Not QUITE the Classics (9 page)

INSPIRED BY MARY SHELLEY'S

FRANKENSTEIN

I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic.
Our name is spoken with reverence in every corner of our country, with a tone usually reserved for royalty or clergy. For as long as the mighty Rhone has fed the crystalline waters of Lake Geneva on its way to France (like a drunken tourist in search of Gallic grapes), our family has supplied Switzerland with chickens for its roasting pans, eggs for its larders, and feathers for its pallets. Whether prosperous or beggarly, the Swiss have enjoyed the fruits of my family's labor for hundreds of years.

The grandest poultry farm in Europe—nay, the world—sits upon five acres of verdant alpine meadow, bordered on three sides by immense forests of beech and oak, and on the fourth by a majestic cliff that overlooks Lake Geneva. It is a glorious place. Edelweiss, gentians, and buttercups dot the meadow in the spring and summer. In the fall, russet and amber leaves fall to the forest floor, while through the winter months, snow drapes the gingerbread eaves of my Swiss chalet in softest folds of white.

A stone's throw from the chalet, nestled against a copse of beech, is the Great Barn, rough timbered and sturdy. Step through the open doors and hear a cacophony of industry—clucking, rustling, fluttering industry. In the slanting sunlight, sparkling with dust motes, sit the finest Appenzellers and Schweizers in the world. Row upon row, handsome blue-legged specimens with well-spread tails, full hackles, and tight, glossy black plumage roost in splendor.

The rearing of chickens is a noble, time-honored tradition, but one that comes with its share of misconceptions. The general populace thinks of chickens as the great dullards (not to mention the great cowards) of all of God's creatures. Who among us has not harshly judged the species after watching a sturdy specimen peck the eyes from a weakened brother? Scatter and cluck at the first sign of trouble? Defecate on its feet, and then trample its offspring? (A German gentleman in town did the very same, but it was agreed he was a very troubled soul.)

Who among us has not thought, “A chicken's only purpose is to provide meat and eggs”? And in general, I must agree, for my livelihood depends upon it. A chicken's life has little meaning outside the farm wife's skillet, and yet—and yet it is not always so. It is not always the way of poultry to sit idly in the coop, or peck for grubs in the dirt. It certainly was not the case of an amazing Schweizer named Franken, whose great lust for life changed the course of my own.

Now, as a rule, I do not name my chickens. It's harder to grip the axe when the head you're chopping off belongs to Liesl, Brigitta, or Marta. Slaughtering the nameless is infinitely easier, as any politician will attest. But my customary resolve weakened the moment I laid eyes on a fluffy Schweizer chick, hatched in the spring of 1918, on a beautiful cloudless day that set the milkmaid to yodeling. From the very start, there was something about this sweet chick that set it apart from the rest of its kind. An attentiveness of his surroundings, an appreciation of the momentousness of his hatching, an awareness of the sanctity of his own life.

I loved him at once.

His enthusiastic curiosity immediately endeared him to me. Just days after emerging from the egg, he ran wildly around the property, his little chicken legs pumping, drinking in every tree, flower, and stone. He studied a small piece of quartz with the intensity of a geologist, turning it over with his tiny claws so that he could explore every facet. He splashed around in a small puddle with the joy of a young child. While I dried him off, he fell asleep in my palm. Soon, whenever I came within his sightline, he greeted me with a small hop that never failed to make me smile. And for some reason, this newborn Schweizer chick reminded me of my second cousin, Franken. Maybe it was the soft brown of his eyes, or the tilt of his head when I spoke to him. Perhaps it was because they both loved drinking from a water dish. It doesn't really matter what the reason—the little chicken's innate lovability reminded me of my cherished relative. And so I named him Franken.

