The striped cat sits under the meeting table and yawns. Her face is covered with fur. Sleep races through her dark stripes, her back, her stomach all the way into her paws. Her nose is black from the machine oil, blunt and old. But her teeth are sharp, white and young. Her face is furry, with thin stripes. Her eyes are alert, with the image of Mara’s thigh fixed inside. And of a bite on the inner side, as large as a man’s mouth.
The director stands up. The moth perches on the back of the chair. The director stands in front of the mirror. He doesn’t know why, but he combs his hair.
* * *
In the workroom a worker is sprawled out on the oily floor. His eyes are half shut, his pupils have slid into his forehead. A puddle of blood has collected next to the press. The blood does not congeal, it is absorbed by the oil. The striped cat sniffs at the puddle. She twitches her whiskers and does not lick. Inside the worker’s oily sleeve is a wrist without a hand. The hand is in the press. The foreman ties off the sleeve with a filthy rag.
The dwarf cradles the victim’s head, warm and unconscious, in his hands. He keeps his hands still, because the hair on the man’s head feels dead, and so does the skull under the hair and the brain under the skull. The upturned eyes peek out from under the lids, white like the rim of a cup. And under the eyes is a crease, which the dwarf stares at so long it seems to divide the unconscious face in two. And the cat’s face, as well as his own face. Because when he keeps his hands so still, what feels dead creeps all the way up to his neck. The cat sniffs at the dwarf’s hands and at his motionless chin. Her whiskers are tipped with red. But her eyes stay big and calm and do not squeeze out the image of Mara and the mouth-sized bite.
* * *
Someone calls out that the director is coming. Then Grigore and another man enter, a man no one knows. The man has clean hands and doesn’t work at the factory. He asks for the name of the victim. The foreman says CRIZU.
The stranger kicks the cat out of the way and Grigore yells at the dwarf to get out of the way. The dwarf sticks his empty hands in his pockets and stands where the worker lay sprawled, out of the way for the others but not himself, and watches as Grigore and the stranger carry the unconscious man to the dressing room at the end of the floor. The body is heavy and soft. The smock hangs half open and billows out underneath.
* * *
Then the director comes through the open door and heads straight across the slippery floor to the dressing room. As he walks he shouts, don’t just stand there, get back to work. A moth flies from his collar and gets lost by the windows where acacias hold back the light, because their trunks are already sprouting thin wooden shoots and random leaves. The director shuts the dressing room door behind him.
Then the stranger grasps the head of the worker while Grigore pries open his mouth and the director takes a hand flask out of his coat and pours brandy inside. After that the director washes his hands and turns the door handle and kicks open the dressing room door. The director and the stranger take the shortest slippery way out of the workroom into the yard, the spools of wire.
Grigore follows them out. And stops at the door and bumps against the dwarf. And shouts onto the shop floor, Crizu has been drunk since early this morning, Crizu was intoxicated at the workplace.
* * *
The dwarf leans out the workroom doorway and peers at the wire and eats a pear. His eyes are empty, his head is too big. Juice comes trickling out of his mouth as he utters the words, Crizu doesn’t drink. Then the sun pulls a see-through cloud across its belly and the dwarf bites deep into the pear and chews. He chews the skin, the flesh, the core. His fingers are sticky, his shoes spattered. His hand is empty. But he doesn’t swallow. His cheeks are full of chewed-up pear. Full up to the eyes.
Someone in the workroom says out loud, that doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all, then walks past the window and says, there’s nothing anyone can do.
* * *
Disaster dangles from the mouth of whoever says those words like the leaves dangle from the tree outside the window. Whether summer green or autumn yellow, disaster is a branch in his face. The color is there, but not the leaves. Because disaster is always unadorned and as bare as winter wood. Whoever speaks like that has to avert his eyes from naked life. Has to close his mouth to naked speech before a thought forms in his head. Has to keep quiet and does not complain. And the dwarf has to eat and does not swallow. And Crizu has to swallow and does not drink.
But when the doctor comes and smells the brandy he says, it was Crizu’s own fault that he fell down like that, drunk and unconscious.
* * *
A flock of sparrows shimmers through the yard. One bird separates and perches on a wire spool before settling on the ground. Then he hops until his wings have folded onto his back and his feathers are all smoothed out. After that the bird walks through the open door and heads straight across the slippery floor. The workers stand and watch. No one says a word.
Only the foreman stands at the press and bends over and peers into a different silence, he is searching for the mangled hand.
While the dwarf stands in the yard on his tall half-brick shoes and chews his pear off into space.
* * *
Anca places all the pencils in the empty cola can. She wipes the dust off the empty beer can. And Mara stores all the pens in the empty beer can. And Eva waters the white-mottled vine and arranges its leaves below the picture on the wall. The picture shows blooming poppies. And David takes a pencil from the cola can. And Anca says the plant is called MOTHER-IN-LAW’S TONGUE. And David opens the notebook with the crossword puzzles. And Clara sets down the tiny brush and blows on her just-polished fingernails. And David says, the feeling after eating in four letters. And Anca calls out SICK. And Eva shouts DONE. And Mara shouts FULL.
Then the door opens, and Grigore comes into the office. And now for the third time that day Mara sets her foot on the chair and pulls up her skirt, to show Grigore her thigh. And Grigore holds her knee and looks at Mara’s neck where a gold chain is dangling. What a crazy day, says Mara, the director bit me.
Eardrum infection
Face without face
Forehead of sand
Voice without voice
Nothing is left
Except for time
All Paul sees in the audience are eyes. The lights are out and all the eyes look alike, there are a hundred of them, and a few additional eyes belonging to the policemen.
Time without time
What can you change
* * *
The heads swaying to the beat of the song are different from the heads keeping watch. The crowd waves its hands, the hands hold flashlights pointed at the band, lighting up their faces. The singing turns to screaming. From the front row Anna can make out the little circles cast by the flashlights on the wall.
My only thought is this
What could I trade with you
One I call a brother
For a single cigarette
* * *
The side door is opened from the inside, a beam of light cuts into the auditorium. Dogs bark.
I’ve gone completely crazy
I went and fell in love
With someone who loves me
But my beloved’s stupid
Since she does and since she doesn’t
Really love me yet
* * *
And a man is dragged out through the beam of light, his back is arched as he is led away and the door is closed behind him.
My only thought is this
What could I sell to you
My coat is old and rumpled
With just one button left