The Wall

by Marlen Haushofer

  It was a brilliant and beautiful frosty day. The snow-covered trees glittered painfully in the sunlight, and the snow crunched crisply under my feet. Lynx ran off, enveloped in a cloud of luminous dust. It was so cold that my breath froze immediately, and it hurt to draw breath into my lungs. I wrapped a cloth over my mouth and nose and drew my hood tight across my forehead. My first path took me to the deer’s feeding-place. There were countless tracks there. A shiver went through my bones when I saw that they’d all gone there in desperation, and found the feed-racks empty.

  I suddenly hated the blue, swirling air, the snow and myself, because I couldn’t do anything for the animals. In this time of need my chestnuts weren’t much better than nothing at all. It was extremely foolish to give them all out, but it was all I could do. I went back straight away, lugged the two sacks out of the room, tied them together and dragged them behind me in the snow. Lynx was excited about all this, and jumped around me, barking encouragingly. The feeding-place was only twenty minutes away, but the path led uphill, and it was also heavily covered in snow. I arrived at the top completely exhausted and with my hands quite rigid. I emptied the sacks into the racks and felt like an idiot. As it was so cold and I didn’t dare sit down I slowly went back up the hill. I found their tracks everywhere. The red deer had come down from the mountains to join the roe deer. When twilight fell they would all come to the feeding-place and be able to eat their fill at least one more time.

  The bark of the young trees had been gnawed at, and I decided to set aside a little supply of hay from the forest meadow for the deer. It wasn’t hard for me to make this decision, since summer was far away. When I actually got down to cutting the forest meadow with the sickle I felt differently about it. In any case, however, I always have enough hay now so that in the worst emergency the deer have enough to feed on for a week. In fact it might make more sense not to feed them, since they are multiplying too quickly in any case, but I can’t simply let them starve and perish so miserably.

  After a quarter of an hour I realized I couldn’t bear the cold any longer, and turned back. Even Lynx seemed to agree; his enthusiasm had cooled quickly. On the way back I found, half-hidden in a snowfall, a roe deer that had broken its back leg and couldn’t move. The leg was so badly broken that the splinters of bone were sticking out of the skin. I knew that I had to put an end to that torment straight away. It was a young roe deer, and very emaciated. I didn’t have my rifle with me and had to kill the animal with my jack-knife, giving it a jab in the neck. The deer raised its head miserably and looked at me, then gave a sigh, shuddered and fell back into the snow. I’d hit the right spot.

  It was only a small deer, but it was a heavy burden on the way home. Later, after I’d thawed out my hands in the hut, I gutted it. Its coat was already ice-cold, but when I broke it open a little steam rose from the flesh. Its heart still felt quite warm. I laid the meat in a wooden tub and carried it into one of the upper rooms, where it would be frozen stiff by the following morning. I gave Lynx and the cat some of its liver. I only wanted a glass of hot milk. In the night I heard the cold creaking in the wood. I’d put on a lot of extra logs, but I was shivering under the blanket and couldn’t get to sleep. Sometimes a log would crackle into life, and then go out again; I felt sick. I knew it was because I had to keep on killing. I imagined what a person who enjoyed killing might feel. The hair stood up on my arms, and my mouth grew dry with disgust. You would probably need to be born to it. I could bring myself to do it as quickly and skilfully as possible, but I would never get used to it. I lay awake for ages in the crackling darkness thinking about the little heart freezing to a clump of ice in the room above me.

  That was in the night of the seventh of January. The cold continued for another three days, but the chestnuts had disappeared by the morning.

  I found three more frozen roe deer and a red deer calf, and who knows how many I didn’t find.

  After the great chill a wave of damp, warmer air set in. The path to the byre turned into a shining sheet of ice. I had to scatter ashes and chop up the ice. Then the west wind turned and came from the south and hissed around the hut day and night. Bella grew nervous, and I had to see to her ten times a day. She wasn’t eating much, and shifted from foot to foot and jerked away painfully when I milked her. Whenever I thought about the impending birth I was seized by panic. How was I to get the calf out of Bella? I had once been present at the birth of a calf and more or less remembered what had happened. Two strong men had pulled the calf out of its mother’s body. It had struck me as very barbaric, and I’d felt terribly sorry for the cow, but maybe that’s really how it had to be. I didn’t know a thing about it, after all.

