Original subtitles

Can I help you?

I have to go back a bit.

I was 12 years old

and on a school trip in the hills.

Are you making fun of me?

What do you mean?

You have this orgasm, not only an orgasm,

- ...but a spontaneous orgasm. - Yes, it was an orgasm,

though the doctor described it as a...

An epileptic seizure.

And during that orgasm,

you have this vision

of these two women on each side of you?

Was she holding the veil with two fingers like this?

What's the matter?

You don't even know who these women were, do you?

No, but one of them did look like the Virgin Mary,

now that you mention it.

Well, it wasn't the Virgin Mary, I can tell you that.

From your description, it must've been

Valeria Messalina,

the wife of Emperor Claudius,

the most notorious nymphomaniac in history.

And the other woman,

the one astride the creature,

that was no one else but the great whore of Babylon

riding on Nimrod in the form of a bull.

Your story is like a...

Blasphemous retelling

of the transfiguration of Jesus on the mount...

Which is one of the eastern church's

holiest passages.

It's when the humanity of Christ

is illuminated by the divine light of eternity.

If anyone else would have told me that story,

I would've seen it as a blasphemous joke,

spiced up with a biblical light

emanating from nothing less than a spontaneous orgasm.

And then later, you lost your orgasm altogether.

Wagner. "Das Rheingold,

the descent into Nibelheim."

Was it that bad?

Try to imagine that in one fell swoop,

you lost all desire to read

and all your love and passion for books and letters.

I don't even know if I can imagine that.

This is nothing less than Zeno's paradox.

You are Achilles

and the tortoise is the orgasm.

Oh, come on.

Because you were giving chase,

you couldn't reach satisfaction. That's the paradox.

I'm sorry, but it seems as if you're not taking this very seriously.

I'm telling you about the worst thing that's happened to me,

that I, at that point within seconds,

lost all sexual sensation.

My cunt simply went numb!

And immediately we have to hear

about this ridiculous mathematical problem.

In fact, I'm in doubt whether

you're even listening.

Why do you doubt that?

Whenever I've told other men about experiences,

episodes in my sex life,

it was easy to see that they became quite excited.

I got excited.

Yes, about the mathematical crap,

not about the story.

What kind of a person are you actually?

I...

You wouldn't know.

No, but I can guess.

Why didn't I get that earlier?

The fact you don't get excited over my dirty stories

is because you can't relate to them.

You've never been with a woman.

That's quite accurate.

Not with a man either.

Are you sorry about that?

Well yeah, but...

Out of curiosity.

Not out of lust, as you would think.

I consider myself... Asexual.

Of course I... Experimented

with masturbation when I was a teenager, but...

It didn't do much for me.

So there's nothing sexual about me.

It's not as uncommon as you would think.

And of course I've...

I've read a lot about sexual subjects:

"Canterbury tales," "Decameron,"

"thousand and one nights."

You name it

and I've read it with great interest and enjoyment...

But only literary enjoyment.

But I... but I think maybe it makes me

a better listener to your story.

I have no preconceived notions or...

Or preferences.

I'm actually the best judge you could give your story to.

And when it comes to deciding whether you're

a bad human being or not, I'm...

I have no problems with that.

Because I don't look at you through the glasses

colored by sexuality

or sexual experience.

I'm a virgin.

I'm innocent.

She's looking at me.

Yes.

It's an icon.

Is it Russian?

Yes, it's...

It's a skilled copy,

maybe in the manner of Rublev.

Icons are usually connected to the eastern church.

The eastern church?

I might become a bit theoretical.

You may.

I'd like you to tell me about your picture.

Although the Christian church

was split up in 1054 because of differences in opinion

between the eastern church and the western church...

What we today call the orthodox church

and the roman catholic church.

This is a typical eastern church icon.

And it usually depicts the Virgin Mary

and the infant Jesus, and more rarely,

for instance, the crucifixion,

which in the western church was much more prevalent.

If you generalize, you could say that

the western church is the church of suffering,

and the eastern church is the church of happiness.

If you imagine a mental journey from Rome eastward,

you feel how you move away

from guilt and pain towards joy and light.

But you say you didn't believe in God.

No, but the concept of religion is interesting...

Like the concept of sex.

But you won't find me on my knees with the regards to either.

Let's call this chapter,

um, "the eastern church and the western church."

But it won't be... It won't be a story

about traveling east from Rome

towards the light, but rather the opposite.

So in order not to make it too sad,

I've pepped up the name of the chapter with an extra title.

In spite of my tireless efforts,

my cunt totally failed to respond.

I have to admit there came a time

when we had fun together.

I'll give you a fiver...

Uh-huh.

