Jacko

by Keneally, Thomas

  —We are where?

  —Going home, son. The big B. Berlin the bloody free, son. Whacko!

  The chances of my saying anything passably clever on camera seemed to grow less as we sat sleepless above Europe’s grey morning. The weak sun and the dun clouds below us did not look epochal. Punished for our late arrival, we were put to circling above the city. By the time we taxied up to the terminal, it was mid-morning, and Al Bunker was anxious about how he could hope to get Gunter south, reconciled with his brother, and edited and ready for transmission in time for that night’s Live Wire.

  The one hopeful aspect was that Gunter seemed reconciled to completing his journey. He landed docilely. We waited with him as Dannie concluded her negotiations with the few overworked customs and immigration officers who guarded Germany from marauders from the West. It was like 1945 in that regard I suppose – most of the forces of civil Germany turned to greet the Easterners.

  Jacko and I saw Gunter and Bunker and Bunker’s crew, and all the cases of Calvados and tangerines, into a hired Mercedes. Its driver was helpfully telling Bunker how impossible it was to get south towards Leipzig today. But it was clear that Al Bunker would get Gunter there somehow, perhaps not quite as fast as two genuine pirates like Dannie and Jacko, but with dispatch just the same. The driver’s unwillingness had no chance of matching Bunker’s frenzy. If he did not get the filmed reconciliation of Gunter and Gunter’s brother back to Berlin and transmitted to New York by midnight, he would suffer video death. He would become a newsroom anecdote, a dark memory.

  In that event, the question might be asked, What is he doing now?

  —Selling imported cars, the last I heard.

  Or engaged in some other form of nullity.

  In our car, Dannie announced that she had managed to bully some rooms for us out of the Kempinski Hotel. How astounded would Hitler be to discover that so late in the twentieth century Polish Jewish girls like Dannie were gouging Berlin’s best hotel rooms out of Aryan management? However, said Dannie, we had to double up. All the other news organizations were doing that. She’d share a room with Jacko.

  Our driver’s name was Raoul. He was a worldly young Alsatian who wore a bomber jacket and confessed to a French mother. He, Jacko, Dannie and – to do him justice – Fartfeatures, filling in for Clayton once again, seemed on first-name terms within seconds. Fartfeatures had been inoffensive and without complaint in the Perugia and on both planes. Now, however, he seemed less enthusiastic.

  All of us discussed the traffic, how surprisingly light it was.

  —Lots of people at home, just watching it all on TV said Raoul. If it’s on TV, it means more than if they see it being there.

  —Yeah, said Jacko, taking Raoul’s reflection as praise for his chosen medium. Isn’t that bloody great?

  In such a little time, we were bowling up the Ku’damm, which, as a bewildered and fairly unworldly tourist, I had visited with my wife twenty years past. These flashy shops had seemed to me not glamorous, but a mean outcome to all that Nazi triumphalism, all that bombing. A cosmetic form of amnesia for the past, and a flippant condolence, not always in good taste, to all the German and other corpses.

  Here today, people bundled in shabby overcoats were window shopping.

  —’Ayseeds from the East, said Raoul.

  And they did look like pasty-complexioned extras in a propaganda film about the inhumanity of Stalinism. Senator McCarthy and his descendants would have been pleased to see their enchantment and bewilderment in the face of the hydra-headed wonders of Western consumerism. I had a sense that the West might take some fairly glib messages from phenomena like this. As we drew up, Marx’s grey children were also round the door of the Kempinski, which looked like the sort of grand hotel I had seen in the films of my childhood in which German generals entertained beautiful double-agents. The last time I had been here with Maureen, we hadn’t been able to afford the Kempinski, but had had a cocktail there.

  On the pavement not far from the front door, a young man dressed like Raoul was passing out something to the East German visitors, accepting bank notes from them – part of their reunion bonus – and handing out change in return.

  —They’re buying Do Not Disturb signs from that guy there, Raoul told us. They’re like children.

  —Jesus, said Jacko to Dannie and Fartfeatures. We’ve got to get some footage of that.

  Fartfeatures nodded grudgingly and stared out at other facades across the street.

  We filed into the big rococo lobby designed it seemed, like the outside, by some sly film designer for intense assignations and the loitering of spies. Dannie signed in for all of us with a few competent swipes of the pen. She turned from the reception desk talking.

  —We’ve got to get over to the Brandenburg Gate for a direct transmission. Vixen Six’s suspending normal programming and we’re it. There’s a satellite truck waiting out there for us, ordered by Durkin. Raoul’s ready with the car. Fancy stuff like the Do Not Disturb signs later. You’ve just got time for a slash before we move out.

  Again, it was strange to hear that item of Jacko-idiom, slash, rolled casually around Dannie’s mouth so familiarly, like a wad of chewing gum. There was an aspect of claim to it too. It was a sign she meant to have Jacko. As she’d taken over his idiom, she meant to take him over.

  Upstairs, Fartfeatures and I chose beds. I was relieved to find it a very big room because Fartfeatures’ air of disengagement gave me the sense that somehow he would be a sloppy and noisy sleeper.

  Soon we had refreshed ourselves and cleaned our teeth, and then we travelled with Raoul up the Ku’damm past the ritzy shops and their fringe of gaping Easterners, past the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Church and the Tiergarten and Zoological Gardens. We turned then onto the broad Street of the 17th of June. Here, crowds of people, most of them young, many of them on the roadway, were pressing in one direction – towards the Wall and the Brandenburg Gate. They did not care if Raoul or other motorists honked them or threatened to run them over. They were under the influence of an ecstatic magnetism. Moving, if you like, in the always preferred German direction: eastwards. Dannie was so taken by a sense of this primal drift that she sat up straight and grabbed Jacko’s wrist to incorporate him in her sense of celebration. Jacko half-smiled and patted her bird-boned forearm with the enormous fist he’d inherited from Stammer Jack.

  We could see ahead, above the hats of young Germans, the renowned Goddess of Peace and her four horses surmounting the Gate. I was moved to consider including her in my commentary.

  Something like: When the Brandenburg Gate was first built, it was dedicated to the Goddess of Peace. She became, however, a symbol of racism, tyranny, and division. Only today does she enter into her full estate …

  Beyond this great Gate, which I had first seen in childhood cinemas in the Western suburbs of Sydney as a symbol of Hitler’s power, the bleak swathe of concrete fence had been thrown up to provide the ideologues of East and West with fields of fire or of observation. This prohibited area behind the Gate was now full of people. Many young men had climbed and straddled the Wall, uniting Germany as it were with their loins, with their honest arses. The watchtowers beyond the Wall were unguarded. No fire hoses from the East assaulted the Wall-sitters.

  Raoul showed our pass to a West Berlin cop who told us where to park. We could see roofs and dishes of satellite trucks ahead, and went looking for ours and, after only a minor search, found it. Its German crew seemed languid with waiting, but were enlivened now by the contact. They listened to Dannie’s instructions and said, Sure, sure. Fartfeatures hooked his camera up to the cable it carried, and Dannie told Fartfeatures where to set up and where to stand.

  Someone put a plug in my ear and a mike on my tie. I could hear Durkin in New York issuing weary yet somehow crisp orders to unseen people, and then he began talking to me.

  —Get any sleep on the plane? he asked me, and without waiting for me to reply, told me and Dannie and Jacko we were o
n in two minutes.

  —Does it feel historic? I heard him asking us all.

  It was significant above utterance, but I didn’t get to say so.

  —Bloody historic, mate, Jacko told him in a voice aerated with the awe of it all.

  When the time came, Jacko spoke to camera as passing Berliners cheered us as if they were flattered we’d taken an interest. Jacko passed to me and my vocal cords turned for a moment to little balls of marble. Then I spoke, Dannie kindly nodding approval from behind the camera. I said that I had rejoiced in the fall of the awful Erich Honecker. What we were seeing was the result of the lifting of his dead hand. Yet, I said, I knew that we could not convey through flat videotape the peculiar three-D character, the intoxication, of this leaping and singing and milling crowd.

