The Murder Farm

by Andrea Maria Schenkel

  In the morning he usually gets up before dawn.

  Slips on his pants and goes down the corridor to the kitchen.

  Once there, he gets the fire in the stove going with a few logs of wood.

  Fills the little blue enamel pan and puts it on the stove.

  Washes his face quickly with cold water from the kitchen tap.

  Waits a few minutes for the water in the pan to come to the boil.

  The can of chicory coffee stands on the shelf above the stove. He moves the pan of simmering water to one side and adds two spoonfuls of ground coffee. He turns, takes his cup from the kitchen dresser on the opposite wall, gets the tea strainer out of the drawer. He pours the coffee into the cup through the strainer. Crumbles a slice of bread into the liquid to make a mush. He sits down at the table in the corner of the room with his cup, spoons the soaked bread out of the coffee. Sitting in front of the window, with the door behind him, he looks out into the darkness.

  In summer he likes to sit on the bench behind his house and drink his coffee there. He listens to the birds’ dawn chorus in the air that is still cool and pure. Bird after bird strikes up its song. Always in the same order, never changing. From where he sits he can hear them singing while the sun rises above the horizon.

  He empties his cup and puts it down in the kitchen. The farm is awake now, and he goes about his day’s work. Usually in silence at this early hour. Alone with himself and his thoughts. By the time day is clearly distinct from night, those precious moments of leisure are long past.

  That’s in summer.

  In winter, he sits at the kitchen window where he is sitting now, looking out, impatient for the days to lengthen soon, so that he can enjoy his daily morning ritual again.

  Hermann Müllner, teacher, age 35

  I don’t know that I can help you much, because I didn’t arrive here until the start of this school year. I was appointed to this school in early September. And there’s been so much to do, I haven’t yet had time to get to know the country people out here better.

  I teach the Year Two children all subjects except Religious Instruction. Our parish priest Father Meissner teaches them that.

  Little Maria-Anna, that was her real name, was in my class.

  She was a quiet pupil, very quiet. Rather reluctant to speak up in class. Seemed a little dreamy. Not particularly good at spelling, stumbled over the words slightly when she read aloud. Arithmetic, yes, she was rather better at arithmetic. Otherwise nothing much about her struck me.

  Her best friend, as far as I know, was Betty. Betty sat beside her. Now and then the girls whispered to each other in class, the way girls do with their friends. Girls always have a great deal to talk about, so their attention sometimes wanders.

  But when I told them not to do it, they were quiet at once.

  I noticed little Maria-Anna’s absence at once on the Saturday. That’s why I asked the rest of the class whether anyone knew where the child was. Unfortunately no one did. When she still didn’t show up for lessons on Monday, I made a note of it in the class register.

  It was just the same as other school days. We said morning prayers at the beginning of lessons, as we do every day, and as always we remembered in our prayers those pupils who were absent because of illness.

  That’s perfectly normal, we always do it; it’s nothing out of the ordinary. After all, at that point I still had no idea how important our prayers for little Maria-Anna were.

  Sometimes pupils don’t turn up for school, but usually their parents write an excuse note afterward, or, if the child has a brother or sister at the school, then the note comes on the first day a boy or girl is absent, explaining why.

  So I decided that if there was still no excuse note for the girl on Tuesday I’d cycle out to Tannöd and her grandparents’ farm. I was planning to go as soon as school was over that Tuesday, but then something happened to keep me here. Ever since I’ve been wondering whether maybe I ought to have cycled out earlier. But would that have helped little Maria-Anna? I don’t know.

  Ludwig Eibl, postman, age 32

  The Danner family’s farm is almost at the end of my route. I’ve been doing the same route these last six months. I pass the place almost every day. Well, certainly three times a week. Because old Danner takes the local newspaper, and that comes out three times a week. On Monday, on Wednesday and on Friday.

  If there’s no one in I’m supposed just to leave their post by the window next to the front door, that’s what old Danner agreed with me.

