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The men in Fasan align women with nature and express fear of both. In the story, this is a side-effect of their fear of and failure to dominate nature, while the parallel set up between woman with nature is also a common feature o f the traditional Heim at novel. In this section, I show how, in order to compaisate for their lack of control over their environment, the men also equate women with the houses in which they live in order to enable themselves to establish control. Furthermore, the narrative’s focus on women as being confined within the home revokes the easy equations of the feminine and the natural which operate in the Heimat novels.

Heimat is conventionally imagined as a space which excludes rationality and intellectualism and the Heimat discourse construes women as part o f or very close to n a t u r e .Heimat appropriates maternal female figures to embody man’s origins and rootedness in a fertile earth. Peter Handke uses such a semantic construction of Heimat in his play Zurüstm gen fu r die Unsterblichkeit, when he places “zwei hochschwangere Frauen mit gewaltigen Bâuchen” alongside the king in the opening scene. However, nowhere is the féminisation o f Heim at more evident than in the Heim at novels published around the tum-of-the-century. In Viebig’s Weiherdorf^ Heimat is simultaneously an idealised landscape and the place where womenfolk dwell:

Müller’s stwy “Niederungai” discussed in the previous chapter breaks with this conventim by describing a provincial people viio purposefiilly distance Üiemselves from a lifestyle amidst nature in a bid to achieve rationality. C£ 43.

Peter Handke. Zurûstungen fû r die Unsterblichkeit. Ein Kônigsdrama. Frankfurt am Main: Suhiicamp, 1997,7.

Hier komite man die Eifelsôhne fîndoi: [...] sehnsûchtig des Heimathimmels gedenkend, der sich rein und kOhl über den Eifelkuppen wôlbt; unter dem die wohnen, die ihnm das Leben gegd^en; die auf sie warten, denen sie die Ehe versprochœ, odo" die sie scfaon gefreit haben; wo die Kinder nach den V&ten vo'langen/^^

Throughout this novel, portraits o f female figures who form a real and substantial presence in the landscape o f the Eifel village - the men have been forced to leave the village and seek work in industry - are coupled with feminised metaphors used to depict nature, semanticising the characters’ Heim at as a feminised space. In one episode, Peter, the one man who was not tempted away from home by the promise o f employment, is ambushed in the forest by a group o f lustful women. After he has escaped them, the wind in the trees sounds like the rustling o f their skirts and in his imagination, the women and nature are indistinguishable: 'Immer glaubte er, rufende Stimmen zu hôren; wie mit Armen griff es nach ihm, heifier Atem blies ihm ins Genick, Rôcke rauschtai und raschelten - hochatmend hielt er inne. Ach, das war ja nur der Buchenwald, der rauschte so!”*“

Feminised landscapes as a literary strategy in the H eimat novels fed an imagined symbiosis o f woman and nature which helped construe the Heimat as a refuge offering security and shelter. Gisela Ecker demonstrates that this is a male fantasy which obscures and suppresses the actual physical strains placed on rural women. Müller, who stresses the pressures to fit in that exist in small tightknit communities and the irrevocable alienation that occurs to those who can or do not as the flipside o f Heimat’s "Hort der Sicherheit”,*®^ connects her female figures in Fasan to another source of images - the house. In so doing, she engages in a conscious avoidance o f the myths and mystical biologising metaphors used in Nazi ideology o f the soil and points instead to the reality of

Viebig, 17. '“ Viebig, 93-94.

She writes: "Aus der Sieht do-er, die vw dem begdirten Ort aus scfareiben, a^gibt sich ein anderes Bild. Der Ort des Begdirens ist das Produkt weiblicher Anstrengung, ob physisch oder psydiisch begriffen.” Eck*. "'Heimat’: Das Elend éec untersdilagenen Differenz.”, 22.

