Herta Müller - The Appointment

Our wedding came close on the heels of that answer, with the chief engineer waiting for Paul to make his next false move. If Paul hadn’t talked about socialism sending its workers forth into the world unclad, some other pretext would have been discovered. False steps can always be found, unlike stolen clothes.

Thank God the tram doesn’t stop on the bridge. I don’t want to have to look at the river, I don’t like what it carries. Whether it’s reflecting what it has seen or whether it’s washing those same sights away in rippling waves, it turns everyone’s heads, in fact it sticks in my throat. But I can’t help looking. The willows seem larger than usual, the river is low in the hot weather. The sun is passing above it, flickering with hot, needle-like rays. The man with the briefcase is slouched on his seat, squinting in the glare. It occurs to him that his briefcase could work as a sunshade and he places it against the window. That helps me as well: if the river hadn’t addled my brain I could keep my eyes fixed on the briefcase, which looks like a secret door in the middle of the car. There are papers stowed inside the briefcase, probably court papers, with names, official stamps, signatures, and a criminal charge. Whenever the court is involved it’s a bad omen. Is this man a lawyer trying to go over everything one last time in peace and quiet, or is he one of the accused, released on his own recognizance shortly before his final hearing. Either way, he’s in pretty good shape — at least he knows what’s in his file. Besides, it’s not even nine and he’s already on his way to work, while I’ve been summoned for ten sharp. He’s dressed neatly. Can a defendant who is preparing for court early in the morning still pay attention to matching cuff links, trouser creases, polished shoes, and a close shave. Obviously he’d have plenty of reason to do so; unlike the judge, he has to make the perfect impression, even if it doesn’t have any real bearing on the case. Or is the man with the briefcase simply vain, maybe he always looks like he’s just been unwrapped, no matter where he’s going or what the time of day — but that requires a job that doesn’t involve getting dirty. Of course he could be both judge and defendant — surely cases like that aren’t unheard of. Serious mistakes often have silly explanations; no doubt even men with matching cuff links get charged with crimes. Including judges who know the law by heart. But what if their children do something that’s not permitted. They, too, grow up and move away from home and aren’t any different from Lilli and me. Who is my mother, anyway: nobody paid the slightest bit of attention to her when I wrote the notes. Papa was dead, Lilli’s stepfather had already retired. If he or my father had been judges, what kind of questions might Lilli have asked before attempting to flee, what would I have asked before writing my notes. Even judges’ children hear something about the world, they go to the Black Sea like everyone else in this country. They look out and feel the same urge to go somewhere, feel it tugging at them from head to toe. You don’t have to be particularly bad off to think: This can’t be all the life I get. The judges’ children know as well as Lilli and me that the same sky that looks down on the border guards stretches all the way to Italy or Canada, where things are better than here. They demand their good luck, although not of the border guards. One person pleads with God, the other with the empty sky. No matter whom they appeal to, sometimes it ends well, and sometimes it ends red as a bed of poppies, or in being left behind, alone, like Lilli’s officer, or else all over the place like me. One way or the other, the attempt will be made, whether sooner or later, in this way or that.

Paul came home barefoot since the shoes his workmates had lent him didn’t fit. This time he didn’t need a shirt, it was a hot summer. But he did borrow a pair of trousers that stopped a few inches above his ankles and were three times too big around, he’d tied some wire through the waistband. At home Paul made fun of his appearance and pranced about the hall. The seat of his trousers billowed down to the back of his knees. He stretched his arms out and whirled me around, faster and faster. I put my ear to his mouth, he hummed a song, closed his eyes, and pressed my hand against his chest. I could feel the swift pounding through my hand and said:

Don’t charge around like this, your heart is fluttering like a wild dove.

We danced more slowly, keeping our elbows in front of us and sticking our behinds out so our stomachs and legs had room to swing. Paul bumped me on the left hip, spun around, bumped me on the right, and then his stomach danced away from me, and my hips swung up and down of their own accord. My head was empty except for the beat.

This is how old people dance, he said. You know, when my mother was young, she had pointy hips. My father called them tango bones.

I stepped on Paul’s dusty toes with my own red-tipped ones and sang:

World world sister world

when shall I tire of you.

When my bread is dry

when my hand forgets my glass

when the coffin’s boxed me in

maybe that’s when I’ll be tired of you.

Living is despairing

and the dead they rot away…

We felt so together, we laughed our way through the song, in which death seems like a special prize following a life that’s been paid for dearly. We gulped down the song as we laughed and never once missed a beat. Suddenly Paul pushed me away and yelled:

Ow, the zipper’s pinching me.

I tried to open it but couldn’t. He pulled the wire out of the belt loops and tossed it in the corner, the seat dropped to his heels, but some pubic hair was snagged in the zipper. I was supposed to cut the hairs that had got caught, but I was laughing too hard. Paul took the scissors away from me, his hands shaking:

Just get out of the way, would you.

Where to, I asked.

So I let Paul do it himself, but I couldn’t stop laughing, gurgling more and more, as if I were having a fit. I laughed and laughed until I finally got over it. I inhaled deeply and immediately exhaled, the air was exploding inside me until I had no more, and that was the end. But the beginning was happiness itself. To dance to the rhythm of laughter. And to snap the short leash that otherwise kept us tied. It had to have been happiness if a song about death could warm our temples from within. Until we felt ashamed in front of each other, until the leash shrank to a length shorter than our noses: that’s how long our happiness lasted. Then Paul ran his hand through his hair, and I curled up my fingers and dug my nails into my palms like a scolded child.

The silence after our happiness felt as if the furniture had broken out in goose bumps. We fell flat on our faces, right back into our hopelessness, especially Paul. He was always afraid we might grow used to happiness. While I kept laughing, he had cut the snagged hairs, the scissors were again hanging on the wall, beside the keys, the huge borrowed trousers lay in the corner. Still in just his underpants, Paul stepped from the room into the hall and stood in the sunlight, in a long rectangular patch that crossed the floor and part of the wall. The sunlight sliced through the shadow cast by his legs right above the knees.

Why do you always go on laughing until you gloat, he asked.

That sounded like Nelu saying:

There you go again, happy in your own filthy, ass-backward way.

Nelu had something there, I was happy because I needed to be. When it came to hurting people, Nelu was the expert. But my tongue was quicker than his, and my hands were more adroit. He would miss whiskers on his chin while shaving, and when he made coffee the heating element would fall out of the mug. When it came to tying his shoelaces he was all thumbs, it took forever, and they were never properly tied. He had a great deal to say on the subject of buttons, but he was incapable of sewing one on.