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Fiction

Block

By Andreas Eschbach
Translated from German by Anne Posten
German science fiction writer Andreas Eschbach's stolid loner taps a sixth sense for oil in this novel excerpt.

Karl Walter Block was the only son of Irmgard Block (née Mucek) and Heinrich Maria Block. Heinrich had been a captain during the war and worked in an important secret office in Berlin until, for reasons no one ever discovered, he was dishonorably discharged, on Hitler’s own orders, and sent back to Upper Austria, where there was nothing left for him but to toil away from morning till night for the rest of his life on the farm he had inherited from his parents. This fate enraged him, and he took out his anger on his son at every possible opportunity. He hit Karl when he didn’t obey, or when he didn’t obey quickly enough, or when he did something wrong, or just for the hell of it. He called him dumb and incapable, and he called him weak, which soon proved untrue, as Karl Walter grew up surprisingly fast and turned into a tough young man who could pull his own weight, and became strong enough that after a certain point his father gave up the abuse.

Karl Walter obeyed his father, but hated him and swore revenge. For his mother, who never came to his defense, he had only scorn.

In school, Karl Walter Block would gladly have satisfied his teacher’s hopes, but scholastic achievement was beyond him. He could perform a craft as well as anyone, or indeed better, simply by watching a tradesman work, but he was never at home in the world of paper and books.

His poor performance in school was due also to the fact that he had to help with the hard work of the farm and often didn’t get to his homework; in fact in the mornings he was frequently so bone-tired that it was all he could do just to stay awake. Of all his schoolmates, his clothes were the shabbiest, which prompted most of his teachers not to make any particular effort with him. The fact that he rarely knew how to combat his schoolmates’ teasing and mockery with anything other than his fists brought him additional bad marks at school, extra work as punishment, and occasional detentions, which earned him yet more beatings from his father.

One day shortly after his fifteenth birthday he decided that he’d had enough. Coldly determined, he packed his knapsack with a few clothes instead of his school things, together with all the money he’d secretly saved up, and left his parents’ house in the early-morning hours, not to return for nearly three decades, not even for his mother’s funeral.

Away from home, Karl Walter Block made out better than he had expected. He was prepared to do any work or break any law to avoid going back, but since he was big enough to pass for an older boy, or even a grownup if one didn’t look too closely—and who really looked closely?—and since his needs were few, it seemed to him as if the big, wide world welcomed him with open arms. And how big and wide a world it was! Up till then the only city he’d ever known was Kremsmünster. To him, Steyr seemed massive and Linz was a cosmopolitan city that even legendary places like Paris and New York couldn’t possibly rival. The farther his travels took him, the more he was filled with the overwhelming desire to see the world. To travel to faraway lands—the farther the better!

Finally, he headed for Hamburg with nothing but the shirt on his back and a vague plan to sign on to a ship bound across the seas. He’d hardly arrived before he met a man who had taken a job as drilling engineer in an oil company. “Why don’t you come along?” the man asked him, which Karl Walter Block did, and on that very same evening he had a contract obtained with a false birthdate, and a ticket to Venezuela.

The craft of drilling for oil practically taught itself. He went with the others, did as they did, and was soon busy with diamond bits and roller cone bits, with the motors of freight lifts and with hoses thicker than his thigh. He pitched in to help maneuver the huge hook on its pulley, which, with the swivel, weighed easily eight tons or more. Together the men would strain to lift the sections of drill pipe or the surface casings when a newly sunk production well had to be cased. And if the drill stem broke, there was no one as adept as he at recovering the “fish” with a taper tap and fishing bell. He’d grub with his bare hands in the drilling fluid and learned to recognize by smell and touch what was coming up from the deep, to understand what was going on below. Along the way he learned English and Spanish, as well as how to handle alcohol and girls, both of which smelled tantalizing and were easy to come by in Maracaibo.

In Venezuela they worked for all they were worth, hell-bent on producing oil. Just as he was starting to get bored, someone from the company asked him if he could imagine working in Indonesia. Karl Walter Block knew nothing about Indonesia and couldn’t really imagine a thing about it, but he replied, “Certainly.”

A few days later he boarded a plane to Sumatra. There he worked for several weeks in the Duri Field, where there were new techniques to be mastered. This field contained only heavy oil, which required steam to be injected in the ground in order to extract it. Then he was assigned to a team charged with tapping new deposits in the Java Sea from drilling platforms just off the coast. This was referred to as “off-shore,” and it was said that this type of drilling had a great future. It was the sixties, the Americans were on their way to the moon, and no one seriously considered the idea that the world’s oil deposits might be limited.

Next he went to Africa, where Shell had been producing oil in Nigeria for over a decade. They were ready to forge onward to the Nile Delta, to a shelf over fifty kilometers wide at a depth of up to two hundred meters, and Karl Walter Block joined an exploration team for the first time.

This was a new experience. On the one hand it was frustrating, since nine out of every ten wells yielded nothing. On the other hand, it was thrilling, because in spite of all the pilot surveys, the seismic technology, aerial photographs, and magnetic measurements, at the end of the day it was a hunt, a struggle with nature and the unknown, a battle of men prepared to go to any lengths against the elements. Tropical storms swirled overhead while they screwed together drill pipes. Again and again they started the diesel engines which drove the rotary table, though they were dripping wet and on the verge of collapse. Then the merciless equatorial sun returned, burning down on their skin until they could barely breathe, and quickly turning them nearly as brown as the locals, who had little to say throughout the operation, and with whom the men rarely had cause to interact. They lost one man when he squatted on a low-lying bar of the drilling platform to take a shit and some kind of carnivorous fish came and left nothing but a puddle of blood; they never discovered what kind of fish it had been.

Yet they remained unsuccessful. The geologists brooded over their charts, their analyses of seismic surveys and core samples, conferred with each other, telephoned, made calculations— only to find that the site that they’d chosen by means of these same tools continued to yield nothing.

“It’s hopeless,” the chief geologist eventually declared to the assembled team. It was April of 1968. On the wall of the barracks hung all the charts, red spots marking the places they had already tried drilling, and the team was offered a detailed yet incomprehensible picture of where geological studies predicted oil should be.

There, perched among the others on a chair with a bottle of ice-cold beer in his hand, Karl Walter felt for the first time what he was later to call “the feeling.”

He looked at one chart—the first and oldest seismic chart—and everything the scientists were saying became a muffled, unintelligible noise. One spot on the worn, faded, ragged-edged piece of paper seemed to glow. Or was it winking at him? Karl Walter Block wasn’t sure. The next thing he knew, he had stood up and walked to the chart, pointed to the spot and said: “There. That’s where we have to drill.”

It was instinct. To hell with the technology, the science wasn’t worth shit if they didn’t find oil. It was all about the hunter’s instinct. Mankind’s oldest skill.

The geologists didn’t laugh. They simply looked at him with great embarrassment.

“Karl,” said one, “there’s nothing there. Not even the shadow of a chance.”

Block, twenty-two at the time, though he was taken for older, stubbornly shook his Styrian head.

“There’s oil there.” He raised his beer bottle a bit. “I can feel it in my blood.”

“You’re drunk, Karl.”

“If you say so.” He sat down.

The next day, the team of geologists named the last place to drill. It lay almost exactly on the spot Karl Walter Block had pointed to. They drilled, and they found oil. The field was later estimated at about a billion barrels and was named Forcardos Yokri.

And so the company found an oilfield on his advice, an oilfield from which they were to extract a billion barrels, and many more billion dollars of profit, yet Karl Walter Block received not a word of thanks, let alone any sort of reward. This annoyed him.

But the fact that not one of the oil engineers ever thought to ask him how he had done it, how he had known, was unforgivable. From that moment on his days with the company were numbered.

Oh, he stayed. And he worked. Even harder, if possible. He made himself available for the jobs that were so dirty and difficult that the company voluntarily paid him bonuses. He switched to another company, drilled in the North Sea, toiled away on drilling platforms while hurricanes with winds of over ninety miles an hour raged above him and roared so furiously at the sea that it was often impossible to be heard even when shouting. He went to Alaska, where America’s largest oilfield, Prudhoe Bay, discovered at the end of the sixties, was being developed. More than one engineer fell victim to the blizzards and the ferocious cold. He lived frugally, taking his money now to the bank instead of the bordello.

Over the years, what he had first perceived in Nigeria solidified into certainty: he could find oil where others found nothing. He had a sixth sense for what was buried beneath the earth.

Whenever the opportunity arose, he worked in exploration teams, but by now he had learned to keep his mouth shut. All he did was look at the charts, the seismic data, the mineralogical findings, the aerial and satellite photos, and the other types of data that came to be added over the years. He looked at everything, again and again, for hours when he was allowed, and waited for his intuition to speak. Secretly he looked at points on the chart and said to himself, “There’s oil there…and there…and there…” He waited until all the drilling had proven where the oil was. And he was nearly always correct.

But he didn’t say a word to anyone. Never again would an oil company profit from his talents. The day would come when he’d find oil, his own oil, by himself. The day would come when he’d show them all.

The day came sooner than he anticipated.

One day, while Block was busy with an offshore project in the Gulf of Mexico, a letter bearing Austrian postage and a multitude of stamps and seals arrived. It looked very official, and indeed it was. The district court of Styria wished to inform him that his father, Capt. (Retd.) Heinrich Maria Block, born August 13, 1915, was deceased, and that Karl Walter was the sole heir to his father’s property, namely the farmhouse and land. He was to return to Austria immediately to settle all the formalities.

Karl Walter Block returned to land on the next available helicopter and took the first plane to Austria. Two days later he was the legal owner of the Block farm. He didn’t bother to visit his father’s grave.

Over the next few days, Block paced over the fields and meadows of the estate, his gaze fixed on the ground as if searching for something. He repeated his circuit at different times of day, when it was raining, and when the sun shone. Sometimes, according to the reports curious neighbors gave at the village pub, he would even lie down on the ground, in the middle of a field, as if listening to the ground itself.

“So what are you going to do with the farm now?” asked a man who drove up one day unannounced. He wore a striped brown suit and looked like a real estate agent, ready to swoop on a good deal like a vulture. “A man like you—you’re more at home on the oilfields of the world than in agriculture.”

“I’m going to drill for oil here,” Karl Walter Block explained calmly.

Of course everyone thought he was mad, completely and utterly. The authorities returned his first application, commenting that they didn’t have time for bullshit. The banks refused to even discuss a loan. The villagers called him “the oil sheikh” and had a good laugh at his expense.

But if they thought they could stop Karl Walter Block, they were sadly mistaken. He hired a lawyer who forced the authorities to consider his application for a drilling permit. Naturally the application was denied, but the lawyer picked apart the grounds for refusal until there was nothing left, and in the end the initial permits were granted—although with the strongest possible environmental regulations, against which even the lawyer was powerless.

Karl Walter Block could drill—but he was required to observe the legal noise limits of 45 dB(A) at night and 55 dB(A) by day, even though no one lived within miles. Accordingly, he was required to equip the facilities and machinery with expensive soundproofing and to erect five-meter-high noise barriers all around the drilling site. All the waste produced from drilling had to be separated and stored in special containers; it was to be disposed of only by licensed companies, and the entire waste stream had to be recorded in detail.

Regardless of whether the well produced or not, Karl Walter Block was required to fill it in up to ground level with concrete after the work was completed, to fully dismantle the drilling site, and to recultivate the land. Indeed he was even required to remove the sod from the ground at the drilling site, store it during the drilling, and replace it afterward.

All of these regulations would be closely monitored by unannounced state inspections—all at Block’s own expense, of course.

“Just so long as I can finally start drilling,” was Block’s only response.

Despite offering the most generous terms, he was unable to find any partners for the project. It cost him months to track down the tiny bank on the other side of Austria that inally agreed to give him credit, for which he mortgaged the house and all the land he had inherited, and invested every schilling and every dollar he had saved over the years. Everything he owned was devoted to the project of wresting oil from the mountainous land of Upper Austria.

In spite of all that, there wasn’t enough money. Since he couldn’t afford to hire workers, he worked alone. Nor could he pay for modern machines—deep drilling machines that would be able to drill on steep slopes. Instead, Block telephoned around the world and hunted down used machinery—beat-up discarded drill pipes, cracked drill heads, and casings with manufacturing defects that required laborious repairs before they could be used.

The villagers watched uneasily from afar as little by little a derrick grew, eventually reaching a height of about fifty meters. Five 400-horsepower diesel engines drove the drill which finally dug into the Austrian ground. Four mud pumps, each of them requiring a thousand liters of suspension fluid per minute, washed the rock chips out of the bore hole. Work progressed centimeter by centimeter, in a nerve-racking race against the ever-dwindling supply of money.

Block did everything alone. He screwed together the drill pipe, operated the pulley, connected the swivel, and tended the motors. And that was the easy part. When drilling was halted because the drill bit had finally given up the ghost, he had to pull up the entire drill pipe again, unscrewing and putting each individual length of pipe aside until the drill head finally reached the surface and could be replaced. And then all of it had to go down again: the pipe had to be fastened to the rotary table, then the next pipe lifted with the pulley, positioned, and screwed on, and then the whole thing carefully and cautiously lowered a few meters deeper into the hole—and the process repeated with dozens, eventually with hundreds of pieces of pipe.

The villagers just shook their heads at the lunatic who toiled from sunrise to late in the night as if pursued by a hundred devils. Did he ever eat? Did he sleep at all? A nurse who lived in the village got in the habit of driving past the farm on her way to work to check if the man was still alive.

And then one day all the pipes were attached and sunk in the well, but still there was no trace of oil.

“Now he’ll come to his senses,” the people said.

Instead, Karl Walter Block said, “I need more pipe.”

But he had no more money. All he had was a few schillings in his pocket—not even enough for a warm meal. For the last few weeks he had lived off potatoes that he dug up out of his father’s old potato field and roasted over a fire. 

He let the nurse take him to the hospital and offered to give blood, if he could get money for it. At first the doctor refused, but he let himself be convinced to at least examine the man, and found to his surprise that he’d rarely seen such a healthy person, not to mention one with the rare blood type AB negative. Block was allowed to give blood, received the bounty he’d been promised and a hearty meal to boot, and was taken back to the village by the nurse.

But the money wasn’t enough for even one more length of pipe.

Block asked around in the village for a job that would make him some quick money. The innkeeper eventually hired him to take care of the livestock that he raised in addition to keeping the pub. He would not, however, grant Block an advance. Block ordered the pipe anyway; he took the little money he had to the post office and sent telegraphs until he found a supplier that would sell the pipe on account.

It arrived two weeks later. The shipping cost more than the pipe itself. On the very same evening Block hauled it to the derrick, screwed it on, turned on the engines and drilled down another twenty meters. It was a dangerous maneuver, since leaving a well for weeks and then suddenly resuming drilling could easily destroy everything.

Yet all went well, and the pipe disappeared into the ground as before, and still nothing happened. Block turned off the engines again and stood for a long time staring in silence at the hole, which looked like an ugly, scarred wound in the glow of the floodlights. Then he turned off the light and went to bed. The next morning he marched back into the village to work in the innkeeper’s stalls.

He managed to pay the bill for the drill pipe and the shipping before the first overdue notice arrived, and immediately ordered another. It too disappeared into the ground without anything breaking and without any movement in the flow line.

Block repeated the process a third time with the same result. Little by little, autumn arrived, the diesel in the tanks began to run low, and the drill bit seemed to be approaching the end of its life.

“Give up already,” the innkeeper said.

“No,” replied Block.

The innkeeper was beginning to find the man quite creepy. He used a small oversight as an excuse to fire Block, who then had to find another job. He was given a job loading containers at a factory that made a special kind of screw in a neighboring village. It was a long way to go.

Block rummaged in the attic for his father’s ancient bicycle and got it in passable condition. Nonetheless, the chain fell off at least once every time he rode it.

Meanwhile, an inspector came unannounced to the drilling site, and, finding Block not there, left notice that he was either to promptly resume drilling or give up the site and begin recultivation. The enclosed fine would have set Block back weeks, so he ignored it and instead ordered another pipe. This time the supplier insisted on advance payment.

The overdue notice from the authorities arrived promptly; the pipe did not.

Second notice. When Block called the supplier, a metal manufacturer in London, an insolvency administrator answered. The manufacturer, he explained, was being liquidated, and would not be supplying any more drill pipes. 

“But I already paid,” Block roared.

“Bad luck,” the insolvency administrator replied unapologetically.

The third overdue notice arrived from the authorities. Block went to the post office and sent a wire transfer of a single schilling. The great machine of administration responded with a new first notice for the remainder of the fine. With his remaining money Block ordered a pipe from a different company, this time one in the Netherlands.

The first leaves fell. Cool mists now shrouded the mountains in the mornings as he bicycled to work at the screw factory. The factory’s personnel manager told him that there would only be work for him through the end of the month.

“I’ll live,” Block said.

The next evening Block found a tax bill in his mailbox. Despite the fact that the Block Oil Company had thus far reported only losses, the tax office wanted money, and not just for the past year, but also an advance payment for the next year. The sums were so far out of Block’s capacities to pay that he used the bill to start a fire in the stove. He warmed himself slightly with potato soup, which had been practically his only source of nourishment for weeks, and went to bed.

Finally the pipe from Holland arrived. It was four meters shorter than promised. Nonetheless, Block mounted it, turned on the engines, which spewed thick gray clouds of exhaust into the cold sky, fastened the rotary table to the kelly, and began drilling.

He hit oil.


Ausgebrannt © 2007 by Verlagsgruppe Lübbe. Andreas Eschbach. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2012 by Anne Posten. All rights reserved.

English German (Original)

Karl Walter Block was the only son of Irmgard Block (née Mucek) and Heinrich Maria Block. Heinrich had been a captain during the war and worked in an important secret office in Berlin until, for reasons no one ever discovered, he was dishonorably discharged, on Hitler’s own orders, and sent back to Upper Austria, where there was nothing left for him but to toil away from morning till night for the rest of his life on the farm he had inherited from his parents. This fate enraged him, and he took out his anger on his son at every possible opportunity. He hit Karl when he didn’t obey, or when he didn’t obey quickly enough, or when he did something wrong, or just for the hell of it. He called him dumb and incapable, and he called him weak, which soon proved untrue, as Karl Walter grew up surprisingly fast and turned into a tough young man who could pull his own weight, and became strong enough that after a certain point his father gave up the abuse.

Karl Walter obeyed his father, but hated him and swore revenge. For his mother, who never came to his defense, he had only scorn.

In school, Karl Walter Block would gladly have satisfied his teacher’s hopes, but scholastic achievement was beyond him. He could perform a craft as well as anyone, or indeed better, simply by watching a tradesman work, but he was never at home in the world of paper and books.

His poor performance in school was due also to the fact that he had to help with the hard work of the farm and often didn’t get to his homework; in fact in the mornings he was frequently so bone-tired that it was all he could do just to stay awake. Of all his schoolmates, his clothes were the shabbiest, which prompted most of his teachers not to make any particular effort with him. The fact that he rarely knew how to combat his schoolmates’ teasing and mockery with anything other than his fists brought him additional bad marks at school, extra work as punishment, and occasional detentions, which earned him yet more beatings from his father.

One day shortly after his fifteenth birthday he decided that he’d had enough. Coldly determined, he packed his knapsack with a few clothes instead of his school things, together with all the money he’d secretly saved up, and left his parents’ house in the early-morning hours, not to return for nearly three decades, not even for his mother’s funeral.

Away from home, Karl Walter Block made out better than he had expected. He was prepared to do any work or break any law to avoid going back, but since he was big enough to pass for an older boy, or even a grownup if one didn’t look too closely—and who really looked closely?—and since his needs were few, it seemed to him as if the big, wide world welcomed him with open arms. And how big and wide a world it was! Up till then the only city he’d ever known was Kremsmünster. To him, Steyr seemed massive and Linz was a cosmopolitan city that even legendary places like Paris and New York couldn’t possibly rival. The farther his travels took him, the more he was filled with the overwhelming desire to see the world. To travel to faraway lands—the farther the better!

Finally, he headed for Hamburg with nothing but the shirt on his back and a vague plan to sign on to a ship bound across the seas. He’d hardly arrived before he met a man who had taken a job as drilling engineer in an oil company. “Why don’t you come along?” the man asked him, which Karl Walter Block did, and on that very same evening he had a contract obtained with a false birthdate, and a ticket to Venezuela.

The craft of drilling for oil practically taught itself. He went with the others, did as they did, and was soon busy with diamond bits and roller cone bits, with the motors of freight lifts and with hoses thicker than his thigh. He pitched in to help maneuver the huge hook on its pulley, which, with the swivel, weighed easily eight tons or more. Together the men would strain to lift the sections of drill pipe or the surface casings when a newly sunk production well had to be cased. And if the drill stem broke, there was no one as adept as he at recovering the “fish” with a taper tap and fishing bell. He’d grub with his bare hands in the drilling fluid and learned to recognize by smell and touch what was coming up from the deep, to understand what was going on below. Along the way he learned English and Spanish, as well as how to handle alcohol and girls, both of which smelled tantalizing and were easy to come by in Maracaibo.

In Venezuela they worked for all they were worth, hell-bent on producing oil. Just as he was starting to get bored, someone from the company asked him if he could imagine working in Indonesia. Karl Walter Block knew nothing about Indonesia and couldn’t really imagine a thing about it, but he replied, “Certainly.”

A few days later he boarded a plane to Sumatra. There he worked for several weeks in the Duri Field, where there were new techniques to be mastered. This field contained only heavy oil, which required steam to be injected in the ground in order to extract it. Then he was assigned to a team charged with tapping new deposits in the Java Sea from drilling platforms just off the coast. This was referred to as “off-shore,” and it was said that this type of drilling had a great future. It was the sixties, the Americans were on their way to the moon, and no one seriously considered the idea that the world’s oil deposits might be limited.

Next he went to Africa, where Shell had been producing oil in Nigeria for over a decade. They were ready to forge onward to the Nile Delta, to a shelf over fifty kilometers wide at a depth of up to two hundred meters, and Karl Walter Block joined an exploration team for the first time.

This was a new experience. On the one hand it was frustrating, since nine out of every ten wells yielded nothing. On the other hand, it was thrilling, because in spite of all the pilot surveys, the seismic technology, aerial photographs, and magnetic measurements, at the end of the day it was a hunt, a struggle with nature and the unknown, a battle of men prepared to go to any lengths against the elements. Tropical storms swirled overhead while they screwed together drill pipes. Again and again they started the diesel engines which drove the rotary table, though they were dripping wet and on the verge of collapse. Then the merciless equatorial sun returned, burning down on their skin until they could barely breathe, and quickly turning them nearly as brown as the locals, who had little to say throughout the operation, and with whom the men rarely had cause to interact. They lost one man when he squatted on a low-lying bar of the drilling platform to take a shit and some kind of carnivorous fish came and left nothing but a puddle of blood; they never discovered what kind of fish it had been.

Yet they remained unsuccessful. The geologists brooded over their charts, their analyses of seismic surveys and core samples, conferred with each other, telephoned, made calculations— only to find that the site that they’d chosen by means of these same tools continued to yield nothing.

“It’s hopeless,” the chief geologist eventually declared to the assembled team. It was April of 1968. On the wall of the barracks hung all the charts, red spots marking the places they had already tried drilling, and the team was offered a detailed yet incomprehensible picture of where geological studies predicted oil should be.

There, perched among the others on a chair with a bottle of ice-cold beer in his hand, Karl Walter felt for the first time what he was later to call “the feeling.”

He looked at one chart—the first and oldest seismic chart—and everything the scientists were saying became a muffled, unintelligible noise. One spot on the worn, faded, ragged-edged piece of paper seemed to glow. Or was it winking at him? Karl Walter Block wasn’t sure. The next thing he knew, he had stood up and walked to the chart, pointed to the spot and said: “There. That’s where we have to drill.”

It was instinct. To hell with the technology, the science wasn’t worth shit if they didn’t find oil. It was all about the hunter’s instinct. Mankind’s oldest skill.

The geologists didn’t laugh. They simply looked at him with great embarrassment.

“Karl,” said one, “there’s nothing there. Not even the shadow of a chance.”

Block, twenty-two at the time, though he was taken for older, stubbornly shook his Styrian head.

“There’s oil there.” He raised his beer bottle a bit. “I can feel it in my blood.”

“You’re drunk, Karl.”

“If you say so.” He sat down.

The next day, the team of geologists named the last place to drill. It lay almost exactly on the spot Karl Walter Block had pointed to. They drilled, and they found oil. The field was later estimated at about a billion barrels and was named Forcardos Yokri.

And so the company found an oilfield on his advice, an oilfield from which they were to extract a billion barrels, and many more billion dollars of profit, yet Karl Walter Block received not a word of thanks, let alone any sort of reward. This annoyed him.

But the fact that not one of the oil engineers ever thought to ask him how he had done it, how he had known, was unforgivable. From that moment on his days with the company were numbered.

Oh, he stayed. And he worked. Even harder, if possible. He made himself available for the jobs that were so dirty and difficult that the company voluntarily paid him bonuses. He switched to another company, drilled in the North Sea, toiled away on drilling platforms while hurricanes with winds of over ninety miles an hour raged above him and roared so furiously at the sea that it was often impossible to be heard even when shouting. He went to Alaska, where America’s largest oilfield, Prudhoe Bay, discovered at the end of the sixties, was being developed. More than one engineer fell victim to the blizzards and the ferocious cold. He lived frugally, taking his money now to the bank instead of the bordello.

Over the years, what he had first perceived in Nigeria solidified into certainty: he could find oil where others found nothing. He had a sixth sense for what was buried beneath the earth.

Whenever the opportunity arose, he worked in exploration teams, but by now he had learned to keep his mouth shut. All he did was look at the charts, the seismic data, the mineralogical findings, the aerial and satellite photos, and the other types of data that came to be added over the years. He looked at everything, again and again, for hours when he was allowed, and waited for his intuition to speak. Secretly he looked at points on the chart and said to himself, “There’s oil there…and there…and there…” He waited until all the drilling had proven where the oil was. And he was nearly always correct.

But he didn’t say a word to anyone. Never again would an oil company profit from his talents. The day would come when he’d find oil, his own oil, by himself. The day would come when he’d show them all.

The day came sooner than he anticipated.

One day, while Block was busy with an offshore project in the Gulf of Mexico, a letter bearing Austrian postage and a multitude of stamps and seals arrived. It looked very official, and indeed it was. The district court of Styria wished to inform him that his father, Capt. (Retd.) Heinrich Maria Block, born August 13, 1915, was deceased, and that Karl Walter was the sole heir to his father’s property, namely the farmhouse and land. He was to return to Austria immediately to settle all the formalities.

Karl Walter Block returned to land on the next available helicopter and took the first plane to Austria. Two days later he was the legal owner of the Block farm. He didn’t bother to visit his father’s grave.

Over the next few days, Block paced over the fields and meadows of the estate, his gaze fixed on the ground as if searching for something. He repeated his circuit at different times of day, when it was raining, and when the sun shone. Sometimes, according to the reports curious neighbors gave at the village pub, he would even lie down on the ground, in the middle of a field, as if listening to the ground itself.

“So what are you going to do with the farm now?” asked a man who drove up one day unannounced. He wore a striped brown suit and looked like a real estate agent, ready to swoop on a good deal like a vulture. “A man like you—you’re more at home on the oilfields of the world than in agriculture.”

“I’m going to drill for oil here,” Karl Walter Block explained calmly.

Of course everyone thought he was mad, completely and utterly. The authorities returned his first application, commenting that they didn’t have time for bullshit. The banks refused to even discuss a loan. The villagers called him “the oil sheikh” and had a good laugh at his expense.

But if they thought they could stop Karl Walter Block, they were sadly mistaken. He hired a lawyer who forced the authorities to consider his application for a drilling permit. Naturally the application was denied, but the lawyer picked apart the grounds for refusal until there was nothing left, and in the end the initial permits were granted—although with the strongest possible environmental regulations, against which even the lawyer was powerless.

Karl Walter Block could drill—but he was required to observe the legal noise limits of 45 dB(A) at night and 55 dB(A) by day, even though no one lived within miles. Accordingly, he was required to equip the facilities and machinery with expensive soundproofing and to erect five-meter-high noise barriers all around the drilling site. All the waste produced from drilling had to be separated and stored in special containers; it was to be disposed of only by licensed companies, and the entire waste stream had to be recorded in detail.

Regardless of whether the well produced or not, Karl Walter Block was required to fill it in up to ground level with concrete after the work was completed, to fully dismantle the drilling site, and to recultivate the land. Indeed he was even required to remove the sod from the ground at the drilling site, store it during the drilling, and replace it afterward.

All of these regulations would be closely monitored by unannounced state inspections—all at Block’s own expense, of course.

“Just so long as I can finally start drilling,” was Block’s only response.

Despite offering the most generous terms, he was unable to find any partners for the project. It cost him months to track down the tiny bank on the other side of Austria that inally agreed to give him credit, for which he mortgaged the house and all the land he had inherited, and invested every schilling and every dollar he had saved over the years. Everything he owned was devoted to the project of wresting oil from the mountainous land of Upper Austria.

In spite of all that, there wasn’t enough money. Since he couldn’t afford to hire workers, he worked alone. Nor could he pay for modern machines—deep drilling machines that would be able to drill on steep slopes. Instead, Block telephoned around the world and hunted down used machinery—beat-up discarded drill pipes, cracked drill heads, and casings with manufacturing defects that required laborious repairs before they could be used.

The villagers watched uneasily from afar as little by little a derrick grew, eventually reaching a height of about fifty meters. Five 400-horsepower diesel engines drove the drill which finally dug into the Austrian ground. Four mud pumps, each of them requiring a thousand liters of suspension fluid per minute, washed the rock chips out of the bore hole. Work progressed centimeter by centimeter, in a nerve-racking race against the ever-dwindling supply of money.

Block did everything alone. He screwed together the drill pipe, operated the pulley, connected the swivel, and tended the motors. And that was the easy part. When drilling was halted because the drill bit had finally given up the ghost, he had to pull up the entire drill pipe again, unscrewing and putting each individual length of pipe aside until the drill head finally reached the surface and could be replaced. And then all of it had to go down again: the pipe had to be fastened to the rotary table, then the next pipe lifted with the pulley, positioned, and screwed on, and then the whole thing carefully and cautiously lowered a few meters deeper into the hole—and the process repeated with dozens, eventually with hundreds of pieces of pipe.

The villagers just shook their heads at the lunatic who toiled from sunrise to late in the night as if pursued by a hundred devils. Did he ever eat? Did he sleep at all? A nurse who lived in the village got in the habit of driving past the farm on her way to work to check if the man was still alive.

And then one day all the pipes were attached and sunk in the well, but still there was no trace of oil.

“Now he’ll come to his senses,” the people said.

Instead, Karl Walter Block said, “I need more pipe.”

But he had no more money. All he had was a few schillings in his pocket—not even enough for a warm meal. For the last few weeks he had lived off potatoes that he dug up out of his father’s old potato field and roasted over a fire. 

