by Herta Müller
We will never get through at this rate, Albu said.
To clarify the facts of the case, I was supposed to write down every Italian I knew. I was sick and tired of the facts of the case, it was almost evening, I didn’t know any Italians and said so, in vain. He charged about and yelled:
You’re lying.
And yet he acted as if he knew everything. A man like him must have realized I wasn’t lying. So he forced me to keep at it, to follow his facts of the case, until he went off duty. He stretched his legs, loosened his tie, tossed back his head. He combed his hair nervously, checked if there were any hairs in the comb, returned it to his rear pants pocket. He banged his fist on the table and stood in front of me. He shoved my face down against the blank paper, pulled me up from my chair by the ear, that burned like fire. Then he ran his hand into my hair above the temple, twisted my hair around his index finger, and yanked me, as if by a tassel, around the office, over to the window, and back to the chair. And when I was sitting down facing the paper, I wrote:
Marcello.
I was biting my lips, I couldn’t think of any other name apart from Mastroianni and Mussolini, and those were names he knew as well.
I don’t know his last name.
And where did you meet this Marcello.
At the seashore.
The sea where.
Constantsa.
What were you doing there.
Looking for the harbor.
The harbor’s full of shit. So what about this Marcello.
He came off a boat.
What was the boat’s name.
I didn’t see it.
You didn’t see the boat, he said, but you saw his uniform.
He was wearing regular summer clothes.
But you could smell he was a sailor.
He told me he was.
Albu knew I was lying, he was forcing me to, and I believed my own lies out of sheer desolation. Then he opened the drawer and peeked inside as he put away the pencil. As he closed the drawer he said:
Go home and think about it. I’ll see you tomorrow at ten. Ten sharp, don’t forget. After all, we’ve still got the notes for France and Sweden. You probably had accomplices with those, this is a serious business. Ten sharp.
That was the first time I’d heard anything about notes meant for France. Had Nelu lied to him, or had he actually written another whole set of notes, or was it a girl from the packing hall. Did Albu have them in his drawer and was he going to show them to me tomorrow. Or was he telling me something he’d made up just before letting me go, something designed to drive me crazy by tomorrow morning. My tongue grew cold, is this never going to end.
When I stepped outside everything was preparing for the night, the sun had already spread itself red across the sky, every shadow in town had lain down. Inside my head was buzzing with thoughts, on top my scalp felt loose, and over my scalp my hair was being blown by the wind. Wind is made for flying, traffic lights for flashing, cars for driving, trees for standing. Does any of this really mean anything, or is it just there for you to wonder about. My tongue was licking at my brain, it tasted sickly sweet, I saw a food stand and imagined either that I was hungry or that I ought to be. I asked for a piece of poppy-seed cake, rummaged in my bag for my wallet, and felt some hard piece of paper that didn’t belong to me. I walked a few yards to a bench, put the cake down on my lap, and took out a little package. It was wrapped in yellow-gray paper, the ends were firmly twisted as if around a piece of candy, there was something hard inside. I opened the little packet and strained my eyes to see what it was. What I saw was not a cigarette or a twig, it wasn’t a parsnip, and it wasn’t a bird’s claw, it was a finger with a bluish-black nail. I quickly stuffed it back in my bag. Sunlight came slanting through the gaps between the boards in back of the food stand, I held the poppy-seed cake in front of my mouth as if I were feeding a sick person. The kiosk came lurching toward me, driven forward by the rays of light. I chewed slowly, I felt the sugar crunching all the way up inside my forehead, I wasn’t thinking of anything; actually, it was as though all of a sudden nothing mattered to me anymore. After all, I was healthy, while the cake was being eaten by some poor invalid who felt she had to swallow something to stay alive. And I convinced this other person that she liked the taste, until the poppy-seed cake had completely vanished from my hand. Then I rewrapped the finger in the paper and retwisted the ends. I was completely undone. Death, with whom we flirt now and then just to keep it at bay, was advancing, checking for an available time and date—perhaps one was already circled in Albu’s diary. The food stand stayed where it was, the bench was empty, I started walking and walking. I saw different deaths, lean and fat, with bald spots or full heads of hair, parted or fringed, all combing the town to find my date. I saw shirts buttoned and open, long and short trousers, sandals and shoes, paper bags, purses, mesh bags, empty hands. Other people out walking gave their assistance in many different ways to help death find my date.
