by Timur Vermes
“That’s precisely the problem,” Karstleiter says, swivelling so pointedly in her chair towards Sensenbrink that he feels obliged to turn to her too. “If it goes on like this, these kinds of problems are only going to increase.”
“Where’s the problem? We send the donations to some aid organisation and that’s that. Better still, we put its web address up on the screen and then the money won’t pitch up here first.
“I’m not just talking about the public.”
“What, then?”
“Haven’t you been watching our angel? I’m not sure she’s just making a television programme.”
“Well of course she’s doing more than that. But that’s great! She’s doing stuff I’d never have thought she was capable of.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“What do you mean? You’re looking at me as if it was a gorilla turd . . . This is T.V. gold! A presenter who believes in what she’s doing!”
“So long as it doesn’t turn into fanaticism, fine.”
“Tell me, is this some kind of women’s thing?”
He can say that to Beate Karstleiter, and sometimes she’s allowed to call him “dick driven”. Which of course he’s not.
“Nonsense,” she says dismissively. “All I’m saying is that a healthy, professional distance is no bad thing. If we suddenly find she’s on a mission, she might end up more Schreinemakers-like than we’d find welcome.”
Sensenbrink frowns. “I’ve never known you to talk like this. Schreinemakers is good. Schreinemakers is the jackpot. Or do you disagree?”
“No, no—”
“Or do you know something I don’t?”
“There are just concerns—”
“But these concerns aren’t actually yours, are they?”
Karstleiter briefly looks away, but she knows that this is confirmation in itself. “No, not mine. Not originally. But they shouldn’t be dismissed so lightly.”
“Alright. Where are they coming from? Legal? H.R.?”
“The ministry of the interior.”
“What?”
“I was called by a member of staff from the ministry of the interior.”
“Was this a prank call?”
“No, it really wasn’t. It was the genuine number.”
“Are you telling me they’ve got issues with our show? Are they mad?”
“No, no, he was very polite and said that we were in no way to regard this as a kind of intervention—”
“Well that’s how I see it!”
“No, I think they’re really concerned.”
“About what?”
“As far as I understand it, they’re worried that Nadeche or even the entire team down there will lose it and, with cameras rolling, drag back home a hundred refugees that the ministry of the interior can’t support. And then the whole refugee thing will kick off again, now that they’ve only just got it under control.”
“But those can’t be our cats to herd. I don’t give a toss if they’re not doing their homework, or haven’t been. I do, however, give a toss about television.”
“All they’re doing is trying to appeal to our sense of civic responsibility.”
Pushing himself off in disgust, Sensenbrink rolls a couple of metres in his chair before the back of his head hits a shelf. He doesn’t register the pain.
“This is censorship via the back door. But they’ve got me to deal with. They’ll soon realise this isn’t Bavarian state television!”
“All the same, I wouldn’t dismiss what they’re saying out of hand . . .” Karstleiter says.
“Are we on the same page?! I don’t know these guys, and I’ve no idea what they’re really planning or what motivates them. They call it responsibility, but they’re playing party politics on the quiet because people who live in Leubl’s village don’t want any foreigners there. But there are a couple of other things I do know. First, I’m responsible for this department, these staff, these jobs and this firm. Second, we’ve got a licence to print money here! Not only that, but it’s politically correct and irreproachable. Just for once, everyone wants a slice of it. Especially the refugees. We’ve also got a completely new, unique format. Infotainment with actual, real information. What’s happening. Why is it happening. And I honestly believe that I’m fulfilling my civic responsibility in a far more substantial way by making ten million people watch this rather than a walking test card scoff oversized schnitzels.”
“I just thought you should know—”
“So why didn’t you tell me? Why do I have to find out via the bloody back door that my right hand is merely parroting back to me what the ministry of the interior told her? Assuming it was the ministry of the interior?”
“Because I don’t disagree with what they’re saying. And because I’d like you to listen, rather than ignoring them. Because I can imagine that a phone call like that would rub you up the wrong way.”
Sensenbrink stands up, now furious. He refuses to be treated like one of those trainable howler monkeys – you only have to talk to at the right time and in the right way to make them do exactly what you want.
“Yes, and I can imagine that’s just what they’re thinking too,” he says, his hand on the door handle. “That’s why they go via my staff rather than calling me directly. If you conceal your sources, I don’t call that more information, I call it manipulation. Assuming these people are from the ministry of the interior. It could be one of our secret services, or the Americans. I really don’t care. If they call again, please pass on my best regards and tell them we’re not relinquishing control over this.”
Sensenbrink bursts into the corridor, slamming the door behind him.
Karstleiter sighs deeply and gets to her feet. She switches off the light, and just as she gently closes the door to leave the room, she says into the darkness, as if it were vital to get it off her chest, “If we still have control.”
