The Murder Farm

by Andrea Maria Schenkel

  That was the end of the conversation, and I continued on. I really did mean to look in on Danner again on my way back.

  But the weather got worse, it was raining, there was even a bit of snow, so I went straight home.

  There was a frost that night too. Spring just didn’t want to come this year.

  I noticed none of the Danners were at church on Sunday, but I thought nothing much of that.

  Then on Monday I was out in the fields near the woods. My fields there march side by side with Danner’s land. I was plowing. Didn’t see any of the Danners the whole time, though.

  But Tuesday, my sister-in-law Anna sent young Hansl up to their farm to take a look around. It wasn’t till then I remembered all that about the break-in and the missing front-door key. And you know the rest of it.

  Old Frau Danner is sitting at the kitchen table, praying:

  Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Thou art our salvation,

  Thou alone art our life, our resurrection.

  I therefore pray Thee

  do not abandon me in my hour of need,

  but for the sake of Thy most sacred heart’s struggle with death,

  and for the sake of Thy immaculate mother’s pain,

  come to the aid of Thy servants,

  whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.

  She holds her old, well-worn prayer book. She is alone, alone with herself and her thoughts.

  Barbara is out in the cowshed, taking a last look at the cattle. Her husband is already in bed. Like the children and the new maid.

  She treasures this time of the evening as the most precious thing she has. She sits in the kitchen with The Myrtle Wreath in her hands. The prayer book is worn and shabby now. Back then, many years ago, a whole lifetime ago, she was given The Myrtle Wreath: A Spiritual Guide for Brides for her wedding day, according to the custom of the time. A book of devotions for Christian women.

  Who knows, could she have lived this life without the grace and comfort of God and the Mother of God? A life full of humiliations, indignities, and blows. Only the comfort she found in her faith kept her going. Kept her going all these years. Who could she have confided in? Her mother died during the First World War. So did her father soon afterward, at the time when her future husband came to the farm to work as a laborer.

  When he arrived, it was the first time anyone had ever paid her even a little attention. That attention was a balm to her soul. Her whole life up to now had been ruled by work and her parents’ deep religious faith.

  She grew up in cold, sanctimonious surroundings. No tenderness, no loving embraces to warm her soul, not a kind word. The life she led was marked by the rhythm of the seasons and the work on the farm that went with them, and by her parents’ life within the boundaries of their stern faith.

  Such spiritual narrowness of mind could be felt almost physically.

  Then the man who would be her husband came to the farm as a laborer. She, who had never been particularly pretty, was now desired by this good-looking man. From the first she knew in her heart of hearts that she herself, a nondescript little woman and already fading, was not the true object of his desire. Still unmarried, she was an old maid at thirty-two. He was tall and well built, and not yet twenty-seven. But she closed her eyes to the fact that he wanted the farm not her body.

  Against her better judgment she agreed to marry him. He changed soon after the wedding. Showed his true nature. Was uncivil, insulted her, even hit her when she didn’t do as he wanted.

  She took it all without complaint. No one could understand it, but she loved her husband, loved him even when he beat her. She was dependent on every word he spoke, everything he did. Never mind how rough and hard-hearted he proved to be.

  When she was expecting her child, his brutality was hard to bear. He humiliated her in every possible way. Cheated on her openly, before all eyes, with the maid they had at the farm then. That was the first time she had to move out of the marital bedroom and into a smaller one because another woman had taken her place. She was enslaved by him, subjected, in bondage to him. For the rest of her life.

  Her daughter, Barbara, was born in the fields at potato-harvesting time.

  He didn’t even allow the heavily pregnant mother the privilege of a confinement in her own bed. On the morning when she felt the first contractions he made her go out into the fields with the others. She was bent double with pain, and when blood was already running down her legs, and the child was fighting its determined way out of her body with all its might, she gave birth to the little creature at the side of the field. Brought her into the world there under the open sky. He forced her to go on working in the days after she gave birth, too. She had no peace.

  The maid left, and she moved back into her bedroom. She let him have his way with her again. Without complaint. She couldn’t help it.

  Maids came and went. Few of them stayed long. As time passed her husband calmed down, or so she thought. She was resigned to her fate.

  Her daughter grew up. Barbara adored her father, and he showed her great love and tenderness. She was twelve when her father first raped her. It took the mother some time to see the change in her daughter.

  She didn’t want to notice the abuse of her own child. Didn’t want to acknowledge it. Was too weak to leave her husband, and where could she have gone? His conduct had one advantage: it meant that he lost interest in her entirely.

  The more his daughter grew to womanhood, the less he wanted to sleep with his wife. She was perfectly happy with that state of affairs.

  So she kept quiet. Her husband could do as he pleased, he never met with any resistance.

  Except once, when the little Polish girl was here on the farm, assigned to them as a foreign worker. The girl got away from him. The way she did it was barred to his wife.

  She had lived a hard life. A life full of deprivation and indignity, but she couldn’t give it up. She must tread the path to the end, she would empty the bitter goblet to the dregs. She knew that. It was the trial that the Lord had laid upon her.