I went up to five lampposts and looked inside the trash bins, two were half-empty. People toss trash away quickly and carelessly. The nail of the finger was black, its skin was now cold vinyl. How long had I been carrying the finger in my bag. And why out of all people was I supposed to throw it away. The summer road reeked of hot asphalt, the poppy-seed cake made me nauseous, as did the evening air, the reeds, the willows by the river. The water lapped against their roots and burbled, but still it wasn’t deep enough. A few people out for a stroll, immersed in the evening, were walking toward me, their heads bowed. In the water flowing under this bridge and on to the next, the people walking alone turned into couples, the couples became foursomes. And there, along the railing of the bridge, where the suitcase filled with paper once stood, was the place for the finger. I didn’t want to do it but that’s where I went, I held the little package over the water and let it drop. The paper stayed wrapped and the package hit the water. The water rippled as it accepted the finger but refused to swallow it. The river would have preferred a whole person. For me even that one little piece was too much, and so was the fact that I didn’t know whose it was. Nor whether the whole person was dead, or just his finger.
Albu never refers to the finger. Neither do I. Next day at ten sharp his sly forgetfulness is obvious. It was winking at me with every kiss of the hand. After the finger I no longer visit the bathroom at Albu’s.
Nausea makes me soft, but sometimes it can be contagious, and when I want to infect others with my own revulsion, then I toughen up. The one person I told about the yellow-gray candy wrapper and its contents was Lilli. It was my first day back at the factory after three days with Albu. Nobody asked where I’d been. Nelu filled the time with furtive glances, by making coffee, airing the office and neatly stacking papers. I’d already made up my mind about the button samples he’d laid out on my desk that afternoon in a semicircle. But I couldn’t say that the white ones were as beautiful as tooth enamel, the brown ones as open nutshells, the gray as raindrops in the dust.
After work I took Lilli to the café and got straight to the point. I skipped the outer shell and started right at the core. That’s why Lilli twirled a strand of hair around her forefinger and backed her chair away from me. She thought I wouldn’t notice, but a gap had opened up, I wasn’t blind. Those mean slits of eyes were sharpened into daggers as she asked:
Are you sure it was a human finger.
That stubbornly cold tobacco flower was doing whatever it could to resist catching my nausea. I balled my hand into a fist and, holding it at the corner of the table, extended my index finger over the edge.
All right, what’s this.
Take your finger away, she said.
Can it be mistaken for anything else.
I’ve seen it, take your finger away.
What was it you saw, a cigarette or a bird’s foot.
Isn’t it enough that I believe you, or do I have to say it.
Oh, so you believe me after all. I’m so lucky—how gracious
of you.
I was gracious too, and since I didn’t want to torment Lilli any longer, I retracted my finger and refrained from asking whether alley cats ate human fingers. Or how long it took a nail to blacken. Nor did I tell Lilli how afraid I was of the finger-hungry foxgloves in the garden, blooming on their long, slender stems. Or that, in the nausea of my poppy-seed cake, I had considered returning the package to Albu: that too was something I kept to myself. Or that while the package was floating in the river I found myself imagining how at ten sharp the next morning Albu would ask to have it back.
Last winter I bought myself a small jar of pickles at the grocer’s next to the factory, Lilli said, and finished them in two sittings. The last ones I had to fish out with a fork, and when I pulled the fork out it was holding one pickle and one mouse. Isn’t that more horrible than a finger.
