Lust (13 page)

The house has already retired for the night by the time we get there. In one room only a worried light is still burning, for the precious child. Throwing up his surfeit of lessons all over his bed. In the boy's room, the Direktor ventures to get all his anger off his chest. This isn't his territory. He doesn't like hearing the water gush to fill the flush. He practically exploded when he found the empty bottles of cheap white wine yet again. Why can't she drink mineral water and be a loving mother for the child ? He has forbidden her to drink, but she goes on zonking back the plonk. Has the cow been spreading her hind quarters for some other bull? He bows his lips

above the child, so softly that he cannot get a word out. The child is asleep now. Without doing a thing, the boy provides an explanation of why the Direktor is alive. There he rests, mouth open, in the chest of his room. A room of their own is more than poor kids round here have ever even seen when they've been ill. Where is the child in this country who has a room his body will fit into? And where he can look at teddy bears and pictures of sport and pop stars? Because of the sexual ruckus of his parents, this boy has been transferred to a quiet spot. He's a dab hand, though, when it comes to keyholes. And good at ructions of his own, too, when he's beaten for wetting his pants. How he can howl.

It seems he has second sight, their son. Often he will materialize out of gloomy corners; his parents know no reticence in their bodily functions, they still believe in hard work! The Christian society that married them blessed their indulgence in that pleasure. Father has official permission to enjoy Mother ad infinitum, to raggle-taggle her rags and togs till her fear of revealing her secrets has been altogether overcome.

Those who are far away from us are lying abed, touch wood, that they may be well rested come daybreak. Too tired to be summoned by a dread God to the summit of time, to their loved ones, who die too soon. Tomorrow they will hurriedly bolt their breakfast and set off by bus to perform their paltry works; and the least of their works, the children, are sitting there beside them, because they have to go to school. The Direktor of the paper mill strides up to the extra biggest of big choir stalls. Those of his workforce who are awaiting the company pension keep politely to the rear. It's little short of a miracle that these people aren't mere animals, though they do live like animals, as their boss observes to his wife. Their pallid flaccid wives do not inspire them, so what we lordsandmasters call the breath of life is not in

them, too bad. Whoever would think that after holy mass the Direktor pulls down his wife's panties and inserts first one and then a second finger to check if the waters are rising, how high they are now, up to her neck yet? I wonder what is going on down below in other women. Whatever it is, perhaps it would fancy a spell on the surface to cuddle and canoodle.

Now all of us in this Roman Catholic country will go down on our knees for a while so that all can see us washing the blood of innocence off our hands, the blood that God, making a superhuman effort, has transformed into himself: man and woman, right, that was his work, his doing. In readers' letters to the paper they are true to themselves and each other, because they are true to the spirit of Christian architecture, forever striving heavenward. There is nothing to be said against the Pope. Who belongs to the Virgin Mary. How else would he know how modest and yet greedy for souls this woman is? For instance, the woman can pout her lips like a funnel to receive the Direktor's member when she is kneeling. Now don't you go pretending you've never seen it on your secret home movie screen! Just like yourself, supposedly Jesus, that perpetual travelling representative in Austria and related territories, went here and there to see if there was any need to improve or punish or affect. And in the course of his travels he met you. Whom he loves as he loves himself. And what of you? Do you only love the money that belongs to others? Right. So write a letter to the paper, sounding off at those who have no God, or, if they did have one, wouldn't know what to do with him.

All of it belongs to us!

The woman pays no heed at all to her glottis as the car grinds to a halt. She howls as if she'd been oiled, and in fact she is pretty well oiled, the effects of that cheap wine

haven't worn off yet. She yawps and yaps and bawls till the night sits bolt upright in its bed and lights begin to go on all around. Including the lights in her own house. Where the ponderous person who is the manager of a paper mill climbs into his boisterous body. Doubtless rejoicing to have back what he believed to be lost. He stands at the mouth of the warm bear's cave, where all the instruments play, even at the touch of a child's fingers. Gerti, is that you, he asks, looking beyond his own limited horizons. Who on earth could wish to lose something he owns? Soon, thanks be to God, he will again be able to grab at her epicentre between her legs. To see if the bread basket's still hung high enough. Out of reach of others. Though there are more crumbs in it now. And then hell give her a taste of his baguette in the breadroom. His trusty tool will go to work, wielded by an honest master of the craft, where none else has ever been. You'd better believe it. The Man is slow to make his choice between different deities (sport and politics) but very quick when, fore hooves first, he clumps onto the stage where all the action concerns him and his works. The young man does not hesitate to make eye contact and offer good evening. The woman, complete with dressing-gown, is tipped sideways out of the door, displaying no desire to couple once again. The young rogue, that young body now idly thinking it would like something to eat, is buried beneath her. When her husband welcomes her back, she knows that the very least he'll be wanting is to nibble her ears. Soon he'll be feeling right as rain, ready to pour down on his wife, for not only the woman but also the art that dwells within us and our hi-fis is at his beck and balls. The Direktor whispers smut, tut tut, in the woman's ear, a promise of what lies ahead, lies willingly abed. How nice to have a woman in the home again! And the boy needs his mother, too. Who shows him important things. Things he can get a far better look at on TV, mind you.

God appears in the form of Nature. In voices. From the outside world. Where employees live, their arms wide open, forever clasping nothingness. Their food is bloody with the wounds inflicted on the animal during its lifetime. They also eat the doughy clods they've baked, lumpy and shapeless as their own bodies or laughter. Formless as their brood, the angry inheritors, running after them like snot from an unstopped nostril. Their children! Getting on people's nerves with what they and TV call sport. From time to time a specimen of humanity falls apart. Have you ever noticed? You're sitting next to someone, some perfectly natural specimen, riding public transport of some description because neither of you can afford a car. If you did notice, nobody else did. Some of the offspring they made on the night shift won't even make shift for the factory. They are the alcoholic vapour they exhale. Not even their serious illnesses seem to upset them. Warm-hearted togetherness such as you witness here in the Direktor's home, a family circle with wife and child, the shadows of bodies cast on other bodies, darkness at noon, while others toil and sweat — all this and more you can see on the screen, to satisfy your wretched curiosity (when all you really want to see is yourself, in a different role at last, and preferably not a cardboard character). Beneath the dome of his desire, the Direktor is seen by the villagers to have space still for at least one further person, of his own choosing. All of them work in his factory. These creatures in their commuter trains, jammed into their compartments, eating their wurst and waiting for the worst. Now night has gently descended and condescended to join us. Now let us sleep.

The Direktor half hands his wife from the car that gave her a lift, the woman half lifts, nay elevates herself from the clammy hands of the student. Back down to earth. The young man has prospects and no need of any paper mill, so now we see the rapid-fire colt politely helping the

mare back to the stall. Now it is done. He hears himself describe how he picked up the woman on a country lane, drunk. She still makes a confused and disoriented impression. Shivering with the cold. At the threshold she is ordered to pull herself together and come in. This is her kennel. Right here. Where her loved ones, loved by virtue of her work, her labour, are resting now. The moment God's looking the other way, they're pawing between each other's thighs. Don't go expecting them to leave their sex in peace. They're forever wanting to cock their little guns and fire, bang! It's theirs, all theirs. In their tales, their tails are silent beasts of prey. Even the body is not-so-silently praying to be a beast with a tail. The Direktor loads and overloads the weapon slung under his belly. The child is interested not only in art and sport but also in pop music on the radio. To be truthful, I'm not really sorry for the boy. The woman sticks fast as tar to her husband's shoulder. From within, an instrument is already probing the trousercloth and wanting to go home to its hole. This woman is unlike the others, who are lucky if they can find jobs as domestics, since there are no longer jobs in the factory to afford an alternative existence to generating living things. Women are forever being picked, sledgehammered, drilled, forever worked at in the mine, all mine. Or the slags are tossed where they belong, on the slag heap. To bring forth children. Ever noticed that at night it's only the wealthy that enter the commonwealth of pleasure, never the common folk? That's when the rich do their work! Let's face it, they have to work some time or other, since the poor beggars do exist, when all's said and undone, with their Mercedes and their birthright to conquest.

The undressing-gown flaps about the woman. She's dead tired. The alcohol heat inside her has subsided. What's the point of all this noise the Direktor's making now? Why has this immodestly-clad woman returned to

Nature's cave of games? Dogs don't go around off the leash! She coughs when the Man smites her on the shoulders and the conscience. His worries carry the day and he crushes his wife to his heart, wraps himself about her, we won't be needing this dressing-gown any more. If only that young fellow would be off. Who makes possible a comparison of the body in its present state and its original condition as approved by the planning authorities. Patience. In good time we'll all have the pleasure of casting off our mis-shapen outer self.

The original version of this paper mill manager looked better, too, than we in our cruel inhumanity can now imagine. This woman loves. And is not loved. In this she is not unique. Fate is as inevitable as this finger I'm pointing at you now. The woman is less than nothing at all now. The young man laughs at the gratitude of the Direktor, who's had his doggie returned to him. The disrespectful youngster reads the expression of the man who considers himself his rival. But he wouldn't mind a paper mill. Instead of having to toil over law and jurisprudence. He cannot feel the equal of the people who slouch to the factory, bliss in their eyes, for they are to see the one who has given work to one and all. And what is the student thinking of? Who he's playing tennis with tomorrow.

The Herr Direktor talks and talks, the flames of speech flicker, the tongues of fire lick, he's warming up. There the womenfolk sit, simmering, wearing naughty lingerie and provoking their menfolk so that their motors rev high and they want to burn up the highway. It is not on them but on the poor that the world heaps its wrath. The poor go walking along the banks with their children, where chemicals corrode the waters. The main thing is to have a job at all. And to come home from work with a suitable industrial disease.

Like a heavy unhooked door, Gerti sinks back into her husband's hinges. The question is, will she hold when the tempests of time bring storms and snows? She wants the young man to take another swig of her, preferably tomorrow. Right now, though, another man, a regular, is going to be messing with her fuses till the lights go out. The Direktor knows that this woman shall rest in that place only which has been ordained her lawful wedded grave. So that he can appreciate her best sides (left and right). This creature is his, belongs to him. To serve his regular needs, like a jar to pee in. Anything imagination can dream up can indeed be done with a living, lively member that distends and then shrinks again, the only question is: whose? Love opens the woman's eyes. Like knocking at the natural landscape, you rap with your rod and wait to see if water's flowing from the rock. The work goes quickly, but are the workers happy? No.

And the boy blubs, boo hoo, because he can't get to sleep. Not if mummy doesn't tell him how to wipe his feet clean of life. Mummy mummy, comes his whine from inside, and a malicious little head appears, the fruit of her womb complete with worm. It would be better if the child were asleep now so that he wouldn't have to witness anything. His dough has been kneaded long enough, now he can rise, arise and go. And early in the morning the weary people arise and go, free of the burden of beauty. They wander like deer. Now the child is there. Tomorrow morning it will be smeared as full of jam as Mother is with Father's slime. And the Holy Ghost's. Their son dashes in. Having missed his mum. Father shuts the door in the student's face, he wants to spread his wife's thighs at his leisure and take a look if anyone's been grazing in his meadow, where his sacred cow's at pasture. Mother crosses no-man's-land to her child. Welcome! The Direktor wants his wife to be a part of him as summer is a part of the year. All that's needed is for day to waken too. The child has a title to proper care. Who doesn't long

hourly for that sneak-thief. Love? And I bet you have a cuddly lamb too. Now who's been missing whom? This mountain is here for only one reason: to put an end to this vale of tears, so that production and viewing will peak again. The snow is pale. The Man sets great store by good works, works where paper is made for the well-being of us all. Let me write it down, quite unambiguously: paper could cut me open as a paper knife slits paper. I'd like to meet the person who could make a new woman of me out of the things I say.