Cow Read online

  The loose straw was forked up to the front, the dung scraped backwards into the gutter or loaded onto the wheelbarrow. Ambrosio wanted to get out, away from the confines of the cowshed. There were children, cats, cows and calves everywhere. Spiders’ webs hung down low, and he still had his blisters from using the enormous equipment. Ambrosio pushed the barrow, half empty, over the threshold, rolled across the planks over the manure pit. He took a run up the board. Qué carajo! The dungheap was humming and chirping, it was swarming with life. Sparrows exploded into the air, took up new positions on walls and branches. Swallows dived through the barn door. With his neck twitching back and forth, the Knuchel cock strutted away. His comb was a luminous red. Pflop! Ambrosio hauled the barrow back out of the dung.

  After the cleaning, there was a hay feed. The cowshed was full of the murmurous sounds of cows feeding. Blösch sniffed choosily around in her feed crib. She tweaked out a few single shreds of hay. The manger was open. There were two wooden bars round her neck, locking her head into the crib. The farmer went up to her. ‘Yes, you feed, that’ll do you good. There’s a lot of sunshine went in that.’ He had fetched a tin muzzle. The calf was thrusting its head about this way and that. ‘Ah, Blösch’s calves, they’re always as stupid as they come. But we don’t leave them to nurse by themselves for more than the first two days. It’s not good for them to suck too much either. They’ll only get used to it and then they’ll never make proper cattle, only the sort that are always waiting to bloody suck even when they are fully grown. Fingers, ears, pitchfork handles, even their own teats, hah! That’s no way to be. You, Ambrosio, grab him by the head!’ The hempen rope slipped over the calf’s ears, the muzzle was squarely over mouth and nostrils, the eyes bulged, they squinted at what was making the sucking impossible, they rolled in their head, as though looking at everything and nothing at the same time.

  ‘All right, kids, gangway!’ Knuchel had made a bed of straw for the calf in the passage. It kicked with all four feet, resisting. Knuchel tied the rope to a ring in the wall.

  ‘There! That’s done it. What I was going to add...’ Knuchel hawked, cleared his throat, scratched it again. He looked from Ambrosio to Blösch, and from Blösch at Ambrosio’s left hand. ‘It’s about... it’s about that ring. You could milk Blösch dry in that bucket, for her calf. But you have to get rid of the ring first.’

  Following Knuchel’s looks, Ambrosio stared first at Blösch then at his own hand.

  ‘The ring! Your ring!’ repeated Knuchel. ‘Not when you’re milking. Especially when you can do it and properly.’

  Ambrosio slipped it off, the children stroked the calf. Bossy was already dripping, and the cats licked their lips.

  As he was washing her udder, Ambrosio noticed that Blösch was a little feverish. It was when he pressed his head against her side, to milk out the colostrum, he could hear a splashing and gurgling as from the bottom of a well. He stroked her coat; skin and hair had lost their suppleness. He touched her udder, and the whole cow trembled. He cautiously milked out what the calf had left: half a pail.

  Ambrosio had never seen a bigger, stronger cow than Blösch, it had never even occurred to him that such a cow might exist. But now she was sick, and he got the farmer out from under Bossy. ‘Esta vaca no está bien, está enferma.’

  Knuchel put his pail on the bench. Hesitatingly, with raised eyebrows, he followed the Spaniard’s gestures. He stepped up to Blösch, touched her back, her throat, her muzzle. He examined her eyes. They were inflamed and inert. ‘Well, if she won’t eat anything!’ He pushed his jaw out, and scratched. ‘What shall I do? Damn it! She’s probably still offended on account of her calf.’

  When they were unchained to be watered, it was Gertrude, the oldest cow in Knuchel’s shed, who led the way to the pump. There followed Stine, Spot and Tiger, and then Flora and Bossy. Not one of them waited for the lead cow. Blösch stayed behind in the cowshed.

  2

  FIVE THIRTY.

  Morning that I can’t call my own.

  Give me courage to last out the day.

  Yesterday.

  Yesterday I overreached myself. In the end, I didn’t manage a single word.

  Not a squeak.

  It all happened on the great screen of my imagination. That’s where I can perform. The wonderful speeches I’ve made in the private cinema in my head! No one’s more practised than I am at proposing utopian solutions in a dramatically effective way. Excuse my interrupting, Herr Bössiger, but I have an objection. Surely, in a slaughterhouse, of all places, there are one or two things that can’t be defined in terms of mere facts and figures. Take for example...