But the mouse wound up in the pickles on its own, I said. And even if someone in the canning factory did put it in the jar on purpose, it wasn’t meant for you. After all, anyone could have bought the pickles.
Anyone could have, but I was the one who did.
As if she was trying to defend Albu, Lilli ran her fingers through the hair at the back of her neck. Her hair was fluffed up behind her, and we sat facing each other in silence, our eyes refusing to meet. Out of nowhere, Lilli said:
I really have to pay my electric bill tomorrow.
Lilli and I had grown used to being together with silences that ran longer than the acceptable conversational lulls. And when one of us resumed talking, she would say whatever came into her head. When you know each other well enough, the mouse after the finger and the silence after the mouse and the electric bill after the silence are all one and the same thing. Then you go on talking, about something you never actually mention. And your forehead and mouth are as far apart as they can be.
There were two lines in front of the wooden cabins at the flea market; a young policeman was making sure nobody did his business outside, against the fence. The first toilet was missing a door and was unoccupied, but even so there were two lines. A man came out of the second carrying the door in his arms. He handed it to another man who’d been fidgeting outside the first toilet for some time; this man backed his way inside, putting the door up after him. Only then did the man who’d already been to the toilet button up his fly. His shoes were sprinkled.
Why don’t you let him go first, a woman in sunglasses asked, he’s still a little boy. A boy wearing shorts and sandals was lifting her dress and crying, she slapped him on the hands:
Leave my dress alone, stop it.
Let him cry, one man said, then he won’t have to pee so often.
He took a matchbox out of his pocket and rattled it in front of the boy’s face:
I’ll let you have these.
The boy shook his head.
What’s your name.
Zuckerfloh, the child said.
Your name isn’t Zuckerfloh, the man said, that’s not what they call you, and he rattled the matchbox. Then he said to the mother:
Don’t worry, it’s only sunflower seeds.
The woman took hold of the boy by the scruff of his neck:
Go on, tell him what your name is.
The child raised his arm to shield his face. Then it was too late, the water ran down his legs onto his sandals. I turned around and went back to Paul:
I can’t get a door.
He had sold the last two aerials and was lounging on his bike. He tossed the bare string into the air.
What do you say to that.
Paul had stashed the money for my ring in his trouser pocket, where it was safe. He walked with me back to the cabins. There were still two lines. The door was a piece of sheet metal the size of a tabletop. Flies were buzzing, the people in lines were quarreling, you could see their gold-and-black molars, the worn-down stumps and gaps between the teeth. Paul pushed his way forward. Deals were struck:
You’ll get my door. Then I’ll get it. Then he will.
But as soon as the next person had relieved himself and carried out the door, whatever deals had been made were instantly forgotten. People were desperate, there was shouting. The policeman was leaning against the fence, munching cookies and cleaning one fingernail after the other with a red plastic comb.
Stop shouting, he ordered without looking up.
Why don’t you help the people who need it, said a woman with a ponytail. I’m pregnant, I can’t stand up any longer, my feet are ready to drop off.
Where are you pregnant, an old woman asked, giving the policeman a look. Maybe in your ass, because you sure don’t have much of a belly.
I’m not a referee, the policeman said.
The pregnant woman: Christ Almighty, it’s easier to have twins than get hold of this door.
And it’s better to have twins than two peg legs, the policeman laughed. I’ll make sure you get the door before your feet really do break off.
He slipped the comb into his jacket, crammed a piece of cookie into his mouth, and stood in front of the occupied toilet.
That’s right, pregnant or not, she gets the door next, she’s been standing here for ages.
The pregnant woman promised Paul her door. When she came out of the toilet, she let go of the sheet metal before she could see who was tugging at it. The fat man who was supposed to be behind Paul waved his hands and swore, it was his door now. Paul never took his eyes off the toilet, and when the door started to wobble from inside, Paul grabbed hold of it and hoisted it away.
