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 Tannh?user, 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.
The clients take along their worries, but leave their precious semen. Cleaning women make sure the seeds don't sprout-even though each customer, if asked, would assure you how fertile he is. Usually, all the booths are occupied. This business is a treasure trove, a gold mine. The foreign workers patiently line up in little groups. They kill time by cracking jokes about women. The small space of the booth is directly proportional to the small space of their living quarters, which are sometimes only quarters of a room. They are used to cramped rooms, and they can even find privacy here between partitions. Only one man to a booth. Here, he is all alone with himself. The beautiful woman appears in the peephole as soon as he inserts his coin. The two one-room apartments with individual service for more demanding gentlemen are almost always empty. Few clients here are in a position to make special requests.
Erika, thoroughly a professor, enters the premises.
A hand hesitantly reaches out for her, but then shoots back. She does not walk into the employee section, she steps into the section for paying guests-the more important section. This woman wants to look at something that she could see far more cheaply in her mirror at home. The men voice their amazement: They have to pinch every penny they secretly spend here hunting women. The hunters peer through the peepholes, and their housekeeping money goes down the drain. Nothing can elude these men when they peer.
All Erika wants to do is watch. Here, in this booth, she becomes nothing. Nothing fits into Erika, but she, she fits exactly into this cell. Erika is a compact tool in human form. Nature seems to have left no apertures in her. Erika feels solid wood in the place where the carpenter made a hole in any genuine female. Erika's wood is spongy, decaying, lonesome wood in the timber forest, and the rot is spreading. Still, Erika struts around like a queen. Inside, she is decaying, but she glares discouragingly at the Turks. The Turks would like to arouse her to life, but they bounce off her haughtiness. Erika, every inch a queen, strides into the Venus grotto. The Turks utter no cordialities, and also no uncordialities. They simply let Erika go in with her briefcase full of scores. She can even pass to the head of the line, and no one protests. She's also wearing gloves. The man at the entrance bravely addresses her as "Ma'am." Please come in, he says, welcoming her into his parlor, where the small lamps glow tranquilly over boobs and cunts, chiseling out bushy triangles, for that's the first thing a man looks at, it's the law. A man looks at nothing, he looks at pure lack. After looking at this nothing, he looks at everything else.
Erika is personally assigned a deluxe booth. She doesn't have to wait, she's a lady. The others have to wait longer. She holds her money ready the way her left hand clutches a violin. In the daytime, she sometimes calculates how much peeping she can do for her saved coins. She saves them by eating less at her coffee breaks. Now, a blue spotlight sweeps across flesh. Even the colors are handpicked. Erika lifts up a tissue from the floor; it is encrusted with sperm. She holds it to her nose. She deeply inhales the aroma, the fruits of someone else's hard labor. She breathes and looks, using up a wee bit of her life. There are clubs where you can shoot pictures. Each client selects his model himself, according to his mood and taste. But Erika doesn't want to act, she only wants to look. She simply wants to sit there and look. Look hard. Erika, watching but not touching. Erika feels nothing, and has no chance to caress herself. Her mother sleeps next to her and guards Erika's hands. These hands are supposed to practice, not scoot under the blanket like ants and scurry over to the jam jar. Even when Erika cuts or pricks herself, she feels almost nothing. But when it comes to her eyes, she has reached an acme of sensitivity.
The booth smells of disinfectant. The cleaning women are women, but they don't look like women. They heedlessly dump the splashed sperm of these hunters into a filthy garbage can. And now concrete-hard squooshed tissue is lying there again. As far as Erika is concerned, the cleaning women can take a break and relax their harried bones. They have to bend an infinite number of times. Erika simply sits and peers. She doesn't even remove her gloves, so she won't have to touch anything in this smelly cell. Perhaps she keeps her gloves on so no one can see her handcuffs. Curtain up for Erika, she can be seen in the wings, pulling the wires. The whole show is put on purely for her benefit! No deformed woman is ever hired here. Good looks and a good figure are the basic requirements. Each applicant has to undergo a thorough physical investigation: No proprietor buys a pig without poking her. Erika never made it on the concert stage, and so other women make it in her stead. They are evaluated according to the size of their female curves. Erika keeps watching. A single sidelong glance-and a couple of coins have gone the way of all flesh.
