The Wall

by Marlen Haushofer

  It stayed cold and damp all April, and in the last third of that month the weather was so stormy that I had to stay in the hunting-lodge. I didn’t enjoy this compulsory rest. I was filled with the desire to work, and now had to set about mending my clothes for the summer. My hands were so chapped that the thread kept getting caught on them, the needle slipped through my fingers and I had to look for it again and rethread it. For a while yet I didn’t have to worry about clothes. The shoe situation was much worse. I had a pair of stout climbing-boots with heavy, indestructible rubber soles, and also Luise’s climbing-boots which were a little too big for me, but which I would also be able to wear if I had to. But the shoes I’d been wearing when I arrived were in a terrible state. The lining was torn and the tips and heels worn down, and they could hardly last another summer. In the meantime I’ve sewn myself some moccasins from a dried-out deer-hide. They aren’t much to look at, but very pleasant to wear. Unfortunately they won’t keep long. Back then I hadn’t yet hit on that alternative. The sock situation was poor as well. My darning-wool had been used up long before, and I had to make do with brightly coloured woollen threads that I pulled out of a blanket.

  I’d stopped wearing proper clothes a long time ago. I’d found the clothes that were practical for me ages before: Hugo’s shirts, whose sleeves I had shortened; my old corduroy trousers; a loden Tyrolean jacket; a woollen vest and in the winter Hugo’s long lederhosen, which flapped about me. In the summer I wore shorts tailored from an elegant pair of brocade trousers that Luise had worn in the evening in the hunting-lodge. My dressing-gown was still in quite good condition, since I wore it only in the house. All in all a less than flattering, but an appropriate wardrobe. I barely gave my appearance a thought. My animals didn’t care about my outer shell, they certainly didn’t love me for my appearance. They probably had no sense of beauty whatsoever; I can’t imagine that a human being would have seemed beautiful to them.

  So I spent a few days on this tiresome needlework. It was so cold and windy that not even Lynx showed any desire for expeditions. He sat in the stove door soaking in the warmth. The cat lay on my clothes on the table. She very much liked lying on clothes; Pearl and Tiger had always done the same. Whenever I said anything she started purring, sometimes a look from me was enough to set her off. The wind blew around the hunting-lodge, and we were warm and comfortable. If the silence grew too great and oppressive I talked a little, and the cat answered with little cooing noises. Sometimes I sang as well, and the cat didn’t mind. I could have been content if I’d managed to eliminate thoughts of the past entirely, but I managed to do that only very seldom.

  On the twenty-sixth of April my alarm-clock stopped. I was sitting taking in a shirt when it stopped ticking. I didn’t notice at all, or rather I noticed only that something had changed. Only when the cat pricked up her ears and turned her head towards the bed did I consciously hear the new silence. The alarm-clock had died. It was the alarm-clock that I had found in the hunting-lodge further up the hill on my expedition into the next valley. I picked it up, shook it, and it uttered a last tick-tock and was then finished for good. I unscrewed the back with the scissors. It looked quite healthy as far as I could see, but refused to tick any more. I knew straight away that I would never manage to make it go again. So I left it in peace and screwed the back on again. It was three o‘clock in the afternoon, crows’ time, and that’s what it has said ever since. I don’t know why I kept it. It still stands by my bed, showing three o’clock. Now all I had was the watch, which had always been kept in the drawer of the table since I would only have broken it while working.

  Today I don’t own a single clock. I lost the watch on the way back from the Alm. Bella’s hooves may well have stamped it into the earth. Back then I felt it wasn’t important any more, and I didn’t go back looking for it. But I probably wouldn’t have found it in any case. It was such a tiny watch, a gold toy that my husband had given me years before. He had always liked to see me wearing dainty and pretty things. I would much rather have had a big, practical watch, but today I’m glad I feigned delight over the present back then. So, the little watch was gone too. The time it showed had long ceased to be even accurate crows’ time. Those little watches never go properly. At first I missed the alarm-clock. For a few nights I couldn’t get to sleep in the new, oppressive silence. I woke up in the night with the familiar ticking in my ear, but it was only my heartbeat waking me up. The cat was the first to understand the death of the alarm-clock, Lynx hadn’t noticed it at all. The stopping of a clock wasn’t a sign of danger, of danger or deer, so he didn’t notice it at all. He was quite insensitive to familiar noises, even if they were violent and loud. But if, when he was stalking, a twig snapped quietly, he would stop and stand sniffing the air. Now nobody can differentiate between harmless and threatening noises for me. I have to be very careful. The cat listens day and night, but not for me.

