The Piano Teacher: A Novel (30 page)

Klemmer tries to describe just how Erika, who is silent, is transgressing a simple rule of propriety with her silence. Erika remains silent, but does not hang her head. She feels she’s on the right track, and she wants him to take good care of all the keys to the locks he will use to lock her up! Don’t lose anything. Don’t worry about my mother. Just ask her for the substitute keys—and there are lots of them! Lock me in with my mother, from the outside! I expect you’ll have to leave for some urgent reason, and it’s my most fervent desire that you leave me tied up, bound up, roped up, together with my mother. Except that I’ll be behind the door of this room. She won’t be able to get to me. And leave me like that until the next day. Don’t worry about my mother, leave her to me. Take along all the keys to the rooms and the apartment. Don’t leave a single key here!

Klemmer again asks what do I get out of it? Klemmer laughs. Mother scratches. The TV screeches. The door is shut. Erika is still. Mother laughs. Klemmer scratches. The door screeches. The TV is off. Erika is.

To keep me from whimpering in pain, please stuff nylons and panty hose into my mouth, gag me with pleasure. Tie the gag skillfully to my mouth with a rubber hose (you can buy it in any hardware store) and more nylons—so skillfully that I can’t possibly remove it. And please wear a small black bikini, which reveals more than it conceals. I won’t breathe a word!

Address me as a human being and say: You’ll see what a nice package I’ll make out of you, you’ll see how fine you’ll feel after my treatment. Flatter me, tell me the gag fits so well that I’ll have to stay gagged for at least five or six hours, not
a minute less. Use a solid rope to tie up my ankles as solidly as my wrists, and please hogtie me even though I won’t allow it.

We’ll try it out. I’ll explain to you each time how I want you to do it, just as you’ve done it in the past. Can you possibly gag me and tie me up like a column and then stand me up in front of you? I’ll thank you from the bottom of my heart. Use a leather strap to tie my arms as tightly to my body as you can. Eventually I should be unable to stand up straight.

Walter Klemmer asks: Really? And then supplies his own answer: Really now! He nestles against the woman, but she is not his mother, and she shows she isn’t by not enclosing the man in her arms like a son. She keeps her hands at her side, clear and calm. The young man asks for a tender emotion and moves tenderly close to her. He requests a loving reaction, which only a complete monster could refuse him after such a shock. Erika Kohut encloses only herself, nobody else. Please, please, comes monotonously from the student; the teacher does not thank him politely. She reacts as if she were rebuffing him, allowing him to graze upon her, but refusing to give him her red lips. Reading isn’t like the real thing, the man curses hideously. The woman offers the letter again. Klemmer attacks her: That’s all you’ve got to offer. How dare you! One can’t always be a taker. Klemmer volunteers to show her a universe that she doesn’t know yet! Erika doesn’t give and Erika doesn’t take.

But in her letter she threatens to disobey. In case you witness a transgression on my part (she advises Walter Klemmer), please hit me, with the back of your hand too, slap my face when we’re alone. Ask me why I don’t complain to my mother or hit you back. In any case, tell me these things so I can feel my helplessness properly. Treat me just as I’ve told you to in
writing. A high point, which I don’t dare think about now, is that you’ll mount me like a horseman, challenged by my hard work. Please sit down on my face with all your weight and crush my head between your thighs so solidly that I can’t move. Describe how much time we have to do it and assure me that we’ve got enough time! Threaten to leave me in that position for hours and hours if I don’t carry out your assignments properly. You can let me pine away for hours with my face under you! Do it until I turn black. My letter demands blissful things from you. You can easily guess the greater delights that I wish for. I don’t dare write them down. The letter shouldn’t get into the wrong hands. Slap me hard, over and over. Ignore my protests. Ignore my cries. Ignore my begging. As for Mother: Pay no attention to her!

Outside, the TV is cooing softly. Mother starts drinking in earnest. This is the diversion she has been seeking. Families are eating everywhere. You can wipe out the little people on TV anytime, just by pressing a button. Their destiny would then be fulfilled without closer inspection, but Mother just doesn’t have the heart. Risking a glance or two, she watches. Tomorrow, if her daughter wishes, she can bring her up to date on tonight’s installment, so Erika won’t have to gape and gawk at the next bitter installment. Klemmer regards himself as standing outside desire and objectively considering the perspective of this female body. But he is moved imperceptibly. The glue of lust smears up his diverse attitudes, and the bureaucratic solutions that Erika prescribes offer him the guidelines to act in accordance with his pleasures.