Rossbacher, 143. Compare the conflicting motifr of'losbinden’ and 'anbinden’ in Rentier. In an interview, Müller speaks about her reluctance to use the term Heimat because of its history of misuse and reminds us of the exclusions it undertakes: "Wenn diese Umgebung mich überhaupt nicht akzeptiert, dann kann ich 100 Jahre dent ld)@i und die FuBsthlœ nie aus dieser Gegaid h ^ m , und ich werde doch nie in einer sogenannten Heimat sein. Die ist dann fronder als allés andere, wo man hinkommt.” Wol%ang Müller. Toesie ist ja nidits Angendunes” (In ccmvo'satioi with Herta Müller), glossen. Heft 1, 1997, www.dickitison edu/departments/gemm/glossen. 26.2.99, 14:00) This interview took place at Dickinson College in Carlisle m 5th July 1996. Max Frisch echoes these sentiments vhen he calls Heimat "ein Problem do* IdentitSt, d.h. ein Dilemma zwischen Fremdheit im Bezirk, dem wir zugeboroi sind, oder Selbstentfremdung durdh Anpassung.” Max Frisch. "Die Schweiz als Heimat Rede zur Verleihung des GroSen Sdiillerpreises.” Max Frisch. Schweiz als Heimat? Versuche über 50 Jahre. Frankfint am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990,365-373, 371.

hard domestic labour which reflects many women’s experience of provincial life/“ The prominence o f the house and the corresponding retreat o f nature as the site o f belonging in the story also reflects the crisis affecting a collective identity based on Heim at which affects the village community of Fasan and which motivates the characters to seek various solutions outside or b ^ o n d the existing collective, which range from Windisch’s emigration to the nightwatchman’s reinvaition o f Heimat.

The house and its immediate surrounds is for the women a workplace; th^r sew, bake, sweep the yard and slaughter the chickens. For the men, it represents the preservation o f a traditionally ordered domestic realm and the last intact remnant o f a way of life which - as Windisch clearly sees it - is coming to an aid. In the thunderstorm, Windisch takes refuge in his house, afraid that if he were to remain outside the lightning would shed light on his fate. Faced with a natural environment which responds to man’s presence with unrelenting hostility, the house receives a special place of prominence for the villagers in Fasan as the symbolic site o f Heimat. In the scene in which Windisch relates how he and his wife paired up after the war, he tells us that he was sure o f being back home when he found his trousers in the wardrobe: '^Windisch wufite, dafi er nicht gestorben war. Dafi er zu Hause war. Dafi diese Hose hier im Dorf, im Schrank au f ihn gewartet hatte” (47).

The domestic abilities of the womai become central to the community’s collective sense o f identity. On returning from a trip to the mountains, the furrier hastens to amend his praise o f the Walachian women by pointing out that they cannot cook like the Swabians: “‘Leider Gottes’, sagte er, ‘sind es Walachinnen. Im Bett sind sie gut, aber kochen kônnen sie nicht wie unsere Fraun’” (22). The house offers protection from the threat of an engulfing force outside. However, the balance o f power is unstable. The threat of nature increases at night and in the dark it seems poised to engulf and take over the house: “Die Verandah wâchst hinauf, wenn es so dunkel ist. Wenn die Blâtter Schatten haben. Sie drückt sich unterm Pfiaster hoch. A uf einem Stiel” (38).

The totalitarian political situation in post-war Romania with its negative effects on the autonomy o f the small German communities also troubles the villagers’ conception of themselves as inhabiting Heimat. The centrality o f possession in the Heimat discourse can be traced back to the origins o f the word which was a concrete term to designate ownership of a house and/ or estate. The importance for the villagers’ sense of collective identity that key symbolic sites remain in German hands is reflected in the story when the pastor claims that the Romanian graves do not belong to the ca n e ta y : “Der Pfarro* sagt, dafi die Grâber

lù rd and, at times, crij^ling physical labour as part of a provincial woman's everyday life is also a theme in Handke’s Wimschloses Unglück and Anna Mitgutsdi’s Die Züchtigmg.

