What you see from the window is pretty fine: that comely, shapely, strapping lass, Nature. The Man, still the bureaucrat even in his desire, is pursuing a human need, which is not to be confused with the unpleasant need for another human being! There lies the Direktor, like a landscape. But restless. He has smeared on his cheese spread, and what is it he sees in the face of his wife? The human visage of his dictatorship? It is as if the woman had been erased, wiped out, away, wearing her new naughty lingerie. At his request. As if the spatial contours of her life had been redefined. Money plays games with people. From time to time, in his lucid moments, a fit of remorse overcomes the Direktor, and he buries his great big face in the woman's apron. But then it's back to the bathroom to bang her head against the dirty tub again and see if the path that's been cleared goes all the way to her dark doorway. Behind which, there she is, sitting in her own lap, dandled, fondled, spoilt, waiting to have her pages turned to the very last. And how indeed are the unemployed to live in this world if there are not cheap novels to supply examples?
The Direktor, who speaks softly to his staff and has songs sung to him in return, prefers using his tackle on the woman by day, in the bright light. He likes watching his own health increasing. The woman begs him at least to be a little cautious with the child around; the feral creature might leap forth unexpectedly from his corner of the ring at the very last moment. Bang on schedule, the fruit of her womb puts in an appearance, idly looks on for a while as his parents sample the goodies (clutching their plates at the spotless and heavily laden buffet) and vanishes once again, to plague the neighbourhood kids who must grow up without artistic, artificial paradises with his sporting tackle and sporting talk. The boy has ripened in the sun like fruit. Father, depending on your point of view, takes a healthy head-dive into Mother. Words cannot describe it, we want action not words, we have to pay at the entrance to the convenience, and do our duty, which rushes constantly like water.
The little houses have to go to sleep now, but in the big ones there is still life, the current is flowing between the sexes, and, speaking of current, the water flow brings their bodies together. Now we are entirely private. Nor need we be embarrassed in public. And, once the lovers have found each other, they relax and sup at the precious drops that bubble from their gold-labelled bottles. And are at home. Resting in each other once their privates have been excited. They are one. The one and only. Delivered from the dust. And, while all about the poor are dying, the superior classes renew their unspoken rights to each other with every day that comes, and they come too. They have saved up their powers in their piggy banks and in their trousers and hearts. So that they can take a good strong bite from the peach that bloomed so beautiful but a short, short while ago. It is all theirs. Even sleep flatters them, the rapid eye movements of greed cannot be seen behind their closed lids. They must never go unobserved by their loved ones, so every day they sally forth anew, to harvest new finery and fortune, and come staggering home with all they've taken from the staggeringly rich – to be transformed, renewed, daily freshened and restored for the dear soul that they are, have and want to keep. But the weak live together. For they are what we do not want to be. And to crown it all, they imagine they wouldn't want to live anywhere else. They know what they like. Of course, they're not offered the option of liking anything else. And they're woken early, too. Work takes toll of not a single one too many. They are sufficient unto themselves. But we want more! Action! Let there be light – for us! We shall walk forth in the light, and even if it were the light of our own pocket torches, just enough to light the way for two, two members of the flock of the refined: we, we must be the ones! Let there be us!
3
JUICILY, CALMLY, THE MAN inserts the image of his wife into the slit of the viewer. With a shudder the woods reach out for the house, where the video images, a herd of creatures capable of reproduction, are moving across the screen in front of eye witnesses. The women are dragged into the picture by their fetters. Only their daily routine is more merciless. The woman scans the plain as far as the horizon, the vast plain that lies before her every day to be crossed with her husband, then she lies before him on her cross. The Direktor is unbowed by the responsibilities of his job, his sap is rising, he sucks at her tits and slits and bellows for the night to come, for the late show to begin. So too, on mountain slopes, the images grow green, and climbers tread them underfoot in their stout boots.
The unanticipated appearance of the boy is almost as great a tragedy as the weather here. Like a carrier rocket the son, little sunbeam, shoots straight into the room, where the screen is raining its images, pouring its waters. His simple eyes are just in time to register the suffering bodies. Bodies gaping wide like sore and wounded chasms. Bodies visiting, to keep up social intercourse. And the men keeping it up, toiling with the heavy tools of their trade, labouring at their desire. Dying away inside the women. Only their bodies and heads remain outside, and devise new wombs made of glass, to look into. Instantly Father climbs off Mother, letting fly a gusty fart from his gutsy motor, shifting into reverse, and doing a U-turn on the carpet. The boy pretends to have understood nothing. He himself, after all, is a consumer now, scrimmaging and scrummaging: his needs and wishes are like pages in his memory, his taste has been spoilt by the immortal pictures in the sporting goods catalogues, sport is good for the healthy citizen! Everything belongs to him and his dear parents, to whom in turn the child belongs. Mother covers herself hurriedly. As if with hay. The boy has already grasped that evil has a name: Father. But Papa does still buy the baskets of goodies, the sackfuls fat with bulging fun, and binds his son with strings of gold. The child affects not to have noticed the bonds that bind his mother, there on the sofa; instead he reads his parents a list of conflicting wishes. You can drive it on sand, gravel, stone, water, ice and snow! Or a Persian carpet. It has to be bought. So that one can look back from far off in the landscape, back at home. The woman is having fun in her handcuffs, she thrashes her legs, her eyes fixed on the uncertainty that is her child: whatever will become of him? An eaglet gnawing at a sportscar? Beak hacking into the flesh of a human breast? Will he accept defeat in the slalom, which is staked out behind the house and is meant for fun and to accustom humankind to detours? Everything this Man and his manchild wish for is dangerous in one way or another. With her teeth Mother tries to pull a blanket over her bare nipples, into which Father has just sunk his teeth. Abruptly the images on the screen are lulled asleep. The child is there. The child wants a motorized sleigh, but in these parts motorized sleighs are officially banned. Customers are entitled to have their demands met; the woman has to look the part.
The Direktor expects to be able to phone home at any time at all, including office hours, to check that he is being thought of. He is as inevitable as death. Always to be at the ready. To tear her heart out. To lay her heart on her tongue like the host, and to show that the rest of her body is in readiness for the Lord, as he expects of his wife. To this end he keeps the bridle on his bride. He keeps her under his watchful eye. He sees everything, he has a right to examine whatever he wishes. For his prick it bloometh in its prickly bed, and on his lips the kisses bud and blow. But first he has to take a good look at everything, to work up an appetite. For you eat with your eyes too. And nothing remains concealed, excepting heaven unto the eyes of the dead, who placed their hope in it at the last. Which is why the Man wants to make a heaven on earth for his wife, and she sometimes makes the food. You can get away with requesting it three times a week, her famous Linz gateau. And as for the famous Linz dictator, the Man can voice his regard for him in the back room at the pub, where those assembled take solace in History's merciful ability to repeat itself, and look into a glass, darkly, to see what the government has in store for the country.