Cow

by Beat Sterchi

  Buri splits the backbones of sixteen oxen in an hour. Buri splits for years. His work demands strength and concentration.

  Soon he starts seeing everything, people, animals, the whole world in terms of splitting. Everything can be split down the middle in two equal parts. He sees acquaintances, and imagines them stuck, split, chopped up. He wonders what they would look like split, who would offer him a challenge. Sometimes he holds his head. Something is wrong. And he feels himself growing tired. His eyes are burning.

  Buri only misses once in his life. A blow, executed with full force, smashes his foot. He is operated on, later amputated below the knee.

  His savings are gone. He is grateful to SWIFT & CO. for taking him back. Even so. New start in the casings department, on a low pay scale. He works in damp cellars. With a wooden leg.

  Soon Buri’s health is completely ruined. The authorities get involved. The man has been unfortunate. What to do with him? Just before the outbreak of the War, the Consulate pays the crossing home. As part of the campaign ‘Your Country Calls’.

  Back at home, Buri disguises his condition as best he can. He talks about America and the slaughterhouse there. Incessantly the journeymen and butchers made fun of him. When everyone at the bar table was asked in turn: Where do you work? In the slaughterhouse! You? In procurement! You? In the tripery! And Buri? In pomposity! They all shouted as one.

  At thirty-five Buri seemed older. He put his faith in age. They’ll come to me for advice, they’ll show a bit of respect to an old man at any rate. Who’s been to America? Who’s seen the slaughterhouses there with his own eyes? Whom did they call ‘John the Splitter’?

  When he was taken on at the slaughterhouse behind the high fence at the edge of the beautiful city, he still wrote after his name: 6 foot 3 inches, 207 pounds.

  That was the last time Buri ever climbed on any scales.

  *

  Thick as fog was the steam that rose from the scalding-tank of the dehairing machine, that condensed under the ceiling of the hall, that dripped down from steel beams and glass-brick roof, and mingled with the sweat and the blood on the men’s skin, and the acceleration of production processes will bring up the noise level in a plant: Krummen had to explain the new intestine-washing machine to Buri by bellowing in his ear. Buri kept nodding and saying: Yes, right, ah, that’s how it works. But his words were lost in the squealing of the pigs and the clattering of the hoist on the overhead rails. Everywhere iron met steel, or steel met screaming flesh.

  Casings specialist Buri looked attentive and seemed impressed. His name was not Rötlisberger. He would manage to win the necessary prestige for the new machine. Such an expensive piece of equipment. A key job. My responsibility for a major new investment. After all, he’d been a witness to the ballyhoo with which the machine had been brought into the pig slaughterhall before lunch!

  When Works-engineer Forestier plied his crowbar between the boards of the fir trunk, Krummen had turned his back on the calf slaughtering, and even Bössiger had come out of his office into the long passage. Buri had noticed how excitedly they had all capered about and got in each other’s way. Krummen had loaded the machine on the fork-lift, and in his excitement carried it so high that it had collided with one of the clocks and damaged it. Bössiger and Forestier had both shouted, ‘Watch it!’, but already there was a tinkle of glass. Now it’ll have a dent! How worried Bössiger had been then, and how careful Krummen was when unloading it in the pig slaughterhall, as gingerly as a crate of china.

  In the gut-washery, Rötlisberger had nudged Buri and said: They’re setting up their stupid machine bang in the middle of the hall. It’ll get in the way of everyone! You’d think it was a new colour telly and they were sticking it in the middle of the room so that everyone could see how wonderful it was!

  But Buri was having none of it. They’ll know best where to put that new intestine-washing machine. It’s them that laid the wiring and the pipes, not you! he had said.

  The only thing that had Buri worried was the chance that the new job might go to a foreigner, and now that he himself had been chosen for the honour he was pleased. In his delight, he was even able to forgo informing Krummen that such a machine was by no means a novelty to him, and that some thirty years previous he’d worked with similar ones over at SWIFT & CO. in Chicago. Instead, he showed curiosity, turning his head this way and that like a schoolboy, nodding till his neck hurt, and staring as though he, the intestine expert, had never in all his life seen a pig’s ruffle.