  So I was out there on the Monday, and when no one came to the door I left the mail where we’d agreed. I looked in through the window, too, but there wasn’t anyone around.

  It happens now and then. I mean, it happens there’s no one at home. No, it’s not unusual. That time of year, folk are often out chopping wood. Everyone’s needed then, nobody stays on the farm.

  The dog, yes, could be it barked. Yes, I’m sure it barked. But that’s all I can remember. I mean, dogs always bark when I arrive. I don’t listen anymore. All part of a postman’s job.

  When I got back on my bike I did turn around once, checking that my bag was balanced on the carrier properly. When it’s getting empty it easily slips. So when I looked around, yes, I saw the house again.

  Was there any smoke coming out of the chimney? What questions you do ask! I’ve no idea if there was smoke coming out of the chimney. Didn’t notice anything.

  Took no notice of any of it anyway.

  You want me to be honest, I didn’t much like them at that farm. Old Danner was a suspicious curmudgeon. A loner. His wife, Frau Danner, she was the same. Not a bundle of laughs, neither of them.

  Well, what’d you expect? Bet you Frau Danner didn’t have an easy life with that husband of hers.

  Now his daughter, Barbara Spangler, she’s a real looker, but made in the same mold as her parents.

  Oh yes, I know the rumors about the Danners, how they keep everything in the family, even their children. Who doesn’t know what folk say? And being a postman you get told this and that, but if you was always to believe everything you hear . . .

  Tell you what, I couldn’t care less who fathered Barbara’s two kids.

  I’d have my hands full if I stopped to bother with other folks’ business. No good asking me, you’ll have to try someone else. I deliver the post and I keep well out of the rest of it.

  The weather has been much better all day than for the last few weeks. No more snow, and the wind has died down. Now and then a few drops of rain fall. There’s a milky-white veil over the landscape. Mist, typical for this time of year. The first swathes of it are drifting over from the outskirts of the woods toward the meadow and the house. It’s late afternoon, and the day will soon be coming to an end. Dusk is slowly gathering.

  He walks toward the house. The post is stuck between the metal bars over the window beside the front door. If there’s no one at home, the postman always leaves the post here. It meant they didn’t need a mailbox. And it’s only occasionally that there’s no one at all at home on the farm. Usually someone is there to take the post in, and, if not, then there’s the window next to the door.

  A newspaper is stuck between the two bars and the window pane, that’s all. He puts it under his arm, takes the front-door key out of his jacket pocket. A large, heavy, old-fashioned key made of iron. It shines blue-black with much use over the years. He puts the key in the lock and opens the door of the house.

  When he has unlocked the door, stale and slightly musty-smelling air meets him. Just before entering the house he turns and looks in all directions. He goes in, locking the door again after him.

  He follows the corridor through the house to the kitchen. Opens the kitchen door and goes in. Gets the fire in the stove going with the wood left over from this morning. Fills the steamer with potatoes just as he did first thing today. Feeds the animals and gives them water. Milks the cows and sees to the calves.

  This time, however, he doesn’t le
ave the house as soon as he has finished work in the cowshed. He goes out to the barn, takes the pickax he has left there ready, and tries to dig a hole in the floor at the right-hand corner of the barn.

  He loosens the trodden mud floor with the pickax. But just under the surface he meets stony, rocky ground. He tries in another place. No luck there either. He gives up his plan.

  Tamps down the loose earth again and scatters straw over it.

  He goes back to the kitchen. Hungry after his strenuous work, he cuts himself a piece of smoked meat in the larder. Takes the last of the bread from the kitchen cupboard. A sip of water from the tap, and he leaves the kitchen and the house.

  Kurt Huber, mechanic, age 21

  It was on the Tuesday, yes, that’s right, Tuesday March 22, 195 . . .

  Old Danner, he’d phoned us at the shop a week before, said it was very urgent.