Hey, not while I’m at my devotions, not so fast, the fat man said, inside the shithouse you’re communing with God, and outside you find that all hell’s broken loose.
With God, said the policeman, or else just with some jackass who just went inside the shithouse and who happens to look exactly like you.
Paul shoved me into the cabin and positioned the sheet of metal in front. It turned out there was no roof, and heaven sent down its meddlesome green flies. Two filthy boards for standing on lay over a hole in the ground. It would have been easy to slip. I searched for two dry spots. Written on the wall in red paint was:
Life is really full of shit,
There’s no choice but to piss on it.
I could hear the people outside, Paul was shouting too. In here it was safe. You can’t become any less than the stuff that stinks beneath your feet. When the fat man spoke of God, did he mean that you could become drunk off the acrid fumes in here. I breathed deeply, I refused to hurry, and despite the risk of slipping, I shut my eyes. Not until I was back outside did I become a piece of human filth. I walked through the market next to Paul, the rows of people with their junk were beginning to scatter. Cigarette stubs lay strewn among the patterned imprints of molded rubber soles. The dust swirled up to our necks, I should have thanked Paul for helping with the door, but I couldn’t get a word out. My gold ring was sold—six thousand lei was a fortune for me—and in all that filth. The dust was moving in the same direction as our feet, leading us on. The wind picked up in longish gusts and then dropped off. The wire fence that enclosed the market caught scraps of paper and old clothes. Paul folded his tarp smaller and smaller until it turned into a blue briefcase, which he wedged into one of the panniers on his motorcycle. Then Paul spat on his fingers and counted the money into my open palm, my elbow lost track and yielded to his touch. He finished counting out the banknotes, and I waited for his fingers to migrate from our business dealings to my pulse.
My beach ball and the brooch were still lying on the newspaper, not a single person had shown any interest, I wanted to walk away and leave them lying there. Paul blew up the beach ball and tossed it into the air. It flew away from me, like a huge scoop of watermelon breaking free from the ground and the dirty Sunday. It was so beautiful, now that it no longer belonged to me. And I, I wanted to hunker down and laugh with my eyes and cry with my mouth. It was the first moment of my ass-backward happiness with Paul. And right in the middle of it he asked:
Wh
at does a person do on a Sunday with full pockets and an empty heart?
He picked up the brooch and polished it on his trouser leg—a glass cat with a curved, copper-wire mustache. He fastened it to his shirt. As Paul pushed the motorbike along through the marketplace, the mustache twitched and the cat started to breathe.
If you like we can ride up to the old game preserve, he said, they have a restaurant in the park where you can sit outside.
Only if you throw the cat away, I said, you look like a vagrant.
I don’t think so, he said, but still he tossed it away in the dust behind him, just missing a man who simply glanced up briefly as he hurried past with the long strides of someone who was running late.
His mother-in-law’s waiting for him with chicken soup, said Paul, no need to hurry, by now it’ll be cold anyway.
He had sold my wedding ring in this dust and wind, did he think I was some big-hearted floozy he could go out with and blow all that money. I knew the small botanical garden inside the former game preserve and I knew the Latin names for a few of the plants from walks I had taken there with my husband and his parents. Back then I was living at their place, downstairs in a room that opened onto the yard, so you could enter the room right from the garden path. In winter, instead of warmth, the coal-burning stove blew air as thick as incense up to the ceiling. From spring until late autumn, there were trails of ants along the walls and window frames, clusters of ants in the corners of rooms and drawers, and busy lone ants on the table and in the bed. Even in the kitchen. My mother-in-law doled out the soup. When her husband pushed his bowl over to be served, she would use the ladle to swirl the contents of the pot for a while, as if searching for chunks of vegetables. Actually she was stirring the ants to the sides. Despite her efforts some would still be floating in her husband’s bowl. He would nudge them to the edge with his spoon and act as if the whole thing was completely out of the ordinary.
Where did these come from.
My mother-in-law said:
