Free The Passport by Herta Müller

furniture,” says Windisch. “And a television as well. Their next door neighbour is a woman who lives by herself. She’s a squeamish old lady, says the skinner, she doesn’t eat any meat. It would be the death of her, she says.”
    “They’ve got it too easy,” says the night watchman “They should come to Romania, then they’ll eat anything.”
    “The skinner has a good pension,” says Windisch. “His wife is a cleaner in an old people’s home. The food there is good. When one of the old people has a birthday they have a dance.”
    The night watchman laughs. “That would be the life forme,” he says. “Good food and a few young women.”
    He bites into the core of his apple. The white pips fall onto his jacket. “I don’t know,” he says, “I can’t make up my mind whether to apply.”
    Windisch sees time standing still in the night watchman’s face. Windisch sees the end on the night watchman’s cheeks, and he sees that the night watchman will stay there beyond the end.
    Windisch looks at the grass. His shoes are white with flour. “Once you’ve started,” he says, “things just keep going.”
    The night watchman sighs. “It’s difficult if you’re alone,” he says. “It takes a long time and we’re not getting any younger.”
    Windisch puts his hand on his trouser leg. His hand is cold, and his thigh is warm. “It’s getting worse and worse here,” he says. “They’re taking our hens, our eggs. They take our maize too, before it even ripens. They’ll take your house too and the holding.”
    The moon is large. Windisch can hear the rats going into the water. “I feel the wind,” he says. “The knots in my legs are sore. It must be going to rain soon.”
    The dog is beside the stack of straw and barking. “The wind from the valley doesn’t bring rain,” says the night watchman, “only dust and clouds.” “Perhaps a storm is coming,” says Windisch, “which will bring the fruit down from the trees again.”
    The moon has a red veil.
    “And Rudi?” asks the night watchman.
    “He’s taking a rest,” says Windisch. He can feel the lie burning on his cheeks. “In Germany it’s not like here with glass. The skinner writes that we should bring our crystal glass with us. Our porcelain, and feathers for the pillows. But not damask and underwear. They’ve got them there in abundance. Furs are very expensive. Furs and spectacles.”
    Windisch chews a blade of grass. “The beginning isn’t easy,” says Windisch.
    Windisch ties the blade of grass around his forefinger. “One thing is hard, says the skinner in his letter. An illness we all know from the war. Homesickness.”
    The night watchman holds an apple in his hand. “I wouldn’t feel homesick,” he says. “After all, you’re among Germans there.”
    Windisch ties knots in the blade of grass. “There are more foreign nations there than here, says the skinner. There are Turks and Negroes. They’re increasing rapidly,” says Windisch.
    Windisch pulls the blade of grass through his teeth. The blade of grass is cold. His gums are cold. Windisch holds the sky in his mouth. The wind and the night sky. The blade of grass shreds between his teeth.

THE CABBAGE WHITE
    Amalie is standing in front of the mirror. Her slip is pink. White lace points show under Amalie’s navel. Windisch sees the skin above Amalie’s knee through the holes in the lace. There are fine hairs on Amalie’s knee. Her knee is white and round. Windisch sees Amalie’s knee in the mirror yet again. He sees the holes in the lace run into one another.
    Windisch’s wife’s eyes are in the mirror. The tips of Windisch’s eyelashes are beating fast, driving into his temples. A red vein swells in the corner of Windisch’s eye. It tears the tips from the lashes. A torn tip moves in the pupil of Windisch’s eye.
    The window is open. The leaves on the apple tree are reflected in the panes.
    Windisch’s lips are burning. They’re saying something.
    But