Greed by Elfriede Jelinek Page A

that's the king, well, does time stand still? No. No one keeps still. But now, let's get away, into the open air! As if grandad had known that his picture is being taken, but of course he will have known that, we can see it now, we see him in the ice cream chill of the moment, the concentrated gaze of obedience, sweetened, enhanced!, that's him, grandad, look, here, in front of the king, he's standing to attention in front of the monarch, whom he'll never get to know any better, as we know today, although it might have been interesting, who knows which person would have something to say to which other, unfortunately often in a foreign language? No one knows. I believe that this sentence, although I wrote it myself, is not right. I for example have nothing to say faced with the figures I create, bring on the stock phrases and some more, and another and another, until they squirm beneath me with pain or perhaps also because they've too little space. They should never have pulled out this language nerve without an anaesthetic! The king doesn't look like anyone one knows. A king is always somone one will not get to know. He may be kindhearted, conscientious, whereas others don't even need a conscience. They can't afford it, and we can't afford anything cheaper either. A slim man in a dark suit, the king, always stays properly in the picture, no he doesn't need that, he's already in too many pictures!, and in his day, in the 1970s, was often and with pleasure pictured beside his slim Latin-looking wife in the magazines of the ladies' hairdressing salon of the village. A good place in which to make an impression on the fancies of women, who like to fancy themselves, especially when they sit on these white upholstered chairs and think it makes them more beautiful, and to implant longings in rose-pink or petunia pink. Those that fancy themselves are even easier to get, who quietly fancy themselves and look down on others, but secretly, when they're all alone, then they tolerate no moderation, and their bodies run immoderately out of control if someone caps one of their thin little stalks with which they desperately cling to their property. And which puts them into the horizontal position for life, which they can lose at any time. But by then they will have lost themselves long ago and no longer know who they are and how much they still have in the bank. Not as much as before.
    In a ladies' hairdressing salon a country policeman would be even more conspicuous than a king, unless a customer had parked her car wrongly, then all eyes are on her and her hairstyle, a semi-finished product. The country policeman would be generous but just. He arranges a meeting and prepares to obscure the evidence, so that behind the blinds he can fulfil all secret desires, including those which are not kept secret at all. Instead they force themselves upon him like inquisitive dogs, which are immediately sent away again without the stiff retriever stick they're panting for, chased away because they are so wet and unappetizing that one hardly wants to lie down beside them. But there is a stately home to be given away and one says very softly: come! And then he comes. If the women don't get a king for the bedside table, where the magazines with all the color pictures lie, perhaps they'll get the servant of the state, who has to be there for the king at all times. Paper: doesn't blush. In the photograph the king is altogether relaxed and casual and friendly. I would say, this woman is freshly permed but unrelaxed, if I would dare say so and had not forbidden myself to constantly look down from my high horse at what I've made up. The father of the country policeman could still be alive today, the way he looked then. Here lives always come along twice or even many times over. They stand next to one another like houses, one the same as the other, but that doesn't affect me. The lives match one another like clothes, but often they don't match the person to whom