DieterM
10-17-2010, 07:11 AM
We were simple farmers.
Our little cottage lay in the middle of green and softly rolling lands, which provided us with what we needed to survive. Dad would stand up at dawn to work in the fields while I stayed at home, cleaned up the main room and prepared our meals.
We had a farmhand called Hans, who helped my father. He was a taciturn, square fellow. One day, he had stood in the doorframe, declaring, ‘I’ve come to assist ye, farmer Will.’ Since that day, we had not heard him say much more.
My father could certainly need a helping hand. He was getting old, but his male pride prevented him from accepting my frequent offers to aid him. He was a calm and peaceful man, never one to talk much. You did not need many words, in these lands. I knew he was very sensible, even if he tried to hide it. The death of my mother had affected him a lot; yet, he had proven a precious support to lean on during those hard times.
Our farm was situated in a forlorn corner of the valley. My father always felt uneasy when surrounded by too many people. He preferred to listen to the winds whisper in the firs, the raindrops gently tap a leave before falling to the ground, the birds chatter high up in the breeze. I had got used to the silence and loneliness of our lands. Our neighbours lived in a good distance. They had withdrawn to this part of the world for the same reasons my father had, long ago. They all had opted for the sane and simple lives of hermit farmers. We rarely saw each other but our sparse contacts were cordial and friendly.
The nearest village lay behind the forest. My father would only travel there when a particularly generous summer had provided us with an exceptional harvest. He would exchange vegetables and grain for tools and other things we could not produce ourselves.
My father loved nature more than anything else, perhaps with the exception of my late mother and me. He had learned to read the secrets of the winds and the rain. In our little garden, he had planted several herbs whose wholesome, healing nature only he seemed to know. Sometimes, people would show up because they had heard of his knowledge and needed a potion or a powder to cure some minor ailing. Most of the time, it would be one of the neighbours, but from time to time, a villager would stand on the threshold, shyly turning his hat between his hands and asking for help.
My father would never chase away anyone. The people sometimes stayed for quite a while, amazed by the tranquillity and beauty of the place, drinking their potions and lending a helping hand as soon as they felt better. Eventually, after a week, ten days, they would return to the village, some of them showing the peacefulness and calm my father exuded; others fleeing as if afraid they might be too captivated by our way of living if they stayed for too long.
Then came the Long Drought.
For two years, no rain would fall, no morning dew would moisten the fields. The soil would dry out, the wide valley would show the wrinkled, brown, cracked face of an old man. No bird would sing, the deer would disappear. We had to use our stocks with parsimony and intelligence for we did not know when we would be able to sow, let alone bring in a harvest.
When the third year began and there was still no sign of rain clouds in the blue sky, a delegation of villagers arrived on the farm.
‘Where’s your father?’ they asked me.
I knew many of them because they had come to see my father before, when they had needed a herbal potion. The blacksmith, for instance, or the tailor, or the village Elderman. I sent them to the back of the cottage where my father was attending to the herbs that, miraculously, had not withered yet. Then, I pretended to work near the open back-window. I was curious to find out what they wanted.
‘Something has to be done!’ I heard them say to my father. ‘Our children go hungry, we don’t have no more food, our wells are almost empty, and still no rain in sight!’
My father listened to their complaints, nodding calmly, before asking, ‘Why do you come to see me? What am I supposed to do?’
The Elderman spoke up: ‘People say you know the secret passages of spring, the powers and harmonies of nature, that you speak to the air and that you can drum the rhythm of the earth. That’s why we have come. You must help us!’
My father sighed. ‘Are you sure you really want me to do that?’ he finally asked. No one uttered an answer, but I imagined their eager nods, their hopeful gazes lying on my father’s face. ‘So be it,’ he replied. ‘Nature must be helped to offer us a harvest, this year. Tomorrow, it will rain.’ When they wanted to thank him, he dismissed their gratitude, ‘Thank nature, not me. It’s not me who will send you the rain we all hope for…’ With these words, he sent them away.
