Read Online The Fox Was Ever the Hunter by Herta Müller - Free Book Online
Authors: Herta Müller
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casts a slender shadow, she doesn’t know whether the shiny wheel is her desire for the green lamb or for the man with the reddish-blue flecked tie. But she has the feeling that if the wheel in her throat is spinning for the green coat it’s also catching on this man.
* * *
An old woman is sitting on the cathedral steps, she wears thick woolen stockings, a thick pleated coat and a white linen blouse. Beside her is a wicker basket covered with a damp cloth. Pavel lifts the cloth. Autumn crocuses, finger-thin bouquets, laid out in rows, each wound with white twine up to the flowers. Underneath, another cloth, more flowers, then another cloth, many layers of flowers and cloths and twine. Pavel picks out ten bouquets, one for each finger, he says, the old woman pulls a coin purse out of her blouse that’s tied to a string. Clara sees the woman’s nipples hanging on her skin like two screws. In Clara’s hand the flowers smell of iron and grass. The same smell as the grass behind the wire factory after a rain.
* * *
When Pavel raises his head, the sidewalk drops out of the reflection in his sunglasses. On the streetcar tracks are the remnants of a run-over watermelon, sparrows pick at the red flesh. When the workers leave their food on the table, the sparrows eat the bread, says Clara, she can see his temples, and the trees moving away inside the glass lenses. He looks at her with the moving trees, brushes away a wasp, and talks. That’s nice, he says to Clara. What makes you say that, what’s nice about working in a factory, says Clara.
* * *
Once inside the car Pavel ties his shoe while Clara sniffs at the crocuses. The car moves, the street is made of dust, a garbage bin is smoldering. A dog is lying on the road, Pavel honks, the dog gets up and slowly lies down in a patch of grass.
Clara is holding her keys, Pavel takes her hand and smells the crocus, she shows him which window is hers, I haven’t seen your eyes, she says. He raises his fingers to his temple, she notices his wedding ring. He doesn’t take off his sunglasses.
Summer entrails
There are no poplars on the plaza by the opera, so Opera Square isn’t striped, only splotched by the shadows of pedestrians and passing streetcars. The yew trees keep their needles tightly bundled on top, sheltering the wood within against the sky and against the clock in the cathedral tower. Anyone who wants to sit down on the benches in front of the yews must first cross the hot asphalt. The needles on the lower branches in back of the benches have either fallen off or were never there, behind the benches the wood within the yews is open to the world.
Old men sit on the benches, seeking shade that will stay in one place. But the yew trees play tricks, they pretend the moving shadows of the streetcars are part of their shade. Then once the old men have sat down the yews let the streetcar shadows move on. The old men open their newspapers, the sun shines through their hands, and the miniature red roses planted by the benches glow through the newspaper into the dictator’s forelock. The old men sit by themselves. They do not read.
* * *
Now and then a man who hasn’t yet found an empty bench asks a friend who has, what are you doing, and the one sitting down fans his face with his newspaper, lays his hand on his knee and shrugs. You mean you’re just sitting here thinking, asks the man standing. The other points to two empty milk bottles next to him and says, sitting, just sitting. That doesn’t matter, says the man who’s standing, doesn’t matter at all. Then he shakes his head and walks on while the sitting man shakes his head and watches him leave.
* * *
Now and then lumber and planing tools pass through the minds of the old men and settle so close to the yew tree that the wooden tool handles can’t be distinguished from the wood within the yew. Or from standing in line in the store where there wasn’t
* * *
An old woman is sitting on the cathedral steps, she wears thick woolen stockings, a thick pleated coat and a white linen blouse. Beside her is a wicker basket covered with a damp cloth. Pavel lifts the cloth. Autumn crocuses, finger-thin bouquets, laid out in rows, each wound with white twine up to the flowers. Underneath, another cloth, more flowers, then another cloth, many layers of flowers and cloths and twine. Pavel picks out ten bouquets, one for each finger, he says, the old woman pulls a coin purse out of her blouse that’s tied to a string. Clara sees the woman’s nipples hanging on her skin like two screws. In Clara’s hand the flowers smell of iron and grass. The same smell as the grass behind the wire factory after a rain.
* * *
When Pavel raises his head, the sidewalk drops out of the reflection in his sunglasses. On the streetcar tracks are the remnants of a run-over watermelon, sparrows pick at the red flesh. When the workers leave their food on the table, the sparrows eat the bread, says Clara, she can see his temples, and the trees moving away inside the glass lenses. He looks at her with the moving trees, brushes away a wasp, and talks. That’s nice, he says to Clara. What makes you say that, what’s nice about working in a factory, says Clara.
* * *
Once inside the car Pavel ties his shoe while Clara sniffs at the crocuses. The car moves, the street is made of dust, a garbage bin is smoldering. A dog is lying on the road, Pavel honks, the dog gets up and slowly lies down in a patch of grass.
Clara is holding her keys, Pavel takes her hand and smells the crocus, she shows him which window is hers, I haven’t seen your eyes, she says. He raises his fingers to his temple, she notices his wedding ring. He doesn’t take off his sunglasses.
Summer entrails
There are no poplars on the plaza by the opera, so Opera Square isn’t striped, only splotched by the shadows of pedestrians and passing streetcars. The yew trees keep their needles tightly bundled on top, sheltering the wood within against the sky and against the clock in the cathedral tower. Anyone who wants to sit down on the benches in front of the yews must first cross the hot asphalt. The needles on the lower branches in back of the benches have either fallen off or were never there, behind the benches the wood within the yews is open to the world.
Old men sit on the benches, seeking shade that will stay in one place. But the yew trees play tricks, they pretend the moving shadows of the streetcars are part of their shade. Then once the old men have sat down the yews let the streetcar shadows move on. The old men open their newspapers, the sun shines through their hands, and the miniature red roses planted by the benches glow through the newspaper into the dictator’s forelock. The old men sit by themselves. They do not read.
* * *
Now and then a man who hasn’t yet found an empty bench asks a friend who has, what are you doing, and the one sitting down fans his face with his newspaper, lays his hand on his knee and shrugs. You mean you’re just sitting here thinking, asks the man standing. The other points to two empty milk bottles next to him and says, sitting, just sitting. That doesn’t matter, says the man who’s standing, doesn’t matter at all. Then he shakes his head and walks on while the sitting man shakes his head and watches him leave.
* * *
Now and then lumber and planing tools pass through the minds of the old men and settle so close to the yew tree that the wooden tool handles can’t be distinguished from the wood within the yew. Or from standing in line in the store where there wasn’t
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