Cow

by Beat Sterchi

  Lukas clicked away. From all angles. He forgot about the pool on the floor. The film was almost finished. He still wanted Rötlisberger at the tipping lever, at the steamcock, at the salt barrel, at the scraper, over the dungpit, with knife and without. Lukas straightened up. One more shot, the last one, he said.

  —Here! Rötlisberger stood right in the middle of the approach to the tripery, under the cow’s skull. From the outside, he said. The cow’s head! Get the cow’s head up there! But mine too, mind! Look at it! Ancient thing, eh? Believe it or not, there’s no bullet hole in there. We hit her on the head in the old-fashioned way, and afterwards I kept it and boiled it. She was the last one like that. He put his hand on his hips and checked that he was properly in line with the cow’s head.

  —There! Now you’ve taken your pictures, you’ve got your tripe-man’s head. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Brood, grime and dead cows! Stuck your nose in it. Our thoughts as we kill. That’s what you were after.

  —That isn’t what I said, but more or less, I suppose, more or less.

  —And what have you learned? No need to blush. But what I wanted to say, about taking photographs, there are things a machine like that doesn’t see. Still, I’m pleased you’ve come. There are one or two problems, so who knows how long I’ve still got here. Bring the pictures round to my garden some time.

  —Are you thinking of quitting? So suddenly? But can you afford to, I mean don’t you need the job? Can you get...?

  —Oh, they can stick it! I haven’t scraped their cows’ bellies for thirty-two years to be treated like this. As if none of us had anything but straw in our heads. And if they think it’s easy standing in here, and grafting away, well, they might just have another think.

  —But what about a living? Have you got enough? And your pension? They might try and get it taken away from you. I don’t mean to... But you should at least give notice.

  —What use is my pension to me, if one of their fucking machines goes and kills me? Eh? If they find me with half a mile of pig’s guts, unemptied mind, wrapped round my throat. What’s so funny? Sometimes it stoves your head in outright. Christ, it doesn’t take much, a slip, and that’s it, lights out!

  —No, I don’t need them any more. I live too simply. We’ve always looked at every fiver twice, my wife and me. Thank God. If not, I can do a day or two per week for some local butcher. I’ve got the allotment. And the money the rabbits bring in. And I won’t be needing any more BRISSAGOS. I’ll be sixty-three in a couple of days. Sixty-three! Another two years, and I’ll start getting my state pension. But, here! I’ll show you something else! Rötlisberger pushed open the door of the hide store.

  —Here! he said. A real Blösch hide! All red. White only on the head and the tail, and on the withers. They’re rare nowadays you know. That skull over the door, the cow that came from was red all over as well. A red Blösch. But this one here, she was already going grey. Like me. You can see it here, at the roots of her hair.

  Hair side out, meat side in, the tied bundles lay on pallets in the hide storage room, and wet, bloody or fouled hides from the slaughterhouse may not be salted together with clean and healthy goods, and along the walls, on rusty hooks hung little rabbit pelts. Sheepskins lay piled up in a corner. It smelled damp and salty, and of rancid fat. There was a label on each parcel of hide, with date of slaughter, unsalted weight, and type of animal.

  Rötlisberger tapped his right clog against the Blösch hide, that lay separately, on its own pallet. The rope came undone, and the bundle slipped down and opened out on the floor.

  —Well? Don’t you think that would have made a good hide, without the barbed-wire marks on it?

  —What do I know about cowhides? replied Lukas.

  *

  Eleven fifteen.

  More calves.

  Another two dozen unloaded and weighed at the ramp at the front. Overweight, the lot of them.

  Krummen brought them in himself.

  Through the open sliding door, I could hear him shouting at them and beating them along the driving passages.

  We’ve already got eight of them hung up. Makes fourteen in all.

  Schindler brought in a lorryload as well.

  Busy day for him today.

  There he is standing in his baggy cowherd’s shirt, feeling proud of himself. Hey! See what I’m bringing in! None of your usual puny creatures!

