by Beat Sterchi
*
Time was when the ox and the lamb were slaughtered out of doors, in the open air. And they shall take a heifer which has never been worked and which has not pulled in the yoke. And they shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither ploughed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. Later on, more sheltered places came to be in demand. They swung the axe in the shadow of an oak tree, preferably near a stream. Then in a back courtyard in the town. At the front was the shop, on the street, and while the butcher and guild member waited over a bled carcass for customers, he began stuffing this and that part into the inverted gut. The sausage lay down with the roast. But because of the stench that rose from the town stream, the bloody craft was moved out to a slaughterhouse. Every butcher was allotted an individual slaughtering booth under a common roof. From that time forth it was forbidden Master-Butchers and their Apprentices to slaughter secretly great or small beasts in private dwellings. On payn of a fyne of ten shillings, and the impounding of said Meat.
It was in that same corporate or block system that the regional slaughterhouse behind the high fence at the edge of the beautiful city had been built almost a century ago. Abattoir abutted abattoir, the first for cattle, the second for sheep and calves, the third for pigs. All in one building. The machine room, the offices, the canteen, the cooling-plant, the freezer-rooms were all situated in blocks under one roof. And all routes went through the main connecting passage, which led for 200 metres right through the whole slaughterhouse.
This passage was always white and always clean. Three factory clocks hung from the overhead rail supports, under the glass-brick roof. The tracks from all the halls met here, everything had to come through here. The beer and the empty bottles passed each other here. The tank full of cows’ blood came here, and the plasma in clean milk churns from the machine room came here again, on its way to the loading ramp. Buri wheeled the intestines in here, and rolled the barrel with them, salted, back out again here. In the main passageway, steps slowed, breaths were drawn more deeply, an eye looked up at the clock, and a man veered off to the toilet. Here curious spectators spoke to the butchers, here Dr Wyss encountered the smoking Rötlisberger, and here Bössiger circled one of the freshly slaughtered calves.
The calf hung from a hoist on its own.
—Oh, come, come! The farmers! Who do we do business with? Is it you or is it the farmers? Bössiger gesticulated. In one hand he held his black notebook, in the other his spectacles. Behind his ear, pointing straight at Livestock-dealer Schindler was a red pencil. That’s a fox! An out and out fox! How can I help it if farmers nowadays don’t know how to produce a proper vealer any more?
Slaughterhouse-Marshal Bössiger had got Schindler worried. The dealer would have liked to go right up to Bössiger, belly to belly, he would have liked to talk to Bössiger the same way he talked to the farmers. Three-minute handshake, the steady gaze into the other’s eyes: Eh, Hans, yes Fritz, look here and look there, and then the pressure, gradually strengthening as the men reached an agreement. Instead of which, Bössiger only saw the calf, saw its reddish meat and its yellowish fat. He opened his black notebook and put his glasses on. Here! Yesterday. Numbers 6, 13 and 19! Red, the lot of them! Useless! Foxes! You dumped four foxes on us. Do you think we can pay you the market price for vealers for them to be made into sausages? What colour is this? Veal is meant to be white! White! White, Goddamn it!
—But... I really don’t understand it. Schindler tried to meet Bössiger’s eye. He held out his hand. Bössiger ignored it. In desperation, Schindler turned to the disputed calf. He pulled open the ribcage, and stuck his head into its chest. He rubbed its back and its shoulders, as though to massage a little warmth back into its already cooling flesh.
—But it can’t be as red as all that, he said after his inspection. I don’t know. I’ll swear the eyes were white as snow, and there was nothing under the tail either. I mean, I buy my calves with the muzzles practically still on them. Where’s one of them going to get hold of something to eat?
—Oh come now! Yesterday we did a check on the stomach of one of them. Exactly! It had real nodes in it. That hasn’t just been fed on milk.
—Nodes? In its stomach? Schindler buried his head in the chest of the calf again. I expect it was hair, he said. Hair! That’s right. They’ve got to try and crop something. That’s what the vets say too. These aren’t little three-week-old bobs, these’ve got proper bellies on them. And those bellies want to work, want to digest something. And so, if they have to, they suck the hair off their hides, through the little holes in the muzzle.
