Саманта Швеблин - Mouthful of Birds

There was space for six. One didn’t get in, and she was left pacing the waiting room. It took her a while to digest the fact she would have to live with the urge until the next day, or the next, or whenever they finally called her in again. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to her. The ones who did make it in went up the white steps to the second floor. None of them knew one another, not really. Maybe their paths had crossed, perhaps in that very place, but no more than that. They filed silently into the changing rooms. They hung up their purses, shed their coats. They took turns washing their hands and alternated in front of the mirrors, pulling back their hair in headbands or tying it into ponytails. All politely and in silence, thanking one another with gestures or smiles. They’ve been thinking about this all week. While they worked, while they cared for their children, while they ate, and now here they are. Almost inside the room, now almost about to start.

One of the institute’s assistants opens the door to the room and ushers them in. Inside, everything is white. The walls, the shelves, the towels rolled up like tubes, stacked. The cot in the center. The six chairs around it. There is also a gently spinning ceiling fan, six silver tweezers lined up on a towel spread over a wooden stool, and a woman lying on the cot. The six women settle into the chairs, three on each side around the woman’s legs. They wait, looking at the body impatiently, unsure what to do with their hands, as if they were at a table where the food had finally been served but they weren’t allowed to start eating yet. The assistant circles them, helps them draw their chairs closer. Then she distributes the towels and hands out the six tweezers that were on the stool. The woman on the cot remains motionless, facedown. She is naked. A white towel covers her from the waist to mid-thigh. Her head is hidden in her crossed arms, because it’s better if they don’t see her face. Her hair is blond, her body thin. The assistant turns on the fluorescent light over the cot, some two yards up, and it illuminates the room and the woman even more. When the tube flickers slightly before turning on completely, the woman on the cot moves her arms a bit, as though settling in, and two of the women watch her reproachfully.

When the assistant gives the signal to begin, the women fold the hand towels into quarters and place the small squares of cloth in front of them, on the cot. Then they scoot their chairs even closer, or they rest their elbows on the cot, or smooth their hair back one last time. And they get to work. They hold the tweezers poised over the woman’s body, quickly choose a hair, and lower them, open, decisive. They close, pinch, yank. The dark bulb comes out clean and perfect. They study it a second before leaving it on the towel, then go for the next one. Six seagulls’ beaks pulling fish from the sea. The hair in the tweezers fills them with pleasure. Some of them do the work to perfection. The whole hair hangs from the tweezers, orphaned and useless. Others struggle a bit with the task and have to try more than once. But nothing deprives them of their pleasure.

The assistant circles the table. She makes sure the women are all comfortable, that none of them lack for anything. Every once in a while, a pull, a pinch, provokes a slight tremor in the legs. Then the assistant stops short and turns her gaze to the woman on the cot. She rues the institute’s regulations that have the subjects lie facedown, because with the woman’s head hidden she can’t reprimand her with a look. But she has her notepad, which she takes from the pocket of her smock, and she efficiently records the infractions. The woman on the cot hears the squeak of the rubber sandals stopping short. She knows what that means. Sooner or later enough marks accumulate and her pay is docked. The legs are gradually covered with little pink dots. Now they almost don’t tremble, because the pulling puts the irritated skin to sleep; now there is only a gentle burn.

When the woman on the cot was ten years old, she lived with her mother near the river. It was an area that sometimes flooded and forced them to go to her aunt’s house, a few yards up the hill and built on wooden stilts. Once, when the woman on the cot was doing her homework in her aunt’s dining room, she looked out the window and saw a fisherman prowling around the other house, her mother’s house. He had arrived in a boat that he’d tied to some trees. Some high boots protected him from the water, which almost reached his knees. She saw him disappear around one side of the house and then appear on the other. He looked in through the windows. But at no point did he knock on the door or on the glass. He waited until the door of the house opened and her mother, first looking around to be sure no one saw him, let him in. The woman on the cot could watch them if they stayed close to the window. Her mother offered him hot tea, and they sat at the table. Then they left the kitchen. When the woman on the cot returned home from the other house, the fisherman was voraciously eating his supper while he entertained her mother with anecdotes about his work and the river. The fisherman offered to take the woman on the cot fishing the next day. Since it was flood season and there was no school, the mother thought it was a good idea. The fisherman took her as far as the river’s mouth, where it emptied into the lake. At that point the boat almost didn’t move, it glided gently over the mirror of water and her fear slowly left her. It was only just beginning to dawn.

The fisherman assembled his rod, placed the bait on the line, and started to work. At that point she realized she was cold and hungry, but when she asked if her mother had made something for their breakfast, the fisherman made a tsk-tsk sound and motioned her to be quiet. She asked if he had an extra coat in the boat. The fisherman tsk ed again.

“Are you my father?” she asked finally.

The fisherman sat looking at her, and she got it into her head to smile. But he said:

“No.”

And they said nothing more.

The mother of the woman on the cot always had wanted her daughter to study and move to the city. She demanded her daughter get good grades, and she made sure to repeat that if she didn’t try hard now, she would pay for it later, and it would be costly. The woman on the cot studied. She did everything her mother told her. The school was two miles from the house and she traveled there by bike. When it flooded, the school called to assign her homework. In high school she learned typing, English, basic computing. On her way home one afternoon, the chain on her bicycle broke. The woman on the cot fell into the mud and the notebooks she was carrying in the basket were ruined. A boy who was driving a truck down the road saw her fall, caught up with her, and got out to help. He was very nice. He gathered up her notebooks and wiped them off on his coat sleeves, and he offered to take her home. They loaded the bike into the truck bed. They talked a little during the drive. She told him what she was studying, and that she was preparing to move to the city. He seemed interested in everything she said. He had a very fine gold chain hanging around his neck with a small cross on it. It seemed beautiful to her. She didn’t believe in God, and her mother didn’t either, but something made her think her mother would like him. When they arrived she invited him to come to dinner later with them. He seemed delighted, but said:

“It’s just that I have to go to work in a while. I’m a fisherman.” He smiled. “Can I come tomorrow?”