The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

The chamber pot

Paul’s hand passes across Adina’s face.

She startles. We’re here, says Paul. Adina feels a trickle of sand inside her head. She pulls Paul’s heavy hand off her cheek, was I asleep, she asks as she opens her eyes, her face is awry, her cheeks caved in.

The bench outside Liviu’s house is lower on one end. There is a puddle where the legs are sinking into the mud. The window looms dark behind the fence. The gate is locked.

In the south, in the part of the country cut off by the Danube, the houses are lined up along the road, road and village are one and the same. Here the settlement doesn’t spread, each fence is connected to the next, each house has a garden in back, and each garden ends with a clearly defined border. There’s no place for dogs to roam, no place for them to bark. The villagers keep lots of dogs, Liviu told Paul and Adina during the summer, but not on account of robbers, theft is not a problem. It’s so they won’t hear the gunshots. And they keep geese instead of roosters, he said, because geese gaggle throughout the night. But it doesn’t work because the villagers have gotten so used to the barking and gaggling that they no longer hear it, while they do hear the gunshots.

Adina listens, the geese gaggle short and low in the yard, and in the yard next door, and in the yard across the road. The geese are kept in pens covered with boards. They can be heard stamping their feet and beating their wings against the wood. They’re so cramped they knock into one another and are never able to truly fall asleep. A roadside village is long and narrow like a sock, like the neck of a goose.

* * *

During the summer Liviu became a bridegroom. He married a teacher from the village because he was an outsider and all on his own. His wife is young, not even close to his age. Liviu listens in silence, just for himself, because his wife is used to women doing the talking while the men sit nearby, just for themselves. She grew up with the gunshots, with the dogs and with the geese.

During the summer, when Adina and Paul went to Liviu’s wedding, this young woman in her white veil and long dress had the face of a lamb. A lamb that had yet to eat grass, Paul said at the time. Everyone hugged and kissed her while Liviu just shook their hands and looked away. At the wedding she ate a lot, while Liviu chewed his food absentmindedly. Liviu danced as if he had stones in his pockets, while she danced as if her white dress were a flying feather. She didn’t speak much, and whenever she did she smiled. The village policeman got so drunk he was laughing all alone at his own jokes, repeating the same sentence that no one understood. And the village priest set his cap on the neck of a bottle, there were soup noodles stuck in his gray beard. After the meal he lifted his cassock up to his knee and danced with the policeman. Liviu looked at Adina and Paul, when are you two getting married, he asked. Paul said, soon. Adina could feel the lie running across her face. She pointed at the policeman and asked the lamb, are you related. Liviu didn’t say anything, the young lamb smiled and said, that’s the way it is here in the country, the policeman’s included along with everyone else.

* * *

Paul picks up a few pebbles. He tosses them at the window, they scratch against the glass and then rustle when they land on the dry leaves. They’re sound asleep, says Paul. The dogs bark louder, the geese are mute. Paul scales the fence and raps on the window with his fingers. A light snaps on in the last window.

Liviu’s head is squashed from sleep. The casement creaks open, it’s me, says Paul. He raises his chin, his face can’t be seen in the dark, we have to hide, he says. Liviu recognizes Paul’s voice.

They roll the car into the barn. Liviu covers it with straw and uses sacks to hide the wheels. White wings and feathers shine through the cracks of the pen, the geese inside gaggle, their beaks bang against the wood.

The lamb comes to the stairs wearing her nightgown and shoes that are too large for her bare feet. She points her flashlight at the barn, but the circle of light gets stopped by its own reflection in a puddle.

* * *

Inside the kitchen, in the light, the lamb smiles. We were just talking about you yesterday, says Liviu. We were just talking about you, says the lamb, and here you show up on our doorstep. Adina sets her bag down next to the oven, Paul reaches in his jacket and sets a toothbrush on the table, that’s all the luggage I have, he says.