A black-haired woman assumes a creative pose so the onlooker can look into her. She rotates on a sort of potter's wheel. But who is spinning it? First she squeezes her thighs together, you see nothing; but mouths fill with the heavy water of anticipation. Then she slowly spreads her legs as she moves past several peepholes. Sometimes, despite all efforts at equal time, one window sees more than the other because the wheel keeps rotating. The peep slits click nervously. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Venture once more, and maybe you'll gain something more.
The surrounding crowd zealously rubs and massages, and is simultaneously mixed by a gigantic but invisible dough-kneading machine. Ten little pumps are churning away at top capacity. Outside, some customers are secretly pre-milking a bit, so they can spend less. Each man will have a woman to keep him company.
In the neighboring cells, the thrusting, jerking pumps discharge their precious freight. Soon they fill up again, and a yearning must be satisfied again. If you're jammed, you'll be charged quite a bit until you've discharged. Especially if you're so busy looking that you forget to work your pump. That's why they often bring new women in, as a distraction. The jerk gawks but doesn't jerk.
Erika looks. The object of her peeping thrusts her hand between her thighs and shows her pleasure by forming a tiny O with her mouth. Delighted at being watched by so many eyes, she closes her own eyes, reopening them and rolling them up very high in her head. She raises her arms and massages her nipples, making them stand up straight. Then she sits down comfortably and splays her legs far apart. Now you can peer into the woman from a worm's-eye view. She toys playfully with her pubic hair. She licks her lips palpably, while now one sportsman, now another, cocks his rubber worm. Her entire face reveals how wonderful it would be if only she could be with you. But unfortunately, that's out of the question because of the overwhelming demand. This way, everybody, not just one man, can get something.
Erika watches very closely. Not in order to learn. Nothing stirs or moves within her. But she has to watch all the same. For her own pleasure. Whenever she feels like leaving, something above her energetically presses her well-groomed head back to the pane, and she has to keep looking. The turntable on which the beautiful woman is perched keeps revolving. Erika can't help it. She has to keep looking. She is off-limits to herself.
To her left and right, she hears joyful moans and howls. I personally can't go along with that, Erika Kohut replies, I expected more. Something spurts and splashes against the plywood wall. The walls are easy to clean, their surfaces are smooth. On her right, some gentleman has lovingly notched a few words into the wall, "Holy Mary goddamn slut," in correct German. The men don't scrawl that many things here, they have other fish to fry. Anyway, they're not all that good when it comes to writing. They've only got one free hand, and usually not even that. Besides, they have to keep inserting money.
A dragon lady with dyed red hair now thrusts her chubby backside into view. For years now, cheap masseurs have been working their fingers to the bone on her alleged cellulite. However, she shows the viewers more for their money. The right-hand booths have already seen the front of the woman; now, the left-hand booths get a look. Some men like to evaluate a woman from the front, others from the back. The redhead moves muscles that she normally uses to walk or sit. Today, she's earning her living with them. She massages herself with her right hand, which has blood-red claws. Her left hand scratches around on her breasts. Her sharp artificial nails tug at her nipple as if it were rubber, and then let it bounce back. Her nipple seems alien to her body. The redhead is practiced enough to know that the candidate is about to make it! Any man who can't do it now will never do it again. Any man who's alone now has only himself to blame. Like it or not, he's going to remain alone for a long time.
Erika has reached her limit. You have to know when to stop. That's really going too far, she says as so often before. She stands up. Erika staked off her own limits long ago, securing them with ironclad treaties. She surveys everything from a high vantage point, which allows her to look far across the countryside. Good visibility is required. But once again, Erika does not care to look any farther. She leaves.
