Free The Piano Teacher: A Novel by Elfriede Jelinek

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 correctGerman. 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. Donothing 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