The Piano Teacher: A Novel (7 page)

No one’s noticed anything, they’re all busy with lunch. The guy releases HER instantly and swings back one step. For propriety’s sake, he’ll do without the foot kiss that usually concludes the exercise. He sways back and forth to limber up a bit, hops embarrassedly into the air, and then dashes off in long leaps. The meadow swallows him up; the women summon him to lunch. The guy has flown away, he’s jumped from the nest. He remains silent. Soon he’ll vanish into thin air. A couple of buddies dash after him. Off they swoop. Mother mildly condemns him in absentia for his wildness: She’s gone to so much trouble preparing lunch, and now she’s left holding the bag.

The guy doesn’t return until much later. Evening hush everywhere, only the nightingale warbling at the brook. They’re playing cards on the veranda. Butterflies, half unconscious, circle the kerosene lamp. SHE is not attracted by a bright circle. SHE sits alone in her room, isolated from the crowd, which has forgotten her because she is such a lightweight. She jostles no one. From an intricate package, she carefully unwraps a razor blade. She always takes it everywhere. The blade smiles like a bridegroom at a bride. SHE gingerly tests the edge; it is razor-sharp. Then she presses the blade into the back of her hand several times, but not so deep as to injure tendons. It doesn’t hurt at all. The metal slices her hand like butter. For
an instant, a slit gapes in the previously intact tissue; then the arduously tamed blood rushes out from behind the barrier. She makes a total of four cuts. That’s enough, otherwise she’ll bleed to death. The razor blade is always wiped clean and then wrapped up again. Bright red blood trickles and trails from the wounds, sullying everything as it flows. It oozes, warm, silent, and the sensation is not unpleasant. It’s so liquid. It runs incessantly. It reddens everything. Four slits, oozing nonstop. On the floor and on the bedding, the four tiny brooks unite into a raging torrent. “Just keep following my tears, and the brook will take you in.” A small puddle forms. And the blood keeps running. On and on. It runs and runs and runs and runs.

Erika, as always the well-groomed teacher, has no regrets about leaving her musical headquarters today. Her inconspicuous departure is accompanied by blasting horns and trumpets and the wail of a single violin; everything bursts through the windows at the same time. Erika barely weighs on the outside steps. Today, Mother isn’t waiting. Erika instantly and resolutely heads in a direction that she has already taken several times in the past. The way does not lead straight home. Perhaps some splendid big, bad wolf is leaning against a rustic telegraph pole, picking the remnants of his latest victim from his teeth. Erika would like to place a milestone in her monotonous life and invite the wolf with her gazes. She will spot him from far away and catch the sound of skin being torn and flesh ripped. By then, it will be late in the evening. The event will loom from the fog of musical half-truths. Erika strides resolutely.

Chasms of streets open up, then close again because Erika can’t make up her mind to enter them. She simply stares straight ahead when a man happens to wink at her. He isn’t the wolf, and her vagina doesn’t flutter open; it clamps shut,
hard as steel. Erika jerks her head like a huge pigeon, to send the man packing. Terrified by the landslide he’s triggered, he loses all desire to use or protect this woman. Erika sharpens her face arrogantly. Her nose, her mouth—everything becomes an arrow pointing in one direction; it plows through the area as if to say: Keep moving. A pack of teenagers makes a derogatory comment about Erika, the lady. They don’t realize they are dealing with a professor, and they show no respect. Erika’s pleated skirt with its checkered pattern covers her knees, not one millimeter too high or too low. She’s also wearing a silk middy, which covers her torso precisely. Her briefcase is clamped under her arm as usual, tightly zipped up closed. Erika has closed everything about her that could be opened.

Let’s take the trolley. It runs out into the working-class suburbs. Her monthly pass isn’t valid on this line, so she has to buy a ticket. Normally, she doesn’t travel here. These are areas you don’t enter if you don’t have to. Few of her students come from here. No music lasts longer here than the time it takes to play a number on a jukebox.