Her gaze alone suffices to push aside the waiting customers. A man greedily takes her place. A road emerges through the customers; Erika strides across and marches away. She walks and walks quite mechanically, just as she previously looked and looked. Anything Erika does, she does wholeheartedly. Do nothing halfheartedly, her mother always demanded. Nothing vaguely. No artist tolerates anything incomplete or half-baked in his work. Sometimes a work is incomplete because the artist dies prematurely. Erika walks along. Nothing is torn, nothing is faded. Nothing is bleached out. She's achieved nothing.
At home, a mild reproach from her mother descends upon the warm incubator that the two of them inhabit. Hopefully, Erika didn't catch cold during her trip (she fibs about the destination). The daughter slips into a warm bathrobe. She and her mother eat a duck stuffed with chestnuts and other goodies. This is a banquet. The chestnuts are bursting through the seams of the duck; Mother has gilded the lily, as is her wont. The salt and pepper shakers are silver-plated, the silverware is pure silver. The child's got red cheeks today, Mother is delighted. Hopefully, the red cheeks aren't due to fever. Mother probes Erika's forehead with her lips. Erika gets a thermometer along with the dessert. Luckily, fever is crossed off as a possible cause. Erika is in the pink of health-a well-nourished fish in her mother's amniotic fluid.
Icy streams of neon light roar through ice-cream parlors, through dance halls. Clusters of humming light dangle from whip-shaped lampposts over miniature golf courses. A flickering torrent of coldness. People HER age, enjoying the lovely peace and quiet of habit, loll around kidney-shaped tables. Tall glasses, containing long spoons, look like cool blossoms: brown, yellow, pink; chocolate, vanilla, raspberry. The colorful, steaming scoops are tinted an almost uniform gray by the ceiling lights. Glittering scoopers wait in containers of water, with threads of ice cream floating on the surface. In the casualness of fun, which doesn't have to keep proving itself, the young silhouettes relax in front of their ice-cream towers. Tiny, gaudy umbrellas stick out of the glasses, concealing the harsh detritus of maraschino cherries, pineapple chunks, chocolate chips. The loungers incessantly poke pieces of coldness into their own ice caves, cold to cold; or else they heedlessly let the good stuff melt, while telling one another things that are more important than the icy delight.
SHE only has to glance at this scene, and HER face instantly becomes disapproving. SHE considers her feelings unique when she looks at a tree; she sees a wonderful universe in a pinecone. Using a small mallet, she taps reality; she is a zealous dentist of language. The tops of simple spruces turn into lonesome, snowy peaks for her. The horizon is lacquered by a spectrum of colors. Far in the distance, huge, unidentifiable airplanes glide past, their gentle thunder barely audible. They are the giants of music and the giants of poetry, wrapped in enormous camouflage. Hundreds of thousands of bits of data flash through HER well-trained mind. An insane, intoxicated mushroom of smoke shoots up, and then, in an ash-gray act of vomiting, slowly descends to the ground. A fine, gray dust quickly covers all the apparatuses, all the test tubes and capillary tubes, all the flasks and spiral condensers. HER room turns to solid rock. Gray. Neither cold nor warm. In between. A pink nylon curtain crackling at the window, not stirred by any puff of wind. The interior furnished neatly. Untenanted. Unowned.
The piano keys begin to sing under fingers. The gigantic tail of culture-refuse moves forward, softly rustling as it curls around, closing into a tight circle, millimeter by millimeter. Dirty tin cans, greasy plates with leftovers, filthy silverware, moldy remnants of fruit and bread, shattered records, ripped, crumpled paper. In other homes, hot steaming water hisses into bathtubs. A girl mindlessly tries a new hairdo. Another girl picks the right blouse for the right skirt. There are new, sharply pointed shoes here, to be worn for the first time. A telephone rings. Someone picks up. Someone laughs. Someone says something.
The garbage, an immense mass, lumbers along between HER and THE OTHERS. Someone gets a new permanent wave. Someone matches a new nail polish to a lipstick. Tinfoil twinkles in the sun. A sunbeam gets caught on the tine of a fork, on the edge of a knife. The fork is a fork. The knife is a knife. Ruffled by a gentle breeze, onion skins rise up, tissue paper rises up, sticky with sweet raspberry syrup. The decaying strata underneath, dusty and disintegrated, are an inner lining for the rotting cheese rinds and melon skins, for the glass shards and blackish cotton swabs, all facing the same doom.