If you can put this

up inside your cunt.

A fiver?

Right.

Shit.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

- Didn't get any spoons? - No, we didn't.

The most grotesque thing was that it was during that period

where every sexual sensation was denied me...

A period, I must admit,

of secure and restful domestic comfort...

We had moved in together and so on...

That I became pregnant,

because I was careless about my birth control pills.

Consciously or unconsciously,

it was important for me to have a cesarean.

I mean, I was hoping that my cunt was going to fucking work again,

and I had a feeling that

a haphazard birth wouldn't make things better.

I may have been imagining things,

but as I lay there the noise from the instruments

rang out in a chord like

the one from the little flock.

Yes.

And it wasn't fear.

More like a kind of disgust.

I could've sworn I saw him laughing.

A laughing son?

In "Doctor Faustus," Thomas Mann describes the birth of Noah's son Ham,

who was laughing when he was born.

Another satanic omen.

Incidentally, the innocent child was named Marcel,

after Mars, the roman God of war.

And motherhood?

I assume maternal love

didn't quite live up to its expectations.

No, I didn't have any expectations.

And maternal love wasn't a problem.

It was just that each time

I looked into the child's eyes,

I had this unsettling feeling

of having been found out.

I know it's probably a strange thing

to say about a child...

That my love wasn't being returned...

But it was my perception.

If Jerome had hoped for a break

from what was for him now mostly strenuous work,

he could forget about it.

Fill all my holes.

I can't, Joe.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Can we talk about it?

Of course.

I love you, I love your wildness and your desire.

At the moment I don't seem to satisfy you in the way that I'd like to.

Don't get upset, Joe. It doesn't mean we won't continue with our sex life,

which is very important to me.

Very important to me.

Mmm, when you buy a tiger,

right? You also have to feed it.

Um, satisfy it,

right?

Long story short:

I have a tiger on my hands.

- You mean I'm too much for you. - No.

You're just the way you should be.

I was just thinking if you would consider

that I get a little help with the feeding, that's all.

You're saying I should have sex with others as well.

That's a rather cruel way of putting it, Joe, but...

- But exact. - ...Exact.

For a long time I'd been playing around

with the idea that the concept of the fuck-me-now clothes

could be improved...

You look nice.

And became the piano teacher.

You okay?

No.

What's the matter?

Well, I'm such an idiot with cars.

I don't really know what to do. Do you mind helping me?

Well, of course it won't work.

Sparkplug caps have been removed.

Yes, I did that.

Was that wrong?

For the first time I had

the pleasure of having an 8-cylinder car.

The possible combinations of eight spark-plug caps

on eight spark plugs are 40,320,

if I remembered my math correctly.

And only one of these

will make the car run,

which gave me all the time I needed.

Beethoven, huh?

He was certainly very good, but, you know,

- ...he couldn't write a fugue. - You think so?

Well...

Yeah, I think so.

It would be more precise to say that Beethoven

renewed the fugue...

But he was such a visionary that the old Bach purists,

they accused him of not mastering it.

Good day?

And now to reach the heart

of your suffering western church,

I have to jump ahead three years in the story

and talk about my meeting

with what I would call

"the dangerous men."

I was alone with Marcel a lot during this period,

as Jerome was traveling most of the time.

And when he was finally home,

he spent most of the time accusing me of neglecting Marcel,

which in my opinion

was just a cover for his anger over my lovers.

Any sexual satisfaction, let alone orgasm,

was further away than ever before.

I had to make a change.

And somehow the inspiration had been right there

beneath my window the whole time.

I could feel that it turned me on enormously

to imagine a sexual situation

in which verbal communication was impossible.

- Hello. - Hello.

I'm Tobias, the interpreter.

Hello, I'm Joe. Come in.

I understand that you master the African languages.

I do have a basis.

Who and what needs interpretation?

Um, that man...

The one with the green jacket?

You are to ask him if he wants to have sex with me.

Yeah? Um...

Is it a go?

It's hard to say.

I've written down the time and the place,

but, um...

Honestly I wouldn't like to take responsibility

for the precise wording in this case,

which I think, uh,

accidentally may belong

to a grey zone in my profession.

It was the address of a cheap hotel.

Why were there two?

My words exactly.

Apparently N had brought his brother along.

Very sorry. Sorry sorry sorry.

Why was he so angry?

Clearly it was something personal between them,

but later I heard that performing a sandwich

requires great sensitivity,

since the men apparently can feel each other through the tissue.

I imagine the quarrel had already started

on the stairs and that one or the other party

had laid claim to one or the other of my holes

in conflict with his negro brother's interests.

You shouldn't use that word.