  The railwaymen on the tracks at the back, they’re wearing similar things to him. Long shirts, in a thick material. Blue. But there’s no dung on their boots.

  Huber and Hofer like it when Schindler’s around. He watches them work, and tells them where he got the animals from.

  In the waiting pen calves are all over each other. They rest their heavy heads on one another’s backs. Or they try and mount each other. They’re clumsy creatures. Overfed, and not used to so much space. They grew up in cages. A board to the left. A board to the right. A board behind. Water and milk powder in front of them.

  There’s hardly anything left of the half dozen I brought in from the ramp! Luigi’s loaded the heads on a barrow. Calves’ heads are boiled in the tripery. Buri’s gone off with the ruffles.

  We hung the skinned calves up on hoists and pushed them out past the weighing machine at the entrance into the passage.

  While I wait to stir more blood, I cut the seal out of these. The seal is the lungs, the liver, the spleen, the heart, the gullet and the windpipe. Everything that’s in the chest cavity.

  The liver sticks fast. Before I can tear the two wings of it from the peritoneum, I pull out the gall bladder. It’s almost empty. The calf must have just been digesting. The gall would have been swilling round the guts.

  Krummenroaring: Don’t you cut a hole in the sweetbreads this time!

  I won’t.

  That gland has to be in one piece. Money!

  Huber and Hofer are skinning.

  They cut the skin from the hindlegs with their knives. As soon as they’ve got enough to get a grip on, they punch their way along, on the inside of the skin. By the end, they’re throwing their whole weight into it.

  When they’ve finished a hide, they stick a little tin number on it. Each one has his own number.

  If it later appears that a hide has been cut, whichever of them did it is held accountable.

  I blow compressed air into the lungs. To make them look nicer for the cats.

  I rinse the whole of the seal in a basin, and hang it up on a rack. Dr Wyss will then inspect it and give it a stamp.

  Those cosseted calves are always healthy. They get oval stamps.

  Pretty Boy Hügli whets his knife and comes and stands next to me.

  Well? Did you get to hold them? Out in the shed?

  He talks without looking at me.

  Do you know where to feel them?

  If you keep on practising. I’ll take you along to Rösi in the canteen one day.

  Or to Spreussiger.

  But you’ve got to keep practising!

  Every day.

  Rösi’s got something to grab hold of, you know.

  Krummen.

  For Chrissake! Are you keeping the apprentice from working now?

  Right! Hügli! Piccolo! Überländer! Hang them!

  The next lot.

  I’m to stir blood again.

  Stir blood and dream.

  Think.

  Think that I’ve got nothing to think about.

  There they go, tugging at the calves again.

  Perhaps they’ve never really moved before. They don’t know how to walk properly.

  They don’t need force to push us around.

  And tomorrow back in trade school.

  An afternoon in dry clothes. No chilling-rooms. No backache. No bare forearms. Shirts buttoned down to the wrist. Like people in offices. With a satchel.

  And the teacher doesn’t shout out his orders.

  And he doesn’t call us ‘du’ either.

  Marti! Heggenschwyler! Bühler
!

  The teacher likes speaking about cleanliness. The image one has of a clean butcher. Cleanliness, gentlemen! Cleanliness! Take regular showers! Don’t neglect your socks! Fresh underclothes are terribly important for hygiene.

  And blood?

  I’m stirring blood, and thinking about cleanliness.

  We have to be clean.

  And then book-keeping.

  I hate fucking book-keeping.

  On those white pages, our hands look incredibly big, we’ve got callouses, plasters over infected cuts, and the lines are so incredibly narrow.

  We have to write small, small and neatly.

  And with no mistakes.

  Well can’t you even...? Have you never...?

  Marti! What did they teach you in nine years at school?

  And what if you have to write a letter?

  Then they’ll think.

  A butcher.

  And civic studies.

  Then the classroom will be overheated. We’re not used to warm rooms. Our eyelids will droop. Heavy as lead.

