ONE MAN'S MEAT

ONE MAN'S MEAT
A story by Chris Whitley

There has always been certain places at certain times that have attracted people like myself. It's more a state of mind that's sought -- a niche where the fuzzy edges of life over lap, and the unexpected becomes both desired and lived. This I had found in the newly reunited Berlin. I loved its influx of peoples from both West and East, the unorthodox lifestyles, the none stop buzz of studios, galleries, cafés, and bars. I had the luxury of being able to divide my life pretty evenly between teaching English to make money, while being able to paint and write without financial pressure.
Alas, all this desiring and living could get a little hectic... A little relief would be occasionally needed. And where should a bohemian find a fitting retreat -- to get away from it all? You guessed it: a commune.
A commune in France – one of many, which over recent years have sprung up in the valleys of the Province – a place where you could find a silence.
A few weeks in the valley living among a small group of people,
who over the years had become good friends – served as a shift of rhythm away from the frenzy of the city, a kind of bubble insulated from the rest of life, a test tube with people in it.
Picture a valley long and deep. Close to one end stands a solitary, chalk stone house in a hundred and fifty hectors of woods, brush, and pasture. Wild boar and deer run free here, for there is little to disturb them.. Seven or eight regular members of the commune live there the whole year round, each playing their part to sustain the relaxed life they had made for themselves, and their many grateful Spring and Summer guests.
But of those, it was the gardener Mathieu with his many eccentricities, who immediately caught the attention of any newcomer. Unlike the others he chose not to live in the house. Preferring a design of his own, he had built a cabin of timber and mud nestled in the brush about five hundred yards from the house.
Around his cabin he had dug a higgledy-piggledy system of ponds and channels, stocked with fish and turtles. His prize collection of more than two hundred cacti lined the many paths. A complex strategy of stepping stones across the waterways led to his little wooden door, where a scull of a dog-fox hung to greet the visitor...
He must have been in his late twenties, sharp faced, with a dreamy inward look; until he smiled... He was tall and slim, but muscular, with brown unkempt shoulder length hair, with a too-long fringe, which he continually brushed back from his bright dark eyes; tucking it under his tall, black, weathered, and one size too large cowboy hat.
A true mother nature's son -- the only time he was not barefoot was those times he was digging in the garden. An image I'll always remember, was seeing Mathieu's old ex-army boots carefully placed beside a spade standing up right in a newly turned over part of the garden, where he had simply stepped out of them to go do something else. It was like that Van Gogh self portrait, which is nothing more than a scene of his favourite chair and his still smoking pipe...
To take a walk in the valley with Mathieu would quickly turn into a biology lesson. At every step he would notice something of interest, which needed to be explained: deer droppings, or a bird's nest no bigger than a cricket ball. His eye for detail, knowledge of plants and animals was phenomenal. I always felt we were moving through a story that Mathieu was reading and translating for me.
Yet, he was unworldly, some would say simple. I don't think he had ever travelled out the district. His English, which he had learnt while living on the streets of Marseilles as a teenager, after running away from the poor country life of his family, was limited, but didn't hinder his communication. Whether speaking broken English or French, both would be accompanied by his very own improvised mime. His face would display ever changing expressions, while his hands drew pictures in the air, in such an articulate manner that you could follow him perfectly.
Sometimes over the communal dinner, if a subject on the table interested him, he would begin one of his renowned talks, with as many as thirty intrigued listeners. Invariably, after speaking for a few minutes he would get to his feet, so as to be clearly seen by all, and so better understood. Everyone would soon be absorbed in his oration... He would step back from the table, and take up a more central position along the table's extent, to give himself more space, and to better reach the objects he would undoubtedly employ as props. These could be anything laying around: plates, cutlery, wine bottles, chairs, or even crumbs of bread. All manipulated in so fitting ways that you couldn't imagine them to be anything other than he intended them to be... His quick darting eyes would spot the perfect prop somewhere down the table, and in swift strides he would take it up in his expressive, busy hands to be included in the inventive mesmerising performance... such a talk could last a good hour.
