The Passport

THE DEATH MARK

Windisch’s wife stands barefoot on the stone floor of the hallway. Her hair is dishevelled, as if there were a wind in the house. Windisch sees the goose-pimples on her calves. The raw skin on her ankles.

Windisch smells her night shirt. It’s warm. Her cheek bones are hard. They twitch. Her mouth tears open. “What time do you call this?” she shouts. “I looked at the clock at three. Now it’s already struck five.” She waves her hands about in the air. Windisch looks at her finger. It’s not slimy.

Windisch crushes a dry apple leaf in his hand. He hears his wife shouting in the hall. She slams the doors. She goes into the kitchen shouting. A spoon clatters on the stove.

Windisch is standing at the kitchen door. She lifts the spoon. “Fornicator,” she shouts. “I’ll tell your daughter what you get up to.”

There’s a green bubble above the teapot. Above the bubble is her face. Windisch goes up to her. Windisch strikes her in the face. She says nothing. She lowers her head. Crying, she places the teapot on the table.

Windisch sits in front of the tea cup. The steam eats his face. The peppermint steam drifts into the kitchen. Windisch sees his eye in the tea. The sugar trickles from the spoon into his eye. The spoon stands in the tea.

Windisch drinks a mouthful of tea. “Widow Kroner has died,” he says. His wife blows into the cup. She has small red eyes. “The bell is ringing,” she says.

There’s a red mark on her cheek. It is the mark of Windisch’s hand. It is the mark of steam from the tea. It is the death mark of Widow Kroner.

The bell rings through the walls. The lamp rings. The ceiling rings. Windisch breathes deeply. He finds his breath at the bottom of the cup.

“Who knows, when and where we die,” says Windisch’s wife. She clutches at her hair. She works another strand loose. A drop of tea runs down her chin.

Grey light dawns on the street. The skinner’s windows are bright. “The funeral takes place this afternoon,” says Windisch.