The Hungry and the Fat Page 14

  “Sensenbrink, this idiot!” she screams. “And the Kärrner is the same arsehole! As if all here shitequal is! All the humans! All the poor humans!”

  He looks at her with eyebrows raised, helplessly holding up his palms because there’s no point trying to interrupt her. All of a sudden she pauses to take a deep breath. She wipes the corners of her eyes with a sleeve.

  “Yesyes,” she says. “You can it ja not know.”

  Malaika squats beside Lionel and looks at him insistently. “They want to end the sendung.” Unconsciously, she switches to German: “Oh, don’t look at me like that!” But then she apologises right away: “Sorry, I forget always that your English not so special is. Finish, understand you? The German T.V. want make finish. A week have we only more. A week. I say to they: in three days can we not help people, unpossible. And they so: there can we nothing make!”

  She leaps up. “I am so up one hundred eighty,” she yells. “We have so much to do. We cannot simply homego!”

  It’s quite tricky to follow what she’s saying, but the gist is that they’re planning to terminate the programme. Even though everyone keeps saying how well it’s going down. He curses silently. He’s been relying on its success for far too long. This means he’s got seven days’ work left, seven days in which to persuade Malaika to take him with her. He’s going to have to calm her down so that she listens to him. The way she is right now, nothing’s going to go in. She needs to calm down, and when she’s calm he can explain his problem. If she’s at all interested. He gets up. He’d put his arms around any other woman at this moment, but perhaps it’s not such a good idea with a German angel. Nadeche notices his intention all the same.

  “You understand me,” she says sadly. “That is nice. But one thing is safe, I swear you: not with us! Think only of all our work. It can not for nothing be! We can not come to all this humans here and make a T.V. sending and then go we simple again home. And here is all how it before was! Not now! Where the first time all Germans really look at all the shit of the world! This is stupid. This is so unhuman!”

  He didn’t put his arms around her. And yet suddenly she’s in them. He can scarcely believe it: the gorgeous angel is actually in his arms, her head pressed against his chest, leaning on the one individual who has been at her side through the misery and adversity, and of course he responds by pressing her to him, carefully, very gingerly. Although it feels good to hold her, he must remain steadfast. Just bear in mind, he urges himself, bear in mind, bear in mind at all times: one false move of the hand and she’ll never take you to Germany. Leave those hands of yours on her shoulders, leave those hands on her shoulders, and as he thinks “shoulders” for the second or third time he can already feel hands considerably lower, between the shoulder blades.

  Not his hands, but hers.

  This isn’t good. This isn’t good.

  This.

  Isn’t.

  Good, and he looks down and tries to loosen his grip around her shoulders, tries to tell her that everything will be fine with Kärrnerbrink, but he can’t speak with her lips on his mouth, the lips of an angel, the lips of the most beautiful woman in the world, it’s as if heaven itself were kissing him, nobody has ever kissed him like this before, so . . . so . . .

  So German-like.

  She kisses, not tentatively, but as German women probably do kiss: thoroughly. It feels unusual, different, but good, and when you’re kissed by heaven you have to return the favour, anything else would be a sin, and he pulls her towards him, briefly enquires whether she likes feeling him close to her, but . . . now she can feel him and she presses herself against him, this is no dream, it’s not a comical misunderstanding between him and the woman from the distant foreign land, no, it’s a great understanding, the very greatest understanding there can be between two people on this earth.