  I can’t even make a fist in the privacy of my trouser pocket.

  And the lump in my throat. The constriction.

  It’s all over long before the first ‘I...’ Not a single word slips out. I’m struck dumb.

  We slink off.

  All of us.

  All in different directions.

  Anything not to have to face the others.

  But back in the changing room, we all stood together again, in front of our open lockers. We looked at each other’s stinking, bloodstained rags, and itched our scalps. We leaned over the basin, bare chested. Hügli cut his nails. Huber hogged the shower for ages; no one minded.

  Ambrosio flipped the soap across the room a couple of times. It was no accident, and we were grateful to him for it.

  Even the stupid joke about Fernando’s garter got a laugh.

  Just so long as someone said something.

  We washed our faces over and over again: we filled our cupped hands under the jet of water, and buried ourselves a few seconds longer than usual in their stored-up warmth.

  The door flew open, and Gilgen exploded in; he had thrown himself against it with the whole of his colossal weight.

  He stood in the doorway enormously. His colour was changing the whole time: he was as white as a sheet, then all the blood shot into his head, then he turned pale again. His eyes were flickering. He kept his great fork-lift arms behind his back, like wings: his hands were open, the fingers stuck out like thorns. His jaw thrust forward, trembling. There was a BRISSAGO in his mouth. His butcher’s tunic was ripped right across his chest: his gold-plated oxtooth with its tricorn root gleamed against the wire-wool hair on his chest.

  No one moved.

  There was quiet in the shower room.

  We leaned over the basin without budging a muscle.

  First Gilgen picked up Rötlisberger, and lifted him off the floor, almost up to his own glittering eyes.

  Then he grabbed hold of Luigi.

  One after another, he picked us up. We were like toys.

  No one tried to resist.

  We stood there like sacks, and let him go through us right the way round the basin.

  There was calm in his fury.

  It was a fury that had clarity in it, that was etched into his face, the kind of lasting fury that I’m not capable of.

  Suddenly he said with a clear voice: ‘Des vaches, des vaches, oui! Rien que des vaches! Des vaches! Vacas! Cows!’

  His arms pointed backwards again, like clipped wings. Like an eagle.

  And then he was gone.

  And today Gilgen will be there again.

  All of us will be there.

  Every one.

  Ambrosio. And Rötlisberger. Huber and Hofer and Co. Überländer too. And me.

  Good boys, taking the golden hours of our mornings out into the abattoir behind the high fence at the edge of the beautiful city.

  Red light! Stop!

  The lights at a crossroads have gone red.

  I brake.

  I’ve been going too fast along the empty roads.

  I switch off the LAMBRETTA’s motor.

  The traffic lights signal out into the night. A pall of fog hangs over them.

  The dotted white line carries on beyond.

  Dash after dash, beneath the fog.

  The swaying street lamps
. Silence.

  No more dreaming.

  No more dreams of cows.

  I don’t want any more stiff animal carcasses under my blankets. Is that too much to ask?

  I just want a couple of hours of sleep to drown my gnawing thoughts.

  A little refuge in darkness, a refuge I don’t have to explain or account for to anyone. A couple of paces into the Beyond of sleep.

  The monstrous bodies of calves, with eight legs and three hands, pigs with their limbs rearranged, dancing merrily on their snouts, slaughtered cows that are brought back to life.

  I want to be spared the whole show.

  I never asked for a fairground.

  The daily nightmare is enough.

  Still the red light in front of me.

  And beyond the line, the clocking-in machine.

  And beyond that, nothing but time, the sea of time that drowns each morning before it can begin.

