Little Switzerland

High in the Swiss mountains there was a village so small that the sun could inspect it in under a minute.

First the church steeple.

Then the roofs.

Then the single street.

Then, apparently satisfied that nothing important had happened overnight, it moved on to the next valley.

Forty-three people lived there.

There were also seventy-two cows and one postman named Ludwig.

Nobody knew why Ludwig was counted separately from the people. Possibly because he only came on Tuesdays and spent the rest of the week existing somewhere beyond the mountains, which made him more of a recurring event than a resident.

There was also Gustav.

Gustav was a pigeon.

He was not counted at all, which Gustav considered an administrative oversight.

One evening, just before supper, the Devil came up the mountain.

He did not arrive in smoke.

There was no thunder.

No flames opened in the earth.

He simply walked into the village wearing a black coat of excellent quality, polished shoes, a gold watch, and the expression of a man who had never yet been told that something was not for sale.

He stopped beside the fountain.

Gustav, who had been drinking from it, hopped onto the rim and looked him over.

The Devil looked expensive.

Gustav approved of expensive people. They dropped better crumbs.

Then the Devil put down a leather case and said:

“I have come to buy your village.”

Nothing happened.

The Devil waited.

A curtain moved.

Then another.

A window opened above the bakery.

Across the square, a door creaked.

Eventually Hans, the village president, came outside.

Hans was a large, square man who believed that very few situations improved by hurrying.

He walked across the square, stopped in front of the Devil and asked:

“What for?”

The Devil smiled.

It was a professional smile.

“I’m going to improve it.”

Hans looked around.

At the church.

At the fountain.

At three cows crossing the road without urgency.

“At what?”

“The village.”

Hans considered this.

“It is already a village.”

“I mean properly improve it. A luxury hotel. A casino. New ski lifts. Shops. Restaurants. Visitors from all over the world.”

Hans listened.

“You’ll all be rich,” the Devil added.

This was clearly meant to settle the matter.

Hans scratched his chin.

“What about the cows?”

The Devil glanced at the cows.

“They’ll have to go.”

A window flew open.

Marta leaned out.

She was eighty-two, though she regarded age as the sort of information that should only be requested by doctors and border officials.

“Then you can go too.”

The Devil looked up.

“I beg your pardon?”

“No cows, no agreement.”

“Why?”

Marta looked genuinely puzzled by the question.

“A village without cows is suspicious.”

The Devil closed his eyes for a moment.

Then opened them again.

“Fine. We’ll keep some cows.”

“How many?”

“Enough.”

“For what?”

“The atmosphere.”

Josef the shepherd had now appeared from a side lane.

Josef was thin, weathered, and accompanied by a goat who seemed professionally interested in negotiations.

“What atmosphere?” Josef asked.

“The Alpine atmosphere.”

“And what would the cows do?”

“Stand around. Look picturesque.”

Josef stared at him.

“A cow gives milk.”

“Yes.”

“If it doesn’t give milk, it isn’t decoration.”

“No?”

“It’s a very large city dog.”

There was silence.

Gustav flew from the fountain to the Devil’s leather case.

The Devil brushed him away.

Gustav landed beside it again.

In Gustav’s understanding, this meant they had been introduced.

The Devil opened the case.

Inside was a bag.

Inside the bag was gold.

Real gold.

He poured it onto a table beside the fountain, where it landed with the sort of sound that had ended wars, begun marriages and ruined several excellent families.

This finally brought everyone outside.

The blacksmith picked up a coin.

He bit it.

“Real.”

“Of course it’s real,” said the Devil.

Marta picked one up too.

She weighed it in her palm.

“What are we supposed to do with it?”

The Devil stared at her.

“Spend it.”

“On what?”

“Anything.”

She looked at the coin once more.

“Can’t make cheese out of it.”

The Devil had negotiated with kings.

He had negotiated with bankers.

He had negotiated with people who would sell their own grandmother if the paperwork was simple enough.

Nobody had ever brought cheese into it this early.

So he improved the offer.

“A house by the sea for every family.”

Hans shook his head.

“Too hot.”

“A car for everyone.”

“Where would we put them?”

“A servant in every house.”

Marta frowned.

“A stranger walking around my kitchen?”

“Eternal youth.”

That changed things.

The square became quiet.

