Elfriede Jelinek - Wonderful Wonderful Times

RAINER'S AND ANNA'S rooms are separated by a thin DIY partition wall which lets everything from one side through to the other and back, teenagers simply don't have any privacy. You can't develop without the other one noticing and developing too. Today, for instance, Anna develops a physical appetite for Hans, and lo, in two shakes Rainer has his ear to the wall that keeps them apart, to pick up tips he can put to use with Sophie. Though no one's meant to realise that he still has anything to learn. Because, you see, in their teens youngsters invariably believe that no one can teach them anything. Naturally Sophie is somewhat different from his sister, Sophie is destined to become his loved one, who at a certain age takes the place of a brother's sister. It is to be hoped that the changeover will take place on time and the young man will cut his ties with the parental home without any harm being done.

Get undressed, I want to have you right now (Anna). Then I'll listen to the new record afterwards, okay (Hans). By now the act has been practised a number of times and goes more smoothly than it did at the outset. First some foreplay is performed and then you force an entry into Anna and rummage about inside as in a drawer of old socks when you're looking for the second of a pair. Don't pound away like a moron. Sensitive, sophisticated friction's what's called for. What I often can't say with my mouth because I'm totally speechless with rage, I express with my heart and my whole body (Anna, neurotically). Lips are silent, violins whisper: love me tender. And Hans whispers, hey, this is great, Al, and it'll be even better, just think how long we've been waiting for it, any moment you'll scream with desire and honk like a ship's siren.

Lying on his side, Rainer absent-mindedly studies himself in the blotchy mirror on the wall; today as so often he is practising having no expression and showing none. He practises keeping his face frozen and impassive so that people cannot detect any changes of mood outside, on the facade, and adapt their responses to those changes. His aunt often says that nothing satisfies him, not even his parents, who make such sacrifices, in fact he is satisfied with them least of all, although they are extremely pernickety with the kids, in front of strangers too. He only wants to listen to the very latest jazz records and is neither undemanding nor modest. Don't imagine he wears just any ordinary shoes! Not him! All he wears are winklepickers, which ruin your feet. And he won't wear the trousers from his old confirmation suit either, oh no, it has to be jeans. Since pocket money has to be saved (his parents might as well keep it themselves and have done with it), one has to go begging to Grandma or the aforementioned aunt for money to buy jeans, which means running errands, which robs one of one's personal dignity and practically forces one to assault and robbery, what alternative is there? Right now Rainer has no alternative either, he simply has to listen to Anna shouting more more more and yesyesyesthat'ssogood and to Hans burbling Jesus, Anni, you've got a great cunt and fanny. Which rhymes. Hans says you ought to be able to do this all the time and it's a pity that it's only possible at rare intervals. He'd be up to it any time, it's her parents that are the problem. Is that my sister, who I know like the back of my hand, uttering those noises? wonders her brother, and stares expressionlessly into his mirror, mirror on the wall.

Promptly he sits down at his desk and in spite of himself writes down a boast on a scrap of paper, a boast he is going to spread about the class tomorrow. To the effect that his parents flew to the Caribbean only recently, where they got a terrific tan and met some interesting fellow-travellers. They went swimming the whole time and walking along a white beach beside a blue sea, they went surfing a lot too. On the outward and return journeys they travelled by aeroplane. I am telling you this in writing because it is a means of communication that is very much my own, I feel an urge to tell you things this way, even if they're meant to be secrets. Rainer has no friends, alas, only mates. Still, even mates can be told this story about the Caribbean.

Next door Anna gives a great howl, it sounds revolting, one's mind may be on the same wavelength as hers but one's body isn't, her inarticulate scream of desire sticks to one like pine resin, it goes: Ahhhhhh, now! Presumably he's squirting his juice into her at this very moment, that strapping Goliath. And she even accepts that crap he's dumping inside her, she will put to organic use what others waste and wash their hands of, secretly washing out the sullied sheet with cold water. One can never bring a schoolmate home because home both looks and is disgusting. One is ashamed of one's ancestral home. Now Rainer is writing yet another lie, a love poem to Sophie, which is a subtle process. The title is Love, and it continues in the same clueless way because one is confined within one's limits. Love, then. I see your face before me night and day. Carissima… that was how the letter began in which I confessed my love for you… Blushing, you heard me swear my love. Kisses… I kissed your red lips, candles were burning beside us, we gazed into the bright flames and the crystal glasses. Where are you supposed to get crystal here, the only glass in this place is in spectacles, there's nothing but battered old cups. As for Rainer, the facial expression is still under control.

In the adjoining room, which is no more than a closet, Hans is grunting gibberish, Hans who is no more than a jerk, a jerk of the first order. The stupidity of it must really be getting too much for his sister, that is presumably why she is making no reply. His sister, who reads Bataille in the French original. Though at present the latter seems to have slipped her memory altogether. The wall of Rainer's den (a 'young person's room'), like most of the walls in this poor persons' flat, consists of unwieldy objects stacked high, because nothing is ever thrown away, all manner of junk which may be of some value after all or may become valuable some day in goodnessknowshowmany years. In his direct line of vision there is an old refrigerator, the door of which was removed by some heartless person years ago. Inside it are apples, a piggy bank, an old clock with only one hand, several pairs of glasses (no longer used), a flower pot, sundry cleansing agents, cutlery in a plastic tray, a razor, various toiletry articles in a brightly-coloured plastic bag, an ashtray, a purse with nothing in it, several tattered books, one or two maps for long walks, and a china bowl with a sewing kit. Inside Rainer's head the sea is roaring, and tanned feet, attached to slender legs, race into aforesaid sea, the feet belong to Sophie, and the second pair of feet, also tanned, which now enter the field of vision are Rainer's and likewise enter the salt water. All are equal before the Sea, rich and poor alike. The business of swimming can be taken for granted because in this daydream the watery element is as acceptable to Rainer as the dry element he normally inhabits.

Oooooh, cry Hans and Anna in unison, which is not a particularly intelligent comment on the situation, in Rainer's opinion. Doubtless Hans is now looking her in the face and noting that said face looks really wowed. In an old cardboard suitcase there is a bayonet, which is also old, dating from the First World War. It is a precious souvenir and the blade is 25 cm long. Which is plenty. It needn't be any longer. Rainer would like to be photographed by Anna holding this bayonet, for a lark. He would hold it the way you hold a rapier in fencing, but it would look awkward, that's for sure, because he always looks a little silly if he doesn't happen to be talking about philosophical problems. At present the bayonet is peacefully resting in the container intended for it, the suitcase. Along with it are broken toys, a slide projector for showing holiday slides which were never taken because there were never any holidays either, and a pile of pieces of felt. In his interior world, Rainer has already detached himself completely from this family; in the outside world he will detach himself by assaulting and robbing innocent people.