Henning Koch - The Maggot People

“You were going to tell me who you were, Günter.”

“One needs a bit of detail to do it properly. I could tell you about a section of wall I had to guard. People always think all the guards were posted around the fucking Brandenburg Gate, but most of us were stuck in some god-awful village full of stinking peasants. We lived on sauerkraut and sausage; we felt it was good enough for us, as long as it was meat we felt we were doing all right. The only good part was I had a decent girlfriend. She was a cook in a hospital canteen; she used to iron my clothes and make porridge in the evenings. I don’t know where she was from, she must have been Armenian or something, she squelched like mud in the bedroom but I couldn’t get her pregnant however hard I tried. Later I realised she was a maggot girl. Little bitch filled me with them too; then she died. I went over the fence after that, claimed political asylum and hitchhiked down to Rome. It didn’t take me long to hang up my uniform and join a religious order. I was a novice for a few years. The rest is history.”

“You know Günter, I’m starting to suspect you of being a bit of a liar.”

“Oh, I am. Lying is what one has to do if one wants to convince people of anything. Even history is a lie; it’s a massive constructed lie. Religion is the hugest lie of them all.”

“No wonder they turned you into a dog. I would have turned you into a something strange, like an anteater.”

“The only truth,” said Günter, “is that air comes in and out of your nostrils.”

Across the garden Ariel was once again being massaged by Purissima.

“Is her time up?” said Michael.

“Oh, she has time enough. Time we have. Life we don’t have,” said Günter. “Speed is not something I admire anyway. Speed is a rejection of everything I like; a love of speed may even be a disease of sorts. I’d like to dissect the brains of people who like motorbikes. For the good of the human race. I mean turn them into medical research.”

“Is this your idea of annotation?”

Günter looked at him with narrowing eyes. “There is something about you that surprises me, Michael. You seem quite small, but once you open your mouth, one begins to sense there’s more substance.”

“I thought we were talking about you?”

“Yes. We were. I was a kid as well, a long time ago. After the war, after all the shits in uniforms were rounded up by the Americans and the Russians and either shot or packed into trains and taken away, I went into the hills and threw away my uniform and learned about cows and milking and making cheese. They were good years. I rarely went to the bottom of the valley; I stayed around the high pastures and hardly spoke to anyone except the farmer I was working for. It was at this time that I first got interested in religion. I suppose the paraphernalia interested me, the cloaks and vestments and candles and rituals and crossing oneself at every opportunity; it was more or less the same as the army, except in the spiritual world all the killing would be done by a higher power.” He raised his paw, to make a distinction: “And interestingly one would not be killed until after one had already died. I am speaking of damnation, of course. God would fling one into a burning pit if one had not done one’s duty. I liked this, it freed humans from the awful necessity of butchering each other; at least that’s what I thought at the time. I went for it hook, line and sinker. But before I could act on it I was arrested. They put a gun in my hand and told me to start patrolling and shoot anyone I saw. It seemed reasonable for a while.”

“Maybe you should write a book about your life, Günter.”

“I can see you are laughing at me, Michael. In fact I did write a book. It didn’t do very well. I think it was banned, either by the Russians or the East Germans. My theories were no crazier than theirs, but humans always get murderous if anyone comes up with a different theory, especially if it involves any sort of religious ideas. God help the man who expresses any kind of opinion about the color of God’s beard. Wake up, fuckers, God does not have a beard and beards do not have a God to attach themselves to; they float around aimlessly in space. Most wars have been fought over details, Michael. What sort of trousers you should wear? Should you eat cow hocks or boiled fish? Is it correct to play a mandolin? Should you wear your hair long or shave your head?” He growled. “It makes my teeth itch; it makes me want to sink them into a larded, pompous ass.”

“And then?”

“Well, after I took holy orders in Rome I had even more problems, most of them because I wouldn’t respect some shit because of his cloak. You know my name should not be Günter at all. It should be ‘Will You Excuse Me If I’m Fucking Unimpressed?’ Because that’s been the theme of my life. Always.” He lay down his head. “And now I don’t care anymore. I’ve seen the progression of the human race, I remember those beautiful mountains when I was a young man. A few years after the war, a lot of shits with skis started showing up in the winters. The landowner cut long swaths through the trees and put up ski lifts. More and more shits started coming for the skiing, crowding the bars, eating cheese fondue and drinking copious amounts of beer. The amount of fucking going on was mind-boggling; they were worse than hogs. Maggots were hatching like locusts, spilling out everywhere.” He rolled onto his back and sighed pleasurably. “I wish people could try and appreciate how lovely it is to lie still and smell the grass.”

“I guess they want to be a bit more dynamic.”

“You know,” said Günter, “I knew a guy once; he was a filthy guy covered in tattoos and he lived in a cave and he only had two brown teeth left in his mouth. Do you want to know what he did for a living? He made soap, that’s what. And he scented it with flowers.”

“I don’t get the connection.”

“That’s what we are, that’s who I am… and you too. We’re the filthy ones who make soap, but we never wash ourselves…”

In the morning when Michael woke up he vaguely remembered having been massaged in the night with essential oils, rose and something like lavender and sandalwood.

“For protection,” whispered Ariel with a smile, adding, “We are safe here. Purissima knows how to handle them.”

Michael looked at her. “What happened to you yesterday?”

“It’s all so unnatural,” said Ariel.

“What is?”

“When they want more lebensraum you really don’t have much of a choice. They start to multiply; you feel them pressing against the inside of your skin, and you know you have to start looking for the pressure valve.”

“The pressure valve?”

“Sex…” She laughed, tears glittering in her eyes. “We don’t own our bodies anymore. We can’t do what we want with them. The only time they ever let me feel sexual excitement is when I’m with a straight man. I mean a man who’s not been maggotized.”

“So the first time we slept together…”

“… was incredible. I must have had twenty-five orgasms that night. Maggot orgasms, you know — simulated orgasms because your body no longer has the ability to… I mean, they just send the impulses up to the brain. I even had an orgasm when I came out to speak with you the first time. That’s why all I could think of to say was that silly thing about ice cream. Who cares about stupid orgasms, anyway? I’m tired of them, personally.” “So it’s just procreation for them?”

Ariel laughed. “Yes. For them. Go forth and multiply. That old chestnut. They reward sexually aggressive behavior with strangers. That way they find new host bodies.” Her face clouded over. “But they take away a woman’s ability to have a child. They rob her of that. Not maliciously. They don’t think; they don’t do it on purpose. But all the most evil things are senseless mechanisms. A snake, the way it lashes out and bites you without even thinking about it. A tsunami. Are these things evil? I would say they are. Probably even maggots are evil.”