J. Ledgard - Giraffe

“See that, pal?” I say to the hunter. “That’s love.”

I BEGIN TO THINK of the flashlight as a weapon. I aim it. I don’t like it at all. So I go over and complain to the StB man, the one photographing everything.

“Fuck off, then,” the StB man says.

“Steady, comrade,” I say.

He brings out a pretty girl in my place. Amazing. A tiny thing. She flew in here out of the night, through all these soldiers, like a bird or something. They say she’s the keeper’s girl. She’s up on the fence now, aiming the flashlight. I don’t feel guilty. I go over and complain straight to the hunter’s face. He’s reloading. He doesn’t look up at me. He just takes another swig from his rum bottle.

“I can’t watch you anymore, pal,” I say. “I love nature and all that. I’m a hunter myself.”

“I’m under orders, comrade,” he says. “I don’t like this.”

“Well, if you ask me, it’s a misuse of the hunting profession.”

THERE IS THIS YOUNG scientist type, who kneels down over every one of the giraffes, as if he’s giving them the last rites or something. He puts a jar to the bullet hole. The blood shoots up. You don’t see that with animals at the end of fields. They’re usually rotted and bloated. These giraffes spray blood right up to your waist. When the jars are full, the scientist closes them up with a rubber stopper, like a pickle jar, or one of those old beer bottles. Then the boys and I jump in. We do our stuff. We’ve got the hang of it already. It doesn’t take long. Three or four animals. One body is like any other. You find the tendons, cut them, and fold it up. The thing is, these giraffes just keep coming. There must be fifty of them. That’s a lot of meat. That’s a hundred and fifty cows. Jesus and Mary, that’s five hundred sheep.

WE GET SOME TEA and meat and bread rolls. I look up at the stars. I like to do that as much as the next guy. It’s a clear night. The first warm night of the year. It’s the witching night too. I see bonfires burning on the hills all around here. Workers are getting drunk there, having a good time, not cutting up giraffes in a crazy nuclear getup, at gunpoint, for twelve crowns and fifty heller an hour. I ask you.

WE’RE ALL TIRED. The blood sits in shallows now, like you get at the end of a meadow, by a river. I’m sitting on the fence, smoking. I’m watching the scientist trying to cut out the tongue of one of the giraffes. He’s making a mess of it. He seems pretty upset. I jump down. I wade over.

“You’re doing this all wrong, pal,” I say to him.

“You do it, please,” he says.

So I put my hand in there. I find the root. It’s long — that’s the thing. Much longer than any heifer’s tongue.

“You always need to find the root, pal,” I say.

I slip my knife down there. I slice it free. I roll the tongue up. He seals it in another of his jars.

THE LAST GIRAFFE IS a saddening sight. She almost kicked herself to death inside the giraffe house before the hunter got her. She was running around on broken legs. The hunter just stands there, drunk, crossing himself. We drag her all the way out and fold her and winch her up into the Robur with a calf and the bull I cut the tongue from. The secret policemen check us for leaks.

“All clear!” they shout.

“On no account should blood leak on the road,” the StB man says through the window. “Negligence will be punished with prison terms.”

Fuck you.

JARO DRIVES INTO THE DAWN.

“I’m getting some shut-eye,” I say to him.

“Fair enough,” he says.

WE’RE BACK IN THE hygiene or rendering plant. That’s what they call it. We’ve got other names for it. What we do is render diseased and rotten meat into pellets of meal that are fed back to other animals or scattered over fields.

After a few years here, your fellow workers become your only friends. If Death were to open his robes, well, that’s the stench of this place. You can’t get rid of the smell. It’s on your breath. You sweat it out in summer. You piss it out in winter. You shake hands with strangers and there is a moment of rejection. I always hold my hand there a little longer to see the reaction. Women hate the smell. I’ve had women retch on me. It’s not only that. It’s the whole place. It’s at the end of a road. It’s surrounded by rape fields on all sides, as far as you can see. It’s like it’s another place, an island on a yellow sea that exists out of time or something.

I OPEN THE DOOR TO the truck. That’s the smell. Death opening his robes.

“We’re being watched,” Jaro says.

There’s another StB man looking at us through binoculars from a distance. There’s a few armed secret policemen patrolling closer to the truck. They’ll gag if they get any nearer. Here comes the boss.

“Boys!” he says. “You know the score. Get them out. Cut them up. Into the machine.”

“Yes, boss,” we say.

“Then disinfection,” he says.

“Off with these suits,” Jaro says.

WE DROP THE TAILGATE of the Robur. We rope up the calf and drag it out onto the concrete cutting floor, then the giraffe bull with no tongue, and finally the cow with the white belly, who broke her legs running around inside.

We gaff them and hoist them up on metal chains. They hang before us now. I open up the calf and the bull. Jaro scoops out the innards. We kick and slide the gray pile together across the concrete into the sinkhole for the offal and waste. It’s horrible, that sinkhole. White-blue and gray and glistening, deep as the Labe, but you wouldn’t want to drown there. I swing the ax at the calf. I cleave the head and neck. I part the torso. Same for the bull now. I haven’t touched the cow. There’s something stopping me. I don’t know.

“Hand me a knife,” I say to Jaro. “No, not a gutting knife. Something sharper.”

He hands one over. I look up to see if the StB man is watching. No.

“Keep watch,” I say.

I get it. It’s beauty that’s been stopping me. I cut off a large piece of the hide, from the flank and the snow-white belly. I roll it up tight. I hide it among my knives. I’ll tan it. I’ll make it into a rug.

NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON. The scientist from the zoo is here. He’s standing shoulder to shoulder with the StB man. He comes closer. Give him credit. He comes right in here in his nuclear-war suit. He holds his arm up to his mouth. I’m holding the ax. Jaro has the gaff. The scientist points to the cow, swinging here on this metal chain.

“Which one is that?” the scientist says.

“The last one,” I say.

“The one that was shot all those times,” Jaro says.

“Sněhurka,” he says. “Some of her hide is missing. Why?”

He’s sharp — give him that too.

“Look around you, pal,” I say. “There’s a lot missing here.”

“We need a count of how many giraffes were pregnant,” he says. “What about these?”

“That was a bull, that was a calf,” Jaro says. “So, no.”

“She was pregnant,” the scientist says, touching the cow. “Check her.”

So I slide a joint knife in.

“She’s full all right, pal,” I say.

His time is almost up. He’s going to gag. You can see it.

“Comrades,” he says.

He takes a step backward. He doesn’t gag. He makes it back to the StB man and lowers his head and breathes heavily. That’s right — that’s the routine.

I SETTLE THE AX. I quarter the cow. I heave some part of foreleg up into the machine, which is called a Destruktor because that’s what it does — it destroys. It’s a truck-sized cylinder with four small doors. We have to cut all the animals into pieces small enough to get in there. So I cleave.

I gaff the cow’s head now and push it inside the Destruktor. Jaro closes it up. We start the machine. Boiling water rushes in. The drum inside the cylinder starts turning over. We walk away. We’re done. I tuck the giraffe hide under my arm.