Mouthful of Birds(19)
“Have a seat, please. Make yourself at home.”
The man and woman begin to eat, satisfied. Gruner sits with them, his plate also heaped with food. He knows that, outside, the cold is damp and inhospitable, and he also knows he has lost another battle, since he wastes no time in raising the first forkful of an exquisite chicken sausage to his mouth. But the food doesn’t guarantee he’ll get out of this station soon.
“Is there a reason you won’t sell me a ticket?” asks Gruner.
The man looks at the woman and asks for dessert. From the oven emerges an apple tart that is soon cut into equal slices. The man and woman exchange a tender glance when they see how Gruner devours his portion.
“Pe, show him his room, he must be tired,” says the woman, and then the first mouthful of a second serving of tart stops en route to Gruner’s mouth, stops and waits.
Pe stands up and asks Gruner to come with him.
“You can sleep inside. It’s cold out there. There are no more trains until morning.”
I have no choice, thinks Gruner, and he leaves the tart and follows the man to the guest room.
“Your room,” says the man.
I’m not going to pay for this, thinks Gruner, at the same time as he sees that the two blankets on the bed look new and warm. He’s still going to lodge a complaint; the hospitality doesn’t make up for what happened. The couple’s conversation reaches him faintly from the room next door. Before he drifts off, Gruner hears the woman tell Pe that he needs to be more considerate, the man is alone and this must seem strange, and Pe’s offended voice replies that the only thing that wretch cares about is buying his return ticket. “Ungrateful” is the last thing that reaches his ears; the sound of the word fades gradually and is reborn in the morning, when the whistle of a train already passing the station wakes him up to a new day in the country.
“We didn’t wake you because you were sleeping so soundly,” says the woman. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Hot coffee with milk and cinnamon toast with butter and honey. While Gruner eats breakfast in silence, his eyes follow the woman’s steps as she cooks what will apparently be lunch. Then something happens. An office worker, a man with Asian features and dressed like Gruner, someone who is possibly taking the next train and has enough change for two tickets, comes into the kitchen and greets the woman.
“Morning, Fi,” he says, and with a son’s affection he kisses the woman on the cheek. “I’m finished outside. Should I help Pe in the field?”
Once again, the food that was moving toward Gruner’s mouth, in this case a piece of toast, stops halfway and hangs in the air.
“No, Cho, thanks,” says Fi. “Gong and Gill already went, and three are enough for the job. Could you get a rabbit for supper?”
“Sure,” replies Cho, and with apparent enthusiasm he takes down the rifle hanging next to the chimney and withdraws.
Gruner’s toast returns to the plate and stays there. Gruner is going to ask something but then the door opens, and in comes Cho again. He looks first at Gruner and then curiously asks the woman:
“Is he new?”
Fi smiles and looks affectionately at Gruner.
“He got here yesterday.
Gruner’s actions that first day are the same as those of everyone who has ever been in his situation. Hide away offended and spend the morning next to the office that sells tickets for a train that doesn’t come. Then, refuse to eat lunch, and in the afternoon, secretly study the group’s activities. Under Pe’s instructions, the office workers work the earth. Barefoot, their pants rolled up to the ankles, they smile and laugh at their own jokes without losing the rhythm of their tasks. Then Fi brings tea for them all, and the four of them—Pe, Cho, Gong, and Gill—signal to Gruner, who thought he was hidden, inviting him to join the group.
But Gruner, as we know, refuses. There’s no one more stubborn than an office worker like him. Held over from offices with no partitions, but with a telephone line all his own, he still has his pride when he’s out in the country, and sitting on a wooden bench, he struggles not to move all afternoon long. Even if no train comes, he thinks. Even if I rot right here.
The night gathers everyone together in the preparation of a warm family meal, as the lights of the house turn on one by one and the first aromas of what will be a great feast escape into the cold through the cracks under the doors. Gruner, his patience and pride attenuated by the passage of the day, gives up guiltlessly and accepts the invitation: a door that opens and the woman who, as on the previous night, invites him in. Inside, a familial murmur. Pe congratulates the office workers with brotherly slaps on the back. The workers, grateful for everything, set a table that reminds Gruner of the intimate Christmas celebrations of his childhood, and—why not?—of the capital’s happy civilization. A triumphant Cho—successful, satisfied hunter—serves up the rabbit. Pe and Fi sit at either end of the rectangular table. On one side are the office workers, and all alone across from them sits Gruner. At Gong’s and Gill’s constant requests he passes a saltshaker back and forth, though it is never actually used. Finally, Pe discovers eager smiles tinged with mischief on Gong’s and Gill’s childish faces, and with a call to attention he frees Gruner from the exhausting game so he can finally taste his first mouthful of the meal.
Over the following days Gruner tries out various strategies. The first thing that occurs to him is to bribe Pe, or even Fi, for change. Then, with tears in his eyes, he offers to buy the ticket to the city in exchange for all his money: “No change,” he begs, “keep it all,” he begs over and over again. And he listens desperately to a reply that speaks of a certain railroad code of ethics and the impossibility of keeping someone else’s money. Those are the days Gruner proposes to buy something from them. The amount of the ticket plus anything they want to sell him will be the sum total of his money—the perfect bargain. But no. And he has to bear the office workers’ stifled laughter, and then another family dinner.