Windisch lifts the lid from the pot. “And next door?” he asks. “They didn’t go there,” says Windisch’s wife. She gets into bed and covers herself up. “They said that our neighbours have eight small children, and we have one, and she’s earning money.”
There is blood and liver in the pot. “I had to kill the big white cock,” says Windisch’s wife. “The two men were running about in the yard. The cock took fright. He flapped up against the fence and struck his head against it. When they had left he was blind.”
Onion rings float on eyes of fat in the pot. “And you said we’ll keep the big white cock so we’ll get big white hens next year,” says Windisch. “And you said anything white is too sensitive. And you were right,” says Windisch’s wife.
The cupboard creaks.
“When I was riding to the mill, I got off at the war memorial,” says Windisch in the dark. “I wanted to go into the church and pray. The church was locked. I thought, that’s a bad sign. Saint Anthony is on the other side of the door. His thick book is brown. It’s like a passport.”
In the warm, dark air of the room, Windisch dreams that the sky opens up. The clouds fly away out of the village. A white cock flies through the empty sky. It strikes its head against a bare poplar standing in the meadow. It can’t see. It’s blind. Windisch stands at the edge of a sunflower field. He calls out: “The bird is blind.” The echo of his voice returns as his wife’s voice. Windisch goes deep into the sunflower field and shouts: “I’m not looking for you, because I know you aren’t here.”
THE RED CAR
The wooden hut is a black square. Smoke creeps out of a tin pipe. It creeps into the damp earth. The door of the hut is open. A man in blue overalls is sitting on a wooden bench inside the hut. A tin bowl is lying on the table. It’s steaming. The man’s eyes follow Windisch.
The manhole cover has been pushed aside. A man is standing in the drain. Windisch sees his head with its yellow helmet above ground. Windisch walks past the man’s chin. The man’s eyes follow Windisch.
Windisch puts his hands in his coat pockets. He feels the wad of money in the inside pocket of his jacket.
The greenhouses are on the left side of the courtyard. The panes are misted up. The mist swallows the branches. Roses burn red in the vapour. The red car stands in the middle of the yard. There are logs beside the car. Chopped wood is piled up against the wall of the house. The axe lies beside the car.
Windisch walks slowly. He crushes the tram ticket in his coat pocket. He feels the wet asphalt through his shoes.
Windisch looks round. The woodcutter is not in the courtyard. The head with the yellow helmet looks at Windisch.
The fence ends. Windisch hears voices in the next house. A garden gnome is dragging a hydrangea shrub. It’s wearing a red cap. A snow-white dog is running round in a circle and barking. Windisch looks down the street. The rails run on into emptiness. Grass grows between the rails. The blades of grass are black from oil, small and bent from the creaking tram and the screaming rails.
Windisch turns round. The yellow helmet ducks into the drain. The man in the blue overalls leans a brush against the side of the shed. The garden gnome is wearing a green apron. The hydrangea shrub trembles. The snow-white dog stands silently by the fence. The snow-white dog follows Windisch with its eyes.
Smoke billows out of the hut’s tin pipe. The man in the blue overalls brushes up the mud around the shed. His eyes follow Windisch.
The windows of the house are shut. The white curtains make him blind. Two rows of barbed wire are stretched between rusty hooks along the top of the fence. The stack of wood has white ends. It’s freshly cut. The blade of the axe glints. The red car stands in the middle of the yard. The roses bloom in the misty vapour.
Windisch walks past the chin of the man with the yellow helmet again.
The barbed wire ends. The man in the blue overalls is sitting in the hut. He follows Windisch with his eyes.
Windisch turns round. He stands by the gate.
Windisch opens his mouth. The head with the yellow helmet is above the ground. Windisch shivers. He has no voice in his mouth.
The tramcar rumbles. Its windows are misted up. The conductor follows Windisch with his eyes.
The bell is on the doorpost. It has a white fingertip. Windisch presses it. It rings in his finger. It rings in the yard. It rings far away inside the house. On the far side of the walls, the ringing is muffled as if buried.
Windisch presses the white fingertip fifteen times. Windisch counts. The shrill notes in his finger, the loud notes in the yard, the notes buried in the house all flow into one another.
The gardener is buried in the glass, in the fence, in the walls.
The man in the blue overalls rinses out the tin bowl. He looks. Windisch walks past the chin of the man in the yellow helmet. Windisch follows the rails with the money in his jacket.
Windisch’s feet are sore from the asphalt.
THE SECRET WORD
Windisch rides home from the mill. Noon is bigger than the village. The sun scorches its path. The pot hole is cracked and dry.
Windisch’s wife is sweeping the yard. Sand lies around her toes like water. The ripples around the broom are still. “It’s not yet autumn, and the acacias are turning yellow,” says Windisch’s wife. Windisch unbuttons his shirt. “It’s going to be a hard winter,” he says, “if the trees are already dry in the summer.”
The hens turn their heads under their wings. With their beaks they’re seeking out their own shadows, which offer no cool. The neighbour’s spotted pigs root among the wild, white-flowering carrots behind the fence. Windisch looks through the wire. “They don’t give these pigs anything to eat,” he says. “Wallachians. They don’t even know how to feed pigs.”
Windisch’s wife holds the broom to her stomach. “They should have rings in their noses,” she says. “They’ll root up the house by the time winter comes.”
Windisch’s wife carries the broom into the shed. “The postwoman was here,” she says. “She belched and stank of schnaps. The militiaman thanks you for the flour, she said, and Amalie should come for the hearing on Sunday morning. She should bring an application with her and sixty lei’s worth of revenue stamps.”
Windisch bites his lip. His mouth expands into his face, into his forehead. “What good are thanks?” he says.
Windisch’s wife raises her head. “I knew it,” she says, “you won’t get far with your flour.” “Far enough,” shouts Windisch into the yard “for my daughter to become a mattress.” He spits in the sand: “It’s disgusting, the shame of it.” A drop of saliva hangs on his chin.
“You won’t get far with ‘it’s disgusting’ either,” says Windisch’s wife. Her cheek bones are two red stones. “It’s not a question of shame now,” she says, “it’s a question of the passport.”
Windisch slams the door shut. “You should know,” he shouts, “you should know from Russia. You weren’t bothered about shame then.”
“You pig,” cries Windisch’s wife. The shed door opens and shuts, as if the wind was in the wood. Windisch’s wife searches for her mouth with a fingertip. “When the militiaman sees that our Amalie is still a virgin, he won’t want to do it,” she says.