  Funny, that Polish girl has come back into her mind several times today, flitting through her memory like a shadow. She hadn’t thought of the foreign worker for years. The old woman puts her prayer book down.

  She looks through the window into the dark, stormy night.

  Her husband has spent all day searching for whatever ne’er-do-well tried to break into the farm yesterday. She heard footsteps last night. As if someone were haunting the place.

  Her husband found nothing, and he had been calm enough all day.

  “The fellow will have run off again,” he told them. “There’s nothing missing, I searched everywhere. I’ll shut the dog up in the barn tonight; no one gets past the dog. And I’ll have my gun beside my bed.”

  That had reassured them all. She felt safe, just as she had felt safe on this farm all her life.

  Barbara said she was going out to the cowshed again, “to see that the cattle are all right.”

  Where can Barbara be? She ought to have been back long ago. She’ll go and look for her.

  Moving laboriously, she gets up from the table. She takes her prayer book and puts it on the kitchen dresser. And goes out, over to the cowshed.

  Old Danner tosses and turns restlessly in bed. He can’t get to sleep tonight.

  He tries to, but the wind, constantly whistling through the cracks in the window frame, gives him no peace.

  He’s turned the whole house upside down today. He can’t get those footprints out of his mind. Footprints leading to the house. He could see them clearly in the newly fallen snow this morning, before the rain washed them away.

  He looked in every nook and cranny of the house. Didn’t find anything. He’s sure no one can hide from him on his own property. This is his domain.

  He’s repaired the lock on the machinery shed. The fellow must have gone around the house and made off in the direction of the woods. He can only have gone that way. Otherwise he, Danne
r, would have found more tracks.

  In the evening he searched the whole property again. In the process he noticed that the lightbulb in the cowshed had gone out. He’ll have to get a new one. Until then they’ll just have to make do as best they can with the old oil lamps.

  The new maid looks as if she’d be a good, hard worker. That’s what he needs. He can’t be doing with anyone who’s work-shy. The farm is too much for him and Barbara on their own. During the summer, anyway.

  In winter they get by somehow.

  It’s harder and harder to find laborers and maids to work on the land these days. Most of them try their luck in town. Lured there by better pay and lighter work.

  Town life, that’s not for him. He has to feel free. Be his own master. No one tells him what to do. He decides on everything here. On this farm he is Lord God Almighty, never mind how much his wife prays. The older she grows the more pious she gets.

  What’s keeping the old woman in the kitchen so long? Sits praying under that crucifix half the night, wasting expensive electric light.

  He’ll have to get up and go and see.

  In his socks, clad only in his nightshirt and a pair of long johns, he slips his wooden clogs on. Shuffles down the stone flags of the corridor to the kitchen.

  The door of the room next to it is open.

  What the hell’s the idea? What are those women doing in the cowshed at this time of night? You had to see to everything yourself around here.

  Very annoyed, he goes into the room next to the kitchen and then on, over to the cowshed.

  From his vantage point, Mick has been watching the comings and goings on the farm all day long

  He sees old Danner finding traces of the break-in. It’s dead easy to keep out of the old man’s way.

  Old Danner searches the whole place. He even climbs up to Mick’s hideout in the loft.

  Mick holds his breath. Stands there with one hand gripping the knife in his pocket. Hiding by the chimney, behind the farmer’s back. He could touch his shoulder. Danner is perched on the steps up to the loft not an arm’s length away from him. Trying to light up the dark loft with his lamp, which is very faint.

  He doesn’t notice the straw scattered over the suspended ceiling of the barn, or the rope hanging ready.

  Mick waits all day. He can take his time. He knows just where the Tannöd farmer hides his money. He’s planned everything out down to the smallest detail.

  If it all goes as he’s calculated, he can leave the house unseen. And if not?

  Mick shrugs off this idea. He doesn’t shrink from using violence. Violence is part of his job. He’ll play it by ear.

  As evening comes on, two more strangers appear in the farmyard. Two women going toward the house in the rain. They knock. Both of them are let in. After about an hour the women come out of the house again. They say good-bye to each other, and one of them goes back indoors.

  Hansl Hauer, age 13, Georg Hauer’s son

  It was the Tuesday when my auntie told me to go over to the Danner farm.

  “No one’s seen or heard anything of them over there,” she told me. “Maybe something’s happened and they need help.”

  So I went over.

  I guess it was about three. But I’m not sure.

  There wasn’t any of them in the farmyard, so I knocked at the front door. I knocked good and loud, I shook the door, but it was locked and nobody opened it.

  So then I went around the house. Peered in all the windows. Couldn’t see a thing, though. The place looked quite empty. Like there wasn’t anybody there.

  I heard the dog. Whining terribly, it was. And I heard the cattle in the cowshed. The cows were lowing like anything. But I couldn’t get into the cowshed, it was locked from inside.

  You can get into the cowshed from the old machinery shed, though, I know that. First you go through the barn, then there’s a wooden door into the cowshed on the left.

  And the door of the machinery shed was standing open. Wide open, but I didn’t fancy going in there.

