The Fox Was Ever the Hunter (16 page)

What would happen then, Clara’s mouth asks into the windowpane. He runs his fingers through her hair. Then I’ll get divorced and we’ll get married, he says. He can feel her temples pulsing in his hand. Besides, the man has cancer and doesn’t have much longer to live, he says, digging deeper into her hair and pressing on her skull.

He’ll outlive us all, says Clara. Pavel turns her head with his hands, he wants to see her face. He has cancer, I have that from a reliable source, says Pavel. But he can’t turn her eyes away from the green ball.

You have to help Adina, she says. He reaches in his pants pocket, twists the cap off the perfume flask, sprinkles a couple of drops on the curve of her neck, what does it smell like, he says and drops the cap into her blouse. He places the open bottle on the table, the scent hangs in the kitchen, oppressively heavy on Clara’s neck.

She tears her eyes away from the fork in the tree, from this dented green ball, from this mute summer game stuck in the branches.

It smells like secret police, says Clara.

*   *   *

He goes into the room and bumps into the open umbrella. He stands in the hall and puts on his shoes. Your key’s on the bed, says Pavel, his fingers searching for the laces.

You can keep my key, says Clara, that way you won’t need to have one made. His shoes pinch, they are narrow and hard. You have Adina’s key as well, except she never gave you one.

Two places are set on the table. The two forks are touching each other but not the knives. And the tub of margarine has been scooped out in two corners, down to the plastic bottom. Some bread crumbs have fallen on the margarine, and a bit of crust is on Pavel’s plate.

You’re not saying anything, he says.

She opens the refrigerator and puts the margarine inside. The square of light falls on her feet. I’m going, he says. Her cheek is cold. The meat is packed in cellophane, the cellophane is coated with frost, like the gardens outside.

Pavel’s feet are confused, but his hand is sure, it finds the door handle. He pulls the door shut with a bang.

*   *   *

The next morning Clara leaves the umbrella right where it was, still open. The umbrella comes from Pavel. Also the dress in the sewing machine. Also the needle stopped in mid-stitch. And the roses in the vase.

The green ball in the fork of the tree peers into the kitchen, the coffee water is boiling. The coffee comes from Pavel, the sugar cubes, the cigarette Clara is smoking, the sweater she is wearing, the pants, the panty hose. Also the earrings, the mascara, the lipstick. And last night’s perfume.

*   *   *

The cold cigarette smoke leaves a sour taste on her tongue. Her cold breath flies into the air like smoke and tastes sour in her mouth. The dust on the streets lapping behind the trucks has a different smell than the dust of summer. And the clouds in the city have a different smell than they do in summer. Clara paces back and forth in front of the secret police building.

*   *   *

Two men come down the stairs, then one man, three men, a woman who pulls on a sheepskin jacket as she walks.

A calendar is stuck to the wall behind the guard’s head. Spring, summer, fall, each past month has been crossed off, almost an entire year. The guard stands up to his stomach in the gatehouse window.

Clara feels her throat tighten, she lights a cigarette, have you been summoned, asks the guard, she doesn’t put her lighter away and offers him the pack of cigarettes. He rests his left hand on the telephone and slowly pulls two cigarettes out with his right. One he sticks in his mouth, the other in the left breast pocket of his uniform. One for the mouth and one for the heart, he says. His lighter flickers, he looks at her, so who would you like to see, he asks, blowing the smoke up into his hair. She says: PAVEL MURGU. He dials a number with the hand holding the cigarette, who shall I say is calling, he asks. She says: CLARA. The cigarette sticks out of his breast pocket like a finger, Clara who, he asks, she says, Comrade MURGU will know.

The trucks rattle outside, it’s cold and dreary and isn’t snowing. The trees shake the dust onto the road, have you known the Comrade Colonel very long, asks the gatekeeper, she nods. I’ve never seen you here before, he says. He listens with his throat, with his chin in the receiver, the ash drops, yes yes he says. The cigarette has slipped all the way down into his breast pocket. You may wait for him in the café across the street, he says, the Comrade Colonel will be there in a quarter hour.

