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When he considers his children, he has his doubts about the fruits of his upbringing. Strangers are well brought up but his children are not. At the time of their conception he was still an officer. But what was the result? Two children who give him the shivers. In the old days you never used to see children like that, but nowadays there are a lot like them. The wife makes a pig's ear of everything, including the milk pudding, which she stirs; this doesn't make it any better.
He goes to get his pistol, to clean and grease it, you have to do this even if it happens not to be needed just now. Be prepared. The steel is a cold weight in his hand. In the case are his favourite photos of Gretl, the gynaecology photo (which will soon have to be taken anew, the photographer is more experienced now), the brothel photo, the schoolgirl photo with the apron and cane. The pistol case is kept in a secret drawer no one knows about in the kitchen cupboard. It wouldn't interest anybody anyway, his son is unfortunately only interested in literature.
Taking an abrupt decision, the ex-officer (the things an officer has to be capable of, such as decisiveness!) goes into the kitchen to rape his wife, since he suddenly feels like it, but the cow makes an awkward movement, as usual, and he slips on the tiles and falls to the floor with a crash. Where he flounders to and fro, his remaining leg twitching. However badly he wants to, he can't get up. Getting it up is usually a problem of another kind, in fact, but this time he'd have been sure of a hard-on because he was so full of desire. So much for that. It's his belief that the cause of the trouble is that the powerful stimuli he was flooded with as a young man in the occupied eastern territories have been far weaker in recent years. Once you have seen mountains of naked corpses, women among them, the charms of your housewife back home offer no more than a paltry temptation. Once your finger's squeezed the trigger of power, you slacken off rapidly if squeezing strangers' hands at the hotel is all the force you can exert. Regulars greet him with a shake of hands and a slap on the shoulder. Along with popular salesman jokes and anecdotes. He tells them at home to turn Margarethe on if his prick isn't enough, which is often the case. Damn the thing, there are times when it simply won't get up.
Times are growing weaker and softer and so are the youngsters of today. He does not know where it all will end. In half-hearted mediocrity, plainly, if not in something worse. His son is afraid of that mediocrity too.
Papa is still floundering, revolving helplessly, because he keeps paddling on one side only and not on the other one as well, which is a mistake. Recently, to crown it all, he's been tormented to extremes by sciatica and rheumatism too, as if having a leg missing weren't enough of a problem. He revolves on his axis and tries to get up on his foot. Which he can only manage with the assistance of Margarethe's patented lifting-up grip, heave-ho, that it? Now he's standing again, crutches jammed under his armpits, there we are, he'd imagined that he'd be able to do without crutches when ravishing Gretl, at one time he didn't need propping up like that.
Poor little mouse, why don't we go to bed, it's more comfortable. But the bed gives and I'd really like to drill you into the hard unyielding ground. Well, but still, it'll be snug and warm and cosy there, dear, and I've got a drop of rum left, come on, duckie.
Various parts of Otto's body hurt badly when he props himself up on his crutches and swings his remaining leg, to and fro, to and fro, but he doesn't betray the fact. The charismatic authority he once had drags his wife along behind him yet again. I'm always so tired nowadays, I'll have to get a check-up. Poor dear, yes, why don't you do that. And instead of giving it to Gretl good and proper, seeing that she's right next to him, he buries his greyed head at her breast and can't help crying. She is very moved by this. Because she does not know the reason and mistakenly supposes it's because of her. Poor little fellow, it'll be all right, she says softly, comforting him. It does not comfort him. The lumbering man sobs, he's coped with so much, he's killed so many, and now there's so much he can't handle himself. What bad luck.
I can't help crying just now, I hope the children don't see me in this state. They won't be home so early, they've been out the whole time recently, I don't know where. What they need is a firm hand, which I have, I even have two, though only one leg.
My poor poor Otti. Stroke stroke pat smack.
It's all right, there there.
We'll have a drop to drink, then we'll have a nice cup of coffee, and this evening we'll listen to the Maxi Bohm quiz show. There are valuable prizes to be won by listeners at home, sometime or other we're sure to win. If I don't know the answer we'll just ask Rainer or A
He tells her to pour it out, but not to be so stingy as the last time, after all, he gets quite decent tips. Even if it's fundamentally humiliating. But things have changed, and incompetence is making the ru
Today he even gets more than usual. Because he cried so much.
CAFESPORT IS another scene. A scene, because that is where the artists and intellectuals go to be seen. Taking part is what matters, not wi
At the table where the Holy Foursome are passing their time today, two other people are busy trying to prove Pythagoras's theorem by purely graphic means and failing in the attempt. As far as Rainer is concerned, mathematics belongs in the realism sector and is therefore uninteresting to him. If they were discussing literature he would long since have butted in and a
Elsewhere some Greeks are sitting round, practically pushing their dark heads into each other as they joke about women and occasionally chat one up. All this happens close by the Ladies, just where the women have to pass by.
Whenever something is said that isn't to Rainer's taste, and at other times too, irrespective, he will stand up abruptly and stride thoughtfully off into a corner, where he stares about blackly till Sophie or A