* * *
One day two summers ago a loud voice called up to Adina from down below. Adina went to the window. Ilie was standing on the other side of the housing settlement, below the apartment with the petunias. He lifted his head and shouted: who are they blooming for. And Adina shouted back: for themselves.
* * *
Adina steps into her gray skirt. Her foot slips on the fox’s tail, which slides away from the rest of the fur. The tail has come off where the stripe running down the back is the lightest, right where it tapers into a narrow point. Adina turns the fur over and examines the underside, the skin is as white and wrinkled as old dough. The fur on top and the skin below are warmer than the floor, and warmer than her hands.
It’s rotted off, decayed, thinks Adina. She shoves the tail against the fur so it looks like the tail has grown back. From the picture frame, in the clothes that don’t belong to him, with eyes that aren’t his own, Ilie watches her hands. In his mouth he has a grass straw.
Rot and decay are wet, thinks Adina. But a fur dries out, just like a grass straw. In the picture the grass straw is the only thing that belongs to Ilie. The grass straw makes his face look old. Adina goes into the kitchen. From that window too she sees the woman watering her white petunias.
The petunias open in the morning when the light comes and close in the evening when the sky turns gray. They have a clock inside that measures dark and light. Every day they wind their funnels open and shut, until finally they overwind them right into October.
A knife is lying on the kitchen table, next to some quince peels and half a quince. The side that’s cut open has dried in the air just like the underside of fox fur, and the flesh is as brown as the hairs from the fox. A cockroach is nibbling at the snake made of quince peels.
* * *
To peel a quince like that you would have to hold the quince in one hand and a knife in the other, Adina thinks. You’d have to peel a quince and then you would have to eat some of the peeled quince, which would pucker your gums. You would have to bite, chew, swallow and close your eyes until the quince traveled all the way from your hand into your stomach.
Adina lays her hands on the kitchen table and lays her face on top of them. She holds her breath.
You’d have to remember that no one would ever leave half a quince just lying there, otherwise it would dry out like a fur, or like a grass straw. And if you ate a whole quince, if an entire quince had traveled from hand to stomach, Adina says to her hands on the table, then you would open your eyes and be a different person.
A woman who never eats quince like that.
Face without face
The tape plays in one room what is being recorded in another. A deep voice comes through the speaker on the desk. The deep voice says, so, KACHONI, how do you pronounce that. KARÁCSONYI, says a quiet voice. So it’s Hungarian, says the deep voice, does it mean something in Hungarian. Christmas, says the quiet voice. The deep voice laughs.
Pavel leafs through a file, tilts a photograph into the light, and laughs. He laughs longer and louder than the deep voice.
First name, says the deep voice. ALBERT, says the quiet voice. What about ABI, asks the deep voice. That’s what my friends call me, says the quiet voice. And your father, says the deep voice. He called me ABI too, he’s no longer alive, says the quiet voice. And the deep voice becomes like the quiet one and says, I see. When did he die. And the quiet voice becomes like the deep voice and says, you already know when. The deep voice asks, what makes you think that. And the quiet voice says, because you are asking. It’s the other way around, says the deep voice, if we already know something then we don’t ask. A lighter clicks in the speaker. Back then I was in kindergarten, says the deep voice, just like you. Your father was also named ALBERT, just like you. Do you remember him. No, says the quiet voice. First you said your father called you ABI, says the deep voice, and now you say you don’t remember him. That’s a contradiction. That’s not a contradiction, says the quiet voice, my mother also calls me ABI. What do you want from me.
But right at the beginning you said that only your friends call you ABI, says the deep voice. That’s also a contradiction. You see, KACHONI, I can’t pronounce your last name. You see, ALBERT, all these contradictions are connected. The deep voice becomes like the quiet one. Or can I call you ABI like your friends, says the deep voice. No, says the quiet voice. Well there was nothing uncertain about that, says the deep voice. What do you want from me, asks the quiet voice.
Pavel holds a photo under the lamp. It’s old, not shiny, with just a few stripes of light that fade off into a sky where everything is empty. Because where the sky stops is a wall, and leaning against the wall is a man with sunken cheeks and large ears. Pavel writes a date on the back of the photo.
The deep voice coughs. Paper crinkles in the speaker. For instance here, says the deep voice, which now becomes like the quiet voice: 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. That’s also a contradiction, all these contradictions are connected. That’s just a song, the quiet voice says, now a little louder.
Pavel glances at his watch and puts the photo back in the file. He turns the speaker off and shoves the drawer shut. He picks up the phone, just beyond the window is a poplar. He looks outside, his eyes are small, his gaze as wet as the poplar. His eyes pierce through the poplar branches but don’t see them. He turns the dial twice and says, we’re not getting anywhere, it’s almost four o’clock.
Pavel remains silent for a moment, he looks through the poplar, the wind blows, the leaves are wet, his lighter clicks. The cigarette glows. He blows smoke in front of him and shuts the door.
* * *
Write, says the voice. The eyes in the forehead are light brown. They shift back and forth and go dark. The eyes are reading from a sheet of paper on top of a finger-thick folder. The poplar tree is swaying outside. The mouth between the telephone and the desk lamp is moving. Abi’s gaze latches on to the windowpane. Rain is falling outside the window, but Abi can’t see the raindrops hitting the poplar, as though the poplar wasn’t there. All he can see are the little balls of water dripping off the leaves and dropping to the ground. Abi squeezes the pen with his fingers. The bulb hanging from the ceiling is so bright it sends threads of light thrashing this way and that. Abi stares at the bare tabletop. The pen doesn’t belong to him nor does the blank sheet of paper. The voice screams and thrashes just like the light threads. Below the voice, in the fold of the chin, is a small razor cut. The cut is a few days old.
The door opens slowly. The eyes between the telephone and the desk lamp are half-closed. They don’t look up because they know who’s entering.
From the edge of the desk Abi does look up from the blank paper without letting go of the pen. The man with the reddish-blue flecked tie walks to the desk, looks at the blank paper and holds out his hand. As Abi extends his own hand, still wrapped around the pen, he sees a birthmark between the man’s shirt collar and his ear. The man says, PAVEL MURGU and shakes Abi’s hand together with the pen.
Face without face, in other words he lost his face, says the razor cut, raising his hand to his forehead. Forehead of sand, in other words a head with no brains. Voice without voice, so no one is listening, says the razor cut. The birthmark takes a seat next to the razor cut and gazes out through the windowpane.