Herta Müller - The Appointment

This is so weak it’s thinner than pantyhose, he said.

Was that supposed to make me think about his love in the kitchen. I said: It could be stronger.

At that he gave a brief laugh and raised his eyes as if he were resigned to my presence.

I’m sure Lilli told you that I used to be an officer too, but that’s long ago now. I managed to visit Lilli’s officer in prison. I didn’t know him earlier, only his name, from years ago. Did you know him.

By sight, I said.

He had better luck than Lilli, he said, or maybe not, depending. Things look pretty bad for him.

He flattened a crumpled acacia leaf with his index finger, it tore down the middle, he threw it onto the ground, spluttered, coughed, cleared his throat, looked in the ashtray, and said:

It’s almost fall.

That’s something I can talk about with anyone, I thought, and said:

Pretty soon.

You asked at the funeral what Lilli looked like. Are you sure you want to know.

I gripped my cup so he couldn’t see how my hand was shaking. More and more drops were falling onto the tablecloth, nevertheless he pulled his straw hat down over his eyes and went on:

The officer paid a fortune. A man with a motorbike and sidecar was supposed to be waiting on the Hungarian side. And he did wait, the week before, but only long enough to get his money; after that he didn’t wait to go to the police and pick up another nice little bundle. Look over there, said Lilli’s stepfather, it’s clearing up again behind the park.

Lilli had loved a hotel porter, a doctor, a dealer in leather goods, a photographer. Old men, to my way of thinking, at least twenty years older than she was. She didn’t call any of them old. She’d say:

He isn’t exactly young.

But until the old officer, none of the men had ever come between Lilli and me, had ever caused me to feel one way or the other. He was the only one who made her neglect me. It was the first time I’d been left to my own devices — as happened that day in the officers’ mess — for an extended period. Here this man comes shuffling along, having already enjoyed the best years of his life, and snaps up Lilli. I was sad and jealous, but not in the obvious way. It wasn’t the old man I envied, but Lilli for having him. I didn’t find the old man the least bit attractive, but there was something about him that made you sorry for not liking him. Even sorry that he didn’t care for you. Between the old officer and myself I felt regret, but it was regret about something I neither would have wanted nor allowed. He was a man who aroused no desire and who left you no peace. That’s why I had to say his stomach was round as a ball, like the setting sun. The remark was directed at Lilli, not him. And that makes me, too, part of his coming to terms with her death.

Lilli liked old men, her stepfather was the first. She forced herself on him; she wanted to sleep with him and told him so. He kept her on tenterhooks, but she refused to give up. One day, when Lilli’s mother had gone to the hairdresser’s, Lilli asked him how much longer he was going to go on avoiding her. He sent her out to buy bread. There was no line in the shop: she got her bread and was back in no time.

Where do you want me to go now so you can get a grip on yourself, she asked.

And he asked in return whether she was sure she could keep so huge a secret.

Even a child has secrets, Lilli said to me, and I wasn’t a child anymore. I put the loaf down on the kitchen table and pulled my dress over my head as if it were a handkerchief. That’s how it all started. It went on for over two years, nearly every day except Sundays, and always in a rush, always in the kitchen, we never touched the beds. He’d send my mother to the shop, sometimes there’d be a long line, sometimes a short one, she never caught us.

Apart from me, only three others from the factory dared attend Lilli’s funeral. Two girls from the packing department came of their own accord. The rest refused to have anything to do with an escape attempt and the way it had ended. The third person was Nelu, he came on orders. One of the two girls pointed out Lilli’s stepfather to me. He was carrying a black umbrella on his arm. That day it didn’t look like rain, the sky was soaring in a great blue arc, the flowers in the cemetery smelled of fresh breezes, not pungent and heavy the way they do before a rain. And the flies were flitting about the flowers, not buzzing around your head the way they do before a thunderstorm. I couldn’t decide whether carrying an umbrella in that weather made a man look dignified or affected. One thing was certain, it made him look different. A little like an aimless idler, but also like a practiced scoundrel with crooked ways, who visits the cemetery at the same time every day and not for the peace it affords. Someone who might keep tabs on who shows up at this grave or that.

Nelu was carrying a small bunch of sweet peas, little ruffled white flowers. In his hands, snow on a stem was as wrong as the stepfather’s black umbrella. I walked over to Lilli’s stepfather without introducing myself. He guessed who I was.

You knew Lilli well.

I nodded. Maybe he could sense from the aura around my forehead that I was thinking of his kitchen love affair. He felt closer to me than I did to him, he leaned forward to be embraced. I remained stiff, and he straightened up again. His umbrella swung as he drew back, then he stretched his hand out as a greeting, keeping his arm bent. His hand was wooden and dry. I asked:

What did Lilli look like.

He forgot the umbrella and it slid down to his wrist. At the last moment he caught it with his thumb.

Inside that wooden coffin is another one made of zinc, he said. They welded it shut.

He merely raised his chin, keeping his eyes lowered, and whispered:

Look over there, the fourth from the right, that’s Lilli’s mother, go to her.

I went to the woman dressed in black, whom he had called Lilli’s mother and not his wife — in keeping with his kitchen affair. She had shared him with Lilli for nearly three years. She quickly offered me one yellow cheek and then the other. I kissed them far to the side, halfway on her black headscarf. She, too, realized who I was:

You knew, didn’t you. An officer, and he didn’t know any better.

I was thinking of the kitchen. What was she thinking of. When the mourners filed past, Nelu threw his white sweet peas onto the coffin and a clod of earth after them. At the very least I wanted to knock the clod of earth from his hand before it hit the coffin. He nodded to me. I can’t say what Lilli’s mother felt at that moment.

Lilli might have listened to you. It’s better if you go now.

Her hatred had slipped out into the open. He sends me over to her, and I go. She blames me and sends me packing, and again I go. What did the two of them think they were doing, why didn’t I say:

Listen, I’ll stay as long as I want.

A number of velvet shoes with embroidered leaf-patterns stood on the ground. They belonged to Lilli’s relatives from the village. Their white stockings were soiled at the toes and at the heels. Behind them was Nelu. He whispered:

Psst, got a light.

He held the cigarette in his cupped hand, the filter peeping out under his thumb.

You’re not supposed to smoke here, I said.

Why not, he asked.

You seem nervous.

Aren’t you nervous.

No.

Come off it. These things get everybody all shaken up.

What things, I asked.

You know. Death.

I thought you were assigned to Italy. I didn’t know Canada was in your department.

Are you crazy.

Tell me, how can you stand it all, the fresh earth and everything.

The exchange was fast, we were talking too loud. A walking stick rapped against my ankle, and an old man in velvet shoes said: