Only the Animals (9 page)

‘I am Arjuna,' my Master said, smiling, and again, more loudly, ‘I am Arjuna.' A hundred eerie voices repeated his words, reverberating around the crypt.

‘Shall I read to you now?' Professor Wüst said to my Master. ‘I have a parable from the ancient Chinese sage Zhuangzi that I would like to share.'

This was part of their ritual. At the end of each session, my Master lay flat on his back on the floor in what Professor Wüst called ‘corpse pose', while the Professor read aloud to him.

‘Lie back, close your eyes, let the words infuse your being so that you may take the highest wisdom from them,' Professor Wüst said. ‘Breathe deeply, in and out, in and out.' He waited until my Master was still except for his chest rising with each breath; then he began to read:

Count Wenhui's cook was busy dismembering an ox. Every stroke of his hand, every lift of his shoulders, every kick of his foot, every thrust with his knee, every hiss of cleaving meat, every whiz of the cleaver, everything was in utter harmony – formally structured like a dance in the mulberry grove, euphonious like the tones of Jingshou.

‘Well done!' exclaimed the count. ‘This is craftsmanship indeed.'

‘Your servant,' replied the cook, ‘has devoted himself to Dao. This is better than craftsmanship. When I first began to dismember oxen, I saw before me the entire ox. After three years' practice, I no longer saw the entire animal. And now I work with my spirit, not my eyes. When my senses caution me to stop, but my spirit urges me on, I find my support in the eternal principles. I follow the openings and hollows, which, according to the natural state of the animal, must be where they are. I do not try to cut through the bones of the joints, let alone the large bones.

‘A good cook exchanges his cleaver for a new one once a year, because he uses it to cut. An ordinary cook exchanges it for a new one every month, because he uses it to hack. But I have been handling this cleaver for nineteen years, and even though I have dismembered many thousands of oxen, its edge is as keen as though it came fresh from the whetstone. There are always spaces between the joints, and since the edge of the cleaver is very thin, it is only necessary to insert it in such a space. Thus the gap is enlarged, and the blade finds enough places to do its work.

‘Nevertheless, when I come across a tough part, where the blade encounters an obstacle, I proceed with caution. First, I fix my eye on it. I hold back my hand. Gently I apply the blade until that part yields with a muffled sound like lumps of earth sinking to the ground. Then I withdraw my cleaver, rise, look around, and stand still, until I finally dry my cleaver with satisfaction and lay it carefully aside.'

‘Well spoken!' cried the count. ‘By the words of this cook I have learned how I must look after my life.'

That was the end of the parable that Professor Wüst read to my Master that day. I tried to think through what it might mean. It reminded me of something I had heard my Master say to his masseur once, while Herr Kersten was pounding the backs of his legs: ‘Herr Kersten, what do oppressed people learn from being oppressed? Do they learn compassion, kindness or empathy, a desire to prevent suffering in others? No! They learn only this: next time, get a bigger stick.'

*   *   *

It is difficult for me to tell of my exile from my Master, though I deserved to be punished for my unfaithfulness.

I had been unwell, and stayed alone in my Master's office in front of the fire while he walked in the woods outside.

A strange man entered the office and I felt immediate rage that he should dare to enter my Master's domain with such nonchalance. I warned him with a growl, and when he did not back away I jumped up at him, knocking him over, and framed his neck with my teeth. I could sense his neck artery pulsing, and if he had so much as twitched I would have pierced it.

But he lay on the floor for a long time without moving, until my adrenaline ebbed and I became aware of his subservience. When I opened my mouth slightly, still keeping my teeth close to his neck, he began to talk to me in a gentle voice, saying he was sorry he had upset me and that he respected my authority.

His voice was so soothing that it began to feel like an effort not to lie down beside him, which I did, and I let him stroke my back because he knew how to move his hand firmly in the direction of my fur growth, which I liked, and in my treacherous heart I thought of how my Master sometimes stroked me in the wrong direction. I was in such a trance that I did not notice my Master had returned.

