We have to go over the plans for our crimes in detail, Rainer reminds them. Come off it, not now, not after that intense experience, breathes Hans, heavily, like an athlete, and he makes an eloquent face. You ought to screw too, you wouldn't have those thoughts any more. Though Anna may possibly be pregnant, it is Rainer who throws up, a biological curiosity of the first order. Dad and Mum will be home any moment and will find an unwanted friend in the house.
Sure enough, here comes Mum and here lollops Dad. Won't you give me a kiss, eh, a kiss for your Dad, he demands of his own darling son. The latter flushes and says no, you know why not. Well, why not? Because Auntie said not long ago that only homosexuals kiss people of the same sex. Where does the boy get things like that, when we were young we had no idea about things like that! He gets if from your sister, you heard what he said.
And the ceiling complete with the light attachment – two of its little glass cups (where the candle-shaped electric bulbs are mounted) are already broken – folds down upon Rainer and his needs. But it's not as if this put an end to the needs. They are merely locked up in a prison with no means of escape.
KOCHGASSE HAS BEEN taking Hans in for several years now, to make him forget his childhood in the country altogether. All that's left are long lines of men in working overalls, washed-out trousers or smocks, and nothing about them reminds you of green meadows and a little stream. The city has no mercy, it takes a great effort to stand out so that others notice and acknowledge you, sport helps you achieve this, you fight for your team and you may even win! The muddy paths rutted with tractor tracks, the rural animals and people, have retired to the places they belong. Kochgasse conveys an urban atmosphere, today it takes him in once again and sucks him into the correct hallway, which is functionally furnished so that workers will feel at home there and not come across anything unnecessary which might be a pleasure to behold and would perhaps encourage them to want inessentials in their own lives.
No adornment, no gables or oriels, no turrets, no stucco reliefs, those are all for the irremediably dead bourgeois. Who doesn't really exist. A down-to-earth j image to match the down-to-earth strength of Recon- j struction. Which the workers who live here have been busy at for a long time. The Poetry of Life can be supplied by doilies, family photographs, pictures of deer, and the new furniture, from which may sometimes come the unwonted sounds of a new era, always supposing the furniture in question is one of the popular new radiograms. Bought on credit. Every inmate is allowed to create his own Poetry, the architect left space clear on the walls and ceilings for this purpose, for pictures and statues. Whether aforesaid Poetry is up top, round the sides or down below is just a question of the degree of maturity of the people in question.
Hans enters and instantly hits on naked simplicity.
It has no character whatsoever. Only Mother's work impresses a stamp on it, heaps of envelopes are lying around ruining the impression. Hans is now familiar with rooms unblemished by use, where islands of furniture drift by from the depths like floating pack-ice. Sophie has a room of that kind and he has often spent time in it, always keeping Sophie from something urgent that she was just intending to do. But she is glad to have him there and give him pleasure because there is something between them and that something is maturing by the hour. It is not only her environment that makes Sophie different from the other girls he knows, however. She is so special. He'd know her among thousands. Even in working overalls it would have been love at first sight, as they say in hit songs.
What Hans means by this is: if she had been wearing overalls too and not just him. In the flat, Hans finds two mates from the Workers Youth Group, which he is also a member of (whether he wants to be or not), waiting for him. They have posters with them and a bucket of paste which they are stirring. This leaves Hans essentially unstirred. Recently he has taken to changing at work before heading for home. He won't wear anything in the street but trousers and a pullover. At one time he would cycle home wearing his work clothes, but nowadays his muscles are clad in the clothing Sophie has given him. The things have stretched somewhat and are visibly creased in the critical areas, although Hans looks after them very well and is forever shooing his mother off to the ironing board. They lose a little more of their shape every time and adapt to Hans's. Their original owner is now studying in Oxford and will no doubt have bought himself some new things. Where muscles come from and where they go are two quite different things.
Hans's muscles go into electrical current and are absorbed by it wholly, they are transformed into pure energy. Hans often chews a square, snow-white lozenge of dextrose to replace the energy he has used up.
Recently he has practically been living on these lozenges, they are so pure and so regular in shape, like Sophie, and sportsmen advertise them. They are called Dextro Energen. Skiers and tennis-players alike know the uses of Dextro Energen and avail themselves of it.
Hans goes instantly to his closet to take off his good clothes and put them away tidily. Wearing his everyday clothes, even though he will very probably be going out again (wearing his cashmere) in just half an hour, he enters the living room, where his fellow-workers are skulking. These last few weeks, the new company he's been keeping has given him greater assurance in his dealings with people of every race, class and nationality than back when all he knew was his own race and class. These young fellow-workers represent a step back to his former life because they are of his own class and in that class they will remain, you can tell right away, they are incapable of getting anywhere. Mother has made them coffee to warm them up and every one of them has a thickly-spread slice of bread too. Her son gets a slice as well. The youngsters with the bucket have their enthusiasm and their socialism, and Hans has his ambition, which is so strong that you can even swim against the current, you can even fight against heavy electrical current, which is an invisible enemy, Hans will take on anyone who represents an obstacle to his future. Hans puts on a new record so he doesn't have to listen to the old tune about the Communist Party, which is scratched and sounds awful, and furthermore the two of them always say the same thing although they are different people, they have no lives of their own, no individuality. They do not realise that Hans has already quit the long chain of hands passing the bucket of water forwards in the direction of the house that's on fire (which you cannot see, but it must be there because otherwise there wouldn't be a bucket). He has got out and has simply gone away, and the last in line needs a little more energy to bridge the vacant space, but that's all. They declare that the time to join forces with the right people has already been upon them for some time.
One day, once he is mature enough, Hans proposes to join forces with Sophie, in matrimony.
Hans's hands are worn with labour. He has been working since he was fourteen. There is a paste of grime and sweat under his fingernails. The grime and sweat unite to form one substance and so do the body and the mind, a two-in-one unison Hans has been wanting to get to know ever since he got to know Sophie. On Sophie's nails there is not even varnish, they have no need of it, they have nothing to hide nor do they hide it.
Mother knows the parents of these two from a bus trip they took together and wants Hans to get to know them too because they have the kind of sense her son lacks. You have to join a group, one individual cannot achieve anything on his own, only when you're united do you become stronger. Hans says he has already found a group of that kind and is respected there on account of his special abilities, which nobody else respects him for. No one can take his place in the group, he's unique.