He let the nurse take him to the hospital and offered to give blood, if he could get money for it. At first the doctor refused, but he let himself be convinced to at least examine the man, and found to his surprise that he’d rarely seen such a healthy person, not to mention one with the rare blood type AB negative. Block was allowed to give blood, received the bounty he’d been promised and a hearty meal to boot, and was taken back to the village by the nurse.

But the money wasn’t enough for even one more length of pipe.

Block asked around in the village for a job that would make him some quick money. The innkeeper eventually hired him to take care of the livestock that he raised in addition to keeping the pub. He would not, however, grant Block an advance. Block ordered the pipe anyway; he took the little money he had to the post office and sent telegraphs until he found a supplier that would sell the pipe on account.

It arrived two weeks later. The shipping cost more than the pipe itself. On the very same evening Block hauled it to the derrick, screwed it on, turned on the engines and drilled down another twenty meters. It was a dangerous maneuver, since leaving a well for weeks and then suddenly resuming drilling could easily destroy everything.

Yet all went well, and the pipe disappeared into the ground as before, and still nothing happened. Block turned off the engines again and stood for a long time staring in silence at the hole, which looked like an ugly, scarred wound in the glow of the floodlights. Then he turned off the light and went to bed. The next morning he marched back into the village to work in the innkeeper’s stalls.

He managed to pay the bill for the drill pipe and the shipping before the first overdue notice arrived, and immediately ordered another. It too disappeared into the ground without anything breaking and without any movement in the flow line.

Block repeated the process a third time with the same result. Little by little, autumn arrived, the diesel in the tanks began to run low, and the drill bit seemed to be approaching the end of its life.

“Give up already,” the innkeeper said.

“No,” replied Block.

The innkeeper was beginning to find the man quite creepy. He used a small oversight as an excuse to fire Block, who then had to find another job. He was given a job loading containers at a factory that made a special kind of screw in a neighboring village. It was a long way to go.

Block rummaged in the attic for his father’s ancient bicycle and got it in passable condition. Nonetheless, the chain fell off at least once every time he rode it.

Meanwhile, an inspector came unannounced to the drilling site, and, finding Block not there, left notice that he was either to promptly resume drilling or give up the site and begin recultivation. The enclosed fine would have set Block back weeks, so he ignored it and instead ordered another pipe. This time the supplier insisted on advance payment.

The overdue notice from the authorities arrived promptly; the pipe did not.

Second notice. When Block called the supplier, a metal manufacturer in London, an insolvency administrator answered. The manufacturer, he explained, was being liquidated, and would not be supplying any more drill pipes. 

“But I already paid,” Block roared.

“Bad luck,” the insolvency administrator replied unapologetically.

The third overdue notice arrived from the authorities. Block went to the post office and sent a wire transfer of a single schilling. The great machine of administration responded with a new first notice for the remainder of the fine. With his remaining money Block ordered a pipe from a different company, this time one in the Netherlands.

The first leaves fell. Cool mists now shrouded the mountains in the mornings as he bicycled to work at the screw factory. The factory’s personnel manager told him that there would only be work for him through the end of the month.

“I’ll live,” Block said.

The next evening Block found a tax bill in his mailbox. Despite the fact that the Block Oil Company had thus far reported only losses, the tax office wanted money, and not just for the past year, but also an advance payment for the next year. The sums were so far out of Block’s capacities to pay that he used the bill to start a fire in the stove. He warmed himself slightly with potato soup, which had been practically his only source of nourishment for weeks, and went to bed.

Finally the pipe from Holland arrived. It was four meters shorter than promised. Nonetheless, Block mounted it, turned on the engines, which spewed thick gray clouds of exhaust into the cold sky, fastened the rotary table to the kelly, and began drilling.

He hit oil.


Ausgebrannt © 2007 by Verlagsgruppe Lübbe. Andreas Eschbach. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2012 by Anne Posten. All rights reserved.

Block

Karl Walter Block war der einzige Sohn von Irmgard Block, geborene Mucek, und Heinrich Maria Block, der im Krieg Hauptmann gewesen war und in Berlin in einem wichtigen geheimen Amt tätig, bis er auf Hitlers Anordnung und aus Gründen, die nie jemand erfahren hatte, unehrenhaft entlassen und zurück nach Oberösterreich geschickt worden war, wo ihm nichts anderes blieb, als sich den Rest seines Lebens von früh bis spät auf dem von seinen Eltern ererbten Bauernhof abzurackern. Seine Wut über dieses Schicksal ließ er bei jeder Gelegenheit an seinem Sohn aus. Er schlug ihn, wenn er nicht gehorchte, oder nicht schnell genug gehorchte, oder etwas falsch machte, oder einfach, weil ihm danach war. Er nannte ihn dumm und lebensuntüchtig, und er nannte ihn schwach, was, wie sich bald zeigte, nicht stimmte, denn Karl Walter wuchs überraschend schnell heran und entwickelte sich zu einem zähen, drahtigen Jungen, der mit anpacken konnte und stark genug wurde, daß sein Vater es ab einem gewissen Zeitpunkt bei Schmähungen beließ.

Karl Walter gehorchte seinem Vater, haßte ihn aber und schwor sich Rache. Seine Mutter, die ihn nie gegen den Vater in Schutz nahm, verachtete er nur.

In der Schule hätte Karl Walter Block gern die Leistungen erbracht, die seine Lehrer von ihm verlangten, aber das gelang ihm nicht. Er konnte einem Handwerker zusehen und es dann genauso gut machen wie jener, oder sogar besser, doch das Papier und die Bücher waren nicht seine Welt.

Weitere Gründe waren, daß er auf dem Hof kräftig mit anpacken mußte und oft nicht dazu kam, seine Hausaufgaben zu erledigen; ja, oft war er morgens in der Schule so knochenmüde, daß er Mühe hatte, überhaupt wach zu bleiben. Von allen Mitschülern kam er am ärmlichsten gekleidet an, was die meisten Lehrer veranlaßte, sich mit ihm keine sonderliche Mühe zu geben. Daß er dem Spott und den Hänseleien seiner Mitschüler oft nur mit der Faust zu begegnen wußte, trug ihm zusätzliche schlechte Noten, Strafarbeiten und bisweilen Nachsitzen ein, was wiederum Prügel von seinem Vater nach sich zog.

Eines Tages, kurz nach seinem fünfzehnten Geburtstag, beschloß er, daß es nun genug war. In den frühen Morgenstunden packte er kalt entschlossen statt der Schulsachen ein paar Kleider in seinen Ranzen, dazu alles Geld, das er sich insgeheim mühsam zusammengespart hatte, und verließ sein Elternhaus, um fast drei Jahrzehnte lang nicht wiederzukehren, auch nicht zum Begräbnis seiner Mutter.

 

Fernab von zu Hause kam Karl Walter Block besser zurecht, als er befürchtet hatte. Er war zu jeder Arbeit, auch zu jeder Straftat bereit gewesen, um nicht mehr zurück gehen zu müssen, aber da er groß genug war, um als älter durchzugehen, sogar als Erwachsener, wenn einer nicht genau hinsah – und wer sah schon genau hin? -, und er wenig Ansprüche hatte, schien es ihm, als nehme sie ihn mit offenen Armen auf, die große, weite Welt. Und wie groß und wie weit sie war! Die einzige Stadt, die er bis dahin gekannt hatte, war Kremsmünster gewesen. Steyr kam ihm gewaltig vor, Linz wie eine Weltstadt, die zweifellos auch von mythischen Orten wie Paris oder New York nicht mehr übertroffen werden konnte. Je weiter die Reise ging, desto stärker erfüllte ihn unbändige Lust, sie kennenzulernen, die Welt. Zu reisen, in ferne Länder, je ferner, je besser!