And Mother yanks at HER guide ropes. Two hands zoom out and play the Brahms again, this time better. Brahms is very cold when he inherits the classics, but quite moving when he grieves or gushes. Mother, however, is never moved by Brahms.
A metal spoon is simply left in melting strawberry ice cream because a girl just has to say something, which another girl laughs at. The other girl rearranges the gigantic plastic barrette, shimmering like mother-of-pearl, in her upswept hairdo. Both girls are well versed in feminine movements! Femininity pours from their bodies like small, clean brooks. A plastic compact is opened; in the shine of the mirror, something is freshened in frosty pink, something is emphasized in black.
SHE is a weary dolphin, listlessly preparing to do her final trick. Wearily eyeing the ludicrously multicolored ball that the animal pushes on its snout-a movement that has become an old routine. The animal takes a deep breath and then makes the ball whirl like a top. In Bu?uel's An Andalusian Dog, you see two concert grand pianos. Then the two donkeys, half-rotten, bloody heads suspended over the keyboards. Dead. Putrescent. Outside of everything. In a totally airless room.
A chain of false eyelashes is glued to natural lashes. Tears flow. An eyebrow is painted vehemently. The same eyebrow pencil makes a black dot on a mole right by the chin. The stem of a comb is inserted repeatedly into a very high topknot, in order to loosen the haystack. Then a clasp holds some hair fast again. Stockings are pulled up, a seam is straightened. A patent-leather pocketbook swings up and is carried away. Petticoats rustle under short taffeta skirts. The girls have paid, they leave.
A world opens up to HER, a world whose existence no one else even suspects. Legoland, Minimundus, a miniature world of red, blue, and white plastic tiles. The pustules with which the world can be joined together release an equally tiny world of music. HER left hand-rigid talons paralyzed in incurable awkwardness-scratches feebly on several keys. She wants to soar up to exotic spheres, which numb the senses, boggle the mind. She doesn't even make it to the gas station, for which there is a very precise model. SHE is nothing but a clumsy tool. Encumbered with a slow, heavy mind. Leaden dead weight. A hindrance! A gun turned against HERSELF, never to go off. A tin screw clamp.
Orchestras made up of nothing but some one hundred recorders begin to howl. Recorders of various sizes and types. Children's flesh is puffed into them. The notes are created by children's breath. No keyboard instruments are summoned. Cases for the recorders have been sewn by the mothers. The cases also contain small round brushes for cleaning the instruments. The bodies of the recorders are covered with the condensation of warm breath. The many notes are created by small children with the help of breath. No support is provided by any piano!
The very private chamber concert for voluntary listeners takes place in an old patrician apartment on the Danube Canal; a Polish émigré family, which has lived in Vienna for four generations now, has opened up its two grand pianos and its rich collection of scores. Furthermore, in a place where other people keep their automobiles (close to the heart), these people have a collection of old instruments. They don't own a car, but they do own a few lovely Mozart violins and Mozart violas, as well as an exquisite viola d'amore, which hangs on the wall, constantly guarded by a family member when chamber music erupts in their home, and taken down only for purposes of study. Or in case of fire. These people love music, and want others exposed to it too. With loving patience; if necessary, by force. They wish to make music accessible to adolescents, for it's not much fun grazing in these meadows alone. Like boozers or junkies, they absolutely have to share their hobby with as many people as possible. Children are cunningly driven toward them. The fat little grandson, whom everyone knows, whose wet hair sticks to his head, who yells for help at the slightest occasion. The latchkey child, who stoutly resists, but has to submit in the end. No snacks are served during a recital. Nor can you nibble on the hallowed silence. No breadcrumbs, no grease spots on the upholstery, no red-wine stains on piano cover one or piano cover two, absolutely no chewing gum! The children are sieved for any garbage brought in from outside. The coarser children remain in the sieve, they will never achieve anything on their instruments.
