Once in Europa

by John Berger

  If you stopped seeing him?

  Not exactly.

  What then?

  Nothing.

  Has he mentioned the house recently?

  Do you know what he calls it? He calls it the Mother’s house.

  Why?

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  Come on, said Gérard.

  Gérard and his wife drove up the mountain to where the road stopped. From there, having locked the car, they continued on foot. Suddenly she screamed as a grouse flew up from under her feet.

  I thought it was a baby! she cried.

  You must have drunk too much. How can a baby fly?

  That’s what I thought, I’m telling you.

  Can you see the smoke? Gérard asked.

  What is it that’s hissing?

  His sheep cooking! said Gérard.

  Don’t be funny.

  Grasshoppers.

  Can you smell anything?

  No.

  Imagine being up here in a storm! she said.

  I’ve better things to do.

  It’s all very well for you to talk, you’ve never lifted a shovel in your life, she said.

  That’s because I’m not stupid.

  No. Nobody could call you that. And he’s stupid, Boris is stupid, stupid, stupid!

  He was encouraging the fire with fuel, whose blue flames chased the slower yellow ones. He picked up a sheep by its legs, and swung it back and forth, before flinging it high into the air so that it landed on top of the pyre, where, for a few minutes longer, it was still recognizable as an animal. The tearstains on his cheek were from tears provoked by the heat and, when the wind turned, by the acrid smoke. Every few minutes he picked up another carcass, swung it to gain momentum, and hurled it into the air. The boy who had never been able to tap the ash-bark gently enough had become the man who could burn his own herd single-handed.

  Gérard and the blond stopped within fifty yards of the blaze. The heat, the stench and something unknown prevented them approaching further. This unknown united the two of them: wordlessly they were agreed about it. They raised their hands to protect their eyes. Fires and gigantic waterfalls have one thing in common. There is spray torn off the cascade by the wind, there are the flames: there is the rockface dripping and visibly eroding, there is the breaking up of what is being burned: there is the roar of the water, there is the terrible chatter of the fire. Yet at the centre of both fire and waterfall there is a persistent calm. And it is this calm which is catastrophic.

  Look at him, whispered Gérard.

  Three million he’s lost, poor sod! murmured the blond.

  Why are you so sure he isn’t insured?

  I know, she hissed, that’s why. I know.

  Boris, his back to the fire, was bent over his haversack drinking from a bottle of water. Having drunk, he poured water onto his face and his black arms. Its freshness made him think of how he would strip in the kitchen this evening and wash before going to visit the blond.

  When Boris turned back towards the fire he saw them. Immediately a gust of smoke hid them from view. Not for a moment, however, did he ask himself whether he had been mistaken. He would recognise her instantly whatever she was doing, anywhere. He would recognise her in any country in the world in any decade of her life.

  The wind veered and he saw them again. She stood there, Gérard’s arm draped over her shoulders. It was impossible that they had not seen him and yet she made no sign. They were only fifty yards away. They were staring straight at him. And yet she made no sign.

  If he walked into the fire would she cry out? Still holding the bottle, he walked upright, straight—like a soldier going to receive a medal—towards the fire. The wind changed again and they disappeared.

  The next time the smoke cleared the couple were nowhere to be seen.

  Contrary to what he had told himself earlier, Boris did not come down that night. He stayed by the fire. The flames had abated, his sheep were ashes, yet the rocks were still oven-hot and the embers, like his rage, changed colour in the wind.

  Huddled under the rock, the Milky Way trailing its veil towards the south, he considered his position. Debts were warnings of the ultimate truth, they were signs, not yet insistent, of the final inhospitality of life on this earth. After midnight the wind dropped, and the rancid smell, clinging to the scree, was no longer wafted away; it filled the silence, as does the smell of cordite when the sound of the last shot has died away. On this inhospitable earth he had found, at the age of forty-one, a shelter. The blond was like a place: one where the law of inhospitality did not apply. He could take this place anywhere, and it was enough for him to think of her, for him to approach it. How then was it possible that she had come up the mountain on the day of his loss and not said a word? How was it possible that on this rock, far above the village, where even the church bells were inaudible, she should have come as close as fifty yards and not made a sign to him? He stirred the embers with his boot. He knew the answer to the question and it was elementary. He pissed into the fire and on the stones his urine turned into steam. It was elementary. She had come to watch him out of curiosity.

  Before he saw her, he was telling himself that, after all, he had only lost half his sheep. As soon as he saw her with his own eyes, and she made no sign to him, his rage joined that of the fire: he and the fire, they would burn the whole world together, everything, sheep, livestock, houses, furniture, forests, cities. She had come out of curiosity to watch his humiliation.

  All night he hated her. Just after sunrise, when it was coldest, his hatred reached its zenith. And so, four days later he was asking himself: could she have had another reason for coming up to the Rock of St. Antoine?