Privately, Mathieu had an appetite for marijuana and pastis, and he always had a supply of both in his cabin. We would sometimes sit outside together till late in the evening, drinking, smoking, and entertaining all kinds of bazaar, but hilarious ideas. And thinking now about the life there, I feel it is time to return – for it's been two years – to the happy valley to recharge the batteries.
*****
My wife entered the room a few moments ago. After reading the story so far, she asked me with a very serious face why I'm really writing this story. I tried to explain that I wasn't sure... that the writing of a story was sometimes an inquiry, a way of finding out how you feel or think about something. 'Bullshit!' she said, before slamming the door behind her. Let me explain. Two months ago, my wife suddenly announced that she would no longer be eating meat. She said, she could no longer think of it without picturing the treatment and the killing of the animal. I asked her what had brought on this sudden change, to which, she explained, she had been thinking of it for a while, but now, just the sight of meat makes her feel sick.
I told her I understood her feelings, and since then, I've been cooking the meat for myself.
Last night, as we lay in bed, I had told her about a idea I had for a new story, which had actually happened a few years ago, which involves the subject of vegetarianism. I explained the basic plot, and most of the events has I remembered them. When I had finished she remained silent for a few moments before saying, she didn't find the idea very interesting, and thought it a bit pointless. I asked why, but she had merely rolled her eyes, and said, she was tired and wanted to sleep.
Things have not been good between us recently. I now realise she's taking the story personally... She thinks by writing the story, I'm criticising her sudden conversion. I admit, her unexpected baptism had brought to mind these events of my past, but I have no intention of taking up a position either for, or against. I see it solely as an exercise and a narrative.
*****

The commune in the spring and summer expanded with visiting friends, paying guests, and international youth groups on working holidays with their hip minders all camping around the house in their strikingly colourful tents.
I always tried to time my arrival in the valley to one or two weeks before the youth groups came; to guarantee a quiet period with just a few people, after which, I would be ready to see some new faces... The only duty I had as a paying guest – was possibly two or three times during my stay -- would be when my turn to work in the kitchen came up. Everyone took turns in twos to cook for a whole day. They had tried other systems, but this one had worked best.
During one of these quieter weeks before the work camps had arrived, I was on cooking duty with Melanie, a German girl I'd met there the year before. We had got along well together, and had become cooking partners. She was very beautiful, in her early twenties, with long blond dreadlocks, and amazing electric blue eyes.
The hardest part about cooking duties was to get up earlier than the workers to make sure there was plenty of hot coffee and tea, when they came to the table for a simple breakfast. After that you had plenty of time to wash up and start with the preparation of lunch, and again later for dinner.
In between cooking and cleaning Melanie and I talked about what we'd been doing since we last saw each other. I didn't have much news to report, but her life -- she explained – had drastically changed. She had been in India for six months, where she had met a German guy, whom she had fallen in love with. She aalso went on about the spiritual life in India, which had given them both a new consciousness, had influenced them both to become vegetarians. They couldn't bare the killing and eating of animals.
I'm a lot older than Melanie, and maybe too cynical, but being a teenager in the sixties I'd heard this story before... and although I didn't question her new found awareness, I took it with a pinch of salt.
We were in the kitchen finishing the washing up after a lunch of aubergine casserole, which Melanie had chosen for us to cook. I had decided on roast chicken for dinner, but after looking in the refrigerator, I realised that the one chicken we had, although large would not be enough for the nine of us, even excluding Melanie who would be making herself a vegetarian meal.
I rummaged through the freezer trying to find an alternative. One small rabbit and a pack of minced meat also would not help much. Melanie had gone outside to wash down the long table. I went across the corridor to the office to ask Emilia – who was doing the books -- if someone would be going to town this afternoon. She didn't know, but asked me what I wanted. I told her my problem. She told me there was no difficulty, she would ask Mathieu to kill another chicken. She explained they had far too many eggs every day from the hens, and that it doesn't pay to sell those we don't eat, because of the cost of delivery.