16
“Frau Hackenbusch! Frau Hackenbusch! You’re cooking on gas! You’re giving us pure gravy!” Sensenbrink sings into his telephone. “As you know yourself, specials are specials. But we’ve struck oil here! Our ratings have gone north even of the original series.”
Nadeche is in her container. She’s slipped off her shoes and is lying on the plastic sheet. The first thing she did after the day in the infirmary was to get rid of the Rolf Benz sofa. Five and a half million viewers watched her drag it to the infirmary because the people there needed it more than she did. Then, buoyed by determination, she lay down on the floor with a simple blanket, just like the refugees in their tents. Unfortunately there were too many creatures scurrying around. So now, besides the plastic sheet, she has half a box of insect spray. Although it’s hot, she’s turned off the air conditioning. For the people in their tents don’t have air conditioning either.
Her back aches. Today she helped move sacks of beans from the lorry ramp. All day long she watched people waiting for something as dull as beans. For a moment the sight of this reminded her of girls queuing outside H.&M. for a limited-edition Lagerfeld collection. Even the anxiety in their eyes is similar, the anxiety that supplies might be limited. But because there are many more men here, the anxiety is underlaid with aggression. The organisations try, therefore, to restrict the numbers at the distribution point to ensure that there are enough beans for all. They say this is possible if they can control access. But once the refugees set their eyes on the beans, nothing can stop them. To begin with she tried to fetch some beans to bring to others too, but Lionel couldn’t persuade a single family to rely on Malaika for their beans. So she had to be satisfied with distributing them. One sack weighs twenty-five kilos. Nadeche couldn’t believe at first just how heavy twenty-five kilos is. But then a German aid worker told her that it was the same as two crates of beer.
She’s absolutely shattered.
“All I can say, Frau Hackenbusch, is chapeau!” Sensenbrink sounds very jolly. “And I can, no, I have to say that the T.V. company is delighted and proud
to be able to tell you – come home!” He finished off in English: “Mission accomplished!”
“Mischen what?”
“Mission acc— Job done! If I had my way, there would be a reception for your homecoming at the Römer.”
“The what?”
“The Römer? In Frankfurt? You know, where they welcome back the national side, or the Olympic squad.”
“Hmm? Oh, right,” she says absentmindedly. “Well, we can discuss that when we’re back. But just now I don’t know when that’s going to be.”
“That would be a bit late, but have a little think, I’m sure it can be done at short notice. In any event we’ll be filming at the airport. Fans and fanfare, it’ll be a great finale in a week’s time. I can’t tell you how thrilled everyone is here—”
“What do you mean, ‘finale’?”
Now she’s sitting bolt upright.
“Did you really think we’d let you go come home quietly? Oh no, this special’s going to get the finale it deserves—”
“Yes, when it’s done.”
“Frau Hackenbusch . . . I appreciate you don’t have a wall planner down there, but we . . . sorry, I mean you, of course, you will have been there for three weeks by then. The special is over.”
Sensenbrink hears a noise on the line.
It’s not a good noise.
It’s an uncanny noise. Just as the entire programme has assumed an uncanny aspect. Yes, it’s successful. It’s unique, the ratings are going through the roof. But it’s also become so peculiar. So . . . how can he put it?
So serious.
“Frau Hackenbusch?”
More silence.
That’s the problem with programmes that get too serious. You can’t just give them a shake-up like “Germany’s got Whatever”. That sort of show is a broadcaster’s dream. You chuck out one juror and get the next one in, you change the mood, you change the opening titles, what was green yesterday is blue tomorrow, and nobody gets upset because it’s all just entertainment. And you can pull the plug on entertainment any time it stops being entertaining. But what Nadeche Hackenbusch has launched down there isn’t entertainment anymore. It’s serious. And you can’t just shunt it from the schedules if you don’t like it, for that reason.
Oh, the relief when all this is sorted out, Sensenbrink thinks.
“Frau Hackenbusch? Hello?”
“This thing here,” the voice from Africa says frostily. “This thing here isn’t like, done till we’re done.”
Now she’s standing up beside her thin woollen blanket. They could have given her a thicker one, they had a few of those, but Nadeche is not entirely convinced that the average refugee has access to decent blankets. Even the diamond pattern gives her doubts. Real blankets for refugees look different, surely. Dark grey. More like what you’d see in a prison film. “And if you were to take one step outside here, you’d see that nothing at all is done.”
“Yes, well . . . nobody was expecting . . .” Sensenbrink reassures her. “The world’s biggest problems, that’s . . . that’s . . . I mean, we’re only a small outfit and we can all be more than proud that—”
“We can what?”
“You, of course! What am I thinking? You can rightly be proud . . . Have you read the Spiegel recently? Wait, let me read it to you, Frau Schreinemakers, if I may be so bold as to call you—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the Spiegel! We’ve got work to do. Here!”
“Right . . . I mean . . . of course I hate to interrupt your work, but you must . . . you ought to perhaps consider that we can’t broadcast the material!”
