by Herta Müller
Amalie reached out for the small bottle of nail varnish. Windisch felt a grain of sand behind his forehead; it moved from one temple to the other. A red drop fell onto the tablecloth from the small bottle. “You were a whore in Russia,” said Amalie to her mother, looking at her fingernail.
THE STONE IN THE LIME
The owl flies in a circle over the apple tree. Windisch looks at the moon. He’s watching which direction the black patches are moving. The owl doesn’t close its circle.
The skinner had stuffed the last owl from the church tower two years before and given it to the priest as a gift. “This owl lives in another village,” thinks Windisch.
The unknown owl always finds its way here to the village at night. No one knows where it rests its wings by day. No one knows where it closes its beak and sleeps.
Windisch knows that the owl can smell the stuffed birds in the skinner’s loft.
The skinner had given the stuffed animals to the town museum as a gift. He didn’t receive any money for them. Two men came. Their car stood in front of the skinner’s house for a whole day. It was white and closed like a room.
The men said: “These stuffed animals are part of the wildlife population of our forests.” They packed all the birds in boxes. They threatened a heavy punishment. The skinner presented them with all his sheepskins. Then they said everything was all right.
The white, closed car drove out of the village as slowly as a room. The skinner’s wife smiled in fear and waved.
Windisch is sitting on the veranda. “The skinner applied later than we did,” he thinks. “He paid in town.”
Windisch hears a leaf on the stones in the hallway. It’s scratching on the stones. The wall is long and white. Windisch closes his eyes. He feels the wall growing on his face. The lime burns his forehead. A stone in the lime opens its mouth. The apple tree trembles. Its leaves are ears. They listen. The apple tree drenches its green apples.
THE APPLE TREE
Before the war an apple tree had stood behind the church. It was an apple tree that ate its own apples.
The night watchman’s father had also been night watchman. One summer night he was standing behind the boxwood hedge. He saw the apple tree open a mouth at the top of the trunk, where the branches forked. The apple tree ate apples.
In the morning the night watchman didn’t lie down to sleep. He went to the village mayor. He told him that the apple tree behind the church ate its own apples. The mayor laughed. The night watchman could hear fear behind the laughter. Little hammers of life were beating in the mayor’s head.
The night watchman went home. He lay in bed with his clothes on. He fell asleep. He slept covered in sweat.
While he was sleeping, the apple tree rubbed the mayor’s temple raw. His eyes were reddened and his mouth was dry.
After lunch the mayor struck his wife. He had seen apples floating in the soup. He swallowed them.
The mayor couldn’t sleep after his meal. He shut his eyes and heard tree-bark scraping against the other side of the wall. The strips of bark hung in a row. They hung on ropes and ate apples.
That evening the mayor called a meeting. The people assembled. The mayor set up a committee to watch over the apple tree. Four wealthy peasants, the priest, the village teacher and the mayor himself belonged to the committee.
The village teacher made a speech. He named the apple tree committee the “Summer Night’s Committee”. The priest refused to mount watch on the apple tree behind the church. He made the sign of the cross three times. He excused himself with: “May God forgive his sinners.” He threatened to go into town the following morning and report the blasphemy to the bishop.
Darkness fell very late that evening. The sun had been so hot that the day would not end. Night flowed out of the earth and over the village.
The Summer Night’s Committee crawled along the boxwood hedge in the darkness. It lay down under the apple tree, and looked into the tangle of branches.
The mayor had an axe. The wealthy peasants laid their pitchforks in the grass. The village teacher sat under a sack beside a storm lantern with a pencil and an exercise book. He looked through a thumb-size hole in the sack with one eye, and wrote the report.
The night had reached its peak. It pressed the sky out of the village. It was midnight. The Summer Night’s Committee stared at the half-dispersed sky. Under the sack the teacher looked at his pocket watch. Midnight had passed. The church clock had not struck.
The priest had stopped the church clock. Its cogged wheels were not to mark the hour of the sin. Silence was to accuse the village.