  I just stood at the door and called. I called for Barbara and Marianne. But there wasn’t any answer and I didn’t want to go in. I was too scared because the cattle were bellowing like that, and everything was all different from usual. Like as if the place was deserted.

  I got goose bumps, I really did, it seemed so scary.

  Something’s wrong, that’s what I kept on thinking. I felt like there was a bell ringing in my head. Same as an alarm bell when the fire engine’s coming out. So I ran home quick, I told my auntie and my dad.

  Dad said I was to fetch Farmer Sterzer, because he wasn’t going over to that farm on his own.

  So I went on, over to the Sterzers in Upper Tannöd.

  Farmer Sterzer’s Dagmar was outside in the garden with her mother. Working on the garden beds.

  I shouted to them way before I got there, I was in such a state. Asked if Farmer Sterzer was home, and he came out of the door right that moment. I told him there was something wrong up at the Danner place. No one was in, and the dog was whining and all that, and the cattle lowing in the shed. And I said my dad said to fetch him to go over there with my dad. Because my dad didn’t want to go alone.

  So Farmer Sterzer called Alois right away. Alois is the farmhand at the Sterzer place, he’s going to marry Dagmar.

  Then I went over to Tannöd and the Danner farm with Farmer Sterzer and Alois.

  It was just before we reached the house we met my dad. He’d been waiting for Farmer Sterzer there. Then he went on up to the Danner farm with us.

  And then we found them.

  Well, not me, because my dad wouldn’t let me go into the house. He said I was to stay outside.

  And after Farmer Sterzer and Alois came out of the barn again, white as chalk they were, I was really glad I hadn’t gone in with them.

  My dad told me to go down to the village. “And tell them they’d better call the police from the mayor’s house.” So that’s what I did.

  I fetched my bike and went over to the village, I went to the mayor’s, and I shouted out how they were all dead at Danner’s. All of them murdered dead. I shouted it in everyone’s face, even the mayor’s.

  Johann Sterzer, age 52, farmer in Upper Tannöd

  I was sitting in the living room. I saw young Hansl through the window. He was waving his arms around, and he kept on shouting something.

  Right away, I guessed something had happened, but I thought it must be at the Hauer place.

  So I came straight out of the house. Hansl says to me, “Dad sent me because there’s nothing stirring at the Danners’.”’

  He, that’s Hansl, he’d been to look around on their farm today, he said, and there wasn’t anyone at home and the dog was whining terribly. And the cattle were restless too.

  “But Dad doesn’t fancy going there alone,” he told me, so I called Alois and we went over to the Tannöd farm with Hansl.

  I’d noticed myself there was nothing stirring there. When I was plowing on Saturday, in the field next to Danner’s land, I didn’t see anyone at all the whole time.

  It was odd, yes, but I thought no more of it.

  They’ll be in the woods, that’s all it is, I thought to myself.

  Hauer was waiting for us just before we got to the house. We all went up to the farmyard together. I saw at once that the door of the machinery shed was open.

  Hauer knows his way around the farm since that business with Barbara. He was in and out of the place a lot back then.

  “We can get into the barn through the shed. There’s a door into the cowshed from there, and we can go on into the house from the cowshed,” he said to me and Alois.

  He told Hansl he’d better stay outside. That was all right by Alois and me, so it was just the three of us went into the shed. Sure enough, there was a little door there. On the back wall of the shed, but it was fastened shut with a hook or something on the other side.

  I was going out again to see if there wasn’t som
e other way into the house.

  But Hauer took my sleeve. “That door’s so flimsy we can just push it in,” he says.

  Alois agreed with him, so the three of us braced ourselves against that little door.

  After a while, yes, it did give way, and there we were in the barn.

  It was very dark inside. The only daylight came in through an open door on the left-hand side of the barn. On the right-hand side hay was stacked up, and the other stocks of feed, and there were piles of straw everywhere against the back wall and the left-hand side. But we couldn’t really see much in that dark barn. It was more like guesswork.

  The bellowing of the animals in the cowshed was getting louder and louder.

  “There’s a cow there!” Hauer saw her first. The cow was standing right in the doorway.

  “Come on, come on, she must have torn herself free.”

  Hauer went over to the cow in the doorway. My eyes weren’t really used to the darkness in that barn yet. I didn’t like it at all, but I didn’t like being left behind on my own either. So I followed Hauer. Looked like Alois felt the same. But as he started off after Hauer he stumbled. Managed to catch himself up in time, though.

  I’m about to tell Alois he’d better watch where he was going, and then I see this foot in the straw.

  Alois grabbed my arm. Grabbed it tight.

  We both stood there just staring at the heap of straw. We didn’t neither of us move, not Alois and not me. We simply stood there.

  My heart was beating like it was fit to jump right out of my chest. The ground under my feet wouldn’t hold me up anymore, I was so weak at the knees. I clung onto Alois with all my might, and he clung onto me.

  It was all so hard to grasp, it was unspeakable.

  Then Hauer pushed the straw aside. Freed them of the straw, one by one. Danner. Little Marianne, her grandma, and last of all Barbara, too. They were all covered with blood. I felt such dread, I couldn’t really look at them.