The Wall

by Marlen Haushofer

  I established that I’d already used up too much of the food. Above all it was a waste to feed Lynx on it; it wasn’t good for him either, he urgently needed fresh meat. The flour might last another three months, if I was extremely economical with it, and I could no longer rely on being found by then. I could never rely on being found.

  My most treasured possessions for the future were the potatoes and the beans. I absolutely had to find a place that I could use as a little ploughed field. And above all I had to see about getting hold of some fresh meat. I knew how to use guns, and had often successfully shot clay pigeons, but I’d never shot deer.

  Later, at the deer’s feeding-place, I found three red salt-licks, and kept them in the kitchen where it was dry. For a long time now that rough salt has been all the salt I have. In the summer I was also. able to catch trout with Luise’s fishing-rod. I’d never done it before, but it couldn’t be all that difficult. I didn’t like the idea of that kind of murderous activity at all, but I had no choice if I was to keep Lynx and myself alive.

  At lunchtime I cooked rice pudding, making do without sugar. Despite my economies, however, after only eight weeks I hadn’t a single piece of sugar left, and in future had to do without sweetness of any kind.

  I also resolutely decided to wind the clocks daily, and cross off each day in the diary. At the time it struck me as very important; I was practically clinging to the meagre remnants of human routine left to me. Incidentally, I’ve never abandoned certain habits. I wash myself daily, brush my teeth, do my laundry and keep the house clean.

  I don’t know why I do that, it’s as if I’m driven by an inner compulsion. Maybe I’m afraid that if I could do otherwise I would gradually cease to be a human being, and would soon be creeping about, dirty and stinking, emitting incomprehensible noises. Not that I’m afraid of becoming an animal. That wouldn’t be too bad, but a human being can never become just an animal; he plunges beyond, into the abyss. I don’t want this to happen to me. Recently that’s what has made me most afraid, and it is out of that fear I am writing my report. Once I’ve reached the end I shall hide it well and forget about it. I don’t want the strange thing that I might turn into to find it one day. I shall do all I can to avoid that transformation, but I’m not fool enough to believe with any confidence that what has happened to so many people before me could not happen to me.

  If I think now about the woman I once was, before the wall entered my life, I don’t recognize myself in her. But even the woman who marked the diary with the word ‘Inventory’ on the tenth of May has become very strange to me. It was very sensible of her to leave notes behind, so that I can awaken her to new life in my memory. It occurs to me that I haven’t written down my name. I had almost forgotten it, and that’s how it’s going to stay. No one calls me by that name, so it no longer exists. Neither would I like it if my name were one day perhaps to appear in the victors’ magazines. Unimaginable that there should still be magazines somewhere in the world. But in fact why not? If the catastrophe had taken place in Beluchistan, we’d be sitting completely unmoved in our cafes, reading about it in the paper. This is like Beluchistan now, a very far-off, foreign country, one whose whereabouts are scarcely known, a country inhabited by people who are presumably not real people at all; underdeveloped and insensitive to pain; numbers and statistics in foreign newspapers. Nothing to get bothered about. I remember very clearly how little imagination most people used to have. That was probably their good fortune. Imagination makes people oversensitive, vulnerable and exposed. Perhaps it’s a form of degeneracy. I have never held the shortcomings of the unimaginative against them, sometimes I’ve even envied them. They had an easier and more pleasant life than everyone else.

  That doesn’t really belong in my report. But I can’t avoid sometimes thinking about things that are completely meaningless to me. I’m so alone that I can’t always get away from useless thoughts. Since Lynx died that’s got a lot worse.

  I shall try not to deviate too often from the diary entries.

  On the sixteenth of May I finally found a place for the potato-field. I’d been looking for it with Lynx for days. The field couldn’t be too far from the hut, couldn’t be in the shade, and above all it had to have fertile soil. This last requirement was almost impossible to fulfil.

  The humus hereabouts only lies like a thin skin over the chalk. I was about to abandon all hope on earth when, in a little clearing on the sunny side of the mountain, I found just the place. The space was almost level, dry, and protected on all sides by the forest, and there actually was some soil. A quite strange, light soil, black, permeated by tiny bits of charcoal. An old charcoal pile must once have stood on this spot, long ago, because the last charcoal-burner had disappeared from the forest a long time since.

