The Hungry and the Fat Read online

  The Hungry

  and the Fat

  Timur Vermes

  Translated from the German by

  Jamie Bulloch

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also by Timur Vermes

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Part Two

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  About the Author

  First published in the German language as Die Hungrigen und die Satten by Eichborn Verlag in der Bastei Lübbe AG in 2018

  First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

  MacLehose Press

  An imprint of Quercus Publishing Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 2018 by Timur Vermes

  English translation copyright © 2020, Jamie Bulloch

  The moral right of Timur Vermes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Jamie Bulloch asserts his moral right to be identified as the translator of the work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  EBOOK ISBN 978 1 52940 053 3

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.maclehosepress.com

  Also by Timur Vermes in English translation

  Look Who’s Back (2014)

  I hate reality,

  but it’s still the only place

  I can get a decent steak.

  WOODY ALLEN

  Die Wanderratten

  There are two types of rat:

  The hungry and the fat.

  The fat are happy at home,

  But the hungry have to roam.

  HEINRICH HEINE

  Part One

  1

  The under-secretary cannot decide. Granite, they said, is the toughest material out there. Or what about artificial stone? Not that he’s particularly fussed – as under-secretary he has other things on his mind – but Tommy has made it quite clear that he doesn’t want to make all the decisions alone. Which is why the under-secretary, coffee in hand, is now poring over a pile of catalogues and comparing materials. Natural stone? Laminate?

  “Laminate for the work surface?” the under-secretary said. “Isn’t that for floors?”

  “We’ll get to the floor.”

  “So what’s the advantage? Can’t we just have wood?”

  “Just wood!” Tommy snorted as if the under-secretary had suggested climbing Mount Everest in flip flops. He was standing in the hallway in his shorts, the “Hello Kitty” rucksack across his shoulders. But not even the cat’s ghastly head could mar the flawless arse below. Then the flawless arse turned and gleaming white shorts approached on two slim, tanned legs with a spectacular fuzz of blond hair. As Tommy sauntered past he picked up something, which looked like an extremely thick and extremely boring magazine, and let it slap down on the table like an enormous paper steak. “Have a read of this,” he said, “and see what normal people have to deal with. I can’t keep spelling it out for you. I’ve got to go now, and by the way the wallpaper won’t choose itself.”

  “But . . .”

  “Be happy that I’ve already narrowed down the choice. We’ll make the final decision on Saturday morning, half ten, at the wallpaper shop. It’s in the diary.”

  “Outlook or Calendar?”

  “Both. Gotta go now. Happy governing! And say hi to Volker!”

  The under-secretary certainly won’t be saying hi to Volker. And again he curses the moment he agreed to move in with Tommy. They’d had a wonderfully practical arrangement – him in Berlin, Tommy in Hamburg, happily reunited every fortnight. He was able to meet who he liked in the evenings, have backroom conversations until all hours, hook up with someone (though that was seldom, to be honest) or bring people home and chew over a few strategies until half past three in the morning. That wouldn’t have to change, Tommy insists, and perhaps he’s right. You could easily bring five politicians home without waking your partner if you’ve got enough space to put the bedroom a fair distance away. And now they’re going to have a fabulous two hundred and fifty square metres, plus roof terrace. Throw in a jacuzzi and Tommy can spend more time doing what he does best.

  Which certainly isn’t cooking.

  Granite is superb, the under-secretary reads in the paper-steak, but natural stone stains easily. And absorbs liquids. Granite is also hard blah, blah, blah . . . Weighed down by his catalogue misery, the under-secretary glances at his mobile, hoping to be saved by a message. But there are none. He taps on the calendar: two meetings, two interviews. No emergencies. He thinks of Tommy’s bottom in the white shorts and the phrase “summer recess” springs to mind. There’s nothing going on, and he ought to be glad about that. It wasn’t always thus.

  That summer and autumn when the stupid cow opened Germany’s doors to refugees. The events on New Year’s Eve in Cologne. The hiding they took for the Turkey deal. And then another hiding after the putsch. One crisis meeting after another, seemingly with no break in between. He can’t remember whether it was September or October when he came home and Tommy said, “The way you stink makes me wonder who’s still keen to negotiate with you.” He didn’t change his clothes for four or five days at a time, but now that the uproar has more or less subsided, the refugee numbers have dropped, and they’re mentoring or reducing or upskilling this new stock – or all of these together – he can cut back on the overtime and finally pick up a decent book.

  But instead of that he’s reading kitchen catalogues.

