* * *
The flock of sparrows scatters. The windows in the factory halls are broken, the sparrows find the holes in the glass, and fly into the main workroom faster than the gateman can see. The gatewoman laughs and says, don’t even bother to look or they’ll fly right through your forehead. The gateman stares at his hands, at the black hairs on his fingers, at his wrists. The shadow of the afternoon slices his pants below his knees. The dust beside the spools of wire spins around itself.
* * *
A knife, a smeared canning jar, a newspaper, a crust of bread. And under the paper a handful of screws. Well well, says the gateman. The man closes his bag.
A letter, a bottle of nail polish. A plastic bag and a book. A jacket stuffed in a shopping bag. A lipstick drops out of the jacket pocket. The gateman bends over. He opens the lipstick, rubs a red stripe on his wrist. He licks the stripe off with his tongue, pfui he says, rotten raspberries and mosquitoes.
The man has a wound on his thumb. The buckles on his bag are rusty. The gateman opens the bag and takes out first a folding ruler, then a cap, and from under the cap a clothes iron. Look at that, says the gateman. All I did was repair the plug, says the man. On factory time, says the gateman. He sets the iron in the gatehouse and curses, mother of all plugs. The gatewoman places the iron on her hand and, stretching her fingers, irons her palm flat.
A purse. A clump of cotton wool drops onto the ground. The man with the wounded thumb bends over to pick it up. The woman pulls a strand of hair behind her ear, she takes the cotton wool out of the hand with the wounded thumb. A sunflower seed and an ant are clinging to the cotton.
The sun flashes white on Clara’s teeth as she laughs, and the gap between the gatewoman’s teeth laughs, and the gateman sends Clara through.
The man with the wounded thumb takes his cap out of his bag and spins it on his forefinger like a wheel. The gatewoman laughs, the gap between her teeth is a megaphone that makes her laughter echo. The man with the wounded thumb peers into the spinning circles of his cap and sings:
The money came the money went
We owe the landlord two months’ rent
His fist is a wheel, a vein in the crook of his arm pulses thick and thin. His eyes are following the gatewoman’s knitting needles.
He’s thrown us out now on the street
Yes life is always such a treat.
* * *
His mouth sings, his eyes are narrow and his fist is whirling. And his other hand, the empty one with the wounded thumb, does not move to close the rusty buckles on his bag. The man’s song is a song of waiting to get the iron back.
An acacia leaf flutters by the crack of the door, then races off and flies and flies. The gatewoman watches it go. The leaf is yellow like the eyes of the cat. The man with the wounded thumb looks at the clock.
* * *
Every year the cat has kittens. They’re tiger-striped just like she is. She eats them right away, while they’re still slippery wet and blind. The cat mourns for a week after devouring her young. She ranges through the factory yard. Her belly is flat, her stripes narrow, there’s nothing she can’t move through or past.
As long as the cat’s in mourning she does not eat meat. Only young grass tips and the salty residue that collects on the stairs in the back courtyard.
The women on the mesh looms claim that the cat came from the outskirts of town. And the warehouse supervisor says she emerged from the factory yard, from the boxes of iron shavings, where the rain barely leaks through. He says she was wet and rusty and no bigger than an apple when he found her there on his way from the warehouse to the offices. And that the kitten’s eyes were shut. The supervisor set the kitten on a leather glove and carried it to the gateman, who placed it in a fur cap.
And I fed that thing milk through a straw for thirty days, says the gatewoman. And raised her myself since nobody wanted her. After a week, says the gateman, the kitten was able to open its eyes. And I was shocked to see the image of the supervisor deep inside those eyes. And to this day, whenever the cat purrs, he says, the supervisor is right there in both of her eyes.
* * *
As far as the cat is concerned, the factory is as big as her nose. She sniffs everything and everywhere. She sniffs in the workrooms, in the remotest corners, where people sweat and freeze and shout and cry and steal. She sniffs up and down the gaps between the spools, where the grass is choked out and where people squish and pant and make love standing up. Where copulating is as greedy and hidden as stealing.
At the rear entrance to the factory, which is reserved for trucks, the roof is made of tar paper, the gutter of split tires, and the fence is an assemblage of dented car doors and willow whips. Beyond this entrance is a crooked street called VICTORY STREET. The gutter lets the rain out onto Victory Street. Next to the rear entrance is the warehouse containing mountains of protective clothing — gray padded jackets, green leather aprons and gloves, and gray rubber boots. The warehouse has a small window overlooking the street. And inside, below the window, is a large overturned crate that serves as a table, and a small overturned crate that serves as a chair. On the table is a list with the names of all the workers. And on the chair sits the warehouse supervisor, Grigore.
* * *
Grigore sells gold, says the gatewoman, gold necklaces. And wedding rings. He buys them from an old Gypsy who lost a leg in the war. That man lives on the edge of town, near the Heroes’ Cemetery. The Gypsy buys the gold from a young Serbian, who lives in a village in the corner of the country where Romania and Hungary and Serbia all meet. He has relatives in Serbia and travels there frequently as part of the local border traffic. He also has a brother-in-law who works as a customs official at the border.
Now and then Grigore acquires merchandise from Russia as well. The thick gold necklaces come from Russia and the thin ones from Serbia. The thick ones are made of die-cut hearts and the thin ones of die-cut dice. The wedding rings come from Hungary.
When Grigore closes one hand and slowly opens his fingers, the chains slither out like golden wire. He lets the ends dangle and holds them up to the light from the small window.
* * *
For a woman working at the factory, six months of rusty wire have to pass through her hands before she takes her wages to Grigore and a gold chain is draped around her neck. But then a few days afterward, late in the evening, just when bare feet are stepping on a rug and the gold is glittering above a nightgown, there comes a knock at the door and two men are standing there, one in a suit and another in uniform. The light in the hall is dim but enough to see a rubber truncheon dangling alongside the leg of the uniform. The man in the suit speaks in curt sentences, his cheek is smooth and shiny, a spot of light rises and falls. The voice stays quiet, almost flat, cold. The man’s shoes stand on the edge of the rug. The chain is confiscated from the neck.
* * *
Grigore recovers it the following morning, when the first streetcar is nearly empty and the lights are blinking off and on from all the jolting. The man in the suit climbs in at the stop by the brewery and silently hands him a matchbox.
On those days Grigore is the first person at the factory, he arrives when the water is still lazy under the bridge and the sky still hunched over with darkness. He’s cold and lights a cigarette. The loudspeaker is mute as he passes among the spools, trailing the smoke from his cigarette, carrying his gold chains. A few hours later he again lets them dangle and run through his fingers in front of the small window overlooking Victory Street. And the money reappears, the same but different, just like the same but different images that reappear in the eyes of the cat.