by Herta Müller
Paul’s face is lying on the pillow, gray, older than in the city. His clothes are crumpled from the day before. On top of the wardrobe is a row of canning jars full of whole apricots that look like stones. The jars are covered with cellophane tied off with green thread. Adina feels a chill inside her skull, she taps her forehead. Her toothbrush is next to Paul’s, and next to that is the nail clipper. She picks up her toothbrush and holds the handle in her mouth.
In front of the wardrobe Adina’s toes can feel the fox even though there’s nothing but the rug’s white fringe. She closes her eyes and slips her bare feet into her shoes. She sniffs her handkerchief. Then she takes the chamber pot into the kitchen.
Embers are glowing in the stove. On the kitchen table is bacon and a loaf of bread, and next to that a note: WE’LL BE BACK AT 12.
* * *
Inside Adina’s head the days form a line without a village, endlessly long, made of bed and curtains and chamber pot and kitchen. Concealed like a spine running from the back of her neck to the tips of her fingers. The days are both short and long. Her ears are more awake than her eyes, which know everything the house contains. Being constantly on the alert for every sound can cause fear to be read as absentmindedness.
No radio and no TV unless we’re home, Liviu said, the neighbors can hear.
If a voice calls out near the gate, and the man pulling up the latch is wearing a uniform in the crack between the curtains, Adina and Paul move to the door farthest in the back. They stand jammed together in the pantry until they no longer hear anything. Afterward a newspaper is lying on the front steps, or the mail has been delivered. When Liviu and the lamb come back from school, they lay the newspaper on the kitchen table. And on the first page is the forelock and the black inside the eye. And underneath, the news that the most beloved son of the people has fled to Iran, and days later the news that he has returned from Iran and is back in the country.
And Adina thinks that her ears ought to smooth themselves out from all the listening, lose their lobes and curlicues to become as smooth and flat as the palms of her hands, that they ought to grow fingers that could twitch as fast as fear. Only the rushing in the chamber pot offers some variety, the sound is different every time, Paul always takes longer than she does, he plays with his stream and is able to fake a laugh about the yellow foam. Only when he has to shit does he curse and agonize over his constipation and say that he feels like a louse hiding in the edge of a bed.
The newspaper on the chamber pot is always yesterday’s, and Paul always places it with the forelock facing down. And shortly afterward he shoves a few logs and dry corncobs into the stove and stares at the fire far too long, while peeking out the corner of his eye from under his arm. Because Adina is lathering herself with soap and her breasts are dangling naked over the washbowl. And she knows that Paul will take hold of them with his cold hands and glowing hot face. She is waiting for it and she can’t stand it. And then their faces appear in the linden blossom tea, his aged and hers empty, separated by the spoon handles, each in its own cup. And both spoons stir until the sugar melts. I still haven’t heard any shots, Paul says, I hear the dogs bark and the geese cackle and the mailman calling at the gate but no shots. I keep listening for something loud, though I understand from Liviu that the shots are quiet, like a branch breaking, only different.
* * *
At one point a key turned in the door, and Liviu hauled a long sack into the kitchen containing a Christmas tree that couldn’t be obtained in the roadside village, a slender silver fir that a student’s father who drives a truck stole along a forest road in the Carpathians. That was yesterday, says Paul, and Adina says, no, that was this morning. Liviu left the sack by the wall and had to go right back out, to attend a meeting, he said. He locked the door from the outside, and Paul pulled the sack off the fir tree, the needles looked brittle and gray in the kitchen. Put it back in the sack, said Adina, I can’t bear looking at it.
