Wonderful Wonderful Times Read online

  THEY REMAIN AT the edge of things, not because they're afraid of the light but because the light, understandably enough, is afraid of them. In schoolyard and classroom alike. The wolf pack always cluster together in corners. They flaunt their unchallenged ubermensch status, which the rest would like to flaunt too but they only have unter-mensch status, which has to apply to some in order that the contrast with the ubermensch achievement be clear. Out from the gloomy corners they stick out their legs, suddenly, and almost invariably some Mummy's boy or a Daddy's girl in a checked, pleated skirt goes flying. Their well-behaved fellow-pupils say they never run out of subjects of conversation when they go to an ice-cream parlour with their boyfriends or girlfriends. They talk about rewarding ways of using your spare time, what's going on at school, and who's going out with which Institute of Technology or University student or who only got a neat, natty clerk to go out with. Other subjects of conversation are concerts, plays, exhibitions, parties and records. The Anna-Sophie-Rainer lobby give stuff like this the thumbs-down. They have grown out of the record phase, or at least if they do listen to records it's only cool jazz or rock. When Sophie gives things the thumbs-down she does so less vehemently because she has no need to show vehemence. Things come to Sophie, and sometimes she says: go away for now, and sometimes she accepts them. Depending on her mood and whim. Rainer says it is good if she is hard, the only place she should relax is in his arms, there she can be soft if she wants.

  Sophie has to be properly motivated if she's to commit a crime, or several crimes, because she herself does not believe she needs to make the effort. Nor is it nice to stay up at night perpetrating deeds that shun the light. It takes willpower, since you could just as well be in bed reading a suspenseful thriller.

  The writer Adalbert Stifter, a suicide victim, raises his voice above the noisy German lesson. The victim of his own failed life-plan and a wrecked marriage, he has nothing better to do than drivel unctuously on about Whitsun celebrations when he goes out to the hushed edge of the wood at dawn, not where there is a cocky little fawn (who gives a damn about his funny little cock, says Anna, or words to that effect) but where instead he goes walking in what he considers to be the endless countryside, as it were, though what would he know of infinity. His mind is incapable of grasping the concept. Rainer senses within himself the infinite potential of a writer who breaks loose of all the fetters. He is the one who apprehends infinity, not Stifter, as Stifter's ruined life showed, a life in which he never dared venture anything. With military precision, Adalbert Stifter continues his review of various beauties, not only living but also inanimate. Nature tends to an inanimate condition, thinks Rainer, all we do is assist the process. He promptly passes a note to this effect to Sophie, who is scribbling outlines of horses in her spiral notepad. She thinks nothing at all of inanimation. But she thinks a lot, far more, of sporty animation. You have to become aware of your own body, or of a horse's when it shifts from a trot to a gallop. Then the wind caresses horse and rider alike and the fresh air dispels bad or restless moods. You shouldn't rest in a breeze such as that or you'll rust.

  But Evil prefers places that are sheltered from the wind. Pale young softies would rather seek out the seclusion of cellar bars, and out there, in the light of day, you can help blind people cross the road or stroke the doggies.

  What's the racket, Witkowski one and two, would you kindly keep quiet or do you want a mark against your names in the register? No, you needn't bother with the register, just record your own blunders in your own private notebook. I bet something goes wrong every week. Your breath smells, your complexion's an ugly grey and your ankles are thick, Frau Professor (Anna.)

  Stifter benevolently hammers away like a woodpecker at his theme of the sheen of radiant air and wonderful April clouds shot through with occasional rays of sun and the beautiful green strips of winter seed pricking up, he'd have been better getting his prick up somewhere else, says Rainer, casting Sophie a sidelong glance as he snarls and snorts.

  Anna suggests roping in Hans Sepp, whom she only recently met at a jazz club, to commit a crime or two with them. He would make an ideal tool, and anyway, he ought to quit the working class milieu he's in. In public life, somebody is always getting a hold on some relatively helpless person, in factories, in offices, in one way or another. At the Elin Union they're urging him to mess about with heavy current. Presumably his life is constantly at risk. Current kills cleanly and unexpectedly. And likes killing. It gives no warning. It strikes out of the blue. The humiliated worker sees a great many others at work who are in the same boat, and solidarity with them is inevitable. And that solidarity gives him a strength he is not supposed to have in Rainer's gang because Rainer is and ever shall be the leader-it was his idea. Wherever Hans looks, he mustn't see any other workers like himself. Wherever it may be, he must see us alone. He is destined to become a receiver of messages, reprimands, orders, encouragement.