After selecting some vegetables in the kitchen, I went to the back of the house where Melanie was still washing the table, and talking to Mathieu, who was sat drinking water from a carafe. She was telling him also about her time in India. When he saw me he said smiling, 'Oho! tonight we eat the famous cook-in English, oui?
'Yes,' I said, 'but did Emilia tell you we need another chicken?'
'Oui! Oui! I take a big, big chick-en.'
'We don't really need another chicken, I could easily make something with vegetables...,' Melanie said in a matter of fact voice.
'No! no! We have too much chick-en.,' Mathieu said flapping his wings.
Melanie looking rather stern said, 'Mathieu, how can you look after those chickens, take their eggs, then just kill them because you have too many eggs?'
I wanted to tell her not to be so naive, but I bit my tongue. Mathieu looked at Melanie as if he was waiting for her to tell him the answer to this riddle, and then he looked at me puzzled. I said, 'Melanie is a vegetarian.'
'Oh oui! So you eat not the chick-en to-night?' he said smiling.
Melanie didn't try again, but looked angry and went back to washing the table.
'It's OK, Mel,' I said, 'I planned to cook chicken, and if it's not this one it would be some other from the market that would be under the axe (not the best choice of words). The word axe caught the attention of Mathieu who blurted out, 'No! no axe... afraid chick-en not good to eat!' His face described the taste.
'How do you kill it,' I asked 'with your hands?' I made a click with my thumb and fore finger.
'No, no, le rasoir.' He brought the back of his middle finger slowly across his throat.
Melanie stopped what she was doing, 'That is so brutal,' she shouted angrily, 'you are both enjoying it!'
'No bru-tal, chick-en not a-fraid, insisted Mathieu.'
'Scheiss Mensch!' She snapped, has she turned to walk back to the house.
'Melanie...' I pleaded.
She didn't look back, but went quickly into the house.
Mathieu and I could only look at each other a moment. I wondered how much he had understood from the discussion. Even if he had understood every word, I was certain he wouldn't of grasped her concern for the chicken... The way Mathieu seemed to look at it, chickens were no different than the vegetables in his garden... if you care for them they taste better.
I thought Melanie had come into conflict with a culture of innocence. Not the culture of someone like me, who is able to avoid the responsibility of taking a life by going to the supermarket to buy a pack of meat, butchered, and pleasantly packed by someone else, to take away the feeling of... what should we call it? Horror?
In Mathieu's culture, killing a chicken is like going down to the supermarket, there is no horror, only food.
Mathieu slapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Come I show, I kill chick-en not a-fraid. I didn't like the idea, but after all the fuss, I felt to say no would be somehow cowardly.
*****

As I sat down at the dinner table this evening to yet another virtual meatloaf (tofu nut-roast), I had all good intention of trying to clear the bad atmosphere created earlier. But my wife was the first to speak. She must have read further my ongoing story while I was out, because she said, she didn't like been referred to in the story only as: 'my wife'. And that it shows how little I respect her, or her opinion. So my wife's name is Susanne. It's not her real name, but it is a name... She is thirty-four, ten years younger than me, German, pretty, intelligent, and speaks excellent English. She works as a secretary for a solicitor here in Berlin. She also makes wonderful pottery.
We've been living together for over a year. We met through a mutual friend at an art exhibition three years ago. Susanne had recently come to work in Berlin from Hamburg, and was staying with a girlfriend, while she looked for a flat. We got on so well together, we decided to find and rent this apartment together. I wanted to move from East to West Berlin to get away from the life I describe in the story. In between teaching, I had began trying to write seriously, and needed to get out of that hectic scene. After first living together for a year as friends, we became lovers.
Judging from her mood, I now decided it wouldn't be a good time to talk about the story. So, I mentioned some other trivial matter. But before I'd finished my sentence, she cut in with, 'What makes you think – as a meat eater – you are qualified to write about vegetarianism?
'Perk of the job! I retorted. 'The writer gets to write what he wants, or dares... I laughed. 'Why,' I continued, 'do you think only veggies should get to write about it?'
