by Beat Sterchi
—Nom de Dieu! Sacré tonnerre! All right. Give me a beer. Gilgen reached an arm into the kiosk, and laughed across to the munitions-factory workers as they came nearer.
Several engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters and gunsmiths were hanging around the factory gate. They wore navy work clothes, and had their hands in their pockets and grinned at Gilgen and looked at newspapers over each other’s shoulders. Ten minutes to go till the siren for the eight o’clock shift. They grouped themselves round the swearing butcher, and kept an eye on their colleagues as they arrived.
Upright bodies in long coats, stooped bodies in short coats, on bicycles, motorbikes and mopeds, bodies sitting well back in cars, smoking and non-smoking, drove up to the red-and-white crash barrier at the entrance to the weapons factory. It went up and came down, the porter looked at the faces and let them pass in the morning fog. Hands were raised in greeting from handlebars, gloves were pulled off and Engineer Muller wished Porter Hirt a good morning, and Precision-turner Schuhmacher greeted Toolmaker Käser, Mechanic Küfer spotted his colleagues Waldmann, Holzer and Zimmermann in the crowd turning up for work and Fitter Meier nodded to well-wrapped Equipment-fitter Schäfer. The gunsmiths Maurer, Gerber, Kohler, Wagner, Amman and Eisenschmied all wished one another a good morning. Colleague Beck slowed down on his VESPA, and nodded in the direction of the kiosk. Electrician Jäger beamed in his new OPEL, while Apprentice Ackermann started undoing his coat and loosening the strap of his crash-helmet while still on his bike. Many faces remained hidden behind scarves and hat rims, behind spectacles and windshields.
Grey figures on wheels on asphalt against foggy background.
Only Ernest Gilgen was colourful.
His fury was colourful, his laughter, his swearing, his shirt. His scalp was reddened by the cold, by rage and by beer. Ernest Gilgen was there, completely there, in every vein, awake and wrathful, and the engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters and gunsmiths warmed their spirits at his fire. They dug their hands into their trouser pockets, egged each other on and started teasing him.
—Here, Gilgen, are you drunk already?
—You drunk again?
—Still drunk!
—Still living on Meat Street?
—Taking the day off?
Their lungs blew out smoke. They stood among clouds of it, like fire-eaters by their flames. They had paper bags jammed under their arms. Ham sandwiches. Sausage sandwiches. For their morning break.
—Anyone want the paper?
—You really taking the day off?
—Well, what if I am? Hey? Today Ernest Gilgen’s going to give blood. Yes, give blood. No rubber boots and rubber apron for him today. You know what they can do with them? There was scorn in his rage, contempt for the brick buildings behind the slaughterhouse wall in the direction of which he spat. Here! This is where they can put it! Voilà. He grabbed his trousers, grabbed hold of everything his shovel-sized paw could hold between his legs. He bent his knees, held his belly and grabbed, shaking the bulge in his trousers, as though he was trying to squeeze the juice from his testicles. Let them kill their own sausage-cows if they like. Moi, je suis vachement bien ici!
—Haven’t you got enough blood in your alcohol?
—Have to have a few more pints!
—Especially if you’re going to give blood at the Red Cross.
Engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters and gunsmiths grinned. Crazy butcher!
—Hey, Gilgen, do you know the one about the boy who leaves school and doesn’t know what to do?
—Huh, tell me then.
—Well, the teacher went round to talk to his parents. Your Hans is nearly finished school, he’ll be leaving in spring. What plans did you have in mind, hey, what’s he going to do? Engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters, gunsmiths all took a step nearer the speaker. Some of them were laughing in anticipation. Gilgen, a couple of heads taller than any of them, leaned down like a giraffe. A suppressed snigger, an elbow dug into ribs.
—Well, what did his mother say?
—Well, she says, they’d been thinking about it, her and her husband, and had talked it over a few times, and they’d thought that as their Hansli was so good with animals, and liked being with animals more than anything, well, they thought, why not let him be a butcher?