  Anna says stealing wallets is kids' stuff, what I'd like to do is blow something up. Then people would sit up and take notice. The world out there wouldn't be gently indifferent. They'd pay attention.

  Rainer brags, saying that, whenever his father flies to New York, looking down from on high practically blows up (his expression) his chest with happiness, because up above the clouds there is freedom. The only snag about this is that his father has not been beyond Zwettl, beyond the woods, since the War. A detail Rainer doesn't add. Anna thinks of how she once gave Daddy a bunch of lily of the valley for his birthday, which he flushed down the toilet. Whatever put that into her mind now?

  True, it has to be visible to others, but anarchism is sufficient reward if it is practised for yourself alone. Then (and only then) it has a liberating effect. It is wrong to want it to achieve an end. And especially for a group of people, irrespective who those people might be.

  De Sade says you must commit crimes. In using the word crime we're adopting the consensus term, though among ourselves we would not describe any of our actions as such (Anna). We need the universally valid norm to get a kick out of our own extremeness. We are monsters, even if we disguise ourselves as ordinary people. We are the children of ordinary people but we are not content with that. Inwardly we are consumed with wickedness, outwardly we are grammar school pupils.

  Rainer, who is reading The Outsider by Camus, says he would like to put the hostility of the world behind him. Once your hope for something better is taken from you, then at last you have the present all in your hand. Then you yourself are reality. Others are extras. When Rainer contemplates an evening he says that evening is a melancholy ceasefire where all life has come to an end.

  The German teacher tells the Witkowskis to stop disturbing the rest of the class with their constant gabbling.

  Stifter says: Then there were the pale russet woods stretching along the mountains, cloaked in a frail blue haze. Stretching their legs ha ha. Off on their travels. Hope they bought a ticket. No, joking aside (Rainer), if you commit crimes you need the support of someone who loves you. In his case it is a woman. Sophie. It is not the kind of support a woman gives a bourgeois philistine, it is the support a woman gives a young artist. If a human being ventures so far into illegality there has to be a partner waiting at the threshold, all tenderness and intimacy: Sophie. In reality I am revolted by my desires. But the desires are stronger than I am. And my love of you is stronger than I am too. There is no physical desire in it, though. We're keeping that for later.

  Crap, says Anni, love is nothing but one skin touching another.

  One thing's for sure, I can't stick this Adalbert Staffer a single minute longer, declares Anna. If anyone will force this darning needle from my needlework kit under his fingernail during class without shouting out, and when I say full force I mean full, I'll go to the boys' toilet with him, the cubicle on the left. Rainer finds this kind of revolutionary. Anna says: No, it's not, the aim isn't equality for all, that would be contrary to Nature and genetic theory, this is the exact opposite.
Total discrimination and isolation. Equality can only be of interest to those who are incapable of rising to the ranks of the strong. They compensate by downgrading the strong and then imagine the strong are weak as well. Now how about that needle? Gerhard Schwaiger, an average kid, a late birth, covered top to toe in pimples-or at least the parts of his body you can see-and with a tendency to blush, sees his big chance, here it is, zero hour, and instantly rams the needle beneath the nail of his left forefinger. Ow! Sophie gives a smile, like white wool, dabbed with talcum powder for good measure. Rainer is astounded that it's Schwaiger of all people, who's normally interested in nothing but chocolate. Schwaiger is pale as a handkerchief and says: Ow, how that hurts. Anna sizes him up joylessly. The Frau Professor says Schwaiger is like a child but if he's so desperate to go, go ahead, go, but next time remember to go during break. And off Gerhard goes, larding his way out the door, first giving Anni a conspiratorial look that is meant to be eloquent. It isn't eloquent, though, it's pathetic. Help me, Anni, please, I've been worshipping you for ages and now I need you to be a bit friendly and obliging or I'll never get a hard-on and be able to shove my prick inside you. Just a morsel of love would be the loveliest present you could give me, baby.