'You're just trying to justify your meat eating,' she said sharply, 'and you're pissed off because I wont cook it for you any more...'
'Look Susanne, I'm not trying to justify anything, and I'm not pissed off. If I'm going to write, I've got to be able to write about what interests me -- or what's going on around me. I don't understand why you're taking it so personally, or why you find it so negative.'
'You really don't understand do you?' she said loudly. 'It's you who has made it personal with this story... I feel you're attacking my opinion; what I believe, how I feel. Why can't you simply accept that I'm a vegetarian?'
'I have accepted it; I made no fuss when you asked me to cook my own meat. Wasn't it me who brought the second fridge, so you didn't have to see it? I'm writing a story, not a letter to a newspaper singing the praise of red meat!'
'Oh yes...? that's it exactly,' she said calmly, 'not a newspaper, and not a letter, but the same.'
'A story doesn't have to take sides,' I insisted, 'it can just say what happened, or could happen!'
'So why don't you write it from the chicken's point of view?' She snapped. 'How would your super hero look then? Not exactly the Jolly Green Giant you make him sound like.'
'You used to like my stories.' I said offended. 'Anyway that's how Mathieu is...'
'You know I like what you write. I've told you many times. I just don't like this one! She said firmly.
I didn't reply. An awkward silence hung between us as we ate.
She finally said, 'I do like how you have now wrote me into this story. Maybe I'll get to give my point of view.'
She meant it to be an olive branch, which I took.
'Well you kind of just pushed your way into it.' I said with a smile.
We ate in silence again.
'Well, you know I'm going to finish it anyway...,' I said, getting up to get the salt and pepper from the kitchen.
'I knew you were going to say that!' She said quickly.
When I came back she looked a little thoughtful, then asked, 'You do understand why I gave up meat don't you?'
'Sure, I've told you.' I said. 'I'm sorry, Susana, but I don't feel that way..., then added, 'but I hope to god the scientists never discover that plants also feel pain. Can you imagine? They might invent a machine that can amplify the screams of a boiling cabbage. Then there would be nothing for you veggies to eat!
She rolled her eyes, but didn't smile, or reply.
'I'm going to a meeting tonight after pottery with Janet and Rob, she said.
'Who's Rob?' I asked.
'You know who he is... our pottery teacher.'
'Ah yeah, what kind of meeting?'
'It's about the demo we're going on tomorrow.'
'What! you're going on a demo? You've never been on a demo in your life!
'There's a first time for everything she said. 'Maybe I didn't feel strongly enough about anything before...'
'So what's the demo?' I asked.
'Meat is Murder!' She said calmly.
'What!' I shouted. I stopped eating. I dropped my knife and fork which clattered on the table. My eyes fixed on her, but she hadn't even looked up from her plate. I was so shocked. I could feel my face reddening. A silence followed. I couldn't speak. Then she said, 'So I'll stay at Janet's tonight, it will be easier to get there tomorrow.'
I was so angry I didn't want to listen to her any more, didn't want to look at her. I got to my feet and shouted, 'So now I'm a fucking murderer!' I didn't give her time to reply. I walked quickly into my room, slamming the door loudly behind me.
*****
Walking with Mathieu down to the hen house, I wondered if I'd made the right decision. It was not that I was afraid, but I knew it would be unpleasant. I resigned myself not to be squeamish.
As we approached the hen house the chickens rushed and flocked around us anticipating that our arrival meant food. Mathieu went directly to a small shed next to the hen house, unlocked the door, slipped inside closing the it quickly behind him to keep out those birds around his feet franticly trying to get in. He left me waiting outside with the chickens.
As I looked back towards the house. I saw Melanie standing in the shadow at the side of the house watching me. She was too far away to speak to, so I raised my hand. She didn't acknowledge me, but turned and walked back into the house.
I heard Mathieu banging around in the shed. When he came out he had a metal pale half filled with wheat, which he began scattering in handfuls to the birds racing hungrily in pursuit.
