Elfriede Jelinek - Greed

The country policeman, whom we actually wanted to describe before we slunk off behind a tree, has a special watch just for running and a pulse rate gauge and a solo gauge that cost a lot of money, oh no, that's not true, they're presents from a woman! With that he could feed one of these poor souls for a week, if he's keen on watches, and knows how to prepare them. The country policeman is informed about that, and his information is very modest: Once the water was still here, right below me. He knew his way around this geo-information system, this hiker and sportsman. This man of the law, his own law of course. Soil, water, forest were indispensable, like him they have an extremely complex range of duties and must not be mistaken as to what they should do when. Now unfortunately we've lost nature; when we were looking for it, it was a handy opportunity to set things right at the same time. The water belongs in the ground, the forest belongs on the ground, the water doesn't belong on top of the ground, and the forest doesn't belong in the water, otherwise the water overflows, I mean, comes over us. I constantly have to make such decisions with respect to politics, economics, and extraction techniques, with very far-reaching consequences, when I want to say something about nature. There's no other way of putting it, because nature doesn't exist anymore, so why should it suddenly come back? Just so that I can look at it a bit more closely this time? Nature is the opposite of something that has something to say to us, although it very often pleases us. That's why we now have to express it somehow, so that everything really does come out. At present nature is nowhere to be seen. Please hand me your efficient planning and decision-making outline, on this basis I shall then be able to write something entirely new about nature, should you in all seriousness expect that of me.

As a child the country policeman sometimes biked along the stream down in the valley with his father, while the water comfortingly bubbled up from the depths, only just arrived from the mountain heights, and still with the vigor of its origins fairly high up hopped over the stones, its own work, because all water comes out of itself, so it belongs to itself and no one else, and so we have stolen and used it, haven't we? or not? And the son also walked around with his father, I can still remember it myself. His father was friendly, sometimes even kind and protective like a hut up in the Alps, unlike the weather house, one never knows where one is with it, sometimes the girl is outside, then the boy, and it's impossible to decide which of the two one likes better.

There comes the nice thought, that one of them sits down on one's face with their naked buttocks, the legs hanging left and right over one's ears like a pair of cherries, and then sometimes one thinks involuntarily: rather the boy. There's more to him. Perhaps the character of the father, also a country policeman, was a bit lacking in color. If we're talking about water: To the son the father appeared dull, as if nothing recognizable could be reflected in him, as if his feelings had been impoverished under the pressure of his advancement and the constant performance of his duty, with which the former small farmer's son had to prove himself. Although everything was always there for the son when he needed it, it works like this: Sometimes pay no attention to the child, then again be strict with him, which is only fair, since for a long time one ignores the child whom one was raising up, until then it falls down the cellar stairs. Keep a close eye on the child, if possible frequently step on his toes so that his legs grow heavy. That will do him a great deal of good, because he will be able to recognize at an early age the difference in his father's behavior, in accordance with the Domestic Animal Husbandry Index. Behavior is fair to animals, if the following points have been addressed: possibility of movement, ground conditions, social contact, hutch or coop climate (air! light! God!) and intensity of care (teacher! cane! stone! scissors!). Points are awarded, and the score should really be higher than 25, if the child is to sit the test and his elders, who, as the word says, are older, are to pass it. As he walks past, the father nods absent-mindedly to you, so, he's not going to hit you, at least not for the next ten minutes. Perhaps he'll hit your mother, because he likes doing that more, but not you. Not yet, this time. Perhaps again the next time. Let's just wait and see. The father has died meanwhile, of cancer. Wasn't he still there, only yesterday, when he had his son read the signs of the shops in town as a reading exercise? The boy looks at what's displayed in the window, then he says the name of the shop. Wrong. But if one can't see it, it doesn't exist, does it? Even forests, though not of course those with a primary welfare function, because they are supposed to protect us, ward off dangers by crushing people, settlements, and buildings, which did not comply with official provisions or prohibitions, to pulp. Yes, they come down in person, the forests, if they've got into a rage. Who would have thought it of them? They're not sorry to make you suffer, when your house was standing on this spot just a moment ago! Was the father not nice to his son, who almost jumped as high as the father's parting when the latter deliberately stood on the boy's toes? The son should please raise his feet when he's walking! Not shuffle along like that on the gravel of the inn garden. When after all one only comes here once a month as a treat. If you think that's nice, then you might just as well regard the struggling bushes in my front garden as embellishments.

The father did well by his son, yet it was always as if he remained in a dazzling, far-off other place, blurred, and that's the way it should be. The child should look gratefully at a photograph of the father to discover his whereabouts: We've moved. New address-Row 14, plot 9. Then we don't need the child for one or two years, because his father is with God. It would be an unheard of event to be able to climb up a ladder for a piece of cheesecake or some other effeminate confection, for a man that's normally a trifling task, a trivial matter. By that I mean to say no more than, and why didn't I say it right away: Every child wants to admire his father, no matter for what, but one doesn't even get business support, no matter for what. The mother has to take care of the rest, that's more than I or anyone else could otherwise ever forget. In the case which unfortunately we have to deal with here (because it won't become healthy of its own accord, now I'll just try a root treatment), the mother was a secret red wine drinker, like so many women in this area. Where the waters don't simply briskly come marching along, but are always plunging down, as I already said, it's not so easy to catch hold of them, then there the wine is allowed to flow freely. The cheapest kind. So, we'll just keep this double measure in the kitchen bench, and then sit down. If we need it and can still stand up, we've got it right away, we just have to raise the lid. Surely our mother will still be capable of rifling her own supplies! The cupboard is big and full enough, particularly if one's seeing double, to open up, so that the whole wine in its bottle-green dress, like a lizard, can slip into her hands and in a flowing movement disappear into a mouth, always the same one. What distinguishes the mother-son relationship? A close relationship would be distinguished by warm-heartedness, understanding and other positive aspects, if such a relationship could be established. Now I have to step back a little, because ignorant as I am I only know about mother-daughter relations, and they, too, are not exactly caressed by the rising sun. At any rate they don't give me rosy cheeks. As a side-dish for everything, except unfortunately all too rarely above us: the sky of an indescribable blue, with sharply defined clouds moving across it and reflected in open, dragonfly-like, gleaming window leaves. A moment ago maternal nodding off drew streaks across the panes, although it's some years ago; stop, there's someone still moving there! I don't believe it! Mommy, you've wet yourself and made your body dirty while you were bedridden, says her son more or less to himself. He had meant not to think about it. To really look for something like it, he hadn't meant to do that either. And, because he seems to need to, he continues: I hope life will one day carry me on to someone who's worth it, someone who is at least as precious as the beautiful women coming from nowhere in the l'Oreal advertisements. Then again some women are not like mommy. They are more like climbing plants, which cover the wall of a house, hopefully their own, and if one only asks them firmly enough and fertilizes them decently, then they yield a crop, and I stand underneath and catch all the fruit, thinks the country policeman.