by Herta Müller
Following the dead man’s portrait is a red velvet cushion with the dead man’s medals, and after the medals comes a withered woman on the arm of a young man. And bringing up the whole procession is a military band. The brass instruments gleam, enlarged by the light. Behind the brass band come the mourners, shuffling their feet, the women carry gladioli wrapped in cellophane, the children carry white fringed asters.
Walking among the mourners is Pavel.
* * *
Sitting at the edge of the plaza, where the man drank his brandy, is an empty bottle, and next to that a half-eaten apple. The funeral music hums quietly through the cramped, crooked streets. The Heroes’ Cemetery is outside the town center. The square is littered with trampled gladioli, the streetcars lurch into motion.
* * *
The old men walk across the deserted plaza, their empty milk bottles rattle. They stop for no reason. Above them the white balcony of the opera has moved its columns into the shadow of the wall. The holes in the soft asphalt below are from the high heels of the women mourners.
Days of melons, days of pumpkins
Waterlogged cotton wool is lying in the toilet bowl, the water is rusty, having sucked the blood from the cotton. Melon seeds are lying on the seat.
When the women wear cotton wool between their thighs, they carry the blood of melons in their bellies. Every month come the days of the melons and the weight of the melons, it hurts.
* * *
With melon blood any woman can bind any man she wants, said Clara. The women in the wire factory talk about how it’s done: once a month late in the afternoon they stir a little melon blood into the man’s tomato soup. On that day they don’t put the tureen on the table, they fill each bowl at the stove. The melon blood is in a ladle next to the oven, waiting for the man’s soup bowl. They stir the soup with the ladle until the blood is dissolved.
During the days of the melons the wire mesh passes in front of their faces before clambering onto the large spool where it is measured by the meter. The looms bang away, the women’s hands are rusty, their eyes dull.
The women from the factory bind the men to themselves in the late afternoon or evening, said Clara, in the morning they don’t have enough time. In the morning they hurry off from the men’s sleep, and carry a bed full of sleep and a room full of sticky air with them into the factory.
* * *
But according to the servant’s daughter it’s best to bind the men in the morning, on an empty stomach. During the days of the melons the officer’s wife slips four dashes of melon blood into the officer’s morning coffee, before he goes off to his casino. She brings him his coffee in the same cup as always, without any sugar. She knows he’ll take two spoons of sugar and stir it into the coffee for a long time. The blood bits dissolve faster than the sugar. The best is the blood from the second day, the officer’s wife told the servant’s daughter. The wife’s melon blood is in every step the officer takes on the bridge, every day he spends drinking in the casino. Each bit of blood lasts a week, four bits cover the whole month.
Each blood bit has to be as big as the thumbnail of the man the woman wants to bind, said the officer’s wife. The melon blood dissolves in the coffee and clots again after it’s run down his throat, she said. It doesn’t go past his heart, it doesn’t trickle into his stomach. The melon blood cannot contain the officer’s desire, there’s no remedy for that because his desire refuses to be bound. His desire flies to other women, but the melon blood winds around his heart. It clots and locks the heart in. The officer’s heart is closed to the image of other women, said the servant’s daughter, he can betray his wife but he cannot abandon her.
* * *
Someone has written on the wall of the toilet stall:
’Tis eve on the hillside
The bagpipes are distantly wailing
* * *
Two lines from a famous poem the children learn in school. The servant’s daughter claimed to recognize the handwriting. It’s the physics teacher, she said, I can tell from the way he writes the d and the l. The lines run at an angle up the wall.
Adina feels a warm rush between her thighs, then hears someone latching the door to the neighboring stall. She pushes her elbows against her thighs, she wants to keep the rushing smooth and even. But her belly doesn’t know what smooth and even is. Over the toilet tank is a small window with spiderwebs instead of a pane. It never has a spider, the noise of the tank drives it away. Every day, a band of light perches on the wall and watches everything including how the women rub newsprint between their hands until the writing is grainy and the fingers gray. Rubbed newsprint doesn’t scratch the thighs.
