Elfriede Jelinek - Greed

Mr. Janisch would prefer to move into one of the houses that are already there, then he would have two of them, his son would also have his (not quite, the old woman, to whom it belongs, is still alive, please don't forget to bring her no flowers! Not until her funeral will some be handed to her, from the garden naturally, what do we have one for), Mr. Janisch Jr. wants to do some rebuilding then, but that can wait. There's still another person living inside, a person one can't simply take out of it like jam out of the jar. The people here owe the mountain countless unpleasant hours, and as far as dirty tricks are concerned it is in constant competition with the lake. The lake gets something tipped into it which doesn't agree with it, the mountain has thrown off its magic wood and has become a threat to people, settlements, and buildings; it is a wood with an excellent effect on public welfare, so let us set up a welfare committee, not to cut it down, but to keep out the water and the stones and to break off dolomite and other nonsense, but this wood has not kept its promise. It didn't keep the stones to itself, that would certainly have been a feat, since there are so many. And below it, too, there are shocking scenes taking place, a house slips into the depths, and nothing but the balconies with their floral decorations are peeping out, we're enchanted by them, so much beauty in such a small space! It's just being photographed now, before it disappears. Look, the tree up there, it's interesting, too: Its root fibers reach desperately into the air, will they manage to catch hold of the piece of earth that's sledging down to the valley there, but already the whole tree itself is toppling over, and in the air in which its root ropes are waving around it won't even catch a midge, in the air there's no support anymore.

Nice and warm today, but the days are still rather short. It'll come. They're already stretching their limbs. Spring awakens. A girl's room in an attic is empty. The whole business, the dream-heavy feelings behind drawn curtains, at the edge of a precipice, is not the routine case, which it will appear to be for a couple of days, it is not a case at all yet. A young woman is missing, it is assumed she has not been able to resist the wide world, the district capital, yes, the one with the big hospital, in which people die of cancer, which they were unable to show to a doctor of their choice in time-people never have time for the essentials, and if they do, then they wouldn't know which ones and which kind-it is assumed, therefore, the young woman has presumably been unable to resist the world beyond the village and simply hasn't come home for a night. Didn't feel like it. A vanished young beauty, a lost light. Don't panic, beauty is untouchable, just try to catch hold of this beautiful swan, then you'll soon see! Beauty is untouchable, it's for our eyes only, so that we all get something from it, not only the gentlemen who climb over marble cliffs in order to get to know Naomi Campbell or Cindy Crawford personally. Gabi Fluchs will pop up unexpectedly, but she will be most urgently awaited by her mother and her boyfriend. She can be here at any moment. We'll start waiting now. So, early in the morning her mother waits with the familiar comfort of a cup of white coffee and a sandwich with either sausage or cheese, usually with both. Then, as every day, the daughter is supposed to catch the bus, the stop can be seen from the living room window of the detached house, or the train, but the daughter doesn't see why her mother always has to be gazing after her as she does so. Plants bloom in these troughs, too, and reach out cheekily to the shiny windows, until they can get a hold and look into the room, but why then do they so persistently and stupidly turn their heads away to the other side, to the flashing sun? Perhaps they looked too deeply into the window glass? Why do we not want to see what is evident and would interest us; what forces us to constantly incline our heads to the other side? On the other side are the people who should be our models, beautiful and good humored. And we are here.

The sun entices us out there. What, the Worthersee is somewhere else altogether? It can't be! We don't believe it! Well, it doesn't matter, stranger, we'll just drive there. How good it feels, the sun shower. Do we, too, have to find out something that to know would certainly not make us feel so good? We have to see, we won't give up, what others want to obscure: They use sweet smiling cats' faces for that, or stylized portraits of dogs stuck to the windows of cars, and for this purpose alone: to keep off some of the light, to stop the glare. Early in the morning Gabi always thought she looked so pretty in front of the shiny bathroom mirror, and she was, too, remembers her mother. Getting up ten minutes early to put on make-up, that will perhaps get her one hour's pleasure, later, again and again, but not until later (that's the point of pleasure, that one can't consume it right away, first pay at the checkout of the drug store!), and yet she always smiles herself into a good mood again in the mirror, our Gabi, who's an apprentice in a big building materials company. All of it without success. She's hardly started. But the sun has already risen for her, no one can be brighter than it, and the thousand pieces that the atom has ordered for itself in order to enter into competition with them, nothing can be brighter than this sun, except sometimes a human face, which in the end one still doesn't like, for one reason or another. But one is too dazzled to notice. So we'll just leave the face to the one it belongs to. It won't suit him either, it didn't even suit Socialism, which took it off right away and put the old one on again. Then Socialism was content again for a few years with what it was familiar with.

So, how can we help up to its feet this ground, which is just rushing down towards us, down the mountain flank, and promptly landing on its nose, not on ours, please? This nice, comradely mountain-also a face which has fallen and no one wants to help up. The mountain has dropped its mask. Now it already looks different from how it did a little while ago, when it was still whole. Perhaps houses will even have to be evacuated? Watch out, that could mean loss of homeland and lead to critical situations! I wish I could plan an early warning system, but would need help, so that the life of these people here could be maintained to the same high standards they are used to, inclusive of the deep freeze cabinet, into which at least one whole deer would fit if it were foolish enough to go into it. And also inclusive of a glazed conservatory, in which things could very well be a bit more exotic, if we had been sent the appropriate catalog, which we ordered on the phone.

The mountain remains unpredictable, again and again it throws off its debris, which has grown too heavy for it, it has to relieve itself. Last year's avalanche alone, thank you very much, it need not have been so generous, that first the slope slips down, and then all the rock follows. Austria. Just as during the holidays visitors have been getting to know it from above, so for centuries and millennia, mines have been getting to know it from below, at every level. The country's top side and its underside are well trodden. The country exists as positive and negative, depending on where one finds oneself, at the moment unfortunately we hear more about the negative. Why do I always only see the negative, I am admonished. I don't know either. Perhaps I don't know the country well enough, so as to be able to do justice to its good sides. One can be shut up inside the mountain, no I wouldn't like to get to know this country from the inside at all, the outside is already enough for me. We have mining to thank for all that, for being so hollow. You probably think, the doors always open when you hammer on them with your fist? A mistake. Right now you're sitting in the mine cage at the bottom, and while up above the rubble is breaking away from the mountain and howling and raging the mud is coming to visit, you yourself are smashed to pieces down there, and no one will ever see you again. Someone should have taken care of it, the mountain, shielded it from human beings, instead it turned into a shield somewhat full of holes for them. The thunderstorm came, a thundering and roaring as if from a thousand express trains arose, yes, exactly, as if, let's say, rather: five hundred trains are pulling out at the same time. Ordinary mortals were frightened to death, and the rest did then really die, it's true, you can read it up in many other places, if you don't believe me. I think of the big hit that God had with these dead, who will be in the papers for years, but he wasn't on target. The mountain wouldn't have helped me, nor anyone else either. No one helped it, although it was put in our care, and what did we do to it? We hollowed it out completely, disembowelled and made what I don't know what out of its innards. This and many another mountains have been ground down into baby powder, is that not unbelievable? The big doesn't remain big, it is as if it's made for whatever's small. We've already said a lot, perhaps too much, about the water, but we will no doubt be able to say a great deal more about it, when one day it's finished with you. Nature is as romantic as a human being, both want to have a nice experience and can, too, but a human being moves in a larger radius. This missing girl, Gabi, likewise had no end of care, but you see how deceptive such protection can be; you'll understand when the storm comes and you're left standing in the rain with nothing to shield you. All right, all right, I will stop, but not yet.