by Beat Sterchi
There’s talk of his good-natured strength.
The first time he slaughters a cow himself, he cups his hands and drinks the blood from her veins so that she’ll live on in me, he breaks a molar out of her jaw, and has a hole made in it so that he can wear it round his neck.
After his apprenticeship, his years as a journeyman. He orders a set of knives for himself. Boning, skinning, sticking, scalding, shaving, scraping, paring and drawing. The handles big enough for his hands. Every blade with his monogram. Real swords he has made for himself.
In addition to the knives, he still needs the clothes of the guild. Ernest Gilgen rolls up his sleeves of his butcher’s shirt at a horse butcher’s. Two days later, he rolls them down again. He crosses the mountains, slaughters in German-speaking parts. He’s met with mistrust and ridicule. Pub brawls. The pride is still stiffening along his spine. Not a trace of any deformity now. Just big, incredibly big. A man built like a tank. Girls blush in his presence. He’s someone I’d rather not meet in a dark place. Masters’ wives and landladies look at his hands and say nothing. A butcher. If he ever. You can imagine them dripping blood, those gigantic paws. When they’re at rest, the fingers are like curling snakes full of strength and cunning – and yet, silent and confused. Without knives, Gilgen’s hands are helpless and huge, hurrying ahead of the rest of him, always handling, always hungry for the wood of a knife shaft, hungry for meat.
Gilgen wrestles. At numerous fairs, he spoils the fun of the local heroes. He hasn’t many moves in his repertoire. They are enough. He wins often and easily. And yet judges begrudge him maximum points. He never buttons on the wrestler’s ticking trousers without thinking of his Alp. When he steps onto the sawdust, for one moment he sees the whole arena as full of cows. He sees them lock horns and drive against each other. Several times, Gilgen was disqualified for laughing excessively. We want wrestling here, not that stupid bloody laughter.
Then the episode with the prize bull. Between bouts at the fair, Gilgen plays around with the crowned animal. Then, to the delight of the crowd, he lays out the twelve-month-old steer. The Marignano faces of the wrestling set turn away from him. Just pretend we never saw it. Ernest Gilgen is banned. The joker gets the red card. We won’t miss a chance like that. He might make champion otherwise. We’ll have him banned till the end of the season. Relief in the wrestling community.
Thereafter, malice and glee. Punch-ups. Trouble with the military authorities. Misses his refresher course. A canton policeman’s dog is found drowned in the fire pond.
New job as a sausage-maker in a medium-sized business. His seventh in ten years. In the storeroom he happens upon three dozen sacks of fine flour. Stacked between tubs of guts and salt barrels. Ernest Gilgen asks the boss if he’s in the bakery business as well. Oh, that flour? That was mislaid during the war, and just turned up on some shunting tracks. A whole wagon load. It was going cheap. But what did he want it for? Well, he’d been meaning to talk to him about just that. It concerned the sausage filling. Gilgen might just mix in a bit of flour, not too much, just a little, the way it used to be. They’d used potato flour then. Mais, la guerre, c’est fini. Non? Yes, of course, but they still had the flour. Then Ernest Gilgen showed him some black specks near the top of one open sack. The mice have got in here already. Oh, a bit of mouse dirt. Just give it a good stir. Gilgen had misgivings, but he stayed. It wasn’t easy finding a job then.
The boss gives him some powder to mix in as well as the flour. The sausages were pale. Despite paprika, despite pickling salt. The reddening that occurred during the smoking process wasn’t enough. Gilgen sniffed at the unmarked plastic bag that the boss left next to the spice scales. Was it colouring? That was illegal. The short answer: he understood about as much about business and the law as a cow on Sunday. He should bloody well do as he was told. If that didn’t suit him, he could just.
A few months later, there’s a constable leaning against the swing door of the sausage kitchen. Thumbs hooked into the belt of his uniform. If Gilgen would accompany him back to the station, in the castle. There was something wanted sorting out. The old canton vet had died, and his successor had had samples taken from the local butchers. Lab tests on meat products. Why is this mince so red? Why these cervelat sausages? When there’s next to no meat in them? The boss denies all knowledge. Gilgen here, big Gilgen, had been making the sausages. And Gilgen gets it in the neck. Ah, they had the measure of him. People came from miles around to testify to his character. So big, Your Worship, so proud. This tree needs its branches pruning every now and again. Ernest Gilgen gets three months without the option.
Shortly after his arrival in the Penal Institution Sitzwil, a letter from the Society of Butchers, another from the Wrestlers’ Union: In view of the circumstances, membership withdrawn. And Gilgen laughs. What a joke. The bed-wetters.
Allocated to the prison farm, Gilgen learns more about working with Simmental steers and Simmental cows. The biggest in the land. Mightier than tractors. Gilgen shows great sensitivity in dealing with them. Released early for good conduct, despite his appeals.
Can’t find work. That big, and a criminal record. The scruffy Tyrolean giant. Casual work. Shovelling snow. Part time at the slaughterhouse. Boozing. Well known at the Meat Street drinking places. Nights sobering up in police cells.
Acquaintance with Louise Frölicher, forty-two, onetime barmaid at The Golden Bell. Now waitress at The Sword. She discovers the child in the big fellow. Later, before the court, is found partly responsible for Gilgen’s recidivism.
It was the time of rising meat prices. Landlords were greatly interested in getting quality cuts of beef on the cheap, e.g. entrecôte, fillet, rump. Ernest Gilgen acquires a delivery van, calls himself a door-to-door butcher. Drives out to remote pastures, keeps an eye out for cattle, young cows. At night he strikes. He rustles cattle. The farmers scratch their necks raw as they count their herds. Now goddamn it. Gilgen cuts up the small animals on the spot. Buries the skin and the innards. Sells the meat unstamped, on the black market. He enjoys working in the open air alone with his victims. The run blood, the smell of the organs in the dewy grass. The opened earth. Louise Frölicher recruits customers. One night he’s dazzled by several converging beams of light. He stands there in his bloodied apron, knife in hand, arms and shoulders bare. He’s surrounded. Arrested. He struck once too often. Fury among the farmers. Send Gilgen to the gallows! Two years Sitzwil without the option.
Back to the steers and the oxen. More good behaviour. An inclination to exuberance. No respect for authority. According to the Director of the Court of Chancery. A live steer does not belong in the prison kitchens. Oxen should only be driven from the shed once the door is open. It was irresponsible to give milk-cows fodder that has been badly stored, and has become alcoholically fermented. Cows should be able to stand on their own feet during milking. And, later on in the text: when such disturbances and others similar have occurred. Prisoner Ernest Gilgen regularly admits his culpability by loud guffawing. Therefore, after due consideration of the circumstances applying, etc., etc.
After his release, an enterprising guardian gets him a job at the slaughterhouse. You can express yourself there. Only the manager has been informed. And the foreman was a champion wrestler. Maybe you could. Why don’t you try? Fräulein Frölicher would certainly not be averse to the idea, should you be thinking in terms of regularizing. Have you ever been in a slaughterhouse before? Have you ever been with Fräulein Frölicher before? But Ernest Gilgen did as he was counselled.
His last promotion: From guardhouse to slaughterhouse.
*
After Ernest Gilgen had shown such good humour while listening to the butcher joke, the engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters and gunsmiths had nothing against accepting the bottles of beer offered them by the powerful hand of the slaughterman. Here: cheers. Here: bottoms up. Here: your very good health. First Gilgen drank to them, then they to him. He knew how to take it at least, that big Gilge
n, he didn’t cut up rough when they had a bit of a laugh.
Let’s have a bottle of beer before the shift starts. And the group moves closer to Ernest Gilgen.
—When I get back from the Red Cross, I’ll tell that joke to Krummen, that bastard. You can bet on it. Cheers!
—Krummen?
—Krummen? Is that the champion wrestler?
—Does he work in the slaughterhouse?
—Sure, he’s the foreman.
—He’s your boss, eh Gilgen?
—Boss? Ha! He can find someone else to boss! The arselicker. Oh what I’d do to the bastard! Ram him into the ground unpointed. He won’t be giving me any more orders. Not me. When he’s near me, I feel irritation. Here, in my arms. And Ernest Gilgen stepped back, he needed room for a swing, to show what was coming the way of Krummen. Gilgen ground his teeth, the blood surged to his head. Let me get my hands on him! I’ve fancied wrestling with him for a long time now. What I’d do to him!
—Here, Aschi, watch yourself. He was in the regional finals again this time. He came runner-up. He’s a strong guy, someone ventured.
—Strong! You ever seen him on sawdust? Little white ballet shoes he wears, a little white singlet for the judges. A Sunday wrestler! Lifting weights and swilling OVALTINE is OK, but there’s no power in here, in his belly, no juice. He’s a tactician. A sportsman. He doesn’t scare me. Gilgen had gone into his wrestler’s crouch, he grunted and pretended to be pulling up a foe by the ticking trousers used in ‘Schwingen’ wrestling. In front of the kiosk he put on a demonstration bout against an invisible opponent. The tip of his tongue thrust out in familiar fashion, and the earliest documentary evidence of clothes-wrestling occurs in the year 1235, and the veins in Gilgen’s neck were almost bursting. He mimed an overarm throw, knelt down, and pretended he had someone wriggling under him in the gutter. I’ll do that bastard Krummen!
Engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters and gunsmiths laughed and made room for Gilgen, and then suddenly a rival attraction appeared on the scene. Hands felt for matches and cigarettes, hands began to scratch at skin, hands in the pockets of work trousers suddenly played even harder with cocks and balls through the cloth, hands that had just now been calmly fingering the newspaper, now crumpled it, hands tightened round beer bottles. What in God’s name was that?
Going down the middle of the slaughterhouse approach road, on the white line itself, was Ambrosio. He was wearing full slaughterhouse gear, he had his knives at his hips, his rubber boots and his rubber apron on. He approached with wild, staring eyes, not looking to left or right, only shaking his head in time with his steps.
—Ambrosio! Hey, Ambrosio, mind out!
The brewery lorry drove past him, hooting. He didn’t notice it. Livestock-dealer Schindler, at the wheel of his SAURUS cattle-transporter, roared down the approach road towards the slaughterhouse gates. Ambrosio didn’t get out of the way, he just went on walking, his eyes fixed on the horizon, like a sleepwalker’s.
—Sacré tonnerre! Gilgen jumped up, straightaway he was on the street, pulling Ambrosio off it. You could have been dead! Nom de Dieu! Mind where you’re going! Now take a look at this clown!
The engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters and gunsmiths saw something that Ernest Gilgen had long since stopped noticing: they saw blood. It was animal blood, and it was out of place. Half excited, half disgusted, they stared, made faces, spat in the gutter. No one paid any attention to the siren sounding in the factory yard for the beginning of their eight o’clock shift. Hands rubbed tips of noses, dug around in ears, scratched here and there, flicked the ash off cigarettes. The grey routine had been broken, here was a day that didn’t begin like all the others. An index finger tapped a temple, a head inclined to one side, a jaw worked, moved questioningly aside, the sinews that appeared showed that the open mouths were about to form words.
—Hm.
—Well.
—I don’t believe it.
—The bastard.
—All that blood!
—Is that the way they work?
—Bastards.
—Look, it’s even on his bald patch.
—Well, where there’s meat there’s blood.
—Hey, Gilgen, I thought you stuck cows to make sausages from the blood. Do you all take a bath in it first?
—Here, Ambrosio. Gilgen had been to get more beer. The rubbish those gents from the weapons factory were talking again.
—But it’s true. No decent man would look like that. You can see him. And anyway...
—Decent man, eh? Wait till what happened to the student yesterday happens to you. He was talking rubbish too. We dipped him in the blood-tank.
Gilgen went up to the speaker with clenched fists: Just leave my friend Ambrosio in peace!
And the engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters and gunsmiths all took a step back. Keep a bit of distance from that blood-dripping Gastarbeiter! And from Gilgen too. Maybe he’ll flip his lid. Who can tell with someone like that? A butcher. Just as well he’s nothing to do with us. And that whole slaughterhouse anyway. There was something dubious about it.
