Herta Müller - The Hunger Angel

Right where his fur cap touched his left ear, the crease of skin above his lobe flattened out just like mine. I wanted to see his right ear too. I unhooked my arm and crossed to his right side. His right ear was even more like mine than his left. There the crease smoothed out farther down, the lobe looked longer and wider, as if ironed flat.

They took me on at the crate factory. Every day I left the disabler at home and returned to him after work. Each time I came home, my grandmother asked:

Are you back.

And I said: I’m back.

Each time I left the house she asked:

Are you leaving.

And I said: I’m leaving.

When she asked me these questions she took a step toward me and placed three fingers on her forehead as though she couldn’t believe what I was saying. Her hands were transparent, nothing but skin with veins and bones, two silk fans. I wanted to fling my arms around her neck when she asked me that. The disabler stopped me.

Little Robert heard my grandmother’s daily questions. When it occurred to him, he imitated her, he took a step toward me, placed his fingers to his forehead, and asked all at once:

Are you back, are you leaving.

Each time he touched his forehead I saw the folds of fat at his wrists. And each time he asked, I wanted to squeeze my ersatz-brother’s neck. The disabler stopped me.

One day I came back from work and noticed a tip of white lace peeking out from the cover of the sewing machine. Another day an umbrella was hanging from the handle of the kitchen door, and a broken plate was lying on the table in two even pieces as though it had been cut down the middle, and my mother had a handkerchief tied around her thumb. One day Father’s suspenders were lying on the radio and Grandmother’s glasses in my shoe. Another day Robert’s stuffed dog Mopi was tied to the teapot handle with my shoelaces, and a crust of bread was in my cap. Maybe they moved the disabler out when I wasn’t home. Maybe then everything came to life. The disabler at home was like the hunger angel in the camp. It was never clear whether there was one for all of us or if each of us had his own.

They probably laughed when I wasn’t there. They probably felt sorry for me or cursed me. They probably kissed little Robert. They probably said they needed to be patient with me because they loved me, or else they just thought it to themselves and went about their business. Probably. Maybe I should have laughed when I came home. Maybe I should have felt sorry for them or cursed them. Maybe I should have kissed little Robert. Maybe I should have said I needed to be patient with them because I loved them. Except how could I say that if I couldn’t even think it to myself.

During my first month back home I kept the light on all night, because I was afraid without the old barrack light. I believe we don’t dream at night unless the day has made us tired. I didn’t start dreaming again until I was working at the crate factory.

Grandmother and I are sitting together on the plush chair, Robert is on a chair next to us. I’m as little as Robert, and Robert is as big as I am. Robert climbs on his chair next to the clock and pulls some stucco off the ceiling. He gets down and drapes it around my grandmother and me like a white shawl. Father kneels on the carpet in front of us with his Leica, and my mother says: Why don’t you smile at each other, let’s get one last picture before she dies. My legs barely reach over the edge of the chair. From his position my father can only photograph my shoes from below, with the soles in the foreground, pointing toward the door. Because of my short legs, my father has no choice, even if he’d prefer another angle. I brush the stucco off my shoulder. My grandmother hugs me, puts the stucco back around my neck, and holds it in place with her transparent hand. My mother uses a knitting needle to conduct my father in a countdown: three, two, and then, at one, he clicks. My mother sticks the knitting needle in her hair and brushes the stucco off our shoulders. And Robert climbs on his chair and puts the stucco back on the ceiling.

For months my feet had been at home, where no one knew what I had seen. Nor did anybody ask. The only way you can talk about something is by again becoming the person you’re talking about. I was glad that no one asked anything, although I was also secretly offended. My grandfather would have asked, but he’d been dead for two years. He died of kidney failure the summer after my third peace, but unlike me he stayed with the dead.

One evening our neighbor Herr Carp came over to return the level he’d borrowed. He couldn’t help stammering when he saw me. I thanked him for his yellow leather gaiters and lied that they’d kept me warm in the camp. Then I added that they’d brought me good luck, that thanks to them I’d once found 10 rubles at the market. He was so excited, his pupils slid from side to side like cherry pits. He rocked back and forth on his toes, crossed his arms and stroked them with his thumbs, and said: Your grandfather never stopped waiting for you. On the day he died the mountains disappeared into the clouds, flocks of clouds drifted into town from faraway places like suitcases from all corners of the globe. They knew that your grandfather had traveled the world. One of the clouds was definitely from you, even if you didn’t know it. The funeral was over at five o’clock and right afterward it rained quietly for half an hour. I remember it was on a Wednesday, I still had to go into town to buy glue. On my way home I saw a rat without hair right in front of your house. It was cowering next to your wooden door, all wrinkled and shivering. I was surprised the rat didn’t have a tail, or maybe the tail was under its belly. As I was standing there I noticed a toad covered with warts. The toad looked straight at me and started puffing out two white sacs attached to its throat, first one and then the other. The whole thing looked hideous. At first I wanted to shove the toad away with my umbrella, but I didn’t dare. Better not, I thought, after all it’s a toad, and he’s sending some kind of signal, obviously something to do with Leo’s death. People thought you were dead, you know. Your grandfather kept waiting for you. Especially at first. Less so toward the end. But everyone thought you were dead. You didn’t write, that’s why you’re alive now.

One thing has nothing to do with the other, I said.

My breath was trembling because I could tell Herr Carp didn’t believe me, he just chewed on his frayed mustache. My mother squinted out the veranda window at the courtyard, where there was nothing to see except a bit of sky and the tarpaper roof on the shed. Watch what you’re saying, Herr Carp, my grandmother spoke up. You told me something different back then, you said that those white sacs had to do with my dead husband. You said the toad was sending a greeting from my dead husband. What I’m telling you now is the truth, Herr Carp mumbled, more to himself than anyone else. Back then I couldn’t exactly bring up poor dead Leo, not right after your husband died.

Little Robert dragged the bubble level across the floor and went tch-tch-tch. He put Mopi on the roof of his train, tugged Mother by the dress, and said: All aboard, we’re going to the Wench. The sliding green eye moved left and right inside the level. Mopi sat on the roof of the train, but inside the level Bea Zakel stared out the window at Herr Carp’s toes. Herr Carp hadn’t said anything new, he’d merely expressed what everyone else had been too polite to say out loud. I knew they’d been more frightened than surprised when I came back—there had been relief but no joy. By staying alive I had betrayed their mourning.

Ever since I came back, everything had eyes. And all the things saw that my ownerless homesickness was not going away. The old sewing machine with its wooden cover and its bobbin and that damned white thread still sat in front of the biggest window. The gramophone was back inside my worn-out suitcase and in its old spot on the corner table. The same green and blue curtains hung in the windows, the same flowery pattern snaked through the carpets, which were bordered by the same frayed fringe, the cupboards and doors squeaked as always when they were opened or closed, the floorboards creaked in the same places, the railing of the veranda stairs was cracked in the same spot, every stair still sagged from use, the same flowerpot dangled inside its wire basket on the landing. Nothing had anything to do with me. I was locked up inside myself and evicted from myself. I didn’t belong to them and I was missing me.