Annelise had shown me photographs and YouTube clips of the celebrations, and they’d aroused my curiosity. I’d renamed December 5 the feast of the South Tyrolean Devil. A kind of older Halloween, without sexy pussy cats to ruin the atmosphere. Annelise had taken offense. It wasn’t a feast of the devil, she reprimanded me, it was a feast in which the devil was chased away. I’d apologized and tried in every way to earn forgiveness, just so as not to ruin the atmosphere, but I didn’t abandon my idea.
The fact that at the end of the celebration the saint chased away the devil sounded to me like a happy ending imposed by a production company lacking in imagination.
On December 5, I woke up early, as excited as a child on Christmas Day. I was beside myself with joy. Annelise and Clara watched my excitement incredulously. I even phoned Werner to ask if the feast would take place as normal in spite of the snow. Werner pointed out that it hadn’t been snowing for a while now, and that maybe I didn’t know but, around here, snow wasn’t exactly unheard of.
Around six, with Siebenhoch still shrouded in darkness, Werner knocked at our door and found us ready to leave. I didn’t want to miss even one second.
Throughout the ride to Siebenhoch, Clara, infected by my enthusiasm, bombarded her grandfather with questions. He did his best to stem that overwhelming tide. No, the devils (which were called Krampus) wouldn’t carry her away, at most she’d get her nose daubed with coal. No, they weren’t real devils, they were local kids dressed as devils. No, in spite of what that precocious daddy’s girl kept saying, the Krampus weren’t bad for real.
“They’re very bad, trust me, eight letters,” I murmured, winking at her conspiratorially.
“Honeybun doesn’t trust you,” Clara said sententiously, her little nose up in the air. “Honeybun believes seven letters.”
“Seven letters?”
“Ops.”
“And you’d do well to believe me, too, Jeremiah,” Werner muttered.
I shut my mouth.
Siebenhoch was a jewel of mountain architecture. Small houses clustered around the little church, behind which was the cemetery, totally white now under a good fifty centimeters of snow.
It was from there that the Krampus would come.
The square was packed with people, mostly tourists, all decked out as if it were winter in Siberia, their cameras at the ready to immortalize the devils of South Tyrol.
At a kiosk, we bought a cup of hot chocolate for Clara and two beers for me and Annelise and looked for the best place from which to enjoy the show.
Behind the church, we sensed a certain excitement. The local youths were putting the finishing touches to their costumes, swarms of children were running excitedly on the ice. In the windows, old people’s faces started to appear. There was no sign of the parish priest, who would make his entrance only at a later stage, dressed as San Nicolò, to chase away the terrible Krampus.
“You see that one?”
Werner was pointing at a man with a drooping moustache sitting on the steps in front of the church, clutching an unlit pipe between his teeth and enjoying the spectacle of the crowd.
“The guy with the red beret?”
“He’s a living tradition. The Krampusmeister.”
“The devil master?” I asked, fascinated.
“He’s the man who makes the costumes. Krampusmeister is a term we only use here in Siebenhoch and we’re very proud of it. For as long as there’s been a Siebenhoch, there’s been a Krampusmeister.”
“I thought the young people made their own costumes.”
Werner shook his head. “Nix, there are rules to be respected, Jeremiah, traditions. You have to be attentive to details when you talk about the Krampus costumes. Otherwise he might get angry,” he added, amused.
“The Krampusmeister?” I asked, looking at the man sitting there so contentedly with his pipe in his mouth. I couldn’t place him, but I was sure I’d seen him before.
“No, the devil.”
I laughed. “That’s crazy.”
“What’s crazy, Papà?”
I hoisted Clara up onto my shoulders (how heavy she was now!) and pointed out the man with the pipe. “You see that man in the red beret sitting on the steps?”
“Isn’t his bottom cold?”
“Oh, no.”
“How come?”
“He,” I said solemnly, “is the Krampusmeister. The devil’s tailor.”
