The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

Face without face

The tape plays in one room what is being recorded in another. A deep voice comes through the speaker on the desk. The deep voice says, so, KACHONI, how do you pronounce that. KARÁCSONYI, says a quiet voice. So it’s Hungarian, says the deep voice, does it mean something in Hungarian. Christmas, says the quiet voice. The deep voice laughs.

Pavel leafs through a file, tilts a photograph into the light, and laughs. He laughs longer and louder than the deep voice.

First name, says the deep voice. ALBERT, says the quiet voice. What about ABI, asks the deep voice. That’s what my friends call me, says the quiet voice. And your father, says the deep voice. He called me ABI too, he’s no longer alive, says the quiet voice. And the deep voice becomes like the quiet one and says, I see. When did he die. And the quiet voice becomes like the deep voice and says, you already know when. The deep voice asks, what makes you think that. And the quiet voice says, because you are asking. It’s the other way around, says the deep voice, if we already know something then we don’t ask. A lighter clicks in the speaker. Back then I was in kindergarten, says the deep voice, just like you. Your father was also named ALBERT, just like you. Do you remember him. No, says the quiet voice. First you said your father called you ABI, says the deep voice, and now you say you don’t remember him. That’s a contradiction. That’s not a contradiction, says the quiet voice, my mother also calls me ABI. What do you want from me.

But right at the beginning you said that only your friends call you ABI, says the deep voice. That’s also a contradiction. You see, KACHONI, I can’t pronounce your last name. You see, ALBERT, all these contradictions are connected. The deep voice becomes like the quiet one. Or can I call you ABI like your friends, says the deep voice. No, says the quiet voice. Well there was nothing uncertain about that, says the deep voice. What do you want from me, asks the quiet voice.

Pavel holds a photo under the lamp. It’s old, not shiny, with just a few stripes of light that fade off into a sky where everything is empty. Because where the sky stops is a wall, and leaning against the wall is a man with sunken cheeks and large ears. Pavel writes a date on the back of the photo.

The deep voice coughs. Paper crinkles in the speaker. For instance here, says the deep voice, which now becomes like the quiet voice: I’ve gone completely crazy, I went and fell in love, with someone who loves me, but my beloved’s stupid, since she does and since she doesn’t, really love me yet. That’s also a contradiction, all these contradictions are connected. That’s just a song, the quiet voice says, now a little louder.

Pavel glances at his watch and puts the photo back in the file. He turns the speaker off and shoves the drawer shut. He picks up the phone, just beyond the window is a poplar. He looks outside, his eyes are small, his gaze as wet as the poplar. His eyes pierce through the poplar branches but don’t see them. He turns the dial twice and says, we’re not getting anywhere, it’s almost four o’clock.

Pavel remains silent for a moment, he looks through the poplar, the wind blows, the leaves are wet, his lighter clicks. The cigarette glows. He blows smoke in front of him and shuts the door.

* * *

Write, says the voice. The eyes in the forehead are light brown. They shift back and forth and go dark. The eyes are reading from a sheet of paper on top of a finger-thick folder. The poplar tree is swaying outside. The mouth between the telephone and the desk lamp is moving. Abi’s gaze latches on to the windowpane. Rain is falling outside the window, but Abi can’t see the raindrops hitting the poplar, as though the poplar wasn’t there. All he can see are the little balls of water dripping off the leaves and dropping to the ground. Abi squeezes the pen with his fingers. The bulb hanging from the ceiling is so bright it sends threads of light thrashing this way and that. Abi stares at the bare tabletop. The pen doesn’t belong to him nor does the blank sheet of paper. The voice screams and thrashes just like the light threads. Below the voice, in the fold of the chin, is a small razor cut. The cut is a few days old.

The door opens slowly. The eyes between the telephone and the desk lamp are half-closed. They don’t look up because they know who’s entering.

From the edge of the desk Abi does look up from the blank paper without letting go of the pen. The man with the reddish-blue flecked tie walks to the desk, looks at the blank paper and holds out his hand. As Abi extends his own hand, still wrapped around the pen, he sees a birthmark between the man’s shirt collar and his ear. The man says, PAVEL MURGU and shakes Abi’s hand together with the pen.

Face without face, in other words he lost his face, says the razor cut, raising his hand to his forehead. Forehead of sand, in other words a head with no brains. Voice without voice, so no one is listening, says the razor cut. The birthmark takes a seat next to the razor cut and gazes out through the windowpane.

Maybe the man with the birthmark is looking at the poplar, after all he can afford to do that, his mind is free to leave here and go somewhere else, thinks Abi. Because the man’s light brown eyes are wide open and hard and they shine as they look at Abi, taking in the face that belongs to Abi and not them, Abi’s cheeks, Abi’s fingertips, the little breaths that Abi’s mouth snatches from the glaring light.