—But what we want is white meat. We get enough frozen stuff from America to make bratwursts with. You’d better watch your farmers. They know a few tricks. They give them pepper to make them thirsty, or they’ll open a vein on them. All that’s no good.
—Well, I’ve never come across that before. Schindler looked at the dangling carcass again from all sides. You know, this calf here comes from Knuchel’s farm in Innerwald. And if that isn’t a healthy animal! God knows what city people would rather eat instead. So much fat on it! It’s only ever drunk full-cream milk. Those kidneys! They must be worth money. No butcher ever lost money on a Knuchel calf from Innerwald. That young Ruedi Knuchel, he knows how to fatten up an animal. But all right. I’ll take it back, that ‘eating’ calf. It won’t be down to me. Schindler lifted up his baggy dealer’s overall and dug out a notepad from his trouser pocket. There, I’ve crossed it off. So, that’s settled. All right? Schindler held out his hand to Bössiger.
—If you say so. Bössiger shook hands quickly and went off. Without another word, he strode past the wooden chest at the entrance to the cattle hall, and away down the long passage.
—There are some who’d be pleased if I even offered them a Knuchel calf, muttered Schindler as he stuffed the notepad into his back pocket. But there you are, Bössiger can tell the price of petrol by looking at a cow’s arse. That man’s as thick as an ox. Everyone must know what the truth of it is. The water on Knuchel’s farm is far too good. It’s real Christian Scientist water. If anyone doesn’t want veal like that, that’s their look-out. It’s been that way for years. Of course it has. With a last look back, Schindler too set off down the long passage, but he was headed for the canteen.
Squealing could be heard from the pig-loading ramp. A sharp and plaintive screaming, swelling and falling. Then grunting and squeaking, then more panic-stricken screaming.
‘Silly bugger!’ muttered Livestock-dealer Schindler, and he went into the little bar and said to Frau Bangerter, the barmaid: ‘Oh Rösi, make me a coffee will you?’ dropped onto a chair, and straightaway began recounting how exhausting it all was, how he sometimes felt he’d had it up to here, and how he was constantly getting it from both sides, with no room to move.
He wrapped his hands round his neck, rubbed his throat with both thumbs and sighed.
He’d been on the road since four this morning with his livestock-transporter, picking up calves and a young cow, driving over rough roads to farms that were so remote it would scare you. It had been cold as well, and even though he was rushed, he’d gone into the cowsheds of more than one farmer to see what they’d wanted to show him. And he’d listened to complaints about the rising cost of feed, the new machines, that tacky stuff, bunch of rusty tubes. He’d had to listen to every little goat farmer sounding off, and each time he’d tried to open his mouth, they’d say, ooh you, don’t come that with me, what have you got to moan about, with your enormous new truck and your bulk purchasers, you’ve got us over a barrel. As if it was viable, driving round with that vast transporter empty half of the time, because those farming misers thought he was made of money, and were demanding fantasy sums for their goods. Wasn’t he allowed a livelihood? Didn’t he have a right to that? It was true. And then they’d got him chasing up the highlands. Just because there was one little cow who had a knot in her gut, and would neither dump nor ruminat
e, the farmer had wanted to hang himself on his own telephone wire. You got the impression his whole farm and everything was crashing down around his ears. And it was only because one of those modern vets had rumoured something about the meat getting infected. The fear of being a fiver down in his budget was enough to make one of those farmers shit himself. The little cow had to be flogged off on the spot, to be sure she still made the beef price.
—And who is it they decided to phone up? Eh? If they want someone in a hurry? Who’ll do in that kind of situation? Livestock-dealer Schindler asked the barmaid.
