The Piano Teacher: A Novel (34 page)

No matter how far he wanders, not a bird is to be seen. But eventually and unexpectedly, at the edge of abandoned hope, something does turn up: an entangled couple in an advanced
stage of lust. The precise stage cannot be determined. Walter Klemmer almost steps on the woman and the man, who form a hybrid, a continually changing shape. His foot falls clumsily on an item of clothing, and his other foot almost stumbles into raging flesh that occupies another flesh in mad consumerism. Overhead, a huge, soughing tree, itself under ecological protection and therefore out of danger, solicitously camouflages the violent breathing. In his lust for the bird, Klemmer didn’t watch where he was going. His hate discharges upon this flesh, which blossomed unexpectedly by the wayside, shamelessly crushing other blossoms because it wallowed—get this!—in a municipal flowerbed. The crushed flowers can be tossed away. Klemmer finds only a light stick with which to take an active part in the bodily struggle. Now we’ll see whether he beats or is beaten. Here, a man can force himself into the universal joust of love as a laughing third party. Klemmer yells some nasty words. He yells from the bottom of his heart. He is heartened because the couple do not respond. A tool is swung. Hastily someone pulls things up and someone pulls things down. Order is restored in front of Klemmer. The two participants work silently and softly on themselves and their outer trappings. A few things are out of place, but they are quickly put right. A gentle drizzle falls. Original conditions are restored. Klemmer disagreeably explains the consequences of certain modes of behavior. He rhythmically beats the stick on his right thigh. He feels himself becoming indefatigably more powerful because no one contradicts him.

The couple’s animal fear weighs on Klemmer and is better than fear emanating from a real animal. He can smell a demand for discipline. They’re just waiting for it. That’s why the park attracts them at night. Wide-open space stretches all around. The couple make themselves at home on this range by not retorting to Klemmer’s quick, furious shrieks. Klemmer talks
about “pigs” and “sluts.” The insights that inundate him when he listens to music seem shopworn when he faces life and lust. Musically, he knows what he’s talking about. Here, he sees what he always refuses to talk about: the banality of fleshliness. The loving couple remain in the uncontoured shadow of the tree. They are obviously going to submit humbly to whatever comes: a denunciation or a quick blow. Rain falls harder. No blow falls. The couple’s senses focus on shelter and protection: Is the blow about to fall? The attacker hesitates. The couple, unnoticed, they hope, retreat backward into some cover. They would like to stand up and dash away. Dash away! Both are very young. Klemmer has just seen adolescents wallowing like pigs. He wants to swing out his stick and hurl it into alien yielding. But his weapon is still beating down on his own thigh. He doesn’t want to emerge from this night without prey. Standing here and generating fear, Klemmer achieves something he can take to Erika, who’s asleep now. He can also bring her a puff of fresh air from distant plains, which she needs.

Klemmer swings freely through space: a freshly oiled door hinge. If he swings forward, the lovers can expect pain. If he swings back, he may open an escape hatch. The two children flinch away until their backs come up against something solid, which prevents their escape. Their spirits are willing, but their flesh won’t find the way unless they dash off to the side. Suddenly, the situation appeals to Klemmer. He goes through familiar muscle exercises. Standing, he checks one or two paddle reflexes, though without water. This living image has substance, yet is easy to perceive. Two opponents facing him. Manageable, and also cowardly, unwilling to fight. Will Klemmer seize this opportunity or let it pass unused? He is master of the situation. He can express sympathy or act as the avenger for disturbance of the park peace by corruptible youth. He can also notify the authorities. But he has to decide quickly, for
the utter absence of other people makes escape so tempting.

