a bit first. Come off it. He was off his head last autumn,’ Knuchel protested, then stood up to go.

  ‘What are you doing about the cows? Are you going to leave them out on the pasture?’ asked the farmer’s wife.

  Knuchel stopped and scratched his throat. ‘Let’s wait and see for another day or two.’

  ‘But you’ve got the new fence up, the wind has dropped, it would save you a bit of work in the cowshed.’

  ‘It’s not the work I’m bothered about. It’s more the hay. The grass won’t run away. It’s not as mild as all that either. In the cowshed they’re flailing their tails like anything. There’s a good chance of more rain.’

  ‘But you used not to stand waiting, you said the air and exercise was good for them. The earlier the better you always said. Nothing’s the matter, is it? Are they not all healthy, or something? It’s more than that half bushel of hay, is it?’

  Ruedi slid about on the corner bench. ‘It’s Bossy, Mother. She’s gone and kicked over the bucket.’

  ‘So that’s it. Bossy’s spilt her milk. Why didn’t you tell me right away? You can be pretty tight-lipped sometimes. Well, it’ll have to be tomorrow or the day after.’ Knuchel’s wife pushed her chair back, and started collecting the plates. ‘So that nervous cow has gone and upset her milk again,’ whispered the grandmother.

  ‘What’s done is done.’ The farmer shrugged his shoulders. ‘Shouldn’t cry over spilt milk. Here, who’s that coming?’

  Prince barked, and the children rushed out through the kitchen door, followed by Ambrosio.

  A black MERCEDES 190 diesel stopped in front of Knuchel’s cowshed.

  ‘It’s the mayor in his MERC!’ Ruedi called into the kitchen.

  Ambrosio threw Prince a bone. He sniffed at it, then went on barking. ‘Our Prince doesn’t eat pork bones,’ said Thérèse.

  The mayor asked the children where their father was, gave Stini a pinch on the cheek, and surveyed the yard. He took his hat off in front of the door, scraped his feet on the threshold as on a doormat, and said good evening. Still scraping his soles, he said: ‘If I’d known you were eating dinner, I’d have driven on. I didn’t want to trouble you, I had some business in town, and I was coming home the back way, so I thought, why don’t you just stop by?’

  With a look at the scraping town shoes, Knuchel asked the mayor inside, and the farmer’s wife said, ‘Oh, we’ve been finished some time.’ And Grandmother said why didn’t he, and if he liked, there was still one pig’s ear left, and the beans were soon warmed up.

  ‘Or would you prefer a coffee?’ asked the farmer, ‘or a tot of schnapps?’

  ‘No trouble, please for goodness sake. I was just popping by. But a cup of coffee would be nice, if you happened to have—’

  ‘Now come on,’ protested the farmer’s wife. ‘A coffee’s no trouble at all.’

  The mayor set his hat down on the table, and perched on the edge of a chair. ‘Well, you got them on the pasture yet?’ he asked Knuchel.

  ‘He’s not in any kind of rush this year,’ Grandma replied, while Knuchel was getting back to the table.

  ‘I see you’ve got your new fence up. They’re good posts, aren’t they? A fine fence,’ the mayor continued.

  ‘Well, you do what you can. I put it up with the Spaniard.’

  ‘A useful man is he, your Spaniard?’

  ‘Yes, so he is. And we need to get the milking done and all, here in the country.’

  ‘Good milkers are thin on the ground, aren’t they?’ said the mayor.

  ‘Yes,’ said Knuchel.

  ‘Anything on that calf of the prize cow’s? You remember what I said? Did you give it another thought?’

  ‘Blösch’s calf? He’s nursing well, putting on weight fast. We’ve got enough milk, after all.’

  ‘So you’ll fatten him up and give him to Schindler? But I told you—’

  ‘Even last week Schindler was telling me that AI calves are fetching more now. The prices are going up like crazy. 100 kilos dead weight—’

  ‘But Hans, summer’s on the way, they can’t be worth that much now.’

  ‘If only you knew,’ Knuchel laughed. ‘The people in the towns only want the very best quality. Schindler’s having to go as far as the French cantons to get all the veal he needs. He buys every one he can lay his hands on. He told me if I had ten calves ready fattened, he’d take the lot. The heavier, the better.’