He immediately realised my betrayal. ‘What have you done to my dog?' he said, very quietly.

The stranger sat up. ‘I am the veterinarian you sent for to tend to your dog, the one who is sick,' he said. ‘He tried to attack me. I had to calm him down.'

I went to my Master's side but he would not touch me. ‘You have deprived me of the only creature who is truly faithful to me!' he said to the stranger. ‘You have taken my companion away!'

The stranger was looking with fear at my Master, not understanding.

‘Arrest him!' my Master shouted to one of his guards.

I tried to lick my Master's hand but he was inconsolable, and ordered that I be taken away and never allowed to return. In disgrace, I was dragged outside the compound's gates by another guard.

How could I have been susceptible to the petty attentions of a human so much less worthy than my Master? With great shame, I ran into the woods and kept running all day and long into the evening, until my exhaustion eased my despair enough to let me fall asleep.

*   *   *

That night, the first snow of winter fell. I woke to find my coat dusted white beneath a beech bent sideways by decades of strong winds, snow silted along its motionless branches. All around were trees so old I could sense their profound lack of interest in the fleeting lives of other creatures.

I started to sniff around, hoping to catch the scent of some plant or another to eat, and noticed tracks on the snow leading deeper into an oak grove, tracks that looked like those of a deer. I tried to ignore them. I had attracted enough bad karma; I couldn't go back to eating meat. As I watched, new tracks were imprinted in the snow, looping around the nearest oak and out towards the beech again. Something spoke right in front of me.

‘Look more closely,' it said. ‘You can see me if you try.'

‘What are you? I can see nothing!'

‘Have you forgotten that it is your birthright to see the souls of the dead?'

‘Please stop!' I cried. ‘I cannot bear this!'

The voice was silent for a while. I could not move for fear, but those disembodied words recalled to me something I had once known. In the evenings, my Master had read aloud to me from a book of ancient Germanic folklore. A long time ago, when the great Hermann was in power, it was believed that dogs could see the souls of the dead in these forests. When a dog seemed to be howling at nothing, it meant a soul had approached.

I concentrated on the empty air above the closest set of tracks, and finally I saw an apparition so thin, so without substance, that it could have been powder blown from a branch.

‘What are you?' I asked again.

‘I am the soul of an auroch,' it said.

Its bovine silver form was becoming clearer. ‘What is an auroch?'

‘The true aurochs were wild ox-like creatures who lived in these woods until they were hunted to extinction a few centuries ago.'

‘Has your soul been here for that long?'

‘No,' the creature replied. ‘My kind was created more recently by the
Master of the German Forests, Herr Göring. He wished to repopulate these woods with aurochs so that the German people could know what the forests looked like long ago. His scientists crossed many types of deer and oxen. But not one of us survived in the wild.'

I thought then of my grandfather caught behind the mongrel bitch, of the shame he had been made to feel. ‘Why are you still here?' I asked. ‘Why haven't you been reincarnated?'

‘My life mate is dying. He is the last of us. I have come to accompany his soul.'

‘Where is he?'

‘If I told you, you would hunt and eat him,' the auroch said. ‘I want him to die in peace.'

I didn't explain to the auroch soul that I was a vegetarian. I let her pass by me and on through the snow between the dark trunks.

A day passed, and another night, and still I could find no living plants beneath the snow to ease my hunger. I ate some bark and it did nothing but make the gnawing pains worse.

Late in the day, at a distance, I saw a young fox crossing a river that had frozen solid, repeatedly laying its ear against the ice to listen to the water flowing beneath.

The last thing I remembered was admiring the gracefulness of the gesture. When I returned to myself, I realised with horror that I had made a meal of the fox in a frenzy, not only breaking my Master's taboo on eating meat, but disrespecting the human law against using dogs in the fox chase. My karma was polluted again. I had perhaps destroyed forever my chance at being reincarnated as a human being.