  Him of all people, Rainer says to his sister. I hope I don't have to come along with a screwdriver and extract you from the fat, Anni. Got a rubber?

  I've got one left. But if I know him he'll have had one on him for months, looking forward to a chance like this. The rubber will be thin and brittle by now and won't do its job.

  Witkowski Anna, could you kindly go on reading where we just left off. Yes, Frau Professor, Stifter tells us that people are not free, that they are slaves to the Laws of Nature. So you have to commit violent deeds (if you don't have anyone to do other kinds of deeds with), actions that ordinary people would call crimes but which we define as the norm, though of course it is our norm and not that of the rest.

  Whereupon Anna is sent out of the class. Which was what she intended. So while Adalbert Stifter goes on holding forth about the rosy-hued faces of young people who blush if you look at them unexpectedly (the drooling old paederast gets off on shame) Anna strolls absolutely calmly to the toilet and red-faced Gerhard lying in wait for her. Come, come, come to me, Anni, I can't stand it any more, crash, he nearly ends up in the bowl, the jerk with his blubbery white ass didn't get a proper grip, you can see right away that he's inexperienced. Anna slips her panties off and gives curt instructions as to the position he's to get into. Needless to say he doesn't have a hard-on now, might have guessed, that's the last straw. Anxiety and agitation can do for someone who's never done it. D'you expect me to do that too, huh? At last, at long last there's a sign of life, it stirs, it moves, to the accompaniment of deep crimson and pallor on the part of Gerhard. First it collapses a time or two, like a house of cards. Anna observes the manipulation of Gerhard's member with interest and plays with the rubber. Will it, won't it, yes it will. There we go. Fine. When she sees his red glans pointing her way she thinks: Hang on, perhaps not after all, how revolting, who knows if I can stand it. But presently the question is answered in the affirmative, the wretched under-achiever shakes and rubs his member desperately till it more or less stands up hard, it peeks about and all it sees is the stinking cubicle with its peeling green oil paint, Love has never chosen a setting such as this, nor has Love chosen it this time. The incompetent has been madly in love with Anna for a long time, but this fact is of little help.

  A promise is a promise, so she lowers herself upon this over-eager cry-baby, he can hardly grasp that at last the great day has come, hooray hooray, he'll tell some of the other kids his age all about it afterwards, in detail. Memory will make it all more important than it is, in any case, oh that's good, that's so good, I could handle this every day, no problem, but unfortunately I don't get it every day. Unfortunately you have to wait till you're more mature, but right now I feel very mature already, Anni honey. People need this, I need it more than anyone else because my libido is so strong, I love you, I love you, oooh Anni, now, now! Please stay, don't go now. Best of all, don't ever leave me at all, I'm going to study medicine some time, soon. Shut your trap, d'you have to yap like that, they'll hear us! Can't you be quieter when you come? Oooh Anni, go on, please, don't stop now, it'll be fantastic if I come now, no one has ever felt this just the way I do, the rest don't feel it so strongly, let's face it, I'm stronger than all the rest. You're so beautiful and you have a great figure, so thin, I'm going to lose weight now too, you'll see, I'll lose weight just for you so that we go together, there's never been anything like this, Anni sugar. This happens millions of times a day, jerk. Come on, you nobody, shoot your wad, get a move on, Kraftmann'll notice if we're both out so long. I feel as if my insides were being hauled out, Anna, my beloved, that's what you are now, no doubt about it, I love you, I love you. My whole heart is yours. Look, are you going to shoot your juice or not, else I'm stopping. But Gerhard is coming, massively-he gives a loud squeal like a branded pig. If no one heard it's a miracle.

  Anna's eyes peruse his distorted face and she fights back the retching once again, only succeeding at the last moment in keeping it down. That'd be great, throw up all over the greasy slob.

  We'll never part again, Anna, isn't that right, from now on you're my girlfriend, the whole class'll know, just mine, all mine.