In the evening, I helped him pick the herbs we would need. We cleaned and cut them. Hans got the huge copper pot from the attic and hung it over the bonfire my father had lit in front of the cottage. We poured the last buckets of water I had brought up from our well. When the water was boiling, my father and Hans carried the heavy pot through the fields. I walked behind them. Near the forest, we stopped.
‘Now,’ my father said. I threw the herbs into the bubbling water. The mixture steamed and fumed and sent huge, black clouds to the windless, starlit night sky.
‘Tomorrow,’ my father declared, ‘we’ll see the rain clouds come back.’ Hans nodded without saying a word; I just kept stirring the potion, calmly and with regular movements.
The next morning dawned as clear and bright as the mornings before. But at noon, I noticed the first bulging black clouds on the horizon. Soon, the sky was veiled and fat raindrops fell on the thirsty lands. I kissed my father on the forehead; Hans shook his hand, mute but thankful.
That evening, four villagers brought us a pig they had killed for us. We roasted it and bid them stay and eat with us. Before they returned to the village, they profusely thanked my father, who looked down at his feet, embarrassed.
The rain did not stop for two whole weeks. The fields sighed with relief, and got drunk. All around us, nature bloomed; the grass spread on the hills; the leaves, lush and green, garnished the naked trees’ branches.
After the two weeks, another delegation from the village showed up.
‘You can stop the rain now,’ they said. ‘The wells are full again, the fields are ready, we’ll have a rich harvest. Enough is enough!’
My father replied: ‘We have to wait another two weeks. The soil has not drunk enough; the animals have yet to find back to their old rhythm, the grains need more water still to grow. The rain will stop in two weeks. I need not intervene this time.’
Nevertheless, the villagers did not look satisfied. Again and again, they asked my father to stop the rain. They called him arrogant and stubborn and menaced him. My father listened to them, as calmly as ever, without budging. He dismissed them after having repeated the same advice he had already given.
‘You’ll regret your attitude, farmer Will, just you wait and see!’ the villagers yelled when they finally left.
Three days later, the village constables appeared. They took my father with them. I stayed back with Hans, confused and scared.
The rain continued.
A neighbour came to see me the day after my father’s arrest. ‘They still want him to stop the rain from falling,’ he said. ‘It’s madness! Your father keeps refusing, so they charged him with witchcraft. They will execute him today. I’m sorry.’
I cried out loud.
The farmer hugged me and slipped away through the dark day.
That afternoon, a lightning parted the rain, more violent than any lightning I had ever seen. It struck the herbal garden, leaving a round patch of burned plants and soil. I knew that my father had been killed.
Tearless, covered in black, I ran through the cottage and destroyed all the furniture. I felt beyond myself with grief. Hans watched me in silence. Only when I had finished and lay on the floor, exhausted and weeping and writhing like a worm, he lifted me up, embraced me, kissed my hair. Then, he opened the door and disappeared in the forest.
Over the next weeks, villagers kept knocking on my door, complaining about the rain, yelling that my father had cursed them, begging me to help them, begging me to make the rain stop.
I remained deaf to their pleas, sitting behind the locked door. At night, I often dreamt of my father.
Then, the villagers did not show up anymore. The path had been flooded.
It continued raining.
Soon, fish were swimming where the blooming meadows had lain. Seashells stuck to the walls, seaweed drifted before the cottage.
I moved to the attic.
Before long, I had to climb onto the roof. I sat there, shivering under my wet blankets, cold rain streaming down my face, my body. There was water all around me. I saw the bodies of drowned cattle and of drowned people float by.
I did not know for how long I was sitting on the roof.
The water reached my throat and kept mounting. Fish grazed my members. Seaweed coated my shoulders. The water felt warm and cosy, like my father’s embrace.
The crown of a walnut-tree stood out like a hand. It seemed to wave, don’t be afraid, come…
Father, father, why have you left me?