  ‘Yes, but when he starts doing his accounts, then it will all sound different. Then he’ll be telling you how he can’t make anything, how he’s always having to put in money of his own, and how the butchers are getting out of having to pay him his full whack. If one’s not an out-and-out fox all over then at the very least the liver will have been no good, and you’ll be the one to pay. Come on Hans, we know Schindler.’

  ‘That’s what I keep telling him, but he never listens to me,’ lamented the farmer’s wife.

  ‘That’s not true,’ protested Knuchel. ‘Don’t make our calf-dealer sound any worse than he is. It’s all down to the calves, how well we look after them, what we feed them on, real milk or just imported powder. And us with our pure well water. No, Schindler’s never deducted anything off what he pays me.’

  ‘Well, God knows what you feed them on! Everyone says there’s no calf as fat and well grown as a Knuchel calf.’

  Knuchel blushed. ‘Bah, don’t believe it. You’d think we whipped a dozen eggs in with their milk each time. You, Thérèse,’ he said after a while, ‘go and get me my pipe from the parlour.’

  ‘Here, have one of these!’ The mayor pulled a packet of RÖSSLI STUMPEN from his breast pocket.

  Knuchel hesitated.

  ‘Go on!’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Knuchel.

  ‘And the Spaniard, is he around? I could pick up his papers and take them with me, seeing as I happen to be here.’

  ‘He’ll be around. Probably in the paddock, playing with the children. Thérèse, go and call Ambrosio,’ said the farmer’s wife.

  ‘What papers are you referring to, and what are they for?’ asked Knuchel.

  ‘Oh, passport, residence permit, work permit, so we can have him properly entered in our records. Then people will know who he is.’

  ‘A man ought to be allowed to work without having to get special permission. All this writing things down that goes on.’

  ‘Everything has to be kept in order, though, because of taxes and so on. You’ve got to keep an eye on foreigners, Hans. They can’t be allowed to just do what they want. They’ve already got them in town, unregistered foreign workers.’
/>   ‘Yes, in factories or on building sites, where they take on anyone who turns up. But it’s different here in the country. We know what work means here. You can’t compare our Ambrosio to some illegal migrant worker!’

  ‘But he is a foreigner, and so he has to be registered.’

  Ambrosio had been playing ‘gallina ciega’ with Stini and little Hans in the paddock. To the children, the game was known as ‘blinde kuh’. They tied a red handkerchief over Ambrosio’s eyes and he had to try and catch them. To their amusement, he had crowed exuberantly like a cock, while the children had mooed. When he heard Thérèse calling him, Ambrosio took the handkerchief off. Straightaway little Stini called out, ‘Now give me back my hanky!”

  In the kitchen Ambrosio was told to get his papers.

  He looked in puzzlement at the Knuchel faces, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head.

  ‘Residence permit, identification papers,’ said the mayor.

  ‘No entiendo,’ Ambrosio shrugged his shoulders again.

  ‘Birth certificate, driving licence, work permit, family book, vaccination certificates, anything you’ve got in writing.’ The mayor spoke in a loud voice.

  ‘By God, he hasn’t got a clue what you’re talking about,’ said Knuchel, and held out his left hand in order to mime writing on it with his right. He drew exaggeratedly large circles on the air.

  Still louder than before, the mayor resumed: ‘Marriage certificate, pension card, visa, entry from the police register, health certificate, employers’ references, passport, immigration police!’

  The farmer’s wife and Grandmother gasped. ‘Po... Po... Po... Police?!’ The farmer was just as surprised.

  ‘The immigration police,’ said the mayor. ‘Just the papers from the immigration police.’

  ‘Quieren ver a los documentos?’ Ambrosio had understood.

  He returned with his passport and several official forms in his hands.

  ‘There, that’s that,’ said the mayor, ‘our clerk does everything by the letter. Everything has to be just right.’

  ‘Ah, he’s worse than the co-op manager he is,’ said Knuchel.

  The mayor unfolded Ambrosio’s papers, and flicked through them with an inquisitive eye.

  ‘A passport,’ said Thérèse, who was standing by.

  ‘A blue one,’ said Ruedi.