Clara launched into a long exclamation of wonder.
I winked at Annelise. “Oh, yes. He’s the one who makes the clothes for the Krampus, isn’t that right, Werner?”
“A real Krampus must have horns, and they must be real horns, from a ram, a goat, a sheep, or an antelope.”
“Do they kill them to get their horns?” Clara asked.
For the first time since I had known him, I saw Werner turn red. “Of course not. Their horns just . . . fall off.”
“Like leaves?”
“Genau. Like leaves. Would you like another hot chocolate, Clara?”
“And doesn’t it hurt when their horns fall off?”
“They don’t even notice. Are you sure you don’t want—”
“And what else are the Krampus supposed to have?”
It was the roar of the crowd that rescued my father-in-law from this interrogation.
The Krampus arrived in single file, about two meters apart. The one in front was holding a torch that he held up like the Olympic flame.
“His horns are sooooo big,” Clara said in a whisper.
The procession marched in step, setting a slow, almost funereal pace.
Gradually, the crowd fell silent. Flashes went off, but soon even these abated. Siebenhoch was wrapped in an unreal silence.
Each Krampus was different, but they all wore animal skins, had cowbells on their belts, and clutched whips in their right hands, some made of sorghum, some from ox sinews. They really were scary.
Especially as they marched in silence.
“They’re really ugly, Papà,” Clara stammered.
I noticed the tremor in her voice, so I stroked her leg to calm her. “They’re fake. It’s just dress-up”
Clara didn’t respond, not immediately. The Krampus arranged themselves in a half moon a few meters from the crowd, which had instinctively retreated. The Krampus with the torch had positioned himself right in the middle of the formation, his back to the church. His horns danced in the flame.
“They don’t look fake to me, Mamma. They don’t have cornflakes on their faces.”
“That’s because they’re not zombies, darling. They’re Krampus. But they’re not real. It’s just make-believe.”
Clara wasn’t the only one whose courage had faded. I noticed that almost all the children, and even a few teenagers, cocky up until now, had grown silent and were clinging to their parents’ winter jackets.
“How many letters are there in the words ‘make-believe,’ Clara?” Werner asked.
“There are . . . there are . . . I don’t know.”
Clara slipped into Werner’s arms, half her face hidden in the hollow of his neck and the other half turned to the square. I heard Werner whisper words of comfort and saw him give her a little tickle, but also noticed her jump at the first crack of the whip.
I let out a cry of surprise, turning my attention again to what was happening in the square. The sinews struck the ground. A dry crack that echoed through the village. I lit a cigarette.
The first blow was followed by a second. Then a third and a fourth, getting louder all the time.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
At the height of the frenzy, the Krampus with the torch let out a fearsome cry, guttural and violent. The whips stopped hitting the ground. The commotion died down.
I knew what would happen next. This was the amusing part of the celebration.
The Krampus launched themselves at the crowd, emitting feral screams. They scared the couples, yelled at the tourists, waved their sorghum whips over the heads of t
he people, forced a few young men to dance by whipping them lightly on their legs, and smeared soot on the faces of the youngest children, all the while making sure they were being photographed and filmed.
Annelise had told me about it and I had seen it in the clips.
All the same, I was taken by surprise.
The crowd retreated. It undulated, bellowed. A corpulent man pushed me away from the perimeter of the square, thrusting me against a door.
The Krampus were pushing forward, moving themselves into whatever space they could find. They were following people, overjoyed at the chaos they were causing.
I lost sight of Werner and Clara, I lost sight of Annelise.
I saw a Krampus terrifying a young man of no more than sixteen, who ran off with his girlfriend following, while a second Krampus, wearing a mask that made him look like a cross between The Thing and Michael Myers with horns, passed so close to me that I caught the goatlike smell of the hides he was wearing and the acrid fumes of the alcohol he had drunk.