It's not what you call politically correct...

- "Negro." - Well, excuse me,

but in my circles

it's always been a mark of honor to call a spade a spade.

Each time a word becomes prohibited,

you remove a stone from the democratic foundation.

Society demonstrates its impotence

in the face of a concrete problem

by removing words from the language.

I think society would claim that...

That politically correctness is a very precise expression

of democratic concern for minorities.

And I say that society

is as cowardly as the people in it,

who in my opinion are also too stupid for democracy.

I understand your point, but I totally disagree.

I have no doubt in the human qualities.

The human qualities

can be expressed in one word:

Hypocrisy.

We elevate those who say "right" but mean "wrong"

and mock those who say "wrong" but mean "right."

By the way, I can assure you

that women who claim that negros don't turn them on,

- ...they're lying. - So did they satisfy you?

Those ne-negros?

No.

But they showed me that there was a world

far from mine I had to explore.

And there, or perhaps on the other side,

get my life back.

Who are you?

I know what you do.

I'd like to be

one of the women you see.

That's of no interest.

Madame.

Princess,

I specifically said five days,

and five days haven't gone yet.

So...

You'll have to leave.

I'm sorry.

I, um...

I don't think this is for you.

How mysterious.

Will you give me a reasonable explanation now

or shall we wait?

I can't give you an explanation,

and certainly not a reasonable...

What exactly were the rumors about him?

That he was violent.

How can that be inciting?

I think the easiest way to understand it

is to refer to my rebellious nature.

This business of K's was

something I was completely against.

So the fact that I was now contacting him was

a last, desperate attempt

to rehabilitate my sexuality.

The system was the overriding factor with K.

A system of violence?

Well, you were the one

who insisted on the western church, right?

And I... I seem to remember

that the systematic approach

to the crucifixion is of a violent

and not to say sadistic nature.

Oh yes, the passion of Christ

is full of systematic violence...

The Via Dolorosa,

the nine stations of the cross

and the 39 lashes.

You are beginning to irritate me.

Stand up.

I just want you to sit

completely relaxed...

While I hit you in the face.

Nothing special.

It's just a...

It's just a slap.

Are you ready?

Let me tell you the rules then.

The first rule is that I don't fuck you

and that there isn't any discussions about that.

Then what do you get out of it?

That's my business

and I don't want you to mention it again.

The second rule is that we have no safe word.

Meaning that if you, uh, go inside with me,

there is nothing that you can say

that will make me stop

any plan or procedure.

You must bring a brown used leather riding crop.

And not one from a shop selling sex toys.

It's not a masquerade.

Third rule:

If I choose to let you in,

you have to be sitting out here.

In other words, you...

You won't know when.

Only that it will be

sometime between...

2:00 and 6:00 at night.

I can't stay here that late.

My babysitter's not reliable and...

I can't leave my child.

You don't even know my name!

I'm not interested in your name.

Here your name is...

Fido.

Marcel's awake.

D'you want to say goodbye to your mom?

Goodbye.

I'll take your coat.

I'd like you to have your hair up.

You can use this.

Just in case it becomes necessary for me

to hit you in the face.

Should I take my clothes off?

I'll tell you what to do...

And when.

Now you may bend down.

How?

Approach the chair.

Now bend from the hips.

Look forward. Look forward.

With your head up. Head up.

Keep looking forward.

Keep looking forward.

You may stand up.

We have to use the couch.

Come this way.

Take it easy, take it easy.

Bend over.

Lay your arms out straight.

Take it easy.

Take it easy.

Take it easy.

Next time don't wear knickers.

Your ass is not high enough.

I don't think we can do this today.

What?

I'd like to see you again on Thursday.

What's wrong?

I think we should see how it goes on Thursday.

Hi, I can't come to the phone right now.

Please leave a message.

Yes, this is Marcel's mother again.

Uh, it's now 1:30.

We had an agreement.

I hope you get this message and come as quickly as you can.

Uh, Marcel is sleeping.

Um...

I have to go now.

Better.

Also so much better.

So much better.

I am now going to hit you 12 times

no matter how much you scream...

'Cause no one can hear you down here.

That's, uh...

That's not how it goes.

Most people don't scream until I hit them.

Oh!

That's it.

Thank you.

You're very welcome.

I don't know where we get our sexuality from

or where tendencies of this kind come from.

Probably a perversion created in our childhood

that never manifested itself before.

Well, oddly enough,

Freud says the opposite.

He talks about the polymorphic perversion of a child.

Meaning that in a child,

all kinds of perversions exist.

And then we use the childhood

to diminish or remove some of them.

Basically a child is sexually polymorphic

and everything is sexuality in an infant.