Laughter erupted from the faces of engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters and gunsmiths. They jabbed each other in the side, peeked at Gilgen, patted the joker on the back. They went on drinking, Gilgen bought a few bottles. He stood in the circle and drank to them all. A karate chop with the side of his hand took the cap off a new bottle. The white foam ran down the green glass. Gilgen licked his lips.
He had learned long ago to be tolerant of mockery, even when he was drunk. Let them laugh. He’d known teasing all his life. But teasing had cost him a bit too.
*
Gilgen had taken his first few steps in one of the frontier valleys that were particularly noted for their breed of cattle – Eringer Shorthorns – but which were also talked about for the way the fir trees were dying there. Gilgen came from a high mountain valley, a village that clung to the slopes, protected from avalanches by forests planted above it. The wooden houses were scorched by the sun. They were built with larchwood planks. Sometimes spruce was used. Fir, for the very newest. They were simple but lofty constructions. If a growing family found itself short of space, they could add another storey to their house without any difficulty.
The lanes between the houses were named after animals. ‘Le Chemin du Mouton blanc’, ‘Le Chemin du Loup’. The main street was called ‘La Rue des Vaches noires’. Outside the village, there were no lanes worth the naming. Nor roads either. Stony tracks led up the slopes. The mule was regarded for its firm stride, and for cattle the ability to climb was an important aspect in breeding. All the men wore stout shoes.
The women wore black skirts with black bodices, white lace blouses, and they tied red kerchiefs round their necks. They wore black bonnets, even on weekdays. The children they bore were healthy, children no sooner born than they had lines of stubbornness in their rosy faces. The priest was the most greeted man in the village. An aura of duress, punishment and hard work clung to him.
The life of the people was closely tied to the life of their animals. Like nomads, the men climbed the tracks after their herds in the summer. After a couple of weeks, when a slope had been well grazed, they moved higher. Always with measured tread. Always with the loud sound of cow bells. In the huts they made cheeses which they strapped onto wooden frames and carried down to the village on their backs.
Livestock breeding was on an ambitious scale. Herds of three or four hundred came together on the communally managed upland meadows. In fierce battles, the lead cows fought for ascendancy. The cattle contested the few grazing places, and in order to maintain the sizeable herds, mowers climbed the mountains as far as the tree line and beyond. The mowers were proud men with faces that were carved like masks. Their skin was weather-stained. They had carbuncles the size of cherry stones. On their quests for winter fodder for their animals, no climb was too dangerous or too steep. Before a mower laid into the juicy, wild grass with his scythe, he would announce his taking possession of the place by loud yodelling. The echo would magnify the yodelling. That way, no one would scale a dangerous face to no purpose. The hay was collected in rips, tied in bales, and again, carried down to the nearest hayshed on the mower’s back. The men wore hooded shirts, to protect the backs of their necks.
If there was any time left to spare, the men worked on barriers against avalanches. Or, on summits visible from the village, they would erect new crosses of larch wood.
*
Gilgen was born on 10 May 1925. Both parents unknown. The community handed the child over to an already numerous family. Next, hire boy on the slopes. A strong Alpine hand leads him out of the village. It’s Sunday. Women in red kerchiefs and black bonnets watch the lad go, stand by the
ir garden fences, and wring their hands.
Four hours’ walk above the village, in the middle of a pasture, the Alpine hut. Stacked gneiss, weathered fir beams. The slate roof weighted by great boulders. Below, interconnecting stalls and rooms for animals, cowherds and helpers. Men and animals breathe the same air, drink from the same well. Further down the slope, the second hut. For smaller animals. Free grazing for heifers and cows in calf. Salt is stored there. Very close at hand, the ring of mountain tops. A tight horizon, an entire world.
Ernest Gilgen is seven years old, but he looks more like ten. Excessive secretion of growth hormones. It’s his job to mind the goats and gather kindling for the cooking and cheese-making. A little farmhand. Known as ‘le boûbe’.*
There’s not much talk on the mountain. Least of all with the boy. In general it’s better to eat too much than talk too much. Nevertheless, stories. There are stories told about dwarfs and goblins, of rushing torrents and mountains tumbling down. When the moon is full, a strange fear often takes hold of the people on the mountain. As though a dragon lived nearby. Nightmares for the hormonally imbalanced boy.