* * *

It’s a contradiction, Abi thinks, that someone dies but doesn’t have a grave. And it’s also a contradiction that he would be the one to have to say that. And that his throat is pounding but his mouth doesn’t move. And it’s a contradiction when you’re the son of a dead man and you arrive in a city that really is a prison and when you look for something callused or something broken in everyone who lives there — but find nothing but the ordinary. Ordinary eyes, ordinary steps, ordinary hands, ordinary bags. In the display windows the ordinary wedding photos, the bridal veil cascading over the grass in the park like foam from a waterfall. And next to it the white shirt in the black suit like snow on slate. And it’s a contradiction when the son of a dead man gets frightened because these ordinary men and women meet each other on the streets of this city and instead of asking HOW ARE YOU they ask HOW ARE YOU GETTING ALONG WITH LIFE.

* * *

Face without face, who does that refer to, asks the man with the birthmark.

And it’s a contradiction, Abi thinks, that between being starved and being beaten the prisoners were forced to fashion their guilty verdict into cabinets and chairs for a furniture factory when they had no beds themselves, only knotty wood and knotty fingers. And that newlyweds bought cabinets and chairs that had been glazed and upholstered by those hands, whether they knew it or not. The dizzying height of the sky above the prison is a contradiction as well. And the fact that it was there back then, looking straight down on the city in a cold swath of sunlight, where crows dive quietly and slowly into the roofs.

* * *

It doesn’t refer to anybody, says Abi, it’s just a song. And the razor cut says, then why do you sing it if it doesn’t refer to anybody. Because it’s a song, says Abi.

It refers to our country’s president, says the birthmark. No, says Abi.

The walls are full of outlets. The outlets have mouths. The base of the lamp has yellow numerals, inventory numbers.

I see you aren’t informed, says the birthmark. You see, your friend Paul has confessed, and he should know. After all he’s the one who wrote the song, says the chin cut.

There are yellow inventory numbers marking the side of the desk and the door to the cabinet. Paul can’t have confessed, says Abi, because it isn’t true. The birthmark laughs and the telephone rings. The razor cut holds the receiver to his cheek and says: no, yes, what, how’s that. Fine. The mouth whispers something to the birthmark, whose face is bright in the light but shows no emotion.

The razor cut says, as you see, your friend Paul doesn’t tell you everything.

* * *

It’s now dark outside, the poplar is gone. The lightbulb, the ceiling, the cabinet and the wall, the outlets and the door are reflected in the glass. A room shrunk into half a window, with no one inside.

* * *

So write down who it does refer to, says the birthmark. And the razor cut says, if we’re satisfied you can go. And if we’re not you’ll stay and think, says the birthmark. The razor cut clutches the file under his arm. The birthmark stands at the door and blows smoke out of his nose. You’ll think better on your own, says the razor cut. He spits on his fingertips and counts out five white pages. His light brown eyes are round and happy. There’s more than enough paper, he says.

By the way in that song of yours that doesn’t refer to anybody there’s a line I like very much, about night sewing a sack of darkness, says the birthmark.

The door closes from outside. The keys rattle in the door. The floor stretches out in the light. The cigarette smoke drifts to the dark window. Otherwise nothing moves: not the empty desk or the chair or the cabinet or the sheets of paper. Or the window.

* * *

It’s a contradiction, thinks Abi, that outside on the wet street, this window is nothing but a window. That every day and every night the world is divided into those who interrogate and torture and those who keep silent. And it’s a contradiction that one summer day, in a farmyard in front of a rusted bathtub planted with geraniums, right next to the beehive, a child asks his mother where his father is. And that the mother raises the child’s arm and takes his hand in hers and bends his little fingers and points one at the sky and says: up there, do you see. And that the child looks up for just a moment and sees nothing but sky while his mother stares at the geraniums in the bathtub. That the child sticks his outstretched finger into the narrow slit of the beehive until his mother says, don’t do that, you’ll wake the queen. That the child asks, why is the queen asleep, and his mother says because she’s so tired. It’s a contradiction that the child removes his finger because he doesn’t want to wake the tired queen and then he asks what his father’s name is. And that the mother says: his name was ALBERT.

* * *

Abi writes on the empty sheet:

KARÁCSONYI ALBERT

Mother MAGDA née FURÁK

Father KARÁCSONYI ALBERT

His hand doesn’t feel itself. Inside a dark half-window is Room Number 2. The lightbulb burns. No one is there. Only three names on a sheet of paper.

* * *

Pavel opens the door to a different room. A woman’s eyes watch from behind the desk. The woman is holding a pen. A sheet of paper is lying on the desk, blank except for three short names in crooked writing. Let’s see, says Pavel. He picks up the paper and reads.

His hands fly, the chair stumbles. The woman’s head bangs against the wardrobe. Her eyes stay big and rigid. The lower lashes are thin and wet. The upper ones thick and dry and bent upward like grass. The door shuts from the outside.

* * *

Inside the woman’s eyes the wardrobe is curved. The room is so still that the objects lie down in the light. The woman is lying on the floor in front of the wardrobe. Her shoe is lying under the chair.

Shrunk into a dark half-window, Room Number 9 is all lit up. And no one is there.