* * *

The lamb shows Adina into a dark room and closes the flowered curtains, patterned with the same dense bouquets of roses as on the tablecloth. Here’s the flashlight, she says, don’t turn the big light on, that can be seen from outside. She squeezes some clothes together inside the wardrobe, everyone knows which room we sleep in, I’ve made some space for your clothes, she says.

* * *

It’s the same room, the same bed as in the summer. As they lay in bed early in the morning after the wedding Adina asked Paul, why did you lie. Paul sighed, mosquitoes flitted around the light. Why does Liviu think we’re still together. Paul yawned and said, is that so important.

It had rained the previous morning, the day of the wedding. After that it was scorching hot, the night didn’t cool things off, they had to keep the window open. Adina turned off the light, the crickets chirped their jittery notes throughout the village. Paul fell asleep before he could close his mouth. As he slept he took the covers off his legs and snored all the way into his toes. He and Liviu had had plenty to drink, and had gotten into a long discussion with a toothless accountant about the falling protein content in the milk from the national cows. The mosquitos didn’t like the smell of brandy and only attacked Adina’s face. The folk music was still turning inside her head.

During that mosquito night Adina dreamed that she was dancing in the yard with the toothless accountant. A spoon was lying on the ground, and the accountant kept stepping on it. She pulled him away, closer to the edge of the garden. But there was another spoon near the edge of the garden, and he kept stepping on that one as well. And a withered lady who was even older than the accountant sat with her back to the table and watched them. Now dance decently, she told the accountant, the lady comes from the city.

* * *

The flashlight rummages through the dark bag, the comb is on top, the nail clipper on the bottom, the toothbrush between the stockings. The nightgown feels cold to the touch. Their armpits smell of sweat, and so do their feet. Paul holds his toothbrush handle in his mouth. Liviu places a white chamber pot next to the bed, don’t go out in the yard, he says, not during the day either.

Paul lets the toothbrush drop from his mouth onto the table, he walks around the table, shines the flashlight on one of the tablecloth bouquets. Dogs bark outside, Paul sniffs the roses on the curtain, may I set my shoes next to yours, he asks, then shines the light on Adina’s shoes and sets his beside hers. He lies down on the bed fully dressed and laughs.

I have to go, says Adina, she takes the chamber pot, there’s no face inside the bed, only Paul’s clothes. I wanted to go earlier, while we were in the barn, she says. I went three times on the way here, I was so scared, says Paul. She shines the light in the chamber pot, it’s brand-new, the worst thing is the sound, she says. Well I am a musician, says Paul. She shoves the chamber pot between her legs, I’ll whistle, he says, my grandfather didn’t get along with his brother-in-law, he would stop his horses in front of the man’s house and whistle until they pissed, then he’d drive on. Paul hears a rushing sound, and Adina feels a warm mist against her calves. A newspaper is lying on the table. Adina covers the chamber pot with it and listens. Hanging behind the curtain is wind, it shakes the bare branches. I imagined the sound differently, says Paul.

We had a summer latrine and a winter one and four chamber pots, says Adina. The summer latrine was behind our grapevines in a dry little patch, the winter one was tucked away by the entrance to the cellar. The summer latrine was made of boards, the winter one was made of stone. My chamber pot was red, my mother’s green and my father’s was blue. The fourth was made of glass, it was the prettiest but it was never used. That’s only for guests, my mother said. We never had guests, only visitors who stopped in for just a while. The seamstress came two or three times a year to bring my mother a dress, she would eat two rolls without sitting down and after that she would leave. And now and then in the fall, when my father managed to get plum brandy from the village where they had the sheep, the barber would come over. He would drink three glasses without sitting down and after that he would leave. My father suggested a couple times that the barber could give him a quick haircut. The barber said, I can only do that in the shop. I need a mirror, when I cut hair I have to be able to see myself as well as you.

All the people who visited us lived in the same dirty outskirts of town. No one was a guest, no one stayed overnight, says Adina. Paul says nothing. He’s fallen asleep in his clothes, without a face.