  But it wasn’t the sort of weather when you’d want to spend forty-five minutes cycling out there. It kept on snowing, raining, too, now and then. Filthy weather, it was. And we had plenty of work on hand in the firm.

  I’ll tell you straight, I don’t like going out to those people at Tannöd.

  Why not? Well, they’re kind of funny. Loners. And tightfisted, too. So mean they’d begrudge you every bit of bread, every sip of water.

  I’d had to go out there to repair the engine of the machine that slices roots for animal feed once already, that was last summer, and they didn’t even offer me a snack when I took my break. Even though I’d been working away on that engine for over five hours, screwing and unscrewing parts. Not so much as a glass of water or a cup of milk, never mind a beer.

  But then again, to be honest, I couldn’t have swallowed a drop they gave me. The whole place was so grubby, really mucky. I can’t stand that kind of thing.

  When I washed my hands at the faucet in the kitchen I took a closer look around the room. I mean, how can anyone live like that? I couldn’t, not me.

  Old Frau Danner in her mended, dirty apron. Her little grandson, always with a snotty nose.

  You’d think she might have wiped the child’s nose for him. The little boy was crawling around on the kitchen floor, picking something up now and then and putting it straight into his mouth. Old Frau Danner saw him do it and never said a thing. When the little boy started crying, the old woman put him on her lap and gave him his pacifier. She’d licked the dummy first and dipped it into the sugar bowl standing on the table. Licked it and then dipped it into the sugar. Can you imagine that? It was all sticky, the bowl was crusty with spit and sugar.

  I mean, I can’t understand it. I really couldn’t have swallowed a morsel, but they might have offered me something all the same, if you ask me it’s the thing to do. Only right and proper, wouldn’t you say?

  Well, so when I was told to go and repair the engine, I wasn’t all that keen on cycling out there again. In such weather, at that.

  Then old Danner made another phone call, complained to the boss, so there was no avoiding it, I had to go. I set out to cycle there around eight a.m. on the Tuesday, after I’d picked my tools up from the firm.

  When did I get there? Oh, around nine, I guess that was it. Yes, just before nine, around about then. I was sweating by the time I reached their farm. I went right ahead through the garden gate and up to the front door, but the door was locked. First it’s so urgent, they’re in a tearing hurry, I said to myself, and then there’s no one home. Oh well, maybe they’re around behind the house.

  So I pushed my bike around the farmyard. On the way I passed the two windows of the sheds on the back of the house. And I looked in through one of the windows. Couldn’t make out anything, though. I mean, one of them could have been in the cowshed with the cattle. But no one was. I looked through the kitchen window as well. Still didn’t see anyone.

  Then I didn’t really know what to do. So I leaned my bike up against a fruit tree and waited.

  How long did I wait? Oh, it must have been about ten minutes, I’d say. I lit a cigarette and smoked it. That takes around ten minutes.

  Someone ought to come along soon, I thought to myself. And after a while I did see someone. Don’t know if it was a man or a woman. Some way off, standing in the fields out there.

  At first I thought, ah, there comes old Danner now.

  I called and I whistled. But whoever it was in the fields didn’t hear. The figure didn’t come any closer, disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

  I waited a while longer. I was feeling really stupid. Didn’t want to cycle home without repairing the engine, neither. I’d only have to go out there again in a couple of days’ time. An engine like that isn’t going to repair itself, is it?

  So there was nothing for it, I went to the shack where they kept the machine. It’s around behind the barn, or rather behind the barn and the cowshed, they’re built right next to each other.

  I knew where to find the root-slicing machine from last time.

  How late was it then? Oh, around nine thirty. Yes, the time would have been nine thirty.

  The door had a padlock on it. I looked around to see if I could find the key to the padlock anywhere.

  Some people hide keys very close, you see. For instance under a stone or a bucket, or on a hook at the side of a building just under the overhang of the roof. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. They do it so they won’t misplace the key and it’ll be easier to find. It’s crazy, it’s downright irresponsible. Might as well leave their doors wide open. But that’s how some folk are. It really makes you wonder.