Over the winters, back down in the valley. Attends the village school. He is administered the alphabet and a little knowledge like a beating. Age eleven, he’s more than a head taller than the teacher, who rules over the village youth in one overcrowded room.
‘Le boûbe’ is teased and laughed at more and more.
One time he writes down his real name. He stamps out the letters with his boots on a snowy field. In enormous writing it says: ERNEST GILGEN.
Rescuing a lost kid on a rock face, in impassable screes, first consciously aware of his feelings. What is inside. What is outside. This world of hardness doesn’t end at his body, at the tips of his fingers. Boulders everywhere. He is convinced there is jagged rock in his own breast.
Learns the trade: animal husbandry. Milking. Carrying. The sacks of salt he has to carry from the lower hut to the upper are too heavy. He is often asked to do too much, because of his size. A sack of salt falls from his shoulder. Bursts open. The white salt pours into the green grass. ‘Le boûbe’ is told off. People wonder if his existence is worth it. For whom. A no-good beanpole of a farmboy. Let him cut hay. The mowers have already been everywhere. He hunts dormice. No green in this stony world.
The heaviest load of all: the stones in his breast. Dogs bark at him. Girls are afraid of him. The women giggle in their red kerchiefs and black bonnets. They rest their bare forearms on their garden fences. At thirteen he has a moustache and is so rawboned, people say that he’s got a sizeable shot of steer’s blood in his veins. That he drinks sour cream straight out of the biggest churn. That he eats grass. Catches foxes and kills them with his bare hands. They say: Where he goes to cut hay no man has ever been. The wildest mower in the whole wild valley.
A giant figure in a condition of advanced brutalization. And still a child. Curiosity now compounds his fear when he hears stories at night. The story of the three rich sisters, for example. All three were virgins. The fourth, now dead, had been married. The three sisters torment the widower. They work him harder than an animal. The man telling the story describes absolving death as a world without compulsion, without punishment, without work. In the snow, the persecuted man at last found blessed peace. Ernest Gilgen crouches in a corner and listens.
In the autumn there is a surprisingly heavy snowfall. A descent with the animals is impossible. They are snowed in. The teacher gives Ernest Gilgen permission to miss school. Fodder is needed up on the mountain, milk and cheese have to be carried down into the village. And firewood. In the hours under a crushing load, he counts the stones in his breast.
The hut for him comes to resemble what the men describe as hell in their stories. The fire under the enormous cheese vat. The heads of the animals. Hooves. Horns. The equipment. Tongs. Pitchforks. The boy is hunted in the dark. Grasping, clutching hands.
One full moon he leaves the hut. Trudges through the snow. He doesn’t turn round. The three rich sisters are wallowing after him. On his trail. The tormented man had found a world without compulsion, without punishment, without work. Ernest Gilgen spreads out the stones in his chest, and lays them in front of him in the snow. Everything grey shall become white and clean. His fatigue at the end of the day is great, and he falls asleep immediately.
A crunching sound. Where is he? Is he made of snow? Something bumps his face. A puffing, the other side of the crust. Is there a mountain moving? He’s cold. He’s so stiff, he can hardly move. There’s a cow standing over him. Her tongue is rough and warm. Steam comes out of her nostrils, her horns can touch the stars. Everything glitters. The world is made of glass.
Fir trees, domes, peaks, all awake.
Ernest Gilgen is awake.
He is in the pen belonging to the lower hut. Three cows stare at him. Like sickles, the horns against the deep blue sky. The cow licks her mouth. He had laid out his stones in the place where he’d dropped the salt. He gets up stiffly. His breast is light. He lies down in the straw with the animals.
He saves rye bread for the cow that wouldn’t let him sleep. He takes the best hay into the lower shed. This cow must become stronger. He takes her by the horns, and wrestles with her. Doesn’t let her get up, forces her to lie down. The path through the wood down to the village is always snowed up and icy on the steep inclines. As he walks, he looks at his toecaps. He makes plans. His head burns. When he looks up, he sees the mountains the way he saw them behind the cow on the night of the full moon: awake. He has plans for his cow. His footfall is now unfaltering.
The climbing cows of the Eringer breed are squat, dark brown to black. A reddish tinge on the flanks. Short-head cattle. Poor in the characteristics of domestic cattle. The brain still relatively large in proportion to the rest of the body. The eyes lively. The number of vertebrae in the tail not diminished. Few infantile characteristics. Eringer cattle grow, but they rarely weigh more than 500 kilos. In difficult terrain no cow is found at higher altitudes than the Eringer. History: they served the Romans. Guest cattle. Native Roman breeds had coarse manners. Humpbacked, no dewlap, ugly, but strong and hard working. Indispensable in the fields. To still their calves, the Romans used the modest Eringers as nurses. Foster-mothers who came down from the slopes.
And Ernest Gilgen’s plan for his cow: the crown of the lead cow. She has to win at the spring contests for supremacy on the pastures. Cow in command of the whole mountain. He spoils her with feed, talks to her, walks her over ice, drives her up and down steep slopes. She has strong legs. A stately cow. A strong cow. And every day he takes her by the horns to wrestle with her.
At the rough wooden table, an argument over a piece of cheese. For the first time in front of the men, ‘le boûbe’ uses his strength for his own purposes. He is immediately left alone. His crooked spine begins to straighten. Now when Ernest Gilgen is on the road at night between the valley and the Alpine huts, he looks up at the stars. He’s erect, even on thin ice he walks upright. His tread has become so sure. As alert as a mountain goat’s, as calm as a mule’s.
The Alpine meadows are green now. Calving time. His cow drops hers early. Then the big day comes. He gives her wine to drink, stuffs her with rye bread one last time. With every step, she plants a pair of hooves in the earth, as though she wanted to put down roots. He takes a stone, and sharpens the black tips of her horns. The judge from down in the valley files them down again with his penknife. At the end of a bell harness, Ernest Gilgen leads his hope to the place of battle, where the animals measure up against one another. Instinct. First, a bored moo. He holds salt under her nostrils. A collision, a butt. Suddenly, two pairs of horns interlock. As though by accident, a coming together with another cow, forehead to forehead. For several combats she is victorious, beats all the animals near her. Inferior cows give up straightaway, depart the field as though nothing had happened. None fights a lost action. The men of the Alps notice the outsider. Who’s that? She never took anyone�
��s eye. It’s tougher against the favourites. The odds are stacked. She has to attack uphill. ‘Le Boûbe’ is told to shut up and save his protests. Once, she buries a horn in the ground. Clods fly. Straightaway she levels her nostrils at her rival anew, aims with one eye, and takes off, her head below her shoulders. She changes the angle of attack with her butt. She stays undefeated. The Alpine herdsman is amazed. He has no idea she has been in training, and kept on a special diet. She is garlanded, but they are stingy with the flowers. Even so, Ernest Gilgen swells with hidden pride. Yes, you can. It’s proven. You can plan, decide, prepare, execute. You can want. Ernest Gilgen laughs. He won’t be pushed around any more. The men’s orders to him, their taunts, are a thing of the past. His crooked back grows as straight as an ox’s. Too straight. Walking upright, the boy is too big for the men.
The War begins. A butcher is needed. The hired hand becomes an apprentice boy. What was the mountain community going to do in the long run with a giant in their midst? He was a threat to order. A foundling, at that. A 2-metre-tall goat-minder goes down to the valley with the next load of cheese.
On the whole, not much homesickness for village, Alp, mountains.
His teacher prays before slaughtering an animal. For steers, he gets the priest to give his blessing. Gilgen, standing by, tools ready, knives sharpened, hears an echo of the ‘Ranz de vache’ prayer that the herdsman used to call out in his powerful voice from the entrance of the hut in the evening.
With the soldiers in the village, the first chitchat, the first argy-bargy in another language. Le bœuf, the ox, la vache, the cow, fermez la porte, shut the door. Ha ha ha. La maîtresse, the mattress, le comestible, the gumboot.† Now how strong is the gigantic mooncalf really? The soldiers challenge Ernest Gilgen to wrestle. Didn’t he have neck muscles like a steer? He learns fast, has them out on their backs, and laughs. He’s had enough occasion while working in the mountains to learn the national traits of working hard, and botching, showing defiance and pulling faces.