  That’s how they keep us meek.

  Lukas is right.

  God, if you suddenly believed you could talk, and you had something to say, and you could even write it down! Where would it all end!?

  You should be ashamed of your handwriting.

  Quiet at the back!

  You should learn to keep an account of your pocket money.

  Expenditure: one pencil – .25, bicycle repair 3.50.

  Income: pocket money – 5. –.

  The difference in the column on the right, twice underlined: 1.25.

  Last night I went round to Lukas’.

  He lives with some other students.

  They know how to talk.

  They don’t apologize for every superfluous word.

  And they were talking about us. Without looking at me. As though they’d all been working in the slaughterhouse for years. It was embarrassing. They knew everyone’s names. The slaughterhouse director’s.

  And Bössiger’s medical history is a clear indication...

  And what is a slaughterhouse if not a well-kept taboo where profit-making can rampage unchecked? It’s a classic example of the impotence of the working classes. Brecht already shows that the difference between proletariat and animal...

  And Döblin, in his shambles in Berlin, is describing a kind of grey area...

  And it’s abundantly clear that seen in global terms...

  They can build whole houses with words.

  Wobbly houses.

  But you don’t need to know your way round them to find a hiding place.

  I can take refuge in ideas.

  I trust Lukas.

  They chucked him in the full blood-tank.

  It was Huber and Hofer who laughed loudest.

  And the blood. It splattered the whole passage. Then they took his trousers down.

  We would just have to work through our conditioning, Lukas said.

  It was in the nature of the thing. So long as we were society’s beasts of burden, we would act like it too.

  We just weren’t proud of our labour.

  We were ashamed.

  Some were conscious of it, others weren’t.

  And yet...

  But we were supporting the whole thing on our backs!

  It’s not easy to lose yourself in a daydream at work.

  Still less when there’s shooting going on.

  When everyone’s got half an eye on everyone else.

  I have to get into it.

  Rhythm makes it easier.

  The circus scene: the bareback rider. The sound of hooves in the sawdust. The music. The horse whinnies. A strap pulls his head down onto his chest. The neck is bent.

  And round and round in a circle.

  Stirring.

  The horse quivers, brushes its tail across its haunches.

  And the thighs of the rider.

  A widening circle. Always in time. And the rider smiles. Are her thighs restraining the horse? It could fly any barrier.

  And the elephants. Enormous great babies.

  Round and round in a circle.

  In little pinafores and baby bonnets.

  Why do they grin and bear it?

  I don’t believe it!

  Why don’t elephants just get the hell out? Those enormous creatures, they could just knock over the silly ringmaster... run out of the tent... off... through the audience!

  Jesus Christ! Goddamn the fucking idiot!

  Krummen.

  There’s red all over my rubber apron. And my blouse. And dripping from my hands.

  You call that stirring blood!

  Can’t you see it splashing out of the can?

  Are you asleep? Or drunk?

  It doesn’t need any more stirring! That’s not going to congeal! Right! Hup! Gut that calf!

  Now they’re grinning again.

  You only gut a calf once it’s hanging from the rack by the tendons behind its knees.

  The feet have to be taken off first. The soup bones.

  It’s not easy to find the place in the knee where you can cut the joint. I saw around. My blade can’t find the thin seam in the cartilage.

  It’s about time you had a feel for it.

  You’re always supposed to have a feel for everything.

  But I don’t want to...

  I say nothing, and go on sawing. – At last: the calf’s hanging.

  The pizzle. Then the testicles.

  Don’t throw them away!

  Huber’s standing next to me, and grabs the two glands. They are steel-blue, and no bigger than your thumb.

  Instead of a pocket in his trousers, Huber’s got a plastic bag. As well as testicles, he collects marrow.

  You know it helps. He nods.

  Fried in butter. With salt and lots of pepper.

  More bang for the buck! Right, Huber!

  Hügli says he doesn’t eat testicles, he’s not a pig.

  You don’t know what’s good for you.

  Good for what?

