Death in Venice and Other Tales

  The spot is truly lovely. When the skies are clear, the skiff that serves as a ferry will fly a decorative banner—be it to celebrate the weather or some other festive occasion. There’s more than one skiff here, but only the ferry is attached to a wire cable connected by pulley to a second, thicker one stretched across the river. The current itself is what pushes the vessel, the ferryman’s hand on the tiller doing the rest. The ferryman lives a short distance to the rear of the upper path with his wife and child in the ferry house, which has a vegetable garden and a chicken coop and which, no doubt, comes with the job. It’s a kind of dwarf villa, a cheap and capricious construction with little oriels and balconies and what appear to be two rooms in both the up- and downstairs. I quite enjoy sitting on the bench between the upper path and the ferryman’s yard, with Baushan squatting on my foot and his chickens scurrying around me, jerking their heads forward with every step. More often than not, his rooster will perch next to me on the backrest, its green bersaglieri tail feathers hanging down behind us, one of its red eyes mustering me from the side. I watch the activity of the ferry, which can’t exactly be called feverish, or even lively, taking place only between long stretches of idleness. Therefore I enjoy it all the more when I spy a man here or a basket-carrying woman there who needs to be brought across. The poetic “Ahoy there!” remains as humanly compelling today as in olden times, even when it, as here, takes on more modern, technologically advanced forms. On both sides of the river, a pair of wooden staircases—one for arrivals, one for departures—curves around the embankments down to the landings, and there is an electric bell beside each of the entrances. Hence, when someone appears on the opposite bank and stands there peering over the water, he no longer cups his hands and calls out, as he once did, but merely approaches the bell, stretches out an arm and presses the button. It then rings shrilly in the ferryman’s villa. That’s today’s “Ahoy there!” but even so, there’s something poetic about it. The man stands there waiting and peering; immediately after the bell commences its shrill ringing, the ferryman emerges from his official house, as though he had been doing nothing but standing or sitting in a chair by the door, poised for the signal. He emerges, and something in his walk makes it seem as though the pressing of the button itself has wound up the machinery within him, as in a shooting gallery, where a direct hit will cause the door of some little house to spring open and a figure—a shepherd girl or a sentry—to pop out. Without haste, swinging his arms in an even rhythm, the ferryman walks through his yard, over the path and down the steps to the river; he pushes the ferry off and steers while the little pulley runs along the wire and the boat is drawn cross-stream. On the other side he holds the vessel steady for the stranger who, having safely navigated the current, hands him a small coin, happily bounds up the steps and disappears to the right or left. Sometimes when the ferryman is indisposed or otherwise detained by urgent household business, his wife or even his child will come and pick up the stranger, for they can do his job as well he can. So, for that matter, could I, for the office of the ferryman is easy and requires no special skill or training. He should count himself double blessed to call this sinecure with its dwarf villa his own. Any idiot could replace him, and he knows it, always behaving with corresponding humility and gratitude. On the way back to his house, he never forgets to greet me, sitting there between my dog and his rooster, with a well-mannered provincial Grüß Gott, from which one can tell he has no desire to make enemies.

  Smells of tar, wind on the water—and water lapping muffled against the side of the boats. What more could I want? Sometimes I’m overcome by a different feeling of familiarity: the water is deep, its smells rotten. That is the Lagoon; that is Venice. Everything is different during flood season, when the rains pour down without end. Dressed in my slicker, with water streaming down my face, I must brace myself on the upper path against the west wind that tears up the young poplars on the lane by their roots—you can see then why the trees here tend to slant in one direction and have lopsided crowns—and Baushan frequently stops on the path to shake himself off, spraying water everywhere. The river is no longer what it was. Swollen and dark yellow, it rushes along with apocalyptic mien. It pitches, rolls and surges forward in belabored haste like a genuine torrent, its dirty swells covering the entire secondary riverbank up to the edge of the embankment and crashing against the concrete and withe reinforcements, so that one thanks God for the foresight that installed them. The uncanny thing is that the river in this condition turns quiet, much quieter than usual, almost silent in fact. It no longer forms rapids, its level being too high, although the places where it usually does are recognizable from the comparatively deep troughs and higher crests of the swells, which break against and not with the current like regular surf. The waterfall practically vanishes: its drop is pathetically flat, and the boiling at its foot ceases. Baushan is completely dumbfounded by the drastic change in scenery. He can’t get over it, can’t comprehend that the dry land where he usually runs has today disappeared under water. Frightened, he flees up the embankment away from the rising waves. He wags his tail, glances back at me, then stares again at the water, letting his mouth gape crookedly open, somewhat haplessly, his tongue lolling in its corner. It is a face both human and animal, too crude and primitive to be truly expressive, yet thoroughly comprehensible as the sort of face a somewhat simple-minded person of low birth might make when confronted with a tricky situation, no doubt while also scratching the back of his neck.