And yet it was deeply bizarre

to lie there

and especially to want to lie there.

It is an interesting point that you actually lubricated

in expectation for a pain

that you hadn't experienced.

Your body prepared itself

for an intercourse that you knew wouldn't happen.

I can only describe the mood as sexual.

As I twisted and turned

while he was whipping me,

I could feel how clever his knots were.

If I fought them, they would get tighter,

and as I relaxed,

it seemed they did too.

I don't know what kind of knot

K used...

But I know of a knot

that tightens when force is exerted

and vice versa. It's called a Prusik knot.

It's after a man called Prusik. He was a mountain climber.

And he and a friend were out climbing

and they had an accident

and his friend died.

And he ended up hanging at the end of a rope

with no possibility of getting up.

You know, you can't climb up a mountain-climber rope.

It's too thin.

But he was an intelligent man,

and with his back to the wall he was a genius.

And he took the shoelaces out of his boots

and made two loops and affixed them to the rope.

And he could move these up

when they weren't under tension.

And then he could step into them

and climb the rope and save himself.

Prusik.

I think this was one of your weakest digressions.

May I continue?

Well, be my guest.

I sometimes give a Christmas present.

But, uh, you have to do the work yourself.

This is called a blood knot.

You have to make nine ropes

with three blood knots on each.

Let me see you do it.

You decide whether to make four,

five or six turns

in the various knots.

Joe?

Hello.

Marcel?

Marcel!

Are you fond of me still?

- Yes. - More fond of me than the others?

- Yes? - Yes.

You're not thinking of leaving again tonight, are you?

- No. - No?

- No no. Not at all. - Are you sure?

Yeah.

Are you lying to me, Joe?

- No. - Be honest.

It's all right.

Just fucking say it.

No, I... I just want to be here.

Why?

I don't know.

If you leave tonight...

You'll never see me or Marcel ever again in your life.

Do you understand?

Is this goodbye?

Is that what you're saying?

Marcel, get up.

- Stop it. - Is that what you want?

Here, so you could see him.

Look at him, Joe.

Let's face it, Joe, you're not a mother.

Let's wake him up.

Marcel, baby boy,

say, "bye, Mom."

- Please put him back. - Is this what you want?

Hmm?

- Ma. - You see?

You see, he wants you.

Come.

It's Christmas. It's fucking Christmas.

What is this?

Today it's madame who must wait.

Madame, I'm very sorry,

but I have to have a few words with Fido first.

I really ought to send you home.

Happy Christmas, Fido.

I want your cock.

What did you say?

I want your cock.

No. No, you don't.

No, you don't. No.

What's the matter with you today?

On account of the holidays

and your behavior today,

I'm going to give you the original roman maximum

of 40 lashes. Are you ready, Fido?

I'm ready.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

I'd seen through K's knot technique,

so I was able to loosen my position a bit to move my pelvis,

and thereby stimulate my clitoris against the cover of the book.

And when you came home,

Jerome and the child were gone?

I haven't seen Marcel since.

The sentimentality of...

I hate it.

Why?

Because it's a lie.

Are you sure?

Jerome understood that he couldn't prioritize

his life according to a child either.

So he put him in a foster home.

My only contact to the boy is the thousand pounds

I put in his account every month.

Anonymously.

As a penance.

After all this sadness, may I ask...

What happened to the silent duck?

Oh shit.

The silent duck. I'd forgotten all about it.

One night K had been in what was for him

an unusually good mood.

I don't know what caused it, but he didn't hit hard

and he joked that he would introduce me

to the concept of the silent duck.

One hardly dare imagine

"the quacking duck."

Oh.

Well, deep down, little K seems to have been

a jolly man with versatile talents.

But he got that bit about

roman punishment and the 40 lashes wrong.

Because it's true that the highest punishment was 40 lashes,

but it had to be delivered in series of three.

That's why Jesus only got 39 lashes,

because three goes into 39

but not into 40.

You have a mirror.

Yes.

It's like a thought, isn't it?

Are you ready for another chapter?

Go on.

Some years later, the bodily abuse

began to have an effect.

First, rare bleedings from my clitoris,

but then they became more and more frequent.

Come in.

Have you heard any of the rumors about yourself?

They say you see men every evening.

And spend all night with them.

They say you can't be trusted... all of them.

Why do they say that?

I suppose they're afraid that I...

I can't keep away from their men.

Right.

- And can you? - No.

I've spoken with a psychologist.

He says you're addicted, but that it's not

the kind of addiction that can't be treated.

They have some groups.

I know about these kinds of groups.

I don't have anything to say to a psychologist.

I'm not suggesting therapy. I'm demanding it.