  Those small, delicate hands that are forever energetically showing everyone what’s what, they’re everywhere, he’s about to rip off his shirt, but like an army of ants her fingers have already unfastened all the buttons, even those on his epaulettes, he can’t undo hers with the same speed, she’s already slipped his trousers off, his shoes are removed from his feet so quickly that the word “pillage” darts through his mind, and at the same time the clothes fall from her like leaves from a tree, he sinks back, her ant-fingers all over him, caressing his face, guiding him unerringly between her thighs, then with a sigh she lowers herself onto him, all the way in, as deep as she can, and rather than wait she begins, in her German way, to move up and down, precisely and rhythmically until she breathes out quickly and slumps on top of him with a moan, released, her face resting on his, now allowing him to go about things more calmly, she feels good, he just prefers it this way, a little more this and a little less that, it seems to spark a response in her too, she comes back to life with little noises and, just as he’s thinking he ought to be slowing it all down, really relishing it, like a moment designed for loving an angel, she sits up and beams at him, takes control and resumes her relentless rhythm. It’s unfamiliar, but somehow good too, it reminds him of something, he can’t grasp it straightaway, it’s on the tip of his tongue, but then he’s distracted by those very, very beautiful breasts, and for the first time with a woman he comes like a real German.

  “That was so good,” she whispers into his ear. “So good, so good, so good. You are so wonderful. You be my angel.”

  “Malaika,” he says, “this is—”

  “This is love,” Malaika says, convinced. “But this is more. This must destiny be.” Propping herself on her elbows she looks him seriously in the eye. “The same goals, the same love. I have never so what feeled. And I knowed that in the first moment where I you seen have. This is what comes only one time in hundert years.”

  He gazes at her, sweaty, stumped, spoiled. His thoughts trip over one another, he can’t believe what’s happening. Because if it’s true, if Malaika, this wonderful angel, really does love him, then seven days will be plenty of time to convince her to take him with her. Can this be true? It sounds like one of Mahmoud’s hoaxes, as if Mahmoud had tricked him, but the angel would never do what she’s just done for a mere trick!

  In the camp there are some girls who would do that for money, and some who would do it so they could tease him with Mahmoud afterwards. “Did you think this was love? Idiot!” But Malaika?

  Besides, if it were a hoax it must surely be over by now. Mahmoud would have stormed in and laughed, and the angel would have sat up and laughed too. But the angel isn’t laughing. The angel is lying by his side, her head on his chest and her ant-fingers are playing with his chest hair. This time, however, the ant-fingers are slow and tender, and she is breathing deeply and calmly. He kisses her forehead, she looks up with weary eyes and kisses him before snuggling up even more.

  “I have noch never a man how you founded,” she says softly into his chest hair. “A man and a human. I think all the time over that. This is the first time I do what real senseful. And it is the first time I love a real good man. I feel it. A better love for a better world.”

  Perhaps she’s right, he thinks. He no longer believes it could be a hoax. She’s so serious, there is such conviction in her voice. What is life actually all about? Is it just about working for an ever-better existence and getting your arse over to Europe? To earn money there? Is this Allah’s plan? Is this the Christian god’s plan? No, it’s love. One should love a good person honestly, a good woman, and if she’s an angel, well, it goes without saying. He’s never thought of himself as anything special, but thinking about it now, he’s never really been a bad person either. He’s never been like Mojo the Blue, nor has he simply taken each day as it comes like Mahmoud, and if Allah or whoever else is looking for the right man for Malaika, a man for an angel, and he can’t find anyone better anywhere in the world, well, who is he to argue with God? God is looking for the man who will make Malaika happy, and let nobody impede this love, he means to throw himself into this love with a pu
re heart, he means to give his best. And because God rewards the just and those in love, for those things alone, not out of greed or self-interest, the divine will is washing him into the heart of a beautiful woman.

  And a ticket to Germany to boot.

  “You’re so right,” he says, stroking her hair. “I love you. I love you so much. I love you so much that I’ll come with you. You must finish your T.V. show, yes, but don’t worry. I will come with you.”