Klemmer, willing or not, is affected by the woman’s wishes. He is still an outsider, only reading her wishes. But soon he will be won over by pleasure!

Erika desires one thing: that desire make her body desirable.
She wants to be certain of this. The more he reads, the more she wants to have it over with. Darkness is gathering. No light is switched on. The streetlight is still adequate.

Does she really mean what it says here: that she’s supposed to stick her tongue in his behind when he mounts her? Klemmer is skeptical about what he reads, he blames it on the poor lighting. A woman who plays Chopin so marvelously can’t possibly mean that. Yet that is precisely what the woman desires, because she has never done anything but play Chopin and Brahms. Now she pleads for rape, which she pictures more as a steady announcement of rape. When I can’t stir or budge, please talk to me about rape, nothing could save me from it. But please, always talk about more than you actually do! Tell me in advance that I’ll be beside myself with bliss when you treat me brutally but thoroughly. The twins Brutality and Thoroughness are hard to raise, and they scream whenever someone tries to separate them. Like Hansel and Gretel when Hansel is in the witch’s oven. The letter asks Klemmer to be sure that Erika will be beside herself with bliss if Klemmer just follows every point of the letter. He should blissfully keep slapping her, hard and steadily. Thank you very much in advance! Please don’t hurt me; that’s what’s written illegibly between the lines.

The woman wants to choke on Klemmer’s stone-hard dick when she is so thoroughly tied up that she can’t move at all. The letter is the fruit of Erika’s years of silent reflection. She now hopes that love will prevent anything from occurring. She will insist on it, but an amorous reply will make up for his refusal. Love excuses and forgives, that’s what Erika thinks. That’s also the reason why he should shoot in her mouth, if you please, until her tongue almost breaks off and she may have to throw up. She imagines in writing, and only in writing, that eventually he should even piss on her. Although at first
I may resist, so far as your rope allows me to. Just keep doing it, often and generously, until I no longer resist.

A tinkle on the keyboard, played by the mother because the child’s fingering was incorrect. Unerring memories pop up from the inexhaustible box of Erika’s brain. Meanwhile, Mother drinks a liqueur, and then another liqueur in a contrasting color. Mother tries to arrange her limbs, but has a hard time finding them. She begins her preparations for going to bed. It is time, and late.

Klemmer has finished reading the letter. He does not honor Erika by addressing her directly, for this woman is unworthy of such gifts. Klemmer finds a welcome accomplice in his body, which reacts unintentionally. The woman has made contact with him in writing, but a simple touch would have scored a lot more points. She deliberately refused to take the path of tender female touching. Yet she seems to be in basic agreement with his lust. He reaches for her, she doesn’t reach for him. That cools him off. He therefore replies silently to the woman’s letter. He remains silent until Erika suggests an answer. She asks him to mark her words, but not show them. Just follow your secret heart. Klemmer shakes his head. Erika points out that he normally obeys hunger and thirst. Erika says he’s got her telephone number, he can call her up. Think it over in peace and quiet. Klemmer’s silence has no musical termination or suspension. His hands and feet sweat; so does his back. Long minutes have worn by. The woman, who has awaited an emotional reaction, is disappointed, for he merely asks for the twentieth time whether she’s serious, or is this just a bad joke? Klemmer is an image of time-delayed calm about to explode! He looks like people obsessed with possessing—just before their fulfillment. Erika tries to figure out where his love has gone. Are you angry with me? I hope not. Erika attempts a timid preemptive blow: It doesn’t have to happen now. Tomorrow
is another day,
mañana
is good enough for me. In any case, the predestined cords and ropes are in the shoebox today. There’s a nice assortment. She forestalls an objection, saying she could easily buy more. You can have chains custom-made. Erika utters several sentences that go with the color of her willpower. She speaks as if she were teaching. Klemmer does not speak because only the teacher speaks during class. Erika demands: Speak now!

Klemmer smiles and jokingly replies that they can discuss it! He wonders whether she’s gone totally overboard. He pokes her: Has sex driven her completely out of her mind?

