* * *
Ilie no longer hears their lockstep, he searches the trench as they march alongside, the trench is darker than the ground. His hands ache from the shovel because it’s no longer pressing against them, because they are no longer digging, because his calluses are softening into skin and they burn. His shoes find nothing but grass and dirt, his eyes nothing but the hill. The hill has moved into the night, and the forest is a dark corner without trees.
Behind that hill, thinks Ilie, is the flat plain. Perhaps at night it’s made of water, of smooth, level water, so that he might make his escape. He would be black like the riverbank and the place where he jumped wouldn’t see him and the water would carry him away. If I swim for a long time, he thinks, my eyes will get used to the night, they can lead me across many things, and once I have crossed everything there is to cross my hands will touch a different riverbank, a different country. But first I’ll have to take off these clunky boots, he thinks, before I get to the top of the hill. I’ll have to get rid of them before I jump, I can’t lose time untying laces on the riverbank. And when tomorrow comes, just as early and just as dreary as today did, to the sound of a command and a gold tooth that’s been awake for hours, tomorrow when the column follows the tank tracks up the hill, the boots will be there, and the trees will once again be in the forest and so will the crows.
Meanwhile in a mailbox far away is a letter for Adina. Inside the letter is a picture of him, with a weak smile and no grass straw in his mouth.
* * *
By the time the column reaches the hilltop Ilie is afraid of stepping out of his own soles. The plain is black, but the ground isn’t made of water. He trudges alongside the tank ruts and is afraid of turning around to face himself. The trench has witnessed everything, and tomorrow the officer with the gold tooth will know, and that is treason. The officer’s mouth will scream, his tooth will glow. And the hilltop will stand there mute and no longer remember that it spent the night inside Ilie’s forehead, and that it was responsible for driving his see-through skull to thoughts of escape, all out of fear.
* * *
Now every step bores a hole in the stomach, every breath sticks a stone in the throat. Broken corn leaves scratch behind the knees, the grass comes up to the naked buttocks. Ilie has to take a shit. He raises his head and pushes. He tears a leaf off the stalk, a narrow, long corn leaf. The corn leaf breaks, his fingers stink. The cornfield stinks, and so does the forest. And the night and the moon that isn’t there stink as well.
Ilie sobs and curses, mother of all soldiers and officers and tanks and trenches. And he curses, invoking the gods and everything the world has ever borne.
His curses are cold. They are not for eating and not for sleeping. Only for blundering about and freezing, they climb up between the cornstalks and choke on themselves. They are for churning up and laying down flat, an instant of rage and a long time keeping still.
Once a curse is lifted, it never existed.
I can’t stand looking at the water when it’s so cold out
I know what I know, Clara says out loud, the streetcar whooshes close to the barrier, Ilie is sensitive, she says. The bridge shudders, the trees push into the park. I knew he wouldn’t be able to withstand the fox, she says quietly, sinking her red fingernails into her hair, and I also know he won’t try to escape. The wind fans her hair out over her forehead. You don’t know that, says Adina, how can you know that. She sees Clara’s cheek, the sharp black corners of her eyes.
Without the fishermen the river is just a stripe of water in the city, with its smelly, lazy gullet lurking midway between the reflection and the river bottom.
Clara’s shoes clatter on the pavement. Adina stops but Clara doesn’t notice and takes another three steps, walking on the middle of the paving stones. Then she turns around and says to Adina, come on, I can’t stand looking at the water when it’s so cold out. Her hair is dark like the grassy weeds in the river. It’s the kind of cold that makes you naked, says Adina. Clara tugs Adina’s arm, I feel dizzy, she says. Then she takes a few steps down the footpath, away from the bank. Adina tosses a dried leaf into the water. But it’s not the river that’s making you nauseous, is it, she says. She watches the leaf get so wet and heavy the little waves can no longer move it along. Paul saw you in the hospital, she says.
