Read Online The Appointment by Herta Müller - Free Book Online

and harder to go to work. Paul would grip his Java firmly in both hands outside the factory gate, smile, wait for me to kiss his forehead and say:
    You have to act like Nelu isn’t there.
    Easy for him to say. But how to spend eight hours on end acting as if two mustache tips were simply floating in midair behind a desk.
    Nelu’s so full of it, I said, that you can’t see through him.
    And the motorbike roared, kicking up snow around thewheels, or dust. When Paul was halfway down the street I tried coaxing him back to the gate with my eyes, each morning I wanted to say something more to him, something he could take to last him the whole day among the machines. But we always repeated the same words.
    Paul: You have to act like Nelu isn’t there.
    Me: I’ll be thinking of you. Don’t get worked up if they steal your clothes.
    The quick getaway. And the wind when he turned the corner, his jacket arching back like a cat ready to pounce. Every morning I had to force myself to step inside the factory. The mere sight of Nelu was enough to drive me crazy. Neither of us greeted the other, though after an hour or two Nelu would try to break the silence, claiming that we couldn’t possibly stay in the same room together for eight hours at a stretch without saying something. I didn’t feel the need to say anything, but he couldn’t stand the silence. He talked about the production schedule, I said:
    Um-hmm.
    Um-hmm, and Oh, and Ah.
    When that didn’t work, I turned chatty. I picked up the little vase on his desk, peered through the thick glass on the bottom and studied the reddish-green rose stem inside the water. I said:
    Come on now, why talk about the schedule when there’s no point in meeting the targets. If we ever did, they’d be raised the next day. That schedule of yours is a disease of state.
    Nelu plucked a hair from his mustache and rubbed it between his fingers so that it curled up. He said:
    Do you like it.
    If you pull out one a day, pretty soon your face will look like a cucumber, I said.
    Don’t get too excited. You’re obviously thinking of pubic hair.
    But not yours, I said.
    Do you know why Italians always carry a comb in their pocket—because otherwise they can’t find their pricks when they have to piss.
    You’ve got a comb too, but even that won’t help you. You don’t have what it takes to be an Italian.
    I’ve seen what it takes, unlike you I’ve been to Italy.
    Um-hmm. And did you do a little spying there too, I asked.
    It’s true I was thinking of pubic hair, Nelu forced me to think of his all the time he was talking about the schedule. He placed that hair right in the middle of my desk, too, where there was a nick in the wood. Not one I had made. He’d probably gone and measured the desk to locate the spot furthest from my reach. I didn’t want to touch that curly hair of his, but I didn’t have my ruler handy to flick it off the table right then and there. So once again I wound up doing something he really enjoyed seeing, I blew the hair away. The sight of me pursing my lips gave him something to laugh at. I had to blow three or four times before the hair flew off the table. He made me obscene.
    One day the cleaning lady will come into the office after work and she’ll be wiping away blood instead of dust, I said to Lilli. It won’t be long now. One of these days I’m going to lose control and kill the son of a bitch.
    Lilli brushed me off with a wave of her hand and said:
    Don’t you dare. Why not just leave a knife on his desk and tell him how good it would feel against his throat, that it doesn’t hurt at all. Then move away a little, like on the bridge, so he won’t feel awkward. He’s doing everything he can to make you lose control, and you’re letting him, you’re positivelyasking for it. Keep a hold on yourself and you won’t lose your grip. It just takes practice.
    Lilli’s plum-blue eyes met my own and her gaze won. And her smooth neck. I knew from the bridge how