  —Right! You pick the stuff up and put it on the table, you tear the small intestine away here, maybe this much of it, and then pack it into this slit until the rollers catch hold of it, and then it takes it away! yelled Krummen, and the intestines of healthy animals are shiny and smooth, pale yellow to yellow-grey, and they always contain excrements, and the rollers gripped, pulled in the intestine, metre by metre was pulled away from the surrounding ruffle fat at lightning speed, Krummen just had to hold on to it, and no sooner had the last few metres of it been swallowed up than the gut started to come out at the back, crushed to a white rope, de-fatted, de-slimed, then ran over a roller and landed in a metal container, still wet but ready to be salted, while all it contained acid, water, dirt and gall – was sprayed out from under the chrome guard at the front. Buri withdrew smartly, but Krummen shut his eyes hard and shouted: You see, that’s how it’s done!

  Buri wiped his brow, first with the back of his hand, then with a dry bit of his rigid sleeve. There was slimy-brown shit on his face.

  —Get yourself a hat, shouted Krummen, and impervious to the shower coming out of the bottom of the machine, he pulled up the next set of guts. Rectum, great intestine, fat, pancreas, everything that was left over from the first one, was left to drop into a barrow. We’ll see to that later. Have to adjust the machine first. Different calibre! More water for rinsing!

  —God! That’s some machine! Buri nodded, squeezed his eyes shut, stuck out his tongue, and lifted the third set onto the table himself.

  Krummen folded his arms and watched the experienced gutter’s hands going to work. Straightaway he realized those hands knew what they were about. Krummen turned away. And there I am shouting at the old fox, telling him what to do! I bet he’s stood in front of something similar before. But he never says anything does he, Buri.

  Krummen marched along the slaughter line. He avoided reproachful glances. He didn’t want a discussion, he knew who he was looking for.

  When he reached the queue of pigs in front of Hugentobler, Krummen stopped and stood still. His hand twitched. Those fucking bastards! He punched a pig’s back so hard that the whole row of them swayed on the rail. They’ll catch it! he yelled and left the hall by the back exit.

  From up in the killing bay, from the scalding-tank, from the shaving-table, from everywhere, they stared after him until the swing door closed and Foreman Krummen went out in the rain, swearing, with his wrestler’s gait.

  *

  One forty-five.

  The level of pigs’ blood is rising in the tank.

  Shit!

  Fucking shit!

  Why didn’t you squeal to death!

  And they’re supposed to be intelligent animals.

  Locher shoots in a frenzy.

  I stick.

  Pasquale and Eusebio drag the bled pigs to the trapdoor. Piccolo’s standing by the scalding-tub. As soon as the skin’s soaked soft, he shoves them into the scraper. He looks up. His face is brown from the splashing water. The shit also boils. Hair, bristles, nails, bubbles scum at the top.

  The others are in their places on the slaughtering line.

  I go over to the water-hose and hold my face in it. The murder at my feet. Greedily I lap at the water.

  On!

  Oi! Niente dormire!

  And this is where Lukas wanted to take pictures.

  They got him.

  No pictures!

  But...

  We said no pictures!

&nb
sp; They grabbed him by the seat of the pants, and Lukas went on clicking.

  Locher puts a rubber boot on a pig’s belly.

  Here, you missed one. This sow’s not been stuck. Wake up.

  I come.

  I with my knife.

  I step over a pig and feel the oil-slick layer of blood and water and shite underfoot.

  Mustn’t slip with a knife in my hand.

  And don’t miss a sow.

  There was already one pig came out of the scraper that hadn’t been stuck. Shaved white, but no hole in the throat. Krummen swore at me.

  At the meat inspection Dr Wyss will only give the ham an oval stamp if he can see a hole: meat that hasn’t been bled isn’t saleable.

  Krummen stuck his knife in its throat, but it was too late. Not a drop would come.

  Porco Dio!

  Pasquale’s yelling at me.

  What have I done to you?

  Everyone’s got their personal scapegoat.

  The director’s got Bössiger, Bössiger’s got Krummen, Krummen’s got Huber, Huber’s got Hofer, Hofer’s got Buri, Buri’s got Luigi, Luigi’s got Pasquale.

  And me?

  I give the stubborn pig in front of me a kick.

  And Pasquale’s got nothing to complain about. The bled bodies slide easily across the ground. Blood, slime and shit are good lubricants. Pasquale doesn’t have to exert himself.

  Pasquale and Eusebio go swish, swish, swish, and there are three pigs lying in front of the iron plate of the trapdoor. A wooden gag jammed in the snout, to prevent water running down the throat, and the pigs are ready to be scalded.

  And I’ve got to stick. And not forget a single sow.

  Locher’s banging away like crazy.

  How they stiffen, stand there for a second, then topple over and start to wriggle. How they offer me their throats. How they bubble over my hands.