Even if you leave us, it'll be the same at your next job

and the one after that.

My name is Joe...

Hi, Joe.

And I'm a nymphomaniac.

Sex addict.

My name is Joe and I'm a nymphomaniac.

We say sex addict.

Here everyone's the same.

You should only speak when you feel you have to.

What you're saying is that

no one can remove their sexuality

even though it's destroying everything for them.

I wouldn't say no one.

But let's say, at most, one in a million

manage to live a life without sexuality.

But you can't be basing your therapy

- ...on that one in a million. - No.

The first and most important step

is to remove incentive and to reduce exposure.

You have to ask yourself what kind of incentives you have

and then make it difficult for yourself to come into contact with them.

Basically anything that makes you think about sex.

Joe has something she'd like to share.

My name is Joe...

Hi, Joe.

And I'm a sex addict,

but I haven't had sex for three weeks and five days.

Tell us how you did it, Joe.

- You brought notes? - Yes.

"Dear everyone,

don't think it's been easy,

but I understand now that we are all alike."

Are you okay, Joe?

Yes yes.

Would you like a glass of water?

Thank you.

Would you rather share another time?

No, I'd like to speak.

Dear everyone,

don't think it's been easy,

but I understand now

that we're not

and never will be alike.

I'm not like you,

who fucks to be validated

and might just as well give up putting cocks inside you.

And I'm not like you.

All you want is to be filled up, and whether it's by a man or by tons

of disgusting slop makes no difference.

And I'm definitely not like you.

That empathy you claim

is a lie,

because all you are is society's morality police,

whose duty is to erase my obscenity

from the surface of the earth

so that the bourgeoisie won't feel sick.

I'm not like you.

I am a nymphomaniac,

and I love myself for being one.

But above all,

I love my cunt

and my filthy, dirty lust.

♪ Watch out ♪

♪ you might get what you're after ♪

♪ cool, babies ♪

♪ strange, but not a stranger ♪

♪ I'm an ordinary guy ♪

♪ burning down the house! ♪

What just happened?

I didn't get that...

With the car that burned.

No, I'm sorry.

I was just in too much of a hurry to get to the last chapter.

I understood that society had no room for me,

and I had no room for society

and never had.

I'm sure it was quite natural for you

to furnish your room as a monk's cell,

but as an inspiration for the story chapter headings,

it hasn't been easy.

There's simply nothing left for me to use.

Well, I'm sorry about that.

But if I may, I can give you a tip.

Yes, please.

You know, I occupy myself mostly with text,

but sometimes the text can seem so...

So empty, so unfathomably empty.

It could be the best text by the most famous author.

The solution might be to change your point of view.

I-I don't get that.

Things hide...

When they become familiar.

But if you look at them from another angle,

they might take on a new meaning.

You're right.

Before this was just

the stain from the tea I threw.

Can you see what it could be?

A revolver.

No, a revolver has a drum that revolves.

It's a pistol.

Can you see what kind it could be?

No, I don't remember

anything like that from my literature.

Oh, but it's something I can remember from mine.

Ian Fleming.

Not familiar.

If you haven't read that, you haven't read anything at all.

This could be, with a little imagination,

a Walther P.P.K. Automatic,

the same gun that was issued to bond

after his preferred pistol, the Beretta, had jammed.

Is that something you can use?

Oh yes, it is.

♪ Burning down the house! ♪

♪ Hold tight ♪

♪ wait till the party's over ♪

♪ hold tight... ♪

Whether I left society,

or it left me, I cannot say.

I suppose you could make an argument for both sides.

♪ Burning down the house! ♪

I was on my way to the shady side

of the debt-collecting business,

which among other things involved stuff

like burning people's cars.

I had for a long time known about this man, L.

Hi, my name is Joe.

I know that.

Come in.

I'm looking for a job.

I've been working in an office,

and I was never really good at it.

I can understand that. I mean,

what's the point?

I believe I possess some qualifications

and that I'm rather unscrupulous.

I know all about your qualifications

and they're excellent.

I would suggest

that you start your own little business

with my help.

I understand

you possess a great deal of insight

about a rather broad spectrum of men.

This could be... or should be capitalized on.

I need sub-contractors who can put

moderate pressure on individuals

with whom my clients rightly or wrongly

have a bone to pick. Understand?

Extortion.

No. No no no no.

I always prefer the term

"debt collection."

- Yeah. - I refrain from judging

whether my clients' wishes

are legitimate or otherwise.

A point of view

I strongly recommend you follow.

My main qualification of course

was my considerable experience with men and sex.

But even my more specialized skills came in handy.

No, now this is not how it goes.

