Free The Maggot People by Henning Koch

a bowl of fruit: white warm maggots were squirming, wild to get out of the light.
    Janine breathed out. “He’s maggot. Close him up.”
    They folded the skin back and it quickly sealed itself. Janine gave them a nod and they withdrew without a word into the back room. Once they were out of sight there were two metallic clicks—not of guns, but beer cans.
    Janine sat down with a sharp squeak on one of her cushions. “Okay, so you’re maggot. Doesn’t mean very much, I have to say. Anyone could be maggot.”
    She took off her sunglasses and with a fluid movement removed what proved to be a wig. Beneath, she was clean-shaven with pale eyes like jeans washed too many times. “Sit down.” She nodded at a plastic cube and he eased himself into it. “So why are you here? I can’t possibly trust you. You could be anyone…”
    â€œI’m not. I was locked up in the hospital but I got out. I did what Ariel said. She got me out. That’s all. She didn’t believe it either at first. We drove towards Chamonix to see Purissima, but Ariel died.” His voice grew tremulous. “I think her poison got to her. She picked a very hard one for herself.”
    â€œNo one picks their poison,” said Janine. “The poison picks you and then we blame it on the maggot. The waste remains and kills you in the end.” She stared bleakly at him. “I knew Ariel. I didn’t know she’d crossed over, though. And of course Günter with his dirty ass. He used to be a monk, except he was always causing a stink. In the end he pissed off a few bigwigs. They decided to have some fun with him, so they had his brain transplanted into a maggot-dog.”
    Michael shrugged. “Okay, that explains it.”
    â€œAnd you?”
    â€œI told you. I came here to find you. I wouldn’t mind a drink if you’ve got one.”
    â€œI think we’ll go out and have one. I’d rather not be a sitting duck in this apartment.” She stood up and went to a plastic bag, from which she dug out another wig for him and a change of shirt and trousers. “Put these on.”
    While he was kitting himself out, she took a syringe and injected herself. Twenty minutes later they were sitting on the wall of the promenade staring out over the darkening sea whilst smoking cigarettes and swigging from a bottle of red wine. He watched her profile for a little longer than he had to. She didn’t turn her head, just sat quietly and consented to being scrutinized.
    â€œThose guys in your apartment? Are they working for you?”
    She swung round and said, with ferocity, “Are you interrogating me?” There was a lull, just long enough for Janine to glance up and down the promenade and then discreetly inject herself again before refocusing on Michael, with a raised eyebrow.
    â€œIn case you think I’m a drug addict, I should make it clear I’m not. And I’m not into sex either.”
    â€œNo drugs and no love. What do you live for, then?”
    She looked straight at him for the first time. “I live for nothing,” she said. “And it works just fine for me.”
    â€œIn the long run we’re all dead. Who said that?”
    â€œFuck Keynes and whatever he said. Fuck Hitler, fuck Mussolini in his pressed uniforms, fuck Stalin and his vodka and moustache, fuck the paranoid Zionists and their hatred for the Arab, fuck fucking Milton Friedman, fuck postmodernism, fuck the Nobel Prize. Fuck Mahatma Gandhi and fuck the Chinese, fucking yellow-bellied naifs with their love of dollars, fuck the bandana warmongers with their AK-47s, fuck Tony Blair and his entourage of middle-class masturbators, fuck Sarkozy and his tight-assed out-of-tune wife…” She stopped. “I’m a student, that’s what people don’t get about me. And a sister.”
    â€œA sister?”
    â€œOf God, my friend. Of God. Ever heard of Mary