* * *
At the faculty meeting the cleaning woman announced there was no toilet paper for the teachers’ toilet. For three days in a row, she said, I set out a new roll, but each roll was stolen within fifteen minutes on each of the three days, so now three rolls have to last for three weeks.
Well, corncobs and beet leaves were good enough for you in the bourgeois-aristocratic regime, the director said. Back then the only people who had newsprint were the estate owners. Now everyone has a newspaper at home. But all of a sudden newsprint’s too rough for such sophisticated gentlemen and ladies. The director tore off a corner of newspaper the size of his palm, rubbed the piece between his hands, it’s as easy as washing your hands, he said, nobody can tell me he doesn’t know how to wash his hands. Anyone who hasn’t mastered that by the age of thirty really ought to learn how. His eyebrows drew together above his nose, thin and gray, like a mouse’s tail on his forehead.
The cleaning lady wiggled on her chair and smiled. She stood up and the director looked down at the floor. It’s true that these days everyone has a newspaper at home, but Comrade Director you must have forgotten that beet leaves were too soft, the fingers used to tear right through, she said. Ivy leaves were better. That’s enough, said the director, or there’ll be no end to it.
The servant’s daughter tapped Adina with her foot, the cleaning lady can get away with anything, she said, the director’s sleeping with her. Her husband’s an electrician, yesterday he came to school and spat on the director’s table and tore two buttons off his suit. The buttons rolled under the wardrobe. After the electrician had gone, the director interrupted the physics teacher in the middle of class and made him move the wardrobe away from the wall and then go to the tailor’s for needle and thread. But he wasn’t allowed to take the suit. The director said, the cleaning lady has to sew those buttons back on herself.
* * *
The cleaning lady is only allowed to cut up the last pages of the paper—news reports, the sports section and the TV programs. She has to give the first pages with the party news and the pictures of the dictator to the director, they’re for the collection of the party secretary.
* * *
Adina flushes the toilet. In front of the bathroom mirror her hair is threaded with light, she turns the faucet. The door to the neighboring stall is unlatched and out steps the director. He stands next to Adina in the mirror. He opens his mouth, I think I have a toothache, he says to the mirror. Yes Mr. Director, she says, his molars have gold fillings, COMRADE DIRECTOR, he says, his molars glistening a yellowish orange, like a pumpkin. The days of the melons are for men days of pumpkins, thinks Adina. The director takes his creased and pointed handkerchief and wipes his mouth. Come to my office after your last class, he says, plucking a hair from Adina’s shoulder. Yes, Comrade Director, she says.
* * *
The forelock shines above the blackboard, and the black of the eye shines, catching the strand of light that falls through the window. The children move their elbows as they write, the composition is called THE TOMATO HARVEST. Adina stands by the window next to the string of light. Inside the notebooks the tomato field is growing once again, made of warts and letters.
* * *
The girl with the frog reads:
For two weeks the pupils of our school have been helping t
he farmers in the agriculture. Our class is helping with the tomato harvest. It is beautiful to work in the fields of our fatherland. It is helpful and healthy.
* * *
In front of the school is a square of yellow grass, beyond the square are housing blocks, and in between the housing blocks is one freestanding house. Adina looks at the houseleeks growing on the roof. The housing blocks have pushed the garden up against the wall. The grapevines wrap around the window and stop it from moving.
* * *
In the morning, when I get up, reads the girl with the frog, I put on my work clothes instead of my uniform. I don’t take any notebooks or books, just a bottle of water, a butter sandwich, and an apple.
* * *
One of the twins shouts BUTTER and drums on his seat with his fists.
A horse cart stops in front of the lone house with the houseleeks, a man climbs down and carries a mesh bag full of bread loaves through the garden into the house. He keeps close to the wall, behind the grapevines.