  It was May by the time the weather really improved. Two years had passed in the forest, and it struck me that I now hardly ever gave a thought to the idea that someone might at last find me. I spent the first May digging the potato-field and carting dung to it. The second May passed the same way. Overnight it was summer, and along with the frozen brown spring flowers everything was now bursting into the light, all at once. I returned to my wood-cutting work and stacked a new supply under the verandah. Winter was not to catch me by surprise. On the tenth of May, which had stayed summery and warm, I planted the potatoes, and noted with satisfaction that I had more left over this time. I’d also been able to enlarge the field somewhat. I planted the beans as well, and that was the most important springtime work done. I decided to set off soon for the alpine pasture. There wasn’t much hay left, and I let Bella and Bull into the meadow. Bull had eaten and eaten all through the winter, and had sometimes drunk the fine skimmed milk. I fetched hay from the barn again so as to have a little supply to hand in the autumn, when I came back. The fruit-trees were in full bloom, and the grass had shot up in a week, and on the other side of the wall the nettles were already burgeoning around the cottage. The trees blossomed very late that year, but at least there was a hope that the frost wouldn’t catch them.

  Over the days that followed it grew cold and rainy again, but the saints’ days in the middle of May turned out to be very mild, and on the seventeenth of May it was so fine again that I started the move. It seemed a lot more strenuous than the previous year, because I still couldn’t breathe properly, and coughed as I carried my heavy loads. The grass in the pasture was already thick and green, and there was only a little snow left in the shady spots under the trees.

  The cat observed my preparations morosely. If I tried to stroke her she stared coldly into my eyes and refused to purr. She had already grasped what was going on, and I could understand her indignation. I felt very guilty beneath her gaze. For the last few nights she stopped sleeping in my bed, and went instead to the hard wooden bench. On the morning of our departure she hadn’t come home at all. The day was spoiled for me from the start. I could persuade myself today that the cat was trying to warn me. But that would be a lie. She just didn’t want to be left alone, and there was nothing mysterious about that. No-one wants to be abandoned, not even an old cat.

  It was a glorious early-summer day, but I had a heavy heart. I’ve always found farewells extremely difficult, even if they’re only for a short time. I like to stay in one place, and travelling has always made me unhappy. My thoughts were still in the old hunting-lodge, which now lay in the morning sun, its doors locked and its shutters closed. An abandoned house is a very sad thing. As we climbed the hill I was in some intermediate place; I was at home nowhere. This time I hadn’t left a note on the table, it hadn’t occurred to me. Towards noon we reached the alpine pasture, and I was torn from my brooding. Lynx flew over the meadow towards the hut, barking jubilantly. He remembered the previous summer, and was immediately quite at home. I left Bella and Bull in the meadow. I still couldn’t stop feeling uneasy,
but I pulled myself together and went to work after a short rest. I fetched fallen wood from the byre and washed a year’s dust from the floor. I kept thinking about Tiger, and when I opened the cupboard I expected for a confused moment to find the little cat rolled up asleep. I went weak at the knees and had to keep a grip on myself until my faint spell had passed.

