I.

She grabbed the cold metal handle and pushed against it with all the strength she had left after a restless night. When she finally fought her way outside, the brief sense of victory was instantly replaced by the shock of an icy wind that, within seconds, found its way into every hollow of her body. It blew and swirled hardest around her lower back. It felt completely bare, and with every step the cold bit deeper.

First, she had to struggle through the angular sentences of the crowded square. Today especially, every single word seemed to be carefully sounded out, while accents screeched from everywhere except the one place she longed to hear them. At the end of the narrow street, relief usually awaited her, but today not even the broad boulevard offered any. The government building seemed to fill her entire field of vision, its enormous windows growing larger with every metre. She lowered her eyes, broke into a run, and with her went a flock of old leaves that until then had been lying listlessly on the ground.

At the entrance, the revolving doors sucked her in. A blast of hot air slowed her down and eased her tension for a second, only making her more desperate to get there as quickly as possible. She took the stairs three at a time, and when the office door slammed behind her, she no longer had energy even to startle. But the moment she saw the bulky box in the middle of the oval oak table, which she had set out there the night before, she came instantly alive. She took off her coat, carefully washed and dried her hands, and pulled a pocketknife from her kidskin handbag. She cut through the cardboard in a way that made it squeal as much as possible, until all her teeth filled with the sensation that they wanted to pull themselves out, until she no longer had skin and fine hairs, but rather a relief of dots and countless little spines.

She loved that.

When she was finished, she snapped the knife shut with a loud click and pulled a bulky black bag from the box. She hefted it in both hands, then laid it on the surface of the large table surrounded by tubular chairs. She rinsed her palm, clammy from the plastic, with mineral water. Glistening drops ran down her fingers and soaked into the thick carpet, whose red-and-green pattern stretched and contracted. Back and forth.

She breathed.

Then she cleared away the mess, sat down at the table directly opposite the bag, and lit a cigarette. She blew the smoke through her nose and let her taut back collapse for a moment against the chair behind her. She opened the pocketknife again and ran the pads of her fingers over its handle. Two tiny pins held the polished bone in place beneath the dark Damascus-steel blade. She wiped it on her glasses cloth until it was perfectly clean, stood up and pulled the bag towards her.

She guided the tip of the blade along the sealed seam, refusing to stray even a millimetre. Her palm began to sweat and the spines returned. All at once. At the very first puncture, she recognised him with her nose. His scent kept her focused. She stripped away the plastic and threw it aside, closed the knife and settled herself on the tabletop beside him. She pulled on white cloth gloves and carefully spread him out across the lacquered wood.

When she saw him, she wanted to lie down on top of him.

She restrained herself.

II.

She woke like an instrument out of tune. But the moment she remembered what awaited her that day, every muscle immediately found its place. Excellent. Just the way I like it, she thought, danced into the kitchen and made herself a cold breakfast. Ever since she had brought him home, she preferred not to cook. She wanted the apartment to smell of him alone. From the dining table, she could see a narrow strip of hallway.

He was there. Waiting.

She traced her eyelids with thin black lines, chose a blush with a hint of orange for the day, swept her hair into a high ponytail and secured it at the back with pins. She pulled on slightly shimmering stockings and slipped into a discreet dress of fine silk.

The anemones outside suggested that the golden time was passing, but it wasn't over yet.

She put on comfortable wedge pumps and wrapped herself in him as though he were a soft dressing gown. Finally, she tied the belt into a firm knot and studied herself in the mirror for a long time. Through the silk, she could feel every fold of him as if against her naked body.

“You look, how shall I put it, like a doll,” her new suitor conceded when they met at the park gates.

“Thank you,” she said dryly and decided to forgive him for his rather poor vocabulary. 

They stepped into the sharp light of early spring, which was considerably warmer than she would have liked.

“Finally getting warmer. Winter here is endless,” the young man kept remarking. The more he stressed the point, the more irregularly her heart began to beat.

When they reached the café terrace, she sat down in the shade and let her suitor disappear inside the bistro. She was breathing heavily when he emerged with coffee, a redcurrant tart and a chocolate cake.

“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously as he set the contents of the tray down on a wooden table with wide gaps between the planks.

“I feel wonderful,” she said, smiling at him almost tenderly.

“When I was a child, I ate nothing but redcurrants. My parents were desperate.”

“I see you've never quite grown out of it,” she couldn't resist this time.

“No, that one's for you. I'll have this one. And here's your coffee.”

He pushed the cup towards her, but its rim caught on the edge of one of the gaps between the planks, tipping the entire contents onto the fox-fur collar across her chest.

III.

In the bathroom mirror, the stain was slowly turning into a large, clutching hand. She knew she mustn't use water, but rubbing it with chalk only made things worse. She tried treating it with baking soda, stroking and working at it, but the film of coffee only continued to spread. Exhausted by her failure, she eventually retreated to the living room and quietly slid into the bowels of the sofa.

When she woke in the morning, the fur collar was drawn tight around her neck. Among the smells of coffee, chalk and soda, milk was beginning to decay. She slowly got up and headed for the bathroom, where the stench was even stronger. It clung to her face, breasts and legs. Her hair was full of it, and when it entered her mouth and nose, she began to choke.

She was burning.

Her pores rose, stretched and contracted again. With damp fingers, she found the knot in the belt and tried to untie it, but she found stone instead. She blasted herself with water and scrubbed with shampoo. She soaked through and grew so heavy that she had to lie down at the bottom of the bathtub.

She had no strength to turn off the shower. Sharp needles kept striking her from above, and she could no longer distinguish their roar from her own moans. At last, by some miracle, she managed to stretch out one leg and snap the tap shut.

Then she fell into a heavy sleep.

When she woke, most of the water had drained away and she finally managed at least to sit up. Through her nostrils she drew in the remnants of steam mingled with molecules of all the other smells in the apartment.

Everything stank colossally.

Every smell she had ever battled in that hole of hers had intensified tenfold. It was unbearable. Bracing herself against the edge of the bathtub with all the strength she had left, she clawed her way out. The towel turned into a washboard in her hands, so badly did it hurt when she tried to dry herself. Her limbs, too, were beginning to fail her. The last thing she managed was to reach for some skin cream.

She touched her face and recoiled. In the middle of it, she felt something glossy, black at the tip and much rougher than her skin. Suddenly all her teeth filled with the sensation that they wanted to pull themselves out.

She gave her rump a flick and noticed that, for the first time in several months, she could no longer feel that hateful cold at her lower back.

On all fours, she made her way into the kitchen, jumped onto the windowsill and gazed outside for a long time.

The anemones suggested that the golden time was only about to begin.

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