You have to wait until you're hit.

The two helpers that L had recommended were okay,

but they were predisposed to a rather repetitive technique,

which consisted of creating as much havoc as possible

with a pair of iron bars.

Destroying your things doesn't seem to have much effect on you.

Here was a man

I was unable to read sexually,

so I became persistent.

Tie him to the chair.

Don't hurt him.

I can't find a stain on you,

but my experience tells me that no man is spotless.

Luckily, you're equipped

with a very reliable truth-detector.

I'm going to tell you a few stories.

All you have to do is listen.

You're in a bar watching a couple...

I now meticulously went through the catalog

of sexual deviations in fictional form.

Stories about sadomasochism,

fetishism, homosexuality,

you name it.

But he didn't react.

And I'd almost given up

on your way home, you walk through the park.

And something makes you stop.

You hear something.

Yes, that's it.

You can hear the children on the playground.

You sit on a bench nearby

and watch them play.

There's a little boy in shorts.

He's playing in the sandpit.

He looks at you

with his blue eyes.

He smiles at you.

I think he comes to you.

He sits on your lap

and looks up at your face.

He says

he'd like to come home with you.

At home you can't fight the idea

of being naked together.

He crawls all over you.

- You get an erection. - Won't you please stop?

He lies on his stomach.

You pull down his pants.

I'll pay!

You did what?

I gave him a blowjob.

Why? That pig?!

- I took pity on him. - Pity?

Yes. I had just destroyed his life.

Nobody knew his secret,

most probably not even himself.

He sat there with the shame.

I suppose I sucked him off as a kind of apology.

That's unbelievable.

No, listen to me. This is a man

who'd succeeded in repressing his own desire,

who had never before given into it

right up until I forced it out.

He had lived a life full of denial

and had never hurt a soul.

I think that's laudable.

No matter how hard I try,

I can't find anything laudable in pedophilia.

That's because you think about

the perhaps 5% who actually hurt children.

The remaining 95%

never live out their fantasies.

Think about their suffering.

Sexuality is the strongest force

in human beings.

To be born with a forbidden sexuality

must be agonizing.

The pedophile who manages to get through life

with the shame of his desire

while never acting on it deserves a bloody medal.

But there was another reason for my sympathy,

which you find so mysterious.

I saw a man who was carrying the same cross as myself.

Loneliness.

We were both sexual outcasts.

In any case, some years passed,

during which my business grew,

enabling me to step up my anonymous deposits

to Marcel.

Your business is doing great...

You complete all the jobs I give you to perfection

and I hear only words of praise from your other clients.

But...

- But what? - ...We aren't getting any younger.

Oh. No, that's for sure.

I think you're getting to that age

where you have to start thinking about a successor.

Ohhh.

- I don't need a fucking successor. - Listen.

A person should take their crime seriously.

You need someone

to be your right hand, someone to help you.

A crown princess.

The normal process

is to find out what colleagues

are in prison or are drug addicts,

and thereby unable to fulfill

their roles as parents.

Then you find out where their kids play football...

And you get involved.

You cheer them on for a couple of years

no matter how bad they are. Actually, the worse, the better.

That way

gradually you take on the role of the parent

until in the end

you have a loyal helper that will walk through fire for you.

Even do time for you.

It sounds like a...

Kind of an entrapment you're suggesting.

- An unsavory entrapment. - Call it what you want,

but if you believe at all

in the effects of good parenting,

that kid will have much greater opportunities

with you as a mentor than without.

And since I like you,

I've been looking around for a suitable subject.

She's 15 years old

from a family of hardened criminals,

and she's been through a lot.

Last couple of years she's been institutionalized.

Her father is in prison and her mother died of an overdose.

She's a smart girl.

And although she doesn't play football,

she does play basketball... Very badly.

She's chosen a team sport

because she's lonely.

Her right ear is slightly deformed...

Which she's very ashamed of,

and of course this serves to isolate her even more.

It makes her an easy target

for even the slightest bit of attention

or sign of empathy from you.

Despite my protests,

the clever L somehow talked me

into actually having a look at P.

The longer I watched the poor girl with the deformed ear,

the more repulsive I found the whole plan.

But as if L had foreseen this,

the meeting with P filled me with pity and emotion.

And without wanting to,

I found myself, weekend after weekend,

at her games supporting the poor player.

Thanks for cheering me on.

You're welcome.

You played really well today.

- No, I didn't. - You did.

You really improved yourself lately.

I was proud to introduce P

to my father's passion...

And to his world.

It's actually...

The souls of the trees

that we see in the winter.

I think they look like human souls.

You're right.

They do look like human souls.

Twisted souls,

regular souls, crazy souls.