  On the eleventh of January Bella bled a little. It was after her evening feed, and I decided to set myself up in the byre for the night. I filled the thermos-flask with hot tea, kitted myself out with a heavy rope, some string and a pair of scissors, and put a pot of water on the stove. Lynx desperately wanted to be there as well, but I shut him in the house, as he’d only have caused chaos in the byre. I’d already set up a little log partition for the calf, and filled it with fresh straw. Bella greeted me with a dull moo, and seemed pleased to see me. I could only hope that this wasn’t her first calf and that she had some experience behind her. Then I stroked her and began to speak to her encouragingly. She was in pain, and entirely preoccupied by the processes at work in her body. She walked nervously back and forth and refused to lie down again. It seemed to calm her down when I spoke to her, so I said the same things to her that the midwife in the clinic had said to me. It’ll be fine, it won’t be much longer now, it’ll hardly hurt and that kind of nonsense. I sat down on the seat that I’d carried over from the garage. Later I fetched the water from the hut; it was steaming hot, but it had time to cool down. The steam rose, and I was as apprehensive as if I was going to have a child myself.

  Nine o’clock came. The foehn rattled the roof, and I began to shiver with nerves and poured myself some hot tea. And once more I promised Bella an easy birth and a lovely strong calf. She had turned her head towards me and looked at me, pained and patient. She knew I wanted to help her, and that gave her a little confidence.

  Then nothing happened for a long time. I had to clear dung away again, and put down a little fresh straw. The foehn subsided and it suddenly grew quite still. The lamp burned quiet and yellow on the little stove. On no account was I to knock it over. I had to pay attention to so many things. There was also the possibility that the light wouldn’t be strong enough at the birth.

  Suddenly I was terribly tired. My shoulders hurt and my head lolled from side to side. I would have been happiest lying down in the fresh straw in the calf’s partition and going to sleep. I nodded off a few times, and jerked awake again with a start. Bella was bleeding again and going into heavy labour. Her flanks were writhing and working violently. Sometimes she groaned quietly, and I spoke encouraging words. Once she drank a little water. And then, at last, one wet leg appeared and, immediately after it, another one. Bella was struggling away. Trembling a little with excitement, I tied the two brown legs together and pulled on the rope. I had no luck at all. I didn’t have the strength of two men. As I looked at Bella everything fell into place. I could imagine precisely how the calf lay inside her. It made no sense at all to pull on the front legs, which would have pulled the calf’s head backwards rather than pushing it forwards. I washed my hands and felt around inside Bella’s warm body. It was more difficult than I’d thought. I had to wait until each contraction died away before I could push my hand any further in. I managed to grab the head and push it downwards with both hands. The next spasm caught my hand, but the head slid forwards. Bella gave a great groan and stepped to one side. I reassured her and pressed the head down until the sweat ran into my eyes. The pain in my arms grew unbearable. But then the head started coming. Bella snorted with relief.

  I waited until the next contraction and pulled on the rope, and there was the calf, so suddenly t
hat I had to jump forwards and catch it on my knees. I let it slide gently to the floor; the umbilical cord had already torn. I laid the little one by Bella’s front legs, and she immediately started to lick it. We were both overjoyed to have managed so well. It was a bull-calf, and we had brought it into the world together. Bella couldn’t get enough of licking her son, and I admired the damp curls on his forehead. He was greyish-brown, like his mother, and looked as though he might turn a little darker. After only a few minutes he tried to get to his feet, and Bella looked as if she wanted to eat him up with love. Finally, when I thought he’d had enough licking, I lifted the little bull and carried him to his partition. Bella could lean over and lick his nose as much as she wanted. Then I gave her lukewarm water and fresh hay. But I knew that the birth wasn’t quite over yet. I was drenched in sweat. It was midnight. I sat down on the chair and drank hot tea. As I couldn’t go to sleep I got up again and walked up and down in the byre.