  This was true enough, but I said there was also something unresolved about it all, something which was more expectation than fulfilment. I drew the attention of Fartfeatures’ camera to the youths pecking at the wall with little masonry hammers. Something more drastic would seem to be needed to bring it finally down, I said.

  When we paused for an extended commercial break, Jacko clapped me on the shoulder and said, You’re right about that, you know. It’s like a crowd waiting for the kick-off of a football game. And no bugger’s blowing the whistle eh.

  —That’s good, Dannie told us commending our work. We’ve got something to start things off. And even in replay, that’ll go well with Gunter’s reunion. Now we can get creative.

  —So you’re actually satisfied with that, love? Jacko asked her, a fairly gentle challenge.

  At the question, we all looked – for whatever reason – a little to the south, where on top of a truck Harris Morgan of CBS stood with mike in hand and spoke sombrely (you really could tell this) to camera about the new age: making it by saying it.

  —It’s not much better than what that bastard’s feeding up to the punters, said Jacko.

  Consulting her clipboard, Dannie said, Let’s get a walk along the wall out of you next, Jacko. Then some vox pop and a bit more commentary from your friend. Then we’ll grab a quick meal and run through any ideas you’ve got.

  With Raoul acting as interpreter, Jacko strolled amongst the Berliners, Dannie and I following behind Fartfeatures and his cable handler. Jacko questioned members of the crowd below the Wall. As Jacko and Raoul yelled to the young men atop the great concrete barrier I, like many other people in the crowd, laid my hand on the cement-rendered surface. For a wall in the November air of Europe, it felt as warm as if the enthusiasm had penetrated it, or as if it were thawing from within. From this point I could see Harris Morgan and his truck edging in for the same purpose as ours.

  At last I did a further little piece to camera myself, reading some of the graffiti which had appeared that day. I spoke of one slogan which read Eine Deutschland und Freiheit! Would there really be one Germany? Would the West want it? Would the great, comfortable middle classes of the Western sector want to pay for their poor brothers and sisters in the East?

  Hours had – to my lay astonishment – been used up by our blather. Dannie harried us back to Raoul’s limo. We needed to be back by early evening to transmit the super-long version to Live Wire which Vixen Six and Durkin were making this startling night. Somewhere to the south one hoped Gunter was embracing his familiarly despised brother for the same purpose.

  Back at the Kempinski, Dannie and I went up in the lift together, since Jacko was changing a lot of Basil Sutherland’s money at the cashier’s cage and Fartfeatures had gone off on some errand of his own. Inside the ascending lift with me, little Dannie, pretty and tired, leaned back against its brass grillework, her shoulders tucked into the frame of the glittering mirror in the centre of one of the side walls.

  —Notice that? she asked me. He’s not satisfied yet. Jacko. He’s funny. Just doing a competent job depresses the shit out of him. He has to do something crazy to make himself content.

  The lift sighed upwards, graciously imperceptible in its advance.

  She said, I know that you’re a friend of Lucy’s. I want you to understand something. I’m not just fooling around.

  —I see.

  —I think Jacko’s a genius, and he’s got this edginess Lucy just doesn’t understand or relate to. Jacko’s empowered by me. I can give him direction. We’re going to be a great television couple.

  Then she simply stared at me, sealing the point, the certainty of her video-aristocracy sharp as a blade in those dark eyes.

  —Jacko doesn’t believe in great television couples, I warned her. It’s too pretentious an idea, Dannie.

  —He believes at base. He believes in the artform.

  —Do you think so? He’s always telling me how television is the domain of clowns. Maybe he’ll let you clown with him.

  —Well, he’s only half right. Clowns, maybe, but we put the spin on the direction history goes. We’re putting the spin on it this afternoon. We make up out of our own heads the way people feel about this!

  I felt anxious, as if I had still not adequately stated my fealty to Lucy.

  —I don’t know what you and he have against his wife. She’s the most tolerant woman I’ve ever met.

  —Do you think that’s what Jacko needs? Tolerance?

  She laughed a tight, managerial laugh. At the same time it was very sumptuous.