  It’s going to be marvellous. The angel will take him back to her angel house. He’ll look after the house and garden and the goats. Yes, he knows more about cars, but Germans have their own cars. They don’t have goats. They’re going to get rich, or ever richer, because the angel will get richer through him and what he knows. And because he’ll never forget where he comes from and the angel is an angel anyway, they’ll continue helping the poor together, for television and on television. So the other poor people can come to Germany, full of love and pure of heart. The first person he’ll get to join him is Mahmoud, who’ll be deputy goat manager. The Germans will be amazed at how well it works, for Mahmoud is loyal and reliable, and together with those famous German engineers they’ll turn Germany into the greatest goat nation on earth. They’ll have a big car and lots of children and the peasants in their villages will say that the angel and the angel’s angel are great and just and . . .

  “What?”

  She sits bolt upright like a meercat.

  “What have you said?”

  Has he done something wrong? Is there something he’s misunderstood? How is it possible to misunderstand what has just brought them together. What they’ve just done together? What she said?

  “I . . . I only said—”

  “No!” she says, her voice strained, “Lionel! No!”

  Seeing the confusion in his eyes she lays a hand on his chest, her small, delicate, warm hand. “You are so sweet. But you know self: we can not go. You can not go. The humans here need you. You have ever helped the humans here. You know all the humans here. All the humans love you. They trust you. And they need you. I can you not away taken. This is your life. This is your work. And that means that I auch not go away. For you. For ever.”

  She flings her arms around his neck and they pull him down like a millstone. His eyes roam the room. This can’t be for real. What’s happening right now can’t actually be happening. Searching for hope, all he finds are cans of insect spray scattered everywhere. Only a few seconds ago she was the angel, his angel whose verve would carry him off to a better life. Now she’s chaining him to this damn floor. It was his one great chance to escape and he’s missed it. The television will leave, there won’t be any money and nothing will change. Nothing, nothing, nothing. This angel isn’t going to help him; on the contrary, he’s going to have to keep on looking after the angel. It’s not going to be him moving to a better country, but the angel moving to a worse one, to the most idiotic country a person can move to. His life will pass him by, not when he dies, but in here in this camp or in another one.

  For if he wanted to leave now he’d have to take the angel with him.

  And to be able to take the angel with him, this good person, this unbearably good person, he’d have to take the entire camp with him.

  He leaps up.

  18

  “You’re crazy, amigo,” Mojo the Blue says, and he laughs.

  He drops into his enormous desk chair and it tips backwards. It’s not a natural laugh, but this is no natural desk either. It’s as wide as a Mercedes is long and so deep that they’d both have to bend right across the top to be able to shake hands. The desk is immaculately lacquered all over in gleaming white apart from the inlay panelling. The gilding could look over the top, but in fact it goes rather well with the four golden lions’ paws the desk rests on. On the desk sits a golden letter opener which could also be used as a bush knife. Or as a bridge across a small stream.

  To Mojo’s right is an iPad still in its box on another iPad still in its box, and beneath these a further three iPads still in their boxes. To Mojo’s left is the golden remote control he uses for the large screen that covers the entire wall of the shack. And in between sits Mojo himself in a regal white leather desk chair.

  Such an ensemble really deserves to be in a room with at least some rudimentary plastering and a nice paint job. But once you’ve sat at this gargantuan table for a few minutes, you realise there’s no way it could have come through the window, let alone the door, which means that Mojo must have had the desk first and then built this office shack around it. And he must have been so desperate to sit on his white leather chair among all his iPads that he couldn’t wait any longer, at least not for trivial matters like wall paint.

  “Hahahahaha!” Mojo laughs. “Haaaaaaa hahahahaha!”

  There’s no amusement in this laugh. It doesn’t sound as if he’s found something funny, it sounds forceful, almost arduous, as if this noisy laughter were extremely hard work. It comes from Mojo having watched endless T.V. series on his office shack wall, series in which big-time gangsters laugh as he’s trying to now. What detracts considerably from the bizarre impression he’s trying to create is that Mojo doesn’t have an especially unusual taste in films. He’s seen pretty much the same T.V. series as everyone else, like “The Wire” or “Breaking Bad”, which is why he sometimes speaks like a Mexican or Colombian. And he’s forever practising gestures that he’s invented himself. For a while he would leave a canister of compressed air lying around. And last year he had hamsters in the meeting room. He would take one out of its cage during a meeting and toss it up and down like a tennis ball, before strangling the creature. But nobody knew what this was supposed to mean because nobody knew what the hamster stood for. And being so easy to throttle, hamsters aren’t much help with intimidation. Besides, the room stank of hamsters the whole time so he gave up on the idea. And it all sounds very funny when you tell it to Miki and Mahmoud at the bar.

