Christopher Kloeble - Almost Everything Very Fast

Down below, gleaming metal ran like a jagged scar through the stone. The monk caressed every inch of it, as if he were kissing the Holy Father’s Piscatory Ring. The newly uncovered vein of gold considerably eased his ascent from destitute drifter to bishop. He consecrated the spot, calling it Segenhügel, the Blessed Hill; and soon, thanks to the exploitation of its gold deposits, the village of Segendorf sprang up nearby. Before it had time to develop into a thriving community, however, Segendorf began to wither. On the one hand, the mine petered out within months; on the other, the landscape itself significantly contributed to the settlement’s ruin. Hereabouts there was little but fields scattered with scarlet corn poppies; the Moorbach, a piddling tributary that wound its way around the Segenhügel; lean game; and hostile grasses that sliced at your hands if you tried to pluck them. When the villagers decamped, the old, the sick, and the idiotic were left behind. Along with the tradition. At first the remaining Segendorfers celebrated the discovery of the gold mine each summer by flinging their Most Beloved Possessions over the edge of the cliff. But as too many animal cadavers had begun to pile up at the foot of the hill, contaminating the drinking water, they decided instead to kindle a sacrificial bonfire each year on the market square, so as to celebrate the ritual in a more civilized fashion.

Back then the population of Segendorf numbered no more than three hundred souls. Of course, there were barns and cowsheds and cesspits, the cobbler right next to the general store, the butcher just behind, and the smithy not much farther off; of course, Segendorf had a moor to the east and the west, and the sheer rock walls of the Alps to the south, and to the north, the sole road that led into the village (and ended there as well); and, of course, just beyond the town limits there was Wolf Hill, atop which an oak tree spread its limbs, and beneath which local women were knocked up every year when spring rolled around. But for anyone who took the map as gospel, Segendorf didn’t exist at all. The place had barely changed since its founding. Light was still generated with sulfur matchsticks, candles, or torches, the people still scrubbed their clothes in the Moorbach, and the next parish was a ten-day march away. The residents first heard about World War I only after it had been lost.

In 1912 all the villagers gathered in the market square, as they did every year, formed a spiraling line, and, one by one, hurled something dear to their hearts onto the flaming pyre of high-piled brushwood. The flames swallowed them noisily, rewarding those assembled with warmth and light.

That same night, in the granary — Segendorf’s largest structure, after the church — a secret was conceived. Among sacks bursting with oats, wheat, poppy seeds, and barley, sacks that in the gloom resembled limbless torsos, fourteen-year-old Josfer Habom explored the body of his sister, Jasfe, with his lips; and although both felt unbearably hot, they trembled as if there were a killing frost.

It was said that no Segendorfer could compete with my parents’ beauty. So tantalizing was Jasfe’s glance, so striking Josfer’s dimpled chin, that the pair were never invited to weddings, lest the bride or groom begin to have second thoughts about the business at hand.

Anne-Marie Habom, my grandmother, had died giving birth to the twins, and my grandfather Nick Habom, one of Segendorf’s numerous hunters, and a considerably unattractive man, concerned himself only with putting enough food on the table and making sure that the two had a warm bed to sleep in. He never said more than was absolutely necessary. He was respected for that. In spite of his dwarfish stature, Nick was a man who loomed large in people’s memories. Many maintained that the vertical crease between his eyebrows divided not merely his forehead but also the compartments into which he sorted mankind: those whom he liked — and the rest, among whom he numbered his children. Just recently, he’d broken Josfer’s nose because the latter’s hand had slid between his sister’s thighs while they were bathing—“Don’t put your hands on each other!” he’d bellowed. Since then, Josfer’s beauty had been marred. But Nick’s harshness drove the two children even closer together. Though they didn’t dare oppose him openly, and kept their hands to themselves, as he had ordered them to do, they nevertheless took advantage of every minute they were alone to secretly rub their pale bodies against each other. Until they were crimson.

On the night of the three-hundred eighty-sixth Sacrificial Festival, the pair stole away and raced to the granary. Sneezing, they undressed themselves in the dusty air, tied their hands together behind their backs, and fondled each other with their feet, caressed each other with their noses, kindled each other with their tongues. They smelled sweetly of elderberries, and holy water, and down pillows aired in the west wind.

The next morning Jasfe was seized with elation. While outside a warm wind scattered the ashes of the Most Beloved Possessions that lay charred in the market square, spinning gray-black dust devils through vegetable gardens, inflaming eyes and coating windowpanes with sooty muck, she felt a pleasurable tingling beneath her belly button that grew stronger and refused to fade, as if Josfer were still kissing that spot, and would be forever.

In the months that followed, Jasfe concealed her swelling belly from curious eyes. Her dread of her father was surpassed only by the fear that she might give birth to a Klöble.

When it came to begetting children, Segendorfers weren’t always choosy. It frequently happened that somebody’s brother was also his cousin, or somebody’s daughter also her sister. Quite a few local families had produced a “Klöble”—a “clumsy, stupid fellow.” Mothers of such children were spat upon. They were accused of having no pride, of having seduced their own fathers, sons, brothers, because — hideous, impudent, and slothful as they were — no other man would take them. Klöbles were known for chewing sorrel all day long, fiddling with themselves shamelessly in public, and playing patty-cake with cow dung. They also argued passionately among themselves about whether God existed, somebody none of them had ever seen; and about why nobody believed in them, the Klöbles, although they were easily visible. And whether, perhaps, they wouldn’t be visible any longer, once people started believing in them. The incest had another side effect, though — it helped Segendorf remain hidden behind a wall that had never been built: anyone who wanted to could have seen and entered the town. But nobody from elsewhere wanted to see it. Much less enter it.

In spite of her fear of having a Klöble, Jasfe would, of course, still love such a child; that’s what she told herself, and what Josfer told her — but a perfectly healthy child would be easier to love.

For five long months she wore a shawl wrapped tightly as a corset around her belly, and endured the pain. Only then did she decide to confess the pregnancy to their father. She searched carefully for the appropriate words, weighing one sentence after another for days, until she saw that the right moment had come.

While Josfer checked the toad traps in the swamp, Jasfe sat down beside Nick on the wooden bench in front of their house. In the evening light her father picked filth from beneath his nails with a hunting knife, and whistled a melancholy tune. Jasfe gathered her courage and spoke her first sentence. She spoke her second sentence. She spoke her third and fourth and fifth sentences. And after she’d spoken her last sentence, she waited. Calmly, Nick laid the knife down beside him, pressed his lips together, drew a deep breath, and grabbed her by the neck. Only then could she see the minuscule tears slipping down his face. Silently he increased the pressure. Black spots flecked her vision, multiplied, melted together, and she tumbled into a lightless void.