What matters is the right tool.
Once the right tool is in hand,
everything else follows—
as if on its own.

The half-rounded vault
is built of brick.
Behind one of the bricks,
I’ve hidden my papers.

I see myself
carefully loosening the brick,
then pulling it free—
the one I had first chipped
loose
with a small, pointed
hammer.

What matters is the right tool.
Once the right tool is in hand,
everything else follows—
as if on its own.

I see my father—
who was not my father—
sitting at his worktable.

Outside, it is very hot and
bright;
inside the study,
cool and dark.

He works in the dark.
He says:

What matters is the right tool.
Once the right tool is in hand,
everything else follows—
as if on its own.

I cannot defend myself
against what
happens at the same time—
her cry, her bending
forward, letting herself fall—
as I open the door at
the end of the narrow corridor,
formed by the gap
between the right-hand wall
(as seen from the
floor-to-ceiling shop window)
and the long side
of the counter,
leading into the dimly lit stairwell.

I see myself walking across the
courtyard,
holding my mother’s hand.

She tells me:
one thing happens,
the other you imagine.

I didn’t have the words—
not the right ones—
that could explain
that I am here and there
at once,
in the midst of
the funeral procession,
at the head of
which the musicians
sway their bodies forward,
far forward,
then back again, just as far,
their faces red, cheeks
puffed,
blowing into their instruments.

Two strike their drums,
while the mourners who
follow behind them
mirror the same movements—
forward, and back.

I, among them, under the
burning sun, can
smell them.

I have to close my eyes,
hear the screech of trumpets,
the slap of drumsticks on tin—
and at the same time,
I am holding my mother’s hand.

She says it’s impossible.
At the same time,
I lock the door behind me,
step down the three steps
to the covered gateway,
open the small door
set into the towering gate,
cross the courtyard
as my mother stretches out
her arms—
first toward me,
then, in despair,
toward the sky.

I unlock the cellar door
and descend the steep stairs.

Now,
I am beyond her reach.

I close the door behind Greta.
The cauliflower
wrapped in newspaper under
her arm, she waves to me.
Her cauliflower-styled hair,
pinned high, wavers.

I turn the key in the lock,
flip the small cardboard sign
so that the side reading
be right back faces outward,
the word
open now turned in.

Had it not happened
that I turned to the side,
the bullet would have pierced
the back of my head.

I follow myself, watching
myself in thought,
wondering how to describe
the perspective from
which I observe myself.

At the same time,
the rotations have sufficed—
the first and the second—
turning toward her,
then standing upright,
my turning of the small sign,
cut from thick cardboard—
be right back.

Evidently, each turn
gives rise to its own reality—
in turning on,
turning over, turning toward,
being turned away
by the turn,
turned over and turned toward—

had it not happened
that I turned to the side,
the bullet would have pierced
the back of my head.

As it is,
it only grazes the bridge
of my nose,
tears the skin—
the wound barely bleeds.

The passage
from the bridge of the nose
to the forehead
is only lightly supplied
with blood.

I follow how the bands of light unfold, how the dust dances across the bands of light. Sometimes I start. I see myself start. For a moment I close my eyes. The darkness behind my eyelids, in which the outer forms appear in their reversal, is not the place from which I see myself. I am standing behind the counter. I am wearing a white apron. I see how I smooth out the folds, with a quick movement across my lower belly, about a hand’s breadth away from the edge of the counter. I open my eyes, let my gaze wander along the shelf, past the tins, fruit like pears and apricots cut into pieces on the right-hand side of the shelf, on the left the vegetable tins: artichokes, beans, corn…

Movement itself—
imagined
from one point to another,
the arbitrary surfacing
and vanishing
of the coordinates it
brings into being—
is no intermezzo, but
rather the
everyday form of
generation
and of bearing witness.

Leaning over me,
she brushes
her cauliflower curls
across my chest.

I see the back of her head,
her body,
as she crouches before
me on all fours,
like an animal,
as I plant the trunk of my
testimony in her,
clear the forest,
plow the field,
dig trenches,
raise structures—
huts, barns, palaces, factories—
only for the scene
to collapse
in the very next instant.
I sink down beside her,
exhausted.

Leaning over me,
she brushes
her cauliflower curls
across my chest.

The sounds she makes—
I cannot hear them.
The half-light swallows her in an instant.

If we were walking side by side
through the streets,
in Vienna or Venice,
I could hear that she is sitting beside me,
that the silence—
the one that followed the sequence
of her rising,
the rustle, the sweep, the brushing
motion
with which she piled up her hair
and, in one swift movement,
bound it into a wave about to crest—
will not last long,
no longer than it takes
to move from the edge of the bed to
the window,
where she pauses,
gazing down
at the street alive with night.

In the act of looking out,
the wave dissolves,
floods the room,
rushing toward me.

I hear her ask
if I’m all right.
I smile,
see myself smiling at her
as I place the cauliflower on the scale.

I see myself lying beside her.
I see myself lying on top of her.
I see how she parts her lips,
then closes them again.
I hear myself say:
I’m going to be a father.
And hear her reply:
That’s wonderful—
boy or girl, no matter—
congratulations.

To your three nearly grown
daughters,
a boy—
a male heir,
a little prince—
wouldn’t that be something?

I see myself smile, nod,
ask: How are you?
Are you happy?

She nods,
her face turned to the window.
She says she, too,
will have a child
as soon as her husband’s
promotion
is assured—
in a year or two.

I see that I have weighed the
cauliflower,
written the price down on the pad,
wrapped it in newspaper.

When is it due?
In a few hours—
perhaps he is already here,
my son.

I see myself lying beside her.
I see myself lying on top of her.
I see how she parts her lips,
then closes them again.

Unconsciously, I held my breath.
I see myself turning toward
the customer
who has just entered,
balancing a large
cauliflower on one hand,
while with the other
she closes the door behind her—
then immediately
grasps the cauliflower with
both hands again,
as it had begun to sway
dangerously
when held with only one,
which triggered a tension in me,
a kind of freezing.

Unconsciously, I held my breath.

I know this woman.
Her hairstyle—
the way she’s piled up those
artificial,
white-blond curls—
is not unlike the cauliflower
itself.

She used to wear her hair down.

She smiles at me.
I see myself smiling back.
A back-and-forth kind of smile,
lasting several seconds.

She used to wear her hair down.

She smiles at me.
I see myself smiling back.
A back-and-forth kind of smile,
lasting several seconds
which triggered a tension in me,
a kind of freezing.

Unconsciously, I held my breath.

The darkness behind my eyelids,
where outer forms appear
in reverse, is not the place
from which I see myself.
I am standing behind the
counter.

I wear a white apron.
I follow how the strips of light
unfold,
how the dust dances above them.
Sometimes I flinch.

I see myself backing up.
For a moment, I close my eyes.
I watch myself
smoothing out the folds,
a swift motion
across the abdomen,
about a hand’s width from
the counter’s edge.

I open my eyes,
let my gaze drift across
the shelf—
past the canned goods:
on the right, fruits—
pears and apricots, sliced
into pieces;
on the left, vegetables in tins—
artichokes, beans, corn.

I follow how the strips of light
unfold,
how the dust dances above them.
Sometimes I flinch.
I see myself backing up.
For a moment, I close my eyes.