Elfriede Jelinek - Wonderful Wonderful Times

Right now he is a poor thing and in the hands of his chauffeur son. You're my very own boy, she couldn't manage a second, couldn't Gretl. These men are always taking pornographic pictures of your mother, I'll show them to you some time, they're the filthiest things you've ever seen. If it weren't for the fact that strange men took the dirty stuff, I'd say the photos weren't altogether without artistic merit, but these other men are simply lecherous and that renders the effect null and void. Ugh.

The son grinds his jaws and says nothing, defending Mummy is pointless because Pop will only attack her all the more violently. He'll calm down. Rainer's knuckles stand out white on the wheel as if they were going to split through the skin. The only thing that helps is thinking of Sophie, whom he can't see today because of Papa and his wanderlust. One hopes she won't be giving any other young man the eye. They wanted to have a long talk about Camus, about his book on absurdity and obsession, but now they can't talk at all because the woods are beckoning seductively and asking: Where are you from? The city? Then this is the place you want, this is the place for country matters.

His son's silence turns Father nasty and he accuses him of incest, have you screwed your Mama too, when I was out slogging my guts out for all of you?

Stray villages make their appearance by the road and then fall behind again, with regrets because they haven't been chosen for lunch, because a different village has been chosen. In terms of quality, Zwettl is not much better, though it is bigger and situated by a reservoir. At last it appears and makes a good impression, one it frequently practises. It even has a monastery to offer, called Stift Zwettl, which they don't take a look round because you can't expect it of a war invalid. On Sundays the town is resting and jolliness is rampant. Father and son eat a good schnitzel with a cucumber side-salad and a beer each. They are shrouded in the rural earthiness of a real ethnic pub. Father is already flirting with a strapping dark-haired can't-be-more-than-mid-twenties at the next table, all on her own, he buys her a wedge of Sachercake with a particularly large dollop of cream and a glass of wine to go with it. A coffee to follow. The girl gives a high-pitched giggle. Eh, schones Fraulein, how about it, you and me (better than all alone!), even if I'm disabled, I can still stand on my own two feet, or one as the case may be, I'm still a man. Giggle giggle cackle. She comes over to Papa's table, Papa pays for a couple of liqueurs, a kiss with love, advocaat with raspberries and cream. They are expensive and taste terrible. Papa has already bought her that much. The son will be throwing up any moment. Father ruins the fat woman's bee-hive hair-do, grabbing the bird's nest, may I, hoho. You may, sir, heeheehee. The girl scrutinises the son, who looks the student type. The son fixedly scrutinises the synthetic curtains at the window with their enormous pattern. The invalid scrutinises what has been waiting for him and him alone beneath the dirndl skirt all these years. His hand shoves up to dark heights. Meanwhile his son is in those loftier altitudes where he composes poetry: Here you pitch and toss, pale scraps in the depths. I am the great relief, crying out for itself. My dwelling place is all the images of the day after tomorrow.

Father anchors his other hand in her cleavage, where things are full to turning, they'll be thrown out any second now, every one of them. But the landlord, who like Father fought in the War and was an illegal party member in the old days too, stops by in jovial mood with drinks on the house. Whenever Father is offered something free he doesn't say no. He is already a little merry and cracks a pretty naughty joke: is the lass old enough to go on the game yet, she's too stupid for it, that's for sure. Screech cackle cackle. Perhaps you could teach me a thing or two, sir. There's nothing you don't know, but if anyone can still teach you anything, it's me. Hawhawhawhaw. Heeheehee.

The jolly party breaks up, though not before the question whether the boy has done it yet has been asked, or hasn't he ever, is he allowed? Father proudly says yes and declares that he coached him himself. But Rainer never has done it, which only his sister is permitted to know, because his talk says the exact opposite. To hear him talk you'd think he'd already slept with any number of girls goodness knows how many times, only for Rainer to have to abandon them all too soon. These things are indicative of Rainer's minimal social adjustment. He lies like a book. And he reads a lot of books.

Books are where people get their lies. Better to have a son serving an apprenticeship than a lying son at grammar school.

Bye-bye waves the girlie's little mitt. Her name is Frieda and she works in a sugar refinery. All's foul that ends foully. I'd have laid her easy as pie, wouldn't have needed more than a finger and something else, drools Papa, and he shoves his hand down the top of his Sunday trousers, which are freshly pressed though they won't be for much longer. Inside the trousers he moves his busy fingers, which haven't done any real handiwork for a long while, the last time was during the War with intent to kill. Now they're doing the very opposite. Father strikes his member in order to cause an ejaculation. This will bring him relief after his good lunch and no doubt he will then fall silent and asleep. But right now he still feels the need to report on the quality of women's pussies, which are sometimes moist and wide-open and at other times dry and tight so that you have to expand them first. Listen carefully, my boy. Whatever else, he has to stand up straight, otherwise none of it's any use, like this fellow here, isn't he a splendid specimen? A red mushroom cap spies inquisitively out, perhaps it'll all hit the windscreen with a splash and have to be wiped off.

Rainer keeps his own puke down, it doesn't taste as good as before when the schnitzel was still intact and undigested. This wretch does all of this with my mother, he thinks. And she has to put up with it as a marital obligation. And I still want to do it with Sophie, though with her it'll all be completely different.

Father picks up speed and breathes deeply. At fairly regular intervals a beery belch or even one of those farts Rainer particularly dreads fills the old banger. Rainer steers the vehicle down minor roads towards the reservoir, Nature is coming menacingly close, opening wide a yawning chasm to drag him down. The green's growing dazzling and dangerous. So much green. Like a vast hollow made of spinach. Father's wrist is working away ambitiously, he undid the top button back at the pub and now undoes others. You have to have room to manoeuvre. Father is approaching his climax at top speed and his son the reservoir likewise. The reservoir lies deserted in the feeble afternoon warmth, it is still far too cold to go swimming, you can't do that till summer. Father gives his son a man-to-man look. The son does not return his gaze but stares straight ahead. Light is mirrored on a ruffled surface. The water murmurs in amazement: What, it's this cold and you want to come in? A pair of wild ducks lift off, flapping and spraying. Sauve qui peut, it's familiar enough and no one wants to die too if some jerk takes his own life. The trees rustle as one man.

Now we're both going to die together, horrible, thinks Rainer, putting his foot down, and instantly the engine, which is relatively feeble but still powerful enough, starts to roar. Have you gone crazy, boy? The water's surface beckons, keen to embrace them. At last something's happening for a change at this dreary time of year. It's very deep here because the water has been dammed up artificially. Nature cannot always come up with dangers of this kind on its own. The gravel on the shore squeals in agony. With a scream the springtime landscape swings round and waves a stop sign. Stop! No going past this point. Danger. Millions of tiny creatures are run over, their faint warnings fall silent. Somewhere or other a watchdog barks, it has no freedom and has never known what freedom is because it has always been on a chain. It doesn't pine for the unknown. A peasant with chickenfeed in her apron gawps at them. The juices are beginning to rise in the grass because it senses the approach of summer. The water's edge surges towards them to welcome them, well well, today of all days, and we were thinking nothing was going to happen. Air-borne creatures drone on, flying low, but cannot be heard above the noise of the car engine.