No one in the village slept. Dogs stood in the streets, without barking. Cats sat in the trees, looking with glowing lantern eyes.
People sat in their rooms. Mothers carried their children back and forward between burning candles. The children did not cry.
Windisch had sat under the bridge with Barbara.
The teacher had noted the middle of the night on his pocket watch. He stretched out his hand from under the sack. He signalled to the Summer Night’s Committee.
The apple tree didn’t move. The mayor cleared his throat because of the long silence. One of the wealthy peasants was shaken by a smoker’s cough. He quickly picked a tuft of grass. He put the grass in his mouth. He stifled his cough.
Two hours after midnight the apple tree began to tremble. At the top, where the branches forked, a mouth opened. The mouth ate apples.
The Summer Night’s Committee heard the mouth gnashing. Behind the wall, in the church, crickets were chirping.
The mouth ate its sixth apple. The mayor ran to the tree. He struck the mouth with his axe. The wealthy peasants raised their pitchforks in the air. They placed themselves behind the mayor.
A piece of bark — yellow and wet — fell into the grass.
The apple tree closed its mouth.
Not one of the Summer Night’s Committee had seen how and when the apple tree had closed its mouth.
The teacher crawled out of his sack. As a teacher he must have seen it, the mayor said.
At four o’clock in the morning the priest, wearing his long black cassock, beneath his big black hat, his black briefcase at his side, walked to the station. He walked quickly. Looking down at the ground. Dawn stood on the walls of the houses. The whitewash was light.
Three days later the bishop came to the village. The church was full. The people saw him walking between the benches to the altar. He climbed up to the pulpit.
The bishop didn’t pray. He said that he had read the teacher’s report. That he had consulted with God. “God has known for a long time,” he cried, “God reminded me of Adam and Eve. God,” said the bishop softly, “God has told me: The devil is in the apple tree.”
The bishop had written a letter to the priest. He wrote the letter in Latin. The priest read the letter from the pulpit. The Latin made the pulpit seem very high.
The night watchman’s father said he hadn’t heard the priest’s voice.
When the priest had finished reading the letter, he closed his eyes. He clasped his hands together and prayed in Latin. He climbed down from the pulpit. He seemed small. His face was tired. He turned to face the altar. “We must not fell the tree. We must burn it where it stands,” he said.
The old skinner would have been happy to buy the tree from the priest. But the priest said: “God’s word is sacred. The bishop knows what to do.”
That evening the men brought a waggonload of straw. The four wealthy peasants bound the trunk with straw. The mayor stood on the ladder. He spread straw where the branches forked.
The priest had stood behind the apple tree, praying loudly. The church choir stood alongside the boxwood hedge, singing long songs. It was cold and the breath of the songs was drawn up to the sky. The women and children prayed quietly.
The teacher lit the straw with a burning wood chip. The flame ate the straw. It grew. The flame swallowed the bark of the tree. The fire crackled in the wood. The crown of
the tree licked at the sky. The moon covered itself.
The apples puffed up. They burst. The juice hissed, and whined in the fire like living flesh. The smoke stank. It stung the eyes. The songs were broken by coughing.
The village stood in the haze, until the first rain came. The teacher wrote in his exercise book. He called the haze “apple fog”.
THE WOODEN ARM
For a long time a humped black stump stood behind the church.
People said that a man was standing behind the church. He looked like the priest without his hat.
Each morning dew fell. The boxwood hedge was sprinkled with white. The stump was black.
The sacristan took the faded roses from the altars and carried them outside behind the church. He passed the stump. The stump was his wife’s wooden arm.
Charred leaves whirled around. There was no wind. The leaves were weightless. They rose to his knees. They fell before his steps. The leaves crumbled. They were soot.
The sacristan took the faded roses from the altars and carried them outside the church. He passed the stump. The stump was his wife’s wooden arm.
A handful of ashes lay on the ground.
The sacristan put the ashes in a box. He went to the edge of the village. He scraped a hole in the earth with his hands. There was a crooked branch in front of his face. It was a wooden arm. It reached out to him.