* * *
At eight o’clock all the pupils gather in front of the school, reads the girl with the frog. A man drives us out to the field on a truck. There’s lots of laughing on the way. Every morning the agronomist waits at the edge of the field. He is tall and thin. He wears a suit and has nice clean hands. He is a friendly man.
Except yesterday he slapped you, says the twin. Why didn’t you write that, says Adina. The horse in front of the empty cart is standing completely still.
The other twin lowers his head below his desk, you can’t write about the slapping, he says. He takes the slice of bread smeared with lard that he’s holding and sticks it on the composition.
The girl with the frog tears a white ribbon out of her braid, sticks the end of her braid in her mouth and cries.
* * *
The man carries an empty mesh bag back past the grapevines and climbs onto the cart. A dwarf crosses the grass in front of the school. His red shirt glows, he is carrying a watermelon.
Comrade, says the girl with the frog to Adina.
* * *
A clock is set on the wall over the door to the director’s office, its hands measure the coming and going of the pupils and teachers. Over the head of the director is the forelock and the black inside the eye. The rug has an ink stain, a display case holds the speeches of the dictator. The director smells of bitter tobacco perfume, you know why I’ve called you here, he says. Next to his elbow is a dahlia that faces away from the desk, the water in the vase is cloudy. No, says Adina, I don’t know. His eyebrows draw together gray and thin, you told the pupils they should eat as many tomatoes as they can because they’re not allowed to take any home. And you also said something about exploiting minors. A fleck of dust lingers in the light above the dahlia. That’s not true, Comrade Director, says Adina. Her voice is quiet, the director steps across the ink stain and stands behind Adina’s chair. His breath is dry and short, he slides his hand into her blouse and moves down her back. Don’t say COMRADE, he says, now’s not the time for that.
Adina’s back stays rigid, her disgust doesn’t let it bend, her mouth says, my back is fine, no warts there. The director laughs, very well, he says. She presses her back against the chair, he removes his hand, I won’t report it this time, he says. He brushes against the dahlia. And who will believe you, says Adina. She sees the blood of the melons in the reddish leaves of the dahlia. I’m not like that, he says. His sweat smells heavier than the tobacco in the perfume. He combs his hair.
His comb has blue teeth.
The cat and the dwarf
A line of heads passes between the rusty spools of wire in the factory yard. The man at the gatehouse looks up into the sky. What he sees is the loudspeaker next to the gate.
* * *
In the morning, between six and seven-thirty, music comes out of this loudspeaker. The gateman calls it morning music. He uses it as a clock. Anyone who passes through the gate after the music has stopped is late to work. Anyone who isn’t stepping to the music on his way to the lathes and looms, anyone crossing through the yard when it is quiet is written up and reported.
The marching songs are loud even before it’s light outside. The wind beats against the corrugated tin roof. The rain pounds on the asphalt. The women’s stockings are spattered, the men’s hat brims turn to gutters. Out on the street the daylight comes sooner, but inside the factory the wire spools are still black and wet from the night. Even in summer it takes the day longer to reach the factory yard than to light the street outside.
* * *
The gateman chews sunflower seeds and spits the shells into the afternoon. They land on the ground, on the threshold. The woman who shares the gatehouse duty sits beside him, knitting. She wears a green smock. She has a gap in the middle of her teeth. She counts the spools of wire and wire mesh out loud, through the gap in her teeth. A striped cat is sprawled at her feet.
The phone rings in the gatehouse. The gateman hears it ring and listens with his temples, without turning his head. He keeps his eyes on the people passing through the spools of wire. The gatewoman lifts her knitting needle to the gap between her teeth, then sticks it down her smock and scratches between her breasts. The cat twitches her ears and watches. The cat’s eyes are golden grapes. The spool tally gets caught in the gap between the woman’s teeth and inside the eyes of the cat. The telephone is shrill. The ringing catches on the wool, the yarn climbs into the gatewoman’s hand. The ringing climbs into the cat’s stomach. The cat climbs over the gateman’s shoe and runs into the factory yard. The gateman doesn’t answer the phone.
