The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck Read Free Book Online Page B

back room her mother is wrapping merchandise in newsprint, it
rustles, then he reaches across the counter to grab his recent lover by the chin,
forcing her to look him in the eye and says, not even lowering his voice, he has a
friend who would also be interested.
    Rustling newspaper.
    The day, the time, the building that looks like any other.
    Rustling newspaper.
    If she doesn’t want anyone to hear of this, he says, she should keep the
appointment.
    Silence.
    Child, can you give me a hand here?
    Yes, Mother.
    Admit it, you enjoyed it too.
    What a disaster — child, where are you? My hand’s about to fall
off.
    Coming!
    19
    After the inspection of the immigrating flesh, the mind, too, is
checked; man, woman, and child must answer thirty questions, and only persons giving
acceptable answers will be allowed to cross over to the mainland. Madness,
melancholia, anarchism — all these and others like them will be rejected. Were
you ever in prison? Do you practice polygamy? In his now rumpled coat, the Austrian
asks himself whether in America, as a result of this strict examination at the
border, there are no longer deficiencies of any sort, no longer any cripples or
incurable diseases, no madness, no insubordination, perhaps even no death?
    20
    So that’s how it was when you fell off the edge of the
palatschinke
, a grain of sugar, and disappeared. Already after her
second customer she started using the money to buy something for herself, a pair of
stockings, after all it was her own body she was offering up for sale. After the
third, a scarf — leave the curtains open, I want to look at you — after
the fourth — listen, can’t you struggle a little — and the fifth —
bring your mouth here — and the sixth — you Jewish sow: four, five, and
six together, a new pair of shoes. It hurt, it disgusted her, it was ludicrous,
sometimes her skin felt like it was cracking open in delicate spots and burning, but
bit by bit taking leave of her senses became her job. Now she knew what the men were
hiding from their families, and the ones she ran into on the street wearing their
uniforms, or in top hats, or work smocks — never again was she able to see
them as anything other than what they all finally were: naked. What she could buy
with the money she earned in this way — considering that she would never again
be at one with any person in the world, not even with herself — was absurdly
little. But the less a dress, a hat, or piece of jewelry stood in any sort of
relationship to what she was giving of herself, the easier it became for her to sell
herself the next time. Eventually her true worth, which now only she would know,
would be impossible to measure.
How delightful the gods find these penitent
sinners; / lifting prodigal children in arms made of fire / with jubilant cries
up to Heaven above.
Her mother never asked where all the new things she
wore came from, but even without being asked, she told her she had found the shoes
for a good price here or there, already used, or that a girlfriend had given her one
or the other trinket, that she found the ring in the street. Hadn’t her mother also
lied to her about the death of her father throughout her childhood and youth?
    21
    Waiting for the results of the examination, a thousand or two
thousand people sit in the gloomy light of the great hall, and new ones are
constantly coming to join them. These people squat, lie on the ground, or sit on
benches: people with bundles, bedding, and crates, with samovars, people without any
baggage at all, children running about, crying babies, people who have lain down on
the floor and gone to sleep, people with frail parents, people who understand not a
word of English, people who don’t know whether the person who’s supposed to pick
them up here is really coming, people who are filled with hope, with despair, people
who are homesick, frightened, people who don’t know what’s in store for them, people
who are wondering where