  After an hour Bella got nervous and the contractions began again. This time there was only a few minutes to wait, and then the afterbirth was there too. Bella lay down exhausted. I cleaned the byre, scattered fresh straw and had another look at the calf. It had gone to sleep and crawled into the straw. I took the lamp, bolted the byre-door and went back into the house. Lynx greeted me excitedly, and I told him how it had been. Even if he didn’t understand my words, he definitely understood that something pleasant had happened to Bella, and crept contentedly into his stove door. I washed myself thoroughly, put fresh wood on the fire and went to bed.

  That night I didn’t even feel the cat jumping on to my bed, and awoke only at the light of dawn. My first journey was to the stable. Heart beating, I drew back the bolt. Bella was busy licking her son’s nose, and I heaved a sigh of relief at the sight of that. He was already standing solidly on his powerful legs, and I led him to his mother and pressed his mouth against her udder. He understood straight away and drank his fill. Bella shifted from one leg to the other when he bumped into her body with his round head. When he had had enough I milked Bella dry. The milk was yellow and fatty and I didn’t like the taste of it. Bella now looked a little haggard and anxious, but I knew that would pass if she was well looked after. I could read in her soft, shining eyes that she was bathed in warm delight. I felt quite strange, and had to escape from the stable.

  The foehn was still blowing, and the weather stayed windy and rainy. Later a moist blue sky broke through the flying clouds, and black shadows flitted across the clearing. I felt nervous and tense. The cat looked electric. Her hair stood on end and sparked when I ran my hand over it. She was unsettled, and followed me about, complaining, bored her hot, dry nose into the palm of my hand and refused to eat anything. I was afraid that some unknown feline disease had struck her, when I suddenly realized that she was calling for a tom-cat. She went into the forest hundreds of times, came back again and showered me with pitiful caresses. Even Lynx, who was hardly aware of the foehn, was infected by her agitation and ran helplessly around the house. At night I was awoken by a strange animal crying in the forest: Ka-au, ka-au. It sounded a little like a tom-cat, but it wasn’t the same call. I was worried about my cat. She stayed away for three days, and I almost lost hope of ever seeing her again.

  The weather turned, and it started snowing. I was pleased, because I knew I was tired and incapable of working. The warm wind had taken a lot out of me. I imagined that it had brought with it a faint odour of decay. Perhaps that wasn’t my imagination. Who knows what might have thawed after being frozen stiff in the forest? It was a relief not to have to hear the wind any more, and to watch the light flakes floating past the window.

  That night the cat came back. I lit the candle, and the cat jumped on to my knee. I felt her wet, cold fur through my nightshirt and hugged her in my arms. She cried and cried and tried to tell me what had happened to her. She kept pushing her head against my forehead, and her cries lured Lynx out from the stove door to come and sniff joyfully at the home-comer. At last I stood up and warmed a little milk for them both. The cat was completely starving, unkempt and neglected, just as she had been when she had first cried at my door. I laughed, scolded and praised her in one breath, and Lynx was extremely confused when she honoured him by pushing her head against him. Something extraordinary must have happened to the cat. Maybe Lynx understood more of her cries than I did, but at any rate what he understood seemed to please him, for he trotted contentedly back to his sleeping place. The cat couldn’t settle down so quickly. With her tail in the air she swaggered up and down and twined herself around my legs, uttering little cries. Only when I had lain down again and blown out the candle did she come to me in bed and start giving herself a thoroughly good wash. For the first time in days I felt peaceful and relaxed. The silence of the winter night was a sweet miracle after the hissing and groaning of the foehn. Finally I went to sleep, with the contented purring of the cat in my ear.

  In the morning the new-fallen snow lay four inches thick. There was still no wind, and a muted white light lay over the forest meadow. In the byre Bella greeted me impatiently and let me lead her to her hungry son. From one day to the next he was getting stronger and livelier, and Bella’s haggard body had already rounded out a little. Soon there would be nothing left to recall that January night of the foehn when we had brought the little bull into the world.

