Elfriede Jelinek - Greed

Basically everything can be done with women, it's as if they had done something wrong and wanted to be punished. And whatever has never been done with them, that's what they want to do more than anything else. That goes as much against the grain with men as sitting down at a piano and not being able to play. But it has to be, the pleasant comes with the useful, cheek comes with a certain behavior, a rebuke never comes because one doesn't even wait for it. One simply does it first. Afterwards it's done, and one isn't prepared to discuss it with the next woman, although she will likewise want to know all about it, whatever. With women, not even the obvious comes of its own accord, it first has to be explained and shown to them, once they've been surprised by a firm grip of breasts and sex organs. Oh, but that wouldn't have been necessary! I'm obedient, even without you bringing me these pralines, you can get them here in the Merkur Super Market, to which people hurry from afar with winged feet, I'm sure for less than what you paid for them. But after a while they already know in advance what to expect and open up already wearing the transparent dressing gown they got by mail order, or without it. With a little training even the age doesn't matter, even if one would prefer to train something younger. But the commonplace ones are at least modest in their requirements.

All of this costs men like Kurt Janisch time and money, in return they can deposit their worn-out furniture and exchange it for a three-piece suit, if they're lucky; please, there's still plenty of room inside me, the children are outside or have already left home, I'm happy to hold the little back room open for you so that it's not too much trouble. I'll also make a little room out of myself, if that's what's wanted, just for you, well, what do you say to that? I'm enthusiastic, because your spare room, in fact the whole apartment, is exactly what I've wanted for a long time. Now let's give it all a good scrub, agreed?

Those actions, however, to which one turns, when one has nothing to say, and a woman doesn't want to sign something precipitately without having read it, bring in even more time (when the woman is finally dead) and money, a good investment. It doesn't happen without an effort on the part of the policeman and his son, who, although still young, is already infinitely versatile. A man of many faces, a multi-Janus head, pumped up with synthetic vitamins, so that one doesn't see his features all that clearly anymore, yes, that's the sort of head the young man has on his shoulders. Just take a look at him, if anyone is capable of finding favor, then he is. The son is also very good with his hands and can do any amount of other work, apart from installing wiring. His father, however, comes first for him, and his father goes over dead bodies, which when they were alive had been a side-dish for his meat. Why then do the policeman and his son have nothing but debts? Why have they lost everything that they already had? I don't know. The father can advise us, the father can judge us and save us, so that we can always keep an eye on what's ours. I don't actually believe that it's the first time in the history of the Country Police force that one of its representatives will have done such good business with kind-hearted death, who only fetches his own, never strangers. Death fetches those he has already marked. In that he is like the forester. Normally these public servants trained in the use of firearms only shoot their families, and even then only when it is necessary, because the latter wanted to run away. Afterwards at any rate they're left with the houses and the ground. But then they only have their little upper story to themselves, and that's precisely what they take a shot at. If they survive it and haven't put themselves away at the same time, then later on they shoot themselves in the head.

Nonono, that's it, these two men have specialized in death. And the assets of death are a department store's worth of things that no longer need to be bought because they're part of the inheritance. And something like that happens right in front of our eyes, in the countryside, not far from a small town buzzing with excitement and risk and possibilities for sport and play, where everyone knows everyone else from the tennis court or the law court, if after a game, as so often, an argument has started, coarse, and with lots of words of abuse, where one belongs with one's acquaintances. Until one finds better ones. The district is bounded by its abrupt end. After that there's only the highway left and the highway right. The small town is like a pond, with water flowing in at one end and out at the other again. To leave this district behind is an achievement like crossing a river without horsepower. Curtains are lit up punctually, glances are exchanged, one gets worse glances for better ones or the other way round, that's business too, and no one does anything about it. The locals can certainly take, but only rarely do they take it any further.

Sooner or later all human beings are dead, that is their common fate. On the other hand it's not like in the city, where sometimes one doesn't notice right away when someone has died. More often than you would think, the doctor writing out the certificate is the only one still to get a look at you, so why make yourself pretty?, and in a city apartment block who would tell you what's happened to a traveling salesman, whose post is piled up to the top of the letter box? What has happened to a gentleman like that, where is his keeper and where on earth is there a keeper, who would protect one? Policemen always know where something's become vacant, their jobs didn't fall into their laps, they had a talent for it and like to set themselves down in a ready-made nest from which like the cuckoo they expel others whoosh, now we're all tied together and have to loosen a bond again and undo a knot. Death is man's fate, sadly there are all too many men before that. You can always rely on the police! But who really knows something about these barking keepers of the law, whose behavior amounts to impudence and at whom one is nevertheless not allowed to laugh out loud, otherwise one's in for it, and can reckon on a clip round the ears at least? One only has to step in as overbearingly as possible with one's inquiries, the Country Police Force, which knows everything, knows that; and in almost every second house there's a woman all alone, longing to let in anyone at all, if he only did come at last, then there would be two of us at least, and death perhaps comes along later, too. Then it gets really cozy. Before one can even promise the woman something (inspection of wiring, unblocking the drain, looking for the missing pet, etc.), something nestles youdidntseeathing into the hollow of one's hand, a head with soft hair, and you shoot out with, whether she would like to be taken from the front or back. The chatting rushes down the wires, it's not called foreplay yet, but that's still to come, and it's irksome because the neighborhood might hear. Then one looks at the woman, candidate for intercourse, everything all right? Is the hole closing up again or is it still wide open like a screaming mouth, because it's no longer used to being nailed, thrown down carelessly and not even decently stopped up? The head only learns to think to whom the apartment and the furniture actually belong when it's been almost cracked open. You belong to me now, says the country policeman in an ear, not quite in his right mind when he said it, but only one person hears it, you can always deny it. Do you have any objection? No heart is heartfelt when it has broken into a guarded house, and then one wishes for another body part that can stand up to more. Women are so ruled by their physical urges, you can't believe it. The things that occur to them and all the places they want to do it, you would have to have a map in your head like a cruise missile to have ideas like that; in the bath tub or on the kitchen table, that's still OK, but on the floor in the crucifix corner, good Lord, but it's cramped and dusty, God didn't want us to fuck around at his feet like worms, which he formed, like all of us, out of the dust, and he can't even get a good look, because he's nailed so tight up there! And how you get rid of it all again, that's a problem, too. Paper towel is the solution, but there's some who use sponges stiff with dirt or scraps of cloth from the kitchen sink. Sometimes, as soon as one comes in, the cleaning things are already looking invitingly at one from the place where the woman would like to be forced open, doctors sometimes cover up the instruments, women always display them brazenly and without embarrassment. Everything. They've got. Death succeeds in making us dumbfounded. That's only where the women start, because their mounting is unlimited, best of all they would like a golden ring. Love allows them to take in so much. But for the time being death is still stronger. Let's wait and see how things turn out.