Read Online The Appointment by Herta Müller - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Herta Müller
Ads: Link
fast you can lose your grip, how quickly you can send another person to his death when he starts to weigh on you, like stones piled on your heart. And I knew this would happen again, with Nelu.
Lilli dismissed me with a wave of her hand, then blushed. Her nose was twitching, but it stayed cool and white. At that moment I hated everything about Lilli, as she stood there before me, but even so I couldn’t help thinking:
That nose is as beautiful as a tobacco flower.
Lilli considered me an instigator. I had frightened her, and now she was using the bridge against me. I could see signs of hate lurking in her features; I wish I’d never found out how much that made her look like her mother. At the funeral you could hear the earth ringing on the coffin, then it closed over Lilli, and that mother of hers snapped at me, with Lilli’s mouth.
That’s right, keep a hold on yourself—Lilli thought—it just takes practice. She could see the threads running through my tangled thoughts more clearly than I could. And I imagined I could see through her own tangle more clearly than she did. There was a time when we could have swapped places, she and I. Instead, she traded with her mother. Keep a hold on yourself, she thought, and you’ll make it across the border. Don’t lose your grip, the bullets only hit you if you let them know you’re worried. It just takes practice, and she wanted to learn. Back when she told me to keep a hold on myself with Nelu, Lilli was just starting to sleep with a sixty-six-year-old officer. A couple of weeks later they decided to flee across the Hungarian border.He was arrested and she was shot dead. Too clever for her own good, Lilli.
Once she took me to the summer garden of the officers’ mess and introduced me to her officer. He was wearing civilian clothes, a short-sleeved shirt with narrow stripes and lightweight gray trousers that reached high up under his arms. He had no ribs and no hips. In his deep, quiet voice he said: It’s a pleasure to meet you, miss.
He kissed my hand. A finely practiced kiss from the old royal age, dry and light and in the middle of my hand. Young men in uniform were sitting at the surrounding tables. Naturally Lilli attracted their attention, the uniformed men were mad about beautiful women, they threw match heads at Lilli. They figured out that she was the officer’s skirt, not me.
It had been a long time since the last war. Idleness threatened to erode military discipline, which had to be shored up with so-called precision work, namely, the conquest of beautiful women. Beauty was graded according to the face, the curve of the backside, the shapeliness of the calves seen together, and the breasts. The breasts were dubbed apples, pears, or windfall peaches, depending on the position of the nipples. The conquest of women has taken the place of maneuvers, the soldiers were told. Everything between her neck and thighs has to be just right. The legs and face aren’t so important: once you’ve got her legs apart and you’re going at it, you can always shut your eyes if you don’t want to look at her face. With breasts, though, it’s a different matter. Apples are good, pears are okay, but windfalls are always overripe and beneath consideration for soldiers. Each conquest, so they said, keeps your body’s joints oiled and helps maintain your inner balance. And that improves the harmony of your marriage. The old officer hadthoroughly educated Lilli about the best tactics for combating idleness in peacetime. He too had been on constant maneuvers, Lilli said, until his wife died. She was fifty and he was six years older. After she died he no longer had to pretend that the satisfying work that produced his sweet weariness was done in the field rather than other women’s beds. He visited the cemetery every day; chasing after women now seemed stale.
All the women I knew suddenly sounded like cackling hens and tasted like sour fruit, he said, especially the very young
Lilli dismissed me with a wave of her hand, then blushed. Her nose was twitching, but it stayed cool and white. At that moment I hated everything about Lilli, as she stood there before me, but even so I couldn’t help thinking:
That nose is as beautiful as a tobacco flower.
Lilli considered me an instigator. I had frightened her, and now she was using the bridge against me. I could see signs of hate lurking in her features; I wish I’d never found out how much that made her look like her mother. At the funeral you could hear the earth ringing on the coffin, then it closed over Lilli, and that mother of hers snapped at me, with Lilli’s mouth.
That’s right, keep a hold on yourself—Lilli thought—it just takes practice. She could see the threads running through my tangled thoughts more clearly than I could. And I imagined I could see through her own tangle more clearly than she did. There was a time when we could have swapped places, she and I. Instead, she traded with her mother. Keep a hold on yourself, she thought, and you’ll make it across the border. Don’t lose your grip, the bullets only hit you if you let them know you’re worried. It just takes practice, and she wanted to learn. Back when she told me to keep a hold on myself with Nelu, Lilli was just starting to sleep with a sixty-six-year-old officer. A couple of weeks later they decided to flee across the Hungarian border.He was arrested and she was shot dead. Too clever for her own good, Lilli.
Once she took me to the summer garden of the officers’ mess and introduced me to her officer. He was wearing civilian clothes, a short-sleeved shirt with narrow stripes and lightweight gray trousers that reached high up under his arms. He had no ribs and no hips. In his deep, quiet voice he said: It’s a pleasure to meet you, miss.
He kissed my hand. A finely practiced kiss from the old royal age, dry and light and in the middle of my hand. Young men in uniform were sitting at the surrounding tables. Naturally Lilli attracted their attention, the uniformed men were mad about beautiful women, they threw match heads at Lilli. They figured out that she was the officer’s skirt, not me.
It had been a long time since the last war. Idleness threatened to erode military discipline, which had to be shored up with so-called precision work, namely, the conquest of beautiful women. Beauty was graded according to the face, the curve of the backside, the shapeliness of the calves seen together, and the breasts. The breasts were dubbed apples, pears, or windfall peaches, depending on the position of the nipples. The conquest of women has taken the place of maneuvers, the soldiers were told. Everything between her neck and thighs has to be just right. The legs and face aren’t so important: once you’ve got her legs apart and you’re going at it, you can always shut your eyes if you don’t want to look at her face. With breasts, though, it’s a different matter. Apples are good, pears are okay, but windfalls are always overripe and beneath consideration for soldiers. Each conquest, so they said, keeps your body’s joints oiled and helps maintain your inner balance. And that improves the harmony of your marriage. The old officer hadthoroughly educated Lilli about the best tactics for combating idleness in peacetime. He too had been on constant maneuvers, Lilli said, until his wife died. She was fifty and he was six years older. After she died he no longer had to pretend that the satisfying work that produced his sweet weariness was done in the field rather than other women’s beds. He visited the cemetery every day; chasing after women now seemed stale.
All the women I knew suddenly sounded like cackling hens and tasted like sour fruit, he said, especially the very young
Similar Books