  A sow that’s still at large climbs up on top of a dead one, tries to get her front feet onto the wall on the open side of the killing bay.

  The sow looks down the slaughtering line.

  Steam everywhere.

  They go sailing past down at the bottom. Split in two, hung by the rear feet.

  In winter the scalding basin produces so much steam you can’t see a metre in front of your face.

  A bull got out once, and found his way into the pig slaughterhall in the fog. They were only able to hear him. The hooves on granite. Occasionally a shadow. He went around skewering pigs, upsetting tubs of guts. Several butchers were hurt.

  And I’m carrying one basinful of blood after another to the collecting-tank.

  The handle of my knife is slippery.

  This rush the whole time.

  I’d like to hold my face and hands under the water jet. Blow my nose. Smoke half a cigarette in the corridor outside.

  Even the dentist lets you rinse in between.

  Just half a cigarette.

  When Pasquale and Eusebio drive the pigs in, they light up on the sly outside.

  My knife, Jesus. I should whet it. Can’t get anything out of the throat under my knee again.

  But it’s pouring out of the sow’s nostrils instead. Like a nosebleed. I must have punctured the windpipe.

  Here, watch it.

  Internal bleeding, eh?

  Now Locher’s come over to put his oar in.

  You like me to jump up and down on her? Or lift her tail? That might be good for a teacupful.

  He can laugh at his own stupid fucking jokes.

  Sticking is one of those things. Everyone thinks they can do it better. Those are the two art forms. Sticking and splitting. The butcher’s touchstones. Shit. Whoever pumps the most blood from a dead sow rules OK.

  And Locher.

  You’ve had so many shots at sticking, why do you always get the blood flowing back to the lungs, or out of the mouth? Why don’t you get it right?

  Wish he’d leave me in peace.

  Hurl my knife down into the pig hall below. Empty the basin of blood over Locher. Take off my apron and boots. Climb up the side wall, like the pig tried to do just now. Roar.

  And in again with the blade, push my red-encrusted hand against the bristles at the throat. And this time, alleluia, it spurts out in a high arc. A whole metre it goes.

  See, see! So you can do it. You just have to make an effort. You’re a dreamer.

  The way he’s standing over me. Why doesn’t he push off? Back to shooting.

  And I kneel on a bleeding sow.

  Out of this place.

  And the snot in my nose?

  I’d like to open out a white handkerchief, spread it out over a hand that’s clean and dry. I’d like to feel the material cool on my cheek, bury my face in it.

  Instead, slime to slime.

  Thumb on it, pressure, left side a couple of drops, right a claggy string.

  Red thumbprints on my nostrils.

  Have I stuck all the unconscious pigs?

  Don’t forget any.

  I look around. Pasquale and Eusebio are grinning at each other. They pretend they enjoy cavorting around in the dirt, carting dead pigs around. When it’s hot, they take their shirts off. With bare chests, only apron bibs, they cover each other with slime and blood.

  Spaghetti gladiators.

  Locher’s getting new shells from his right trouser pocket. The used cartridges go in the left one.

  There’s more squealing. This batch isn’t finished yet.

  I think I can feel a couple of dry places on my forearms, just below the elbows. As I change from one pig to another, I brush them over my lips and feel cool skin, the skin on my eyelids. My tongue licks salt.

  There are over two hundred pigs waiting outside

  We always save the dams till last. They go into salami production. They lie in the killing bay like mountains of meat and fat. It takes four of us to get them down to the scalding tub. They have heads like runkled boulders.

  The dams are unbelievably fat.

  Once a sow suckled eleven piglets under a thick layer of snow for a whole month without food. After a storm, they had put her down as lost, but then the farmer had seen steam rising from a snow drift not far from the farmyard. Only two of the piglets had been frozen.

  The fat in the bacon was a reserve, said Überländer.

  Like a camel’s humps.

  But Christ! Hell!

  Pile of whores’ shit!

  And another one’s throat cut.

  Keep it up.

  Hup! Hup!

  Learn to work.

  I’d just like... not to think anything. Just forget everything. Not know where I am.

  And another with my knife in its throat.

  Whenever I empty my basin into the blood-tank. I’m sure there are a couple of drops of my own blood there too. I can feel it.

  Stuck.

  Drained.

  I feel DRAINED!

  Poor pig.

  Dear dead animal.

  Why pigs don’t revolt.

  Don’t revolt?

  But they do. They all scream like stuck pigs.

  But they are stuck pigs.