I sat beside Mathieu on a bench with our backs against the shed, while the chickens gathered around us waiting for the next handful to be flung to them. When it didn't come many hopped up on the bench, and into our laps to get nearer to the source.
Mathieu now only dropped corn around his feet, and began eyeing them, as more and more came closer to us. He suddenly said, 'The black, and took a small amount of grain in his hand and carefully threw it close to a large black hen pecking the ground about two metres from us among a patch of reds.
Yes, she was big, and distinct, with the large blood red flags of her wattles and cone, and piercing orange eyes intensified against her contrasting shiny black head. In the strong sunlight her every movement caused a shift in her plumage from black to a shimmering of iridescent green.
Now there was a victim my feeling of discomfort intensified. I asked myself, if this was down to me -- if it were me who had to do this, would I be here now? And of course, the answer was no... But at the same time I thought, if I'd eaten nothing but vegetables for weeks, then the answer may well become yes.
Mathieu now began favouring the black hen with small handfuls of corn, thrown always a little closer to him, until she was eating from his hand. Then the grain-filled hand withdrew little by little, and eagerly she fluttered up on to the bench to follow it.
Once she had stepped into his lap he began petting her, stroking her neck, while she ate from his hand.
After a few moments he suddenly said, 'Come!' He carefully took the hen in his arm and carried her into the shed, letting me in first, then once again closing the door quickly behind him to keep the rest of the frantic birds out. He led me through another door into a even smaller room, half full with sacks of corn. I couldn't help thinking, 'Chickens' paradise!'
The only light came from a small window at one end of the room. A fusty smell hung in the cool air. Mathieu placed the hen on the floor with a small amount of grain she was happy to peck at, while he took another pale from a shelf, placing it in front of a chair by the window. He bent over a cardboard box by the door, took out a slim roll of white cloth, about twelve inches long, which he trapped beneath the outside of his thigh as he sat down in the chair to watch the hen.
I sat on a few of the sacks to his right, and wondered if it wasn't too late to call it all off-- simply tell Mathieu, that I'd change my mind, that I'd cook something else. But again, I knew at the same time that I wouldn't.
Mathieu took up the pale of wheat and encouraged the bird to come to him again. Once on his knees, he placed the second pale between his feet, and concentrated on stroking and talking to her, while she ate from his other hand.
He began caressing her lower throat with his right hand; tucking his fingers under her feathers to reach the skin. She seemed to slip into a kind of bliss, at times even forgetting to eat.
Mathieu's hidden finger now ran to and fro across the contented throat. Now and again he would nip the skin between his thumb and forefinger, making her body jerk, a little startled for a moment, but each time soon settling again under the spell of Mathieu's gentle strokes.
Then for an instant I saw it! a flash of white mother of pearl in his hand -- a glimmer of steel quickly disappearing under the feathers. Then another surprised jerk of the body and alerted look, that once again was calmed away by Mathieu's careful touch and soothing voice.
For a moment there was no outward signs that anything had happened. I wondered if it had been only a trail run. Then I heard the first plopping sound in the pale between Mathieu's feet -- the beat of her heart externalised – metronomic -- saw the large red spots quickly gathering in the bottom of the bucket -- the growing bib of red dulling the shine of her black feathers at her throat. The hair on the back of my neck rose and my skin crawled. A sweet, sickly pungent sink hit my nostrils -- the walls closed in on me, and I thought I might vomit. I looked at the ceiling and missed the sky -- no escape. Listening to Mathieu still talking in a kind of singsong voice helped a little to distract me from the quickening beat of falling blood.
When I looked again, she had fluffed out all her feathers, but looked only sleepy in Mathieu's ever stroking hands.
I needed a cigarette to clam, or distract me. I pulled out a packet, and lit two, and gave one to Mathieu. We sat and smoked without speaking, and waited.