  “Wood is a living material,” it says. Exactly
. Good old wood. The disadvantages: vulnerable to moisture, fruit and vegetable juice, blood. You simply have to be careful not to cut yourself, he thinks, before realising that they’re not referring to the cook’s blood here.

  There’s been so little to do recently that he was even able to chair a transport meeting. The summer break is looming; he can already sense the election campaign in the air. Little more is going to happen. If governments do anything at all, it’s straight after taking office; they need to show their voters that the election has achieved something. But after two or three years all the nice, simple tasks are complete. What’s left is arduous and risky.

  Laminate. Not good for hot pans. How clever, a work surface that can’t cope with hot pans – who thinks these things up? But what should they have instead? What copes well with heat? Steel? Glass?

  My kingdom for a national crisis.

  It would be far simpler if Tommy decided. At the moment, however, they’re not just discussing a domestic cooker, but a domestic crisis too. Fortunately it’s quite specific and hasn’t affected other sectors, but still, they have to ensure it doesn’t spread. The domestic crisis is called “The under-secretary is so brilliant at delegating” and it means he needs to involve himself a little more in household affairs. Recently Tommy let him know that he regarded himself as the under-secretary’s life companion, not just another ministerial tart. Then Tommy wanted to know whether the two of them could agree that he, Tommy, wasn’t just a ministerial tart, otherwise, Tommy said – and he was saying this in the nicest possible way – otherwise they could end this here and now.

  And that means everything is going to get a bit trickier. He had thought that the new kitchen would simply involve getting more chipboard from the D.I.Y. store. He even enjoys the occasional visit to the D.I.Y. store. The subtle aroma of wood and solvent, the neatly ordered shelves. All those tins of paint. Screws. Brackets. Screwdriver sets. Spanner sets. Not that he’s especially handy, but if you’ve got a spanner set, one of each size, and a screwdriver set, one of each size, doesn’t that give you the feeling of satisfaction, of being prepared for every screw life can throw at you?

  Dekton. The miracle substance. You can slaughter a pig on it and detonate an atom bomb, and then, in fifty thousand years’ time, when the earth has been re-inhabited by mutants, those mutants will clear away the rubble and say, “Hey! A Dekton work surface. Almost as good as new!” This is an exaggeration, of course; Chernobyl has shown that you can re-inhabit nuclear areas far more quickly and without such rapid mutation. As far as he’s concerned, this phasing out of nuclear power is not entirely crazy; he’s chatted to a few people from Vattenfall who seem to have their heads screwed on. But he doesn’t want to know about the environmental impact. Of this Dekton stuff. Environmental impact is a big deal for Tommy: “After all, we’re leaving this to our children.”

  “We’re gay.”

  “You need to get out of your bubble. That bloody party of yours is making you incredibly narrow minded, it really is!”

  His mobile rings. Finally. The driver.

  “I’ll be down in a sec.”

  He needs to be quick now. He’s often noticed that he finds it easier to think when he’s under pressure. He doesn’t have a clue about kitchens. Tommy has very precise ideas and wants to have a kitchen that looks impressive should the minister happen to come around. And if one day the under-secretary happens to become a minister himself, who knows who might be paying them a visit? That cute prime minister from Sweden?

  Mmm.

  Briefly the under-secretary pictures Svensson in a pair of boxers. Then he snaps out of it and becomes the professional politician once again. He picks up his smartphone, compares prices, then chooses the most expensive. Tommy will say “typical” and complain that he’s a show-off (ten minutes), that you can get it better and cheaper (two minutes), then he’ll suggest his own and go on about the choice of colour (thirty to forty-five minutes), and the under-secretary will just have to make a bit of a fuss (five minutes, ideally fifteen) before giving in.

  No doubt it could all be done quicker. But sometimes you have to embark on these kinds of detours, and in this respect dealing with Tommy is no different from dealing with his ministerial tarts.

  But he can’t tell Tommy this, of course.

  2

  Nadeche Hackenbusch leans back contentedly. She knows that the first ripples can be felt long before she arrives at the T.V. company. Like shockwaves, like the wind before a storm, that rustling in the trees that sounds different from the normal breeze. Like the humming of railway tracks before a train approaches.

  Logically it should begin when Sensenbrink instructs his secretary not to put though any unscheduled telephone calls, and yet again tells her to remind everyone who’s coming to the meeting, so that everybody shows. But well in advance of that moment her name is already buzzing down the corridors like a rumour. Employees sense a phenomenon like this as animals sense an earthquake.