Small greasy spoons spit their light at the sidewalk. Groups of people argue in the islands of streetlights, for someone has said something wrong. Erika has to look at many unfamiliar things. Here and there, mopeds start up, rattling needle pricks into the air. Then they vanish quickly as if someone were waiting for them somewhere—in a rectory, where they’re throwing a party, and where they want to get rid of the moped drivers immediately for disturbing the peace and quiet. Normally, two people sit on a feeble moped to use up the space. Not everyone can afford a moped. Tiny cars are usually packed to capacity out here. Often a great-grandmother sits inside a car, amid her relatives who take her for a pleasure spin to the graveyard.

Erika gets out and continues on foot. She looks neither left
nor right. Employees lock and bolt the doors of a supermarket. In front, you can hear the final, gently throbbing engines of housewife chitchat. A soprano overcomes a baritone: The grapes were really moldy. The worst were at the bottom of the plastic basket. That’s why no one bought them today. All this is spread out loudly and rattlingly in front of the others—a garbage heap of complaints and anger. Behind the locked glass doors, a cashier wrestles with her register. She simply can’t track down the mistake. A child on a scooter and another child running alongside him, weeping and yammering that he’d like to ride it, the other kid promised. The rider ignores the requests of his less-privileged colleague. You don’t see these scooters in other neighborhoods anymore, Erika muses to herself. Once she got one as a present and she was so happy. Unfortunately, she couldn’t ride it because the street kills children.

The head of a four-year-old is thrown back by a mother’s slap of hurricane strength. For a moment, the head rotates helplessly, like a rolypoly that has lost its balance and is having a hard time getting back on its feet. Eventually the child’s head is vertical again and back in its proper place. But now it emits horrible sounds, whereupon the impatient mother promptly knocks it out of plumb again. Now the child’s head is marked by invisible ink and ordained for a much worse fate. The mother has heavy bags to struggle with, and she’d much rather see her little girl vanish down a sewer. You see, in order to mistreat her daughter, she has to keep putting down her bags, which only adds to her drudgery. Yet the extra effort seems worthwhile. The child is learning the language of violence, though not willingly. At school, she likewise picks up very little. She knows a few words, the most necessary ones, even though you can barely understand them among her sobs and tears.

Soon the woman and the noisy child are way behind Erika. After all, they keep stopping! They can never keep up with the
swiftness of time. Erika, a caravan, marches on. This is a residential neighborhood, but not a good one. Fathers, straggling home late, lunge into building entrances, ready to pounce on their families like dreadful hammers. The final car doors slam shut, proud and self-assured, for these tiny autos can get away with anything, they are the darlings of their families. Glittering amiably, they remain behind at the curbside, while their owners hurry to supper. Anyone without a home-sweet-home may wish for one, but he’ll never manage to build one, even with the help of a generous mortgage. Anyone with a home around here, of all places, would much rather spend most of his time somewhere else. More and more men cross Erika’s path. The women, as if having heard a magic formula, have vanished into the holes that are called “apartments” here. They do not venture outdoors alone at this time of night, unless accompanied by family members—adults—to have a beer or visit a relative. Their inconspicuous but so necessary activities are pervasive everywhere. Kitchen odors. Sometimes the soft clattering of pots and scratching of forks. The first early-evening sitcoms seep bluishly from one window, then another, then many. Sparkling crystals to adorn the gathering night. The building fronts become flat backdrops, behind which there is probably nothing: All these birds are of one feather. Only the TV sounds are real, they are the actual events. All the people around here experience the same things at the same time, except for some loner, who switches to the educational channel. This individualist is informed about a eucharistic congress, provided with facts and figures. Nowadays, if you want to be different, you have to pay your dues.

You can hear bellowing Turkish vowels. A second voice instantly enters: a guttural Serbo-Croatian countertenor. Gangs of men, on tenterhooks, small troops, hurrying here in dribs and drabs, now turning left underneath the roaring elevated
train: A peep show has been set up under one of the viaduct arches. The space is exploited so efficiently, down to every last nook and cranny, no centimeter wasted. The Turks are, no doubt, vaguely familiar with the arch shape from their mosques. Maybe the whole thing recalls a harem. A viaduct arch, hollowed out and full of naked women. Each woman gets a chance, each in turn. A miniature Venusberg. Here comes Tannhäuser, he knocks with his staff. This arch is built of bricks, and so many men have gawked at so many beautiful women here. This little shop of whorers, in which naked women stretch and sprawl, fits precisely into the arch, hand in glove. The women spell one another. They rotate, according to some displeasure principle, through a whole chain of peepshows, so that steady customers can always get to see new flesh at specific intervals. Otherwise the regulars will stop coming. After all, they bring good money here and insert it, coin for coin, into an insatiably gaping slot. Just when things are getting hot, another coin has to go in. One hand inserts, the other senselessly pumps and dumps the virile strength. At home the man eats enough for three people, and here he heedlessly scatters his energy to the winds.