  I didn’t know whether potatoes liked sooty soil, but I nevertheless decided to plant them on this spot, since I knew I wouldn’t find such deep soil anywhere else.

  I fetched my shovel and picks from the hut and immediately set about digging over the ground. It wasn’t all that easy, because there were bushes growing on it, and an unbelievably stubborn weed with long roots. This work went on for four days and was excessively tiring. When I’d finished it, I rested for a day, and then immediately set about planting the potatoes. I dimly remembered that you cut them up to do this, and made sure that each piece had at least one eye.

  Then I piled the soil on top of them. There was now nothing I could do but wait and hope.

  I smeared my sore hands with deer-fat, a large piece of which I’d found in the hunting-lodge. As soon as I’d recovered I started digging over the ground beside the stable and planting my beans. There was only enough for a tiny garden, and I didn’t know whether the beans would even germinate. They might be too old or chemically treated. In any case I had to give it a try.

  In the meantime the weather had improved, and sunshine alternated with showers. There was even a slight storm at one point, and the forest turned into a green, steaming basin. After this storm I thought it worth noting that it became as warm as summer and the grass on the forest meadow grew high and lush. It was a remarkably tough, almost thorny grass, very long, and I assume it wasn’t much use as cattle feed. But Bella seemed happy with it. She spent every day in the meadow, and it struck me that she was getting rounder. Just to be on the safe side, however, I fetched the last hay out of the barn to have a supply in case the weather suddenly turned. Every second day I cut fresh branches for Bella’s bed. I wanted my cow to be able to flourish amid cleanliness and order. I took a lot of trouble looking after Bella. I now had plenty of milk for myself and Lynx, but even if Bella hadn’t given any milk I couldn’t have helped looking after her so well. She had very quickly become more to me than simply a piece of beef that I kept for my own use. Perhaps that idea was nonsensical; but I couldn’t and wouldn’t resist it. The animals were all I had now, and I began to feel like the head of our curious family.

  The day after the storm, on the thirtieth of May, it rained all day, a warm and fertile rain that forced me to stay in the hut if I didn’t want to get soaked to the skin in a few minutes. Towards evening it became unpleasantly cold, and I lit a fire. After I’d done my work in the byre and washed I put on my dressing-gown, to read a little by torchlight. I had found a farmer’s diary that struck me as worth reading. There was a lot in it about making a garden and raising cattle, and I urgently needed to learn more about these matters. Lynx lay in the stove door and snuffled comfortably in the warmth, and I drank bitter tea and listened to the monotonous sound of the rain. Suddenly I thought I heard children calling. I knew it must be an illusion, and returned to my diary, but then Lynx lifted his head and listened, and there it was again, a quiet, sorrowful wailing.

  That evening the cat came into my house. A sopping-wet grey bundle, she was crouched wailing by the door.

  Later, in the hut, she plunged her claws into my dressing-gown with horror, and hissed furiously at the barking Lynx.

&nbs
p; I shouted at the dog, and he crept back into his hole, hurt and reluctant. Then I put the cat on the table. She was still hissing at Lynx, a thin, grey-and-black striped farmer’s cat, hungry and soaking, but still capable of defending herself with tooth and claw. She only calmed down once I had banished Lynx to the bedroom.

  I gave her warm milk and a little meat, and, looking around her all the time, she hastily wolfed down everything I put in front of her. Then she allowed herself to be stroked, jumped off the table, stalked through the room and slid on to my bed. There she sat down and started to wash herself. When she was dry I saw that she was a beautiful creature, not big, but with unusual markings. The most beautiful thing about her was her eyes, big, round and amber. She might have belonged to the old man by the stream, and bumped into the wall on her way home from her evening hunt. She’d been wandering around for four weeks, perhaps she’d been watching me for ages before she’d dared approach the hut. The enticing warmth and the glimmer of light, and maybe also the smell of milk, had overcome her mistrust.

