The Passport

BLACK SPOTS

The skinner’s windows are behind the apple tree. They are brightly lit. “He’s got his passport,” thinks Windisch. The windows glare and the glass is naked. The skinner has sold everything. The rooms are empty. “They’ve sold the curtains,” says Windisch to himself.

The skinner is leaning against the tiled stove. There are white plates on the floor. Cutlery is lying on the window sill. The skinner’s black coat is hanging on the door handle. The skinner’s wife bends over the large suitcases as she passes. Windisch can see her hands. They throw shadows against the empty walls of the room. They grow long and bend. Her arms are rippled like branches over water. The skinner is counting his money. He lays the bundles of notes in the pipes of the tiled stove.

The cupboard is a white rectangle, the beds are white frames. The walls in between are black patches. The floor slopes. The floor rises. It rises high against the wall. And stops at the door. The skinner is counting the second bundle of money. The floor will cover him. The skinner’s wife blows the dust from the grey fur cap. The floor will lift her to the ceiling. By the tiled stove, the clock has struck a long white patch against the wall. Windisch closes his eyes. “Time is at an end,” he thinks. He hears the white patch of the clock on the wall ticking and sees a clock-face of black spots. Time has no clock hand. Only the black spots are turning. They crowd together. They push themselves out of the white patch. Fall along the wall. They are the floor. The black spots are the floor in the other room.

Rudi is kneeling on the floor in the empty room. Before him coloured glass lies in long rows. In circles. Beside Rudi is the empty suitcase. A picture is hanging on the wall. It isn’t a picture. The frame is made of green glass. Inside the frame is frosted glass with red waves.

The owl flies over the gardens. Its cry is high. Its flight is deep. Its flight is full of night. “A cat,” thinks Windisch, “a cat that flies.”

Rudi holds a spoon of blue glass to his eye. The white of his eye grows large. His pupil is a wet, glistening sphere in the spoon. The floor washes colours to the edge of the room. The time from the other room beats waves. The black spots float along. The light bulb flickers. The light is torn. The two windows swim into one another. The two floors push the walls in front of them. Windisch holds his head in his hand. His pulse is beating in his head. His temple beats in his wrist. The floors lift themselves. They come closer, touch. They sink down into the crack. They will be heavy, and the earth will break. The glass will glow, will become a trembling abscess in the suitcase.

Windisch opens his mouth. He feels them growing in his face, the black spots.