—Why, they phone me! Yes, Rösi, it seems that I’m all right again, and of course like an idiot I go along, even though I know darned well there’s nothing in it for me. But what am I supposed to do? I’m so pleased about every single bloody tail that the big boys leave me. Even if I don’t earn much here, I still have to look to my volume of trade, because otherwise I don’t get cut into any of the import distribution. Everyone’s trying to make more, it’s only my margins that are going backwards. Am I supposed to get up even earlier and drive even further, across to Swabia or God knows where, just to bring those guys things that don’t exist? Why don’t the miserly fools go and butcher moon-calves? Maybe they’ll have whiter meat than Knuchel’s. So there you go, driving across country with your back hurting you so badly you can’t even stand up straight, and you remember to make a fuss of every farmer’s freshening cow, and you have a good word for their wives, and sixpence for the kids, but do you think one of them’s ever satisfied?
Schindler was haranguing Frau Bangerter as though she was the local council. He tore at his hair, rubbed at his neck, which was so swollen it looked like a hog’s neck. With shaking hands, he picked up his glass of coffee. His eyes were watery and inflamed. He had been coughing and wheezing as he spoke. Every successive torrent of words had cost him more effort. His whole body was heaving; once the last bit of air had been pressed from his lungs, Schindler collapsed, shrivelled, his chest looked narrow, and from the folds of his trader’s blue smock, came the smell of animals and barns and sweat.
And then weren’t those miseries of farmers trying to sell him an ox for a cow the whole time too? he asked. Didn’t it keep him as busy as Dung-Hans at his wedding, avoiding all the trips and traps and ruses they set him? And if he ever once dared look in the mouth of one of their so-called cattle in their presence, then wouldn’t those farmers make a face like an offended liver-sausage? And then they wanted to be paid in cash for their goods, preferably on the spot, and preferably in spanking new notes! Yes, she was right to stare, but that was the way it was. The number of times one of those whingeing large-scale farmers was practically about to hang himself from the nearest apple tree, and just because he hadn’t been willing to pay the going rate for new rope for the frayed and shitty thing round his cow’s neck. And earlier, when they’d still calculated on the basis of live weight, by God they’d tried everything, but everything to put one over on him. No, no, this cow has got nothing inside of her, hasn’t eaten for days, and the grass is sticking out of her mouth in bunches. Or an animal had 30 or 40 litres of water sloshing about inside her, and he was expected to pay for that. It could make you weep. He couldn’t have every cow X-rayed after all.
—You know, Rösi, said Schindler quietly. I’m sure it’s happened sometimes that I’ve shaken hands on something, and there I was holding his hand and shaking it, and I knew damned well that I’d been tricked, and there was something wrong with the calf. But then, how can you go on dealing, if you can’t trust anyone any more? I can’t go around thinking he’s lying the whole time. Livestock-dealing would be finished if it got like that. I can swing around with the prices till I get quite giddy, but whatever I do, I can’t do any more than bankrupt myself. I’m always too cheap for the farmers, and too dear for the butchers anyway. They’re never satisfied, and if they were, then Fritz Schindler’s the last man who’d ever get to hear about it. I know what they’re like!
—But the worst of the lot are the big, he began, and stopped in a fit of coughing. Those new firms, those distributors and contractors from the feed mills. They send these agents and reps round the country with their prospectuses and plans. They’re troubadours, they are! You can’t drop in on a farm any more without coming across one, with his briefcase full of the Farmer’s Paradise. The kitchen table’s not good enough for the bloody farmers then, come into the parlour won’t you, and then the lying starts, Christ. Can they ever lie! You know, if telling lies gave you the runs, you could send those fellows out on the fields with muck-spreaders strapped to their bums! Right! And when the farmer’s wife goes out to see why the dog’s barking, you should see how softly she closes the parlour door behind her. You’d think they were discussing world issues. But what is it they put their signatures to? Contracts! Contracts in such fine print that you can’t read a sausage. And that’s where the promises are set out. They promise you the earth and not the trace of a blush. They carry on as though their own fine words were the secret of successful farming. Bloody stupid nonsense!