  Lynx whined in his prison, and I led him out by the collar, showed him the cat, stroked first Lynx and then the cat and introduced her as a new member of the household. Lynx seemed to have understood and behaved very well. For a few days the cat remained hostile and cold towards him. She might have had bad experiences, for she would hiss furiously whenever Lynx inquisitively approached her.

  At night she slept in my bed, pressed close against my legs. It wasn’t very comfortable for me, but as time passed I got used to it. In the morning she ran off and didn’t return until dusk started falling, to eat, drink and sleep in my bed. She acted like this for five or six days. After that she stayed with me all the time, and from then on behaved like a true house-cat.

  Lynx didn’t stop trying to get close to her, as he was a very inquisitive dog, and at last the cat came to terms with his behaviour, stopped hissing and even allowed herself to be sniffed at. All the same, she didn’t seem too happy about it. She was a very nervous and suspicious creature, jumped at the slightest noise and was always tense and ready to make off at any moment.

  It was weeks before she calmed down and seemed to stop being afraid that I might kick her out. Strangely, she soon seemed less suspicious of Lynx than of me. She clearly didn’t expect any nasty surprises from him any more, and started to treat him as a moody wife treats her oaf of a husband. She sometimes hissed at him and made to claw him, and then, once Lynx had drawn back, she would approach him and even go to sleep beside him.

  Her experiences with people must indeed have been bad, and as I knew how poorly cats are often treated, particularly in the country, I wasn’t surprised. I always treated her in the same friendly way, only ever approached her slowly and never without talking to her at the same time. And when, at the end of June, she left where she was sitting, crossed the table to me and rubbed her little head against my forehead for the first time, I saw this as a great success. From then on the ice was broken. Not that she showered me with caresses, but she seemed prepared to forget the harm that people had done her.

  Even now she sometimes cowers from me or runs to the door if I move too suddenly. I’m hurt, but who knows, maybe the cat knows me better than I know myself, and knows what I could be capable of. As I write, she’s lying in front of me on the table, staring with her big yellow eyes over my shoulder at a patch of wall. I’ve turned around three times to look, and can see nothing there but the old dark wood. Sometimes she stares at me too, with a long and steady gaze, but never for as long as she looks at the wall: after a certain amount of time she gets uncomfortable and turns her head away or shuts her eyelids.

  Lynx too used to have to turn his eyes away if I looked at him for a long time. I don’t think that human eyes have a hypnotic effect, but I can imagine that they’re simply too big and shining to be agreeable to a smaller animal. I don’t like being stared at by eyes as big as saucers, either.

  Since Lynx died, the cat has grown closer to me. Maybe she sees that we are entirely dependent on one another, but she was jealous of the dog, without being able to show it. In fact, however, I depend on her more than she does on me. I can speak to her, stroke her, and her warmth seeps across my palms into my body and comforts me. I don’t think the cat needs me as desperately as I need her.

  Over time, Lynx developed a certain affection for her. For him she was a member of the family or the gang, and he would have gone for any aggressor to protect her.

  So there were four of us, the cow, the cat, Lynx and me. Lynx was closest to me, and soon he wasn’t just my dog, but my friend; my only friend in a world of troubles and loneliness. He understood everything I said, knew whether I was sad or cheerful and tried, in his simple way, to comfort me.

  The cat was entirely different, a brave, hard-nosed animal that I respected and admired, but one who always insisted on her freedom. She hadn’t fallen under my spell at all. Of course Lynx had no choice, he was dependent on a master. A dog without a master is the poorest creature in the world; even the most wicked people can send their dog into ecstasies.

  The cat soon started to make certain demands on me. She wanted to come and go as she pleased at all times, even at night. I understood that, and as I had to keep the window closed when the weather was cold, I dug a little hole in the wall behind the cupboard. It was hard work, but it was worth it because from now on I had peace at night. The cupboard kept cold draughts out in winter. In the summer I naturally slept with the window open, but the cat always used her own little door. Her life assumed a very regular pattern: she slept at night, went out in the evening and didn’t come back until morning, when she warmed herself with me in bed.