So schlug er sich schließlich nach Hamburg durch, mit nichts als sich selbst und dem vagen Plan, auf einem Schiff anzuheuern, das die Weltmeere befuhr. Doch kaum angekommen, lernte er jemanden kennen, der eine Stellung als Bohrtechniker bei einer Erdölfirma antrat, und der ihm sagte: »Komm doch einfach mal mit.« Das tat Karl Walter Block, und am Abend desselben Tages hatte er einen Anstellungsvertrag, in dem ein falsches Geburtsdatum stand, sowie ein Ticket nach Venezuela.

Das Handwerk des Ölbohrens erlernte sich von selbst. Er ging mit den anderen, tat, was sie taten, und hantierte auf einmal mit Diamant- und Rollenmeißeln, mit Hebewerksmotoren und mit Spülschläuchen, die dicker waren als sein Oberschenkel. Er packte zu, wenn es galt, den Haken des Flaschenzugs zu manövrieren, der zusammen mit dem Spülkopf leicht acht Tonnen und mehr wog. Gemeinsam wuchteten sie die Bohrstangen beim Meißellauf oder die Futterrohre, wenn eine abgeteufte Produktionsbohrung zu verrohren war. Und wenn das Bohrgestänge brach, war keiner so geschickt wie er, mit Fangdorn und Glocke den »fish« wieder herauszuholen. Er wühlte mit bloßen Händen in der Bohrspülung und lernte, am Geruch und daran, wie sich das anfühlte, was da aus der Tiefe hochkam, zu erkennen, was sich unter ihnen abspielte. Nebenbei lernte er Englisch und Spanisch, den Umgang mit Alkohol und den mit den Mädchen, die dort in Maracaibo aufregend rochen und leicht zu haben waren.

In Venezuela arbeiteten sie, was das Zeug hielt, förderten Öl auf Teufel komm raus. Gerade als ihm  langweilig zu werden begann, fragte ihn jemand von der Company, ob er sich vorstellen könne, in Indonesien zu arbeiten. Karl Walter Block wußte nichts über Indonesien und konnte sich eigentlich überhaupt nichts darunter vorstellen, aber er sagte: »Klar.«

Ein paar Tage später bestieg er ein Flugzeug, das ihn nach Sumatra brachte. Dort arbeitete er erst ein paar Wochen im Duri-Feld, wo es neue Methoden zu lernen galt, denn dieses Feld enthielt nur Schweröl, und man mußte Dampf in den Boden pressen, um es herauszulösen. Danach teilte man ihn einem Trupp zu, der weitere Lagerstätten in der Java-See erschließen sollte, von Bohrplattformen aus, die im küstennahen Gewässer errichtet wurden. »Off-shore« sagte man dazu, und es hieß, diese Art der Förderung aus dem Meer habe noch eine große Zukunft. Es waren immer noch die Sechzigerjahre, die Amerikaner waren unterwegs zum Mond, und niemand dachte im Ernst darüber nach, daß die Ölvorkommen begrenzt sein könnten.

Dann ging er nach Afrika, wo Shell bereits seit über einem Jahrzehnt in Nigeria Öl förderte. Man war dabei, ins Niger-Delta vorzustoßen, ein über fünfzig Kilometer breites Schelf, dessen Wassertiefe bis zu zweihundert Meter betrug, und Karl Walter Block kam erstmals in ein Explorationsteam.

Das war eine neue Erfahrung. Frustrierend auf der einen Seite, weil von zehn Bohrungen mindestens neun erfolglos blieben, erregend auf der anderen Seite, weil es trotz aller Voruntersuchungen, aller Seismik, Luftaufnahmen und magnetischer Messungen letzten Endes eine Jagd war, ein Ringen mit der Natur und dem Unbekannten, ein Kampf von zu allem entschlossenen Männern gegen Naturgewalten. Tropische Stürme rasten über sie hinweg, während sie Gestänge verschraubten und die Dieselmotoren, die den Drehtisch trieben, wieder und wieder anwarfen, triefend vor Nässe und am Rand der Erschöpfung. Dann wieder brannte ihnen die erbarmungslose Sonne des Äquators auf die Haut, daß sie kaum atmen konnten und nach kurzer Zeit fast so braun waren wie die Einheimischen, die in der ganzen Angelegenheit wenig zu sagen hatten und mit denen sie wenig zu tun bekamen. Einen Mann verloren sie, weil er sich zum Scheißen über eine Stange der Bohrinsel hockte, die zu dicht überm Wasser lag, und ein Raubfisch kam und ihn holte und nur eine Blutlache zurückließ; sie erfuhren nie, was für ein Tier das gewesen war.

Und doch blieben sie erfolglos. Die Geologen brüteten über ihren Karten, den Auswertungen der seismischen Untersuchungen, den Bohrkernen, berieten sich, telefonierten, stellten Berechnungen an – nur um zu erleben, daß die Stelle, die sie auf diese Weise festlegten, wieder nichts erbrachte.

»Es ist aussichtslos«, erklärte der Chefgeologe schließlich vor versammelter Mannschaft. Der April des Jahres 1968 war angebrochen, an der Wand der Baracke hingen die ganze Karten, die bisherigen Aufschlußbohrungen waren rot eingezeichnet, und sie bekamen ebenso ausführlich wie unverständlich erklärt, wo aufgrund der geologischen Beschaffenheit mit Öl gerechnet worden war.

Da, zwischen den anderen auf seinem Stuhl hockend, eine Flasche eisgekühlten Biers in der Hand, spürte Karl Walter Block zum ersten Mal das, was er später »das Gefühl« nennen würde.

Er sah die eine Karte an, die allererste, allerälteste seismische Karte, und das, was der Wissenschaftler sagte, wurde zu einem dumpfen, unverständlichen Geräusch. Eine Stelle auf dem abgegriffenen, verblichenen, vielfach eingerissenen Papierbogen schien zu leuchten. Oder zwinkerte sie ihm zu? Karl Walter Block wußte es nicht. Das nächste, was er wußte, war, daß er aufgestanden und vor die Karte getreten war, auf die Stelle zeigte und sagte: »Da. Da müssen wir bohren.«

Es war Instinkt. Scheiß auf die ganze Technik, zur Hölle mit der ganzen Wissenschaft, wenn sie das Öl nicht fand. Jagdinstinkt, das war es. Die älteste Fähigkeit der Menschen.

Die Geologen lachten nicht. Sie sahen ihn nur peinlich berührt an.

»Karl«, sagte einer, »da ist nichts. Nicht einmal der Hauch einer Chance.«

Block, der damals gerade 22 war, obwohl alle ihn für älter hielten, schüttelte dickköpfig seinen steyrischen Schädel. »Da ist Öl.« Er hob die Bierflasche ein wenig. »Ich hab’s im Urin.«

»Sie sind betrunken, Karl.«

»Wenn Sie es sagen.« Er setzte sich wieder.

Am nächsten Tag benannte das Geologenteam die letzte Stelle, an der sie bohren würden. Sie lag fast genau an dem Punkt, auf den Karl Walter Block gezeigt hatte. Sie bohrten, und sie fanden Öl. Das Feld wurde später auf rund eine Milliarde Barrel geschätzt, und man gab ihm den Namen Forcardos Yokri.

 

So hatte die Gesellschaft auf seinen Ratschlag hin ein Ölfeld gefunden, aus dem sie in den kommenden Jahren eine Milliarde Barrel fördern und mehrere Milliarden Dollar Gewinn ziehen würde, doch Karl Walter Block bekam nicht einmal ein Wort des Dankes, von einer Prämie ganz zu schweigen. Das verstimmte ihn.

Doch daß auch keiner der Ölingenieure auf die Idee kam, ihn zu fragen, wie er das gemacht und woher er das gewußt hatte, war unverzeihlich. Von diesem Augenblick an waren Blocks Tage bei dieser Gesellschaft gezählt.