*   *   *

The waitress is wearing a white lace crown on the middle of her head. Her hair is gray, she hums a song as she passes between the smoke and the empty tables. The trucks hum through the windowpane, from above you can see what they’re carrying, sacks and lumber. The waitress balances a tray with five glasses, five policemen are sitting at the table. Next to them are six men in suits and the woman in the sheepskin jacket.

The ceiling has a brown water stain and a light fixture with five arms, four empty sockets and one bulb. The bulb is burning but all it lights is the rising smoke. The woman in the sheepskin calls out MITZI, the waitress sets the empty tray on the table, and one of the men in suits says, seven Jamaica rums. A truck shakes the windowpane. The truck is carrying barrels and pipes. Who knows where they come from, thinks Clara, the barrels and pipes are covered with snow.

Sitting in the corner, next to the door, are two old men with stubbly, toothless faces. They are playing cards. One is wearing a verdigris ring. The cards are notched and worn thin, ace of clubs, says the man with the ring, but there are no clubs left on the card he pulls from his hand, only gray spots.

*   *   *

Comrade MURGU, says the man with the verdigris ring.

Pavel shakes his hand, how are you getting along with life, he asks. The man wearing the ring laughs with his black empty mouth, how about one more on you, Comrade MURGU, he says. Pavel nods, the laughing mouth calls out MITZI.

The other man sets his cards facedown on the table, once upon a time our MITZI was a great singer, he says. The waitress hums, two Jamaica rums, says the man with the ring. MITZI may be a daughter of the working class, says the other, but she really is an angel. Those were the days, our MITZI was young and famous throughout the city, down at the ȘARI-NENI, they had the best singers and down in the cellar they made the clearest brandy.

Pavel looks over to Clara, and Clara listens as she watches a truck outside drive through the winter dust. The truck is carrying sand and stones.

In those days educated people still drank with the poor folk, says the man with the verdigris ring. One time the professor took a burnt matchstick and drew a picture just for me illustrating the human soul, it was incredibly thin. And the royal notary only had eyes for our MITZI. She had a mouth like a rose, says the man with the verdigris ring, and a voice like a nightingale.

The other snickers with wilted lips. And breasts like white porcelain, he says, and her nipples were more beautiful than most other women’s eyes.

*   *   *

The men in suits laugh, one of the policemen pulls off his cap and bangs it on the table, the woman in the sheepskin jacket strokes the curls around her collar, Pavel nods to her, claps the man next to her on the shoulder.

The waitress carries her tray, she does not hum as she walks. She is clearly moved, her face is soft, her eyes transfigured, she places two Jamaica rums on the cards in front of the toothless men, smiles and sighs and strokes the head of the one with the verdigris ring.

*   *   *

Pavel perches on the chair. I’m so happy, he says to Clara, let’s have a drink, he looks at the stain on the ceiling. The waitress comes, two Jamaica rums, he says, and touches Clara’s hand with a fingertip. We’re pretty conspicuous here, he says, everyone’s listening and everyone’s watching.

Do you like it here, asks Clara. Pavel tugs on his tie, as much as you do in the factory, he says.

My head is dark

Adina comes home from school in the afternoon. She washes the chalk off her hands because it gnaws away her fingers. Two sunflower seeds are floating in the toilet bowl. She knows even before she can think it, the fox.

The second hind leg has been cut off and shoved against the fur as if it were still attached. Apart from that everything is the way it was, room, table, bed, kitchen, bread, sugar, flour. Blind air presses against the window outside, blind walls stare at one another. Adina asks herself how the room, the table, the bed can allow this to happen.

Adina sets her alarm clock for early in the morning, the hands revolve, the grass straw turns in Ilie’s mouth. She’s made up her mind to go see him.

*   *   *

The flashlight isn’t enough to see by, but the circle in front of her shoes is just bright enough to make her avert her eyes. The figures at the streetcar are empty clothes pacing back and forth, with full bags even at this early hour.

The tracks squeal, the streetcar whooshes past the buildings. The bright windows slow down as they pass, the people waiting all know where the door will open when the car comes to a stop. Elbows push. Sleep rides along with the passengers, their winter sweat has a bitter odor. When the streetcar makes a turn the light blinks once or twice, it’s yellow and weak and nonetheless jumps right in your face. Two reddish-brown chickens peek out of a woman’s basket. They crane their necks and hold their beaks half-open as if searching for air. Their eyes are flat and reddish-brown like their feathers. But when they crane their necks, a pinhead shines inside the pupils.