  I can see my face, small and tight, in the mirror of her big eyes. She has got used to answering when I speak to her. Don’t go out tonight, I say, the owl and the fox are in the forest, with me you’re warm and safe. Hrr, grrr, miao, she says, and that might mean, we’ll see, woman-creature, I mightn’t commit myself. And then, soon, comes the moment when she stands up, arches into a bow, stretches herself out twice, jumps from the table, slips into the background and, without a sound, disappears into the dusk. And later I will sleep my quiet sleep, a sleep in which the spruce-trees rustle and the stream splashes.

  Towards morning, when the familiar little body rubs up against my legs, I shall allow myself to sink a little farther into sleep, never very deeply because I have to be very cautious.

  Someone might come up to the window, looking like a man and hiding an axe behind his back.

  My gun hangs loaded beside the bed. I have to listen out for footsteps approaching the house or the byre. Recently I’ve often thought about clearing out the bedroom and setting up a byre there for Bella. There are a lot of arguments against this, but it would be a great relief to me to be able to hear her through the door and know that she was close by and safe. I would naturally have to make a doorway leading from the room into the open, and tear up the floor and make a gutter. I could have the gutter leading to the cesspit behind the house, under the little wooden cottage. All that worries me is the matter of the door. I could manage, with the greatest effort, to break open a doorway, but I then would have to fit the byre door into it properly, and I don’t think I can do that. Every evening in bed I think about that door, and I could weep at my clumsiness and incompetence. And nevertheless, when I’ve thought about it for a very long time, I’ll give the door a go. In winter Bella will be pleasantly warm next to the kitchen, and she’ll hear my voice. As long as it’s cold and the snow lies all I can do is think about it.

  Bella’s byre brought new tasks with it back then, in June. The wooden floor was soaked with her urine, and was starting to rot and stink. That couldn’t go on. I tore up two boards and dug a gutter to let the urine flow outside. The hut was on a slight inclination, towards the slope that led down to the stream. The floor might have sunk a little over the years, but that suited my work. Everything could flow unhindered through the porous chalk soil and seep away into
the ground.

  In the summer it smelled a bit behind the byre, but I never went there anyway; at least the byre was now clean and dry. The slope behind the stable had always been a particularly inhospitable and almost weird area, permanently in shadow, dense with spruce-trees, and damp. Whitish mushrooms grew there, and it smelt a little mildewy. I wasn’t bothered that the waste might seep into the stream. The springwater came from a source above the hunting-lodge, and it was clear and very cold, the best water I’ve ever drunk.

  I find it striking that I’ve never noted in my diary when I shot a deer. I now recall that the idea of writing it down simply repelled me; it was quite enough that I had to do it. I’d rather not write about it even now, only to say that after a few failed attempts I got quite good at supplying us with meat without using up too much ammunition. I’m a child of the city, but my mother came from the country, in fact from the part I live in now. She and Luise’s mother were sisters, and we always used to spend the summer holidays in the country. In those days people didn’t normally spend their holidays on the Riviera. If those summers in the country always seemed like a game, a lot of what I learned stayed with me, and made it easier for me to live as I now have to. At least I’m not completely hopeless. Even as a child I practised clay-pigeon shooting with Luise. I was even better at it than Luise, but she was the one who became a passionate hunter. The first summer here in the forest I often used to catch trout as well. I found killing them less of a problem. I don’t know why; killing deer seems particularly despicable even today, almost like a betrayal. I’ll never get used to it.

  My supplies dwindled much too fast, and I had to tighten my belt a great deal. I was particularly short of fruit, vegetables, sugar and bread. I got by as well as I could with nettles, lettuce and the tops of young spruce-trees. Later, when I was waiting with longing for the potato crop, I went through a period of being beset by cravings, like a pregnant woman. Images of good substantial meals pursued me into my dreams. Fortunately this state didn’t last too long. I was familiar with it from the war, but I’d forgotten how terrible it is to be dependent on an unsatisfied body. Quite suddenly, when the first potatoes appeared, my wild desires left me, and I started forgetting what fresh fruit, chocolate and iced coffee had tasted like. But I could never quite forget bread. Even today I’m often surprised by a desire for it. Black bread has become a quite unimaginable delicacy for me.