*****

Susanna didn't come home on Saturday or Sunday. She didn't ring, and I couldn't ring her, because she'd left her cell phone -- something she never does. I don't have Janet's or Rob's number. So I'd been ill with worry the whole weekend. I tried to reach her at work this morning; Monday, but they told me, she'd called in sick. So at least I knew she was alive, and not in hospital, prison or anything.
I've been trying to understand what's going on. This isn't about the story. As I said earlier, things haven't been so good between us for a while. To tell the truth, we haven't made love for months... four months. We haven't really talked about it... She always made an excuse, and I never questioned her, I just let things slide.
After she had gone on Friday, I thought about something... she had never mentioned before, that Rob The Potter, was a vegetarian. Mow they were going on the demo together. So why hadn't she mentioned it before? When she became a new convert... so, is he the converter? I remember how she had first talked about him, when she had joined the pottery workshop. How she said, she had been mesmerised by his delicate hands caressing the spinning clay on the wheel.
Susanna has been going to the pottery workshop for six months. She goes three nights a week, but recently she has also been going out weekends, she said, with Janet, who she also met at the workshop.
Now! I can imagine the more logical minded readers among you claiming that all this means nothing -- only circumstantial -- but as Thoreau said, 'Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.'
*****
Mathieu and I finished our cigarettes as the drumming in the pale slowed to an occasional drip. The hen's neck now lay with a rag doll limpness in his hand. 'Cold,' he said, and flicked the neck. I took this to mean I didn't have to stay any longer. I was so relieved to leave.
Outside in the sunshine I took a few deep breaths, and sat on the bench trying to regain my composure. Mathieu came out and told me he would clean the chicken and bring it over to the kitchen. I wandered back to the house lost in thought.
What was I to make of it? What had I expected? Was this a better alternative than the axe? True, the violence and pain had been kept to a minimum, at least physically, but this deceit matched the horror, that was still there! Was this slight of hand only Mathieu's eccentric rationalising way of dealing with the horror? His reasoning -- It tastes better without fear. What is this horror? A reminder of our own doom? Is this it? Our own fear we long to disarm, by ritual, or by leaving it to others less sensitive, or by not eating meat at all? And is our persistant avoidance of the awareness of our collective fate also a part of being human? Anything, but deal with the knowledge of our mortality?

That evening, I cooked the chicken. It didn't taste any different from other times. Whenever someone complimented me on the cooking, I was reminded of Mathieu's theory.
Melanie and I didn't talk much over the next days. She found another vegetarian as a cooking partner when the following week the first work group came. I left the following week and I never saw her again.

I came from school around six. As soon as I opened the apartment door I could smell Susanna's perfume. But she wasn't there... She had been there -- an envelope lay on the kitchen table with my name on it. I didn't read it at first, because I knew what it meant, knew that she had gone for good -- that all my suspicions had been true.
I went into the bedroom and found that she'd taken all her clothes. I lay on the bed. I wished only to sleep -- to not to be there. But I couldn't stop thinking about the envelope waiting for me -- to deliver the final cut.
I returned to the kitchen and opened the letter, which contained her door keys and a half page letter.
It was as I'd suspected. She was sorry -- sorry she'd hurt me-- that she hadn't told me sooner. Sorry she'd chosen to end it this way, but she didn't want to fight with me, when she knew it wouldn't do any good -- it wouldn't change anything. She said that we hadn't ever really loved each other -- that our relationship had been one of warmth, respect, understanding, and of mutual connivance, one of give and take. Only everything had suddenly changed for her -- but it hadn't been anything I'd none -- I had nothing to blame myself for. Finally she asked me to forgive her deceit.
I thought about what she'd had written -- about our relationship, Yes, it was true, we had never really fallen in love. But I thought we hat trust. I thought we were friends... Would I have done it to her if our positions were reversed? I hoped not.
So I've lost a friend. And it hurts like hell. I hope I can forgive her. But at the moment I just can't deal with it. I don't even want to be here. As I said earlier, perhaps it's time to go back to the valley again just for a few weeks -- just to get away.

Chris Whitley
Berlin 2000
Please let me know what you think
Chrisnwhitley@yahoo.co.uk