  Now that I’ve also gone into the river zone in some detail, I’ve covered the entire area and done everything possible, as far as I can see, to give a vivid picture of it. I’m quite pleased with the description, although of course it doesn’t compare to the real thing in nature, just as the real-life Baushan is warmer, livelier and more amusing than the image I’ve conjured up. I’m quite devoted, indeed grateful to this landscape—which is why I wished to make this portrait. It’s my playground, my retreat. My thoughts and dreams are intermingled and bound up with its scenes like the leaves of the creepers that are entwined with those of the trees. I’ve observed it at every time of day and year. In the fall, the chemical smell of decaying foliage fills the air, hordes of thistle blossoms shed their down, the giant beeches in the “sanitarium garden” spread a rusty carpet of leaves over the surrounding meadow, and golden afternoons fade into dramatic early evenings, a crescent moon floating in the sky, an opaque fog clinging to the lowlands and a red sunset smoldering amidst the dark silhouettes of the trees . . . That’s the fall. In winter, snow covers the gravel and provides a smooth, soft surface passable in galoshes, while the river flows black between its pale, frozen banks and the cries of a hundred gulls fill the air from morning until night. Still, the most casual, intimate contact with this landscape occurs during the milder months, when no preparations are required if I want to dash out for a quarter of an hour between rainstorms, stick my face through the branches of an alder bush and take a peep at the wandering waves. Perhaps guests were there, and now they’ve gone. Exhausted by conversation, I sit within my four walls, a foreign presence still lingering in the air. At such moments it helps to amble out for a little while to Gellert- or Stifterstraße, take in some fresh air and recuperate. I look up at the sky or peer into the depths of the delicate foliage, my nerves settle down, and once more I grow calm and sober.

  But Baushan is always there, too. He was unable to prevent the outside world from invading the house: he may have raised a terrible howl in protest and complaint, but it was no use, and he had to retreat. Now he’s happy that we are once more together in our hunting ground. With one ear casually flopping back, he trots before me on the gravel, waddling the way all dogs do by setting his hind paws somewhat laterally to, not directly behind his front ones. And I watch as something suddenly seizes him in body and soul and sets his stiffly outstretched stump of a tail in furious motion. He cocks his head forward and sideways; his body tenses and stretches out lengthwise; he hops aroun
d, first here, then there, then takes off like a flash, nose to the ground, in a specific direction. He’s got a scent. He’s after a hare.

  THE HUNT

  Our region teems with wild game to hunt, and that is precisely what we do, which is to say, Baushan gives chase and I watch. Our labor thus divided, we hunt hares, partridges, field mice, moles, ducks and gulls. Nor do we shy away from big game: we gladly go after pheasant, even deer if one of their numbers happens our way. This is most often the case in winter, and it’s thrilling to watch the long-legged, delicately built deer, yellow against the snow, its white tail bobbing up and down, fleeing before little Baushan, who strains with all his might in pursuit. I follow the chase with the most intense interest and excitement. Not that anything will come of it: nothing ever has and it never will. Yet the lack of tangible results doesn’t dampen Baushan’s passionate desire or disrupt my enjoyment in the slightest. We practice the hunt for its own sake, not for the purpose of the catch or any material benefit, Baushan, as I said, being the active party. He requires nothing more from me than moral support, for he knows of no other form of cooperation, no more efficient or scientific methodology for going about the task at hand—at least not from direct personal experience. I wish to emphasize the words “direct” and “personal” because in all probability his ancestors, insofar as they were indeed pointers, did know a more genuine form of hunting, and now and again I wonder whether he has inherited any memories that might be stirred up by some chance stimulus. At his evolutionary level, the life of the individual is no doubt far less thoroughly differentiated from that of the species than at ours. Birth and death amount to a more superficial fluctuation of being, and blood inheritances are probably better preserved over generations, so that it’s only an apparent contradiction to talk about congenital experiences or innate memories, which, if activated, might well contradict the animal’s own individual experience and lead to conflict. There was a time when this unsettling thought took hold of me, but I quickly put it from my mind, just as Baushan apparently put from his mind the violent incident to which he was witness and which gave rise to these hypotheses.

  By the time I take him out hunting, it’s usually around noon, eleven-thirty or twelve, though occasionally on hot summer days it can be put off until or repeated at six or even later in the evening. Whatever the hour, my mood is another one entirely than that of our first casual morning stroll. The fresh, carefree spirit of the early hours is gone. In the meantime I’ve fretted and struggled, overcome obstacles and hammered out details, gritting my teeth and keeping sight at the same time of the broader and more intricate context, whose remotest implications need to be thought through with a clear mind. Invariably my head is tired, and hunting with Baushan provides a necessary diversion. It cheers me up, revitalizes my creative energies and enables me to get through the rest of the day, during which there is still much to be done. I therefore offer this portrait in the spirit of gratitude.

  Naturally we don’t single out any one of the aforementioned types of game—hare or duck, for example—as the day’s exclusive quarry. Instead we hunt anything and everything that comes . . . I almost want to say, before our sights. We don’t have to go far to find it. The hunt literally begins as soon as we set foot outside the front yard, for the grassy hollow behind the house contains hordes of field mice and moles. Strictly speaking, these furry creatures aren’t wild game at all, but their secretive burrowing—especially the conspiratorial dexterity of the field mice, which, unlike the more subterranean moles, aren’t blinded by sunlight and often dawdle near the surface, darting back down their black holes so quickly at the approach of danger that their legs become a blur of motion—excites Baushan’s instinct for the chase nonetheless. Moreover, they are the only game Baushan ever catches: a field mouse or a mole is also a snack, not to be snubbed in days as lean as these, when he often finds nothing more by his doghouse than a small bowl of tasteless barley gruel.

  My walking stick has hardly touched the ground two or three steps down the lane, Baushan having kicked off our outing with a brief leaping romp, than I see him off to my right engaged in the strangest caprioles. The passion of the hunt already has him in its grasp, and he no longer sees or hears anything but the infuriatingly concealed activity of the surrounding wildlife. Muscles tensed, tail wagging, he creeps on tiptoed paws through the grass. He halts in mid-step, one front and one hind leg raised, and peers down his snout at the ground, his head cocked and the flaps of his pricked ears hanging down on either side of his eyes. He hops forward, gropes with his paws, once, twice, then stares suspiciously at the spot where something just was but isn’t anymore. Then he starts to dig . . . I feel a powerful urge to wait beside him until he achieves success, but we’d never make any progress, and he would squander all his pent-up desire for today’s hunt on this one meadow. So I continue on, not worrying about leaving him behind. Even if he lingers for some time and doesn’t see which way I’ve turned, my scent is no less clear to him than that of the wild game. He tracks me down with his head between his front paws, if he’s lost sight of me. Soon I hear the tinkling of his license medallion and his regular running footsteps to my rear; he shoots past, then turns round and reports back to me, wagging his tail.

  Nonetheless, sometimes in the forest or in the open fields near the brook I do stop and watch him dig for a mouse, even if it’s late and watching him wastes time allotted for my walk. His passionate labor is simply so captivating, his intense eagerness so contagious, that I can’t help but wish him success and gladly accept a certain sacrifice to be present when he achieves it. Externally there’s never anything special about the spot he’s chosen—perhaps some moss-covered mound shot through with birch roots. That, however, was where he heard, smelled, probably even saw something as it scurried away. He’s positive that it’s sitting in one of its underground tunnels or bunkers—he only has to find it. So he digs as fast as he can, abandoning himself to his task, utterly oblivious to the world, though his is more the precise passion of a sportsman than the frenzy of an amateur. It’s a splendid sight: his striped little body, arched in the middle, ribs clearly defined and muscles working away under smooth skin, his hindquarters stuck stiffly in the air, his stump of a tail oscillating at full tempo, his head buried between his front paws in the diagonally excavated hole. Face averted, he tears up the soil, turning it over as fast as his iron claws will go, sending clods of earth, little stones, clumps of grass and bits of root flying up under the brim of my hat. Meanwhile his snorts sound in the still air as his muzzle burrows further and further into the ground, besieging the clever, motionless, frightened creature underneath with his sense of smell. There are muffled, abrupt exhalations to clear the lungs and inhale, inhale the delicate, pungent, if also distant and hidden scent of the mouse. What must the little creature down there feel when it hears these dull snorts? That’s the mouse’s problem. Or better still, it’s between him and God, for it was God who made Baushan into the archenemy of field mice. On the other hand, fear enhances the sense of being alive, and the little mouse might be bored if Baushan weren’t around. If not for Baushan, there’d be no point to its beady-eyed cleverness and deft mining skill, for they ensure an extremely fair contest in which the attacker’s chances for victory remain decidedly bleak. In short, I feel no pity at all for the mouse and root wholeheartedly for Baushan. Often I cannot content myself with the role of mere spectator, intervening with my walking stick whenever a firmly imbedded stone or obstinate root impedes his progress, helping him in my prying, levering way to remove the obstacle. At such moments, he glances briefly up from his work with a harried and excitable look of approval. Plunging his beard back into the obstinate, root-infested soil, he bites and tears, shovels aside clods of earth, snorts once more into the depths and, fired by the scent, resumes his claws’ fast and furious labor . . .

  In the great majority of cases all this effort is fruitless. With a nose full of soil, mud splattered up to his shoulder
s, Baushan takes one last cursory sniff at the spot before giving up and indifferently moving on. “It was nothing, Baushan,” I tell him as he looks up at me. “It was nothing,” I repeat, shaking my head and shrugging to communicate the gist of what I’m saying. Yet there’s no need to console him: his lack of success doesn’t depress him in the slightest. The hunt is the important thing, not the feast. Anyway, it was a splendid bit of exercise, he thinks, that is, insofar as he thinks back at all upon the activity in which he was just now so fervently engaged, for in no time he will have found some new pursuit—opportunities for such positively abounding in all three zones.