The Passport

MASS

Windisch’s wife is standing in the yard behind the black grapes. “Aren’t you going to mass?” she asks. The grapes grow out of her eyes. The green leaves grow out of her chin.

“I’m not leaving the house,” says Windisch, “I don’t want people saying to me: now it’s your daughter’s turn.”

Windisch puts his elbows on the table. His hands are heavy. Windisch puts his face in his heavy hands. The veranda doesn’t grow. It’s broad daylight. For a moment the veranda falls to a place where it never was before. Windisch feels the blow. A stone hangs in his ribs.

Windisch closes his eyes. He feels his eyes. He feels his eyeballs in his hands. His eyes without a face.

With naked eyes and with the stone in his ribs, Windisch says loudly: “A man is nothing but a pheasant in the world.” What Windisch hears is not his voice. He feels his naked mouth. It’s the walls that have spoken.