In my life, I’ve seen many men weep. I’ve seen many tears flow. I’ve seen many people crushed like nuts between stones until nothing was left but debris. That was part of the daily routine in the camp. But despite all the sorrow and tragedy I’ve witnessed, if ever I had to choose one from among my memory’s infinite gallery of suffering faces, of persons who suddenly realized that they’d lost everything, that everything had been taken from them, that they had nothing left, the person who would spring to mind would be the Anderer, and the face his face as it looked that morning, that morning in September, on the banks of the Staubi.
He wasn’t weeping. He wasn’t gesticulating. It was as though he’d been divided in two. One part was his voice, his unceasing lament, which resembled a song of mourning, something beyond words, beyond all language, rising from the depths of the body and souclass="underline" the voice of grief. And then there was the other part, his trembling, his shuddering, his round head, which turned from the crowd to the river and back again, and his body, wrapped in a luxurious dressing gown, all brocade, totally alien to the landscape; the dripping skirts of his robe, saturated with mud and water, swayed against his short legs.
I didn’t understand right away why the Anderer was in such a state, why he looked like an automaton doomed perpetually to repeat gestures of stark madness. I stared at him so hard, hoping to discover something in his face, in his partially open mouth, in his plenipotentiary minister’s bathrobe, that I didn’t immediately notice his right hand, which was clutching something that looked like a hank of long, slightly faded blond hair.
It was the hair of his horse’s tail, which emerged from the Staubi like a mooring line with one end still attached to the quay and the other to an irretrievably sunken vessel. I could see two large masses below the surface of the water, calm, ponderous bulks which the river currents were very gently stirring. The sight was unreal and almost peacefuclass="underline" the big horse and the smaller donkey, both drowned, floating underwater with wide-open eyes. Because of some unknown phenomenon, the donkey’s coat was decorated with thousands of minuscule air bubbles, as polished and shiny as pearls, and the horse’s full, flowing mane mingled with the algae which in that place grew in thick scarves. It was like looking at two mythological creatures performing a fantastic dance. An eddy made them execute a circular movement, a slow waltz, without any music apart from the intrusive and suddenly obscene song of a blackbird, which soon resumed poking its brown beak into the soft soil of the bank and pulling out long red worms. At first, I thought that a last reflex had made both horse and donkey curve their bodies and gather their legs so that all four hooves were nearly touching, the way one might curl up and roll himself into a ball in order to present nothing but a rounded back to danger or cold. But then I saw the cords and realized that in fact the beasts’ legs were hobbled and solidly bound together.
I didn’t know what to do or say. And even if I had spoken, I’m not sure that the Anderer, shut up inside his lamentation, would have heard me. He was trying to drag the horse out of the water — without success, of course, because the animal’s weight was so disproportionate to the Anderer’s strength. Nobody helped him. Nobody made a move in his direction. The assembled multitude’s sole movement was a backward surge. The crowd had seen enough. Here and there, people began to leave. Soon no one remained except the mayor, who had arrived after everyone else, accompanied by Zungfrost, driving a team of oxen. Zungfrost contemplated the spectacle without appearing in the least surprised, either because he’d already seen it, or because he’d been told about it, or because he was in on it. As for me, I hadn’t moved. Orschwir looked at me suspiciously and addressed me without even acknowledging the presence of the Anderer.
“What do you think you’re going to do, Brodeck?”
I didn’t see why the mayor was asking me that question or how I could reply to it. I was on the verge of saying, “A horse and a donkey don’t tie their legs together all by themselves,” but I decided to keep silent.
“You’d best do like the others, Brodeck, and go home,” Orschwir continued.
Basically, he was right, so I started to do what he said, but before I could go three meters, he called me back: “Brodeck! Please take him back to the inn.”
Zungfrost had succeeded, I don’t know how, in making the Anderer release his grip on Miss Julie. Now he stood on the river-bank, unmoving, his hands hanging down, and watched the stammerer tie the horse’s tail to a heavy leather strap whose other end was attached to the oxen’s yoke. I put my hand on the Anderer’s shoulder, but he didn’t react. Then I slipped my arm under his, turned, and started walking away. He let himself be led like a child. His keening had stopped.
One man alone couldn’t do away with two beasts like that. Nor could two men manage it. Such a job would require several men. And, besides, what an expedition! To enter the stable — at night, no doubt — wasn’t much of a trick. Nor was getting the animals out, because they were docile, good-natured, anything but wild. But then, by the riverside (because it can have happened nowhere else), to make the two beasts lie on their sides, maybe by pushing them over, to seize their legs, put them together, and bind them solidly, and then to carry or drag the animals to the water and throw them in — that was quite a feat. After careful consideration, I believe there couldn’t have been fewer than five or six of them, five or six beefy fellows who, on top of everything else, had to be unafraid of getting kicked or bitten.
The cruelty of the animals’ death didn’t seem to strike anyone. Some villagers declared that such beasts could be nothing less than demonic creatures. Some even murmured that they had heard the beasts talking. But most people said that what had happened was maybe the only way to get rid of the Anderer, the only way to compel him to get the hell out of our village and go back to where he came from, that is, to a far-off place nobody even wanted to think about. This imbecile savagery was, among other things, rather a paradox, since killing the Anderer’s mounts in order to make him understand that he must go away deprived him of the only quick means of leaving the village. But murderers, whether of animals or of men, rarely reflect on the deed they do.
XXXVII
—
’ve never killed any donkeys or horses.
I’ve done much worse.
Yes, much worse.
At night, I walk along the rim of the Kazerskwir.
I see the railway car again.
I see the six days I spent in the railway car.
I see the six nights again, too, and especially, like a never-fading nightmare, the fifth of those nights.
As I’ve already said, we were held for a week at the train station in S., and then we were separated into two columns and put on trains. We were all Fremdër. Some rich, some poor. Some from the city, others from the country. Such distinctions were quickly blurred. We were shoved into big, windowless freight cars. There was a bit of straw, already soiled, on the wooden floor. Under normal conditions, each car had room for about thirty persons to sit very close together. The guards pushed more than double that number into our car. There were cries, moans, protests, tears. An old man fell down. Some people near him tried to raise him up, but the guards thrust in still more prisoners, causing unpredictable, abrupt movements among those already there. The old man was trampled by the very people who had tried to save him.