The Hungry and the Fat Read online

  “Sure, and maybe a bit extra too,” Mahmoud grumbles. “What are you actually living off on this march of yours?”

  “You’re right, I have to eat and drink. But think how much I could eat and drink for the money I’ve saved?”

  “They say Berlin’s pricey,” Miki warns, but now he sounds more curious. He wants to know where these ideas are leading. He gives the refugee another beer.

  “Hey!” Mahmoud protests. “What about me?”

  “You come up with a bright idea and you’ll get one too,” Miki says.

  “So, I’ve got a little less money and I’m five thousand kilometres further on—”

  “What about the borders?” Mahmoud reminds him.

  “I could get guides. They don’t cost much.”

  “Yeah right, they’ll be just waiting to give you a special price. Well, if I were going to offer a special price it would be to my premier smuggler. They come back, you see? Special price for regular customers.”

  “I haven’t worked it out in that much detail . . .” the refugee admits.

  “And then Mr Special Price is standing by the European border installations. They tell you you come from a fabulous country and don’t know just how lucky you are to live there. And that’s that, goodbye.”

  “O.K., O.K. . . .”

  “Great,” Miki says. “And I just gave you a beer for that!”

  “I didn’t promise a miracle!” the refugee says, trying to fob them off, but it’s too late. He had an idea, was interrupted at the wrong moment, and now it’s gone. He tries to pick up the threads, he closes his eyes and wills his stream of thought to come back. Just like dreams you can return to if you do it right.

  “I’ve got no money, but I do have plenty of time,” the refugee repeats. “And I’ve got two feet—”

  “We’ve heard this already.”

  And then the idea is gone for good. Angrily, he picks up his beer and takes a swig before Miki thinks of putting the bottle away again. He does this sometimes. If you turn up to Miki’s late in the day and drunk, you might be served a bottle that’s only half full.

  “But one thing’s for sure,” he says. “Whether I save or not, I’ll never keep up with the transport prices.”

  “Come on,” Mahmoud consoles him. “It only looks that way at the moment. Maybe prices will fall and we’ll be back on track.”

  “They’re not going to fall,” the refugee says assertively. “Europe doesn’t want us. Nobody wants us. And the less someone wants you, the more expensive the journey becomes.”

  None of them can think of anything to say to this. But to underline his resolve, to emphasise once again the validity of his initial idea, he buys another round of beers. And while they drink and brood, he is assailed repeatedly by the thought that a unique opportunity has just gone begging.

  4

  Because the chair hasn’t arrived yet, the atmosphere in the meeting room is reminiscent of a classroom when the teacher comes in late. Which is astonishing, because this class is called the federal government. To be fair, it is the summer recess. Parliament is having a break, virtually everyone is having a break, and the federal government only meets once a fortnight. The chancellor is on holiday, as is the vice chancellor, not to mention most of the ministers, which is why they send their deputies even though they have nothing to say. There are people here today who find themselves at the cabinet table for the very first time. They’ve all been here before, of course, and tried out the black chairs, including the one in the middle, they’ve taken selfies with their finger on the chancellor’s call button, but not all have been sent here on previous occasions specifically to sit in these chairs and actually do something useful.

  In this instance the word “useful” is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, as today they’re basically just going to run through the agenda. And not even that if the minister for the environment – the longest-serving among them and chair of the meeting – doesn’t turn up.

  The under-secretary scans the room for familiar faces. Lohm ought to be here. Like Lohm, he is one of the youngest; only Amsel from the Greens is younger. In spite of this the under-secretary has been in this room more often than most, more often even than Lohm. Leubl, minister of the interior, sends him as a matter of principle, and not only in summer either.

  “Because I know you’re always thinking beyond the agenda,” Leubl said the first time.

  “It’s very kind of you to say so, but the others do that too—”

  “Do me a favour and spare me the loyalty, would you? At least when it’s just us. You’re the only one I actually chose. I’ve got Rogler because the minister president still owes him something. Schwanstatt is a pompous old bag on a Women’s Farmers’ Association and Christian Democratic Employees’ Association ticket. If I sent her out I could be sure she’d get lost on the way home, and believe me, nothing would make me happier. The only reason I allowed those two to be forced on me was to get you into the bargain.”