Klemmer’s “Stop thief!” would be fruitless; he’d just stand uselessly in the landscape, and the land of his anger would retreat, his victims would be far away. The young couple notice very slight qualms in the man’s voice. Perhaps an irresolution that Klemmer revealed overhastily, without realizing it himself. But it’s a signal for the two children! He seems to have shifted imperceptibly from his standpoint of violence. They grab the opportunity. It won’t knock again. Since he’s not in water, Klemmer wonders: What should I do? The two children detour around a tree trunk and dash away. They are practically hurled by Klemmer’s massive presence. Their soles thud dully on the meadow ground. Its lining, the earth, shines bright in certain places. They’ve forgotten some sort of jacket, or is it a short coat? A child’s coat? Klemmer doesn’t take off in hot pursuit. He’d rather trample the jacket. He doesn’t look for a purse or wallet in its pockets. He doesn’t look for an ID card. He doesn’t look for valuables. He tramples the jacket underfoot, and makes himself at home in his trampling: a chained elephant, whose leg irons leave him only a few inches of free play, which he nonetheless knows how to exploit to the fullest. He tramples the jacket into the ground. He could cite no grounds for his trampling. Yet he gets angrier and angrier; the entire lawn is now his sworn enemy. Stubbornly and without inner calm, Walter Klemmer tramples the soft pillow underfoot, in his own peculiar rhythm. He tramples the jacket to pieces, slowly growing tired.

After leaving the park, Walter Klemmer walks through the streets for a while, aimlessly and shiftlessly. Lack of direction and light-footed energy carry him along while others sleep. A balloon of violence floats in his guts. The balloon never bumps into any wall of his body. Klemmer may feel disoriented, but his route seems to be oriented in a specific direction, toward a
specific woman. Many things strike Klemmer as hostile, but he confronts no adversary, his goal is too precious: a very special lady with talent. He wavers between two or three women, then opts for this one. He will not sacrifice her for the sake of a fight. He therefore sidesteps violence, although he will not skirt it if he meets it head on.

He takes an escalator down into an almost empty passage. He buys a half-liquid ice at a small cart. He is handed the ice lovelessly and carelessly by a man disguised with a cap; the man doesn’t realize how close his heedlessness brings him to getting beaten up. The man is not beaten. His cap suggests a sailor or a cook or both; the ageless face suggests fatigue. The ice is sucked up from the cup in two quick gulps by Klemmer’s funnel-shaped mouth. Few people arrive, few people depart. Few remain seated in the glass house of the fast-food joint. The ice was lukewarm and insipid. Persistence nestles in Klemmer’s comfortable calm. Its essence solidifies slowly; a tender effort takes shape in order to attack. All he cares about now is the end point of his trip; if he has any say in the matter, he’ll reach his destination shortly. Not without rearing for a good fight, but he won’t fight. Instead, Klemmer lopes through the streets toward a certain woman. She’s probably waiting for him, she must be. And now, immodest in his wishes, uncompromising in his demands, he is going back to her. He has something to tell her, something that will be completely new to her; and he has a lot to say. He has a lot to dish out. Klemmer, a boomerang, is drawn to nothing but this woman, returning to her with new concepts of their common goal. Klemmer looks for the eye of his mental hurricane, where there is supposedly an absolute lull. He briefly wonders whether he ought to step into a coffee shop. I want to spend a few minutes with real people, he muses. This is no small desire in a man who would like to be a human being first and foremost, but is
constantly prevented from being one. He does not look for a coffee shop. Dirty rags leave sticky traces on aluminum counters, under which colorfully glazed cakes and pastries, topped with whipped cream, wait in showcases. Stagnant drops, greasy smears on the planks of the sausage stands. No morning wind as yet; it will be sniffed like a wounded deer. Rhythm is intensified. Only one cab at the taxi stop, but it’s hailed right away.

Klemmer has arrived at Erika’s building. How keen the joy of arrival. Who would have thought! Anger resides in Klemmer. The man makes no attempt to announce himself by throwing stones, as a boy does at a girl’s window. Student Klemmer has grown up overnight. He would never have guessed how quickly a fruit ripens. He does nothing to be let in. He looks up at various dark windows and silently gets his bearings. He looks up at a specific dark window, not knowing whether it’s hers. He senses that the window belongs partly to Erika and partly to her mother. He assumes it is the conjugal bedroom. For the married couple: Erika and Mother. Klemmer cuts the lovingly tightened string to Erika and ties it to something new, in which Erika will play only a featured part, the role of means to the end. In the future, Klemmer will balance work and play. Soon he’ll be done with school, then he’ll have more time for his wet hobby. He won’t desire any attention from this woman. He won’t desire anything that hasn’t been perfected. He will either attend to her or not, as he sees fit. A line of sweat digs into his right temple, quickly running down. His breath whistles. He ran for miles in rather warm weather. He does a breathing exercise that the athlete is familiar with. Klemmer notices he is shunning thoughts in order to avoid thinking about the unthinkable. Everything in his mind is quick and ephemeral. The impressions vary. The end is clear, the means are delineated.