  Later I sat down on the bench by the house staring numbly before me. Everything was still there, the rain-barrel, the chopping block and the woodpile, as if they were waiting for our old morning routine. I knew I couldn’t go on like this, but I’d never been capable of simply nipping an anxiety in the bud. I always had to wait until it was ripe and mature and fell from me. But I was able to work. I went in search of kindling, and spent the whole afternoon carting one bundle after the other to the hut. I laid them out there to dry in the sun. I’d already laid the blankets and the pallet in the meadow in the afternoon. They weren’t exactly damp, but they smelled a little musty. In the winter the snow must have covered the hut to the roof up here. This time I’d brought more potatoes with me, and stored them in the bedroom. There was no chance of finding flour anywhere. If there was any in one of the huts, it would have gone rotten long ago or been eaten up by the mice. On the third day I shot a young stag, and packed the salted meat into clay pots which I bound shut and buried in a shady hollow in the snow. I still felt dejected, but Bella and Bull were content. They sometimes interrupted their grazing, trotted to the hut and stuck their big heads through the door. They didn’t come only out of affection, but because I’d become accustomed to letting them lick a little salt from my hand.

  It wasn’t until the fifth day that I went to the vantage point with Lynx. The landscape was now a single blooming, blossoming wilderness. I could hardly tell field and meadows apart by their colour. The weeds had emerged victorious everywhere. Even in the first summer the smaller roads had been overgrown, and now the wide asphalt road was visible only in little dark islands. The seeds had taken root in the cracks left by the frost. Soon there would no longer be a road. The sight of the distant church-towers barely moved me this time. I waited for the familiar onslaught of anxiety and despair, but it didn’t come. I felt as though I’d spent fifty years in the forest, and the towers were now nothing to me but constructions of stone and tiles. They didn’t affect me at all any more. I even found myself thinking that Bella wasn’t giving much milk now, and that it was a good thing that I’d left the butter churn in the valley. Then I stood up and went deeper into the forest with Lynx. My coldness alarmed me. Something had changed; I had to come to terms with the new reality. The thought made me uneasy, but I could escape that unease only by passing straight through it and leaving it behind me. I couldn’t try to keep the old mourning alive artificially. The circumstances of my former life had often forced me to lie; but now every occasion and every excuse for lies had disappeared. I wasn’t living among human beings any more, after all.

  By the beginning of June I’d managed to get used to the Alm, but it wasn’t as it had been the previous year. That first summer there was gone irrevocably, and I didn’t want a feeble repetition of it and therefore kept myself from succumbing once more to the old magic. But the pasture didn’t make it hard for me, it had closed itself off to me and showed me an unfamiliar face.

  There was less to do than there had been the previous year, because butter and fat production had declined. Bella wasn’t giving much milk, and Bull finally had to start drinking nothing but water. Bella gave just enough milk for my daily needs, and I’d gone back to beating my little bit of butter with the whisk. Poor Bella, unless a miracle happened soon she wouldn’t have another calf.

  I often sat, as I had done a year before, on the bench by the house looking out over the meadow. It hadn’t changed from before, and it smelt just as sweet, but I didn’t go into the old raptures ever again. I industriously sawed my fallen wood, and I had a lot of time left over to go to the forest with Lynx. But I’d stopped making longer expeditions, for I’d drawn up my boundaries the previous summer. I no longer cared where the wall went, I had no desire to find ten more rotting woodmen’s huts smelling of mice. The nettles would already have penetrated through the cracked doors into the huts, and would be flourishing in every cranny. I preferred just walking through the forest with Lynx for the sheer joy of it. It was better for me than sitting idly on the bench looking out over the meadow. A steady walk on the old paths, which were already starting to grow over, always calmed me down again, and it was a daily delight for Lynx in particular. Every expedition was a big adventure for him. Back then I talked to him a lot, and he understood the sense of almost everything I said. Who knows, perhaps he understood more than I thought. That summer I quite forgot that Lynx was a dog and I was a human being. I knew it, but it had lost any distinctive meaning. Lynx too had changed. Since I’d been spending so much time with him he had grown calmer, and didn’t seem constantly afraid that I might vanish into thin air as soon as he went off for five minutes. Thinking about it today, I believe that was the only big fear in his dog’s life, being abandoned on his own. I too had learned a lot more, and understood almost all his movements and noises. Now, at last, there was a silent understanding between us.