Schindler coughed again. He wheezed and sipped at his second glass of coffee, spilt a little on the table, wiped it off with his sleeve, and still addressing Frau Bangerter who had perched on the edge of a chair and was nodding in vigorous agreement, he resumed:
—So, they pay well the first few months, sometimes it’s so much money the richest farmers get trembling fingers when they count up all the hundreds. But why? Only because they overdo it. They have to push, they can’t afford to miss out on a single standing heat, and they chase after the cows till their bellies are creaking. And what sperm do you think they order up for some sawn-off little cow, for her very first time? Eh, which one? Well, it has to be the very biggest bull’s, doesn’t it. I saw the results myself, at Fritz Marti’s in Holperswil, or Hungerbühler’s in Moos. Ah, it’s horrible when a cow’s carrying a calf that’s far too big for her, and by God they have to use a winch to pull it out. And after that they all say they need to build, extend, add on. If it kills them! Build an extension to the barn, another storey under the roof, every little bakehouse will make an extra byre. They park the tractor under the overhanging roof, and use the tractor shed to house three more oxen. But they’re feeding their animals about three times as much as they can grow on their land. And that can’t go well. You don’t get rich on bought feed. I’ve never heard of it anyway. Then, later on, when they’ve got so many animals that the calves whine at you from the wash-house and the hayloft, and they’ve stuck a beef steer at the side of every pile of firewood, that’s when the reps wing in again with their briefcases, and they start squeezing the farmer. I’ve seen it happen more than once, I know how it is. I always told my brother, be careful Max, no trees grew right into Heaven yet. Because suddenly there are no more payments, only the unlimited purchase guarantee, but no mention of any price. That’s how the big firms operate. When they’ve got you by the tail, they start twisting it. And then there’s another contract for the feed. It’s a nasty business, and the worst thing about it is that all of a sudden they think of old Fritz Schindler once again. When they can’t earn any more money from their pumped-up goods, and when they don’t enjoy going into their cowsheds any more because they can’t tell whether their animals are healthy or sick because they have to inject them the whole time anyway, then they suddenly feel like doing business with me again. Why don’t you look in on us, eh, if you’re in the area? I’ve got something you might like to take a look at. That’s what they tell me down the telephone, and suddenly my smock is more acceptable than the flashy suits of those other characters. But what am I meant to do with their water-driven battery calves? A1 vealers are what I need. I don’t make anything on artificially reared produce, there’s only deductions there, and by the end half of them wind up with triangular stamps anyway. Or the liver’s bad and the kidneys aren’t worth anything, and what’s left of a calf for you without the liver and kidneys? That’s where the butcher earns his mone
y. No, Rösi, I’d rather drive up into the Oberland, wipe my feet on some farmer’s doorstep in the back of beyond. But it’s terrible, because even then some Bössiger comes along and rubbishes my best goods. Now the fool’s gone and complained about the Knuchel calves again. He’s done it for years and they’re the best calves there are. He must be out of his mind with greed. They just don’t want to pay anything any more. Why don’t they try getting their quality veal where they get their factory stuff from for the sausages? Ha, but they don’t show you that, they could use a whole flowerbed of parsley for garnish and it still wouldn’t look any healthier on a butcher’s display. Thin, watery, piss-awful stuff. And then there’s Krummen, such a toiler, he thinks he’s someone just because he’s in charge of a couple of part-timers that don’t know how to wipe their bottoms. He doesn’t have to start swearing at me, just because I’m taking in one more cow that’s lost her appetite. They hadn’t even finished dressing their beef, it didn’t matter a bit, and along comes this fool and lectures me like he was God Almighty. Do I have to take all that too?
The sweat glistened on Schindler’s neck. He mopped his brow and coughed.
Frau Bangerter kept on nodding at him. She was in complete agreement. She got to hear about this and that, the ways things were going at the slaughterhouse, you might think nothing would ever happen, and you knew the people and you knew what sort they were, but then suddenly it was as though they were completely different, as though you’d never seen them before in your life.
She had stood up, held out a newspaper to Schindler, pointed to a picture of a calf in it, and said:
—Read what it says in the article!
And Livestock-dealer Schindler, sweating, tired from talking, pulled out his unbreakable spectacle case from under his smock, pushed his empty coffee glass to one side, moved his chair slightly, and got ready to read. He smoothed the paper one last time, then, holding it by the corners, and moving his lips, he began reading the story of the calf.