John Berger - Once in Europa

I often watched him. Toward midday I left my goats and climbed up the pass where there was a breeze, and there I ate my lunch. To be honest, I spied on him, for I was careful to remain hidden.

According to his children, who had left home, he was a tyrant. And what tyrannized them, apart from his orders, was his indefatigability.

Go fetch them over! Go take them over!

Every afternoon he had a different plan for where and how his herd should eat. He never left them in peace.

There were always jackdaws around the pass. When the sun was out and they were flying close to the rockface of St. Pair, their flying shadows were cast on the rock, and this seemed to double the number of birds in flight. Then, at a given moment, the leader of the flock would veer toward the sun, the others turning to follow, and their shadows would immediately vanish, so that it looked as if half the birds in flight had suddenly disappeared into thin air. Sometimes I lay there watching the birds appear and disappear until I lost all count of time. I would look down and notice Marius and his herd by the stream below where the cows drank at midday, and the next moment they were five kilometres away.

A week later Danielle visited Marius again. He was with his herd near the forest where two generations before some shepherds had mined for gold and found none.

Marius greeted her by saying: One day you’ll be an old woman! Even you, Danielle! I had a fall last night.

So?

Everyone ages.

How did you fall?

By way of an answer, he started to undo his belt. His trousers, caked in mud and cowshit, drenched and dried in the sun a thousand times, were, as usual, unbuttoned in front. Now they fell to the ground around his ankles. He turned so that she could see the back of his thigh, where just under the buttock something sharp had jaggedly torn the flesh. His legs were as white as they must have been in the cradle.

Is it deep? he asked.

It needs cleaning.

It bled like a pig.

What did you put on it?

Some brandy and some arnica.

It needs washing and bandaging, she said.

What is it like?

It’s about ten centimetres long and it’s red like a wound.

Is it ugly? It’s just where I can’t see it.

It’ll heal so long as you keep it clean.

Everything heals unless you die from it!

There were flies all round the brim of his hat.

Let’s go to the chalet, she said.

The bowl from which he had drunk his coffee and eaten his bread was still on the kitchen table.

Living by myself, I don’t have to change the plates, he said.

Where did you fall?

Out there where the woodpile is. Every night I cut the kindling wood to start the fire next morning. I must have tripped, I don’t know how.

You do too much, Grandad.

Who else is going to do it? Do you know how many cheeses I make a week?

She shook her head.

Thirty.

You’ve got a son down below.

He’s only interested in becoming Mayor.

He’ll never get elected.

I’ll make you some coffee. He plugged in an electric coffee grinder. I couldn’t manage without electricity, he said, electricity can replace a wife! He winked. A grotesque, undisguised wink.

She sipped the coffee. A few drops of rain began to fall. Within a minute the rain was beating on the roof like a drunk, and there were claps of thunder.

You’re not frightened, Danielle?

She repeated what she’d often heard said: there are three sorts of lightning — the lightning of rain, the lightning of stone, and the lightning of fire — and there’s nothing you can do about any of them.

The cows won’t move in rain like this, he said.

When the thunder was further away, she said: If you lie down, I’ll clean your leg.

The chalet, apart from the hayloft and stable, consisted of two rooms, one without a window for storing the cheeses, and one with a window for everything else. The bed, in the opposite corner from the stove, was made of wood and was screwed to the wall. He climbed up onto it, handed her a bottle of eau-de-vie, turned his back and lowered his trousers. Pinned to the planks of the wall beside the bed was a colour photo, torn from a magazine, of a large political demonstration by the Arc de Triomphe. She poured some eau-de-vie onto a cloth and began cleaning around the wound.

Crowds there that day, she said, looking at the photo.

I cut it out because I knew the Arc de Triomphe, he replied, I knew it well.

As a young man, she thought as she took hold of his leg, which was as pale as a baby’s, he must have been unusually handsome, with his dark eyes, his thick eyebrows, and his jet-black moustache. In Paris he couldn’t have lacked offers from women. Yet if he was to remain faithful to his oath, he could not afford to marry — whatever else he may have done — a seamstress or a florist. He had to find a wife who could milk the cows he was going to buy.

He clenched one fist.

Am I hurting you?

Hurting me? Do you know what happened to Jesus? Jesus was nailed to the cross, with nails through his hands and through his feet, right into the wood. That is how he was hurt. And he wasn’t a sinner like me!

He didn’t marry until he came back to the village. Elaine, his wife, died young and the day after her funeral he bought a milking machine.

Danielle poured a little eau-de-vie into the wound, and then she took the new cheesecloth that he had given her and began to bandage the thigh. In order to do so she had to bend over him and pass her hand several times between his legs near his scrotum, and each time she did this she shut her eyes out of respect.

I would like to go to Paris, she said whilst bandaging him. Up to now I’ve never had the chance.

Just wait a little longer, Danielle, you’re still a young woman and one day you’ll go to Paris and Rome and New York, I daresay. People fly everywhere now. You’ll see everything.

He swung his legs off the bed and winced a little.

Is it too tight?

Perfect.

He pulled up his trousers from his ankles and fastened his belt. He had kept his hat and boots on throughout the operation.

The storm was over and everything was washed and dust-free. Even the air. The valleys below, leading to the snow-capped mountains in the east, looked as if they had been painted by a miniaturist thousands of years before. By contrast, the rocks with moss, the grass and pine trees at Peniel looked new, as if just created. Marius’s mood had changed with the atmospheric pressure and his eyes were full of laughter.

Come and help me bring the herd in! he said. No, don’t protest, you can leave us at Nîmes and cut across by the arolle tree to the pass.

They walked with the dog along the edge of the pine forest. At one moment Danielle left the old man to make a detour to a hollow where you can find mushrooms called the Wolf’s Balls. They are only good to eat when young. When old they turn to dust.

As she rejoined him, Marius said: You are as fearless as a ghost, Danielle.

A pity, she replied, ghosts aren’t happy.

Happiness! He spoke the word as if it were the name of another of his disagreeable cows, like Violette. Happiness!

Fetch them over! Bring Marquise over!

Nobody is happy, he announced. There are only happy moments. Like this one now with you.

The herd was easy to assemble that evening and the two of them had no more to do than follow the cows, who were going home fast, their necks moving up and down like pump handles and their bells ringing wildly. It must have been the massed bells which put the idea of glory into Marius’s head. Glory doesn’t last! he shouted. But he shouted it laughing, waving his stick to the music. Glory never lasts!

On her way home, Danielle turned around. Marius had put his hat on his stick and was waving it above his head in wide circles. She waved back and continued waving until she disappeared behind the last boulder.