The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

The fox on the table

The alarm ticks and ticks. Three a.m.

Maybe the fox paws have reattached themselves during the night, Adina thinks. She sticks her foot out of the bed and slides the hind legs away from the fur. The tail gives her toes a fright, it’s still so soft and bushy and not shriveled up despite having been cut off.

Adina picks up the two legs and tail and takes them to the kitchen. She sets them on the table and fits them together so it looks like the fox is crawling right through the tabletop, that while its tail and hind legs support it from the top, the rest is rummaging around below.

The moon inside the kitchen window is so bloated it can’t stay there. By six a.m. it has been gnawed by the morning and its face is bleary-eyed. The early buses go whooshing by, or perhaps that’s the moon trying to leave the city and its jagged edge is getting caught on the border of the night. Dogs yelp as if the darkness had been a large sheltering pelt and the deserted streets an untroubled brain. As if the dogs of the night were afraid of the daylight, when people are out and about, and when the hunger that seeks encounters the hunger that strays. When yawn meets yawn and speech meets bark with the same breath inside the mouth.

Adina’s stockings smell of winter sweat, they jerk like the train as she tugs them on over her bare legs. Then she puts her coat on over her nightgown — and with it all the little black coats from the viaduct and the big green coats from the bus. The little train station is still there in the buttons on her coat and so is the black inside the eye. Her coat pocket still contains her flashlight and some money from the trip. Her keys are on the kitchen table. The filth from the barracks yard still clings to her soles. Adina slips into her shoes.

* * *

The flashlight circle stumbles, the curbstone is poorly rounded. A cat leaps out of the garbage bin, leaving a sound of broken glass, its paws are white.

The parking lot is empty, the stadium keeps its earthen wall in the dark, the sky overhead turns gray. From the factory in back of the stadium comes the sound of clanging iron. The smokestack isn’t visible, only the yellow smoke. The streetcar squeals around the corner. Some windows are lit and awake, others are dark and asleep.

Morning comes later to the quiet streets of power. The windows stay dark, the lanterns hanging from their ornate lampposts illuminate the stone angels and lions, their circles of light are private property, they do not belong to those passing through, to those who themselves do not belong in these streets.

The poplars are knives, they hide their blades, and sleep while standing. Over at the café the white iron chairs have been cleared and stored, winter doesn’t need a chair, winter doesn’t sit, it stamps around the river and lurks under the bridges. The water doesn’t shine and doesn’t see, it leaves the poplars alone.

Early in the evening the fishermen go to bed and early in the morning they stand outside the stores. In the afternoon they meet in the smoky café and drink and talk until the water starts to shine again. Morning fog hides the clock in the cathedral bell tower when it strikes seven, but the tops of the acacias are already awake. Locks are now unlocked, latches shoved aside, shop doors opened. Gray light peels the bark off the acacia twigs, and at the edge of the park thorns peek out of every branch, but the trunks below don’t notice.

* * *

Adina is the first customer in the store. The cashier puts a windbreaker on over her light blue smock. Her fur cap swallows her eyebrows. Adina picks up a basket. The jars of marmalade are arranged in rows. They are all the same height, have the same dust, the same bulging glass and the same tin lids and labels. If an officer were to walk by, Adina thinks, they would salute. They are distinguished only by the amount of rust on the lids and the drops that have leaked out and stick to the labels.

Adina places a bottle of brandy in her basket. The cashier is drinking coffee that sends steam into her face. No alcohol before ten, she says, then takes one short and one long slurp of coffee and wipes the drops off her chin. She raises her eyes halfway into her cap and sets down her coffee cup. She reaches into the basket, the scuffed red nail polish makes her fingers look as though they were sprouting new tips. She moves the bottle next to the register.

Adina lays a bill next to the coffee cup. I’ve never been drunk in my life, she says quietly, it’s seven in the morning, and I’ve never been drunk, and the day is just around the corner. It’s seven in the morning, just like it’s been seven in the morning every other day, and every day was just around the corner, and I’ve never been drunk before in my life. Her voice falls apart, her cheeks are flushed and wet, it’s seven in the morning, here’s my brandy and here’s my money and a day around the corner and I’ve never been drunk, and I don’t want to wait any longer, I want to get drunk right this minute and not wait till ten. The cashier presses the money back into Adina’s hand, that’s what a lot of people want, she says.

A man wearing a light blue smock takes Adina by the shoulders and shoves her to the door, chasing her out with the words law and brandy and police. Her shoes drag, the dried dirt from the barracks flakes off in little pieces and the wet dirt from the park breaks off in big clumps. Her nightgown is sticking out a couple inches under her coat. The cashier holds the door open. Who do you think you are, Adina screams, don’t touch me, you hear, get your hands off me.

* * *

Adina rings three times. The door to the apartment opens, a glaring square of light blinds her face. She steps through the entry hall carrying a bare branch. Go into the kitchen, says Paul, Anna’s still asleep in the other room. Adina nods once and twice and three times, he follows her and notices her nightgown sticking out under her coat. Adina hands him the bare branch and laughs, explodes with laughter, these are going to be lilacs, she says. She sits at the kitchen table, in front of a cup splattered with coffee that’s sitting next to a key. Adina looks at the wall clock, lays a bill on the table and clutches her face. Here are my eyes, she says, here is my forehead and here is my mouth. She unbuttons her coat. And this is my nightgown, she says. And that’s a wall clock, and a key on the table, and outside a day is just around the corner, and I’m not crazy, it’s eight in the morning, it’s eight in the morning every day, I want to get drunk right this minute and not wait till ten. She pushes the coffee cup to the edge of the table.

Paul stuffs the money into her coat pocket, sets a glass and then a bottle in front of her. He pours some brandy and presses the glass into her hand. She doesn’t drink, she doesn’t cry, her eyes water and her mouth is mute. He holds her head in his hands. Anna stands in the doorway, dressed but unshowered and uncombed. She picks up the key, puts on her shoes, tiptoes through the hall. The door closes with a bang.

You can stay, says Paul. I have to go to work. The door closes with a bang.

* * *

There in the hall are Adina’s shoes. And there in the room is her coat draped over the chair, her stockings on the floor. The bare branch that’s going to be lilacs is in a vase beside the bed. The bed is still warm from Anna.