Even Josef’s goat stopped chewing for a moment.

Old Peter came forward.

Peter was ninety-four and had announced his intention to die every morning for the past twenty years.

He usually reconsidered after breakfast.

“Eternal youth?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“My back?”

“Perfect.”

“My knees?”

“Perfect.”

“My hearing?”

“Perfect.”

Peter nodded slowly.

Then he pointed at his wife.

“And her?”

The Devil hesitated.

Peter’s wife stood with her arms folded.

“What about her?” asked the Devil.

“Would her character improve?”

The Devil looked at Peter’s wife.

Peter’s wife looked back.

The Devil was many things, but he was not a liar when the truth was clearly safer.

“No,” he said.

Peter sighed.

“Then there’s no point.”

His wife nodded.

For once, she agreed with him.

The negotiations continued through the night.

The Devil offered money.

Property.

Youth.

Influence.

Comfort.

Things nobody in the village understood and several things they understood perfectly well but did not want.

Every offer met some small, devastating objection.

At dawn, the Devil finally struck the table with both hands.

“What do you people want?”

The villagers gathered in a circle.

They whispered.

They argued.

Josef pointed down the hill.

Marta pointed at the school.

Hans listened.

Peter appeared to suggest something that nobody else accepted.

Finally Hans turned back.

“A bridge.”

The Devil blinked.

“A what?”

“A bridge.”

“You have been bargaining with me all night for a bridge?”

“The old one washes away every spring.”

The Devil stared at him.

Marta raised a finger.

“The school roof leaks.”

“Fine. A bridge and a roof.”

“And Berta’s bell,” Josef said.

The Devil turned.

“Who is Berta?”

A brown-and-white cow stood behind him.

She was chewing.

“That,” said Marta.

The Devil looked at Berta.

Berta looked at the Devil.

Her present bell gave a miserable little clank.

“It sounds wrong,” said Josef.

“It’s a cowbell.”

“A bad cowbell.”

The Devil breathed in.

Then out.

“You will have a new bridge, a repaired school roof and the finest cowbell in Switzerland.”

Marta nodded.

“Good.”

“And in return, the village belongs to me.”

“No,” said Hans.

The Devil became very still.

“No?”

“You may live here for one year.”

The Devil laughed.

Hans did not.

“One year,” Hans repeated. “Then you can ask us again.”

The Devil looked at the houses.

At the cows.

At the people.

At Gustav, who had somehow found his way back onto the leather case.

He smiled.

“One year.”

He was certain that twelve months would be more than enough.

By then they would sell him the village, the houses, the cows and probably the socks they were wearing.

They gave him the empty house beside the cemetery.

It had the best view in the village and the quietest neighbours.

On the first morning, Hans knocked on his door.

“The fence is down.”

“What fence?”

“Yours.”

The Devil went outside.

On the second morning, Josef arrived.

“My goat is missing.”

“Why is that my problem?”

Josef thought about this.

“You’re here.”

On the third morning, Peter knocked.

“Wednesday.”

The Devil waited.

Peter waited.

“What about Wednesday?”

“The wardrobe.”

“What wardrobe?”

Peter looked surprised.

“My wardrobe.”

It turned out that Peter moved the same enormous wardrobe to a different wall every Wednesday.

Nobody knew why.

Peter least of all.

At first the Devil asked questions.

After a month, he stopped.

He learned how to repair a fence.

He learned that a goat could disappear while standing almost directly behind you.

He learned that cows had personalities, though he denied this whenever anyone asked.

He learned to milk without being kicked.

He learned which cheese was made in the valley and which cheese was made for tourists.

He learned that the shop closed at six whether he approved or not.

He learned that there was absolutely no point arguing with Marta before coffee.

And Gustav came every morning.

At first the Devil chased him away.

Then he threw things at him.

Then he began leaving a crust of bread on the windowsill.

Gustav interpreted this correctly as the development of a close personal friendship.

After three months, the Devil saw a visitor park beside the village fountain.

He went outside immediately.

“You can’t leave that there.”

The visitor looked around.

“Why not?”

“Because people need to get through.”

“There’s plenty of room.”

“There was plenty of room before you arrived.”

He wrote down the number plate.

Hans saw him from across the square.

Hans said nothing.

After six months, the Devil stood outside the bakery and complained:

“They’re digging up our street again.”