Every ten minutes, the Vienna Municipal Railroad thunders overhead. The train shakes the entire arch, but, unshakable, the girls keep turning. They’ve got the hang of it. You get used to the din. The coin goes in, the window goes up, and rosy flesh comes out—a miracle of technology. You mustn’t touch this flesh; you couldn’t, because of the wall. The outside window is covered with black paper. It is decorated with lovely yellow ornaments. A small mirror is inserted in the black paper, so you can look at yourself. Who knows why. Maybe so you can comb your hair afterward.

A small sex shop is attached to the peep show. There you can buy what you’ve been turned on to. No women, but, to
make up for that lack, tiny nylon panties with many slits, in front and/or in back. At home, you can put them on your wife and then reach in, and your wife doesn’t have to take them off. There’s a matching tank top with two round holes. The woman sticks her breasts through these holes, and the rest of her torso is covered transparently. The tank top is lined with teensy frills and ruffles. You can choose between dark red and black. Black looks better on a blonde, red goes better with black hair.

You can also find books here, magazines, videocassettes, and 8mm movies in various stages of dustiness. These items don’t move at all. The customers don’t own VCRs or projectors. The hygienic rubbers with various kinds of ribbed surfaces sell a lot better; so do the inflatable women. First the customers look at the genuine article, then they buy the imitation. Unfortunately, the customer cannot take along the beautiful naked women in order to screw them royally in his protective little room. These women have never experienced anything profound, otherwise they wouldn’t flaunt their bodies here. They’d come along nicely rather than just pretend to come. This is no work for a woman. A customer would gladly take any of them, it doesn’t matter which, they’re all alike. You can barely tell them apart; at most, by the color of their hair. The men, in contrast, have individual personalities: some men like one thing, some like something else. On the other hand, the horny bitch behind the window, beyond the barrier, has only one urgent desire: That asshole behind the glass window should keep jerking until his cock falls off. In this way, the man and the woman each get something, and the atmosphere is nice and relaxed. Everything has its price. You pay your money and you get your choice.

Erika’s pocketbook, which she carries along with her music case, is stuffed with coins. Few women ever wander this way,
but Erika likes getting her own way. That’s the way she is. If many people do something, then she likes to do the exact opposite. If some people say go, Erika alone says stop, and she’s proud of it. That’s the only way she can get them to notice her. Now she wants to come here.

The Turkish and Yugoslav enclaves retreat at the approach of this creature from another world. All at once, they’re practically helpless; but if they had their druthers, they’d rape any woman they could. They yell things at Erika that she doesn’t understand, luckily. She keeps her head high. No one grabs at Erika, not even a drunk. Besides, an elderly man is watching. Is he the owner, the proprietor? The few Austrians hug the wall. No group bolsters their egos, and in addition, they have to graze past people whom they usually avoid. They make undesired physical contact, while the desired physical contact never comes. Unfortunately, male drives are powerful. These men don’t have enough cash for a genuine wine spritzer, it’s almost the end of the week. The natives trudge hesitantly along the viaduct wall. One arch before the big show, there’s a ski shop, and one arch before that, a bicycle store. These places are asleep now, their interiors are pitch-black. But here, friendly lamplight shines out into the street, luring these bold moths, these creatures of the night. They want something for their money. Each client is rigorously separated from the next. Plywood booths are precisely custom-tailored to their needs. These booths are small and narrow, and their temporary inhabitants are little people. Besides, the smaller each booth, the more booths you can squeeze together. In this way, a relatively high number of men can find considerable relief within a relatively short period.