  On the twenty-eighth of June, when I came back from the forest with Lynx towards evening, I saw Bull mounting Bella. I’d stopped paying attention to her bellowing in the night. When I saw the two great creatures merging together against the pink evening sky I felt certain there would be a calf this time. It had to happen that way, in a big meadow, against the evening sky, without human intervention. But even now I’m not sure whether I was right. In any case, from then on Bella stopped calling for Bull, and Bull occupied himself solely with stuffing as much sweet grass as possible into his big, strong body, dozing in the sun or flying across the meadows at a gallop. He was an extraordinarily beautiful and powerful animal, and very good-natured. Sometimes he would lay his head heavily on my shoulder and snuffle with contentment when I scratched his forehead. Perhaps he would later have grown wild and sulky. Back then he was just a huge calf, trusting, playful and always ready for a good feed. I don’t think he was as clever as his mother, but then it wasn’t his task in life to be clever. It was funny how he even obeyed Lynx, who looked like a mere yapping dwarf in comparison with him.

  Today I think that Bella will have a calf. She’s giving more milk than she did in the autumn, and she’s grown significantly fatter. If that’s the case, according to my farmer’s diary the calf would be born at the end of March. Bella isn’t conspicuously fat, but there’s more fat on her than I can attribute solely to the fine hay. Even four weeks ago I didn’t dare hope, and I still have my doubts today; perhaps I’m only convincing myself of things I wish very dearly. I shall have to wait and be patient.

  Back then, in the alpine pasture, I was much more tormented by uncertainty. It was so important for me that Bella should have a calf. Otherwise I would very soon have had to work hard for two completely useless animals that I wouldn’t have been capable of killing. Only Bella didn’t seem in the least concerned about our future. It was a delight to watch her. She had kept her role as leader. If Bull got too uppity she would rebuke him by butting him with her head, and he would behave himself; he never strayed far from his dainty wife and mother. That was a great comfort to me, for I knew that Bella was sensible and that I could rely on her. Good sense filled her entire body and always ensured that she did the right thing. Lynx still didn’t enjoy playing cowherd’s dog, and did it only if I gave him express commands. I wanted to recover a little in the run-up to the hay-harvest. I could still quite clearly feel the after-effects of the illness. I was eating enough, getting a lot of fresh air and sleeping soundly.

  On the first of July, it says in my diary, I could breathe deeply again for the first time. The last obstacle was removed, and only now did I realize how great a torment my shortness of breath had been, even if I hadn’t noticed it. For an hour I felt as if I as reborn, and then I couldn’t
imagine that things had ever been otherwise. In a few weeks I had to start bringing in the hay-harvest, and it was important for me to be able to breathe properly in the steep mountain meadow.

  On the second of July I went into the valley to hoe the potatoes, It had rained, and the weeds had proliferated much more strongly than they had the previous dry summer. I worked in the field all morning. In the hunting-lodge I’d found the familiar hollow on the bed, but I didn’t know how old it was. I stroked the cover smooth, filled the rucksack with potatoes and climbed back up the hill. In the middle of July I made a second expedition and inspected the meadow by the stream. The grass was high, and much lusher than it had been the previous year. The summer was changeable; rainy and warm days followed one another in close succession. It was wonderful weather for anything that was supposed to grow and blossom. Since I still had time, I caught three trout and fried them in the hunting-lodge. I would have liked to leave one for the cat, but I knew she wouldn’t touch anything in my absence, sly and suspicious as she was. I wanted to wait for the waxing moon, which would perhaps bring rather more constant weather. I also decided to make the work rather easier for myself this year. Since Bella didn’t have much milk she needed milking only once a day, and I was able to spend the night in the hunting-lodge and start scything, well rested, the first light.

  So that’s how things were at the end of July. I milked Bella and shut her and Bull in the byre. They weren’t happy, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I gave them a good supply of grass and water and went into the valley with Lynx. At eight o‘clock in the evening I arrived at the hunting-lodge, ate a cold supper and went to bed immediately so as to be fresh in the morning. Since I no longer had the alarm-clock, I had to rely on the clock in my head. I would imagine the number four, very large and clear, and could be sure to wake up at four o’clock. I’d already had a lot of practice doing that, back then.