  “You lot have got a tough day ahead.”

  “Is she coming on her own?”

  “So? Full company meeting again?”

  The time when she used to flit from meeting to meeting in different departments is long gone. To begin with she felt important, until she realised that you’re more important if you meet the same people in fewer meetings. Last year, when it became apparent that the first series would hit record viewing figures, she managed this for the first time. There was only one single meeting for the second series, which everyone had to show up at. And the date wasn’t suggested to her; she chose it herself. Of course she went for July.

  “Why ‘of course’?” asks the new girl beside her in the limousine.

  “Because it means some of them will have to interrupt their holidays,” she says, flipping open a pocket mirror and checking her make-up. A fluid, gliding movement, hand into the bag, hand out with mirror flipped open as it’s raised, a glance during the brief pause between the mirror coming up and going back down, hand with mirror glides into the bag, all in all under two seconds.

  “Doesn’t that piss them off?”

  “Sure. But that’s like, the only way to get respect. The important people, the people with money, the people who make the decisions – those are the ones you have to treat badly. Not the little people. Write that down, please.”

  The new girl jots it on her pad. Nadeche Hackenbusch doesn’t yet know whether this is going to be a self-help book or her memoir, but it’s one of her favourite phrases and it has to be in there, whatever. She puts her hand in her bag again and plucks out a fifty-euro note. It happens so smoothly, maybe she has a special section for fifty-euro notes. She leans forwards and puts the note into the driver’s hand. “Before I forget, this is for you.” She sinks back into her seat.

  “You need to treat the little people well,” she says. “That’s what my mum always said. I come from a humble background, you see. My mum was a very simple woman.”

  “Oh, wait a sec.” The new girl leafs back through her pad, then says, “Your mother married a businessman – do you really want to depict that as a humble background?”

  “My mum was a very simple woman,” she clarifies. “And I will never forget my roots. You have to know who you are. Only those with roots are proper people.”

  She pauses briefly. When nothing happens she widens her eyes and nods towards the writing pad.

  “Sorry,” the new girl says. “Only . . . those with . . . roots are . . . proper people.”

  She notes with satisfaction that her words are being written down. “In the beginning I only used to give ten euros,” she says. “Then I thought that might be like, a bit stingy. So I gave twenty euros. But then I thought that might still be stingy. And I mean, it’s silly to give a tip if you end up thinking it wasn’t enough. I might as well not bother. So now I give fifty.”

  “And you don’t think fifty’s stingy?” the new girl asks.

  Nadeche doesn’t like the undertone. Is she being ironi
c? Critical? Sar . . . whateveritis?

  “Anybody who doesn’t think fifty’s enough is like, probably after a hundred. And a hundred’s greedy.”

  “But fifty isn’t?”

  Nadeche Hackenbusch makes a disapproving sound with her lips. “How much do you give, then?”

  “I dunno,” the new girl says. “Five, maybe? It depends on the fare.”

  “Absolutely not.” She shakes her beautiful head. “I can already see that I’m not going to be able to explain it to you. Just try to get it down in some form and we’ll look at it later. Maybe we’ll edit it out altogether.”

  “The bit about the tip or the important people?”

  This new girl won’t last long. Thank God her handwriting’s good; whoever replaces her will have no problem reusing the notes.

  “I don’t know yet,” Nadeche says, gazing absentmindedly out of the car window. “Maybe both.”

  “Shame I’m not being paid by the hour,” the new girl says ruefully.

  “You signed your contract.”

  Nadeche checks the time, then grabs her mobile. “Madeleine? Look, it’s me. We’ll be there in ten minutes. Could you call and let them know? So that when . . . Exactly. Actually, no, I fancy a cappuccino today . . . Super . . . Sweetener. You’re a real love!”

  Outside, the city flashes past. She likes this. Some of her old friends shook their heads when they found out how her life had changed. The interviews, the living in the public eye, an endless willingness to be photographed or spoken to. Plus the fact that this wasn’t just a burst of fame, it’s remained pretty constant ever since. She, however, was in thrall to her new life straightaway, and she still loves it. It’s a world she feels comfortable in, as others might in their local pub. Not least because the corollaries of her fame mean she can always be sure she’s on the right track. The fact that there’s always someone hovering around her leads Nadeche to believe that she must be leading an interesting and enviable life. For her, journalists are like canaries in a mine. So long as one’s still hopping around, everything’s O.K.

  She glances at the new girl.