  “I never knew—”

  “You were thinking that this old man was gaga, were you? He bought three lottery tickets and drew two blanks?”

  Leubl gave him such a stern look that he opted to keep his mouth shut. Then Leubl sat at his desk, opened a file and began to read. Without looking up, he said, “So, if I can’t make cabinet, you’re my man. Or if I don’t fancy it. I expect you to gear yourself up for the job.”

  And the under-secretary is prepared, even though there’s not much to look at today beyond a report on energy research. Not even energy transition, but research, which is about as important as the film the teacher sticks on for the class on the last day of term.

  Eager tweeting fills the room with its silence. In theory at least, because Karsdorff-Gundelingen and Gröner from the ministry of transport haven’t yet worked out how to switch off the keyboard sound on their phones. There is a barrage of clicking, letter after letter, the technology and method about as useful as a white stick for sighted people, and the only thing one can be sure of is that neither could leak information to the press from under the table. He can’t think who would want to swap information with them in the first place. K.-G. is as stupid as she looks, and Gröner is such a henchman of the automobile industry it’s embarrassing. Not only is he as thick as two short planks, he’s also pig-headed. All the journalists, even those from A.D.A.C. Motorwelt, refer to him as “Groaner”.

  The under-secretary waves at Grevensen, who he respects. For forty-five years Grevensen has been exuding Social Democratic cordiality in North Rhine–Westphalia. He began with the Young Socialists, on the left wing, but not a radical. You can only really appreciate the significance of his grassroots work when you talk to him in private, share a glass of wine in his M.P.’s apartment and check out his jazz collection. And when you see that he devours all the American writers and a load of French ones in their original languages, and admits to you how difficult he finds it to listen to the appalling drivel of his party comrades, the slogans repeated over and over, their unbearable complacency, and what an unbelievable struggle it is for him not to flee, screaming, from a colliery band.

  “The songs are so fucking tedious. And that sluggish tempo! As if they were all trumpeting asthmatics! Brass-band music as a driver of social integration is all well and good, but do they actually have to perform it? I spent six years watching my children regurgitate their scripts in the school theatre, so if you’re talking about support for culture, then all I can say is I’ve done my bit!”

  Then they thrust this young candidate in front of his nose. But to make sure he keeps his trap shut and actively praises his successor to boot, he’s been given a three-year finale in the ministry of justice. And this is precisely what the under-secretary likes so much about Grevensen. Many people would view this as a first step into retirement, as early leave, and they’d start drinking at eleven in the morning so that their well-paid time passed more quickly. But Grevensen plays the game to the final whistle like a pro. He’ll def
initely have read the material for today. He’ll have checked to see whether there are any clauses in which, unintentionally, positions are revealed, admissions made, little things let through on the nod. He’s dead certain to have asked colleagues whether he’ll find any dealings or remarks from their own department in it. And he’ll have realised that the material is in fact as dull as it looks. Which is more than 80 per cent of the people here have, including the two ministers who’ve actually turned up in person.

  The under-secretary’s mobile lights up. WhatsApp.

  “Have you heard? N.H. now advertising washing-up liquid!”

  From Lohm, of course. There’s only one answer to that.

  “Headline news.”

  No sooner has he pressed “send” than the next message has arrived:

  “Even more fairy than Fairy.”

  “You’re such a closet queen. Where are you?”

  Lohm bursts into the room with broad, cheeky grin and winks at him. He returns the gesture by rolling his eyes in a friendly/bored way. They’ve known each other since they were law students. Lohm was good-looking in those days, even after he joined the Greens, and back then their dress sense was as dubious as it is today. And he was pretty smart too. You could always have a good laugh with Lohm. But totally hetero, unfortunately.

  It was while they were still at university that Lohm advised him to actively play the gay card. He was one of the first the under-secretary had confided in. And Lohm was proved right. In Guido Westerwelle’s F.D.P. it would have been a doddle; they had a slight tradition of homosexuality, the minor extravagance of a 5-per cent party which is little more than a fringe group. In the C.D.U., on the other hand, it’s something else altogether. You need balls.

  “Yes, but you’ve got them,” Lohm said.

  “You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t I? I drive a 1978 Porsche 911. I fill it with leaded petrol, not because it needs it, but because it likes it. I’m currently building my own home, way out of town, with triple garage and carport so that my 1965 Jeep can stay nice and dry even when my girlfriend turns up with her Alfa Spider. What do you think the Greens make of someone like me?”

  Lohm was right: the under-secretary does have balls.

  He could have opted for the easy route. But he wanted to be taken seriously and so went down Grevensen’s hard path, with the difference that he didn’t caress the party’s soul in the process. He did the rounds of the local associations, he spoke to everyone and told them all he was gay before drinking them under the table or fleecing them at cards. That evening when he was in his mid-twenties, when he took a parliamentary party secretary, the deputy secretary-general and a special advisor to the cleaners in a game of Schafkopf, was the stuff of legend. When it was time to settle he said, “I’ll accept cheques but not blowjobs. And I’m not just talking to the lady here.”

  Ever since, Lohm has been teasing him with all the latest gossip about Nadeche Hackenbusch. Because, for reasons he can’t fathom, Nadeche Hackenbusch is regarded as a gay icon. This seems to happen regularly. Marianne Rosenberg, he read again recently, is still puzzled as to how and why the honour was bestowed on her. After all, there were others who sang “He belongs to me”. But with Nadeche there’s really no connection between her and the gay community. You just have to look at her – the way she moves, speaks, behaves in general – to realise that she’s as straight as they come, and that her only exceptional feature is her inordinate phoniness. Tommy watches her show on television – what a dreadful woman. Apparently she’s doing something meaningful at the moment, but nobody should harbour any doubts that the entire thing is first and foremost a vehicle for Nadeche Hackenbusch, who’s using it to get better T.V. slots and more lucrative advertising contracts. He knows people like her, and she doesn’t look like the type to be satisfied with any old niche programme. Oh no, Nadeche Hackenbusch wants to make it to the big time.

  Here comes the minister for the environment. Normally the journalists would be asked to leave the room at this point, but there aren’t any here today – another sign of how uneventful the meeting is going to be. A playgroup for the ministry for the environment and the ministry of economics. Although it looks as though the minister of economics isn’t here either. This must have been arranged to allow the other two to shine. Two under-secretaries snicker; the minister of the environment glowers at them.

  The under-secretary wears his pensive listening expression so he can inconspicuously observe what he’s really interested in: unusual behaviour. He knows there will inevitably be an objection from the ministry of economics, because the document is missing the paragraph about support measures, and he’d be amazed if Klein didn’t milk this, to draw the attention to himself again. Klein loves the sound of his own voice.

  At some point the minister of the environment will crack a joke about her husband. He’s expecting this, but he’s watching for anything that’s different from the usual. Anything that tells you someone is abandoning a position, implying that they’ve negotiated a deal with someone. Or that they might even be signalling a complete change in policy direction. But today there’s seems to be nothing to discover. He checks the time. With luck the session will be over in an hour. An hour and a half if Klein delivers a lecture and everybody’s smart enough to refrain from responding. Unfortunately, at least two of the individuals in the room today make that doubtful. But there’s no way it can run beyond one o’clock so he texts Lohm: “Lunch?”

  And Lohm texts back: “Ethiopian? Congolese? Nigerian? African is obligatory today!”

  “Huh?”

  “Haven’t you set a Google alert for your sweetheart? N.H. is going to Africa.”