* * *

Pavel opens the garden gate. The birch trunks gleam against the black grass. His keys rattle in front of the house. Before Pavel can unlock the door his wife opens it from inside.

She smells of kitchen vapors, he kisses her cheek. She carries his briefcase into the kitchen. His daughter’s forehead comes up to his belt, the tip of his tie. Pavel lifts her up, Father your hair is wet, she says, and slides down his front.

Pavel opens his briefcase, the buckles are cold with condensation. He takes out a package of Jacobs coffee, a tub of breakfast margarine and a jar of Nutella and places them on the kitchen counter next to the television. A worker’s chorus is singing, he turns down the volume. He counts out twelve packs of cigarettes and sets them on the refrigerator next to the white porcelain dog. The head of the warehouse is out of town on business, he says, he’ll be back tomorrow, I’ll send someone to fetch the veal. He lays the Alpenmilch chocolate on top of the apples in the fruit bowl. One of the apples rolls off, Pavel catches it. His daughter holds her hand out for the chocolate. Her father asks, how was school. Her mother stirs the pot and says, no chocolate, we’re about to eat. And she looks at Pavel as she raises the spoon to her mouth and says to the quivering blob of fat, her grades aren’t going to get any better because of chocolate.

Pavel looks at the television screen. A woman and a man are standing in front of the workers’ chorus. They tilt their heads forward and scamper around with their feet, then tilt their heads back and scamper around with their feet.

I’ve been telling you for a month, says the mother, you have to go to the school and talk with the teacher. Everyone takes her coffee, says the daughter, except for us. And you can see that in her grades, says the mother.

She slurps the blob of fat off the spoon. On the television screen the man trips offstage to the left and the woman trips off to the right. Pavel drapes his jacket over the back of the chair.

The teacher’s not getting any coffee. At most a black eye. After I’m done talking with her she’ll be bringing coffee to us.

* * *

A drop of soup splashes onto the table. Veal my foot, says the mother. Maybe seven years ago it would have counted as a calf, but that meat’s been cooking for hours and still isn’t soft. That was an old cow. The daughter laughs and taps her spoon against the soup bowl. A parsley leaf sticks to her chin. The mother picks a bay leaf out of the soup and places it on the edge of the bowl. And my shoes won’t be ready before Christmas, she says. Actually my shoes are ready, just not for me. Today the school inspector came by the factory with his wife. She took two pairs. First she wanted brown, but changed her mind and wanted gray. Then she didn’t like the black ones and wanted white with buckles. The black ones were supposed to be mine, made of patent leather. But in the end those were the ones that fit. So now they’re hers.

The daughter has made herself a mustache from a piece of meat. Pavel licks a parsley leaf off his fingertip. And the inspector, he asks the mother. She looks at the daughter’s mustache and says, he told everyone that he has two corns, one on his middle toe and one on his little toe.

On the television screen the president of the country strolls through a factory hall. Two female workers present him with bouquets of carnations. The workers applaud, their lips open and close in time to their clapping. Pavel hears himself saying, there are black cars in every factory. And he hears Clara saying, but you don’t work in a factory. He reaches around and switches off the television.

The mother says, for three hours our director was kneeling next to the chair where the inspector’s wife was sitting. His eyes were watery and his mouth twisted and soft. His hands were two shoehorns, all they did for three whole hours was shovel her heels into different shoes. He could no longer straighten his fingers. And in between fittings he was kissing her hand. You should see her calves. Pavel pulls a fiber of meat from between his teeth. The daughter rummages through her father’s briefcase. She shakes three thick drops out of a perfume bottle onto her hand. Her calves are like a fattened pig’s, says the mother, no patent leather shoes are going to help that. She ought to wear rubber boots. The mother sniffs the daughter’s hand, Chanel, she says, then picks up the porcelain dog from the refrigerator. After that the workers acted out Director and Madame, says the mother, rolling their pants up to their knees and walking back and forth in high heels to show how Madame tried on shoes.

* * *

Pavel’s eyes are tired, the meat sticks to his fork. The daughter’s face is smeared with chocolate, which rings her mouth like dirt. She cries. Her father props his head in his hands, his forehead feels heavy. Stuffed handkerchiefs in their pant legs to show her calves, then climbed up on the table and draped curtains over their hair, he hears his wife saying. And at the same time he doesn’t hear her because he’s hearing the cornfield rattling in the middle of his forehead. And Clara’s voice saying, And what if I think the worst.

So then the director came bursting through the door, says the mother, and told them they could all expect disciplinary action. Including the women who were watching and laughing. Including me. Pavel hears Clara’s laughter in the middle of his forehead. He takes his wife’s hand in his own. She presses her mouth against his ear. The kiss floods his neck, his cheeks, his forehead. He hears his voice telling Clara, I don’t work at the courthouse.

His wife’s ear is next to his mouth like a young rolled-up leaf. I was planning on giving you the perfume this evening, Pavel says into the ear. And he doesn’t hear himself.

He hears himself telling Clara, I know what I know.