Oh, er blieb. Und er arbeitete auch. Mehr noch, womöglich. Er war für die schwierigen Jobs zu gewinnen, für die Einsätze, die so dreckig und hart waren, daß die Gesellschaft von sich aus Zulagen zahlte. Er wechselte zu einer anderen Firma, bohrte in der Nordsee, schuftete auf Bohrplattformen, über die Orkane von über hundertvierzig Stundenkilometern hinwegtobten und gegen die das Meer manchmal so wütend anbrüllte, daß man sich auch schreiend kaum noch verständigen konnte. Er ging nach Alaska, wo es das Ende der Sechzigerjahre entdeckte größte Ölfeld Nordamerikas, die Prudhoe Bay, zu erschließen galt, in grimmiger Kälte und in Blizzards, denen mehr als ein Techniker zum Opfer fiel. Und er lebte nun sparsam, trug sein Geld nicht mehr ins Bordell, sondern auf die Bank.

Im Lauf der Jahre verdichtete sich zur Gewißheit, was er in Nigeria zum ersten Mal bemerkt hatte: Er konnte Öl finden, wo andere keines fanden. Er hatte einen sechsten Sinn für das, was sich unter der Erde verbarg.

Wann immer sich die Gelegenheit ergab, arbeitete er in Explorationsteams mit, nur mit dem Unterschied, daß er nun schön den Mund hielt. Alles, was er tat, war, sich die Karten anzuschauen, die seismischen Daten, die mineralogischen Befunde, die Luftaufnahmen und Satellitenbilder und was noch alles im Lauf der Jahre hinzukam. Er schaute sich alles an, immer wieder, stundenlang, wenn man ihn ließ, und wartete darauf, daß seine Intuition zu ihm sprach. Insgeheim sah er sich Punkte auf diesen Karten an und sagte zu sich: »Hier wird man Öl finden… und hier… und hier…« Er wartete, bis alle Bohrungen erfolgt waren und sich zeigte, wo Öl war. Und fast immer lag er richtig.

Doch er verriet niemandem ein Wort. Nie wieder würde eine Ölgesellschaft von seinem Talent profitieren. Der Tag würde kommen, an dem er selber Öl finden würde, auf eigene Rechnung. Der Tag würde kommen, an dem er es ihnen allen zeigen würde.

Der Tag kam schneller als erwartet.

Eines Tages – Block war gerade bei einem Offshore-Projekt im Golf von Mexiko beschäftigt – kam ein Brief mit zahlreichen Stempeln und Vermerken und einer österreichischen Briefmarke darauf an. Er sah hochoffiziell aus, und er war es. Das Amtsgericht Steyr teilte ihm mit, daß sein Vater, Hauptmann a.D. Heinrich Maria Block, geboren am 13. August 1915, verstorben sei und er alleiniger Erbe von dessen Besitz, namentlich dessen Hof und Grund. Er möge bitte unverzüglich vorstellig werden zwecks Regelung aller weiteren Formalitäten.

Karl Walter Block ließ sich vom nächstbesten Hubschrauber mit an Land nehmen und nahm das nächstbeste Flugzeug nach Österreich. Zwei Tage später war er Besitzer des Block’schen Hofes. Das Grab seines Vaters aufzusuchen ersparte er sich.

In den kommenden Tagen schritt er die Felder und Wiesen ab, die zum Hof gehörten, den Blick unverwandt nach unten gerichtet, als suche er etwas. Er wiederholte diese Rundgänge zu verschiedenen Tageszeiten, bei Regen und bei Sonnenschein, und manchmal, so berichteten neugierige Nachbarn in der Dorfschenke, legte er sich irgendwohin, mitunter mitten in ein Stoppelfeld, so, als wolle er am Boden horchen.

»Was werden Sie denn jetzt mit dem Hof anfangen?« wollte ein Mann wissen, der einfach so mit seinem Auto angefahren gekommen war. Er trug einen braungestreiften Anzug und konnte eigentlich nur ein Immobilienmakler sein, der auf ein gutes Geschäft geierte. »Jemand wie Sie, der doch auf den Ölfeldern der Welt zu Hause ist, nicht in der Landwirtschaft?«

»Ich werde«, erklärte Karl Walter Block ruhig, »hier nach Öl bohren.«

 

Natürlich hielten ihn alle für übergeschnappt, und zwar vollkommen. Die Behörden schickten ihm seine ersten Anträge mit dem Vermerk zurück, verscheißern könnten sie sich selber. Die Banken weigerten sich, mit ihm auch nur über Kredite zu verhandeln. Im Dorf nannte man ihn »den Ölscheich« und hatte eine Menge zu lachen.

Doch wenn sie geglaubt hatten, einen Karl Walter Block aufhalten zu können, hatten sie sich getäuscht. Er nahm sich einen Anwalt, der die Behörden zwang, sich mit den Anträgen auf Erteilung einer Bohrerlaubnis auseinanderzusetzen. Natürlich wurden sie abgelehnt, doch der Anwalt zerpflückte die Ablehnungsgründe, bis nichts mehr davon übrig war, und schließlich wurden die ersten Genehmigungen erteilt – allerdings mit den strengstmöglichen Umweltauflagen, und dagegen war auch der Anwalt machtlos.

Karl Walter Block durfte bohren – aber er mußte, obwohl weit und breit niemand wohnte, die gesetzlich vorgeschriebenen Schallgrenzwerte von 45 dB(A) bei Nacht und 55 dB(A) bei Tag einhalten. Dazu mußte er alle Anlagen und Aggregate mit teuren Schallschutzkapseln ausstatten und außerdem fünf Meter hohe Lärmschutzwände rund um den Bohrplatz aufstellen. Den durch die Bohrung entstehende Abfall mußte er in speziellen Containern getrennt lagern; er durfte ausschließlich von konzessionierten Unternehmen entsorgt werden, und außerdem mußte über den gesamten Abfallstrom detaillierte Aufzeichnungen geführt werden.

Gleichgültig, ob die Bohrung fündig wurde oder nicht, Karl Walter Block war gehalten, sie am Ende der Arbeiten bis zur Oberfläche mit Beton zu verfüllen, den Bohrplatz anschließend zu beseitigen und das Gelände zu rekultivieren. Ja, er wurde sogar dazu verpflichtet, beim Bau eines Bohrplatzes die Grasnarbe abzuheben, an geeigneter Stelle zwischenzulagern und am Schluß wieder aufzubringen.

Alle diese Maßnahmen würden engmaschig und unangekündigt von staatlich bestellten Inspektoren überwacht werden – auf Blocks Kosten, verstand sich.

»Hauptsache, ich darf endlich bohren«, sagte Block nur.

Teilhaber fand er keine, generösesten Konditionen zum Trotz. Eine kleine Bank am anderen Ende Österreichs, die aufzustöbern ihn Monate kostete, gewährte ihm schließlich Kredit, und so verpfändete er das Haus, den gesamten Grund und Boden, den er geerbt hatte, und investierte darüber hinaus jeden Schilling und jeden Dollar, den er im Lauf der Jahre erspart hatte. Alles, was er besaß, wurde an das Vorhaben verwandt, dem gebirgigen Boden Oberösterreichs Öl abzuringen.

Trotz allem war es zu wenig Geld. Da er es sich nicht leisten konnte, Arbeiter einzustellen, arbeitete er alleine. Auch moderne Maschinen, Tiefbohrmaschinen etwa, mit denen man in schrägen Winkeln hätte bohren können, waren nicht zu bezahlen. Stattdessen telefonierte Block um die ganze Welt und stöberte gebrauchte Aggregate auf, abgewetztes, ausrangiertes Bohrgestänge, schrundige Bohrköpfe und casings für das Verrohren, an denen erst mühsam die Produktionsfehler repariert werden mußten.

Die Leute im Dorf sahen mit mulmigem Gefühl von Ferne zu, wie nach und nach ein Bohrturm in die Höhe wuchs, der am Schluß rund fünfzig Meter hoch war. Fünf Dieselmotoren zu je 400 PS trieben den Bohrer an, der sich schließlich in österreichischen Boden grub. Vier Spülpumpen, von denen jede tausend Liter Suspensionsflüssigkeit pro Minute bewältigte, wuschen das zermahlene Gestein aus dem Bohrloch. Zentimeter um Zentimeter ging es voran, in nervenzerfetzendem Wettlauf mit dem zur Neige gehenden Geld.

