John Berger - Once in Europa

Do you know what’s important in this life, Felo?

No, Papa.

Good health. And what does good health give you? It gives you a steady hand.

The father prodded the animal with his boot.

Guard him! he said and disappeared down the path to the village. Félix sat on his heels beside the dead boar, whose small eyes were open. When his father returned with a sledge across his back, he was panting hard but grinning. Together they tied the carcass — it weighed a good hundred and fifty kilos — onto the light sledge. Then they started the difficult journey down.

Father Berthier put himself between the two wooden arms in the position of a two-legged horse. Like this he could pull when the runners of the sledge met an obstacle or when the slope wasn’t steep enough, and like this, if they were running too fast over the mud or the new slippery grass, he could brake by digging in his heels and lifting up the front of the sledge so that its weight leant backwards and the back of the sledge was forced into the ground. Félix followed, holding on to a rope to brake the speed, but in fact being pulled along ever faster. One false step on his father’s part and the charging boar and sledge would knock him onto his face and ride over him.

His last run home, Felo!

Not so fast, Papa!

The boy had his father’s gun across his back.

When they were down on the road which passes the café, they stopped to give their legs a rest.

It’s the knees, isn’t it, which feel it?

My legs aren’t tired, lied the boy.

There’s a man for you!

Along the grass bank by the side of the road the sledge slid gently and easily. The boy let go of the rope and put the gun under his arm, carrying it like a hunter.

They met Louis, who could argue a politician under the table.

The month of May, the season for hunting? asked Louis.

It’s no gazelle! said his father.

I’d hide him quick if I were you, said Louis. How many shots?

One shot, only one shot. Felo here is going to be a hunter. His hand’s as steady as a rock.

And Félix, although he knew why his father, cunning as ever, had invented this story, was filled with pride.

When they got home and the boar had been hidden in the cellar, his father said: It’s time you learnt to use a gun, I’ll find you one. What do you say to that?

I’d rather have an accordion, replied Félix.

An accordion! Ah! you want to seduce the girls, eh?

One night, a few months later, Félix was in bed and he heard his father come into the kitchen, shouting in the sing-song voice which meant he had been drinking. There were some other men with him who were laughing. Then there was a silence, and, suddenly, the strains of an accordion being clumsily played. I got it for Felo, he heard his father shout, got it off Valentine. She was glad to be rid of it, now Emile’s dead, what could she do with an accordion? Poor Emile! said another voice. She never liked him playing, said a third man, she’d walk out of the room as soon as Emile picked the thing up. How’s that? She was jealous was our Valentine and Emile encouraged her to be so. He liked to make her jealous! Do you know what he named his accordion? What did he call it? He called his accordion Caroline! Come and sit on my knees, Caroline, he’d say, come and have a cuddle! All you men are the same! Félix heard his mother protest. Come and sit on my knees, Albertine! his father roared, come here and I’ll give you a squeeze! He pressed on the bass buttons and the instrument lowed like a bull. You’ll wake up Félix, you will! his mother said.

It was a diatonic accordion with twelve bass keys for the left hand, made by F. Dedents in the 1920s. The keys had pearly heads, its sides were blue decorated with yellow flowers, and the reeds were made of metal and leather. He learnt to play it seated, resting the right-hand keyboard on his left thigh and opening the accordion like a cascade falling towards the floor to the left of the chair. A cascade of sound.

Late in the month of May, the grass grows before your eyes. One day it is like a carpet, the next it is halfway up your knees. Get it scythed, Albertine would say, or it’ll be tickling the cunt.

The cows in Félix’s stable could smell the new grass. They followed with their insolently patient eyes the two swallows who were building a nest on the cross beam above the horse’s stall, empty since the purchase of the tractor. They stared at the squares of sunlight on the north wall which had been in shadow all winter long. They became restless. They lowed for Félix before it was milking time. They wouldn’t eat their croquettes quietly whilst being milked. When they licked each other with their large tongues, they did so with a kind of frenzy, as if the salt they were tasting had to be a substitute for all the green grass outside.

They want to be out, don’t they? They don’t need a calendar to tell them, and they don’t give a fuck what year it is. Tomorrow we’ll put ’em out, tomorrow when the grass is dry.

Late the following morning Félix undid each cow’s chain and opened the large door of the stable.

Myrtille turned towards the sudden light and felt her neck free. Then she tottered, like a convalescent, to the door. Once outside, she raised her head, bellowed and trotted in the direction of the green grass she could see in the meadow. With each step she found her strength again.

Hold her back, Mick!

The dog bounded after the cow and barked at her forelegs so that she stopped, her neck stretched out taut and straight, her ears up like a second pair of horns, and her imperturbable eyes staring through the sunshine at the meadow. Immobile, her muzzle, her neck, her haunches and her tail in one straight line, she was like the first statue ever made of a cow. The other cows were pushing through the stable door three at a time.

Calm, for Christ’s sake! There’s enough for you all. Get back, Princesse!

They trundled their way down the slope towards Myrtille. Mick saw the whole herd charging at him. His mouth open without a bark, without a whine, he slunk to the side of the road as they thundered past and triumphantly swept Myrtille into the field. As soon as they felt their feet in the grass, their stampede ended. Some threw their hind legs up into the air. One pair locked their horns and shoved against each other with all their weight. Some turned slowly in circles, listening. The streams from the mountains above the village, white with froth because so much ice had melted, were babbling like madmen. The cuckoo was singing. Entire fields were suddenly changing their colour from green to butter-yellow, because the dandelions, shut at night, were opening their petals.

Princesse mounted Mireille — when a cow is in heat, she often plays the bull.

Get her off her!

Mireille, with Princesse on her back, stood gazing at the mountains. The sunshine penetrated to the very marrow of their bones. When the dog approached, Princesse slid gently off Mireille’s back, and the wind from the northwest, from beyond the mountains, ruffled the hair between both their horns.

Félix arranged the wire across the opening to the field, switched on the current, and, plucking a stalk of hemlock, held it against the live wire. After a second his hand shot up like a startled bird. He returned slowly to the house, stopping twice to look back at the happiness of the cows.

He phoned the Inseminator to ask him to pass by for Princesse and gave him the code number of her previous insemination.

In making hay there’s always a wager. The quicker the hay is in, the better it is. Yet the hay must be dry, otherwise it ferments. At the worst, tradition had it, damp hay could eventually set a house on fire. If you don’t take any risks you’ll never get your hay in early. At the best, you’ll be left with hay like straw. So, impatient, you bet on the sun lasting and the storm holding off. It’s not us making hay, repeated Albertine every year, it’s sun that makes the hay.