Klemmer squeezes into the entranceway and unzips his jeans. He nestles into the maternal cavern, thinking about Frau Erika and jerking off. He is concealed from observers. Although distracted, he is concentratedly aware of his core, which has formed down below. He has a pleasant awareness of his body. He has the rhythm of youth. He is performing work in and of itself. He is the sole beneficiary. Throwing back his head, Klemmer masturbates up toward a dark window, not even knowing whether it’s the right one. He is unmoved and relentless. His feelings are unstirred as he works on himself tenaciously. The window, unlit, stretches overhead like a landscape. He is stationed one story lower. Klemmer jerks vehemently; he has no intention of ever completing the job. He works the field of his body without joy or pleasure. He wishes to restore nothing and destroy nothing. He does not want to go up to that woman; but if someone opened the front door, he would go straight up to her. Wild horses couldn’t stop him! Klemmer rubs himself so discreetly that anyone who saw him would open the door with no suspicion. He could stand here forever, as active as ever; he could also try to gain admission immediately. It’s entirely up to him. Without resolving to wait for a late home-comer to unlock the door for him, Klemmer waits. Even if it takes all night. And if he has to wait until morning, when the first person emerges from the building—Klemmer tugs on his bloated cock and waits for the door to open.

Walter Klemmer stands in the entranceway, wondering how far he would go. He now has two lusts, hunger and thirst, both together. He gives in to his lust for the woman by rubbing himself. He experiences physically, and she should likewise experience physically, what it means to play games with him, games without aims. Palm off empty packages on him. Her
soft physical wrapping has to welcome him! He’ll yank her out of her lukewarm bed, away from her mother’s side.

No one comes. No one unlocks the door and opens it wide. In this changeable world, in which night has fallen, Klemmer knows only the constant factor of his feelings. Eventually, he goes to a phone booth. Aside from some decent baring, he has remained calm and disciplined in the entranceway. Awaiting late homecomers. To the outside world, he offered an image of calm without anger. Inside him, his senses are rebelling. The homecomers shouldn’t see him like that, they shouldn’t get suspicious. He is touched by his own feelings. He is moved by himself. Soon the woman will get off the high horse of Art and join him in the river of Life. She will become part of hustle and bustle and shame. Art is not a Trojan horse, Klemmer says tonelessly to the woman upstairs, who seeks content only in art. There’s a phone booth not too far off. It is instantly used. Klemmer despises the vandals who ripped the directories from their moorings. Now some life might go unsaved because a number is needed but not found.

Erika Kohut sleeps a fitful sleep of the just next to Mother, who has often treated her unjustly, yet calmly dreams away. Erika Kohut does not deserve such slumber; after all, someone is fitfully roaming about because of her. With the well-known ambition of her sex, she hopes, even in her dreams, for a happy ending and ultimate enjoyment. She dreams about the man taking her by storm. Please do so. Today she voluntarily went without TV. Yet today of all days she could have seen her favorite subject: foreign streets, into which she projects herself, wallowing safe and sound. Mostly American landscapes, endless, because America practically knows no limits. She wishes for the exaggerated attention and affection that TV people enjoy. Maybe I’ll even go on a trip with that man, Erika muses anxiously. But what will become of Mother? Not everyone can
exit at the right moment. Her body involuntarily reacts by exuding moisture; it can’t always be steered by its will. Mother sleeps on, graciously unaware. The telephone rings. Who can that be so late at night? Erika is startled. She knows right away who that can be so late at night. An inner voice, to which she is related, tells her. This voice is unjustly called love. The woman is delighted by her victory and hopes for a loving cup. She will put it next to her vases, giving it the place of honor in her new apartment. She is completely liberated. Through the dark room and hallway, she gropes her way to the telephone. The telephone shrieks. Love is the only reason why she will deviate from her stipulations. She is looking forward to deviating from them. What a relief. Mutuality in love is exceptional, after all. Usually, only one person loves, while the other is busy running as fast as his feet can carry him. This situation requires two people, and one is telephoning the other. Isn’t that great! How convenient. How marvelous.