  *

  And out in the abattoir behind the high fence at the edge of the beautiful city, the jostling in the changing room: Your left leg still asleep, is it? You’re a clumsy git, porco Dio, stand on your own smelly feet, fuck it, I need space, and leave it out, will you, and is this my place or yours? You! Yes you! Que cosa fare? Morning Fritz, morning Hans, good morning Flödu, Gilgen not here yet, there’s Buri, first as usual, asleep on the bench, he likes it here, you shut your mouth, oh pardon me I thought you were asleep, it’s still damned cold out, and did you see his overtrousers? Soon he won’t need to hang them up any more, they’ll stand in his locker all by themselves, they’re that stiff with blood, you got a MARY LONG? No, mine’s MARYLAND, anyone got a MARY LONG? Do you want a STELLA SUPER? Here’s a PARISIENNE, you can keep it, give me a RÖSSLI or even a VILLIGER rather than that, and the place is full of smoke, a few wisps of it are blown out through the EXPELAIR into the early morning outside, what a smell in here, what, shut up? Couldn’t you treat your varicose veins at home for a change? What about you and your bloody DUL-X! You forgotten where we are? He thinks we’re on a football field, yeah, the News says so too, they’re not up to much these days, lost again, where’d you get that paper from, was it the kiosk in front of the weapons factory? The station, ah the station, yes at the station, and in amongst it all, behind it, above it, beside it and mixed in with it, hardly diminished by the ventilation overnight, thick and acrid in everyone’s nostrils, the smell of blood and sweat and rancid beef fat and singed bristles and soft soap and hydrochloric acid and ammonia and cowshed and gall and caked rubber and iodine and stale beer and plaster and damp and hairspray and tripes and oil and smoked meat and starch VASELINE BRYLCREEM orange peel shoe polish Gorgonzola chewing-gum cod-liver oil caraway seed sausage WINDOWLENE naphtha sage wood leatherette pig’s urine aftershave sawdust vacuum coffee, never entirely to be removed by the ventilation from butchers’ tunics, tripers’ aprons, woollen socks, supportive braces, felt insoles, foot bandages, berets, knee pads, handkerchiefs, doubled pullovers, woolly hats, flat caps, overtrousers, workman’s gloves, rubber boots, what a stink, it must smell for ever on your skin, get away from the mirror! Caramba! You’re not taking my comb again! Winter’s almost over, but how much would it cost, say, how much would it be, not that much surely, how much would a biker’s coat like yours cost? Going cheap! Cheap! Cheap! Si si baratto! Niente pagare molto! That’s no leather! Of course it’s leather! Finest leather, skinned and tanned locally! Not holed with pitchforks, scraped with curry-combs, pulled to pieces by ropes, with some stupid Texas brand-mark on it, and not damaged by barbed wire either, and not chewed up by horseflies. You understand? Leather! Real genuine leather! What? What? You call that cowhide? Try that one out on Frankenstein here! That would make a dead man laugh, that coat’s made of glued-together bits of rabbit skin, but is the boy late again today? And Gilgen? Did you see him yesterday? Aschi Gilgen, Aschi Gilgen, Jesus Christ, didn’t our Ernest pick you up as well? Didn’t he ever! I was worried he’d suffocate, ha yes, Rötlisberger groaning away and Schnurri-Buri, did you see him, ah Aschi Gilgen, molto crazy, niente pensare, está loco sí pero qué bueno mira, and already Ambrosio’s going around grabbing people in imitation of Gilgen, and shouting at the top of his voice: Des vaches, cow, you a cow, vacas, cow, capito? Jesus, Hofer’s not in yet either, and he’s got a car and all, but then his missus and the kids, you can’t get kids out of bed these days, right, it’s not like it used to be, oh come on, Ambrosio, give it a rest, move along a bit, and they immerse themselves for the last few minutes in the calm before the storm, on the bench, heads down, elbows propped on thighs, heads dangling between them like terrified animals panting, the metal doors are still clanging, and street shoes hurriedly disappearing, and rubber boots, clogs and work shoes appearing in their place, and the chinking of coins and drinks spurting into plastic cups in the slot-machine in the corner, and fanfare, there’s Huber, and who’s that hurrying along after him? Morning all, morning, morning, how d’you feel? Had a good night’s rest? Why not go out on the piss for a change, eh? What d’you reckon, yeah why not, ha, but, yes well, that’s right, eh? who says I do too much boozing? Just mind your own business, right, hey, you don’t have to walk into me like that, crash, just shut up will you, how can you spend all day lying down anyway? Watch it, mind what you’re saying! But it’s true! He just lies down anywhere, down in the cellar on a pile of sawdust, on a salt sack, anywhere! That’s bullshit, you liar! Then why does Piccolo here run off and warn him whenever Bössiger or Krummen want to see him, eh? Like yesterday, when he went off somewhere? An old man with the gout, I just want to put my feet up once in a while, yeah, fine, but when there’s trouble coming, does he ever tell anyone? Ever open his stupid mouth? Ah, he doesn’t like that, yes, go on looking at yourself in the mirror, your parting can’t get any straighter than it is, now get up, crash! And again, crash! God, my wife’s a blooming cow! Crash! Huber’s left his keys in his other trousers again, dice que su esposa es una vaca, why not, you’ve got the strength, break it open! Hit it! And again! Why don’t you go ask Kilchenmann, he’s got a spare set of keys, stupid ox, aren’t you? Just get up on time, as if it was your wife’s fault, she’s no cow, it’s just because you always leave your head in the locker, along with your hat! Right! Brainum shrivelledicum! Nothing upstairs, all gone, it’s a pity you don’t keep your own head out of sight a bit more, hang it up in the locker, it would make things a bit pleasanter all around not to have to see Rötlisberger’s noddle, who’s that giggling like an old woman? A little respect for the venerable head of Rötlisberger! What did he call it? A head! That? O noble bonce! Get a plastercast of it! Well, well, old Fritz the tripe, getting ideas about his head, well, well, the parboiled pig’s head, pustular excrescence, mouldering calf’s tripes! Yeah! But I look after it better than you do your Brylcreemed skull! One thing for sure, I’ll never lock my head up somewhere, I don’t keep living things in my locker, I take it with me, it likes variety and fresh air, a bit of sunshine now and again, oh come on Rötlisberger! You need it for smoking and that’s that, you’re worse than the VON ROLL chimney stack, one BRISSAGO after another, a real chain-smoker, cancer candidate, what his lungs must look like, you go and drink another OVALTINE, make you big and bonny and bright and beautiful and boring, that way you’ll still be working here in a hundred years, and what would you get with a 1/125 exposure, focal distance 22 and 23 DIN? Grizzled abattoir worker, looking with slightly sad eyes at his unlit BRISSAGO. As if it was my head that needed it, what a bloody stupid notion, it’s my heart, it does me good in there, you bet, and the clock goes on ticking, wiggling up towards the red zone, shall we get going then, or aren’t you feeling like it again, do you have to punch the clock in Italy too? Luigi, Italia anche clock-punch? Ooh sí, Italia clock-punch like crazy, and you? You got red all over your card? What does he care! He can’t count well enough to notice the difference come payday, but I know someone who can, he can count, and even if he’s good for nothing else, the bastard, he can still bloody well count! What’s keepi
ng Gilgen? So long as he knows what he’s doing, come on now, or are you going to sit around here all day in the warm, forget about Aschi Gilgen, he knows what he’s doing all right, but we could use a couple more men in here, and if he’s not going to turn up what are we going to do, the cows haven’t got here yet, the shed was still empty a while ago, don’t worry about it, we’ll just take it as it comes, and if it doesn’t, then why should we care...?

