We arrived after half an hour. Their house, a chalet with a gabled roof and wide eaves, looked out over the lake. Christoph ran out to check on his heifer.

Diana showed me to their spare bedroom. She was wearing a mucky jumper, a cream knit with chocolate icing smeared on her breast. As I showered I could smell cakes baking. When I went back into the bedroom, Diana was cranking the Venetian blinds, locking out all light. I laid down on the bed, and fell asleep within minutes.

#

An hour later, I woke up with Christoph shaking me.

"It's time," he said. "She's almost ready."

I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Come on. You can't miss it." He handed me a small plate with a thick slice of double-layered chocolate cake, and a glass of milk. "I'll be in the barn."

I stuffed the cake into my mouth, swilling the chocolate pieces around with the creamy milk. I walked through a corridor lined with old family photos. Christoph hadn't always been so fat. One picture showed him and Diana with their two boys out by the lake. Christoph's shoulders were twice as broad as his hips, his stomach flat, legs thick and brown and barbed with hair. He stood proud in swim briefs. Diana was covered up; hat, sunglasses, skirt and blouse.

I went out to the barn. The cow was sectioned off in a pen, standing up, but covered in mud and dust and straw. Two hooves were emerging from her vagina, and a thick string of mucus dangled from her vulva.

I'd never seen a cow's vagina. It bagged up, crinkled; ready to shit out a new life. It was one of the most hideous things I've ever seen.


"Isn't it beautiful?" Christoph whispered.

I smiled.

"You might have to help me ease her out," Christoph said, examining her backside. "If she struggles, we pull the calf from the hooves."

"I can't do that," I said. I didn't think I was scared of animals. But there's something alien about livestock - you only ever see them on TV or in children's books or in your dinner.

"Sure you can," he said. "You can't be so negative, John. She will know."

The cow mooed, mocking my city-boy insecurities.

"So what do we do now?" I asked.

"We wait for her. She won't be long." Christoph moved to the corner of the barn and showed me a large black tub full of what looked like rotten grass. "This is silage. A cow's dinner. How does it smell, to you?"

"Rural," I said, and took a seat on a small wooden stool, behind the cow. Christoph laughed, and joined me.

"A few years ago, we had a terrible time with the cows," he said. "Everything was normal, the calves were coming strong, we were doing so well. I was even going to build a a second barn. But one day they just started disappearing. One here, one there. We didn't know what was going on."

I picked up some straw, ripped it up, sprinkled it to the floor.

"I searched for hours, Diana too. We lost ten in one week. We thought someone was stealing them."

"Who was it?"

The cow shuffled her hind legs, grunting.

"It wasn't anyone," he said. "They were committing suicide."

I laughed. The cow's ears flopped down over her head. There was something deliberate about her posture. Her front legs were slightly cocked, like the hands of a magazine model posing nude.

"I'm not joking. They were jumping off the cliff, just down from here. I didn't understand. I found them finally, as I walked along the cliff's edge. I looked down and there they were, piled up in the valley. They'd all jumped off at the same spot."

"Cows can't jump," I said. "It must have been an accident. They must have strayed too far."

"Once is an accident," he said. "There were twelve cows down there." He looked troubled by the memory.

I said, "Animals aren't capable of suicide." I thought how common a sight it is to see cows out grazing on the green plateaus in the Alps. They don't just fall off cliff edges. Not that many.

"It must have been something I had done. They felt like slaves or prisoners or something, having me lock them up in a cowshed. They hated me. They would rather throw themselves off a cliff than be around me any longer."

"I'm sure that's not the case," I said. "Cows can't hate."

"You don't know much about cows, John."

I shrugged. "So did you fence in the suicide spot?"

"No, no. I thought about it," he said. "But then I thought if they want to die, they'll find a way."

I couldn't think of any other way a cow could kill itself.

"So I started sleeping out here with them, and eating my dinner with them, to show them I was a friend. One of them."

"What did Diana think?"

"She wasn't happy. I thought we might be divorced. She said I had lost my mind, I was paranoid, obsessed." 

"So what happened?"

Christoph spread his palm in front of him and thumbed the golden callouses at the bottom of each finger. They were rough, worn, useful hands.

"They stopped jumping. I still sleep out here once a week."

"That must be difficult," I said. "Even in winter?"

Cracks of daylight shot through the wooden panels of the barn. It would have been hell in winter.

"Of course," he said. "That's why I drink so much Guinness."

I thought about how cold I had been the previous night, in midsummer, after several pints. He must have to get through a whole keg.

"I think it's time to get her out, John. Are you ready?" Christoph rubbed his palms together. I felt queasy. The silage had a smell that reached down my throat and hooked at my stomach.

"What do I have to do?"

Christoph attached a set of calving chains to the protruding hooves - making a loop around the fetlock, and just below the knee.

"Pull when I say. Easy! We pull out and down when she is straining, and try to ease her out when she isn't."

"Right." I still had no idea what to do.

Christoph double checked the chains and we took one each. The heifer groaned. It resonated around the barn, the whole landscape must have heard. We tugged at the chains.

"More!" Christoph urged.

I braced my knees and squatted, putting all my weight through the chain. I imagined it curled up in the foetal position, rolled into a ball with its head jutting out, hooves tucked beneath its chin, preparing to emerge into the mountain air. It wouldn't budge. It was a tug of war; two men losing against an unborn calf.

"It's not moving," I said, chains cold and breaking the skin on my palms.

"Shut up, and pull," he said, grunting as his top lip curled onto his gums.

We heaved harder, urging the calf out. For the amount of force we were putting through the thing, I would have expected it to catapult out and splat on the wall. 

"Here she comes," Christoph said.         

The head popped into view. The sac covered its face. Its head stretched the heifer's vagina to the point that it might split.

From there, it didn't take much to get her out. The chains jangled and fell slack as the calf slipped out from its mother and onto the floor. Its black skin was shiny, leathery, covered in gunk. Christoph quickly punctured the amniotic sac and ripped it away. A rush of afterbirth chased out after it, landing in a steaming pile. I dropped the chain, inspecting the blisters on my palms. The mother soon shuffled to her feet, licked the new-born, cleaning the fluid away with her pink tongue. Christoph hugged me.

The calf strained, trying to stand. I watched it use all of its force, willing its legs to work, trying to prop itself up and take its first feed. It was soon on its hind legs, but not quite strong enough to be completely free standing. It was doubled over, resting its weight on its knees.

"You can name her, if you like," Christoph said.

Flies fizzed around the afterbirth. The calf wobbled over to its mother, nuzzling into its teat. She was on all fours, fully fledged, tottering around on her new legs. I remembered the fact Eva told me once, about cows emitting enough methane to damage the ozone layer. I wasn't even sure if that was true.

"Call her Eva."