One summer morning after all of these small but essential rituals were accomplished, Fidelis began the primary business of that day — he was to kill a prize sow belonging to the Mecklenbergs and de-create her into rib chops, tenderloin, hams, hocks, pickled feet, fatback, bacon, and sausages. The sow had spent the night in the holding pen and was at present in a rage of hunger. For the first time in her life her morning squeals did not bring a bucket of slops. Instead, of course, she would be killed. The pig was more intelligent than the dog, Hottentot, who waited just beyond the fence to snatch whatever of her was left after the humans took her apart. The pig would certainly have learned a great deal from the coming encounter, but pigs get only one chance to experience the great perfidy of humans. And the betrayal is so swift and final that it comes upon each one of them as though it were the first ever to suffer such a surprising fate. Still, as this sow was perhaps smarter than most, she had more than an inkling that things were not right. Perhaps other sows and boars before her had written final messages in scent. Perhaps she read the avid air of Hottentot. Or maybe the entire unprecedented situation made her uneasy and then more belligerent than usual, because, when Fidelis entered the pen with his 32–20 rifle, which he intended to press directly to her skull, she trotted, huge on tiny legs but still surprisingly agile, to the opposite side of the pen.
From there, she eyed the man, who carried no food, with bleak suspicion. Fidelis cursed in exasperation, and called Franz to help him drive the pig up the chute, where she would be confined, killed, winched into a tub for scalding, scraped, cooled, split, and eviscerated. Knowing all that was to come, Hottentot began a maddened, frenzied barking that set the pig into a rage of horror to escape. Poked through the fence by Franz’s stick, she minced forward a few nervous steps. Fidelis jumped behind her and let out an awful bellow that was meant to drive her into the narrow confinement of the chute. She didn’t go there, but cleverly circled all the way around the pen to a place, this time, where no stick from behind would reach. There she stood her ground, shuddering, understanding now that something was very wrong. The comfortable life she’d led so far had not prepared her for the strangeness of the situation, but her prize-winning heritage made her cunning. Fidelis prodded sideways at her, but she moaned savagely back at him, and evaded his kick. He spent his breath chasing her through the muck. He slipped, covered himself in slime, swore viciously, recovered. Fidelis rushed at the pig, flapping his apron. Startled, she sidled away. He got the upper hand by continuing to flourish the cloth, mystifying her, driving her where he wanted her to go. Then suddenly she entered the chute and he slammed down the gate.
Fidelis then made the mistake of clambering over the side of the chute, carrying his rifle, and dropping into the confined area along with the pig. He touched down lightly on the other side. As he turned to face the sow, meaning simply to walk up to her and kill her as he’d done with so many others, she charged him. Screaming, she bolted down the narrow incline, broke his kneecap with her crooked brow, and sank her teeth into the flesh just above. As she ripped down, shredding Fidelis’s canvas trousers, and skin to bone, Fidelis gave an anguished roar that, along with the shrill, keening attack shrieks of the pig, brought Franz bolting to the side of the chute. For one endless moment he thought that the sow, whose clenched teeth had parted when Fidelis brought the butt of his rifle down upon her head, would close in again and devour his father. She did have the advantage. While Fidelis lurched back trying to turn the rifle around to shoot, the pig charged again, destroying what was left of his knee with another lurching bite. She then repaired to her corner, red-eyed, bleary with hatred, sobbing. And all this time the eager barks of Hottentot, hungry, goaded her, as though the dog were capable of communicating to the pig a twisted fatalism. She tried to charge again, but this time Franz managed to jam a board between her and Fidelis. Temporarily thwarted, she backed off and in that moment of hesitation Fidelis was able to push the barrel of his gun between her eyes and pull the trigger.
There was a huge blast of noise, which delighted Hottentot and dazzled Franz. The sow collapsed with a murmur of sorrow, and straightway Fidelis hobbled over to chain her to the winch and haul her to the iron tub. As he did so, a sudden strangeness boiled up in him, a load of nameless feeling unconnected to his physical pain. This was mental, it was sorrow, he wanted to lie down in the muck and weep. Hot tears poured in a shocking stream from his eyes and dripped down his face. Abruptly, he ordered Franz away. He was bewildered, since he had not cried since he was a boy, and even during the war hadn’t broken down like this. But in spite of his attempt to control himself, he wept, angry at his helpless grief, and was all the more horrified to realize that he wept for the sow. How could that be? He had killed men. He had seen them die. His best friend had died beside him. No tears. What sort of man was he to weep, now, for a pig? Angry, he stayed with the creature after that, tending to every detail of her butchering. Although his knee was an agonizing rip of information — he knew it would never be the same — he kept moving. If he stopped to let the knee stiffen, he would be crippled, he thought, and so only late into the afternoon did he quit and then only because Eva forced him. His last act before leaving for Doctor Heech’s office was to provide Hottentot with the stomach of the pig and a huge intestinal wad that the dog, unable to eat all at once, dragged back home.
SITTING ON A sheet-covered bench in the examining room, Fidelis absently hummed a mocking song to take his mind off the agony in his knee. “Ich bin der Doktor Eisenbart.” Heech raised his sleek brows, frowned, and said, “I know that song. ‘Ich mache dass die Blinden gehen und dass die Lahmen wieder sehen.’” Fidelis tried to laugh but the sound came out a gasp. The lame will see, the blind will walk. He’d bound his knee, tight, in an apron and used the strings to secure the improvised bandage.
“Let’s see what you’ve done now,” muttered Heech, cutting the knotted strings. Fidelis almost asked Heech to save the apron, but realized that Heech would have ignored him, or even taken it as an insult. With sure hands, the doctor unwound the mutilated fabric, and sighed when a thick flap of Fidelis’s flesh stuck to the last fold. “A miracle of engineering,” he shook his head. He was prone to lecturing. “Kaput.” A favorite word of his. Heech frowned in concentration and began a close examination of the wound. The doctor had beautiful hair, of which he was slightly vain. Thick and glossy curls flopped down over his forehead. He loved anatomy and his walls were decorated with painstaking watercolors of the muscles, bones, and digestive and reproductive systems, pictures that he himself had painted. As he assessed Fidelis’s shattered knee and the ripped musculature that had kept the cap in place, he planned how to fix the rips and tears just as a woman does when thrown a half-destroyed pair of boy’s pants. Fidelis was looking at his own knee, too. His thoughts were different. They were a butcher’s observations. Here, he’d slice. There, he’d skin, use the edge of the knife, the point. In no time he’d have a modest dinner joint with just enough fat to lard the meat. Fidelis banged his skull with his hand to clear it and nearly passed out. The song he’d been singing to himself screamed in his brain. Heech helped him to lie back on the bench.
“Breathe,” said Heech, “but do not pass out on me.” He fit an india rubber cup over the butcher’s face.