  Piss off! About time too. Do you always take that long? For a whole half hour after Anna has left Gerhard goes on begging her for a little love and affection, which he doesn't get, though. At times young people suffer profoundly. Often grown-ups do not take this in at all, and if they do they take no notice.

  SOPHIE'S PLACE IS furnished with genuine Biedermeier. None of her schoolmates realises this because they are youngsters of today for whom the past is dead. Quite the opposite of bieder and Meier, though, are Sophie's wishes to be an utterly hard woman for whom feelings do not count, only figures. She would like to go to Switzerland to take special courses in finance and economics, and then deal in shares and currency. Anything that is not currency or a share will simply make no impression on her. In this respect she is a stark contrast to Rainer, who needs feelings for his writing. And for her, his Sophie. Because Sophie has touched the very core of him. Sometimes something of this kind happens to a man and a woman only once in their entire lives, and at times like that it's important not to miss the right moment or things will turn out wretchedly. Rainer deliberately lets feelings right inside him, but there nausea at those very feelings eats its way out and is expressed in a poem. Rainer has quite enough ideas concerning the past, the present, the world. He has only one request: to be left in peace to complete the book he plans to write. The man in him says he has to have Sophie, the artist says: Stay the lone wolf that you are. Rainer puts up armoured defences made of ice, but you're supposed to sense that Sophie could melt the ice.

  Sophie is wearing a tennis dress because she has to go out to a match soon. Rainer's lower jaw grinds against his upper jaw. From the outside these jaws look white. What they are grinding is no less than a piece of chocolate cake that the maid brought him. They not only have the occasion to grind, they also have a reason. Sophie is forever walking out of the picture just before you press the button. Sophie is a will-o'-the-wisp. Free as air. The girl has also brought a tray bearing whisky glasses. The gang have seen the drink in films, where people live on it. In the latest films you can also witness social structure disintegrating. Marriage and the family will be the next system to go if we're not careful. Given that the War left almost everything in confusion, the class system can be overcome and you can even make it up into the higher social strata (or ruling class, as it came to be called) if you've got the required gumption. New German films demonstrate the economic flexibility of private individuals. While behind the scenes Capital is at work on its own flexibility. This is something that new German films have taken from victorious America. In America, boundary violations have always been possible, in Texas for
example, where grazing land has boundaries. Creaking like icebergs, companies amalgamate to create amalgamated companies. The water sprays and boils up high. Divorce is in because people finally have the time for a breach between partners, but the topic of capital accumulation is out because it's not supposed to be too visible.

  Hans, who is forever having to jump to attention at work, is the first to leap hastily to clear a space on the table for the maid. Pointlessly, his mother has taught him to behave with courtesy to women, as in the old days. At the last moment, Sophie holds him back, and so the maid has to cope single-handed. She doesn't exist, Hans, you have to understand. But everyone you see exists, isn't that right? Wrong.

  Along with all their many other errors, the main mistake of the Austrian anarchists (in so far as they existed) was their terrible social situation, which they wanted to put behind them as fast as they possibly could. But that's idiotic. If you want everyone to be on an equal footing, you may as well have done with it and be a Communist. How dreary. What you have to do is destroy most of what was done by the older generation.

  Rainer states that in the summer he is going sailing, that his brother in America knows several film stars, and that his mother is going to the warm-water spa at Villach tomorrow. This last is a long-standing dream of hers. And he doesn't have a brother either. Rainer reports that the German surrealist tradition was unfortunately broken by the War. He is interested in aesthetic problems, and wants leader status. Maybe leader status can be achieved by dealing Sophie a short, sharp blow on the mouth, making the said mouth bleed. No, nothing doing just now, she's opening a packet of biscuits, his favourite, chocolate-covered kind. Rainer gobbles like an idiot. The most powerful urge known to Man is the urge to be free of manual labour. Any means that accomplishes that end is fine. Some people erroneously imagine that they have a birthright to non-manual work. Rainer thinks Hans thinks that way. Because at irregular intervals Hans says that the only thing Nature means to him is leisure, which is a positive value. In his leisure time he goes off into Nature. I agree (Sophie), in my free time I'm out in Nature almost all the time as well, that's where to look if you need me.