Elfriede Jelinek - Greed

We at any rate go back: routine search for a missing person. Computers go through their extensive collections of data and induce people who in reality have never met to come together, possibly fatally, on screen. Where have all the sex offenders of the district got to? Here they are, they're already waiting in this machine, waiting to be consumed by the state, which of them have we released recently and which not, which child-murderers are being protected by the federal government again and inexorably pursued by our Jorg for their whole lives, no, not by this federal government, by the other one. Who has not yet been put in prison for life and castrated and/or killed beforehand? There are a couple in this district, but it's not many, even including the well-known exhibitionists, who, at least in the early stage of their hobby, are harmless. We'll check up on them anyway, so we've got something to do before we go for something to eat or go off duty. But the girl will turn up again anyway, that's for sure. We'll make sure that it happens as quickly and unbureaucratically as possible and that she won't be altogether used up, the girl, when she is picked up, like a remark someone has made, quick before we forget it, before it has to withdraw and finally change completely, like the water in the lake. I see no sign of anything similar at the moment. I soothe my agitation about murderers; the environmental regulations will have to be kept to, no, we don't pee up against public trees and bushes, and nor do we pee in bus shelters or against the walls of other people's houses, this legal instrument, no idea which, serves to reduce regional disparities economically and ecologically, that is, at some point, some day, everything will be in proper order again in the plant and animal kingdom, and whatever doesn't belong to us: away with it, whatever does belong to us: bring it back immediately, we need it, quick march! Our Gabi is one of us, a native from the diversity of complex living creatures, no, from the complex diversity of all living creatures and animated nature. But we can't yet really imagine that she has already become part of inanimate nature, we need a picture of it. Where to get one, without stealing it. That a knockout of a girl has been knocked out of nature's plan, one of those in any case ultimately destined to be brace-wearing angels, yes, even they have to be given a helping hand, so that in the chorus or as soloists they look smart, well, knockouts: knocked out, but yet not so soon, hm, that the permanent balance between living creatures and dead and with it the ecosystem, is upset. So we don't want to have to imagine anything so horrible. Not this time. But the next time. Millions of living creatures may have disappeared, OK, we're completely used to that, but just one, that's not right, she should have someone to take along, let's see, who's still available. We always have, e.g., harmful organisms on offer, and what are we going to do with them now? We make sure that the economic harm is kept to a minimum and that the harm to nature is likewise as far as possible kept to a minimum. We are careful with nature's household but are not careful with our own household, for that we buy the new cleaner with antibacterial additive that will kill 99 percent of all known bacteria for you, but that last one percent, that's the problem. And because it feels it has a problem, something that can destroy more than it disturbs, it wants to let that out too at last, what are one's talents and abilities for, after all? As already said, one can destroy or create something. This one bacillus, this undesirable alien, which was left alive, can now multiply undisturbed because it doesn't have any competition anymore, and can make the most of its abilities. So we'll give this infant a nice new inflammation of the lungs, and this driving school pupil, who never washes his hands, a good dose of gastro-enteritis. Yesyes, chemical cleaning agents should basically only be used carefully and selectively where absolutely necessary, but preferably not at all. This individual girl, who did not remain alive, fell victim to a selectively acting murderer, who does not, however, want to be seen as such, only if it were absolutely necessary, because someone wants to see his ID (but his colleagues all know who he is! They buy watches and jewelry from him in a special gray area and think no more about it), and who was pursuing higher goals. No, I don't know all his goals. Information will be gratefully received. Ownership in itself is no grounds for complaint, unless someone wants to dispute it. That would then be grounds for an action for disturbance of possession, who knows how that will end, it all depends on the lawyer. What if in spring the leaves slip out for a visit, and then someone tears them off? Will there then be no spring? Which property in any case are you talking about, for heaven's sake? There is one admittedly, but it doesn't belong to one yet. At this point in time the property is still hidden by a woman, who is now (if it were permissible, I would say: She has pulled herself down over her eyes, so that passersby don't recognize her immediately) loitering in her open house door and sulkily lowering her face because once again a man has not come to the agreed rendezvous and has in any case probably frequently deceived her recently. The sex is right admittedly, it's the way she wants it and no other way, but preferably another way But otherwise quite a lot is going badly, which we shall have to sort out. The worst version of the truth goes: This man cannot have loved her, because one does not send someone one loves to their ruin. Or does one? No, it can't be. Because whoever or whatever one loves, one always puts it in the refrigerator for a quick between-meal snack, if one's not hungry anymore. Because after all, one doesn't want it to spoil and have to be thrown away. One stores the beloved person away, so that tomorrow and the day after tomorrow one can still eat of his wonderful body. Jesus. Oh, none of you were there in the nights! That's something I've often said. It can't be that he's been deceiving me for a long time with a younger woman. If one were to ask: Which of us is older, how our polycolor-impregnated heads would sink! She had often wanted to leave him, the woman, but the idea immediately made her ill. She was thinking of making another choice soon, if she had one, thinks the woman in middle age and glances down a street populated loudly but unharmoniously by women shopping, mothers with buggies and small children in Wellington boots, so truly the gray main road is no harmonium. Time is short. And she in turn uses her elbows, the woman, she just isn't quite as young anymore as she has made herself, because unfortunately only the dear lord God is allowed to make one. A man. Naturally. Rub things out in one's passport, who would do something like that! Dagmar Koller, wife of the former mayor of Vienna, will do it, but be caught.

In the meantime the need for action has become very urgent, but the last time someone else acted, who discovered her in her car at a crossroads, stopped and gutted her without even giving her local anaesthetic. Everything was taken out of her hands. Who could suspect it. We need something in writing. So sooner or later we go to the notary. The people who now want to act, no matter how and with what, they get first choice, and they choose someone they like. He tells the truth, is decent, sporty, clean and energetic and stands out from someone whom they just don't like so much, although he, too, is decent, sporty, clean, and energetic. But unfortunately one can't tell by looking at him. Fortunately only someone is chosen about whom you can tell everything by looking, above all, that he is steady on his feet, but he stands or sits even more steadily in his Porsche. The decent and able. The hard-working, too. What is their secret? I don't know, otherwise I would pass it on. Perhaps we want to be deceived, because we are constantly deceiving everyone, that is, if we get the opportunity. This woman for example has had herself sterilized, which she candidly confesses, although now she couldn't have any children anyway. She doesn't want children and has never wanted them, since she herself is a child and wants to be like a child for the man. Another child would always only have got in the way. The other, Gabi, herself hardly more than a child, also did nothing but get in the way. Which is the proof. Of what? For whom? No matter who it is, at the moment one sets the life and the soul of the party on him, and already he's off to the carnival at Villach or looks at it on TV and feels altogether at home in this country. Others live in the lake, no, you can't say that Mme. Author, if someone is sleeping in a lake that doesn't at all mean that they're living there. Didn't you see the rubber dinghy? It lives in an attic room with photos on the walls, baby animals and pictures of models, both of them public and private projects, it just depends who is making use of them and what he is exploiting them for. Exploitation is the main thing, in order to feel good oneself, simply fantastic. Every glittering snowflake tumbling down insensibly would say that of itself, while it's still in the air, it's looking forward to the soft landing, and then it's already melted. Not even a hot stone was needed.