  Ambrosio watched his papers disappear into the mayor’s pockets. He left the kitchen without saying anything.

  The mayor was satisfied. He sipped the last of his coffee, got to his feet, picked up his hat and asked: ‘Could I take a quick peek at your cowshed and see how the calf’s doing?’

  ‘Yes, all right.’

  The twelve Knuchel cows were lying in the straw in front of the closed manger. They turned their heads towards the door, radiating boredom. The three calves scrambled to their feet.

  ‘God bless,’ said the mayor as he stepped inside.

  ‘That’s him, Blösch’s calf,’ said Knuchel, pointing at one of them.

  ‘This one?’ The major touched his skin, pressed and pinched him fore and aft, stepped back a pace to consider size and proportions, stepped forward again, and looked under the tail and belly. He loosened the rope on the muzzle, peered into the calf’s mouth, thumbed back an eyelid and inspected the white membrane. ‘Ah, that’s a fine sight,’ he said. ‘He would have made a fine bull, and there you go, fattening him up just like any ordinary calf. A pity.’

  Knuchel gave the mayor a cloth. He wiped his hands on it, the fingers locked, sought out a clean bit, then went on kneading each other. Without taking his eyes off the calf, he stopped and cleared his throat. ‘You know, Hans, er, it’s not that I want to make trouble or anything, but I had a visit from the cheeser. He’s got a point, you know. I noticed it myself earlier. There isn’t a doctor’s certificate among the papers he showed me.’

  ‘Now, goddamn it!’ Knuchel exclaimed.

  ‘The cheeser was saying he was entitled to insist, it’s in the regulations.’

  ‘What a bloody idiot! Ruedi told me there was trouble brewing. Even the manager was making a fuss over a pair of trousers. And now the cheeser too! Jesus! Why are they all out to fix our Spaniard? He’s a decent fellow, hasn’t done anyone any harm, and he’s dependable. And all done in that hole-and-corner way!’

  ‘Don’t you get so wrought up over it. You shouldn’t pay any attention to the gossip either. I mean, they had it in for the Italian before. The cheeser just thinks something’s wrong with the milk again.’

  ‘An idiot he is, that big mouth!’

  ‘Well, you know him, he always has to grumble a bit, otherwise you might start to overlook him. But then you can’t call a cow brindled unless there’s a bit of white on her.’

  ‘So what’s supposed to be the matter with my milk? See for yourself! They lie properly, they eat properly, they drink properly. No, mayor, my cowshed is a damn sight tidier than that cheeser’s front room!’

  ‘He thinks there might be germs.’

  Knuchel looked beyond the line of cows lying in the straw, took the RÖSSLI STUMPEN out of his mouth, and said quietly: ‘So it’s the milking machines again, right? Hygiene, right. Hygiene! That’s what they say. But you tell me, what’s cleaner about a machine? The main thing is, you look after the animals, that you wash and wipe the gear twice a day, and that you give them enough straw. What’s going to go wrong there? It’s hardly Ambrosio’s fault if the cheeser can’t make cheese, and the milk goes sour in his hands.’

  ‘I was just telling you, Hans. Maybe you should send him to see a doctor here, then he’d have a certificate. Rules are rules and you have to keep a clean cowshed, the cheeser’s right enough there.’

  ‘We’re bringing too much milk for his liking, I know. And it’s got more fat in it too. More than he knows what to do with, the idiot!’

  The mayor made to leave.

  ‘It’s stupid, complaining the whole time, but if ever you want something done, you’ve got a hell of a job persuading them,’ muttered Knuchel as he shut the cowshed door. He hasn’t sent the field-mouser round either. I’ve already told him twice that would be more useful than driving round the highlands spouting nonsense. He could feel eyes drilling holes in his back.

  He dropped the RÖSSLI STUMPEN in the gutter, where it hissed quietly.

  ‘Well, I’ll be going then,’ said the mayor.

  ‘What, are you off already?’ The farmer’s wife came up, watering can in hand. All sorts of goodbyes were exchanged, profuse thanks expressed, and apologies. With every backward step he took, hat in hand, towards his car, the mayor mumbled another ‘thank you’ or ‘goodbye’, and ‘thanks again for the coffee’, he said twice.