In the weeks following his hatching, Franken quickly became my favorite. In all my years in this profession, I had never showed affection for one bird over another. In fact, I don't think I had ever shown affection at all. But Franken changed that. He was devoted to me. He followed me as I undertook the day's routine. As I filled the feeder with my secret mix and poured fresh water into the drinker, Franken herded the others so that they did not get in my way, or I in theirs. As I collected eggs from the coop each morning, Franken stood before the roosts and cooed softly to the hens, calming their nerves and allowing me to go about my business without disturbing them. When I hung my clothes to dry on the drying line, Franken hopped upon a picnic table and offered up clothes pegs in his beak. The others in the flock looked to him almost immediately as their leader, so great was his natural inborn ability.

Perhaps if I had a wife and family, I would not have grown so attached to this peculiar little fowl that burrowed his way into my heart. Unfortunately, I tended towards the life of a hermit, so I rarely came in contact with a living soul, let alone someone I could share a life with. That is, until I spied a beautiful young woman named Gretl, whilst on one of my infrequent forays into the town. Although we had spoken but a few polite words to each other, my deep awkwardness and damnable shyness kept me from pursuing something that could have bloomed into romance. But in this, too, Franken would have a hand to play.

As the weeks turned into months, Franken matured into a handsome cockerel and we got into the practice of taking long walks around the property once our daily chores were complete. We took different routes through the many trails and paths that coursed through the forests around the farm. It was during one of these pleasant forays that I suddenly found myself talking to my feathered charge about the lovely Gretl.

“I do not think I shall every fully comprehend the fairer sex, Franken.”

Franken turned to me, listening intently as he hopped along.

“There is a lass in town. Her name is Gretl. You've not met her.”

“Puk-puk,” he clucked encouragingly.

“For a reason not clear to me, whenever I am close to her, my words desert me like rats from a sinking ship.”

Franken stopped and looked at me. He raised his chicken wings. “Puck-puck?”

“No, it is not the same at all. There are myriad differences between the male and the female.”

“Puk-Puk!”

I blushed. “No, I mean other things. But maybe you're right, and we are not so different after all.”

Franken clucked knowingly and scratched modestly in the dirt.

We talked—or rather,
I
talked and Franken listened raptly—for an hour. At the end of it, I felt unburdened and quite clear on what I should do next regarding the fair Gretl. Franken was my trusted confidant, and together, over the following days, we spent hours going over the parts of my life that until that point had remained unspoken and unexplored.

It was during one of these conversations that the most peculiar thing happened. We were in my library taking tea. (“Library” might be a grandiose description, as it was merely a room with one bookcase. But although it was paltry in comparison to the great libraries of Europe, I was proud of my collection's eclectic nature. Classic novels alongside manuals and textbooks on biology and engineering were my standard reading material.) Seated in my reading chair, I was talking of some inconsequential thing or another when I realized that Franken wasn't listening to me. He was standing on my desk peering at an open copy of
Jude the Obscure
. I laughed, for it was a sight that tickled me. I stopped laughing when I noticed that he was tracing his scaly talon down the margin and then using his beak to turn the page. He was not merely looking at the book. He was reading it! I am sure I sound quite mad, and for a moment I myself feared that I had leapt full bore over the line that separates the rational from the insane. Had I been spending too much time alone?

“Franken!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

Franken turned to me and widened his eyes as if to say, “What does it look like?” (Franken did not suffer fools gladly. Millie, my Bouvier Suisse, still had the scratches on her snout to prove it.)

To ease my mind, I decided to test him on his comprehension. “Franken, what is the name of Jude's first wife? Cluck once for Annabella, twice for Cinderella, and three times for Arabella.”

Franken clucked three times.

Filled with a growing excitement, I questioned him with more multiple choices. Questions about the themes of fixed class boundaries, criticisms of marriage, and Christianity. To my astonishment and great pride, he answered each one correctly.

Have you ever had someone attempt to explain to you the love they have for their child? How it differs from every other form of love? It is absolutely impossible to convey without experiencing it. That night with Franken, I finally understood. I was filled with pride for what he could do, and my affection for him was so intense I felt I would burst. That night Franken transformed from darling pet to boon companion. He became my closest friend, my family.

