Best European Fiction 2013 by Best European Fiction 2013 (mobi)

Author:Best European Fiction 2013 (mobi)
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Norton
Published: 2012-11-13T08:00:00+00:00

TRANSLATED FROM THE BOSNIAN BY CELIA HAWKESWORTH

[AUSTRIA]

LYDIA MISCHKULNIG

A Protagonist’s Nemesis

So why do you think furniture stores don’t sell coffins? That’s what the young intern asked me at the last office party. I raised my eyebrows. But when I tried to answer her, I couldn’t think of a convincing argument. A coffin wasn’t a piece of furniture, I ventured hesitantly; it was at best a container, a shell.

But a coffin is an essential part of the furniture at wakes, the young woman insisted. We stock the right furniture for every stage and purpose in life. It goes without saying that we supply everything for newborn babies, so why not everything for the dear departed?

It also went without saying that we supplied everything for our own midsummer picnic—our office party. We brought along our own brand of garden furniture, tablecloths, and tableware so that we could enjoy our day in the park in true company style. Everything was stowed in our capacious yellow-and-blue shopping bags, which look a bit like wide-bellied boats. We ferried our stuff along the avenues to the historic Lusthaus, the pleasure pavilion where imperial hunting parties found shelter and amusement in days gone by. In front of its baroque façade, we set up the furniture, laid the tables, and put out the food from our own delicatessen. Meanwhile, the employees’ children cavorted on the grass.

We—the adults—ate and drank our fill and stretched out to relax on our own brand of rug. Then the intern asked, since we were used to having our office party outdoors, why couldn’t we organize a wake outdoors too? And again I couldn’t think of any good reason why we— meaning my company—had allowed ourselves, up till now, to ignore the very substantial line of business represented by funeral supplies.

I attended our staff parties in Moscow, Riyadh, and New York too. We’re expanding in every direction and bringing a family ethos to consumer culture; speaking for the company, I welcome this, but not the shortsightedness of excluding death. It is my job to connect mundane episodes and form a unified whole. Just as a wreath needs a frame, life, which is a series of episodes, needs a scaffold, a skeleton. A firm needs backbone, and people need backbones, for all people are brothers, and for “brothers” you can also read “sisters,” since they’re just as subject to mortality. I see it as my ideological mission to globalize the concept that both living and dying are affordable and part of everyday family life. Using innovative PR and marketing concepts, I gave the company a frame of reference for human existence that is understood the world over, while to the world I gave a culture of cordiality and to our staff a climate of congeniality in which a person can not only bloom and grow but also fall ill and die. But something is bothering me and I can’t put my finger on it. I keep feeling I’ve forgotten something, something that’s almost within my grasp … Our furniture company is prolifically permeating every aspect of life.

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