* * *
Yesterday was something else. The nail clipper snipped and Adina saw the curved tip of her nail drop onto the table. Ever since they’ve been cutting the fox, my nails grow faster, she said. Paul gave his fake laugh, she stuck her forefinger in her mouth and pulled the rest of the nail off with her teeth, then bit it into tiny pieces and ate it. I see it every day at school, how hair and nails grow faster with the neglected children than with the ones who are looked after, she said. When you live in fear, your hair and nails grow faster, you can tell by looking at the children, the shaven backs of their necks. Paul cut some bacon into transparent slices and rolled them on his lips before swallowing. As a doctor I have to contradict you, he said, pointing at the forelock in the newspaper. If that were the case, his hair would grow all the way from the forehead down to the toes in a single day. He polished his fingernails with thin slices of bacon until they glistened. What do you know about people, said Adina, the ones you work on are either sick or dead, what do you see when you cut them open. Nothing. Is there a medical explanation for a dictator, is the dictatorness found in the brain, the stomach, the liver or in the lungs. Paul stopped his ears with his shiny fingernails and raised his voice, it’s found deep in the heart, just like inside your novels.
The forelock keeps growing, thought Adina, day by day, all the way down to his toes, the sack containing his hair has long been full, stamped down and stuffed to the top and heavier than the man himself. He deceives everyone, even the barber.
* * *
And the day before yesterday the soup was in the bowl, and Paul wanted to call Adina to eat, and called out ABI instead of Adina. Then while the two were silent the soup sat in the bowl and grew a thin skin that stuck to the spoon. And Paul said, you know who Abi told that joke about the little Romanian to. Who, she asked, and Paul said: Ilie.
Adina stared at her bowl, the blobs of fat stayed round, not even the spoon could break them up. For the first time Adina heard a noise. It was not a dog and not a goose, like a branch breaking, only entirely different. It was inside her own head.
* * *
And on that same day in the evening, or maybe the evening after, the lamb brought a little bag of chocolates for the Christmas tree. Each piece was wrapped in red tinfoil and had a silk thread for hanging. From a nurse, said the lamb, her son is in my class. She took one piece and popped the whole thing into her mouth and let it melt silently on her tongue. There are times when Liviu wants to move back to the city, she said, but now it’s good that we’re out here, at the end of the world, as Liviu calls it. Here everybody knows what his neighbor had for dinner two days ago, said the lamb, what he buys and sells and how much money he has. And how much brandy is in his cellar, said Liviu. She ate another piece of chocolate, then she started carving up a goose, cutting the drumsticks from the body, the wings from the breast cavity. I simply try not to stick out, said Liviu, and it’s the same at school. I just listen and think what I think. The lamb lifted the goose by the long neck and slit open the stomach. It was full of little stones. I know that’s selfish, that I’m only looking after myself, said Liviu, but otherwise you wouldn’t be here now. How long can you stay in hiding, asked the lamb, placing some bay leaves on the table.
Is there some other place in this country where you could live, asked Liviu. Adina peeled potatoes and Paul watched the peel coil off between her thumb and the knife.
Are you suggesting we set off across the field and head toward the Danube, asked Adina, should we try to escape, do you want to hear shots and guess it’s probably us. In less than half an hour we’d be lying out there in the wheat until the harvester comes. Paul tugged Adina by the shoulders and she said right in his face, and then the accountant will have an explanation for the rising protein content of the flour. Paul stopped her mouth. She pushed his hand away and saw the potatoes start to blur. And every now and then, she said, a hair will get stuck in your teeth while you’re eating, and it won’t be one of the baker’s that just happened to land in the dough.
Tr
ansparent sleep
After the evening with the cut-up goose, everyone went to bed without a word and all but Adina slept very deeply, because they took the hair found in the bread into their sleep. Sleep crept so deeply inside them during the night because it was ashamed of the evening.
Before she went to bed Adina laid her nightgown on the table and said, I’m not getting undressed, I’m cold. She took her coat out of the wardrobe and laid it over the blanket. Paul dozed off, distanced from himself and dejected. The idea of sleep didn’t occur to Adina, though, she was so alert her eyes filled the entire room. She lay there waiting without moving while Paul breathed calmly in his sleep.
Then she slipped into her shoes and pulled on her coat. She wanted to get away, walk down the road, not to the border, only as far as the cornfield. Maybe I could lie down there, she thought, and freeze to death. Ilie had told her that the cold comes up through the toes and that by the time it reaches your stomach it no longer hurts. After that everything happens quickly. When the cold reaches your neck, your skin starts to glow. And then, as your body warms, you die.