  5

  Astrid von Roëll is sitting in Africa, freezing. With the temperature outside at thirty-nine degrees, the Evangeline reporter tries unobtrusively to stretch the three-quarter sleeves of her cardigan to four-fifths sleeves. The air conditioning inside the off-road vehicle is switched to fifteen, and she’s struggling against both the temperature and her stinginess: the cardigan was slightly too expensive – even slightly way too expensive – and she doesn’t want the delicate sleeves to go baggy. She wouldn’t care so much were she not sitting opposite Nadeche Hackenbusch, whose expression shows not the slightest hint of discomfort. And Astrid von Roëll doesn’t want to come across as someone who didn’t know that African off-roaders have air conditioning too. So she’s trying to sit there casually, as if her favourite thing about foreign travel is this marvellous difference in temperatures.

  As she watches Nadeche Hackenbusch tap something into her smartphone, Astrid endeavours to work out her secret. After all, Nadeche is wearing only a shortish denim skirt, an elegant yet simple top beneath a denim jacket, and canvas plimsolls. It all seems very down-to-earth, apart from the rhinestones, which are trashy, but Astrid has seen one of the labels and she knows you wouldn’t get change out of four thousand euros for the outfit, not if you include the shoes and other bits and bobs. But despite the price, this get-up doesn’t have an in-built heating system. How is it possible? How can she stand it? Is she wearing invisible thermal underwear?

  What an extraordinary woman.

  Astrid von Roëll has been monitoring Nadeche Hackenbusch’s career from the outset. Her beginnings in that talent show, the embarrassing slip-ups – of course they sneered at first, in the planning meetings. Such naivety. She remembers that at her goddaughter’s school, girls would insult each other with the words, “You’re such a Nadeche!” or “You total Nadeche!” She went out in the fourth round, of course, having survived the third only because she’d got such brilliant ratings; the YouTube videos were cult viewing and the T.V. execs needed to sell advertising, after all. Her looks and her refreshing genuineness were tailor made for this. Legs that practically went up to her ears, almost too long, in fact, meaning she was always slightly gauche, not completely uncoordinated but often on the verge of crumpling like a very young calf. A most vers
atile bosom which, depending on the situation, could be thrillingly exaggerated or discreetly hidden beneath clothes, as now. That sensational face, which even back then was breathtakingly beautiful, and yet as normal as that of the assistant at the bakery next door. A smile like a sunrise, a large mouth that was never at rest and spouted an unbelievable amount of rubbish, albeit with an implicit honesty. How could anyone think that giving Nadeche her own programme might be a good idea? Surely they could see she couldn’t deliver lines to camera. Even now she still can’t: she’s got no idea what it’s supposed to sound like. You can play her clips of hundreds of presenters, but she can’t hear the difference. Which is why she sounded ever more distorted with every desperate attempt. More uncertain and less like herself. This went down badly; the viewers noticed too. At first the ratings were middling, then dreadful.

  The media industry can be cruel to women. And Astrid von Roëll knows this better than anyone. She’s been with Evangeline for sixteen years now, but she never fails to be shocked. What happened to Esther Schweins from “R.T.L. Saturday Night”? Or Tanja Schumann? They used to be so funny, but now? All the guys from the programme have found other homes, but what about the women? Schumann had to resort to “I’m a Celebrity . . .”, as if there hadn’t been enough misery in her life. Nadeche had definitely made a better fist of it.

  Astrid von Roëll can’t recall Nadeche ever having disappeared from the television screen altogether. That’s down to her extraordinarily eventful life. Her marriage to the national hockey player, her first child (a boy called Scheel), her divorce, her unfortunate singing career at the same time as her affair with YouTuber LeBretzel (“stress on the final syllable, please”), her separation after that rape and the second pregnancy that was the result, almost like the perfect punch-line, and the discussion about abortion alongside the trial that ended in a dubious settlement. Then came the happy birth of her second son, Bonno, named Beckham-style after where he was conceived, and the book on motherhood, which Astrid worked on as an advisor, although sadly uncredited. Only when the book flopped was Nadeche ripe for “I’m a Celebrity . . .” But just at that moment came “Angel in Adversity”.