I know, says Clara, and I knew he’d tell you all about it, too. She sinks her red fingernails into her pocket and pushes her coat out to form a belly. I was pregnant, she says. The curved white wrists resurface, but not the fingernails. How did you manage an abortion, Adina asks. A wet leaf sticks to Clara’s thin heel, Pavel knows the doctor, she says.
The grass in the park is frozen and matted down, it lies in thick empty clumps along the path. Even without their leaves the branches overhead are listening in.
Clara picks up a grass straw, she doesn’t have to pull, it’s just lying there, unattached. The straw has snapped in the middle and doesn’t stay upright between her fingers. Adina turns around, but the cracking sound she hears is only a twig breaking under her shoe and not some stranger’s footstep. Is he a doctor, asks Adina, and Clara says, he’s a lawyer. Adina turns around, but the noise is only an acorn falling on the path and not some stranger’s footstep. Why didn’t you tell me, asks Adina. Clara pitches the grass straw, it’s too light to fly and lands on her shoe. Because he’s married, she says. They hear steps on the path and sand chafing against the stones, a woman walks by wheeling a bicycle with a sack slung across the handlebars. Why are you hiding him from me, asks Adina. Because he’s married, says Clara. The woman looks back. We rarely see each other, says Clara. How long have you known him, asks Adina.
* * *
Nine soldiers and one officer are standing outside the cinema. The officer hands out tickets. The soldiers compare seats and rows. The poster shows a laughing soldier and a closed railroad gate stretching from one cheek to the other. A blue sky is over the soldier’s cap, and under his face is the title of the film: THEY SHALL NOT PASS.
Clara elbows Adina and points her chin at the soldiers, look at them, the way they’re standing there, she says. Adina’s eyes stray into the dark green yews, I see them, she said, Ilie isn’t with them.
A voice greets, the dwarf on his tall, half-brick shoes.
Clara smiles. It’s cold here in town, says the dwarf. Clara nods. His head is too large, his hair is thick and looks so bright against the dark green yews, like the frozen matted grass in the park. It’s already cooled down, says the dwarf, it was still warm when I bought it. He is carrying a loaf of bread under his arm.
There was a time and is no more
An old man is using a handcart to haul a propane tank. Hanging from the valve cap is a bag with a loaf of bread. The cart has a broom handle for a shaft and wheels taken from a child’s tricycle. The wheels are narrow and get stuck in the cracks between the paving stones. For a few steps the man has the gait of a scrawny horse. The cap rattles. The man stops and the broom handle clatters onto the pavement. The man sits on the tank and tears off a piece of bread. As he chews he looks at the poplars, first down at the trunks and then up at the branches.
Shoes thud in the back of her head, steps clatter in the back of her neck. Adina turns around and sees a man’s hands popping sunflower seeds into his mouth, his shoes shine, his pant legs flutter, his windbreaker scrunches. Now she feels the clatter on her cheek. It’s the man from the bus where the moving coffin drifted from one window to the next. You’ll do for me, he says, and spits a sunflower seed onto the stone, I’m sure you’re good in bed. She sees a bench, but there’s an empty bottle on the seat. I bet you’re a really good screw, he says, the next bench has bare nails sticking out where there used to be a wooden slat. Get lost, she says, and sits down in the middle of the third empty bench. He spits a sunflower seed onto the bench, she leans back. He sits down. There are plenty of other benches, she says and moves to the end. Now he leans back and looks her in the face. She sits up, get lost or I’ll scream, she says. He stands and says, that doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all. He laughs to himself, then opens his pants and holds out his penis. In that case I’ll be on my way, he says, as he pisses into the river. She gets up, so disgusted that her tongue rises to her eyes and she doesn’t see the paving stones as she starts walking. She feels cold water flowing into her ears and filling her head. He shakes the drops from his penis. I’ll pay you, he calls after her, I’ll give you a hundred lei, I’ll piss in your mouth.