Marta heard him.

She said nothing.

Josef heard him too.

He also said nothing.

Only Gustav reacted.

He puffed out his chest.

Our street, he thought.

Exactly.

Then winter came.

Snow covered the mountains.

Then the roofs.

Then the road.

Then whatever remained of the outside world.

For several days nobody came in and nobody went out.

In the evening the entire village gathered in the inn.

Logs burned in the stove.

Wet gloves steamed near the door.

Bread and cheese covered the tables.

Someone produced hot wine.

Someone else played an accordion badly but enthusiastically.

Children disappeared under the tables, claiming the music sounded better from there.

Berta stood in the shed behind the inn wearing her new bell.

It had a deep, clean note.

Josef had tested twelve before approving it.

The Devil sat slightly apart from everyone.

Marta noticed.

Of course she noticed.

She sat beside him.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“You look like a man who has lost something.”

“I don’t understand this place.”

“That makes two of us.”

“It’s freezing.”

“Yes.”

“The road is blocked.”

“Yes.”

“The shop closes at six.”

“Still true.”

“There’s almost no telephone signal.”

Marta nodded.

“And there is nothing to do.”

“Wednesday is the wardrobe.”

The Devil looked at her.

Marta took a sip of wine.

Her face remained perfectly serious.

After a moment the Devil asked:

“Why are you happy?”

Marta looked through the window.

Snow moved past the glass.

The church bell was somewhere beyond it.

So were the houses.

The fountain.

The road.

The cows.

All invisible, but still there.

“Because tomorrow,” she said, “most of this will still be here.”

“What will?”

“The mountains.”

She drank again.

“The houses.”

Another pause.

“The people.”

Then she looked at him.

“And you, probably. Nobody’s clearing that road tonight.”

The Devil laughed.

He had not expected to.

That spring, he built the bridge.

Not personally, obviously.

He complained about regulations, argued with the contractor and checked every invoice twice.

But he built it.

He had the school roof repaired.

Then he commissioned Berta’s bell from a craftsman two valleys away who claimed he could hear a bad note before the metal had cooled.

The bell cost far too much.

The Devil paid without bargaining.

One year after his arrival, the villagers gathered again in the square.

The Devil wore the same black coat.

It no longer looked quite as expensive.

There was a pale mark on one sleeve.

Hans said it was plaster.

Josef said goat’s milk.

The Devil refused to discuss it.

Hans stood beside the fountain.

“Well?”

The Devil looked at him.

“Well what?”

“Are you buying the village?”

The Devil did not answer immediately.

He looked at the school roof.

At the church.

At the new bridge down the hill.

At the houses.

At the bakery.

At the inn.

At the street he had complained about all summer.

Then Berta walked up behind him and took the edge of his coat into her mouth.

The Devil removed it gently.

“Not that.”

Berta continued chewing.

The Devil smoothed his sleeve.

Then he closed his leather case.

“No.”

Hans nodded.

“Too small?”

“Too expensive.”

Hans frowned.

“We never gave you a price.”

The Devil looked at him.

“Exactly.”

He picked up the case.

Turned.

And almost walked away.

Peter stepped in front of him.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

Peter looked offended.

“This is home.”

The Devil opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Peter pointed toward his house.

“Also, it’s Wednesday.”

The Devil looked up at the sky.

For perhaps the first time in his very long existence, he appeared to be asking Heaven for assistance.

None came.

He took off his coat and laid it over the fountain.

“Which wall?”

Peter smiled.

And that was how the Devil stayed.

He is said to live there still.

He keeps the village accounts.

He complains about the weather every morning.

He keeps a suspicious eye on tourists.

And he strictly forbids anyone from feeding chocolate to the cows.

As for the village, he eventually did buy it.

Not the real one.

A small wooden copy from the souvenir shop.

It had tiny houses, a tiny church, a tiny fountain and seventy-two impossibly tiny cows.

The shopkeeper named the price.

The Devil paid it without argument.

Later that afternoon, one of the old gold coins from his first night in the village appeared from beneath the bench beside the fountain.

Gustav found it.

It was round.

It was bright.

And, as far as Gustav could tell, it had been left there specifically for him.

He picked it up in his beak and flew away.

Nobody noticed.

Which was how quite a few things began in Little Switzerland.