  *

  No tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor. No rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief, but instead, a number of pork butchers and slaughtermen and hog-drivers, and tripers and trimmers and gravediggers emerged one after another from the changing room. Their constrained gestures expressed reluctance. They were still stiff from sleep, they were grumpy and they smoked, and they filed sullenly past the clock-in to work. To work, which held no attraction.

  No one got red on his card, they knew the tricks of time, they knew for whom it was ticking. Half a minute late, red numbers on your card, and half an hour taken off your pay at the end of the week.

  Without speaking much, they had got out of their street clothes and changed into their slaughterhouse kit. They were prepared, but the ferment in brains and bellies, the fragments of indescribable thoughts, the pointless rage at themselves and the whole world, the rage they all had in common, no one had said anything about that. Yes, one said one thing, a second said another, a third something else, a fourth the same as him, and the fifth agreed with the first, but perhaps only the sixth of them asked what was keeping their colleague Gilgen, and no one was surprised and no one grumbled, it was all the same as usual – and no one asked why.

  Huber and Hofer pushed their cards into the slot of the time-clock. The machine punched them. Their fingers twitched a little. Huber and Hofer took their cards back and then both took off their wristwatches, with a sigh and plenty of palaver. They did it slowly. In order to get their watches into their trouser pockets, they had to hold in their bellies, which occasioned a further sigh. Old Rötlisberger watched them and grinned. He had long since done with timepieces, he didn’t need one on his wrist or in his pocket or on the wall. Even if you’ve got a gold OMEGA in your pocket, your time here doesn’t belong to you. Once past the clock, Rötlisberger lit himself a BRISSAGO.