  —What he needs is encouragement and a lot of discipline. Dear old Lucy can’t give him that, can she? She doesn’t understand the medium.

  The lift had stopped at our floor, and the brilliant, brazen grillework of the door concertinaed back to let us step out. In the corridor, I was still left discontented about the poor job I had done for Lucy.

  —Listen, I said. With the greatest respect, you’ve got no chance of fitting yourself and Jacko into the one household. You’re both monsters.

  —Jacko will be flattered to hear you said that.

  —I mean it in the most admiring sense. But it’s the truth.

  —Say it was, murmured Dannie, already at the door of the room she was sharing with Jacko. He needs someone to lock in with him. The snow maiden won’t last. I’m barely hastening events. Let’s all get quick room service, and then back out to the Gate.

  Somehow, in a city which this afternoon was open to the bidding of a thousand news corporations, Dannie had managed to get a small Kempinski suite for herself and Jacko. This meant that it was palatial by comparison with the space any modern hotel chain would give you for an equivalent amount of Basil Sutherland’s money. Dannie also managed to get us food within a quarter of an hour of her placing the order. The kitchen too could tell she was a monster. The five of us, including Raoul, ate hungrily – chicken, dumplings, red cabbage. Slices of torte. Jacko rose licking his fingers. He explained his urgency to Dannie by putting his hand on my shoulder.

  —I’ve just got to see my clever mate in the corridor.

  I got up, half guilty, half flushed with a potential anger. Perhaps Dannie had complained to him about the monster remark and now I would have to defend or apologize for it.

  Outside, however, he did not pause to debate. He made one spacious gesture with his hand and led me down the gilt-panelled corridor. He stopped by a metal and glass box in which sat a fire axe, its sharper end steely, reflecting light from the Kempinski’s chandeliers. The fire axe’s blunt end was red. It had a very long handle.

  —I just want to get at that Wall with something better than a bloody hammer and maul. Keep nit for me, will you eh?

  He pointed to a place where the corridor took a right-angled turn. Without saying anything, I went back to that corner and took up my station. Meanwhile Jacko wrenched off his shoe and hit the glass with its heel. It did not shatter. He put more force into it. I heard the glass crack and the clatter of its fall to the carpet. Somewhere, distantly, a bell began pealing. Surely the bell had not been started by the breaking of the glass!

  I focused my gaze on the grille doors of the lift shaft, but it was, i
n fact, the door of the fire stairs nearest to Jacko that jerked open. A large Slavic-looking man with sweat on his face came pounding through it. I noticed that he wore a good suit. Jacko already had the axe in his hands, however, which may have been what made the man pause.

  —Are you a guest of the Kempinski, sir? he asked.

  Jacko said, D’you think I’d steal one of the hotel’s fire axes if I weren’t?

  A younger man in the uniform of a security company emerged from the lift now and moved past me and behind Jacko. Since Jacko had been discovered in the middle of his theft, I did not attempt to delay this guard.

  —I am the Kempinski Hotel security director, the man in the suit told Jacko. Is there a fire anywhere, sir?

  I was pleased to hear that Jacko spoke in his calm, level way, not at all like a parodist or a smart alec.

  —The fires of liberty are ablaze up the road from here, and people are chipping away at it with little hammers. I want to hack off a great bloody chunk.

  I felt sorry just the same for the house detective faced with this manic, mixed metaphor.

  —If there is no fire at the Kempinski, sir, you must put the axe back.

  Jacko leaned the axe against the wall. He took out deutschmarks from his wallet.

  —Okay, I’m willing to pay the hotel for the use of the axe and make a great donation to the security staff welfare fund. I’ll give you the equivalent of five hundred dollars for the axe.

  —It isn’t possible, sir. If we had a fire tonight …

  —Oh mate. Have you honestly ever met anyone who was ever saved in a fire by a fire axe?

  The detective stood still and gave no sign of being tempted. Raoul had come out of Dannie’s room by now and had begun arguing with the man in German. But it did seem that the entire security of this grand hotel depended upon that single implement.

  —Bugger it, said Jacko, and heaved the thing savagely back into its bracket. He was angry now and turned on the house detective.