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Franz Hohler
Die Steinflut (The Stone Flood)
Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 1998. 157pp. The Stone Flood published in English in 2001 by Harvill, London (tr. John Brownjohn)
In 1881 seven-year-old Katharina and her four-year-old brother Kaspar are sent to stay at their grandmother's house, high in the Swiss alpine meadows above their little village, while their mother, the inn-keeper's wife, gives birth to her sixth child. At the inn there is much talk about the ever-present threat of landslides. As she struggles up the steep mountain path Katharina, a thoughtful child, reflects instead on the miracles of life, and on the story of the Flood and Noah's Ark, only partially told to her in Sunday School a few days before. How might this story end? In her grandmother's warm and welcoming house other mysteries lurk: the relationships of her little-known aunts and uncles, the ghosts which hover in the shadows but have disappeared by the next day. And nearby, in conditions of shocking poverty, lives a woman whose husband has been killed by a falling tree. As news arrives that the new baby has been born the adults celebrate and Katharina is secretly pleased. But the constant talk of landslides and the persistent rain and thunder (like the tramp of Russian and French armies through the mountains, as her grandmother recalls) make her afraid. Even the animals seem aware of impending disaster. Why are the grown-ups not more worried? When next day the grandmother says she will take the children home, Katharina, filled with an increasing and inexplicable sense of danger, refuses to go. The last she sees of her little brother Kaspar is his tiny cape, which makes him look like a dwarf. Two hours later she hears a deafening thunderclap, and when she looks up she sees a huge chunk of the mountainside hurtling down in the direction of the inn. As images of her family race through her mind, Katharina knows she will never see them again. This beautiful, melancholy, evocative short tale, told from the viewpoint of a child, is based on a true event. It subtly conveys both a sense of innocent wonder and the violence ever present beneath the most beautiful natural scenes.
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