The Appointment by Herta Müller Read Free Book Online Page A

just let myself disappear, and I said:
    Why now of all times, you won’t get far without my feet.
    I said it out loud, my face turning red. I don’t want to be one of those people who look like lunatics because they’re talking to themselves out loud. Some people sing. I don’t want someone near me to shake his head because I can’t tell thinking from speaking. Having total strangers hear what you’re sayingmakes an even greater fool of you than if they don’t see you at all and barge right into you. Although she must have heard me, one woman for whom I obviously didn’t exist opened the curtain to my changing room, rudely set her bag on the chair, and asked:
    Is this one taken.
    Can’t you see it is, after all you’re speaking to me, not to an empty dressing room.
    In the commotion I lost sight of the woman I had been following. I continued trying on clothes in the hope of becoming so beautiful I would begin to exist. Actually I’m not going to find anything, least of all myself, in the clothes other women want to buy. The clothes punish me; if another woman and I happen to try on the same outfit, I wind up all the more ugly by comparison. In the factory I tried on the most gorgeous dresses and strutted like a peacock, crossing the packing hall all the way to the door and back. When clothes were sewn for the West, I’d go upstairs with Lilli before the consignment was shipped. I’d try on two or three styles, one after the other.
    That’s enough, Lilli would say.
    Because it was strictly forbidden. Not as strictly with skirts, trousers, and jackets as with blouses and dresses. We were allowed to buy dresses from the factory just before International Labor Day on the first of May and again in August before the Day of Liberation from the Yoke of Fascism. The office people bought the most. The dresses made for the West are more elegant and no more expensive than those in the shops. Unfortunately they’re also full of weaving flaws and oil stains from the sewing machines, otherwise they’d be too good for the likes of us. Many people bought them by the sack: better weaving flaws and oil stains that never come out than the low-grade, mousy clothes in the state-owned stores. But I couldn’t standthe weaving flaws and stains, and on top of everything else, I knew how attractive the dresses were that we weren’t allowed to buy. The ones that wind up looking so nice on Italian, Canadian, Swedish, and French women, different ones for every season of their easygoing lives. Cutting, stitching, finishing, ironing, packing, and knowing all the time that you’re not worthy of the final product. No doubt a lot of women thought:
    Better a few coarse weaving flaws and black oil stains than nothing.
    Because of the flaws and stains, and because I didn’t want to have the factory at home in my wardrobe after spending the entire day there, I refused to buy the dresses. Sundays walking through the park wearing the factory rejects, eating ice cream in the café. The envious looks those dresses get you. You stand out. Everyone knows where you work, where you got them.
    When Lilli and I went to the Korso after work and I went into the shops instead of continuing our walk, she would wait outside. I didn’t have to hurry, Lilli disapproved if I came back too quickly. She’d stand with her back to the shop window and look at the sky, trees, asphalt, at the old men too, no doubt. I’d have to tug at her arm as if I’d been the one waiting for her, not the other way around. I’d say:
    Come on, let’s go.
    What’s the rush, she’d ask, aren’t we going for a walk.
    We can walk slowly, but let’s just get away from here.
    Didn’t you like the clothes.
    What is it you like so much about standing here.
    She clicked her tongue.
    Soft steps and a slightly stooped back, that’s what I like.
    And so.
    So what.
    How many have you seen, I’d ask.
    Her lack of interest in shops had nothing to do with the factory. Even before, Lilli