  In the kitchen, Grandmother had also gone up to the kitchen window to watch the MERCEDES leave. ‘At least Schindler always has some sweets for the children when he comes,’ she said.

  *

  It hadn’t escaped Ambrosio that Sundays on the Knuchel farm were also a celebration of work. The feeding of the animals was conducted in freshly washed clothes, cleaning and milking were done with new creases in the trousers of farmers’ green. Knuchel took his time, he teased his animals affectionately, there were smiles and laughter, many interruptions. The grass for the feed was cut a little later in the day, and the children came along too. Little Hans was allowed up on the tractor, and he even held the steering wheel. Stini brought her straw doll along.

  In the Knuchel kitchen, Grandmother was in Sunday mood. She drank an extra cup of coffee, and the farmer’s wife had her white apron on.

  There was even more chiming than usual with the milking gear at the water trough. The milking pails were plunged deep into the water. Everything had to look neat and new, everything was picked up twice, held in the hand, and looked at from above and below, from in front and behind.

  If the farmer had been slow and deliberate with the cows after breakfast, so was Ambrosio now with the sweeping. He swept with a birch broom. He swept the hayloft, he swept
the path, he swept the threshing floor, he swept the feed passage, he swept leisurely, always from left to right, he swept each little straw from the planks over the manure pit, he swept the concrete terrace in front of the house and the gravel area behind it, he swept the kennel, he swept the ashes from the place where the potatoes were steamed, he swept underneath the wooden trough where the pig feed was stored, he swept from the moment the milking had been finished, he swept as he had never swept before, he swept as he had never guessed it might be possible to sweep, he swept the way Knuchel liked it done.

  A shot cracked in the silence.

  It exploded like thunder on a clear sky, from the wood over the farm. And then a second and a third. Ambrosio stiffened, and the birch broom slid from his grasp. ‘Qué pasa? Maldita sea!’ Nothing happened. Stini and Hans went on playing in the yard without looking up, Ruedi pored over his moped engine that he’d taken to pieces over by the granary. Prince snoozed in his kennel. Not a trace of excitement anywhere. No windows were flung open in the house. No one came running out from behind the dungheap with arms aloft, nor did anything tumble out of the sky onto the broad farmhouse road, no Knuchel hen stopped pecking in the chicken-run, no Knuchel cock thought it worth his while to crow.

  Heavy gunshots now followed in quick succession. Ambrosio looked inside the cowshed. Not one cow had climbed to her feet in the straw, only the calves on their wobbly legs were upright, staring as ever.

  ‘Hijo de puta!’ Ambrosio grabbed at his bald patch. Farmer Knuchel was leaving the kitchen with a gun over his shoulder. He had changed his clothes, and wasn’t paying any attention to the shooting. Ambrosio started feeling for his cigarettes and lighter. His fingers fumbled along the seams and rivets of his trousers without finding the entrance to a pocket.

  ‘What are you standing there for, looking like a stuck calf? Have I grown horns suddenly?’ The farmer laughed. ‘This is my carbine, and we’re shooting today.’ Prince emerged from the kennel and crept round the farmer’s legs. Knuchel bent down and wiped his toecaps with a rag, then, satisfied with the result, marched off.

  Farmer Knuchel marched steadily up the track from the farm, and off into the countryside. He looked neither to left nor right, he marched away as though he could hear a drum in the distance, or perhaps a tune played by the village musicians. He had a brown felt hat on his head, he swung his left arm and gripped his rifle sling in his right. He held it in his fist, just below his left shoulder, and so tightly that the veins and sinews appeared on the back of his hand. Knuchel walked purposefully. He listened to his boots creaking and crunching on the gravel. The sound corresponded to the way he felt, it even gave him inspiration. He felt good. Here I am, Hans Knuchel from the Knuchel farm, I have twelve fine cows in my cowshed, and pigs and hens, and I grow good food for them on my own ground. Don’t let anyone try and pull my green carpet away from under me. No one’s going to knock me off my stride, or block my path, or else! Stomach in, shoulders back, chin out, I can walk tall here. I’ve grown up on this soil, and so has my bread. With every step, he enjoyed the sense of his own weight, with every pace he caressed his own earth underfoot. Already he had reached the edge of the wood.