That night I slept beneath a pine and dreamed I was curled up on my Master's lap, small enough to fit across his thighs. My dream turned sinister. A thunderbolt was aimed at me from the sky, a weapon sent by the Aryan gods to kill me. I woke up shivering in the dark, remembering my Master's love of thunderstorms, his belief that bolts of lightning were gifts of power from these ancient gods.

*   *   *

In the morning, the forest's silence unnerved me. When I saw a new set of ghostly hoof prints
appearing in the snow, I was half glad for the company. I could just make out the outline of a pig against the evergreens.

‘Hello,' I said.

‘Good morning,' the pig replied. ‘I wasn't sure if you could see me.'

‘It is a new ability.'

‘Ah,' said the pig.

‘Tell me, pig, how did you die?' I asked.

‘That's a personal question,' the pig said.

‘Then at least tell me why you haven't yet been reincarnated.'

The pig soul stared at me, then burst out laughing.

‘I'm serious,' I said indignantly. ‘Don't you know about karma and reincarnation, that if you live a good, clean, brave life you will come back as a higher creature, even as a human?'

‘I don't know who has been telling you these things,' the pig soul said. ‘But you've got it all wrong. I don't think it works like that.'

‘My Master taught me everything I know. He is inspired by ancient India, and Hinduism, and … he's a vegetarian. He is the reincarnation of the warrior Arjuna, and the Aryan gods of light. He has the greatest mercy and compassion for animals. I haven't got it wrong, I assure you.'

‘My goodness me,' the pig said. ‘He's certainly covering his behind, isn't he? Is he a follower of Zen and Tibetan Buddhism too?'

‘Well, yes, I think so,' I said. ‘Of course he is.'

The pig looked at me closely. ‘You haven't been in the wild long, have you?' he said. ‘Your paws are soft.'

‘I was exiled,' I said. ‘I betrayed my Master.'

‘I am His Highness's dog at Kew; pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?' the pig said.

‘Pardon?' I said.

‘What I'm asking is, who is your Master?'

‘He is one of the leaders of this country, a great man, a gentle warrior, a protector of creatures great and small. Don't you know what he has done for you, for all animals? He has thought even of the fish in the rivers, of their suffering.'

The pig snorted. ‘The suffering of the
fish
?'

‘Yes. He and the other leaders have passed many laws to protect us animals. One of those laws is that water creatures can only be killed humanely.'

‘Oh? And what are these humane ways of killing?'

‘Fish must be stunned with a blow to the head or an electric current before being gutted,' I said. ‘Eels must have their hearts cut out before they can be slit from head to tail. Crustaceans must be killed by being dropped into boiling water, not painfully brought to the boil.'

‘A wise friend once told me that kindness, like cruelty, can be an expression of domination,' the pig said.

‘That makes no sense,' I said scornfully.

‘Look, dog, I will tell you how I died,' the pig said. ‘I think it might do you good to understand how confused humans can be. They have a tendency to mix things up.'

‘My Master is not to blame,' I said. ‘He loved me.'

The pig cleared his throat. ‘Once upon a time,' he said, ‘in a village in this very forest, there lived a farmer and his wife and young children. Though they were a modern family, they were encouraged by the men who had come to power to reconnect with ancient traditions of this land. One such tradition was to adopt a pig as a family member and raise it with affection. The family chose a piglet – me – and spoiled me with treats. I was allowed inside the farmhouse, and onto the children's beds, and at night I sat with my human family in front of the fire.'

The pig soul paused. ‘Are you listening?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘The children grew and I grew and the farmer and his wife grew older, and one day I could no longer fit through the front door,' he continued. ‘The family built a special pen for me outside, and fed me the best food scraps and visited me often. But over time, they forgot about me. The children found other things to occupy them once I was no longer a piglet. I was very lonely. I could sense that my body was changing, that my mind was not always my own – beastly impulses would surge in me, over which I had no control.

‘In the middle of a hard winter, the family sold me to another farmer in the village. I was put into a stinking shed with dozens of other pigs, but I didn't know how to interact with them. Sometimes I would fly into a rage for no reason, and when the rage released me I would find the other pigs huddled warily on the opposite side of the shed.