  They were both entirely absorbed in one another, and I felt a little lost and excluded. I realized that I envied Bella, and got out of the byre. All they needed me for there now was for feeding, milking and mucking out. As soon as I had pulled the door shut behind me the gloomy byre became a little island of happiness, bathed in tenderness and warm animal breath. It was better for me simply to look for something to do rather than giving the matter any thought. There wasn’t much hay left in the garage, and after breakfast I went to the gorge with Lynx to fetch hay. The cat, very thin, her coat dull, lay on my bed and slept an exhausted sleep. I fetched hay twice in the morning and again in the afternoon, and I did the same the next day. It wasn’t cold, and snowed from time to time in little dry flakes. It stayed windless. It was just the kind of winter I like. Lynx, who had finally grown tired from all that running back and forth between the meadow by the stream and the hunting-lodge, didn’t stir from the stove, while the cat slept for days, only getting up to eat and go off on her short nocturnal expeditions. She drank in sleep like a medicine, her eyes grew clear again and her coat shone. She seemed very content, and I began to assume that the strange animal in the forest had been a tom-cat after all. I called him Mr Ka-au Ka-au, and imagined he must be very proud and brave, or he wouldn’t have survived in the forest. I wasn’t looking forward to the kittens; they would only bring trouble again, but I allowed the cat her happiness.

  So much had happened recently. Pearl had been killed, a little bull had come into the world, the cat had found a mate, roe deer had frozen and the carnivores had had a rich winter. I myself had had a lot of excitement, and now I was tired. I lay on the bench, and when I closed my eyes I saw snowy mountains on the horizon, white flakes dropping on to my face in a big, bright silence. I had no thoughts, no memories, there was only the big, silent, snowy light. I knew this feeling could be dangerous for a lonely person, but I couldn’t muster any strength to resist it.

  Lynx didn’t leave me in peace for long. He kept coming to me and prodding me with his nose. I turned my head with difficulty and saw the life shining warm and imperious out of his eyes. Sighing, I got up and set about my daily work. Now Lynx, my friend and guardian, has ceased to be, and sometimes the desire to go into the white and painless silence is very great. I must take care of myself and be stricter with myself than I was before.

  The cat stares into the distance with yellow eyes. Sometimes she suddenly comes back to me, and her eyes compel me to stretch out my hand and stroke her round head with the black M on the forehead. If the cat enjoys this she purrs. Sometimes she finds my touch irritating. But she’s too polite to spurn it, and just
stiffens under my hand and stays quite still. And I slowly draw back my hand. Lynx was always delighted when I stroked him. It is true that he couldn’t help dying, but I miss him all the same. He was my sixth sense. Now that he’s dead I feel like an amputee. I miss something and will always miss it. It isn’t only that I miss him when I’m hunting and following trails, and have to spend hours clambering after a deer I’ve shot. It isn’t that alone, although that’s made my life more difficult. The worst thing is that without Lynx I feel truly alone.

  Since his death I dream about animals a lot. They talk to me like people, and it strikes me as quite natural in the dream. The people who used to populate my sleep in the first winter have all gone away. I never see them any more. In my dreams people were never kind to me; they were indifferent at best. My dream animals are always kind and full of life. But I don’t think that’s very remarkable, it only shows how people and animals always seemed to me.

  It would be much better not to dream at all. I’ve been living for so long in the forest now, and I’ve dreamt about people, animals and things, but not once about the wall. I see it every time I go to fetch hay, or rather I see through it. Now, in the winter, when the trees and bushes are bare, I can clearly make out the little house again. When the snow settles you can hardly see any difference, a white landscape both here and beyond, slightly disturbed on my side by the tracks of my heavy shoes.

  The wall has become so much a part of my life that often I don’t think about it for weeks. And even if I do think about it, it strikes me as no more strange than a brick wall or a garden fence that stops me going any further. What’s so special about it? An object made of material whose composition is unknown to me. There was always more than enough of that kind of thing in my life. The wall forced me to make an entirely new life, but the things that really move me are still the same as before: birth, death, the seasons, growth and decay. The wall is a thing that is neither dead nor alive, it really doesn’t concern me, and that’s why I don’t dream about it.