Herta Müller: The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

At the opera, a whole gallery of photographs has been posted on the heavy wooden doors. Paul reaches over an old man in a fur cap and points at one of them. His finger touches the picture, it’s a photograph of Pavel, mouth smiling, his birthmark just above his shirt collar. Farther down, Adina’s finger touches a different face, it’s the man who pissed in the river and right afterward was able to walk along the bank like a quiet man. Underneath the pictures are the words: THESE ARE THE ONES WHO FIRED.

They all fired into the air, no doubt about it, said the old man with the fur cap, but it was the air that happened to be in people’s lungs.

* * *

The curtains have been drawn. They were here all right, says Paul. The door to his apartment is closed. But the doors to the wardrobe are open, the clothes strewn on the floor, the books, the bedspread, the pillow, the blanket. His records are lying on the kitchen tiles, trampled to pieces.

* * *

They come to Adina’s apartment, she unlocks the front door. The bathroom door is ajar, the sink is empty, no sunflower seed is floating in the toilet. The wardrobe is closed.

The fox tail slides away under the tip of Adina’s shoe. Then the first, second and third paw.

And then the fourth.

Adina slides the tail back to the fur with her fingers. Then the right hind paw, then the left, the right forepaw, and the left. That’s the right order, she says. Paul inspects the floor. No hair.

Can I stay here, asks Paul.

* * *

Adina stands in front of the bathtub, hot water runs out of the pipe, steam coats the mirror. She takes off her blouse, checks the temperature with her hand. Then she turns off the faucet and puts her blouse back on. The TV is talking in the other room.

I looked in the mirror and saw my white shoulders, I saw the bathtub, the white steam, I can’t bring myself to get undressed, she says, I can’t manage to take a bath. She rummages through her travel bag. The nail clipper is on the bottom.

* * *

Before the sheets are warm, sleep has filled their heads. Because both Adina and Paul have gone to bed with the same bullet-pierced image that swells until it bursts through the skull because the image is bigger than their heads.

I loved you like my own children, the dictator’s wife had spoken right into the room. The dictator nodded, his eyes saw the nail clipper on the table next to Adina’s hand and he pulled his black fur cap down onto his forehead. He’d been wearing the same cap for several days. After that bullets shot through the screen and hit the wall of a barrack, in the filthiest bare corner of the courtyard.

The wall stayed there, empty and riddled with bullet holes.

And then two old peasants were lying on the ground, and the soles of their shoes peered into the room, while heavy soldiers’ boots stood in a circle around their heads. Her silk scarf had slid off her head onto her neck. His black fur cap had not. Which one was it, the same, the last.

How about them, would you cut their corpses open, asked Adina. Paul squeezed and released the nail clipper. That would be worse than having to look inside my mother and father, he said. My father often beat me, I was afraid of him. When I saw the way he held his bread while he ate my fear went away. In those moments he and I were the same, we were equal. But when he beat me, I couldn’t believe he used the same hand to eat his bread.

Paul was breathing deeply after all the exhaustion of the past days. Where other people have a heart, those two have a cemetery, said Adina, and between their temples there’s nothing but dead people, small and bloody like frozen raspberries. Paul rubbed some tears out of his eyes, I am repulsed by them and still I have to cry for them. Where does it come from, he asked, this sympathy.

Two heads on the same pillow, separated by sleep, ears under hair. And above their sleep, behind the city, a lighter but sad day is waiting. Winter and warm air, and the dead are cold. In Abi’s kitchen the full glass remains untouched.

* * *

A few streets farther on, Clara falls asleep with the same bullet-riddled image. The telephone rings through her sleep. The red-swollen carnations are standing in the dark, the water in the vase casts a gleam. I’m in Vienna, says Pavel, someone is going to drop by soon and give you my address and a passport, you have to come right away, otherwise I won’t be here anymore.

The glowing windows sway back and forth as the streetcar rolls ahead on the tracks. Here and there lights appear in the dark streets. Anyone who is awake behind the walls has light in their windows. Anyone who’s awake at this hour has to go to the factory. The hand grips dangle from their rails, the dwarf is sitting next to the door. The tracks squeal. A woman with a child on her arm is seated next to Clara. The door bangs at every stop, and the child sighs, and the dwarf closes his eyes, and the door opens. And no one comes in, just sand blown inside by the wind. The sand is like flour, only dark. It can’t be seen, it can only be heard scratching on the floor.

The streetcar reaches the corner where the fence is right next to the tracks. A branch grazes the brightly lit window, and the child sings with an absent voice:

The worries refuse to leave me alone

Must I sell my field and my house and my home

* * *

The child’s mother lowers her head and looks at the empty floor, the dwarf lowers his head, Clara lowers her head. The rails sing along below their shoes. The grip handles listen as they swing.

* * *

The loudspeaker at the factory gate is mute, the striped cat is sitting beside the entrance. The slogans have moved from the halls into the courtyard. The dwarf walks into the yard, his brick shoes clatter. The striped cat goes padding behind him.

Grigore is now the director, the director is the foreman, the gateman is the warehouse supervisor, the foreman is the gateman.

Crizu is dead.

* * *

And an hour later, when it’s brighter outside and the housing blocks are huddled together under the gray sky, Adina passes through the same morning on her way to school. Inside the broken phone booth is a crust of bread. At the end of the street is the large spool of wire. In the yard outside the wooden shack is an empty chain. Olga the dog is no longer there.

* * *

In the filthiest bare corner of the school yard, in front of a wall, is a mountain. Half of the mountain is cloth, woven cords, yellow tassels, epaulettes. The other half is paper, slogans, provincial emblems, brochures and newspapers with speeches and pictures.

The child with eyes set far apart and narrow temples is carrying a picture in front of him. The picture shows the forelock and the black inside the eye. The picture is on its side, the forelock reaches down to the child’s shoes. We’re not burning the frame, says the servant’s daughter. She tears the forelock out of the frame, my mother’s in the officer’s house all by herself, she says, the officer has been arrested, and his wife is in hiding. The twins bring a basket with youth pioneer kerchiefs and red pioneer flags with yellow fringes.

The servant’s daughter holds a match to the half of the mountain made of paper. The fire quickly eats its way higher and higher, the hard paper curls like gray ears. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this, says the servant’s daughter. The soft paper disintegrates, I’d never have guessed, says Adina. The twins skewer burning silk fringe onto a couple sticks and go running through the school yard. What was I supposed to do, says the servant’s daughter, I had to keep quiet, I have a child. The wind blows the smoke over the wall. The child with eyes set far apart stands next to Adina and listens.