Every day they saw the brick buildings, the smoking chimney, they saw aproned figures behind the abattoir fence, and they were familiar with the livestock-transporters, and the delivery vans of the butchers in town, and they knew some of the slaughtermen, who, like Gilgen, sometimes came to their kiosk to get a newspaper or a beer. The lowing of the cows in the railway wagons on the sidings they had heard as well, and they ate meat every day and liked it, but what exactly happened to the animals under the angled glass roofs, behind the high fence, what happened? What had to be done before a cow became a joint of meat lying in the delivery van? What kind of process was it that spat out blood-rinsed foreigners as a kind of by-product, and allowed them to wander out through the gates?
In the heads of the engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters and gunsmiths were a few childhood memories, painted over with a big brush, and mixed up with nasty scenes from war movies. The way the cat had screamed when Grandpa drowned it in a well. Or how the fish bled when you smashed their heads against the pier. And the grey horse that pulled the milk-cart, that stumbled, and unluckily ran itself through on the shaft of the cart. Was that not the schnitzel that showed through where the skin had been torn away? It must be something to do with living and dying. Someone had to shoot. With a carbine. With a pistol. Some kind of firearm. There was a smell of gunpowder anyway. You knew that. That was enough. You didn’t want any blood-soaked Ambrosio in front of your kiosk. Let him push off. He smells. Tell him to wash. The bastard!
And Frau Kramer too came out of her kiosk, looked at Ambrosio, and stood in front of her bunches of flowers.
—That horrible blood.
—Come on, let’s go, I feel sick.
—My stomach’s turning.
—There you are, foreigners.
—And Aschi Gilgen.
—I don’t want to know what they do to those animals.
—Cows will take anything.
—Yes, they even take orders from Italians.
—Come on, let’s go.
They pushed each other a little indecisively, no one wanted to go on the shift alone. Backs of hands wiped beer-moist lips after the last mouthful.
—Right, let’s go. I’m coming.
—Well, go then! Push off! Clock on! Gilgen laughed derisively at the disappearing group of engineers, turners, precision-tool makers, fitters and gunsmiths. He was still shouting when they were already at the barrier gate at the entrance to the factory yard. Think you’re something special! Because they call you Herr, and you’ve got pencils behind your ears. Mais vous aussi, vous êtes des vaches! You’re pale! Pale! Gilgen crowed at them with throat stretched out, and body leaning forward. You’re all of you yellow, you conceited weapon factory yellow bastards. Mind you don’t prick your fingers on your pencils, you could bleed to death! Ha, ha, ha. Ernest Gilgen doubled over with lau
ghter.
Ambrosio didn’t laugh.
Ambrosio was smoking. He scraped the blood crusts off his face. Off with the mask. How indifferent he suddenly felt to these people. He hadn’t looked at any of them. Why should he? And those stupid jokes. When he lost his middle finger they laughed. He had only watched their mouths as they spoke. Little caves opening and shutting above him, and in each hole, he had seen the shimmering pink mucous membranes, and hidden behind those, he guessed, was where the little word-sacs were, those bags in numberless heads that were reserved especially for him, that opened only for him, and that were still always empty. Everywhere, they poured emptiness over him, why me? Those dark throats spitting out grunt and crash sounds that coiled towards him like worms. He had never been able to understand any of it. Never. And how remote now was the desire to understand.
Ambrosio only wanted to smoke now, to smoke his cigarette in peace. Nothing else. No, he didn’t feel like going and giving blood with Gilgen.
*
And in the cattle room. Pretty Boy Hügli had slit open the belly of Blösch as she hung by her hindlegs, and started an avalanche of entrails. Slimy and knotted and green they dangled from the cow, and the stomachs of the ruminants may be classed as rumen or paunch, honeycomb, omasum and abomasum, and the paunch was still jammed inside Blösch’s carcass like a swollen sac.
Piccolo went for it. He dug his fingers into the spongy tissue and began tugging.
But only the ball of honeycomb, omasum and abomasum slipped out of the slit-open belly. And the intestines were in Piccolo’s way. They resembled a labyrinth of containers, tubes, locks and jets: a power station inside a cow, a protein factory full of industry and profit, and the nourishment first reaches the rumen in a barely masticated condition, and is then tossed back and forth between it and the honeycomb for mixing and reducing. It is then returned to the mouth in portions for further intensive (ruminative) chewing where, worked to a pulp, and chemically treated, it is conducted directly into the omasum and the abomasum, and, however hard Piccolo tried, the sac of the paunch would not leave the cow.