The sacristan buried the box in the hole. He walked along a dusty path into the fields. He could hear the trees from far away. The maize had withered. Leaves broke wherever he went. He felt all the loneliness of the years. His life was transparent. Empty.
Crows flew over the maize. They settled on the maize stalks. They were made of coal. They were heavy. The maize stalks swayed. The crows flapped.
When the sacristan was back in the village, he felt his heart hanging naked and stiff between his ribs. The box with the ashes lay beside the hedge.
THE SONG
The neighbour’s spotted pigs are grunting loudly. They are a herd in the clouds. They pass over the house. The veranda is caught in a web of leaves. Each leaf has a shadow.
A man’s voice is singing in the sidestreet. The song floats through the leaves. “The village is very large at night,” thinks Windisch, “and its end is everywhere.”
Windisch knows the song: “Once I travelled to Berlin, the beautiful town to see. Tirihaholala all night long.” When it is so dark, when the leaves have shadows, the veranda grows upwards. It presses up under the stones. On a prop. When it has grown too high, the prop breaks. The veranda falls to the ground. Back to where it was. When day comes, no one sees that the veranda has grown and fallen.
Windisch feels the pressure on the stones. There’s an empty table in front of him. Terror is standing on the table. The terror is between Windisch’s ribs. Windisch feels the terror hanging like a stone in his jacket pocket.
The song floats through the apple tree: “Send to me your daughter do, for I wish to fuck her now. Tirihaholala all night long.”
Windisch pushes a cold hand into his jacket pocket. There is no stone in his jacket pocket. The song is between his fingers. Windisch sings along softly: “Sir, that will not do at all, my daughter dear will not be fucked. Tirihaholala all night long.”
The clouds trail over the village, because the herd of pigs in the clouds is so large. The pigs are silent. The song is alone in the night: “Mother mine, allow me please, why then do I have a hole. Tirihaholala all night long.”
The way home is long. The man is walking in the dark. The song has no end. “Oh mother dear, do lend me thine, for mine it is so very small. Tirihaholala all night long.” The song is heavy. The voice is deep. There is a stone in the song. Cold water is running over the stone. “Oh, I cannot lend it you, for your father needs it soon. Tirihaholala all night long.”
Windisch pulls his hand out of his jacket pocket. He loses the stone. He loses the song.
“When she walks,” thinks Windisch, “Amalie’s toes point outwards when she puts her feet on the ground.”
THE MILK
When Amalie was seven years old, Rudi pulled her through the maize. He pulled her to the end of the garden. “The maize is a forest,” he said. Rudi took Amalie into the barn. He said: “The barn is a castle.”
There was an empty wine-barrel in the barn. Rudi and Amalie crawled into the wine-barrel. “The barrel is your bed,” said Rudi. He put dry burs on Amalie’s hair. “You have a crown of thorns,” he said. “You are enchanted. I love you. You must suffer.”
Rudi’s pockets were full of shards of coloured glass. He laid the shards around the edge of the barrel. The shards gleamed. Amalie sat down on the floor of the barrel. Rudi knelt in front of her. He pushed up her dress. “I’m drinking milk from you,” said Rudi. He sucked Amalie’s nipples. Amalie closed her eyes. Rudi bit into the small, brown knots.
Amalie’s nipples were swollen. Amalie cried. Rudi went through the end of the garden and into the fields. Amalie ran into the house.
The burs stuck in her hair. They were tangled up. Windisch’s wife cut the knots out with her scissors. She washed Amalie’s nipples with camomile tea. “You mustn’t play with him again,” she said. “The skinner’s son is crazy. He has a deep hole in his head from all the stuffed animals.”
Windisch shook his head. “Amalie will bring disgrace down on us,” he said.
THE GOLDEN ORIOLE
There were grey cracks between the blinds. Amalie had a temperature. Windisch couldn’t sleep. He was thinking about her chewed nipples.