Block machte alles alleine. Er verschraubte das Gestänge, betätigte den Flaschenzug, schloß den Spülkopf an, versorgte die Motoren. Und das war der leichte Teil. Wenn es nicht mehr weiter ging, weil der Bohrmeißel endgültig hinüber war, hieß es: das ganze Gestänge wieder herausziehen, Rohr um Rohr abschrauben und seitlich abstellen, bis der Bohrkopf wieder oben war und ausgetauscht werden konnte. Und dann alles wieder hinab: das Gestänge am Bohrtisch festspannen, das nächste Rohr am Flaschenzug befestigen, in Position bringen, anschrauben und dann alles vorsichtig und mit Gefühl wieder ein paar Meter tiefer ins Loch senken – und das mit Dutzenden, am Schluß mit Hunderten von Rohren.

Die Leute im Dorf schüttelten nur noch den Kopf über den Verrückten, der von Sonnenaufgang bis spät in die Nacht schuftete, als seien tausend Teufel hinter ihm her. Aß der je etwas? Schlief er überhaupt? Eine Krankenschwester, die im Dorf wohnte, gewöhnte es sich an, auf dem Weg zur Arbeit am Block’schen Hof vorbeizufahren und nachzusehen, ob der Mann noch lebte.

Dann waren eines Tages alle Stangen im Loch, doch von Öl keine Spur.

»Jetzt sieht er’s endlich ein«, sagten die Leute.

Doch Karl Walter Block sagte: »Ich brauche mehr Gestänge.«

Bloß hatte er kein Geld mehr. Ein paar Schillinge in der Hosentasche, die für keine warme Mahlzeit gereicht hätten, waren alles, was er noch besaß. Er hatte die letzten Wochen nur von Kartoffeln gelebt, die er auf dem alten Kartoffelacker seines Vaters ausgegraben und im Feuer geröstet hatte.

Er ließ sich von der Krankenschwester ins Krankenhaus mitnehmen und bot an, Blut zu spenden, wenn er dafür Geld bekäme. Der Arzt weigerte sich erst, ließ sich dann aber überreden, ihn wenigstens zu untersuchen, und fand zu seiner Überraschung, daß er selten jemand so Gesundes vor sich gehabt hatte, noch dazu mit der seltenen Blutgruppe AB negativ. Block durfte Blut spenden, bekam sein Handgeld und eine kräftige Mahlzeit obendrein, und die Krankenschwester nahm ihn wieder mit ins Dorf.

Doch das Geld reichte nicht einmal für eine einzige weitere Stange.

Block fragte im Dorf herum, nach einer Arbeit, die ihm rasch Geld einbringen würde. Der Wirt stellte ihn schließlich ein, ließ ihn das Vieh auf dem Hof versorgen, den er neben der Wirtschaft betrieb. Einen Vorschuß aber wollte er ihm nicht geben. Block bestellte die Stange trotzdem schon; ging mit dem Geld, das er hatte, zur Post und telegrafierte, bis er einen Lieferanten fand, der auf Rechnung lieferte.

Zwei Wochen später kam sie. Der Transport war teurer gewesen als die Stange selbst. Noch am gleichen Abend schleppte Block sie zu seinem Bohrturm, schraubte sie an, warf die Dieselmotoren an und trieb die Bohrung zwanzig Meter tiefer. Es war ein gefährliches Manöver, denn eine Bohrung wochenlang still stehen zu lassen und dann wieder in Betrieb zu nehmen, das konnte leicht alles zerreissen.

Doch es ging gut, die Stange verschwand im Boden wie alle davor, und weiter geschah nichts. Block schaltete die Motoren wieder aus und stand lange Zeit nur schweigend da, das Bohrloch anstarrend, das im Licht der Scheinwerfer wie eine häßliche, vernarbte Wunde aussah. Dann löschte er das Licht und ging schlafen. Und am nächsten Morgen marschierte er wieder ins Dorf hinab, um beim Wirt im Stall zu arbeiten.

Er schaffte es, die Rechnung für Bohrstange und Lieferung zu bezahlen, ehe die erste Mahnung eintraf, und bestellte gleich die nächste. Auch die verschwand im Boden, ohne daß etwas kaputtging und ohne daß sich im Ausflußrohr irgendetwas rührte.

Block wiederholte alles noch ein drittes Mal, mit demselben Ergebnis. Nur daß allmählich der Herbst anbrach, der Diesel in den Tanks zur Neige und der Bohrmeißel, wie es aussah, seinem Ende entgegen ging.

»Sieh es doch endlich ein«, sagte der Wirt.

»Nein«, sagte Block.

Dem Wirt wurde der Mann allmählich unheimlich. Er nahm ein kleines Versehen zum Anlaß, ihn zu entlassen, und Block mußte sich einen anderen Job suchen: In einer Fabrik im Nachbarort, die Spezialschrauben herstellte und in alle Welt lieferte, ließ man ihn Container auf dem Hof umladen. Es war ein weiter Weg. Block stöberte auf dem Speicher das uralte Fahrrad seines Vaters auf und richtete es leidlich her. Trotzdem sprang ihm die Kette mindestens einmal pro Fahrt ab.

Eine unangekündigte Kontrolle kam ihm dazwischen, fand ihn nicht an der Bohrstelle vor, schrieb ihm trotzdem einen Bescheid, entweder die Bohrung umgehend fortzusetzen oder den Bohrplatz aufzugeben und mit der Rekultivierung zu beginnen. Die Höhe der beiliegenden Rechnung hätte ihn um Wochen zurückgeworfen, also ignorierte er sie und bestellte stattdessen die nächste Stange. Diesmal bestand der Lieferant auf Vorkasse.

Die Mahnung der Behörde kam kurz darauf, die Stange nicht.

Zweite Mahnung. Als Block bei dem Lieferanten, einer Metallfabrik in England, anrief, meldete sich ein Insolvenzverwalter. Die Fabrik, erklärte dieser ihm, sei in Abwicklung begriffen und würde keine Bohrgestänge mehr liefern.

»Ich habe aber schon bezahlt«, rief Block.

»Pech für Sie«, erwiderte der Insolvenzverwalter ungerührt.

Die dritte Mahnung der Behörde kam. Block ging zur Post und überwies einen einzigen Schilling. Darauf reagierte das Getriebe der Verwaltung mit einer neuen ersten Mahnung, den Restbetrag betreffend. Mit dem restlichen Geld bestellte Block eine Stange bei einer anderen Firma, diesmal eine in den Niederlanden.

Die ersten Blätter fielen. Wenn er morgens zur Schraubenfabrik radelte, verhüllte kühler Nebel die Berge. Man werde ihn nur noch bis zum Ende des Monats beschäftigen können, sagte ihm der Personalchef dort.

»Das wird mich auch nicht umbringen«, sagte Block.

Am nächsten Abend lag ein Steuerbescheid im Briefkasten. Ungeachtet der Tatsache, daß die Block Ölförderungsgesellschaft bis jetzt nur Verluste gemacht hatte, wollte das Finanzamt Geld, und zwar nicht nur für das abgelaufene Jahr, sondern auch gleich Vorauszahlungen für das nächste. Die Beträge waren derart jenseits von Blocks Möglichkeiten, daß er den Bescheid dazu verwendete, das Feuer im Herd anzuzünden. Er wärmte sich etwas von der Kartoffelsuppe auf, von der er sich seit Wochen praktisch ausschließlich ernährte, und ging zu Bett.

Endlich kam die Stange aus Holland, vier Meter kürzer als bestellt. Block montierte sie trotzdem, warf die Motoren an, die dicke graue Abgaswolken in den kalten Himmel bliesen, ließ den Bohrtisch um den Kelly einrasten und bohrte los.

Und stieß auf Öl.

Auszug aus dem Roman »Ausgebrannt«, Bastei-Lübbe 2007

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