All depending on the kind of lives human beings lead.

I found my tree,

my soul tree.

This is my tree.

It's not an ash tree.

No, it's an oak tree.

My father found his soul tree,

but I've... I've never found mine.

"You will know it when you see it,"

that's what he said.

When P reached the age of majority

and I became her personal advisor,

I asked her to move in with me.

I've never seen you with your hair up.

It's so pretty.

All this time all my sexual activity had stopped.

My groin was one big sore from my abuse

that wouldn't heal

and made even masturbation impossible.

I experienced definite abstinence symptoms:

Fever and cramps.

Joe, what's going on?

- Careful. - We need to clear this up.

I just get this sometimes.

It's okay, it's okay.

Perhaps she really loved you.

I couldn't accept it.

Perhaps because you really wanted it to be true.

Perhaps I hoped it.

It's very touching, all this about P.

Then you've probably misunderstood the whole thing.

Don't.

I wanna see you.

- Don't. - Why?

- Please don't. - Why not?

No. No, I have a wound.

- I have a wound. - It doesn't matter.

No, you don't understand.

I have that thing with my ear.

I'm so ashamed.

D'you like me?

You're so beautiful.

There's one thing I don't understand.

Did she know what you did for a living?

P was very discreet

and a girl of few words.

Oddly, although I worked strange hours,

she never asked about my work.

But one day she had a question.

Joe?

Why did you start coming to my basketball matches?

It wasn't a coincidence, was it?

No, it wasn't a coincidence.

I didn't tell you because I...

I thought you'd be upset...

And that you'd get angry at me.

I won't get angry.

What I do...

My job isn't a normal job.

It's not legal.

No one in my family does anything legal.

A man that's helped me in my business

suggested that I watched you.

The plan was that I...

I should look at you

to see whether one day

I could use you in my work.

I should make friends with you,

because I knew you didn't have a mother or a father.

What's wrong with that?

Don't you see how evil that plan was?

I felt terrible.

You shouldn't have.

Why not?

Because if you hadn't...

We'd never have met.

I'd like to go with you to work

- ...next time. - No.

Will you think about it?

- No. - Yes.

No.

She didn't take no for an answer.

No, of course not.

How do you keep a wave upon the sand?

With the risk of being too clever for myself,

social inheritance

is an irrefutable fact.

If anyone knew about the laws of the street,

it must've been P.

You're more right than you know.

Let's shoot the fucker.

Stop! Stop!

We don't use firearms.

- I'd like to have the gun. - The others have weapons too.

Well, I didn't know that.

But in any case, you're not to have one.

But guns aren't dangerous.

It depends on how you use them.

Yes, exactly.

I wasn't going to shoot him.

We wouldn't have gotten any money out of him that way.

Can I have the gun?

Thank you.

You're evil.

And now I'm afraid one of those coincidences

you have such a hard time with

occurred with a very special person.

It was P's job to take us to the debtors,

so until I saw the name on the door,

I had no idea whose house we were at.

Are you sure this is the right place?

Yeah.

I was thinking maybe it's time

for you to do this one on your own.

Yeah?

Thank you, Joe.

I don't want anything destroyed

and I don't want anybody hurt.

Okay? You just show yourself

and offer him a reasonable payment plan.

If you say so.

Of course that's how I'll do it.

Whether the feeling when I saw Jerome again

was love, I couldn't say.

But it was a feeling,

and far stronger than I liked.

I was actually walking home through the alley here.

No two neighborhoods are totally different

but still so close together

that the shortest route from Jerome's house

towards the center was through the alley.

Hello!

How did it go?

Brilliant.

Yeah, really well.

I made a reasonable payment plan like you told me to.

How did he look?

Scared.

How old did he look?

I dunno.

Ancient?

Jerome was to pay off his debt in six payments.

Every time P went to Jerome to collect,

I paced around restlessly

until she was back home again.

I even had to find my mother's sad old solitaire cards

in order to make the hours pass.

Each night I was less reassured by her coming home

than the night before.

The question of whether jealousy is the fear of sharing

or the fear of losing was of little interest to me.

But yes, it was a fact

that this unworthy feeling I had managed to suppress for so long

was creeping up on me.

The evening she was to collect the final payment

she didn't kiss me.

I took it to be forgetfulness,

but the hours passed and she didn't return.

Every time I saw car lights,

I thought it was P being driven home.

I had decided to flee.

I couldn't stay in this town with her and him.

I had cowardly made a plan to escape and head south,

like from some ice age I didn't have the guts

to turn around and face.

But the goodbye was sad and strangely unfulfilling.

And something called me on

to seek further up the Mountain.

