They’re setting out the hot dogs now. It’s strange that hot dogs are still so popular after all these years, I remember Uncle Hans coming home from America with a hot dog in a bun, he meant it as a warning. Imagine how embarrassing it would’ve been to show up with rolls and jam, they’re probably out of style.
I catch sight of the man who must be the new super, his T-shirt says “Caretaker Leif,” but I suppose he could simply be an admirer. He has a hot dog in one hand and a tiny girl in the other, and if he let go of her he’d never find her again. He stands talking to his new neighbors while the girl tugs at his arm to get his attention. When he finally turns to her, his eyes wander over the building, and suddenly he’s looking right at me on the third floor. I immediately dodge behind the curtains. This is just how it felt the time I was struck by lightning, it’s like my eyebrows are burning off all over again. I don’t dare look back, what if he’s still looking at my window and wondering if he should invite me down to have a hot dog, I hardly remember how to eat them, much less how to digest those long monsters. What am I going to do if he rings the doorbell? I’ll just have to act like I’m asleep. If I hear him trying to pick the lock, I’ll make snoring sounds and hopefully he won’t think something’s wrong with me. “She’s resting,” Leif will say, “we’d better just let her sleep, she can have leftovers tomorrow.”
I stand by the window and peek through the gap between the wall and the curtain until evening is well underway, but no one comes to try to pick my lock. My neighbors disappear from the lawn at the same rate that rolls disappear from the kitchen counter; when darkness falls, both places are empty. I take a bite of the last roll. Oh dear, I think, when I see the bite marks.
~ ~ ~
IN THE NEWSPAPER I read an article by a doctor jabbering away, and he mentions “memento mori,” which might be what I’ve contracted. Is there a cure? But then I’d have to go to the doctor, and I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve been there before.
Epsilon and I were taking a walk one Sunday, I was tired and confused by what he was saying, but he just wouldn’t stop. “Hush,” I managed to say before the lump in my throat got too big. Epsilon looked at me. “I thought I heard a cuckoo,” I said. Epsilon listened, but after a few seconds of blessed silence he resumed the subject. Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer, and pulled my arm away from him. The path of least resistance is my preferred distance, I thought. That rhymes. Then I ran as fast as I could down the hill. Epsilon was still at the top, probably babbling on about all the obstacles June’s mother had overcome. My legs could barely keep up with the rest of my body. Still, something was holding me back, I didn’t know what it was, but I knew what Epsilon would say. “It’s common sense. What did I tell you about women and falling, Mathea?” I picked up speed and left common sense behind. This is how it feels to run as fast as you can, I thought, right before I ended up with my face in the gravel.
I could hear ambulance sirens, but they were going the wrong way. Then again, I could hear Epsilon coming closer and closer, and I didn’t need an ambulance as long as I had him. “Matheamathea,” he said, “your leg — it’s perpendicular to your torso, we have to call an ambulance.” “No-no, I’m fine,” I said and looked up. “Let’s not make a fuss.” “But you have to go to the emergency room and let them put your hip back into place,” Epsilon said. “No need, everything’s fine,” I said and smiled to reassure him, but then a tooth fell out. “You’re not thinking straight,” Epsilon said. “I’m going to call a taxi.”
When we got to the emergency room, I tried to walk in without help, I didn’t want to be a bother, but a nurse forced me onto a stretcher. “I’ll make sure you’re first in line, you must be in so much pain,” she said. “No, I hardly feel a thing,” I said. “Don’t give it a thought.” “Sometimes I just can’t figure you out,” Epsilon said.
The waiting room was packed and everyone was staring at me. I regretted that I hadn’t cut to the front of the line, but then the door opened and everyone turned their attention to the next unlucky patient. It was an old man, and he looked so sad that Epsilon’s lower lip began to tremble. “What can we do for you?” the nurse at the desk asked. “I need to talk to a doctor,” the man said, his voice so low the entire waiting room had to lean forward to hear him. “I need to talk to a doctor because there’s a smell outside my house and I’m scared there’s some drug addicts hanging around, I heard on the news that drug smoke smells sweet.” “But are you hurt?” the nurse asked. “No, not at all,” the man said in a trembling voice, “but I need to talk to a doctor.” The nurse and the other people in the waiting room had no idea why the man needed to talk to the doctor, and Epsilon and I were likewise in the dark. But now I understand.
For a long time after my tumble on the hill, Epsilon had to take over all the housework, since I was supposed to keep my right hip completely still. So Epsilon cooked and served dinner, while I lay on the sofa with my throw pillow. I realized that I needed to give something back, so I started a correspondence course in German. I figured it would be good for us both.
“Komm mal hier, Liebling,” I said when he took off his earwarmer and hung it on the hook in the hall. But I don’t think he understood what I said, because he immediately began vacuuming. “Ich will mit Ihnen nicht Schindluder treiben,” I said quietly, but the whir of the vacuum drowned me out.
It’s evening and I’m watching the news and eating my cucumber. Einar Lunde is talking to a meteorologist who says that a storm named Leif is on its way, and then he says that that the next storm will have a woman’s name that starts with the letter M. I realize there’s a chance Mathea will be put on the weather map, and then Caretaker Leif and I will have something in common, we can compete when we meet, arguing over whose storm moves the quickest.
The weather report is over, the meteorologist bids me good night, I say thank you while I gnaw on my cucumber and think about the bite marks. I’m thinking about them because Descartes says I think, therefore I am. But to my horror one of my incisors tumbles out and last night I lost a tiny mole, it was on the sheet when I woke up, there’s getting to be less and less of me. Where will it end?
The tooth is stuck in the cucumber, I taste blood in my mouth and stare in some confusion at what now looks like the sort of weapon you’d kill a seal with. I work the tooth loose and try to stick it back in its hole, but it’s outgrown it, it’s like it’s gotten a taste of the big city and won’t go home again: “I feel too confined there.”
None of the teeth in the sandwich bag fit either. With or without roots — I try them all, growing more and more desperate with each failed attempt. “Just like the square root of minus one,” Epsilon says. “There’s no possible solution.”
~ ~ ~
EPSILON GRABBED HIS BRIEFCASE and headed for the door, I asked him why, but he didn’t answer. “Should I quit asking?” I asked. “You should quit waiting, Mathea,” he said. I often wanted to call the Central Statistics Office: “He’s way over the age of retirement.” But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.