  But when you’re sitting face to face in his meeting room, you’re reminded that there are unpleasant things that no television gangster has ever done. But Mojo the Blue has.

  “How does someone like you come up with a bullshit idea like that, amigo?”

  “I didn’t have much time. I still don’t have much time.”

  “On foot?”

  “On foot.”

  “You’re batshit crazy. Hahahahaha.”

  He waits for Mojo the Blue to stop laughing. But Mojo the Blue adds an encore: “Bandele, take a look at this guy, our pedestrian. Hahahahahahah! Ha!”

  Bandele dutifully joins in. His laugh sounds more natural; like any loyal employee he’s had more practice. He laughs so loudly and heartily that Mojo the Blue waves his hand to shut him up. It’s as if Bandele’s been switched off.

  “Any idea how far that is?” Mojo says.

  “Do you know how long I’ve been here by now? If I’d just walked ten kilometres each day—”

  “Sure, sure. If you fart once a day for a million years the wind’s gonna carry you to Europe. But I don’t care. ’Cause you ain’t goin’.”

  “No?”

  “No. Because you, amigo, are the angel’s angel. Who owes me a few favours. How are you ever goin’ to pay me back if you’re not here?”

  “First, I don’t owe you any favours. And second, the time for favours is over because the television people are moving on out. Work’s done. They’re bringing the angel programme to an end.”

  “What bullshit is that? Everyone says the show’s doin’ really well. Bandele, is the show doin’ really well?”

  “Ratings are through the roof,” Bandele says.

  “Maybe,” Lionel says with a shrug. “But now they’re finishing up.”

  “When?”

  “In five days. Like I said, I don’t have much time.”

  “What about those favours you owe me?”

  “I don’t owe you any favours. But let me propose a deal.”

  “For your fart to Europe?”
>
  He nods.

  “I ain’t sellin’ no beans.” Mojo roars with laughter, and Bandele follows suit.

  “Very good . . . but I want to buy something else from you.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “I need someone who knows the way. I need someone to bribe the border guards. I need someone to bribe the military.”

  “What you’re lookin’ for is a people smuggler. And I ain’t no mutherfuckin’ people smuggler.”

  “I need more than a smuggler. I need someone to provide food, to deliver water.”

  “But you can walk on your own?”

  “I can.”

  “Still sounds like a mutherfuckin’ people smuggler to me. Like a mutherfuckin’ people smuggler with a restaurant car. Why don’t you pay one of them?”

  “Because I don’t have enough money.”

  “And so you’ve come to me?”

  Lionel nods slowly. This could get quite awkward.

  “Hey, look at me! Did you see a sign out front of my house that said: ‘Discounts for dumb niggers’? No? You know why you didn’t see that sign?”

  “Why?” Lionel asks, even though he knows what’s coming. He’s seen the film too.

  “’Cause it ain’t there!”

  “This isn’t about whether I’ve got enough money for a smuggler. It’s about getting you a deal. Bigger than all the others. With an enormous profit.”

  “How come?”

  “Because I’m on television.”

  “Why don’t they pay for your smuggler?”

  “It doesn’t work like that. They won’t take me with them and they won’t pay for a smuggler either. And this isn’t about you just turning up with a few bottles of water and some flour. I’m talking about planning here. A smuggler shoves you into a boat or lorry with a heap of other Africans. That’s nonsense. I want your organisation and your contacts. I want your protection.”