Herta Müller: The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

Then she slipped into her shoes and pulled on her coat. She wanted to get away, walk down the road, not to the border, only as far as the cornfield. Maybe I could lie down there, she thought, and freeze to death. Ilie had told her that the cold comes up through the toes and that by the time it reaches your stomach it no longer hurts. After that everything happens quickly. When the cold reaches your neck, your skin starts to glow. And then, as your body warms, you die.

Outside the dogs were barking, inside the room nothing rustled, nothing creaked.

Suddenly she felt Paul’s hand reaching for her, pulling her to the window. He shoved the heavy drapes aside and lifted the white lace curtain over her hair. You can’t do it, he said, look, that’s water in the puddle, not ice, the goose tracks in the mud are soft, it didn’t freeze. He looked at her, you know, with that white lace on your head you look just like the lamb, he said.

He took off her coat, then her shoes, then her clothes. Adina didn’t resist, she simply thought to herself as he did so that his sleep must be transparent, that it’s a long, empty corridor where nothing can stay hidden from him, not even what someone nearby is thinking in the dark.

And then there was no anchor, no hold, when he reached for her breasts and past years came back inside her body, the years with Paul. His penis was hot and stubborn, and her skin glowed differently than the desire to freeze to death among the corn. But she knew it wasn’t really herself who was glowing. It was their situation. And now the fox was there in the house with them, and Liviu and the lamb were no match for the fox.

Adina sat in the dark next to Paul, his cigarette glowed, he stroked her forehead. The woman who had moaned was no longer there. Is that reproach I’m sensing, he asked. She couldn’t make out the wardrobe, but she could see the apricots hovering in their jars below the ceiling. Yes, she said, but that doesn’t matter. In fact she didn’t see the apricots in their jars, she only knew that they were there.

Because lurking behind everything she did, every movement of her hand, every step she took, even during her sleep, was the knowledge that Liviu and the lamb were living in a little roadside village, that Christmas was waiting for her with a crippled fir tree, that they would decorate the tree and drag it next to the window for the passersby outside, just like years ago. And that there would be no passersby, at most two strangers who had spent the entire morning crossing the field — a woman with a child who wanted a fox.

As far as you’re concerned, said Paul, being separated means I’m always on call for you, but never sleep with you. The cigarette glowed and quickly consumed itself.

Be quiet, said Adina, my head is about to explode.

* * *

During the night she dreamed that Clara was standing in the frozen corn wearing a dress with yellow bouquets of roses. The wind had a dry rustle, and Clara was carrying a large bag. She said, there’s no one here, they aren’t looking for you. She opened the bag. It was full of quinces. Clara said, here, have one, I washed them for you. Adina took a quince and said, no you didn’t, there’s a bit of fur on the peel.

Every morning Adina sprinkles a few dried linden blossoms into the boiling water and they swell up as the stems and skin-like bracts turn bright green. To separate one day from the next she keeps count of the times she makes tea. The routine is always the same, it’s always morning, and the geese and dogs are always outside on the streets. There’s always a note on the table: WE’LL BE BACK AT 12 or 1 or AROUND EVENING. The linden blossom tea always tastes like sleep. The chamber pot stinks next to the kitchen door.

Adina seldom peeks through the gap in the kitchen curtain, because the fences in the yard are made of wire, and the lilac bushes are bare. People can see through the yards and gardens.

But Paul looks out often and reports the color of the sky and the mud and whether it seems cold outside or not.

Earlier in the morning they heard voices coming from the village, and Paul has been sitting at the curtain gap ever since he got up. Here the street is empty, but down in the middle of the village people are hooting and howling.

Adina peers through the gap. The sun is glaring, the bare lilac lays its shadow across the sand. The next-door neighbor is setting up three chairs in her yard. Her face is small and wrinkled. In the sun she has a mustache and no eyes. She carries two pillows and two down covers into the yard and shakes them out and drapes them over the chairs.

Paul’s tea has gotten cold, because he’s fixated on something behind the curtain roses.

* * *

Liviu comes running past the gap, without a coat, his jacket flapping open. Here comes Liviu and he’s in a hurry, says Paul, quickly sitting down at the table, where he sips his cold tea. Through the curtain Adina sees Liviu racing past the bare lilac without closing the gate. He’s carrying his scarf in his hand. Adina pulls the curtain shut, quickly sits down beside Paul and cradles her head in her hands. The key turns in the door. Liviu’s face is red and sweaty, he tosses his scarf on the kitchen table. Can’t you hear what’s going on outside, he pants, come into the living room.

His hands are shaking, he turns on the TV, they didn’t let Ceaușescu speak, he says, the people shouted him down, a bodyguard pulled him back behind the stage. Adina starts to cry, the screen is a blur of stone cubes and windows, a mass of coats surging in front of the Central Committee building, thousands of coats blurred together like a field, with lots of screaming and shouting. Adina’s cheeks flush hot, her chin dissolves, her hands are wet, the little screaming faces form a streak of eyes looking skyward. He’s running away, Liviu shouts, he’s fleeing. He’s dead, Paul shouts, if he runs he’s dead.

A helicopter hovers above the balcony of the Central Committee. And then it gets smaller and smaller, a floating gray point of a needle that eventually disappears.

On the screen is an empty black and white sky.

* * *

Liviu kisses the screen, I’m going to eat you, I’m going to devour you, he says. His wet kisses linger in the black and white sky. Adina sees the old man’s legs, the two angular knees, the white calves, and the forelock high in the sky, higher than ever. Paul opens all the curtains. It’s so bright inside that the walls suddenly seem too big for the room, they are shaking with the light.

The lamb is standing in the doorway, still panting from running. She laughs two round tears into her eyes and says, over in front of the church they’ve stripped the policeman down to his underwear and they’re giving him a beating. The accountant pulled off the policeman’s pants and the priest hung his cap on a tree.

The old lady next door knows everything, says the lamb. A couple days ago she told me that we’re having too warm a winter this year.

Winter lightning, winter thunder

Winter clouds all burst asunder

In December broken sky

Means the king will surely die.

That’s how she put it. I’m old, she said, anyway that’s the way it used to be. And this morning she asked me if I’d heard anything in the night. Not shots, she said, it was a thunderstorm, but not here, farther out in the country.

Liviu and Paul drink brandy, the bottle gurgles, the glasses clink. Paul marches barefoot around the kitchen table wearing Liviu’s robe, glass in hand, singing the forbidden song in a trembling voice:

Awaken, Romanian, wake from thy deadly slumber

Liviu drapes a crumpled dish towel over his shoulders and dances with the bottle and sings in a high-pitched, whiny voice: