The Passport (7 page)

Dietmar buttons his trousers. Music is coming out of the small window at the back of the yard.

Amalie sees Dietmar’s shoes moving forward in the queue. A hand tears the tickets in half. The usherette is wearing a black headscarf and a black dress. She switches off her torch. Corn cobs trickle out of the long neck of the harvester behind the tractor. The short is over.

Dietmar’s head rests on Amalie’s shoulder. Red letters appear on the screen: “Pirates of the Twentieth Century.” Amalie puts her hand on Dietmar’s knee. “Another Russian film,” she whispers. Dietmar lifts his head. “At least it’s in colour,” he says in her ear.

The green water ripples. Green forests line the shore. The deck of the ship is wide. A beautiful woman is holding on to the ship’s railing. Her hair blows like leaves.

Dietmar crushes Amalie’s finger in his hand. He looks at the screen. The beautiful woman speaks.

“We won’t see each other again,” he says. “I’ve got to join the army, and you’re emigrating.” Amalie sees Dietmar’s cheek. She moves. She speaks. “I’ve heard Rudi’s waiting for you,” says Dietmar.

On the screen, a hand opens. It reaches into a jacket pocket. On the screen are a thumb and an index finger. Between them is a revolver.

Dietmar is talking. Behind his voice, Amalie hears the shot

WATER HAS NO PEACE

“The owl is injured,” says the night watchman. A cloud-burst on the day of a funeral is too much even for an owl. If it
doesn’t see the moon tonight, it won’t ever fly again. If it dies, the water will stink.”

“The owls have no peace, and the water has no peace,” says Windisch. “If it dies, another owl will come to the village. A stupid young owl that doesn’t know anything. It will sit on anyone’s roof.”

The night watchman looks up at the moon. “Then young people will die again,” he says. Windisch sees that the air just in front of him belongs to the night watchman. His voice manages a tired sentence. “Then it will be like the war again,” he says.

“The frogs are croaking in the mill,” says the night watchman.

They make the dog crazy.

THE BLIND COCK

Windisch’s wife sits on the edge of the bed. “There were two men here today,” she says. “They counted the hens and noted it down. They caught eight hens and took them away. They put them in wire cages. The trailer on their tractor was full of hens.” Windisch’s wife sighs. “I signed,” she says. “And for four hundred kilos of maize and a hundred kilos of potatoes. They’ll take those later, they said. I gave them the fifty eggs right away. They went into the garden in rubber boots. They saw the clover in front of the barn. Next year we’ll have to grow sugar-beet there, they said.”

Windisch lifts the lid from the pot. “And next door?” he asks. “They didn’t go there,” says Windisch’s wife. She gets into bed and covers herself up. “They said that our neighbours have eight small children, and we have one, and she’s earning money.”

There is blood and liver in the pot. “I had to kill the big
white cock,” says Windisch’s wife. “The two men were running about in the yard. The cock took fright. He flapped up against the fence and struck his head against it. When they had left he was blind.”

Onion rings float on eyes of fat in the pot. “And you said we’ll keep the big white cock so we’ll get big white hens next year,” says Windisch. “And you said anything white is too sensitive. And you were right,” says Windisch’s wife.

The cupboard creaks.

“When I was riding to the mill, I got off at the war memorial,” says Windisch in the dark. “I wanted to go into the church and pray. The church was locked. I thought, that’s a bad sign. Saint Anthony is on the other side of the door. His thick book is brown. It’s like a passport.”

In the warm, dark air of the room, Windisch dreams that the sky opens up. The clouds fly away out of the village. A white cock flies through the empty sky. It strikes its head against a bare poplar standing in the meadow. It can’t see. It’s blind. Windisch stands at the edge of a sunflower field. He calls out: “The bird is blind.” The echo of his voice returns as his wife’s voice. Windisch goes deep into the sunflower field and shouts: “I’m not looking for you, because I know you aren’t here.”

THE RED CAR

The wooden hut is a black square. Smoke creeps out of a tin pipe. It creeps into the damp earth. The door of the hut is open. A man in blue overalls is sitting on a wooden bench inside the hut. A tin bowl is lying on the table. It’s steaming. The man’s eyes follow Windisch.

The manhole cover has been pushed aside. A man is standing in the drain. Windisch sees his head with its yellow
helmet above ground. Windisch walks past the man’s chin. The man’s eyes follow Windisch.

Windisch puts his hands in his coat pockets. He feels the wad of money in the inside pocket of his jacket.

The greenhouses are on the left side of the courtyard. The panes are misted up. The mist swallows the branches. Roses burn red in the vapour. The red car stands in the middle of the yard. There are logs beside the car. Chopped wood is piled up against the wall of the house. The axe lies beside the car.

Windisch walks slowly. He crushes the tram ticket in his coat pocket. He feels the wet asphalt through his shoes.

Windisch looks round. The woodcutter is not in the courtyard. The head with the yellow helmet looks at Windisch.

The fence ends. Windisch hears voices in the next house. A garden gnome is dragging a hydrangea shrub. It’s wearing a red cap. A snow-white dog is running round in a circle and barking. Windisch looks down the street. The rails run on into emptiness. Grass grows between the rails. The blades of grass are black from oil, small and bent from the creaking tram and the screaming rails.

Windisch turns round. The yellow helmet ducks into the drain. The man in the blue overalls leans a brush against the side of the shed. The garden gnome is wearing a green apron. The hydrangea shrub trembles. The snow-white dog stands silently by the fence. The snow-white dog follows Windisch with its eyes.

Smoke billows out of the hut’s tin pipe. The man in the blue overalls brushes up the mud around the shed. His eyes follow Windisch.

The windows of the house are shut. The white curtains make him blind. Two rows of barbed wire are stretched
between rusty hooks along the top of the fence. The stack of wood has white ends. It’s freshly cut. The blade of the axe glints. The red car stands in the middle of the yard. The roses bloom in the misty vapour.

Windisch walks past the chin of the man with the yellow helmet again.

The barbed wire ends. The man in the blue overalls is sitting in the hut. He follows Windisch with his eyes.

Windisch turns round. He stands by the gate.

Windisch opens his mouth. The head with the yellow helmet is above the ground. Windisch shivers. He has no voice in his mouth.

The tramcar rumbles. Its windows are misted up. The conductor follows Windisch with his eyes.

The bell is on the doorpost. It has a white fingertip. Windisch presses it. It rings in his finger. It rings in the yard. It rings far away inside the house. On the far side of the walls, the ringing is muffled as if buried.

Windisch presses the white fingertip fifteen times. Windisch counts. The shrill notes in his finger, the loud notes in the yard, the notes buried in the house all flow into one another.

The gardener is buried in the glass, in the fence, in the walls.

The man in the blue overalls rinses out the tin bowl. He looks. Windisch walks past the chin of the man in the yellow helmet. Windisch follows the rails with the money in his jacket.

Windisch’s feet are sore from the asphalt.

THE SECRET WORD

Windisch rides home from the mill. Noon is bigger than the village. The sun scorches its path. The pot hole is cracked and dry.

Windisch’s wife is sweeping the yard. Sand lies around her toes like water. The ripples around the broom are still. “It’s not yet autumn, and the acacias are turning yellow,” says Windisch’s wife. Windisch unbuttons his shirt. “It’s going to be a hard winter,” he says, “if the trees are already dry in the summer.”

The hens turn their heads under their wings. With their beaks they’re seeking out their own shadows, which offer no cool. The neighbour’s spotted pigs root among the wild, white-flowering carrots behind the fence. Windisch looks through the wire. “They don’t give these pigs anything to eat,” he says. “Wallachians. They don’t even know how to feed pigs.”

Windisch’s wife holds the broom to her stomach. “They should have rings in their noses,” she says. “They’ll root up the house by the time winter comes.”

Windisch’s wife carries the broom into the shed. “The postwoman was here,” she says. “She belched and stank of schnaps. The militiaman thanks you for the flour, she said, and Amalie should come for the hearing on Sunday morning. She should bring an application with her and sixty lei’s worth of revenue stamps.”

Windisch bites his lip. His mouth expands into his face, into his forehead. “What good are thanks?” he says.

Windisch’s wife raises her head. “I knew it,” she says, “you won’t get far with your flour.” “Far enough,” shouts Windisch into the yard “for my daughter to become a mattress.” He spits in the sand: “It’s disgusting, the shame of it.” A drop of saliva hangs on his chin.

“You won’t get far with ‘it’s disgusting’ either,” says Windisch’s wife. Her cheek bones are two red stones. “It’s not a question of shame now,” she says, “it’s a question of the passport.”

Windisch slams the door shut. “You should know,” he shouts, “you should know from Russia. You weren’t bothered about shame then.”

“You pig,” cries Windisch’s wife. The shed door opens and shuts, as if the wind was in the wood. Windisch’s wife searches for her mouth with a fingertip. “When the militiaman sees that our Amalie is still a virgin, he won’t want to do it,” she says.

Windisch laughs. “A virgin like you were a virgin, in the churchyard after the war,” he says. “People starved to death in Russia, and you lived from whoring. And after the war you would have gone on whoring, if I hadn’t married you.”

Windisch’s wife lets her mouth fall open. She raises her hand. She raises her forefinger into the air. “You make everybody bad,” she shouts, “because you’re no good yourself and not right in the head either.” She walks across the sand. Her heels are full of cuts.

Windisch follows her heels. She stops on the veranda. She lifts her apron and wipes the empty table with the apron. “You did something wrong at the gardener’s,” she says. “Everybody is let in. Everybody sees about their passport. Except you, because you’re so clever and honest.”

Windisch goes into the hall. The refrigerator hums. “There was no electricity all morning,” says Windisch’s wife. “The refrigerator defrosted. The meat will go off if this continues.”

There’s an envelope on the refrigerator. “The postwoman brought a letter,” says Windisch’s wife. “From the skinner.”

Windisch reads the letter. “Rudi isn’t mentioned in the letter,” says Windisch. “He must be back in the sanatorium.”

Windisch’s wife looks into the yard. “He sends greetings to
Amalie. Why doesn’t he write himself.”

“He wrote this sentence here,” says Windisch. “This sentence with PS.” Windisch lays the letter on the refrigerator.

“What does PS mean?” asks Windisch’s wife.

Windisch shrugs. “It must be a secret word.”

Windisch’s wife stands in the doorway. “That’s what happens when children study,” she sighs.

Windisch stands in the yard. The cat is lying on the paving stones. It’s asleep. It’s lying in the sun. Its face is dead. The stomach breathes weakly beneath the fur.

Windisch sees the skinner’s house, caught in the midday light. The sun gives it a yellow radiance.

THE PRAYER HOUSE

“The skinner’s house is going to become a prayer house for the Wallachian Baptists,” says the night watchman to Windisch in front of the mill. “The ones with small hats are Baptists. They howl when they pray. And their women groan when they sing hymns, as if they were in bed. Their eyes get big, like my dog’s.”

The night watchman is whispering, although only Windisch and his dog are by the pond. He’s looking into the night, in case a shadow comes to listen and look. “They’re all brothers and sisters,” he says. “On their festival days they pair off. With whoever they catch in the dark.”

The night watchman follows a water rat with his eyes. The rat cries with a child’s voice and throws itself into the reeds. The dog doesn’t hear the night watchman’s whispers. It stands at the edge and barks at the rat.

“They do it on the carpet in the prayer house,” says the night watchman. “That’s why they have so many children.”

Windisch feels a burning salty sneeze in his nose and forehead from the pond water and the whispering of the night watchman. And Windisch has a hole in his tongue. From being astounded and staying silent.

“This religion comes from America,” says the night watchman. Windisch breathes through his salty sneeze. “That’s across the water.”

“The devil crosses the water too,” says the night watchman. “They’ve got the devil in their bodies. My dog can’t stand them either. He barks at them. Dogs can scent the devil.”

The hole in Windisch’s tongue slowly fills up. “The skinner always said,” says Windisch, “that the Jews run America.” “Yes,” says the night watchman, “the Jews are the ruin of the world. Jews and women.”

Windisch nods. He’s thinking of Amalie. “Every Saturday, when she walks home,” he thinks, “I have to look and see how her toes point outwards when she puts her feet on the ground.”

The night watchman eats a third green apple. His jacket pocket is full of green apples. “It’s true about the women in Germany,” says Windisch. “That’s what the skinner wrote. The worst one here is still worth more than the best one there.”

Windisch looks at the clouds. “Women there follow the latest fashions,” says Windisch. “They would prefer to walk naked on the street if they could. The skinner says, even schoolchildren read magazines full of naked women.”