The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

I don’t know you

The glowing windows sway back and forth as the streetcar rolls ahead on the tracks. Here and there lights appear in the dark streets. Anyone who is awake behind the walls has light in their windows. Anyone who’s awake at this hour has to go to the factory. The hand grips dangle from their rails, the dwarf is sitting next to the door. The tracks squeal. A woman with a child on her arm is seated next to Clara. The door bangs at every stop, and the child sighs, and the dwarf closes his eyes, and the door opens. And no one comes in, just sand blown inside by the wind. The sand is like flour, only dark. It can’t be seen, it can only be heard scratching on the floor.

The streetcar reaches the corner where the fence is right next to the tracks. A branch grazes the brightly lit window, and the child sings with an absent voice:

The worries refuse to leave me alone

Must I sell my field and my house and my home

* * *

The child’s mother lowers her head and looks at the empty floor, the dwarf lowers his head, Clara lowers her head. The rails sing along below their shoes. The grip handles listen as they swing.

* * *

The loudspeaker at the factory gate is mute, the striped cat is sitting beside the entrance. The slogans have moved from the halls into the courtyard. The dwarf walks into the yard, his brick shoes clatter. The striped cat goes padding behind him.

Grigore is now the director, the director is the foreman, the gateman is the warehouse supervisor, the foreman is the gateman.

Crizu is dead.

* * *

And an hour later, when it’s brighter outside and the housing blocks are huddled together under the gray sky, Adina passes through the same morning on her way to school. Inside the broken phone booth is a crust of bread. At the end of the street is the large spool of wire. In the yard outside the wooden shack is an empty chain. Olga the dog is no longer there.

* * *

In the filthiest bare corner of the school yard, in front of a wall, is a mountain. Half of the mountain is cloth, woven cords, yellow tassels, epaulettes. The other half is paper, slogans, provincial emblems, brochures and newspapers with speeches and pictures.

The child with eyes set far apart and narrow temples is carrying a picture in front of him. The picture shows the forelock and the black inside the eye. The picture is on its side, the forelock reaches down to the child’s shoes. We’re not burning the frame, says the servant’s daughter. She tears the forelock out of the frame, my mother’s in the officer’s house all by herself, she says, the officer has been arrested, and his wife is in hiding. The twins bring a basket with youth pioneer kerchiefs and red pioneer flags with yellow fringes.

The servant’s daughter holds a match to the half of the mountain made of paper. The fire quickly eats its way higher and higher, the hard paper curls like gray ears. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this, says the servant’s daughter. The soft paper disintegrates, I’d never have guessed, says Adina. The twins skewer burning silk fringe onto a couple sticks and go running through the school yard. What was I supposed to do, says the servant’s daughter, I had to keep quiet, I have a child. The wind blows the smoke over the wall. The child with eyes set far apart stands next to Adina and listens.

I know, says Adina, the men had wives, the wives had children, the children were hungry. The servant’s daughter pulls a strand of hair through her mouth, looks at the half-burned mountain, anyway now it’s over, she says, and we’re alive. Next week I’ll come visit you.

* * *

The servant’s daughter is the director of the school, the director is the coach, the coach is the union leader, the physicist is in charge of transition and democracy.

The cleaning woman wanders through the halls with a broom and dusts the empty walls where the pictures used to hang.

* * *

Adina leans against the gate, the smoke is still rising from the school yard. There are pictures posted downtown, says Adina, your good person was one of the ones who fired. And you had a birthday. Even if I’d been here, I wouldn’t have been able to give you anything, no shoes, no dress, no blouse. Not even an apple. If you can’t give someone something then that person is a stranger.

He didn’t fire at anyone, says Clara, he’s out of the country. Her eyelids have a blue shimmer, I have a passport, she says, what should I do. Her eyelashes are long and thick and calm.

I don’t know you, says Adina, you have no business here.

* * *

From the sixth floor Adina and the servant’s daughter watch as a warm winter afternoon passes behind the stadium. On the table is a bottle of brandy and two glasses. Adina and the servant’s daughter clink and drain their glasses. A single drop trickles back to the bottom of each glass.

The servant’s daughter has brought her daughter who is two and a half years old. The girl sits on the rug and rubs her cheek with the tail of the fox. She talks to herself. Adina refills the glasses. The neighbor with the chestnut-red hair done up in big waves is standing by her open window.

Look, this cat has a mustache, says the child. Under her fingertips the fox’s head slides away from the neck. The child lays the fox head on the table.

For the second time, Adina feels a noise in her head like a branch breaking. Only different.

The servant’s daughter raises her glass.