It's said to be difficult to take someone's life.

I would've said that it's more difficult not to.

For a human being,

killing is the most natural thing in the world.

We're created for it.

Wonderful.

No, get off!

Sorry.

Fireman's grip.

Oh. Oh yeah.

Fill all my holes please.

I still don't know why the gun didn't work.

I did check to make sure

that there were bullets in the magazine.

It simply malfunctioned,

just like bond's Beretta.

I think I know enough to say that

even if you had rounds in the magazine of the Walther P.P.K.,

and you'd taken off the safety...

You cannot shoot until you rack the gun.

You pull and release the sliding mechanism.

And P hadn't done it because, as she said,

she had no intention of shooting the man.

I don't know about bond, but I assume it has to be apparent

from his books and his films that

you have to rack an automatic pistol.

Of course, you're right.

I've seen it in films a thousand times.

It's morning.

And the snow is gone.

So the sun must be out?

Yes, there is sun.

I've never managed to figure out where it comes from.

It must be some interplay

between windows

and towers and high buildings.

It's not much,

but it's the sun you get here at my place.

It's beautiful.

In the beginning you said that

your only sin was that you asked more of the sunset.

Meaning, I suppose, that you wanted

more from life than was good for you.

You were a human being demanding your right.

And more than that,

you were a woman demanding her right.

Does that pardon everything?

Do you think if two men

would've walked down a train looking for women,

do you think anybody would have raised an eyebrow?

Or if a man had led the life you had?

And the story about Mrs. H

would've been extremely banal if you'd been a man

and your conquest would have been a woman.

When a man leaves his children

because of desire,

we accept it with a shrug, but you as a woman,

you had to take on a... A guilt, a burden of guilt

that could never be alleviated.

And all in all, all the blame and guilt

that piled up over the years became too much for you,

you reacted aggressively... almost like a man I have to say...

And you fought back.

You fought back against the gender that had been

oppressing and mutilating

and killing you and billions of women.

But I wanted to kill a human being.

But you didn't.

Because of a chance event.

You call it a chance event.

I call it subconscious resistance.

On the surface you wanted to kill,

but deep down you celebrated human worth

and a veil of forgetfulness

draped itself over your knowledge of how to rack a gun.

Although all this sounds frighteningly close to the cliches of our times...

And I'm predisposed

to knock holes in your arguments...

I'm too tired.

Well, that's good.

Why don't you lay down?

Yes.

Let me just say that telling my story

as you insisted...

Or permitted...

Has put me at ease.

At this moment

my addiction is very clear to me...

And I've come to a decision.

Even though only one in a million,

as my dubious therapist said,

succeed in...

Mentally, bodily...

And in her heart

of ridding herself of her sexuality,

this is now my goal.

But is that a life worth living?

It's the only way I can live it.

I will stand up against all odds...

Just like a deformed tree on a hill.

I will muster

all my stubbornness...

My strength...

My masculine aggression.

But most of all I want to say thanks

to my new, and maybe first friend.

Thank you, Seligman...

Who perhaps is happy when all is said and done.

I'm happy at any rate

that the shot didn't go off

and made me a murderer.

If I may, I'd like to sleep now.

I'll make sure you won't be disturbed.

Good night, Joe.

Good night, Seligman.

No!

But you... you've fucked thousands of men.

♪ Hey, Joe ♪

♪ where are you going with that gun in your hand? ♪

♪ Hey, Joe ♪

♪ I said where are you going with that gun in your hand? ♪

♪ I'm going down to shoot my old lady ♪

♪ you know I caught her messing around with another man ♪

♪ I'm going down to shoot my old lady ♪

♪ you know I caught her messing around with another man ♪

♪ and that ain't too cool ♪

♪ hey, Joe ♪

♪ I heard you shot your woman down ♪

♪ you shot her down now ♪

♪ hey, Joe ♪

♪ I heard you shot your lady down ♪

♪ you shot her down to the ground ♪

♪ yes, I did, I shot her ♪

♪ you know I caught her messing around town ♪

♪ yes, I did, I shot her ♪

♪ you know I caught my old lady messing around town ♪

♪ and I gave her the gun ♪

♪ I shot her ♪

♪ hey, Joe ♪

♪ where you gonna go to now? ♪

♪ Hey, Joe ♪

♪ where you gonna go to now? ♪

♪ I'm going way down south ♪

♪ way down to Mexico way ♪

♪ I'm going way down south ♪

♪ way down where I can be free ♪

♪ ain't no hangman gonna ♪

♪ he ain't gonna put a rope around me ♪

♪ hey, Joe ♪

♪ you'd better run on down ♪

♪ good night ♪