  Ha, go ask Gilgen.

  But Gilgen isn’t there. Nor Ambrosio either.

  Hügli says he’d rather have a cold beer. Lugging those heavy calves around was making him sweat.

  I’m not sweating.

  I’m cold.

  9

  THERE IT WAS again.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! As though someone was banging the ceiling under Ambrosio’s bed with a broom handle.

  Ambrosio had climbed onto his bed exhausted, after a day with the hayfork on the Knuchel fields in the heat. He longed for sleep, and yet could only toss from side to side.

  He lit a cigarette.

  He walked over to the window. The night was humid, and the moon shone down on the hills of the highlands.

  Ambrosio swore. All day his body had absorbed the heat. Now his senses were sharpened. Every square millimetre of skin on his body glowed.

  ‘Hijo de puta! Maldito sea!’

  Ambrosio rubbed his fists along the wooden panelling. He went from one corner of the room to another. The wood felt warm and rough.

  He stopped in front of one of the framed reproductions on the wall.

  He had noticed by now how popular they were up in the village, these scenes from farming life. They were everywhere, the blonde-pigtailed girls, and hushed children.

  Ambrosio whispered the name of his wife.

  He gripped his mattress, curled up, then flung his arms and legs wide again. He had an erection. He rumpled the bedding, cursed the Knuchel farm, the whole of the highlands, the moon, whose cheesy light had driven him to take refuge in the bottom end of the bed. Lying in shadow, he wrapped his pillow round his ears. He wanted to escape the banging and the sound of cow bells.

  He banged his head against the board at the foot of the bed: boom, boom, boom, and relished the pain on his bald pate. He gave a start. Like a response to his own banging, the banging below had started up again. Immediately below him. Pitiless: Boo
m! Boom! Boom!

  Goddamned bloody Knuchel noise! Ambrosio buried his face in his hands. Had he really produced those crashing and grunting sounds? Knuchel German words from his own mouth?

  After his face, Ambrosio felt the muscles on his shoulders and upper arms. The itching in his neck hadn’t gone away yet. Ambrosio felt his tiredness with his own hands, smelled the cowshed, the milking fat and the STEINFELS soap on his skin, which was tanned and dry as leather.

  Ambrosio rubbed aftershave on his face, his shoulders, his chest and belly, his arms and legs, his penis.

  And Ambrosio saw the farmer’s wife.

  All day he had worked by her side, smelling her nearness. White soft skin with tiny wrinkles in her armpits, sweat-soaked material clinging to her back.

  How did they make love, she and the farmer?

  Such broad, full hips. Hips to burrow in and hide.

  And the bicycle woman?

  Ambrosio heard panting. He watched her pedalling past, followed the levers of her tremendous thighs. And he had only to reach out an arm, to touch her head gently, for the knot of her hair to come undone, and long chestnut strands would fall about her shoulders, a mane tossing in the breeze.

  *

  Blösch’s horns tipped back. Knuchel’s lead cow pressed her occipital bone against her neck, crumpled the skin behind her ears and bared her larynx. The bridge of her nose making a horizontal extension of her back, withers and neck, she raised her head, dropped her jaw and sent out a moo that started way back in her belly. It was her very best booming: cantankerous and obstinate.

  Mirror and Gertrude voiced their impatience in like manner. Up in the pasture, the Knuchel herd was waiting for their morning milking. Those cows that weren’t mooing were standing stubbornly by the fence, or, like Baby, Stine and Spot, lying crookedly in the grass. Their swollen udders made a more comfortable position impossible.

  On the farmyard, Ambrosio dipped his face in the water, rubbed his eyes, splashed himself, let water trickle over his chest and arms. He ignored the mooing. Once more, with open eyes, he dipped his face in the well.

  As Ambrosio walked through the farm to the pasture, the sun was just rising. The trunks of the apple trees shone like silver, the hoar-frost glittered on the grass and in the flat dawn light the shapes of the cows loomed in contrasting darkness.