The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

Transparent sleep

After the evening with the cut-up goose, everyone went to bed without a word and all but Adina slept very deeply, because they took the hair found in the bread into their sleep. Sleep crept so deeply inside them during the night because it was ashamed of the evening.

Before she went to bed Adina laid her nightgown on the table and said, I’m not getting undressed, I’m cold. She took her coat out of the wardrobe and laid it over the blanket. Paul dozed off, distanced from himself and dejected. The idea of sleep didn’t occur to Adina, though, she was so alert her eyes filled the entire room. She lay there waiting without moving while Paul breathed calmly in his sleep.

Then she slipped into her shoes and pulled on her coat. She wanted to get away, walk down the road, not to the border, only as far as the cornfield. Maybe I could lie down there, she thought, and freeze to death. Ilie had told her that the cold comes up through the toes and that by the time it reaches your stomach it no longer hurts. After that everything happens quickly. When the cold reaches your neck, your skin starts to glow. And then, as your body warms, you die.

Outside the dogs were barking, inside the room nothing rustled, nothing creaked.

Suddenly she felt Paul’s hand reaching for her, pulling her to the window. He shoved the heavy drapes aside and lifted the white lace curtain over her hair. You can’t do it, he said, look, that’s water in the puddle, not ice, the goose tracks in the mud are soft, it didn’t freeze. He looked at her, you know, with that white lace on your head you look just like the lamb, he said.

He took off her coat, then her shoes, then her clothes. Adina didn’t resist, she simply thought to herself as he did so that his sleep must be transparent, that it’s a long, empty corridor where nothing can stay hidden from him, not even what someone nearby is thinking in the dark.

And then there was no anchor, no hold, when he reached for her breasts and past years came back inside her body, the years with Paul. His penis was hot and stubborn, and her skin glowed differently than the desire to freeze to death among the corn. But she knew it wasn’t really herself who was glowing. It was their situation. And now the fox was there in the house with them, and Liviu and the lamb were no match for the fox.

Adina sat in the dark next to Paul, his cigarette glowed, he stroked her forehead. The woman who had moaned was no longer there. Is that reproach I’m sensing, he asked. She couldn’t make out the wardrobe, but she could see the apricots hovering in their jars below the ceiling. Yes, she said, but that doesn’t matter. In fact she didn’t see the apricots in their jars, she only knew that they were there.

Because lurking behind everything she did, every movement of her hand, every step she took, even during her sleep, was the knowledge that Liviu and the lamb were living in a little roadside village, that Christmas was waiting for her with a crippled fir tree, that they would decorate the tree and drag it next to the window for the passersby outside, just like years ago. And that there would be no passersby, at most two strangers who had spent the entire morning crossing the field — a woman with a child who wanted a fox.

As far as you’re concerned, said Paul, being separated means I’m always on call for you, but never sleep with you. The cigarette glowed and quickly consumed itself.

Be quiet, said Adina, my head is about to explode.

* * *

During the night she dreamed that Clara was standing in the frozen corn wearing a dress with yellow bouquets of roses. The wind had a dry rustle, and Clara was carrying a large bag. She said, there’s no one here, they aren’t looking for you. She opened the bag. It was full of quinces. Clara said, here, have one, I washed them for you. Adina took a quince and said, no you didn’t, there’s a bit of fur on the peel.