This was a detail that both Werner and Annelise had omitted. Before the show, most of the Krampus drank their fill in the village bars. According to tradition, buying a drink for a Krampus brought good luck.
South Tyrol Style, right?
I came out of my hiding place and went in search of Clara. I was upset by the fact that she’d been really scared. But the crowd was an impenetrable mass of bodies. Many of those present had come from the nearby villages where the feast of the Krampus was less spectacular, and Siebenhoch was overflowing with people. I had to make a detour and go down a number of side streets. It was in one of these that a Krampus saw me.
He appeared suddenly, against the light. Big ram’s horns on his forehead, a wooden mask with dark studs like an iron version of an unkempt beard. He looked gigantic.
The apparition made me jump, but there was nothing to be afraid of. It was just a teenager with an ugly mask. Then the Krampus spoke and the affair took quite another turn.
“Hey there, Amerikaner.”
I recognized the voice.
Thomas Pircher.
“I don’t want any trouble, OK?” I said, provoking nervous laughter from a group of bystanders.
It was a scene I’d already lived through once, and I didn’t feel like repeating it. I stopped.
The Krampus advanced.
“You,” he said.
“Go fuck yourself,” I replied.
I turned, ready to run.
“Where do you think you’re going, Amerikaner?” said a second Krampus who had emerged from nowhere.
“To see my daughter. Let me pass.”
“Have you been a good boy, Amerikaner, or do we have to take you to hell?”
I’ve already been to hell, I thought. Not a hell of flames and sulphur, but an ancient, white, frozen hell.
“A very good boy. I haven’t yet smashed your face in, right?”
“Right,” the voice behind me said.
The sorghum whip caught me full in the face. It wasn’t sturdy, but it was flexible and it hurt. It hit me on my nose, which was still tender. I slipped on the fresh snow and fell to the ground, cursing. The Krampus bent over me and smeared soot on my face, pressing hard on my nose until it started bleeding again.
“You see what happens to bad boys? You see?”
“Leave him alone!”
It wasn’t San Nicolò who saved me. It was the Krampusmeister. His presence persuaded the two Krampus to slink off, sneering and yelling up at the sky.
The Krampusmeister handed me a handkerchief. Still clutching his pipe between his teeth, he was looking at me intently.
“Thanks,” I said as I tried to wipe the mixture of blood and soot from my face.
I didn’t want Annelise or Clara to see me so messed up. After all, I’d been the one who’d insisted on going to this damned feast of the devil.
“Are you the Krampusmeister?” I asked. “Werner told me you make the costumes.”
“Genau. I have to preserve the traditions. Drink a little of this.” He held out a small bottle.
My head was tilted back to stem the flow of blood, and I made a negative gesture. “No, thanks.”
“As you prefer, but it’ll do you good. It’s on the Krampusmeister. That’s another one of my duties.”
“Tell me, what are the others?”
“Making sure the boys don’t cause too much trouble. And if they do, trying to remedy it.”
“With clean handkerchiefs and grappa?”
“Cognac.”
The blood had stopped flowing, but my nose really hurt. I needed to put ice on it. I made do with a handful of snow.
“Tomorrow it’ll be like new. Tell me something.”
“Go on.”
“Are you planning to lodge a complaint about what happened?”
“No, it has nothing to do with the celebration. There’s already a bit of bad blood between me and that guy.”
“Excellent choice,” the Krampusmeister said. “Because, you see, the tradition of the Krampus is very important to us. The Krampus punish bad people and drive away evil spirits. They take the evil on themselves.”
“Then San Nicolò turns up and chases them away.”
“Of course, but in any case, after the festival, when people have gone and the priest has taken off his fake beard and his red costume, the young men who have impersonated the Krampus are obliged to make confession and get a blessing.”
“Best not to play with the devil.”
“You say that as if you found it amusing.”
“I can’t help myself.”
