First Draft

"I have arrived," says the renowned fashioniste M. HOUELLEBECQ with a pirouette of his left hand high in the air of the Trieste Restaurant, London, the third greatest metropolis in the world. He is fresh from a Trevi Fountain shoot, starring the lean and lovely FR. BRECHT, who is at the moment hanging like an ivy off the spruce of Houellebecq's arm. This succulent twosome are the last to arrive at this celebration of the final unification of artistic and cultural Europe.

"Bienvenue, Willkommen," cries the English host, the tall and stylish English novelist MR. BANKSY, fresh from his seventeen-country Eastern European tour during which he performed passages from his verse narrative entitled Yesterday's Futures in decrepit grand opera houses exclusively. Sitting beside him and smiling brightly is the Italian painter S. ECO looking fresh as the proverbial daisy. Across the table, uncorking something with a Russian label, is the star of stage and screen D. FERNÁNDEZ MADINABEITIA, fresh, always fresh, from the cutting room of his epic nineteen-part nouvelle entitled The World And How It Got That Way, parts three through seven opening this weekend at a cinema near you, and, overseeing with care the turning of the screw, Ireland's most beloved singing daughter MC, fresh from recieving the Nobel Prize for her latest LP.

Lastly was myself, a journalist, sitting slightly away from the table in deference.

"Bun fight!" cried Banksy, and quickly were grabbed farm rolls, stickies, mantous, and Bostons; across the room they arced as God intended them to arc and struck Houellebecq and Brecht who caught as many as they could to return them in if possible ever more Godly arcs. All were laughing, top of the world in so many ways, at their juvenile antics, and Death was a million miles away, busy with the masses and their hygienic noncare. A naturally nonjudgemental troupe of waiters alike in stature entered the room, gathered the yeasty morsels for the dustbin, placed two baskets of fresh hot butterful croissants at the table's two Vitruvian foci, and vanished soundlessly.

"Sit, my friends, sit!" shouted Mc as she boldly kicked out a chair then another chair.

Houellebecq and Brecht slinked to the table and sat and sighed with the breath of all the world's woes mintily fresh.

"Speak, speak! Tell us of your struggles," said Fernández Madinabeitia.

Adopting a touch of his mother argot, Houellebecq said, "The pigeons—damn them to hell!—refused to coöperate."

"A disaster!" shrieked Banksy.

"I'll say."

"So what did you do?"

"We set out great dishes of poison, waited for them to die, and swept them away. We'll use CGI to put them in again."

"In piquant poses."

"What else?"

Banksy discontinued the conversation and stood suddenly as if the conversation had not been taking place. "We are all present, I see. Time for the liquor course!" He took up a small gong perhaps six inches around (which I discovered later to be list priced at €2200) and rang it to cause a tone (not especially pleasing at first but which would as the night wore on would become not unattractive) beckoning four carts of absinthes, single malt scotches, centenarian wines, and ironic paper umbrellas to be pushed forth, which they were. The sextet fell upon these with abandon, spilling here and swilling there, with the occasional wretch of gaggy near-vomit as punctuation to their gasped  sentences.

Certainly they were decidedly intoxicated in under fifteen minutes, but did that stop them? No, they called for more exotic fare, and soon odd label-free bottles of brackish or thick or chunky stuff appeared, were opened, and consumed.

The animalism of the current European court—and its hangers-on—was appearing before my eyes in all its majestic glory. These elect citizens before me had the ear of the nations and the world, and they knew it and knew it good. Their appetites were the envied appetites; and if their appetites weren't the envied appetites, they were the appetites the lower orders were veritably forced to envy, for the lower orders neither had nor deserved anything else to envy. (I could speak in theoretical terms, but I trust you know the theory already.)

The troupe of waiters returned and rolled away the trays before pulling up the damp linen tablecloths to replace them with sparklingly clean coverings of bone and ivory white. The elites of this twenty-first century are nothing if not capable of holding their liquor. Indeed, it is rumoured that Eco was, as a matter of policy, always drunk from sun-up to sun-down and always drunk from sun-down to sun-up. Perhaps this 'lust for life' explains why they rose through the meritocracy ever closer and closer to the seats of almost monarchical power in the world; perhaps their boldness was attractive to power which sat, as always, beneath the sword of Damocles, fearful of the masses outside its door and across its moat, too many to kill with one volley, and besides, who when all was said and done would do all the work?

Ms leaned over to speak to Brecht. "Brecht, tell me. What is the latest thing in Rome?"

"You mean, clothier-wise?"

"No, I mean ... I don't know, I guess I mean philosophically."

"Oh, that," with a spice of scorn. "Well, the search for meaning continues apace."