der Rumânen nicht zum Friedhof gehoren. DaÛ die Grâber der Riunânen anders riechai als die Grâber der Deutschen” (43). At the same time, their rights to possess have been severely restricted by the regime. Windisch tells Amalie about the ‘Enteignung’ which took place after the war/°^ and condemns Rudi*s grandfather for being the only one who did not resist the authorities who came to take away their land and houses. In the period covered by the story, the Germans had regained ownership of their own homes, but taxation laws were particularly harsh on Romania’s German ‘co-habiting national group’ and required them to hand over most o f their agricultural products to the state. This disheartening experience is depicted in Fasan and is also a reason why the domestic achievements of the women are depicted as being central to the way in which the Germans view themselves as a collective. The villagers fear the introduction o f even wider restrictions to their autonomy. Windisch believes that the nightwatchman, the only one who does not want to leave the Banat, will eventually lose the most crucial ingredient o f Heimat. He warns his friend of the uselessness o f staying: "Das Haus werden sie dir auch noch ndimen, und den H o f (79). In addition to the natural hostility o f the environment in the Banat, the totalitarian state intervenes in the community’s relationship to the land and results in a reduction of

Heimat to the house. The nightwatchman does not possess the same ambition as Windisch to outsmart fate. The differences between the two men illustrate the connection Windisch perceives between hanging on to his autonomy and escaping the provinces. At the beginning o f the story, it is the nightwatchman who cites the proverb “Der Mensch ist ein groBer Fasan auf der Welt” (8). Windisch, understanding the reference to the pheasant as a German might, that is, as the most magnificient o f birds, rejoins that man is also superior on account of his strength: “‘Der Mensch ist stark’, sagt er, ‘stârker als das Vieh’” (8). The nightwatchman is less optimistic about man’s qualities and later in the conversation, it becomes clear that for him the proverb draws on the Romanian popular view of the pheasant, that is, as a bird doomed to lose the chase: “‘Dumm ist der Mensch’, sagt der Nachtwâchter, ‘und immer bereit zu verziehn’” (9).

In a manner which is reminiscent o f the conflation woman/landscape found in traditional Heimat novels, the female villagers become at times indistinguishable from the houses in which confine than. They are perceived by m ai from whose perspective the story is narrated as part o f a house. In episodes which contein echoes o f the story “Das F en sta”, part o f a woman’s body is described using the terminology of windows. As Windisch voyeuristically spies on the c a rp a ita having sex with his wife, h a legs “stehai wie ein

In the 1950s the Gamans in Romania w ae disadvantaged in their professional and social lives because of their large-scale participation in the SS and this culminated in the seizure of their entire Footnotes continued on the next page

weiBer Faisterrahmen auf d an Bettuch** (12). This image renders vivid the sudden visibility of the woman’s sex which fills the space of the window through which Windisch directs his gaze. As has already been discussed in relation to **Das Fenster”, it also equates a woman’s body architecturally with a h o u s e . W o m e n who are confined by their social roles to the home become in the male discourse o f the text inextricable from the house itself - both provide the men with a ‘zu Hause’, a Heimat and both - in the male economy - exist for and are freely accessible to men. Windisch gets home that night to find his wife masturbating in bed and this sudden sight o f fonale sexual organs is framed this time by window shutters which have been flung open on an unexpected sight: “Er knipste das Licht an. Die Beine seiner Frau standen wie aufgeriBne Fensterflügel auf dem Bettuch. Sie zucktai im Licht” (17). By equating his wife’s legs with window shutters, Windisch perceives his wife’s sexual activity as a violation o f his property. Here the open window connotes an invasion or an act o f trespass, with the shutters still quivering as if the burglar has only just quit the scene. The image o f the window thus conveys the accessibility of the women for men while in this second example it indicates the transgression o f the man’s right to his wife’s body by the woman who takes her own pleasure.