Outside the dogs were barking, inside the room nothing rustled, nothing creaked.
Suddenly she felt Paul’s hand reaching for her, pulling her to the window. He shoved the heavy drapes aside and lifted the white lace curtain over her hair. You can’t do it, he said, look, that’s water in the puddle, not ice, the goose tracks in the mud are soft, it didn’t freeze. He looked at her, you know, with that white lace on your head you look just like the lamb, he said.
He took off her coat, then her shoes, then her clothes. Adina didn’t resist, she simply thought to herself as he did so that his sleep must be transparent, that it’s a long, empty corridor where nothing can stay hidden from him, not even what someone nearby is thinking in the dark.
And then there was no anchor, no hold, when he reached for her breasts and past years came back inside her body, the years with Paul. His penis was hot and stubborn, and her skin glowed differently than the desire to freeze to death among the corn. But she knew it wasn’t really herself who was glowing. It was their situation. And now the fox was there in the house with them, and Liviu and the lamb were no match for the fox.
Adina sat in the dark next to Paul, his cigarette glowed, he stroked her forehead. The woman who had moaned was no longer there. Is that reproach I’m sensing, he asked. She couldn’t make out the wardrobe, but she could see the apricots hovering in their jars below the ceiling. Yes, she said, but that doesn’t matter. In fact she didn’t see the apricots in their jars, she only knew that they were there.
Because lurking behind everything she did, every movement of her hand, every step she took, even during her sleep, was the knowledge that Liviu and the lamb were living in a little roadside village, that Christmas was waiting for her with a crippled fir tree, that they would decorate the tree and drag it next to the window for the passersby outside, just like years ago. And that there would be no passersby, at most two strangers who had spent the entire morning crossing the field—a woman with a child who wanted a fox.
As far as you’re concerned, said Paul, being separated means I’m always on call for you, but never sleep with you. The cigarette glowed and quickly consumed itself.
Be quiet, said Adina, my head is about to explode.
* * *
During the night she dreamed that Clara was standing in the frozen corn wearing a dress with yellow bouquets of roses. The wind had a dry rustle, and Clara was carrying a large bag. She said, there’s no one here, they aren’t looking for you. She opened the bag. It was full of quinces. Clara said, here, have one, I washed them for you. Adina took a quince and said, no you didn’t, there’s a bit of fur on the peel.
A black and white sky
Every morning Adina sprinkles a few dried linden blossoms into the boiling water and they swell up as the stems and skin-like bracts turn bright green. To separate one day from the next she keeps count of the times she makes tea. The routine is always the same, it’s always morning, and the geese and dogs are always outside on the streets. There’s always a note on the table: WE’LL BE BACK AT 12 or 1 or AROUND EVENING. The linden blossom tea always tastes like sleep. The chamber pot stinks next to the kitchen door.
Adina seldom peeks through the gap in the kitchen curtain, because the fences in the yard are made of wire, and the lilac bushes are bare. People can see through the yards and gardens.
But Paul looks out often and reports the color of the sky and the mud and whether it seems cold outside or not.
Earlier in the morning they heard voices coming from the village, and Paul has been sitting at the curtain gap ever since he got up. Here the street is empty, but down in the middle of the village people are hooting and howling.
Adina peers through the gap. The sun is glaring, the bare lilac lays its shadow across the sand. The next-door neighbor is setting up three chairs in her yard. Her face is small and wrinkled. In the sun she has a mustache and no eyes. She carries two pillows and two down covers into the yard and shakes them out and drapes them over the chairs.
Paul’s tea has gotten cold, because he’s fixated on something behind the curtain roses.
* * *
Liviu comes running past the gap, without a coat, his jacket flapping open. Here comes Liviu and he’s in a hurry, says Paul, quickly sitting down at the table, where he sips his cold tea. Through the curtain Adina sees Liviu racing past the bare lilac without closing the gate. He’s carrying his scarf in his hand. Adina pulls the curtain shut, quickly sits down beside Paul and cradles her head in her hands. The key turns in the door. Liviu’s face is red and sweaty, he tosses his scarf on the kitchen table. Can’t you hear what’s going on outside, he pants, come into the living room.
