Herta Müller: The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

Clara is holding her keys, Pavel takes her hand and smells the crocus, she shows him which window is hers, I haven’t seen your eyes, she says. He raises his fingers to his temple, she notices his wedding ring. He doesn’t take off his sunglasses.

There are no poplars on the plaza by the opera, so Opera Square isn’t striped, only splotched by the shadows of pedestrians and passing streetcars. The yew trees keep their needles tightly bundled on top, sheltering the wood within against the sky and against the clock in the cathedral tower. Anyone who wants to sit down on the benches in front of the yews must first cross the hot asphalt. The needles on the lower branches in back of the benches have either fallen off or were never there, behind the benches the wood within the yews is open to the world.

Old men sit on the benches, seeking shade that will stay in one place. But the yew trees play tricks, they pretend the moving shadows of the streetcars are part of their shade. Then once the old men have sat down the yews let the streetcar shadows move on. The old men open their newspapers, the sun shines through their hands, and the miniature red roses planted by the benches glow through the newspaper into the dictator’s forelock. The old men sit by themselves. They do not read.

* * *

Now and then a man who hasn’t yet found an empty bench asks a friend who has, what are you doing, and the one sitting down fans his face with his newspaper, lays his hand on his knee and shrugs. You mean you’re just sitting here thinking, asks the man standing. The other points to two empty milk bottles next to him and says, sitting, just sitting. That doesn’t matter, says the man who’s standing, doesn’t matter at all. Then he shakes his head and walks on while the sitting man shakes his head and watches him leave.

* * *

Now and then lumber and planing tools pass through the minds of the old men and settle so close to the yew tree that the wooden tool handles can’t be distinguished from the wood within the yew. Or from standing in line in the store where there wasn’t enough milk and where the bread was counted.

* * *

Five white-gloved policemen stand on the plaza, their whistling throws the steps of the pedestrians out of sync. Nothing holds back the sun, and those who look up at the white balcony of the opera in the middle of the day feel their whole faces falling into the void. The policemen’s whistles sparkle between their fingers. The whistles have deep, bulging bellies, it looks like each policeman is holding a large, handleless spoon. Their uniforms are dark blue, their faces young and pale. The heat swells the faces of the pedestrians, and they are so exposed in the sunlight they seem naked. The women cross the square carrying clear plastic bags with vegetables from the market. The men carry bottles. Anyone with empty hands, anyone not carrying fruit or vegetables or bottles, has eyes that rock back and forth and stare at the fruit and vegetables in the clear plastic bags as though they were the entrails of summer. Tomatoes, onions, apples under the women’s ribs. Bottles under the ribs of the men. And the white balcony in the middle of it all. And eyes that are empty.

* * *

The square has been cordoned off, the streetcars are stopped behind the yew trees. Funeral music creeps through the narrow streets behind the plaza, where it leaves its echo, and the sky stretches above the city. The women and men set down their see-through bags in front of their shoes. A truck comes out of one of the narrow streets and slowly crosses the plaza. Its side panels are down and draped with red flag cloth, the policemen’s whistles fall silent, white cuffs glow on the sleeves of the driver.

The truck is carrying an open coffin.

The dead man’s hair is white, his face fallen in, his mouth deeper than his eye sockets. Fronds of green fern quiver around his chin.

A man takes a brandy bottle out of his plastic bag. As he drinks one eye is focused on the brandy trickling into his mouth and the other on the dead man’s uniform. When I was in the military, a lieutenant told me that dead officers become monuments, he says. The woman next to him takes an apple out of her bag. As she bites, one eye is focused on the dead man’s face and the other on his huge portrait being carried behind the coffin. The face on the picture is twenty years younger than the face in the coffin, she says. The man sets his bottle down in front of his shoes and says, a man who’s mourned a lot when he dies becomes a tree, and a man who isn’t mourned at all becomes a stone. But what if somebody dies in one place, says the woman, and the people doing the mourning are somewhere else, then it doesn’t do any good, the person still becomes a stone.

Following the dead man’s portrait is a red velvet cushion with the dead man’s medals, and after the medals comes a withered woman on the arm of a young man. And bringing up the whole procession is a military band. The brass instruments gleam, enlarged by the light. Behind the brass band come the mourners, shuffling their feet, the women carry gladioli wrapped in cellophane, the children carry white fringed asters.

Walking among the mourners is Pavel.

* * *

Sitting at the edge of the plaza, where the man drank his brandy, is an empty bottle, and next to that a half-eaten apple. The funeral music hums quietly through the cramped, crooked streets. The Heroes’ Cemetery is outside the town center. The square is littered with trampled gladioli, the streetcars lurch into motion.

* * *

The old men walk across the deserted plaza, their empty milk bottles rattle. They stop for no reason. Above them the white balcony of the opera has moved its columns into the shadow of the wall. The holes in the soft asphalt below are from the high heels of the women mourners.

Waterlogged cotton wool is lying in the toilet bowl, the water is rusty, having sucked the blood from the cotton. Melon seeds are lying on the seat.

When the women wear cotton wool between their thighs, they carry the blood of melons in their bellies. Every month come the days of the melons and the weight of the melons, it hurts.

* * *

With melon blood any woman can bind any man she wants, said Clara. The women in the wire factory talk about how it’s done: once a month late in the afternoon they stir a little melon blood into the man’s tomato soup. On that day they don’t put the tureen on the table, they fill each bowl at the stove. The melon blood is in a ladle next to the oven, waiting for the man’s soup bowl. They stir the soup with the ladle until the blood is dissolved.

During the days of the melons the wire mesh passes in front of their faces before clambering onto the large spool where it is measured by the meter. The looms bang away, the women’s hands are rusty, their eyes dull.

The women from the factory bind the men to themselves in the late afternoon or evening, said Clara, in the morning they don’t have enough time. In the morning they hurry off from the men’s sleep, and carry a bed full of sleep and a room full of sticky air with them into the factory.

* * *

But according to the servant’s daughter it’s best to bind the men in the morning, on an empty stomach. During the days of the melons the officer’s wife slips four dashes of melon blood into the officer’s morning coffee, before he goes off to his casino. She brings him his coffee in the same cup as always, without any sugar. She knows he’ll take two spoons of sugar and stir it into the coffee for a long time. The blood bits dissolve faster than the sugar. The best is the blood from the second day, the officer’s wife told the servant’s daughter. The wife’s melon blood is in every step the officer takes on the bridge, every day he spends drinking in the casino. Each bit of blood lasts a week, four bits cover the whole month.