The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

That doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all

Past the last bridge there are no flagstones along the riverbank, no benches, no poplars, no soldiers.

At the bottom of the box are the fox’s paws, on top of them the body, and the tail. On the very top is the head. Clara gave me this box, says Adina. We were coming from town, she bought a pair of shoes and put them on right away.

Paul closes the box.

You know, I had planned on keeping that fox, says Adina. Sitting at the table or standing at the wardrobe or lying in bed, I wasn’t afraid of it anymore. Paul sticks his finger through the middle of the lid, for the candle, he says, and sets the candle inside the hole. And now they’ve cut off the head as well, she says, but the fox is still the hunter. The candle burns, Paul sets the box on the water.

He lets it go.

Then he looks up at the sky, Abi is up there, he says, looking down on us. That doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all, he says, crying. The burning candle looks like a finger. Maybe Ilie really does know what he’s doing, he says.

Night spreads, the shoe box floats.

* * *

And far off in the country, near where the plain comes to an end, where everyone knows every little path, a place so far away that it’s barely reached by the same night, Ilie is cutting across a field. He is wearing his soldier’s uniform and his clunky boots and he’s carrying a small suitcase. The train station is off by itself, and where the sky stops, the lights of the small town are glowing, one next to another like the stripes on a border barrier. Now the border isn’t so far away.

Inside the waiting room there are no wall newspapers, the cabinets are empty except for the dust left from summer. The station attendant is eating sunflower seeds.

Timişoara, says Ilie.

The attendant spits some seeds through the window at the counter. Round-trip, he asks.

Just one way, says Ilie. His heart is pounding.

* * *

The earthen wall of the stadium pulls the bare brush closer. The last goal has been forgotten, the forbidden song has sung itself throughout the country, and now, as it spreads, it presses against the throat and turns mute. Because the tanks are still scattered throughout the town, and the bread line in front of the store is still long. Above the earthen wall the long-distance runner dangles his naked legs over the city, and one coat slinks into another.