Herta Müller - The Appointment

Keep those stubs on the table.

He stood at the window with his back to me, shaking his head, in the glare his hair looked like a fine big mane that covered his neck. He laughed out loud in the direction of the tree, turned to face me, and sat down on the windowsill. He rested one shoe on its heel so the tip was pointing straight up, revealing the clean sole, and couldn’t stop laughing. A laughing fit just like the ones I had. His ear looked green, taken into possession by the foliage. What was he laughing about, the greenish tinge prefigured his passing from the world, not mine. A little wind, and the tree would have drowned out that fit of laughter. In his place I wouldn’t have laughed just then.

Now the tram is at the bus station, everyone is shoving and I’m standing in the middle of the car. The man with the briefcase shouts over the passengers to the driver: Jesus Christ, take a look at all these stupid people. And the man behind him scratches his chin and says: Watch it, silkworm, or I’ll curl your mustache with my heel and you’ll be taking your teeth home in your handkerchief. The man with the briefcase doesn’t have a mustache but the man who just spoke does. Now both of them are outside. The man with the briefcase is facing the roughneck, who wags his forefinger as if threatening a child and gives a coarse laugh. His arms are long and muscular, his teeth white, he means business. Before the day’s over he’ll have found someone he can beat senseless. The man with the briefcase thinks he’s above getting into a fight like that, better to get away in one piece than risk bloodying your clothes — even if the price is a bit of humiliation. And the blood would be his, since in the heat of his rage he was bound to be defeated. So he shrugs his shoulders and saunters off in the opposite direction from me. It turns out he doesn’t work where I’ve been summoned. A pity, if he did at least I’d know someone there, maybe not very well, but at least differently than the way I know Albu. Someone who’d let himself be humiliated, who’d been trodden into the dust and didn’t do a thing about it. The driver yells: Let’s go or it’ll be Christmas before I get out of here. The cherry eater’s already outside, she walks to a bin and tosses the crumpled paper bag inside. Some man throws a cap in through the window, right in the driver’s face. The man’s hair is tangled, his trousers are wet with piss, his shirt is bloody. He has a fresh gash on his forehead. He has a large sack next to him that’s tied tight but is squirming around. The driver tosses the cap back out the window: Keep your lice. Hold on to it for me, would you, the man laughs, I’m getting in. Not in here you’re not, the conductor says, I’m not a toilet cleaner, this is a streetcar. I’m a father, the man says, reeling, since seven minutes past two last night, I have a son, my wife’s at the maternity hospital. And what’s in the sack, the driver asks. A lamb, the man says, I’m going to give it to the doctor and kiss his golden hands. The man fumbles with his cap but can’t find his head, so he stuffs the cap into his pants pocket. Out of the question, the driver says, if your son pissed in my car I wouldn’t kick him out since he can’t even walk yet. But that doesn’t go for you. The man drags his sack across the rails and pushes against the door. The passengers getting out push him away with their elbows. The man plants one foot squarely on the step. The driver gets up and pushes him down. He falls. Hey, boss, better not leave me here, you better take me with you, may your son go blind… The driver spits on the step, shuts the door, and drives off. The lamb in the sack cries out briefly, perhaps the wheels passed over it. On either side of me are people who wanted to get off, but no one says a word. The driver says: I’ll let you all off at the next stop — it’s not far. That’s easy for him to say, but now I’ll have to hurry. At the next stop it’s already a quarter to ten.

It’s possible to take long strides, to walk and breathe at the same time. You can’t look down at your shoes or up in the air — otherwise things might start to blur. You have to keep looking all around just as if you were moving slowly, you can make almost as much progress that way as running, yet you don’t exhaust yourself. But for me to walk like that I’d have to have a clear path ahead, the two people in front of me would have to let me pass. They’re carrying watermelons in a mesh bag that’s swinging back and forth between them, blocking the way. Each melon has been notched open. Probably whoever sold them cut a wedge, which he then raised to his lips using the tip of his knife. After tasting each one he plugged it back inside the melon. All these melons must be ripe. Notched melons are quick to ferment, you have to eat them the same day. Do these two have such a big family. Or do they propose to eat nothing but melons morning, noon, and night, five cold melons, with bread so as to avoid diarrhea or a fit of the shivers. Warm melons taste of mud, they have to be chilled. No refrigerator will hold five melons, the best they can do is a bathtub. My grandfather said:

People used to leave melons in their wells. The water bears them up easily, they float. After an hour you can fish them out with a bucket and eat them. At the first bite your mouth hurts as if you were eating snow, but then your tongue gets used to it. Overchilled melons are a trap, they’re mealy sweet, you eat too much, your stomach freezes. Every summer people died from eating those melons out of their wells, even in town. Nobody dies from eating melons out of the tub, although many people die in the bath. Yes, you can have a warm soak in the mornings, chill melons at noon, and slaughter lambs and geese in the afternoon, rinse away the blood, and then take another warm wash in the evenings. All in the same tub. And when you’ve had your fill of melon, lamb, goose, and yourself, then you can fill up the tub one last time and drown yourself in it, my grandfather said, Oh yes, you can do all that.

I’d rather do it in the river, I said.

But right here there isn’t any river. You’d have to drive off looking for one, and by the time they pull you out they probably won’t know who you were. Corpses fished out of rivers are gruesome. Anyone that fed up with life is better off laying out one last set of clean clothes and dying a pleasant death at home, in the bath.

If you count their shadows, there are four of them doing the carrying. Sometimes people need only one melon but they take more because they’re so cheap. They think they’re saving money, and then they let the melons spoil. I walk close behind the mesh bag, making noise to announce my presence, but the cars are louder. Why are they pulling the bag so far apart, it doesn’t make it any lighter.

Excuse me.

No, they can’t hear me, I need to say more than that.

Climbing roses are planted between the houses, the tall dill in the vegetable beds is flowering in the wind, while the fritillarias are sluggish, girding themselves for the heat of the day, the dust makes them drowsy. Clotheslines are stretched between the fruit trees, lots of peach and quince. Housecoats and aprons, still wet in dark patches, catch the dust before they’re dry. I’ve never been here before, not even aimlessly. Lilli’s blue skirt with the accordion pleats belongs here, where the gardens are too small for large trees. If he wants to get annoyed, that’s his business, I tug at the melon man’s sleeve.

Excuse me, I have to get past.

He turns his head and trots on another couple paces and then turns around again. Then he lets go of the bag.

What are you doing, she yells, can’t you say something if you’re going to let go.

She pulls her shoe out from under the melons, takes her foot out of her shoe, then strips off a bandage that’s slipped off her little toe: