Greed (28 page)

The people continue to walk along the paths and drive along the roads. Have they perhaps heard something about Gabi? Don't know her. A woman with a boring demeanor, I don't know which, steps out of her front door, and doesn't know either why she's doing that now. Of course she's heard the news, two days ago already; but she doesn't say anything about it, because no one asks her. She is still to a certain extent an outsider here, a stranger. A newcomer. This morning she again wants to be worshipped as the one and only, which she has always imagined as being more pleasant than it is. I've been telling her for years, but it doesn't do any good. Behind her rises her neat house, which would now like to stretch its legs, but instead by mistake kicks a person in the knees, who is now standing in front of it and is herself now placing both hands on her shoulders so that her arms are crossed on her breast. As if the hands were using the shoulders as supports. From this moment this person has to stay in bed for three weeks. This woman had expected a bit more wildness from the man yesterday, at least as much as she had still got in the mountains two days ago, but since then the man has not shown his face for a whole day and a half. Another woman? Oh Jesus, what can I do, with whom can I do something now, there's no one there? This man believed she loves gentleness, gentle advertising, for example, but his only model is the one for Palmer's lingerie, I think it's gentle enough, one can see the whole body almost to the heart; no reason to be envious, ladies, be glad that you're in the world at all! Would you really like anyone to read your thoughts? During the advertisements this woman here often quickly prepares a small snack in the kitchen, in the summer she even makes chocolate ice herself! And when she comes back, the woman wants the wildness in this man immediately to be really wild. On the spot! She knows on which spot. She's sensitive there. On whose shoulder should she cry now? She has no one, and so begs the man to give her a family, so that she can once again say what's on her mind and get fucked for all it's worth. It's not worth much. But the man already has a wife at home. He can let her be, Gerti's home is nice anyway. His wife doesn't need him the way this woman needs him. Today we'll make things nice and tomorrow, too. For that the woman loves and sacrifices, just as she learned to do as a child from the nuns at convent school for Jesus' sake. Or does she have to let this man go? If she doesn't do it he will in any case run away from her sooner or later. She can't hold him. But if she now finds the strength to let this man go back to his wife and family-he already has a grandson-then one day perhaps he will return to her voluntarily, at latest when all these people, every one of them, are dead, or not? But if she now finds the strength to open this jar of cocktail onions, then she will be blessed in that the rolls which she prepared for him earlier, with several hundred different kinds of sausage, will not taste as stale as recently. The sausage is off, that's for sure, it is perhaps out of sorts before it can be served, or is it only the woman's stomach? The rolls are so colorful and pretty again. You can't be too sure, we'll throw them away and buy new ones, we'll throw everything away and buy everything new. The woman doesn't feel like going to the grocer now, she might miss her beloved in these ten minutes. Let's just leave the sausage where it is and sprinkle paprika over it, not too much, otherwise his stomach will be as discontented as the sinners in hell, where things are also too hot for my taste, I'm already wet again. Except, please don't let him go back to Gabi again, that would be too much for this woman. If at least she weren't so young, Gabi. If she were at least older than the woman, but then again she wouldn't be Gabi, but someone else. Where is she then? Love is not only deep respect for the other from deep inside, it should also be able to be shown outwardly. It is invited to kindly make a bit more effort. Or is the man incapable of showing feelings? Would that not be a pity if disillusionment were to bring one down to earth every time? Three bottles of sparkling apricot wine from the Wachau, he likes that, it's nice and sweet. She'd rather have the sparkling wine without the apricot, but can't impose her better taste on him. Kurt is a complete pro. He phoned earlier. It's me. Drive immediately to our spot on the mountain. I'm coming too. Did you get that? Yes, of course, we were only there the day before yesterday, and all the times last summer, have you forgotten? The mountain wind is already howling with anger that the woman is not willing to keep to this arrangement. What's wrong with her? What's she dawdling around the house for and waiting, although she should be somewhere quite different now? She's been summoned somewhere, this attractive figure. He is surely already on his way in his light walking shoes in the howling spring gale. Why isn't she on her way? Or does she have reasons? She won't be afraid? Curious. Usually she always does what he tells her to, and then her body immediately opens wide and pulls up all the blinds, even before it hears the certain steps that should be undertaken immediately. Exactly. I already hear the tearing of underwear like a terrible voice in me, perhaps I have a premonition. The house. The house is his goal, his one and only, she suspects, reads it from his face, even when he isn't there, in clear moments, when she's free to have them. But already she's doubting herself and her observations again. Such thoughts she has, for sure, but they don't feel right, and soon they disappear again, offended, as soon as he approaches and becomes more important than them, the thoughts, than everything else. Perhaps that's why he worries about the house and investigates it all down to the last detail, as if he wanted to make it have an orgasm. What do you want, this man is tender, he's potent, he fulfils the most secret desires of the house. New shutters? My pleasure, here you have them! The kitchen floor looks a bit dull and listless? We'll deal with that right away. The sheriff, which he is himself, is there at once. Compared to her house the woman almost feels small and unattractive. She watches the man as he investigates nooks and crannies. He could not draw the lips of her vulva apart more affectionately than these glass sliding doors in front of the bookcase with the classics. I can imagine. The man lies before her inner eye, crouching like an animal, looking up at her, and which she then allows to stand up and raise its head to her. Oh dear, it's looking in quite a different direction, the stupid beast. Was there not a noise, is the house door rattling, because it doesn't shut properly? I'll repair it tomorrow. At the feet of the beloved: no one, not one, so not the only one either. She will have to lay aside her dearest for today, in the hope of being able to pick him up again tomorrow where she put him down. Why does she not set out for the mountain? It would do her good, get a bit of exercise. Today inexplicably she can't do it, although she's been having such wet thoughts the whole time, whenever she opens her brainbox in order to take out one of them, living, dripping, twisting, slippery and to greedily close her lips around it. Who can swallow all that? She can! This time exceptionally she's allowed to swallow everything, this time he allows her to. Otherwise not. But why didn't Gabi come home two days ago? Because that's what the woman heard from sources bubbling out of the ground everywhere, there's no stopping them anymore. These sources can't be channelled anymore. Where is she then, Gabi, where is she? No idea. The last time he was still tender and attentive to the woman, his one and only love, because Gabi doesn't count, she can't even count to three, the mouse. The woman now wants him to fall upon her, to tear down and/or shove up her clothes, as so often, and with a good appetite sink his teeth into her cunt as into a well-filled sandwich, as so often; but then when he does it, it's not quite right either, because it's sore, the way he so thoroughly investigates and then sucks up her precipitations and evaporations, so that there is order in nature again. Order as in this house.

Yes, we have several kinds of reproduction, vegetatively through budding, or, if you like, we can also do it another way: asexually through spores, but naturally two gametes can also merge sexually, luckily that doesn't lead to catastrophe every time, although nature always has a liking for catastrophes. And the woman always likes it when he does something like that with her. It's her nature. What she doesn't like so much is when he causes her body pain, bestows an unpleasant taste and an unpleasant smell to a dozen paper handkerchiefs, or stuffs her filter with shit, instead of decently stoppering her. It's the same for her as with the algae: If the increase in quantity is too great, a thick, foul-smelling mass forms, as happened to the lake out there. The woman doesn't want to take it as her model, although she would like to be just as unfathomable. He should do it to her at least once a week, there should be that much in it for her, even if one is as busy as the man. We have the rest of the week off and can recover. If he didn't spread her with his hard fingers from time to time, she would absolutely miss it. Water! Please, we have limestone here. It lets everything through. He's the only one for her. He's the only one for her. Her nipples stiffen and stretch as if they wanted to pull a small cart. They really hurt, yet recently his behavior towards her was sometimes rather bored and absent-minded, she has to admit, I agree with her. And why? Entirely because of Gabi. If he sees her, his eyes begin to glow, and he becomes totally randy. It's a natural phenomenon, which could always only be described, but rarely be seen. It mustn't happen anymore, that he meets Gabi. Otherwise the house is off and he has to take the consequences. The woman isn't demanding after all, she's not even as demanding as the so-called indicator plants, if we're talking about nature, which make demands, unfortunately also often on us. With these types of plants their value as indicators is all the greater, the more specific the demands as plant type are. That can be used to investigate soil quality. No, it's better if his hands do it, what do I care about this indicator plant, it would only indicate that I'm not so young anymore and that he doesn't like me as much as I would like, thinks the woman. She can only make demands because she owns a house, not because she herself is there too. Without her house she would have no value as an indicator. She would be a dial without a needle, she could never display her water level, her degree of moisture could never be judged, no one would be interested in it. Yesyes nature claims its rights, but only gets them after committed people have fought for them for at least fifty years. The water, which is now running out of the woman, indicates an imbalance, because the man, it appears to her, has not come for some time, but it's only two days ago, he's not stayed away so long before. Yes, he's often stayed away as long as that. Why has she forgotten that he wanted to meet her at their usual place? She should have left long ago. Funny. Something inside her says no. Now she would rather hang like a curtain at the window and look out, half hidden, to see if he's coming. How can he come if he's already halfway up the mountain? When he was last here he drove off with Gabi, the woman is quite certain of that, she saw it herself. He must have taken her straight home, so where is she? Did she go out again? On the way back he should really have briefly dropped by again, in order to see her and to be seen by her, to console, to placate, to fuck, what do I know, but he didn't turn up again. She only got this one phone call from him and then another one, which at the moment she's disregarding. Before he drove off-Gabi was already sitting in the passenger seat, weighed down by so much hair that, even before he started, her head, exhausted, had sunk down to his lap, where no doubt his cock was standing up as if it never did anything else-she, the older woman, completely lost her self-control at this moment of threatened departure. As he was about to go (beforehand he tried the cellar door, to make sure it was still locked), pulling up his zip, which would soon come down again, she had clung to him, sobbed, begged, hoped, that he should at last see that there was something wrong with her, which he should repair, she loves him so much, she loves him so, which probably every child in the village could see, only he couldn't. Please come back! There should at last be an end to the nightmare with him and all the secrecy. But for it to come to an end, he would first of all have to come and properly and vigorously start from the beginning again. But he's evasive, and he expresses himself vaguely when she demands a decision from him. But to demand a decision from him, he would first of all have to be there. But he doesn't come. He goes. She doesn't dare call him at home, because then his wife answers, blunt and stubborn as a Leopard tank, once it could at last be delivered to Turkey and at least two hundred people have thoroughly smashed each other's faces because of it. That night as Gabi was transported home, the woman didn't sleep a wink. Now, however, she's quite still, stands there just a little longer. If someone passes by, she pretends she's investigating something on the roughcast or the exterior window sill, perhaps dirt, mold, fungus, or loose plaster. She runs her finger over the wall as if she wanted to draw something. The house is all she has to offer, we shouldn't fool ourselves any longer, children big and small always want to get presents, that's what they have in common. She isn't squeamish when he hits her hard on the backside with the flat of his hand or with the ruler which is lying ready, on the contrary, in the meantime she really likes it, if not for long, she can't take it for long; it's impossible for two people to have a stronger contact with one another, of whom one is stronger than the other, otherwise the one would come out the other side of the other. It annoys the woman that she somehow finds it exciting when he forces himself into her from behind. Although she also fears it and resisted it for a long time. Until the muscles finally slacken, however, he has to hit her fairly hard and fairly long, often she can't sit properly for two or three days afterwards. On all sides women, including her, like to aim for the most basic experience, but when it comes, instead of enjoying it, one searches tirelessly for its origin in the past, all of which should also belong to one. Was he hit so much as a child? We immediately have to read one or more books in order to understand it. The woman wants to understand and forgive everything about this man, otherwise all pleasure is gone. She's looking for a man who is ready and in a position to join up with her, to help her bear the burdens of life and naturally also to fulfil her sexual desires. Yes. Perhaps one should once again permit oneself the simple things, the love which every animal knows, but every animal, even ours, does not always recognize us and not exclusively as its master. When he has expended himself in her, the man goes home again each time, unless there are small repairs to carry out (she has often deliberately broken something so that he stays longer!), as if he immediately had to look for himself somewhere else, to find himself. That's how she imagines it, because now she has already read one book and another about it. He goes jogging in the mountains. Already she's thinking: If only he's not looking for another! Anything, except that. Otherwise the woman does not begrudge him any pleasure, once she has at last fallen asleep in her own silence, in her own vapor and her luster which she doesn't have. We shall certainly need a judge. The weak points of this woman will always serve us as starting point, because here we can begin with the control of her personality. The judge will do that, and he will be at a loss. But he will nevertheless have to pass judgement: She belongs to what is called the weaker sex. That's very practical, I think. One can buy the women ready seasoned and only has to shove them in the oven. So many are dead, even men, that it doesn't matter to us what happens to this one.