  Boris decided to remain in the mountains. If he went down to the village, everyone would stare at him to see how he had taken his loss. They would ask him if he was insured, just in order to hear him say no. This would give them pleasure. If he went down he might start breaking things, the windows of the Mayor’s office, the glasses on the counter of the Republican Lyre, Gérard’s face, the nose of the first man to put an arm round the blond’s waist. The rest of his sheep were near Peniel, where there was a chalet he could sleep in. Until the snow came, he would stay there with his remaining sheep. Like that, he would be on the spot to bring them down for the winter. If she had really come to see him for another reason, she would come again.

  A week passed. He had little to do. In the afternoons he lay on the grass, gazed up at the sky, occasionally gave an order to one of the dogs to turn some sheep, idly watched the valleys below. Each day the valleys appeared further away. At night he was obliged to light a fire in the chalet; there was no chimney but there was a hole in the roof. His physical energy was undiminished, but he stopped plotting and stopped desiring. On the mountainside opposite the chalet was a colony of marmots. He heard the marmot on guard whistle whenever one of his dogs approached the colony. In the early morning he saw them preparing for the winter and their long sleep. They lifted clumps of grass with roots attached, and carried them, as if they were flowers, to their underground hide-out. Like widows, he told himself, like widows.

  One night, when the stars were as bright as in the spring, his anger returned to galvanize him. So they think Boris is finished, he muttered to the dogs, but they are fucking well wrong. Boris is only at the beginning. He slept with his fist in his mouth, and that night he dreamed.

  The following afternoon he was lying on his back looking up at the sky, when suddenly he rolled over onto his stomach in order to look down the track which led through the forest to the tarred road. His hearing had become almost as acute as that of his dogs. He saw her walking towards him. She was wearing a white dress and blue sandals, around her neck a string of beads like pearls.

  How are you, Humpback?

  So you’ve come at last!

  You disappeared! You disappeared! She opened her arms to embrace him. You disappeared and so I said to myself: I’ll go and find Humpback, and
here I am.

  She stepped back to look at him. He had a beard, his hair was tangled, his skin was dirty and his blue eyes, staring, were focused a little too far away.

  How did you get here? he asked.

  I left the car at the chalet below.

  Where the old lady is?

  There’s nobody there now, and the windows are boarded up.

  They must have taken the cows down, he said. What date is it?

  September 30th.

  What did you come for, when I was burning the sheep?

  How do you mean?

  You came up to the Rock of St. Antoine with your husband.

  No.

  The day I was burning the sheep, I saw you.

  It must have been somebody else.

  I’d never mistake another woman for you.

  I was very sorry to hear about what happened to your sheep, Boris.

  Grandma used to say that dreams turned the truth upside down. Last night I dreamed we had a daughter, so in life it’ll be a son.

  Humpback, I’m not pregnant.

  Is that true?

  I don’t want to lie to you.

  Why did you come to spy on me? If you’re telling the truth, tell it.

  I didn’t want to.

  Why didn’t you come over and speak to me?

  I was frightened.

  Of me?

  No, Humpback, of what you were doing.

  I was doing what had to be done. Then I was going to come and visit you.

  I was waiting for you, she said.

  No, you weren’t. You had seen what you wanted to see.

  I’ve come now.

  If he’s conceived today, he’ll be born in June.

  After these words, he roughly took her arm and led her towards the crooked chalet whose wood had been blackened by the sun. He pushed open the door with his foot. The room was large enough for four or five goats. On the earth floor were blankets. The window, no larger than a small transistor radio, was grey and opaque with dust. There was a cylinder of gas and a gas-ring, on which he placed a black saucepan with coffee in it.

  I’ll give you whatever you want, he said.

  He stood there in the half light, his immense hands open. Behind him on the floor was a heap of old clothes, among which she recognised his American army cap and a red shirt which she had once ironed for him. In the far corner something scuffled and a lame lamb hobbled towards the door where a dog lay. The floor of beaten earth smelled of dust, animals and coffee grounds. Taking the saucepan off the gas, he turned down the flame, and its hissing stopped. The silence which followed was unlike any in the valley below.

  If it’s a boy, I’ll buy him a horse—

  Ignoring the bowl of coffee he was holding out to her, without waiting for the end of his sentence, she fled. He went to the door and watched her running, stumbling downhill. Occasionally she looked over her shoulder as if she thought she were being pursued. He did not stir from the doorway and she did not stop running.

  In the evening it began to snow, tentatively and softly. Having brought all three dogs into the chalet, Boris bolted the door, as he never did, lay down beside the animals and tried to sleep, his fist in his mouth. The next morning, beneath the white pine trees and through the frozen brambles and puddles of water, he drove his flock of miserable grey sheep towards the road that led down to the village.

  When Corneille the cattle dealer drew up in his lorry before Boris’s house and walked with the slow strides of the fat man he was through the snow to tap on the kitchen window, Boris was not surprised; he knew why Corneille had come. He swore at his dogs, who were barking, threatened them with being salted and smoked if they were not quieter, and opened the door. Corneille, his hat tilted towards the back of his head, sat down on a chair.

  It’s a long time since we’ve seen you, said Corneille. You weren’t even at the Fair of the Cold. How are things?

  Quiet, replied Boris.

  Do you know they are closing the abattoir at Saint-Denis? Everything has to be taken to A____ now.

  I hadn’t heard.