"Fascinating! Such a perennial, this searching, is it not?"

"I have nothing but scorn for such attitudes."

"I understand Islam has much to offer. You know, the world turns as it does because Allah wills it to be so, and we must merely submit. To our riches and our decadence, say."

"My dear, that's a very nice way of saying it! I suppose it explains our rôle in the scheme of things."

Banksy clang-clang-clanged on his gong. "Time for the fish! Fish, fish, fish!"

The waiters appeared quickly and lay before all plates of the strangest fishes I had ever seen. Some had three eyes, others were something like Siamese twins, and one I recall appeared to be wearing lipstick and false eyelashes. Where did such finny freaks come from? Banksy much have scoured the seven seas for such prodigies.

At that moment he looked at me, noticed my attentions, and said, "Just you wait for the entree. Something special from Our Friend In Washington."

All took the fish in full hands and bit and gnawed away ravenously. The liquor had sharpened their appetites to match their teeth. Bones flew like feathers in a fever dream of a seraglio. The floor became as slick with oils as the sextet's clothing did, which they loosed or removed altogether and body parts glowed like a bodybuilder's. I daresay I thought for sure the orgy was going to be starting prematurely so did they shine!

Fernández Madinabeitia cried, "My God, what a feast! What can lay in store in the next two hours? Anybody mind if I go puke?"

Banksy said, "Go right ahead."

Brecht said, "I'm going for a shit myself."

Fernández Madinabeitia and Brecht stood up and arn-in-arm they left the room. The waiters appeared again and cleared away the mess and mopped the floor with soapy water, returning it to a pristine state. More trays of drinks appeared; simpler fare this time; wine and beer.

Eco said to me, "Sometimes we drink simply. Returns us to our roots."

I asked, "Oh? Are you of humble origins?"

He laughed. "Of course not! We're all children of politicians and diplomats. We got to the top through pure courtly nepotism. We're the new aristocracy, much like the old, save that none of us are sirs or dames. The revolt of the clerks, my boy! Sometimes we drink wine and beer because, why, our parents observed the same custom. And their parents in their turn. But eventually, going back five or six generations, there must have been some prole or another who drank such plebian stuff. Somewhere back in the back of beyond...."

Fernández Madinabeitia and Brecht came back and sat down. Time for salad was the time it was. The waiters came in with huge bowls filled with romaine lettuce, croutons dressed with parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, black pepper, hard-boiled eggs, ham, turkey, chicken, roast beef, tomatoes, cucumbers, avocados, onions, bacon, blue cheese, dried cherries, vinaigrette dressing, cranberries, apples, mandarin oranges, walnuts, and pecans. Each of the six was provided with a five-pronged fork and they dug in and dig in they did, shoving in into their mouths with precise and classy slobbery. Greasy belches perfumed the air to the chandeliers. It was quite an awesome sight; they appeared to be racing one another; and then they were finished. They wiped themselves off, leaned back, and conversed.

Mc said, "Oh look; there's someone else in the room," meaning me.

All turned to look.

Brecht said, "Who are you?"

I said, "I'm a writer, observing and making notes."

"What is your name?"

"I am Herman Koch."

"Would you like to join us? We can find another chair somewhere."

"I don't think I should. I'm trying to be objective."

All laughed at what turned out to be my naïveté.

"Surely you've got better things to worry about! Come, come, the first entree will be coming out any minute."

I shrugged, unwilling to explain that I was actually there not to write a newspaper account but rather a novel based upon them and their new class. (I believe now that it wouldn't have made a bit of difference; they knew they could have me squashed like a bug with a wave of the hand, and I knew, and they knew I knew. [REMEMBER TO CHANGE NAMES IN SECOND DRAFT.])

Before I could make up my mind, the first entree arrived: a huge roast hog. It was placed in the middle of the table, and Mc did the countdown: "Three. Two. One." Twelve hands fired forth to the hog and dug into it with greasy hands. Brecht clawed and ripped at the jowls and cheeks, Eco was wrist deep in its stomach, and Mc was yanking off a leg. They shoved the meat into their mouths as quickly as possible, to return to the dismemberment all the more quickly. Grunting and snorting were the order of the day.

The beast devoured, they turned to competitive eructions, and I daresay Ms won, at least in my opinion. (I swear I felt my molars rattle!)

The conversation, to use the term loosely, turned to a comparison of communism and fascism, trying to decide which was better. Fernández Madinabeitia averred that communism was superior since plunder is so much easier under a veil of hypocrisy; Mc countered that fascist plundering is better because the elites are supposed to be rich. Eco posited that communism might work if imposed colonially upon some distant island away from the prying eyes of middle class morality, and Brecht felt fascism might work equally well in such a place. Banksy noted that either ideology requires imperialism since their economies rely on ruthless rapine of natural resources; Houellebecq agreed with this, furthermore noting that by the time the natural resources were depleted, they would all be dead. This got a laugh of recognition from all involved.