  Any resistance will be beaten down at once.

  By me? By us?

  There’s the death penalty for being a pig.

  Out of here!

  This whore-damned shit killing bay!

  And into the throat with the knife.

  I stab down viciously.

  The way this sow bleeds! Wriggles! It’s squirting out like anything, jet propelled. Light coloured.

  Goddamn it! Now what have you done! Locher yelling at me. That sow wasn’t even unconscious! You watch what you’re fucking doing, or else...

  I feel dizzy. Nauseous. Like sitting down. On the belly of the nearest pig.

  Or else?

  I want to puke.

  Or else I’ll get the vet. No one needs to stick here before I’ve shot. Understand? What a botch-up. Get a grip on yourself, boy! You wait, and I’ll get onto Krummen.

>   He even wags his finger at me.

  Pasquale and Eusebio are grinning.

  Let him shout.

  *

  And when someone remembers the incident, over a beer, the boastful tone goes out of his voice, and he talks quietly, yes, he was there:

  A bull got loose, snapped the chain, bent aside the iron bars, ran out of the driving passage, galloped snorting through the night, get out of my road I need to breathe, out of the slaughterhouse terrain, up the approach road, then he turns into a residential street, charges a tree, rams his head against the trunk, lights go on in the windows around, a gigantic shadow over the whole width of the street, an enormous animal, and a VOLKSWAGEN comes sweeping along, the hooves rattle over the asphalt, the bull attacks the car, puts all its weight into his loins, smashes into it head on, one horn buries itself in the right headlight, he withdraws, spiked fender on his head, he shakes himself, attacks the car again, knocks it over on its side, metal crashes, the broken bumper clatters, air hisses out of a tyre, glass tinkles, and the bull goes on horning through paint and metal, a shot, then another one, then silence, the terrified driver pukes by the side of the road, a streetlamp sways in the breeze, the policeman fired with his hands out in front of him, the bullets went through the bull’s chest and pierced his heart, the neck and head are flat on the ground, next to the damage, the bulge of muscle flat and dead, and the tip of the tongue out in front of the foaming mouth, the local people come out of their houses, coats thrown over shoulders, cover their eyes with their hands: a bull! a bull! A circle forms round those 1000 kilos of meat, so dead and empty and collapsed, the scrotum like a ninepin, and the police clueless, and another siren sounds, an ambulance races up to the scene, flashing lights throwing shadows round the walls, what’s happened here, the ambulancemen run up carrying a stretcher, they clear a path through the crowd, who called them? and what are we doing here? You must be out of your minds! A bull! An animal? How priceless! Must be a joke, in the middle of the night, you need a winch, and a cadaver-transporter, and unbled like that he’s only good for feeding the fishes...

  ...and an injured bull they hadn’t yet stunned breaks loose in the slaughterhall, his red-and-white flanks pump, the hair on his neck bristles like a dog’s, his bellowing curdles the blood, he pushes over carcasses that were being dressed, gallops on his short legs from tiled wall to tiled wall, his head down low, his tail flying behind, the tip of his rod pink in the tuft of his belly, then he tosses his head up high, bellows louder, makes firewood of wooden containers, upsets water troughs and canisters, the blood-covered floor turns slippery, the men keep back, such a whorish big fucking bull! The doors are bolted, protective barriers come down, and the bull attacks, the black look from his red-and-white skull, he puts them all to flight, we need a gun! Who’s got a gun? The bull chips fist-sized lumps out of the wall with his horns, and the over-eager young butcher who thinks he’s exhausted himself, he has the gun knocked out of his hand, gets a horn in the groin, he falls to the floor, the bull tramples over him, then hurls himself against the slaughterhall door, bangs into it like a ton of bricks, a battering ram, the barriers creak, next he rams the door of the little weighing office, the unreinforced wood splinters, the bull is trapped in the doorway, the forehooves smash table, chair, weighing machine, kicking out again and again like a couple of forehammers, a carbine-butt breaks the glass of the little peep-window behind the weighing machine, take your time, Hans! Aim carefully! The front flank is ripped open, a black hole, gunpowder smoke, good shot! And the hooves don’t reach quite as far, the head droops, the eyes roll, the bull’s throat rattles as he plunges into a pool of blood on the floor, and the wounded butcher is unconscious, his apron is torn open, his guts are showing, quick, get him to hospital! And all the arms in the slaughterhouse aren’t enough to get the bull out of the doorway, so half in the weighing office, half in the slaughterhall, the hide is cut, the meat chopped...