  More and more inspections, more and more government officials. There’s no room for skill anymore.

  Skill! That’s one way of naming it!

  You’ve never been short of that sort of skill yourself, said Corneille. There I take my hat off to you!

  In fact he kept his hat on and turned up the collar of his overcoat. The kitchen was cold and bare, as if it had shed its leaves like the beech trees outside, its leaves of small comfort.

  I’ll say this much, continued Corneille, nobody can teach me a new trick, I know them all, but there’s not one I could teach you either. All right, you’ve suffered bad luck, and not only last month up on the mountain—The poor bugger Boris, we said, how’s he going to get out of this one?—you’ve suffered bad luck, and you’ve never had enough liquid cash.

  From his right-hand overcoat pocket he drew out a wad of fifty-thousand notes and placed them on the edge of the table. One of the dogs sniffed his hand. Fuck off! said Corneille, pushing the dog with one of his immense thighs, the overcoat draped over it so that it advanced like a wall.

  I’m telling you, Boris, you could buy the hind legs off a goat and sell them to a horse! And I mean that as a compliment.

  What do you want?

  Aren’t you going to offer me a glass? It’s not very warm in your kitchen.

  Gnôle or red wine?

  A little gnôle then. It has less effect on Old King Cole.

  So they say.

  I hear you swept her off her feet, said Corneille, and the husband under the carpet!

  Boris said nothing but poured from the bottle.

  Not everyone could do that, said Corneille, that takes some Old King Cole!

  Do you think so? What are you showing me your money for?

  To do a deal, Boris. A straight deal, for once, because I know I can’t trim you.

  Do you know how you count, Corneille? You count one, two, three, six, nine, twenty.

  The two men laughed. The cold rose up like mist from the stone floor. They emptied the little glasses in one go.

  The winter’s going to be long, said Corneille, the snow has come to stay. A good five months of snow in store for us. That’s my prediction and your uncle Corneille knows his winters.

  Boris refilled the glasses.

  The price of hay is going to be three hundred a bale before Lent. How was your hay this year?

  Happy!

  Not your woman, my friend, your hay.

  Happy, Boris repeated.

  I see your horses are still out, said Corneille.

  You have sharp eyes.

  I’m getting old. Old King Cole is no longer the colt he once was. They tell me she’s beautiful, with real class.

  What do you want?

  I’ve come to buy.

  Do you know, said Boris, what the trees say when the axe comes into the forest?

  Corneille tossed back his glass, without replying.

  When the axe comes into the forest, the trees say: Look! The handle is one of us!

  That’s why I know I can’t trim you, said Corneille.

  How do you know I want to sell? Boris asked.

  Any man in your position would want to sell. Everything depends upon the offer, and I’m going to mention a figure that will astound you.

  Astound me!

  Three million!

  What are you buying for that? Hay?

  Your happy hay! said Corneille, taking off his hat and putting it further back on his head. No. I’m willing to buy everything you have on four legs.

  Did you say ten million, Corneille?

  Boris stared indifferently through the window at the snow.

  Irrespective of their condition, my friend. I’m buying blind. Four million.

  I’ve no interest in selling.

  So be it, said Corneille. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, like a cow getting up from the stable floor, rump first, for
elegs second. Finally he was upright. He placed his hand over the pile of banknotes, as if they were a screaming mouth.

  I heard of your troubles, he said very softly in the voice that people use in a sickroom. I have a soft spot for you, and so I said to myself, this is a time when he needs his friends and I can help him out. Five million.

  You can have the horses for that.

  Corneille stood with his hand gagging the pile of money.

  If you take my offer, if you have no animals during the winter, my friend, you can sell your hay, you can repair the roof of your barn, and when the spring comes, you’ll have more than enough to buy a new flock. Five million.

  Take everything, said Boris. As you say, it’s going to be a long winter. Take everything and leave the money on the table. Six million.

  I don’t even know how many sheep I’m buying, muttered Corneille.

  On this earth, Corneille, we never know what we’re buying. Perhaps there’s another planet where all deals are straight. All I know is that here the earth is peopled by those whom God threw out as flawed.

  Five and a half, said Corneille.

  Six.

  Corneille lifted his hand from the pile and shook Boris’s hand.

  Six it is. Count it.

  Boris counted the notes.

  If you want a tip from a very old King Cole, Corneille spoke evenly and slowly, if you want a tip, don’t spend it all on her.

  For that you’ll have to wait and see, Corneille, just as I am going to do.

  There followed the correspondence between Boris and the blond. This consisted of two letters. The first, with the postmark of October 30th, was from him:

  My darling,

  I have the money for our fares to Canada. I am waiting

  for you—

  always your Boris.

  The second, dated November 1st, was from her:

  Dearest Humpback,

  In another life I might come—in this one forgive

  Marie-Jeanne.

  There were no longer any sheep to feed. The horses had gone from the snow-covered orchard. When the lorry had come to fetch them, there was half a bale of hay lying on the snow and Boris had thrown it into the lorry after his horses. On one small point Marc was right when he said that Boris died like one of his own beasts. Not having to feed his animals gave him the idea of not feeding himself.