Our little cottage lay in the middle of green and softly rolling lands, which provided us with what we needed to survive. Dad would stand up at dawn to work in the fields while I stayed at home, cleaned up the main room and prepared our meals.
We had a farmhand called Hans, who helped my father. He was a taciturn, square fellow. One day, he had stood in the doorframe, declaring, ‘I’ve come to assist ye, farmer Will.’ Since that day, we had not heard him say much more.
My father could certainly need a helping hand. He was getting old, but his male pride prevented him from accepting my frequent offers to aid him. He was a calm and peaceful man, never one to talk much. You did not need many words, in these lands. I knew he was very sensible, even if he tried to hide it. The death of my mother had affected him a lot; yet, he had proven a precious support to lean on during those hard times.
Our farm was situated in a forlorn corner of the valley. My father always felt uneasy when surrounded by too many people. He preferred to listen to the winds whisper in the firs, the raindrops gently tap a leave before falling to the ground, the birds chatter high up in the breeze. I had got used to the silence and loneliness of our lands. Our neighbours lived in a good distance. They had withdrawn to this part of the world for the same reasons my father had, long ago. They all had opted for the sane and simple lives of hermit farmers. We rarely saw each other but our sparse contacts were cordial and friendly.
The nearest village lay behind the forest. My father would only travel there when a particularly generous summer had provided us with an exceptional harvest. He would exchange vegetables and grain for tools and other things we could not produce ourselves.
My father loved nature more than anything else, perhaps with the exception of my late mother and me. He had learned to read the secrets of the winds and the rain. In our little garden, he had planted several herbs whose wholesome, healing nature only he seemed to know. Sometimes, people would show up because they had heard of his knowledge and needed a potion or a powder to cure some minor ailing. Most of the time, it would be one of the neighbours, but from time to time, a villager would stand on the threshold, shyly turning his hat between his hands and asking for help.
My father would never chase away anyone. The people sometimes stayed for quite a while, amazed by the tranquillity and beauty of the place, drinking their potions and lending a helping hand as soon as they felt better. Eventually, after a week, ten days, they would return to the village, some of them showing the peacefulness and calm my father exuded; others fleeing as if afraid they might be too captivated by our way of living if they stayed for too long.
Then came the Long Drought.
For two years, no rain would fall, no morning dew would moisten the fields. The soil would dry out, the wide valley would show the wrinkled, brown, cracked face of an old man. No bird would sing, the deer would disappear. We had to use our stocks with parsimony and intelligence for we did not know when we would be able to sow, let alone bring in a harvest.
When the third year began and there was still no sign of rain clouds in the blue sky, a delegation of villagers arrived on the farm.
‘Where’s your father?’ they asked me.
I knew many of them because they had come to see my father before, when they had needed a herbal potion. The blacksmith, for instance, or the tailor, or the village Elderman. I sent them to the back of the cottage where my father was attending to the herbs that, miraculously, had not withered yet. Then, I pretended to work near the open back-window. I was curious to find out what they wanted.
‘Something has to be done!’ I heard them say to my father. ‘Our children go hungry, we don’t have no more food, our wells are almost empty, and still no rain in sight!’
My father listened to their complaints, nodding calmly, before asking, ‘Why do you come to see me? What am I supposed to do?’
The Elderman spoke up: ‘People say you know the secret passages of spring, the powers and harmonies of nature, that you speak to the air and that you can drum the rhythm of the earth. That’s why we have come. You must help us!’
My father sighed. ‘Are you sure you really want me to do that?’ he finally asked. No one uttered an answer, but I imagined their eager nods, their hopeful gazes lying on my father’s face. ‘So be it,’ he replied. ‘Nature must be helped to offer us a harvest, this year. Tomorrow, it will rain.’ When they wanted to thank him, he dismissed their gratitude, ‘Thank nature, not me. It’s not me who will send you the rain we all hope for…’ With these words, he sent them away.
