Andres Neuman - Traveller of the Century

Reichardt came to see if they had anything to eat in the cave. Although the organ grinder only had a few potatoes, dumplings and some fruit, he invited him to supper. Hans offered to fetch provisions from the inn and bring them back in a tilbury. The organ grinder refused. You came here today to talk, didn’t you? he said. Friends talk, you needn’t always bring gifts. On hearing his master, Franz gave an abrupt bark, which sounded like a hungry clarification.

No, Reichardt explained to Hans as he munched a potato, previously I was employed on several estates; you stayed on until they threw you out or you found a better-paid job. The trouble is now — any more dumplings? Thanks — none of the estate managers will hire me full-time, they say I’m too old. So every week I go to the market square touting for work, I talk to the farmers who are there selling produce and if I’m lucky they offer me a day’s labour, or more, weeding, tilling, sowing, you know. The worst thing isn’t when you stand there waiting to be hired and they look at you as if you were a dried up turd, it’s ending the day wondering if you’ll get any more work. I feel healthy, bah, I manage, I’m still strong enough to shift heavy sacks, the thing is you’re out there surrounded by other labourers and you say to yourself: Is this my last day? I don’t mean here on earth, I couldn’t care less about that, when I die, well, it’ll be good riddance, an end to all my problems! The thing is finishing a day’s work and remembering how hard it was to get hired and thinking next time will be even harder. Working in the fields does my back in but I like it, why do anything else if that’s what I’ve always done? Hey, are there any apples left? Pity. On top of that, those bastards see you’re a bit past it and sometimes they don’t pay you in money, which is better because you can save it, they pay you in leftover produce, it’s true, Hans, it’s true, but what can you do? Tell them to hire someone else, tell them to stick their vegetables up their stingy arses? So you accept whatever they give you, thank them, stuff it in your bag and go home. Where do I live? Over by the cornfields in one of those mud huts with the other labourers. No, of course I don’t, not even an acre! The land belongs to the Church, but since they don’t use it they let us live there and charge a tribute per hut. I swear on my eight good teeth these bloody tithes will be the death of us, apart from the priests we pay a tax to the landowners, the principality and I don’t know what else. No, the farmers don’t own the land either, they’re tenants and pay the landowners a tithe for the harvest and for the livestock, you see? The same old families, the Trakls, the Wilderhauses, the Rumenigges, the Ratztrinkers’ cousins, they’re all the same. Who me? Leave here? Never. Well, when I was a youngster I thought of looking for work elsewhere, at the port in Danzig or in some factory up north. But in the end, you know it’s not so easy to leave Wandernburg. Besides, this is my home, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have to leave, they’re the bastards, I shouldn’t have to go looking in some other bloody place. Do you know how Herr Wilderhaus used to treat us, Hans? No, not him, the father. Because, I don’t know if you’ve seen him, now he looks like a rheumatic old man, but you should have seen the bastard before, son of a whore! In those days he’d show up in the fields whenever he felt like it and say: “Harness four horses, I’m going to the ball.” And we’d reply: “Sire, we’re harvesting the grain and it’s nearly dark.” And he’d say: “I don’t give a turd if it’s late or blowing a gale! I told you, I’m going to the ball, now harness four horses. Besides, the grain is mine and you’ll harvest it when I say so.” That’s how he spoke, rolling his rrrr s like a brute, ha rrrr ness fou rrrr ho rrrr ses this instant, and those of us who had to do it hu rrrr ied, how we hu rrrr ied to do that bastard’s bidding! No, no, Herr Wilderhaus was a kitten in comparison to some of them! Do you know what old Rumenigge did to the daughters of the, bah, what’s the difference, he’s dead now, to hell with him. And so we saddled up the horses and d rrrr ove him to the ball. Which I’m sure you’ve guessed was no ball, although we had to swear on our lives that we would always call it d rrrr iving him to the ball! Grapes, thanks, Franz, you rogue, I can see you! I know. You’re right there. Well, don’t be too sorry about it, Hans, because that’s not the worst thing. What’s worse by far for a man my age is wishing things hadn’t changed, do you understand, because nowadays there’s less and less need for labourers, one man can do the work of five and the farmers prefer young men because they say we older men don’t know how to work the machines. Machines, they say! I was already tilling these fields with my eyes shut before they’d even taken a shit in them! In the old days we let them lie fallow for three years, we didn’t have all that irrigation and fertilisers and things. Now they rotate the crops, alternating cereal with hay and God knows what. And anything left over they throw away, just like that, they throw it away! Otherwise prices will go down, they say. That is, yes, the new machines are very intelligent, very well thought out my eye. And I say: What’s to become of us? If I’m no good for working in the fields, what am I good for? Take the English planting and sowing machines. A lot of farmers make you use them now, they say this thing can plant and cover the seeds simultaneously, that it saves time. It saves time? The earth has its own time. I’ve never needed a machine to show me where to make a furrow or where the thistle root is, how to walk between the ridges, what colour ripe grain is, the way corn ears smell when the harvest is bad, none of that. Isn’t this the same soil my father and grandfather worked? Haven’t I been tilling and sowing here for fifty years? Who’s telling me I don’t know how any more? Where do they want me to go?

Reichardt stopped talking and gazed out towards the darkening fields.

As the weather grew warmer, shadows and figures began popping up in the corridors of the inn. Hans would meet them on the stairs. He didn’t know who they were, he didn’t know their names, he never spoke to them, but their elusive presence made him feel accompanied. Frau Zeit seemed suddenly thinner and her movements had acquired the invisible force of the breeze when it blows in through the window. After breakfast, for which Hans was seldom up in time, Lisa went off carrying a basket piled with dirty linen to wash in the unfrozen river. Herr Zeit had begun rising a little earlier — he would eat breakfast with his family then invariably go out on some errand, as though the sun were a long-awaited pretext. He would walk Thomas to school and come back for lunch. It was obvious from the glassy look in his eyes that he had stopped off at more than one tavern.

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, already! Herr Zeit greeted Hans as he walked past reception. Did you sleep well? Me? said Hans. Yes, quite well, why? We’re not used to seeing you up before midday, the innkeeper said, grinning mysteriously. Actually, said Hans, I came down to ask whether the postman had brought anything for me. For you? the innkeeper asked in surprise. No, nothing. Are you sure? said Hans, looking worried. Absolutely, the innkeeper replied trying to hold in his belly to seem more plausible. But he did come today, didn’t he? Hans insisted, I mean, the post from Leipzig comes on Wednesdays, doesn’t it? Certainly, said Herr Zeit, the mail coach from Leipzig arrived this morning and drove straight past the door without stopping. Hans sighed. His shoulders sank. Then he regained his composure, took a deep breath, and left the inn bidding them good day.