In the following weeks we fell into an even more peaceful and companionable routine. Our days were spent immersed in the duties of chicken farming with frequent philosophical debates on the nature of love and companionship. (My feelings for Gretl had deepened and I needed an outlet.) Our nights were spent reading, I by the fire with a glass of port, Franken on the desk with a small bowl of seed.

After
Jude the Obscure
, Franken moved on to
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
, followed by the Russian masters: Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. It worried me that his taste in novels ran to the bleak, but Franken refused to read lighter fare. I had placed both
Don Quixote
and
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
on his desk, two of the most exceedingly humorous books in my somewhat limited collection, but after perusing a few pages of each, he stuck his beak in the air and glared at me balefully before plucking the Brontës from my shelf. The depressive sisters then led to
Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop
, and Émile Zola's
Germinal
. Franken's thirst for literature was unquenchable. Every once in a while he would dip into old biology, physics, or chemistry textbooks, but they never held his attention for long; he always returned to the classics.

It was shortly after Franken had finished Hans Christian Andersen's
The Little Match Girl
that we planned a rare trip into town. It was market day, my favorite time of the month.

The streets were bustling with vendors selling everything from books to bolts of cloth to livestock. Franken was quickly exhausting the resources of my modest library, so I thought I would stock up on some new reading material for him, and at the same time, perhaps, increase my flock with a few canny purchases. Franken perched upon my shoulder so we would not become separated in the crowds, which I fear made me look like a dull and impecunious pirate. But it never occurred to me to leave Franken at home on the farm, so close had we become that spring. As we made our way along the cobblestoned streets of the village that dated from medieval times, I spied Gretl looking over a booth filled with silk scarves.

“That is the woman I was telling you about,” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth. Franken gave an approving cluck and squeezed my shoulder. And so he should have. Gretl's beauty would have caused an artist misery, for no one on Earth had the skill to capture the perfection of her face. Her hair was a coppery red that blazed in the sun. Her eyes were bluer than the ocean and combined a dazzling innocence with a knowing mischievousness. Propriety stops me from describing the rest of her form, but rest assured, Gentle Reader, everything was exactly as it should be.

“Should I go over, Franken? No, she probably…” Franken pecked mercilessly at my ear.

“Ow! What are you doing?”

Franken tilted his head towards Gretl and prodded me to go to her.

“No, Franken, I don't think I should. Ow!” Another peck came, followed by another. “All right! All right!”

Franken eyed me and cocked his comb.

I made my way over to the brightly colored stall until I stood slightly behind Gretl. She was still intent on the silken scarves and had not noticed my approach.

“I think that green one would look quite lovely on you.” She turned to me and smiled. “Oh, Mr. Gosteli. How lovely to see you. Do you think so?” Her eyes flitted to Franken perched upon my shoulder, and her brows raised in question.

“Oh, this is my Schweizer. Uh… One of my chickens. Uh… A very special Schweizer cockerel.”

Franken jumped gingerly from my shoulder onto Gretl's. He nuzzled her cheek affectionately and clucked. I have never been envious of a chicken in my life, but at that moment I wished to trade places with my friend. Gretl for her part seemed delighted with Franken's pluck. Not many women would be so calm and composed when leapt upon by a fowl, but Gretl was grace personified.

“Oh, how perfectly charming!” Gretl stroked Franken's beak gently and laughed in delight. “How very sweet! What is his name?”

“Franken,” I said, her musical laugh still echoing in my ears.

“Well, Franken, I hope we shall get to know each other better.”

“Puk-puk,” he agreed and ducked his head shyly. Franken was charming her! I took his cue. “There is a small restaurant around the corner, with the most charming terrace. If indeed you would like to get to know him better, may I suggest a pastis?”

Her eyes locked on mine, and she smiled her heart-stopping smile. “That sounds lovely.”