Now he is tossing his cigarette away, crushing it angrily with his next step.
In the few seconds this unexpected confrontation had taken, he did turn pale, was humiliated, grew angry and desperate — and he came back to me in that state.
And I kept staring at the boy, staring as if the sight itself would provide the explanation; with one hand holding the coins he'd just wheedled out of Melchior, with the other crumbling the cigarette that had gone out, the boy again raised himself on his toes and looked at me accusingly and insistently, disconsolately and reproachfully, as if this whole incident were my fault, yes, mine, and he was ready to rush me, knock me down, and kill me.
And for a fraction of the next second it looked as if he'd really do it.
That's right, look at me, go ahead, keep on looking at me, he screamed at the top of his lungs, managing to overcome the noise of the train roaring into the station.
You think you can buy me off, don't you, he screamed.
In public, like that, he screamed, buy me off in public.
There was no time to think.
Between two screams, in a flash, Melchior tore open the door of the nearest car, shoved me in, jumped after me, and we continued to move away from the raving boy, though still staring at him, mesmerized.
You think there's forgiveness.
We were moving farther inside as the razor-sharp voice of madness penetrated the car with its quietly huddling passengers.
You can't buy forgiveness for a few lousy pennies.
A face marred by huge red pussy pimples; damp, sticky, blond, fuzzy hair of a child, and sensitive blue eyes untouched by his own rage.
A strange god was screaming out of him, a god he had to carry with him wherever he went.
While we kept backing away, seeking protection among passengers who were now raising their heads, the conductress, slovenly and looking bored, emerged from the next car, her hands resting on the leather bag that hung from her neck; she walked in a leisurely way down the platform, past the cars, remaining perfectly calm and unresponsive to this awful screaming; All aboard, she intoned apathetically, though besides the boy there was nobody on the platform, all aboard; how is one to explain the infinite sobriety and shameful orderliness of things?
She shoved the screaming boy out of her way.
He lost his footing and reeled back; but to chalk up a tiny victory, not much, just a modicum of satisfaction, something that even in his profound humiliation could comfort him, for a brief moment at least he rushed to the train, and just before the doors closed he threw into our face — no, not the money — the crumbled, cold cigarette butt; but he missed, and now the refuse ol this little scene was lying at our feet.
When people in the speeding car finally calmed down and were no longer watching us with a reproachful curiosity that did not hide their eagerness for a scandal, when they stopped trying to figure out what we must have done to the unfortunate child, I asked him what that was all about.
He didn't answer.
He stood there motionless, upset, pale; with his hand on the strap he was hiding his eyes from me; he refused to look at me.
Nobody is so sane as not to be touched by the words of a madman.
Holding the strap next to him, I felt as if the senseless mechanical clatter of the train was also jostling me to the verge of madness.
Wheels, tracks.
I'd get off at the next station, without a word, and end it all, leaving everything but everything behind me on those tracks.
Fat chance; I couldn't even bring myself to swallow the pills.
This was not madness, not even close.
In those years the sense of any kind of perspective was missing from me; it was only inside or on the surface of other human bodies that all my words, movements, secret desires, goals, ambitions, and intentions sought fulfillment, gratification, and even redemption.
Yes, I lacked these perspectives, like the awesome, magnificent perspective of madness manifest in a strange deity, because everything I perceived as madness or sinfulness in myself spoke not of the great chaos of nature but only of the ridiculous snags of my upbringing, of the sensual chaos of my youth.
Or maybe it wasn't like that; maybe it was the perspective of the merciful, punishing, and redeeming deity, the one and only, that was missing in me, because what I saw as a touch of grace in me was not part of a grand, divine order but the work of my own petty machinations, spitefulness, and trickery.
I believed that the sense of uncertainty could be eliminated from my life; I was a coward, the sucker of my age, an opportunist feeding on my own life; I believed that anxiety, fear, and the feeling of being an outcast could be assuaged or, by certain acts of the body, even be evaded.
But how can one be familiar with the nearby affairs of men without a perspective on the remote affairs of the gods?
Shit never reaches to the sky; it merely collects and dries up.
Leaning close to his ears I kept repeating the question: What was that all about? was this what he'd been waiting for? was it? I wanted an answer, though I should have held my tongue and been patient.
He'd had enough of the whispering and answered rather loudly: I could see for myself, he asked for a light, a light, it was that simple, except he didn't realize that he'd picked a raving lunatic.
What I felt then inside me was my little sister, the one I'd never see again; I felt her heavy body in mine.
I am like a house with all its doors and windows wide-open; anyone can look in, walk in; anyone can pass through, from anywhere to anywhere else.
I can't take your lies anymore.
He didn't answer.
If he won't answer, I said, I'll get off at the next stop and he'll never see me again.
He swung the arm that was raised to hold the strap and with his elbow struck my face.
From the open window one could look out on a spring afternoon.
And then, opening night, at last; snow began to fall in the afternoon, a soft, thick, slow snow, with only an occasional gust of wind buffeting and stirring up the big moist flakes.
It stuck to the rooftops, covered the grass in the parks, on the roadways and sidewalks.
Hurrying feet and rushing tires soon soiled it with black trails and tracks.
We were on our way to the premiere.
This white snow came much too early; true, our poplar had lost the last dry leaves of its crown, but the foliage of the plane trees on Wörther Platz was still green; a few hours later it was clear the snow had won: the city had turned all white; snow sat on the bare branches, slowly covered up all the dirty tracks and trails, and put a glistening white cap on the green domes of the plane trees now glowing in the light of streetlamps.
She was the only survivor, so I went to see Maria Stein; I wanted to know which one of the two men I should remember as my father, though it didn't really make that much difference.
Last year's weeds grew waist-high; sitting on the embankment, men stripped to the waist were enjoying the breeze in the hot afternoon sun.
The river flowed lazily, forming tiny funnels under their feet; over on the shipyard's island the willows now showed yellow as the branches seemed to be drifting in their own reflections.
It couldn't have been a Sunday, because across the river everything was clattering, hissing, creaking, a giant crane was turning slowly.
First I took the well-trodden trail along the railroad tracks all the way to the Filatori Dam stationhouse; I knew that my father's body was brought here, and he was laid out on the waiting-room bench until the ambulance arrived.
Now the waiting room was cool and empty, they must have used sawdust dampened with oil to clean the floor; a cat scurried by my feet on its way out the door; the long bench stood against the wall.