“That’s why the Krampus had it in for you. You like playing with the devil. But even when he laughs, the devil is always extremely serious. I have my personal theory on the subject, it’s only natural after so many years spent thinking about him and the best way to present him. Do you want to hear it?”
“I’d love to.”
“I think the fact that he can never really laugh is part of the punishment that God thought up for him. The devil is always serious.”
I took the handkerchief full of snow from my nose. “It’s a paradox. If I laugh, I’m playing the devil’s game, if I don’t laugh I am the devil. In both cases I’ve lost.”
The Krampusmeister nodded slowly. “That’s it. Around here, the devil always wins. He always has the last laugh.”
We parted company and it wasn’t until after I’d rejoined Annelise and Clara that it occurred to me I should have asked him what his name was. I was sure that I’d seen that face before.
And that it was important.
* * *
I had missed the redeeming arrival of San Nicolò. I saw only the Krampus, now docile, being taken inside the church—strong halogen lighting emerged through the wide-open door—by altar boys dressed as angels.
San Nicolò was distributing little red paper bags tied with ribbons. Clara was clutching one triumphantly in her hand. She showed it to me.
“Papà, look, San Nicolò gave me this.”
“San Nicolò in person?”
“He looks like Santa Claus, but he isn’t Santa Claus. He’s much cooler.”
Indeed, with his white beard and red costume, San Nicolò could have been a leaner version of our dear old Santa Claus. And he didn’t go ho-ho-ho.
“In what way is he much cooler?” I asked, more than anything else to delay the moment when I would have to explain the state of my face.
“Because Father Christmas doesn’t chase away monsters, does he?”
Unassailable logic.
Annelise took my face in her gloved hands and turned it, first right, then left. “What happened?”
“Krampus,” I replied. “An epic battle. There were at least thirty of them, maybe even forty. Or a hundred. Yeah, I’d say there were a hundred.”
“Papà?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Don’t be a clown.”
“Who taught you to talk back to your father like that?”<
br />
“What happened?” It was Werner this time, his eagle eyes narrowing.
“I slipped and fell. A Krampus made a fat man jump and in order not to end up under him I slid to the ground. Then, while he was about it, the Krampus painted my face.”
I didn’t convince Annelise and I certainly didn’t convince Werner, but it was enough for now.
I bent over Clara and together we discovered what the saint had given her. Tangerines, peanuts, chocolates, and a gingerbread figure in the shape of a Krampus that my daughter was quite happy to let me have. Gingerbread wasn’t at the top of the list of my favorite sweets, quite the contrary, and perhaps San Nicolò really was cooler than Santa Claus (even though I was certain that my red sled would even the score), but Jeremiah Salinger wasn’t going to let himself be intimidated by a drunk guy, and with horns to boot. I turned the little figure over in my hands, then bit its head off and wolfed it down with gusto.
* * *
It was difficult to get Clara to sleep that night. It was one of those times when a parent hopes he’ll find the off button hidden somewhere on the head of his own offspring. The Krampus, San Nicolò who “raised his stick all made of gold and said, ‘Get out of here, Krampus! Leave these good children alone!’ And they started stamping their feet and shrieking. Papà, you should have seen how they shrieked! And then San Nicolò pretended he was going to hit them, but it was make-believe, right? And they got down on their knees, then those children arrived with wings and . . .” In other words, enough had happened for her to spend a sleepless night, and us with her.
At about eleven thirty she started yawning, at midnight she at last surrendered, and within a few minutes I was in the kitchen preparing a midnight snack of matured speck and an ice-cold beer.
My nose hurt.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“There were millions of them.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Still with a piece of speck in my mouth, I muttered, “It was that same guy again, that Thomas Pircher.”
“He could have broken your nose.”
“It wasn’t as bad as it looks. A few shoves. That’s all.”
Annelise touched my cheek where the sorghum whip had scratched me badly. “And these?”
“Grazes.”
“It was a catfight, was it?”
Beneath the Mountain Page 12