*   *   *

One spring the seamstress from the outskirts of town bought ten chicks at the market. She didn’t have a broody hen. I sit here and sew and they just grow on their own, she said. As long as they still had their down feathers she kept the chicks in the workshop, where they scampered around or sat on the scraps of fabric and warmed themselves. After they grew bigger they were out in the yard from dawn to dusk. But one chick always stayed in the workshop. It hopped over the scraps on just one leg, the other was crippled. It perched for hours watching the seamstress sew. When she got up it would hop after her. If there weren’t any customers she would talk to it. The chicken had rusty red feathers and rusty red eyes. Since it ran around the least it grew the fastest and became fat the soonest. That chicken was the first one killed, before the summer had really settled in. The other chickens scrabbled around in the courtyard.

The seamstress talked about the crippled chicken for a whole summer. I had to kill it, she said, it was like a child.

*   *   *

The man on the platform has a large black mustache on his face, a large black velvet hat on his head, and a three-legged sheet-metal stove in front of his stomach. The woman next to him has a floral headscarf, a flowery skirt, and a one-elbow stove pipe under her arm. And the child next to her has a cap with a thick tassel on his head and a stove door in his hand.

*   *   *

Adina enters the compartment. An old man is sitting across from a mother and father, with their child between them all bundled up.

The night begins to tatter. Adina looks at the viaduct above the tracks, and the stairs leading up to it. Large shapes in dark clothes climb the stairs, the ones already on the viaduct seem small, as if they were walking around heaven, as if anyone who made it there got shrunk by half, like a child shriveled with age, before the workday has even begun.

The stairs on the other side of the viaduct lead down to the factory gate. Even with the trains running through your ears you can still hear the factory.

*   *   *

Sleep, says the mother, the child leans against her shoulder. The housing blocks loom in the dark. Behind them, at the edge of the city, is the city prison, the watchtowers ride past the window, with an identical soldier frozen inside each one. Another Ilie, thinks Adina, one trusted by the night, by the cold, by authority and power and by his weapon, even when he’s all alone.

*   *   *

For a year Ilie had to travel to Bucharest every month on duty, always taking this same route out of town, past the prison. The cells are located in back, by the prison yard. People who don’t have family or friends locked up don’t see the cells, Ilie said back then, but those who do have someone there know where to look. For a few hundred meters along this stretch, he said, the faces inside the compartment separate. And it’s obvious which eyes know where to look.

*   *   *

The trick is to stay asleep, then you won’t feel anything, the father tells the child. The child nods. The woman with the reddish-brown chicks walks past the compartment.

I always used to sleep in the train, says the old man, and in the streetcar too. Every morning I’d ride into town from our village and every evening I’d ride back. For twenty-seven years I had to be on the platform at five in the morning. I knew the way like I know the Lord’s Prayer. Once I bet someone a sheep that I could make it to the station with my eyes closed, and I won that sheep. I found the way blindfolded, and in the middle of winter with ice and snow on top of that. And it’s a long way, too, more than three thousand steps. Back then, he says, I knew every crack in the earth, I knew where there was a hump and where there was a hole. And I knew three streets ahead of time where a dog was going to bark and where a rooster would crow. And if the rooster didn’t crow on Monday I knew it had been killed on Sunday. I always fell asleep at work, the man said, I was a tailor and I could even sleep with a needle in my mouth.

I want an apple, says the child, and the mother says, sleep now, and the father says, oh give him an apple.

But now I’m old, says the man, and I can’t sleep anymore, not even in my bed. That doesn’t matter, he says, doesn’t matter at all.

The child bites into the apple, chews slowly and bores his finger into the hole. Is it good, asks the mother and the child says, it’s cold.

*   *   *

On Mondays during the winter, Adina’s father would bring a bag full of little apples back from the slaughterhouse. They were so cold that their skins fogged up white the way eyeglasses do. Adina would eat one right away. The first bite hurt, the flesh was so cold it uncoiled into her temples before she could swallow it. And with the second piece the cold filled her whole head. That bite didn’t hurt anymore because her brain was already frozen.