The Fox Was Ever the Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page B

river. And during that time, say the fishermen, the river shows anyone who truly knows it a foul, rotten gullet. That is heaven from the inside. The gullet is in the middle of the current, not on the river bottom. It holds so many clothes that they reach from one bridge to the other. The gullet itself is naked, it holds the clothes in its hands. They are the clothes of the drowned, say the fishermen.
    The fishermen don’t stare at the gullet for long, after a few brief glances most lay their faces in the grass and laugh so hard their legs shake. But the fisherman with the white cap of hair doesn’t laugh. When the others ask why his legs are shaking even though he isn’t laughing, he says, when I lay my face in the grass, I see my own brain, naked in the water.
    *   *   *
    A Gypsy boy is standing inside the café next to the table farthest in back. He holds an empty beer glass over his face, the foam trickles down in a thread, his mouth swallows before the foam reaches his lips. Stop that, says Adina out loud, you’re drinking with your forehead, like you don’t have a mouth. Then the boy is at her table, give me a leu he says, holding his hand out over the newspaper. Adina sets a coin down next to the glass, the boy covers it with his hand and drags it off the table. May God keep you beautiful and good, he says. And though he speaks of God, all Adina sees of his face in the sunlight are two whitish-yellow eyes. Have some lemonade, she says.
    A fly is swimming in the glass, he fishes it out with a spoon, blows it onto the ground and stashes the spoon in his pocket.
    Shoshoi, the waitress yells.
    The boy’s throat is dry, a gurgling comes from inside his shirt. He raises the glass and drains it in one gulp, through his face and all the way to his whitish-yellow eyes. He stashes the glass in his pocket as well.
    Shoshoi, the waitress screams.
    Clara once explained that shoshoi in Romani means HARE, that Gypsies are afraid of hares. It’s more that they’re afraid of superstitions, said Paul, and as a result they’re always afraid.
    *   *   *
    Once, he went on, an elderly Gypsy was being discharged from the hospital. Paul jotted down what the man was allowed to eat. But the man didn’t know how to read. So Paul read the list out loud, including the word HARE. I cannot take this piece of paper, the man said. You are a gentleman, you have to write out another one. Paul scratched through the word HARE, the man shook his head. That won’t do, he said, it’s still there. You may be a doctor but you are not a gentleman. You don’t understand how your own heart beats inside you. Inside the hare beats the heart of the earth, that’s why we are Gypsies, because we understand that, sir, that’s why we’re always on the run.
    *   *   *
    The Gypsy boy dashes off, the poplar stripes slice him as he runs, his soles fly up to his back as splashes of white. The waitress chases after the soles. The fisherman with the sunflower seeds watches the splashing soles. Like gravel hitting water, he says.
    The wind blows in the brush, the boy’s eyes lurk among the leaves. The waitress stands in the grass, panting, alert, the leaves fan back and forth, she doesn’t see the boy. The waitress lets her head droop, removes her sandals and slowly heads back through the poplar stripes to the café, stepping barefoot in small strides over the stone slabs. The shadows from her sandals dangle below her hand. The shadows don’t reveal how high the heels are or how thin the laces, or how the buckles sparkle once just beneath her ring and again on the stone. The fisherman with the sunflower seeds says in her direction, with those legs you’d be better off running after me. Without shoes look how sturdy they are, take off those high heels and you’re a peasant woman.
    The fisherman who’s afraid of melons scratches his crotch and says, once during the war I wound up in this small village. I’ve forgotten the name. I looked