For the first time, Erika is afraid that Klemmer will hit her before they even get started. She hastily apologizes for the banal diction of the letter; she tries to create a relaxed atmosphere. Without disgust, and in a good mood, Erika says that ultimately the basis of love is utterly banal.

Could you always come to my apartment? You can let me waste away here in your sweet, cruel chains from Friday evening to Sunday evening, if you dare. I would like to waste away as long as possible in your chains, I’ve been longing for them for such a long time.

Klemmer doesn’t waste many words: Maybe. A short time later, he’s quite serious when he says: Absolutely not! Erika wants him to kiss her ardently, not hit her. She says that the act of love can straighten out a lot of things that seem hopeless. Say something loving to me and forget about the letter, she asks inaudibly. Erika hopes that her savior is here, and she also hopes for discretion and secrecy. Erika is dreadfully afraid of being hit. She therefore hits on an idea: We can keep writing letters to each other. We won’t even have to spend money on postage. She boasts that their correspondence can become even raunchier than this letter. It was only a beginning, and a start has been made. May I write another letter? Maybe it’ll be
better. The woman longs for him to kiss her intensely, not hit her. He can kiss her painfully so long as he doesn’t hit her. Klemmer replies that it doesn’t matter. He says please and thank you. His voice is almost toneless.

Erika knows that tone from her mother. I hope Klemmer won’t hit me, she thinks fearfully. She stresses that he can do anything to her. Anything, she stresses, so long as it hurts, for there is hardly anything I don’t desire. Klemmer should forgive her for not, she thinks, writing beautifully. I hope he doesn’t hit me unexpectedly, the woman thinks. She reveals to the man that she has been longing to be hit for many years now. She assumes she has finally found the master she has been longing for.

Erika is so scared that she talks about something else. Klemmer replies: Thank you. Erika allows Klemmer to pick out her clothes from now on. In case of transgressions on her part, he can take drastic measures regarding her wardrobe. Erika pulls open the closet door and shows a selection. She takes a few items out or displays a few things on their hangers. She hopes he’ll see what an elegant wardrobe she has; she offers him a colorful view. If there’s something you especially like, I can buy it just for you. Money’s no object. Money’s an object for my mother, but it’s nothing for me. You don’t have to worry about my mother. What’s your favorite color, Walter? My letter was no joke; she cringes before his hand. You’re not angry, are you? If I asked you to write me a few personal lines, would you do it? Write me what you think about my letter, how you feel about it.

Klemmer says goodbye. Erika cringes, hoping his hand will come down lovingly, not destructively. I’ll have a lock installed tomorrow. Erika will then offer Klemmer the only key to her door. Just think how nice that will be. Klemmer is silent about the suggestion. Erika is pining for affection. She hopes he’ll
react in a friendly way when she offers him access to her at any time. No matter when. Klemmer shows no reaction beyond breathing.

Erika swears she will do everything she has written in her letter. She emphasizes: What I’ve written isn’t carved in stone! And better late than never. Klemmer switches on the light. He doesn’t speak and he doesn’t beat her. Erika tries to find out whether she can send him her desires again. Will you allow me to keep writing to you, please? Klemmer says nothing that would elicit an answer.

Walter Klemmer answers: We’ll have to wait and see. He raises his voice over Erika, an obscure standard value, who is dying of terror. He tentatively hurls a four-letter word at her, but at least he doesn’t hit her. He calls Erika names, adding the adjective “old.” Erika knows she has to be prepared for such reactions, and she shields her face with her arms. She drops her arms: If he’s going to hit now, then go right ahead. Klemmer says he wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole. He swears he felt love before, but now it’s over. He is not going to go looking for her. He’s disgusted with her. She dares suggest such things! Erika buries her face in her knees, the way air passengers get into a fetal position when the plane is about to crash. They want to forestall death. She wants to forestall Klemmer’s blows, which she will probably survive. He won’t hit her because, as he puts it, he doesn’t want to dirty his hands on her. He throws the letter at the woman, trying to get her face. But he only gets the back of her bent head. He lets the letter snow down on Erika. Klemmer jeers at the woman: Lovers don’t need to write letters. A written pretext is necessary only if lovers have to deceive each other.