  But the Danners hadn’t left the key anywhere, not under a stone nor hanging from a hook. My bad luck. I wanted to go home, like I said, but not without doing the job first, and my next job for a customer wasn’t until the afternoon, that was for the Brunners over in Einhausen.

  So on impulse I fetched my toolbox from the carrier of the bike. I took out a pair of pliers and very carefully bent aside the little wire the padlock was hanging from. That way I just had to take the padlock off.

  I felt like a housebreaker or a thief. But there you are, I didn’t want to cycle out again, and if anyone had come along I could have explained.

  No one did come along, though. There was only the dog; I heard it barking its head off. Didn’t see it anywhere, though. You could hear the cows mooing, too. Not loud but all the time, I remember that now.

  When I’d taken the padlock off and opened the shack door, I could finally fix the machine. I’d already wasted a whole hour as it was. No one pays you for wasted time, certainly not a penny pincher like old Danner.

  A man like that, he watches every minute, anyone would think it was you who owed him something; he’ll starve to death yet with a bit of bread in his mouth. It was the cylinder-head gasket had gone; I’d thought that was the trouble all along. Changing one of those takes time. Back in summer I’d already told old Danner if he wanted to buy a new machine, we’d take the old one as a down payment. It was a prewar model at that, but no, the old skinflint didn’t want to, even though that’s the usual thing to do these days.

  There still wasn’t a soul in sight at the farm. I was getting to feel the whole thing was eerie. So I left the door of the shack where they kept the root-slicing machine open. First, that gave me more light to work by, and, second, anyone could see straight off that I was busy repairing the engine.

  I’d almost finished, was just about to screw one last nut back in place when it slips clean through my fingers and rolls toward the cistern.

  There was this old cistern in the shack, for keeping milk cool. You stood the full milk churns in it. Thank God there wasn’t any water in the cistern, it was empty.

  So down I climb into the cistern. It’s not deep, comes maybe up to my thighs if that, and I fish out my nut.

  At the very moment I was bending down to feel around for the nut, I thought a shadow scurried past. I couldn’t see it; it was more of a feeling. A voice inside you saying look, there’s someone there, even if y
ou can’t see whoever it is. But it’s there, you feel it, there’s somebody there.

  So I’m up and out of the cistern in a flash.

  “Hey, anyone there? Hello!” I shouted.

  No answer, though. I’d not been feeling too comfortable before, now the farm seemed downright creepy. And the dog barking and barking all the time, though I couldn’t see it.

  So I screwed the nut on as fast as I could and packed up my tools. Now to give the engine a trial run, and then I’d be off double quick.

  I fit the padlock back where it was before. Put my stuff on the bike and set off through the middle of the farmyard.

  As I was pushing the bike around the house, there still wasn’t a soul in sight. But the door of the old machinery shed was open, and it hadn’t been open before. I’m certain of that.

  So I think to myself, maybe there’s someone there after all. And I leave my bike again and go a few steps over to the shed.

  “Hello, anyone there?” I called, but no answer this time, either. Nothing.

  I didn’t want to go any farther into the shed, it somehow didn’t seem right to me.

  I went to the front door of the house again and shook it, but, like I said, it was locked.

  Nothing would have kept me at that farm any longer. I was glad to get away from the place.

  I must have finished the repair just after two, because on the way back to the village I heard the church clock strike the half hour.

  Did I see anyone else in the fields? No, not a soul. Only a couple of crows. No wonder in that weather. It had started raining again, a light drizzle. I cycled as if the Devil himself was after me.

  All the way back from the farm I kept thinking, suppose there really was someone there; he’d have been bound to hear the sound of the engine’s trial run, couldn’t miss it.

  I must have been wrong, there wasn’t anyone there, but that shadow, the voice inside me, the odd feeling, well, I don’t know.

  When I got to my next job in Einhausen, I told them the story, because I couldn’t get it out of my head.