Windisch’s wife sat down on the edge of the bed. “I had a dream,” she said. “I went up to the loft. I had the flour sieve in my hand. There was a dead bird on the steps up to the loft. It was a golden oriole. I lifted the bird up by the feet. Under it was a clump of fat, black flies. The flies flew up in a swarm. They settled in the flour sieve. I shook the sieve in the air. The flies didn’t move. Then I tore open the door. I ran into the yard. I threw the sieve with the flies into the snow.
THE CLOCK ON THE WALL
The skinner’s windows have fallen into the night. Rudi is lying on his coat, sleeping. The skinner is lying on a coat with his wife, sleeping.
Windisch sees the white patch of the clock on the wall. He sees it on the empty table. A cuckoo lives in the clock. It feels the hour hand. It calls. The skinner gave the clock to the militiaman as a present.
Two weeks ago the skinner showed Windisch a letter. The letter was from Munich. “My brother-in-law lives there,” the skinner said. He laid the letter on the table. With the tip of his finger he looked for the lines he wanted to read out. “You should bring your crockery and cutlery with you. Spectacles are expensive here. Fur coats are very expensive.” The skinner turned over.
Windisch hears the cuckoo’s call. It can smell the stuffed birds through the ceiling. The cuckoo is the only living bird in the house. Its cry breaks up time. The stuffed birds stink.
Then the skinner laughed. He pointed to a sentence at the bottom of the letter. “The women here are worth nothing,” he read. “They can’t cook. My wife has to slaughter the landlady’s hens. The lady refuses to eat the blood or liver. She throws away the stomach and spleen. Apart from that she smokes all day and lets any man at her.”
“The worst Swabian woman,” said the skinner, “is still worth more than the best German woman from there.”
SPURGE LAUREL
The owl no longer calls. It has settled on a roof. “Widow Kroner must have died,” thinks Windisch.
Last summer, Widow Kroner plucked linden blossom from the cooper’s tree. The tree stands on the left-hand side of the churchyard. Grass grows there. Wild narcissi bloom in the grass. There’s a pool in the grass. Around the pool are the graves of the Romanians. They’re flat. The water drags them under the earth.
The cooper’s linden smells sweet. The priest says that the graves of the Romanians don’t belong in the churchyard. That the graves of the Romanians smell different from the grave
s of the Germans.
The cooper used to go from house to house. He had a sack with many small hammers. He hammered hoops onto barrels. He was given food in return. He was allowed to sleep in the barns.
It was autumn. One could see the coldness of winter through the clouds. One morning the cooper did not wake up. No one knew who he was. Where he came from. “Someone like that is always on the move,” the people in the village said.
The branches of the lime tree hang down onto the grave. “You don’t need a ladder,” said Widow Kroner. “You don’t get dizzy.” She sat on the grass and plucked the blossom into a basket.
All winter long Widow Kroner drank linden blossom tea. She emptied cups of it into her mouth. Widow Kroner became addicted to the tea. Death was in the cups.
Widow Kroner’s face shone. People said: “Something is blooming in Widow Kroner’s face.” Her face was young. Its youthfulness was weakness. As one grows young before dying, so was her face. As one grows younger and younger, until the body breaks. Beyond birth.
Widow Kroner always sang the same song. “By the well at the gate there stands a lime tree.” She added new verses to it. She sang linden blossom verses.
When Widow Kroner drank the tea without sugar, the verses became sad. She looked in the mirror while she sang. She saw the linden blossoms in her face. She could feel the wounds on her stomach and on her legs.
Widow Kroner picked spurge laurel in the fields. She boiled it. She rubbed her wounds with the brown juice. The wounds grew larger and larger. They smelt sweeter and sweeter.
Widow Kroner had picked all the spurge laurel from the fields. She boiled more and more spurge laurel and made more and more tea.
THE CUFFLINKS
Rudi was the only German in the glass factory. “He’s the only German in the whole district,” said the skinner. “At first the Romanians were amazed that there were still Germans after Hitler. ‘Still Germans,’ the manager’s secretary had said, ‘still Germans. Even in Romania.’ “