Read Online The Girl Who Wasn't There by Ferdinand von Schirach - Free Book Online

producer you have to specialize.’
    The porn producer had large hands. He never put them on the table, as if he were ashamed of them. He himself directed all the films he produced, he said.
    He had bought an almond cake and a raspberry cake in the village. The raspberry cake was very good, he told Sofia, she really must try it.
    ‘I’ve had to specialize, there was no alternative. I shoot films with large casts now. It’s not so easy for amateurs to imitate those.’
     
    Eschburg and Sofia had watched two of his films. Each of them featured only one woman, a young woman. The women didn’t seem to be professional actors; they were more like students or trainees. First the porn producer interviewed the young woman in front of the camera. He talked to her perfectly normally, as you would when meeting someone socially. He asked how old she was, where she came from, what her interests were. While he was talking to her, men joined them. The camera focused only on their pricks. The men spurted their sperm into the woman’s face as she went on talking about ordinary, everyday subjects. She was not allowed to wipe the sperm off. After the interview with the porn producer the camera moved back, and then the woman had to fellate other men, twenty-five or thirty of them. She had at most a minute to bring each of them to climax. After all the men had sprayed their sperm onto her face, the camera accompanied the woman to the bathroom. While she was washing herself, the porn producer interviewed her again. Then he asked how she had felt about it.
     
    The porn producer ate a piece of the raspberry cake. ‘A film like that is made up of many small details,’ he said. ‘I’ve experimented with the setting as well; these days I use only black walls and floors.’
    Sofia told the porn producer what Eschburg’s pictures would look like, and what changes they would have to make in the studio. She laid some drawings out on the table. The porn producer looked hard at everything, and asked questions about details. When they were discussing money, Eschburg asked how he was to pay the men.
    ‘I don’t pay them anything,’ said the porn producer. ‘They’re amateurs. They just have to have an up-to-date HIV test; I insist on that to protect the women. And they have to shave their genitals, but those are the only conditions. I always get more volunteers than I need. If you want to pay them, that’s your business, but it won’t cost you much.’
     
    The porn producer’s most successful film was called
Venus In Her Bath Of Sperm.
He had won the Erotic Film Industry’s prize for it, roughly equivalent to a platinum disc in the world of music.
     
    The porn producer drank his coffee. He had been talking a great deal, and now looked wearier than ever. Suddenly it was very quiet. Eschburg looked out of the window. There was a pile of freshly cut firewood outside the house, the billets of wood neatly stacked above each other; they would be dry by next winter. Beyond the firewood was the lawn, and beyond that the forest began.
    Eschburg thought of Botticelli’s painting,
The Birth of Venus
. Kronos cuts off the genitals of his father Uranus and throws them into the sea behind him. The blood and sperm make the sea foam and give birth to Venus. Botticelli painted her face as grave and lovely; in his depiction, she remains remote from such things. She understands, she feels regret, but she never becomes a part of that world.
     
    ‘I’d rather make other films,’ said the porn producer, breaking the silence. ‘I’ve thought of making a documentary about the flight of migratory birds to Africa. Did you know that many birds fly five thousand kilometres to the warmer countries? They really do. They sense the angle of inclination of the earth’s magnetic field. But fewer and fewer birds have been flying south in the last few years. It’s because of climate change. The warm Gulf Stream and the cold Humboldt Current are being