A chair appeared, and I found myself sitting in it. I was asked about my work—or rather, about the concept of work—and I answered their questions as well as I could. Yes, I am a journalist; yes, I'm a colour journalist; no, I am not related to any émigrés; yes, I earn a salary. I was an exotic creature to them, and they tolerated me as a Manhattan cocktail party might tolerate a precocious little girl.

A brief fruit course arrived; I suppose it weighed under two hundred pounds all told. I partook lightly of this exotica; many of the fruits, I was later told by Mc, have no English names. Juices ran down their fronts and more clothing was removed and stickiness reigned supreme.

[THEIR TABLE TALK WAS VERY DULL IN FACT. I WAS TAKEN ABACK BY THEIR GENERAL DULLNESS. IF I PROCEED WITH MORE DRAFTS AND FLESH THIS OUT AS A NOVEL, I'LL HAVE TO RECAST IT TO MAKE IT ... ALLEGORICAL, SAY. I'LL GIVE THEM ALLEGORICAL NAMES, AND THEY'LL ILLUSTRATE SOMETHING ... ALLEGORICAL. BUT NOW I AM ONLY CONCERNED WITH HONEST REPORTAGE.]

The plates were taken away, the cloth was taken away, the soaked clothes were taken away. Mc, bare-chested, took that moment to announce, "People. Look." She took her left breast in her hands and squeezed it. A trickle of milk fell forth.

Brecht cried, "Oh, hon, you're pregnant!"

Mc smiled widely. "It's a fact."

"How wonderful for you! When?"

"Four months."

Glasses came up with whatever they had in them and clanked. Another person to set the world aright. Another neo-aristocrat to show others what living is all about. Another joy, another joy to get drunk, do all kinds of drugs, and revel generally.

Banksy clanged his little gong. "I have a little speech to make before the main course, the second entree, is brought in. (And a very special entree it is inded!) Ahem.I would like to thank you all for coming—next stop is Belgium, I believe, in two weeks—but today you are my guests. Even our lower-class friend the writer! We are the elite of the elites, greater than all politicians even though we 'serve' them, because we have no standards to hypocritically ignore. We are nothing but dirty gluttons—hear, hear!—who, in the dialectic of things, are actually the masters of the politicians. We make them rise and we make them fall, and we get all the gravy from it. So: here's to the politicians who have made all this possible!"

The table raised a ruckus, for they had never heard anything so eloquently expressed. The buzz dipped down, and the questions without answers began.

"What can it be this time?"

"What have we never had before?" came the question as an answer.

"I have heard stories, are they true?"

"Whose stories are you referring to?"

"Come on, Banksy, give it to us straight!"

"It's a gift from Washington."

"Oh my. Not from him again!"

"Another dog?"

"No, this is on a whole other level."

"All his gifts."

"I suppose the half-breed wants to be one of us!"

"Otherwise why—"

Banksy gonged his gong. "Gentlemen, bring it in."

The kitchen doors opened and two waiters entered with the largest silver platter I had ever seen between them. They managed to lay it down dead centre of the table. The lid was taken off and there, steaming and untrussed, was a roasted child.

Mc cried, "Oh my goodness, what have we here?"

Banksy cried, "It's a three-year-old from a West Virginia hollow."

Brecht cried, "I don't think I've ever eaten such a thing before!"

Houellebecq said, "It looks roasted to a tee."

Eco commented, "This is truly a night to remember."

Fernández Madinabeitia said nothing, and merely licked his chops.

So tenderly cooked was the boy that when Brecht took his arm and pulled, it came away cleanly yet juicily as a breath of steam came hissing out. Houellebecq, on the other side of the table, took the other arm, and it came away in a selfsame way. Banksy cried, "Stop, let us be civilized for once!" He produced a large carving knife and fork, leaned over, and cut the child down his sternum. "Who wants some white meat?" Eco, Fernández Madinabeitia, and myself put up hands. Soon our plates were filled. Mc and Banksy himself took legs, and we ate. The meat was tender and sweet and not quite what I expected. With belches and joy we gobbled up the child until naught but bones remained.

More conversation ensued [WHICH I CAN MAKE UP IN THE SECOND DRAFT].

But it was getting quite late and I didn't want to stay for the full-force orgy, so there and then I took my leave. With the sextet's rousing sing-song of "Gibble gobble, gibble gobble, one of us, one of us," I left the restaurant, caught a cab, and now I am in my hotel room, writing this.

I am a made man.