The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

A black and white sky

Every morning Adina sprinkles a few dried linden blossoms into the boiling water and they swell up as the stems and skin-like bracts turn bright green. To separate one day from the next she keeps count of the times she makes tea. The routine is always the same, it’s always morning, and the geese and dogs are always outside on the streets. There’s always a note on the table: WE’LL BE BACK AT 12 or 1 or AROUND EVENING. The linden blossom tea always tastes like sleep. The chamber pot stinks next to the kitchen door.

Adina seldom peeks through the gap in the kitchen curtain, because the fences in the yard are made of wire, and the lilac bushes are bare. People can see through the yards and gardens.

But Paul looks out often and reports the color of the sky and the mud and whether it seems cold outside or not.

Earlier in the morning they heard voices coming from the village, and Paul has been sitting at the curtain gap ever since he got up. Here the street is empty, but down in the middle of the village people are hooting and howling.

Adina peers through the gap. The sun is glaring, the bare lilac lays its shadow across the sand. The next-door neighbor is setting up three chairs in her yard. Her face is small and wrinkled. In the sun she has a mustache and no eyes. She carries two pillows and two down covers into the yard and shakes them out and drapes them over the chairs.

Paul’s tea has gotten cold, because he’s fixated on something behind the curtain roses.

* * *

Liviu comes running past the gap, without a coat, his jacket flapping open. Here comes Liviu and he’s in a hurry, says Paul, quickly sitting down at the table, where he sips his cold tea. Through the curtain Adina sees Liviu racing past the bare lilac without closing the gate. He’s carrying his scarf in his hand. Adina pulls the curtain shut, quickly sits down beside Paul and cradles her head in her hands. The key turns in the door. Liviu’s face is red and sweaty, he tosses his scarf on the kitchen table. Can’t you hear what’s going on outside, he pants, come into the living room.

His hands are shaking, he turns on the TV, they didn’t let Ceaușescu speak, he says, the people shouted him down, a bodyguard pulled him back behind the stage. Adina starts to cry, the screen is a blur of stone cubes and windows, a mass of coats surging in front of the Central Committee building, thousands of coats blurred together like a field, with lots of screaming and shouting. Adina’s cheeks flush hot, her chin dissolves, her hands are wet, the little screaming faces form a streak of eyes looking skyward. He’s running away, Liviu shouts, he’s fleeing. He’s dead, Paul shouts, if he runs he’s dead.

A helicopter hovers above the balcony of the Central Committee. And then it gets smaller and smaller, a floating gray point of a needle that eventually disappears.

On the screen is an empty black and white sky.

* * *

Liviu kisses the screen, I’m going to eat you, I’m going to devour you, he says. His wet kisses linger in the black and white sky. Adina sees the old man’s legs, the two angular knees, the white calves, and the forelock high in the sky, higher than ever. Paul opens all the curtains. It’s so bright inside that the walls suddenly seem too big for the room, they are shaking with the light.

The lamb is standing in the doorway, still panting from running. She laughs two round tears into her eyes and says, over in front of the church they’ve stripped the policeman down to his underwear and they’re giving him a beating. The accountant pulled off the policeman’s pants and the priest hung his cap on a tree.

The old lady next door knows everything, says the lamb. A couple days ago she told me that we’re having too warm a winter this year.

Winter lightning, winter thunder

Winter clouds all burst asunder

In December broken sky

Means the king will surely die.

That’s how she put it. I’m old, she said, anyway that’s the way it used to be. And this morning she asked me if I’d heard anything in the night. Not shots, she said, it was a thunderstorm, but not here, farther out in the country.

Liviu and Paul drink brandy, the bottle gurgles, the glasses clink. Paul marches barefoot around the kitchen table wearing Liviu’s robe, glass in hand, singing the forbidden song in a trembling voice:

Awaken, Romanian, wake from thy deadly slumber

Liviu drapes a crumpled dish towel over his shoulders and dances with the bottle and sings in a high-pitched, whiny voice:

Merry tomorrow, merry today

Things move forward day by day

The pots rattle in the kitchen cupboard, Paul leaves the awakening Romanians right in the middle of his song, dances around Liviu and joins in:

Forward, forward, fuck fuck fuck

Forward, forward, fuck fuck fuck

Always forward never stuck

* * *

The lamb leans on the stove, so that the neighbor’s pillows and down covers are draped behind her shoulder. In the sunlight they seem to be sleeping on the chairs.

Where is the helicopter going to land, asks the lamb, and Paul says, in heaven, in the mud with the little Romanians.

When I was little there used to be a swing carousel next to the market, says the lamb. They’d take it down at the first sign of snow, because Mihai the ticket taker had a stiff leg and couldn’t sit out in the cold. If you wanted to ride on the carousel you had to buy tickets at the People’s Council office. One ride cost three tickets for children and five for adults. The money was supposed to pay for paving our road with asphalt. Mihai took the tickets and tore a corner off each one and tossed the corners into a hat. In the summer he let the older girls ride for free because before the ride he could stand behind a big packing crate and reach into their pants. A few complained to the mayor, but the mayor said it didn’t matter, since it didn’t really hurt. Mihai would start up the motor and turn it off to end the ride. All rides lasted the same amount of time, because he kept his eye on the church clock. At noon he took a break, ate lunch and poured a can of diesel oil into the motor. He only repaired the motor at night so as not to lose any business during the day. He knew the motor well since he’d built it himself out of old tractor parts. Occasionally I’d ride too, but only if there were just girls nearby, says the lamb, because when the boys were there they’d grab the seats when the girls were in midair and twist the chains until the girls threw up. They learned that from Mihai.

One winter evening two black cars arrived in the village. They were coming from an inspection at the border. People said there were three high party functionaries, a border officer and three bodyguards. They were all completely plastered. One of them knocked on the mailman’s window and asked who had the key to the swing ride. The mailman pointed to the other end of the village, where Mihai lived.

Mihai was already asleep when they knocked on the window. He didn’t want to get up, but they insisted. Yes, said Mihai, I have the key, only there isn’t any oil in the motor, and I don’t have any here, it’s over at the People’s Council office. But he ended up getting the key anyway and went off with the bodyguard. After looking into the motor he said there was enough oil for one ride. And what happens then, asked the bodyguard. Then the motor will stop, said Mihai.

The bodyguard waved to the others, and they all climbed out of the cars and took their places in the seats, the bodyguards between the functionaries, the border officer last. Mihai waited beside the motor until they’d buckled themselves in. Start it up, said the bodyguard, once it gets going you can go home.

The motor ran, the seats flew, the chains angled out into the air. Mihai went home, the moon shone and it was very cold. But the motor hummed, and the seats flew all night long.

The next morning the carousel was still there, says the lamb, and the seats were hanging in the air, and the seven men were hanging strapped in the seats, frozen to death.

The lamb wipes two tears from her eyes, her mouth opens and closes. The next day a commission came to the village. The carousel was no longer allowed, it was torn down and taken away. The road was never paved. Mihai and the mailman were arrested as class enemies. At the trial Mihai said it was night and the diesel oil was black. He must have made a mistake, the motor was probably full. And the mailman testified that he’d heard the motor running all night long, it didn’t get quiet until it was almost morning. Once he’d even looked out the window and seen the comrades flying through the air. Yes, he’d heard their howling, he said, but he hadn’t given it a second thought, they looked like they were having a good time.