His hands are shaking, he turns on the TV, they didn’t let Ceaușescu speak, he says, the people shouted him down, a bodyguard pulled him back behind the stage. Adina starts to cry, the screen is a blur of stone cubes and windows, a mass of coats surging in front of the Central Committee building, thousands of coats blurred together like a field, with lots of screaming and shouting. Adina’s cheeks flush hot, her chin dissolves, her hands are wet, the little screaming faces form a streak of eyes looking skyward. He’s running away, Liviu shouts, he’s fleeing. He’s dead, Paul shouts, if he runs he’s dead.
A helicopter hovers above the balcony of the Central Committee. And then it gets smaller and smaller, a floating gray point of a needle that eventually disappears.
On the screen is an empty black and white sky.
* * *
Liviu kisses the screen, I’m going to eat you, I’m going to devour you, he says. His wet kisses linger in the black and white sky. Adina sees the old man’s legs, the two angular knees, the white calves, and the forelock high in the sky, higher than ever. Paul opens all the curtains. It’s so bright inside that the walls suddenly seem too big for the room, they are shaking with the light.
The lamb is standing in the doorway, still panting from running. She laughs two round tears into her eyes and says, over in front of the church they’ve stripped the policeman down to his underwear and they’re giving him a beating. The accountant pulled off the policeman’s pants and the priest hung his cap on a tree.
The old lady next door knows everything, says the lamb. A couple days ago she told me that we’re having too warm a winter this year.
Winter lightning, winter thunder
Winter clouds all burst asunder
In December broken sky
Means the king will surely die.
That’s how she put it. I’m old, she said, anyway that’s the way it used to be. And this morning she asked me if I’d heard anything in the night. Not shots, she said, it was a thunderstorm, but not here, farther out in the country.
Liviu and Paul drink brandy, the bottle gurgles, the glasses clink. Paul marches barefoot around the kitchen table wearing Liviu’s robe, glass in hand, singing the forbidden song in a trembling voice:
&nbs
p; Awaken, Romanian, wake from thy deadly slumber
Liviu drapes a crumpled dish towel over his shoulders and dances with the bottle and sings in a high-pitched, whiny voice:
Merry tomorrow, merry today
Things move forward day by day
The pots rattle in the kitchen cupboard, Paul leaves the awakening Romanians right in the middle of his song, dances around Liviu and joins in:
Forward, forward, fuck fuck fuck
Forward, forward, fuck fuck fuck
Always forward never stuck
* * *
The lamb leans on the stove, so that the neighbor’s pillows and down covers are draped behind her shoulder. In the sunlight they seem to be sleeping on the chairs.
Where is the helicopter going to land, asks the lamb, and Paul says, in heaven, in the mud with the little Romanians.
When I was little there used to be a swing carousel next to the market, says the lamb. They’d take it down at the first sign of snow, because Mihai the ticket taker had a stiff leg and couldn’t sit out in the cold. If you wanted to ride on the carousel you had to buy tickets at the People’s Council office. One ride cost three tickets for children and five for adults. The money was supposed to pay for paving our road with asphalt. Mihai took the tickets and tore a corner off each one and tossed the corners into a hat. In the summer he let the older girls ride for free because before the ride he could stand behind a big packing crate and reach into their pants. A few complained to the mayor, but the mayor said it didn’t matter, since it didn’t really hurt. Mihai would start up the motor and turn it off to end the ride. All rides lasted the same amount of time, because he kept his eye on the church clock. At noon he took a break, ate lunch and poured a can of diesel oil into the motor. He only repaired the motor at night so as not to lose any business during the day. He knew the motor well since he’d built it himself out of old tractor parts. Occasionally I’d ride too, but only if there were just girls nearby, says the lamb, because when the boys were there they’d grab the seats when the girls were in midair and twist the chains until the girls threw up. They learned that from Mihai.