The Passport

THE BLIND COCK

Windisch’s wife sits on the edge of the bed. “There were two men here today,” she says. “They counted the hens and noted it down. They caught eight hens and took them away. They put them in wire cages. The trailer on their tractor was full of hens.” Windisch’s wife sighs. “I signed,” she says. “And for four hundred kilos of maize and a hundred kilos of potatoes. They’ll take those later, they said. I gave them the fifty eggs right away. They went into the garden in rubber boots. They saw the clover in front of the barn. Next year we’ll have to grow sugar-beet there, they said.”

Windisch lifts the lid from the pot. “And next door?” he asks. “They didn’t go there,” says Windisch’s wife. She gets into bed and covers herself up. “They said that our neighbours have eight small children, and we have one, and she’s earning money.”

There is blood and liver in the pot. “I had to kill the big white cock,” says Windisch’s wife. “The two men were running about in the yard. The cock took fright. He flapped up against the fence and struck his head against it. When they had left he was blind.”

Onion rings float on eyes of fat in the pot. “And you said we’ll keep the big white cock so we’ll get big white hens next year,” says Windisch. “And you said anything white is too sensitive. And you were right,” says Windisch’s wife.

The cupboard creaks.

“When I was riding to the mill, I got off at the war memorial,” says Windisch in the dark. “I wanted to go into the church and pray. The church was locked. I thought, that’s a bad sign. Saint Anthony is on the other side of the door. His thick book is brown. It’s like a passport.”

In the warm, dark air of the room, Windisch dreams that the sky opens up. The clouds fly away out of the village. A white cock flies through the empty sky. It strikes its head against a bare poplar standing in the meadow. It can’t see. It’s blind. Windisch stands at the edge of a sunflower field. He calls out: “The bird is blind.” The echo of his voice returns as his wife’s voice. Windisch goes deep into the sunflower field and shouts: “I’m not looking for you, because I know you aren’t here.”