When she’s inside the factory yard, the cat is all rust and wire mesh. On top of the factory roof she is all corrugated tin, and outside the offices she is all asphalt. By the washroom, sand. And in the workrooms the cat is all shafts and cogs and oil.
The gateman can see heads emerging among the spools. Sparrows come flitting out of the wire. The gateman glances up at the sky. A single sparrow flying in the sun is something light, only a flock is heavy. The corrugated tin slices the afternoon at an angle. The twittering of the sparrows is hoarse.
The heads come nearer, on their way out of the factory, leaving the wire behind. The gateman can already make out their necks. He paces up and down. He yawns, his tongue is thick, it squeezes his eyes shut during the empty time when the sun sends streaks of moisture down his chin. When the gateman stands in the sunlight, a bald spot appears, sleeping under strands of hair. The gateman still doesn’t see the hands and bags of the passing heads.
For the gateman, yawning is waiting. When the workers leave the wire, their bags become his bags. The bags are searched. The bags are light, and swing from the hands holding them. Unless there’s iron stashed inside, in which case they hang stiffly. The gateman notices that. The women’s purses also hang stiffly if they are carrying something made of iron. Anything that can be stolen from the factory is made of iron.
The gateman’s hands don’t rummage through every bag, they simply know which to search when the faces pass by, because there is a change in the air. A change he can sense in his face, somewhere between his nose and his mouth. The gateman lets himself be inhaled by this air, lets his intuition decide between one bag and another.
His decision also depends on the gatehouse shade, and on the taste of the sunflower seeds in his mouth. If a few kernels are rancid his tongue turns bitter. His cheekbones clench up, his eyes grow stubborn. His fingertips tremble. But after the first bag his fingers gain confidence. His palm presses against the foreign objects, his grabbing becomes greedy. Rummaging through a bag is for him the same thing as grabbing a face. He can cause the faces to go from chalk to blush. And they don’t recover. When he waves them on, the faces leaving the gate are either caved in or swollen up. And they stay distraught long after they’ve left. Their vision and hearing stay blurred, so that the sun seems like a giant version of the gateman’s hand. And their noses are no longer enough, they have to gasp for air in the streetcar
, with mouths and eyes in faces that are no longer their own.
As he searches, the gateman hears their empty swallowing. Throats turn dry as a vise, fear rummages through stomachs, and passes out of their bowels as foul air that lingers at knee height. The gatekeeper can smell the fear. And if he spends longer searching a particular bag, many are so afraid they pass not one, but two quiet farts.
* * *
The gatewoman once told Clara that the gateman is a strict believer. That explains why he doesn’t love people, she said. He punishes those who don’t believe. And he admires those who do. He doesn’t love the believers, but he does respect them. He respects the party secretary because the party secretary believes in the party. He respects the director because the director believes in power.
The gatewoman pulled a bobby pin out of her hair, stuck it in the gap between her teeth and rewound her bun. Most people who believe in something, said Clara, are high party officials, and they have no need for the gateman or his respect.
The gatewoman plunged her pin deep into her hair and said, but there are other believers too. Clara was standing in the door, the other woman was sitting in the gatehouse. Do you believe in God, she asked Clara. Clara peered into the bun on top of the woman’s head and focused on the bend of the bobby pin, which was made of wire. The tines had disappeared so only the bend was visible, and it was as thin as a single strand of hair. Only brighter. Sometimes I believe and sometimes I don’t, Clara told the gatewoman, and if nothing’s troubling me, then I forget. The gatewoman dusted off the phone with the corner of a curtain and said, the gatekeeper says some people simply aren’t capable of believing. While she spoke she saw her face in the windowpane and her smock, which looked darker in the glass. The gateman says that the workers don’t believe in their jobs and they don’t believe in God, for them He’s just a day off work. And maybe, if God’s willing, a roasted chicken for Sunday dinner, stuffed with its own liver. The gateman doesn’t eat poultry, said the gatewoman.
