The Passport (8 page)

The night watchman rummages among the green apples in his jacket pocket. The night watchman spits out a bite. “There have been worms in the fruit since the cloudburst,” he says. The dog licks the spat-out piece of apple. It eats the worm.

“There’s something rotten about this whole summer,” says
Windisch. “My wife sweeps the yard every day. The acacias are withering. There are none in our yard. The Wallachians have three in their yard. They are far from bare. And every day there are enough yellow leaves in our yard for ten trees. My wife doesn’t know where all the leaves are coming from. There have never been so many dry leaves in our yard before.” “The wind brings them,” says the night watchman. Windisch locks the mill door.

“There isn’t any wind,” he says. The night watchman holds a finger in the air: “There’s always wind, even if one doesn’t feel it.”

“In Germany the forests are drying up in the middle of the year too,” says Windisch.

“The skinner told us,” he says. He looks at the broad, low sky. “They’ve settled in Stuttgart. Rudi’s in another town. The skinner doesn’t write where. The skinner and his wife have been given a subsidized flat with three rooms. They have a kitchen with a dining area and a bathroom with mirrored walls.”

The night watchman laughs. “At their age they still like looking at themselves naked in the mirror,” says the night watchman.

“Some rich neighbours have given them furniture,” says Windisch. “And a television as well. Their next door neighbour is a woman who lives by herself. She’s a squeamish old lady, says the skinner, she doesn’t eat any meat. It would be the death of her, she says.”

“They’ve got it too easy,” says the night watchman “They should come to Romania, then they’ll eat anything.”

“The skinner has a good pension,” says Windisch. “His wife is a cleaner in an old people’s home. The food there is good. When one of the old people has a birthday they have a dance.”

The night watchman laughs. “That would be the life for
me,” he says. “Good food and a few young women.”

He bites into the core of his apple. The white pips fall onto his jacket. “I don’t know,” he says, “I can’t make up my mind whether to apply.”

Windisch sees time standing still in the night watchman’s face. Windisch sees the end on the night watchman’s cheeks, and he sees that the night watchman will stay there beyond the end.

Windisch looks at the grass. His shoes are white with flour. “Once you’ve started,” he says, “things just keep going.”

The night watchman sighs. “It’s difficult if you’re alone,” he says. “It takes a long time and we’re not getting any younger.”

Windisch puts his hand on his trouser leg. His hand is cold, and his thigh is warm. “It’s getting worse and worse here,” he says. “They’re taking our hens, our eggs. They take our maize too, before it even ripens. They’ll take your house too and the holding.”

The moon is large. Windisch can hear the rats going into the water. “I feel the wind,” he says. “The knots in my legs are sore. It must be going to rain soon.”

The dog is beside the stack of straw and barking. “The wind from the valley doesn’t bring rain,” says the night watchman, “only dust and clouds.” “Perhaps a storm is coming,” says Windisch, “which will bring the fruit down from the trees again.”

The moon has a red veil.

“And Rudi?” asks the night watchman.

“He’s taking a rest,” says Windisch. He can feel the lie burning on his cheeks. “In Germany it’s not like here with glass. The skinner writes that we should bring our crystal glass with us. Our porcelain, and feathers for the pillows. But not damask and underwear. They’ve got them there in abundance. Furs are very expensive. Furs and spectacles.”

Windisch chews a blade of grass. “The beginning isn’t easy,” says Windisch.

Windisch ties the blade of grass around his forefinger. “One thing is hard, says the skinner in his letter. An illness we all know from the war. Homesickness.”

The night watchman holds an apple in his hand. “I wouldn’t feel homesick,” he says. “After all, you’re among Germans there.”

Windisch ties knots in the blade of grass. “There are more foreign nations there than here, says the skinner. There are Turks and Negroes. They’re increasing rapidly,” says Windisch.

Windisch pulls the blade of grass through his teeth. The blade of grass is cold. His gums are cold. Windisch holds the sky in his mouth. The wind and the night sky. The blade of grass shreds between his teeth.

THE CABBAGE WHITE

Amalie is standing in front of the mirror. Her slip is pink. White lace points show under Amalie’s navel. Windisch sees the skin above Amalie’s knee through the holes in the lace. There are fine hairs on Amalie’s knee. Her knee is white and round. Windisch sees Amalie’s knee in the mirror yet again. He sees the holes in the lace run into one another.

Windisch’s wife’s eyes are in the mirror. The tips of Windisch’s eyelashes are beating fast, driving into his temples. A red vein swells in the corner of Windisch’s eye. It tears the tips from the lashes. A torn tip moves in the pupil of Windisch’s eye.

The window is open. The leaves on the apple tree are reflected in the panes.

Windisch’s lips are burning. They’re saying something.

But he’s only talking to himself, to the walls. Inside his own head.

“He’s talking to himself,” says Windisch’s wife in the mirror.

A cabbage white flies through the window into the room. Windisch follows it with his eyes. Its flight is flour and wind.

Windisch’s wife reaches into the mirror. With flabby fingers she straightens the straps of the slip on Amalie’s shoulder.

The cabbage white flutters over Amalie’s comb. Amalie pulls the comb through her hair with an elongated arm. She blows away the cabbage white with its flour. It alights on the mirror. It staggers over the glass, across Amalie’s stomach.

Windisch’s wife presses her fingertip against the glass. She squashes the cabbage white on the mirror.

Amalie sprays two large clouds under her armpits. The clouds run down beneath her arms and into the slip. The spray can is black. In bright green letters on the can are the words
Irish Spring.

Windisch’s wife hangs a red dress across the back of the chair. She places a pair of white sandals with high heels and narrow straps under the chair. Amalie opens her handbag. She dabs on eye shadow with her fingertip. “Not too much,” says Windisch’s wife, “otherwise people will talk.” Her ear is in the mirror. It’s large and grey. Amalie’s eyelids are pale blue. Amalie’s mascara is made of soot. Amalie pushes her face very close to the mirror. Her upward glance is made of glass.

A strip of tinfoil falls out of Amalie’s handbag onto the carpet. It is full of round white warts. “What’s that you’ve got?” asks Windisch’s wife. Amalie bends down and puts the strip back in her bag. “The pill,” she says. She twists the lipstick out of its black holder.

Windisch’s wife puts her cheekbones in the mirror. “What
do you need pills for?” she asks. “You’re not ill.”

Amalie pulls the red dress over her head. Her forehead slips through the white collar. Her eyes still under the dress, Amalie says: “I take it just in case.”

Windisch presses his hand against his forehead. He leaves the room. He sits down on the veranda, at the empty table. The room is dark. It is a shadowy hole in the wall. The sun crackles in the trees. Only the mirror shines. Amalie’s red mouth is in the mirror.

Small, old women are walking past the skinner’s house. The shadow of their black headscarves precedes them. The shadow will be in church before the small, old women.

Amalie walks over the cobble stones on her white heels. She holds the square folded application in her hand like a white briefcase. He red dress swings around her calves. The
Irish Spring
flies into the yard. Amalie’s dress is darker beneath the apple tree than in the sun.

Windisch sees that Amalie’s toes point outwards as she puts her feet on the ground.

A strand of Amalie’s hair flies over the alley gate. The gate snaps shut.

MASS

Windisch’s wife is standing in the yard behind the black grapes. “Aren’t you going to mass?” she asks. The grapes grow out of her eyes. The green leaves grow out of her chin.

“I’m not leaving the house,” says Windisch, “I don’t want people saying to me: now it’s your daughter’s turn.”

Windisch puts his elbows on the table. His hands are heavy. Windisch puts his face in his heavy hands. The veranda doesn’t grow. It’s broad daylight. For a moment the
veranda falls to a place where it never was before. Windisch feels the blow. A stone hangs in his ribs.

Windisch closes his eyes. He feels his eyes. He feels his eyeballs in his hands. His eyes without a face.

With naked eyes and with the stone in his ribs, Windisch says loudly: “A man is nothing but a pheasant in the world.” What Windisch hears is not his voice. He feels his naked mouth. It’s the walls that have spoken.

THE BURNING GLOBE

The neighbour’s spotted pigs are lying in the wild carrots, sleeping. The black women come out of the church. The sun-shine is bright. It lifts them over the pavement in their small black shoes. Their hands are worn from the rosaries. Their gaze is still radiant from praying.

Above the skinner’s roof the church bell strikes the middle of the day. The sun is a great clock above the midday tolling. Mass is over. The sky is hot.

Behind the small, old women the pavement is empty. Windisch looks along the houses. He sees the end of the street. “Amalie should be coming,” he thinks. There are geese in the grass. They are white like Amalie’s white sandals.

The tear lies in the cupboard. “Amalie didn’t fill it,” thinks Windisch. “Amalie’s never at home when it rains. She’s always in town.”

The pavement moves in the light. The geese sail along. They have white sails in their wings. Amalie’s snow-white sandals don’t walk through the village.

The cupboard door creaks. The bottle gurgles. Windisch holds a wet burning globe on his tongue. The globe rolls down his throat. A fire flickers in Windisch’s temples. The globe dissolves. It draws hot threads through Windisch’s
forehead. It pushes crooked furrows like partings through his hair.

The militiaman’s cap circles round the edge of the mirror. His epaulettes flash. The buttons of his blue jacket grow larger in the centre of the mirror. Windisch’s face appears above the militiaman’s jacket.

First Windisch’s face appears large and confident above the jacket. Then Windisch’s face is small and dejected above the epaulettes. The militiaman laughs between the cheeks of Windisch’s large, confident face. With wet lips he says: “You won’t get far with your flour.”

Windisch raises his fists. The militiaman’s jacket shatters. Windisch’s large, confident face has a spot of blood. Windisch strikes the two small, despondent faces above the epaulettes dead.

Windisch’s wife silently sweeps up the broken mirror.

THE LOVE BITE

Amalie stands in the doorway. There are red spots on the slivers of glass. Windisch’s blood is redder than Amalie’s dress.

The last breath of
Irish Spring
hangs on Amalie’s calves. The love bite on Amalie’s neck is redder than her dress. Amalie pulls off her white sandals. “Come and eat,” says Windisch’s wife.

The soup is steaming. Amalie sits in its fog. She holds the spoon with her red fingertips. She looks at the soup. The steam moves her lips. She blows. Sighing, Windisch’s wife sits down in the grey cloud that rises from her plate.

The leaves on the trees rustle through the windows. “They’re blowing into the yard,” thinks Windisch. “There are enough leaves for ten trees blowing into the yard.”

Windisch looks past Amalie’s ear. It’s part of what he can see. Reddish and creased like an eyelid.

Windisch swallows a soft white noodle. It sticks in his throat. Windisch puts his spoon on the table and coughs. His eyes fill with water.

Windisch brings up the soup into his plate. His mouth tastes sour. It rises to his brow. The soup in Windisch’s plate is cloudy from the vomit.

Windisch can see a large courtyard in the soup. It’s a summer evening in the courtyard.

THE SPIDER

That Saturday Windisch had danced through the night with Barbara in front of the deep horn of the gramophone. They talked about the war as they waltzed.

A paraffin lamp flickered under the quince tree. It stood on a chair.

Barbara had a thin neck. Windisch danced with her thin neck. Barbara had a pale mouth. Windisch hung on her breath. He swayed. The swaying was a dance.

Under the quince tree, a spider had fallen into Barbara’s hair. Windisch didn’t see the spider. He leant against Barbara’s ear. He heard the song on the gramophone through her thick black plait. He felt her hard comb.

By the paraffin lamp, Barbara’s green clover leaves shone from both ears. Barbara whirled in a circle. The whirling was a dance.

Barbara felt the spider on her ear. She started. Barbara cried: “I’m dying.”

The skinner danced in the sand. He danced past. He laughed. He took the spider from Barbara’s ear. He threw it
in the sand. He stamped on it with his shoe. The stamping was a dance.

Barbara had leant against the quince tree. Windisch held her head.

Barbara’s hand went to her ear. The green clover leaf no longer hung on her ear. Barbara didn’t look for it. Barbara didn’t dance any more. She wept. “I’m not weeping for the earring,” she said.

Later, many days later, Windisch had sat with Barbara on a bench in the village. Barbara had a thin neck. One green clover leaf shone. The other ear was dark in the night.

Windisch shyly asked about the second earring. Barbara looked at him. “Where would I have looked for it?” she said. “The spider took it away to the war. Spiders eat gold.”

After the war Barbara followed the spider. The snow in Russia took her away, when it melted the second time.

THE LETTUCE LEAF

Amalie licks a-chicken bone. The lettuce crunches in her mouth. Windisch’s wife holds a chicken wing to her mouth. “He’s drunk all the schnaps,” she says. She sucks at the yellow skin. “Out of grief.”