In the evening, I helped him pick the herbs we would need. We cleaned and cut them. Hans got the huge copper pot from the attic and hung it over the bonfire my father had lit in front of the cottage. We poured the last buckets of water I had brought up from our well. When the water was boiling, my father and Hans carried the heavy pot through the fields. I walked behind them. Near the forest, we stopped.
‘Now,’ my father said. I threw the herbs into the bubbling water. The mixture steamed and fumed and sent huge, black clouds to the windless, starlit night sky.
‘Tomorrow,’ my father declared, ‘we’ll see the rain clouds come back.’ Hans nodded without saying a word; I just kept stirring the potion, calmly and with regular movements.
The next morning dawned as clear and bright as the mornings before. But at noon, I noticed the first bulging black clouds on the horizon. Soon, the sky was veiled and fat raindrops fell on the thirsty lands. I kissed my father on the forehead; Hans shook his hand, mute but thankful.
That evening, four villagers brought us a pig they had killed for us. We roasted it and bid them stay and eat with us. Before they returned to the village, they profusely thanked my father, who looked down at his feet, embarrassed.
The rain did not stop for two whole weeks. The fields sighed with relief, and got drunk. All around us, nature bloomed; the grass spread on the hills; the leaves, lush and green, garnished the naked trees’ branches.
After the two weeks, another delegation from the village showed up.
‘You can stop the rain now,’ they said. ‘The wells are full again, the fields are ready, we’ll have a rich harvest. Enough is enough!’
My father replied: ‘We have to wait another two weeks. The soil has not drunk enough; the animals have yet to find back to their old rhythm, the grains need more water still to grow. The rain will stop in two weeks. I need not intervene this time.’
Nevertheless, the villagers did not look satisfied. Again and again, they asked my father to stop the rain. They called him arrogant and stubborn and menaced him. My father listened to them, as calmly as ever, without budging. He dismissed them after having repeated the same advice he had already given.
‘You’ll regret your attitude, farmer Will, just you wait and see!’ the villagers yelled when they finally left.
Three days later, the village constables appeared. They took my father with them. I stayed back with Hans, confused and scared.
The rain continued.
A neighbour came to see me the day after my father’s arrest. ‘They still want him to stop the rain from falling,’ he said. ‘It’s madness! Your father keeps refusing, so they charged him with witchcraft. They will execute him today. I’m sorry.’
I cried out loud.
The farmer hugged me and slipped away through the dark day.
That afternoon, a lightning parted the rain, more violent than any lightning I had ever seen. It struck the herbal garden, leaving a round patch of burned plants and soil. I knew that my father had been killed.
Tearless, covered in black, I ran through the cottage and destroyed all the furniture. I felt beyond myself with grief. Hans watched me in silence. Only when I had finished and lay on the floor, exhausted and weeping and writhing like a worm, he lifted me up, embraced me, kissed my hair. Then, he opened the door and disappeared in the forest.
Over the next weeks, villagers kept knocking on my door, complaining about the rain, yelling that my father had cursed them, begging me to help them, begging me to make the rain stop.
I remained deaf to their pleas, sitting behind the locked door. At night, I often dreamt of my father.
Then, the villagers did not show up anymore. The path had been flooded.
It continued raining.
Soon, fish were swimming where the blooming meadows had lain. Seashells stuck to the walls, seaweed drifted before the cottage.
I moved to the attic.
Before long, I had to climb onto the roof. I sat there, shivering under my wet blankets, cold rain streaming down my face, my body. There was water all around me. I saw the bodies of drowned cattle and of drowned people float by.
I did not know for how long I was sitting on the roof.
The water reached my throat and kept mounting. Fish grazed my members. Seaweed coated my shoulders. The water felt warm and cosy, like my father’s embrace.
The crown of a walnut-tree stood out like a hand. It seemed to wave, don’t be afraid, come…
Father, father, why have you left me?