“That would be a first!” As a matter of routine Nadeche takes a can of insect spray out of its box and shakes it. She flicks off the top with her thumb, her index finger moves rapidly and surely to the button, and a millipede the size of a hand perishes in a cloud of poison.
“Frau Hackenbusch, take it from an old pro. The schedules are finalised, the advertising slots have been sold and next week sees the start of ‘Ludmilla’—”
“What? That show about prostitutes? In my slot?”
“Come on, it’s a serious but entertaining and touching docusoap, taking a critical, soup-to-nuts look at conditions in eastern European brothels—”
“It’s utter toss. You just show bad Ukrainian boob jobs, that’s what you show!”
“I admit that the format doesn’t quite have the class of ‘Angel in Adversity’, but then again nobody could have imagined that the special—”
“The people here need us!”
“Frau Hackenbusch—”
“This is about people’s lives!”
“Frau Hackenbusch!”
“People’s lives are at stake. That’s the difference. There’s nothing scripted here, do you get me? It’s like, happening live! People are starving here and the millipedes have no future!”
“Millipedes?”
“The milli . . . the thousands of people! Tens of thousands! Hundreds of thousands!”
“I know, and let me tell you that nobody’s more pained by this than me – but we’ve got a business to run here. I’m partly responsible for a T.V. company, for jobs! For my colleagues. Nobody is more convinced by what you’re doing than me, Frau Hackenbusch, but you have to understand that my hands are tied!”
“How?”
Sensenbrink can’t decide whether she simply doesn’t get his arguments, or whether she doesn’t know the idiom. It’s happened before, and not only with Nadeche Hackenbusch. You explain the idiom and they just get angrier because they think you think they’re stupid. Sensenbrink has learned his lesson.
“There’s nothing I can do, Frau Hackenbusch. I can’t broadcast programmes I haven’t sold a minute of advertising for, and just chuck the advertising for ‘Ludmilla’ out of the window. It’s already booked and paid for. That’s impossible!”
“There’s no such thing as impossible!”
“This time there is,” Sensenbrink lies bravely. “However much I’d love to.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The first stake is in the ground. Sensenbrink is careful not to sound too relieved as he exhales. Now he has to prevent her from holding this against him or the company. She has to believe that any other broadcaster would take a similar approach.
“This doesn’t need to affect you in the slightest, of course. I mean, I don’t want to stop you from extending your stay down there—”
“‘Down there’ . . . It drives me nuts when people say that!” She picks up one of her sliders and flicks the corpse to the door.
“Er . . . sorry, that was a bit flippant. My apologies, but I’ve got to get my colleagues home in a week. The tickets are booked and there’s really nothing I can do.”
“And what am I supposed to tell the people here? Thanks a lot, it’s been great, bye-bye and MyTV wishes you all the best for your future?”
Sensenbrink clears his throat. “Sorry to be blunt, Frau Hackenbusch, but with all respect for your incredible achievements, everything else is a political matter. We can draw people’s attention to the world’s ills, but we can’t solve them. Surely this was perfectly clear to all of us at the outset!”
“You know what? Let’s like, finish this conversation right here. Get Kärrner to ring me.”
“Believe you me, we’ve discussed it in committee and Herr Kärrner is right behind me on this—”
“Get Kärrner to ring me.”
She ends the call. And Kärrner does in fact ring her, less than half an hour later.
But Kärrner doesn’t give in.
She tells him something about a long-term partnership and Kärrner doesn’t give in. She switches to “longstanding friendship” and Kärrner doesn’t give in. She says she recently met Whatsisname from ProSieben, and then something happens that’s never happened to her before: Kärrner, who is in fact a charming softie at heart, doesn’t give in. And after the two of them have said goodbye very amicably, after they’ve said how th
ey really must see each other again soon, at Sergio’s, which is now almost their “local”, after they’ve hung up and Nadeche Hackenbusch has stared in disbelief as the screen of her mobile fades, she swings her leg back and kicks the cardboard box with such fury that the spray cans fly through the room like confetti.
17
“Malaika,” Lionel the refugee wants to say, “we need to talk.”
But before he’s even begun to utter these words he realises it’s probably not the best moment. He enters Malaika’s container to find her pacing up and down like a sick giraffe. She spins around, makes a beeline for Lionel and literally hauls him in.
“Good that you come! Goodgoodgood. You believe not what for a shit they make.”
It unsettles him every time they’re alone together. This English is so different from the English all other Germans speak. Different from Marion’s English and Grande’s and Astrid the Writer’s. Different from any English he’s ever heard, in fact. He asked old lady Grande, who explained that it was a particularly good English, better than the English spoken by many in Britain. But Malaika had a particular dialect from a region of Germany where very few people live. Which is nonsense, of course. Everyone knows that there aren’t any empty regions in Germany, everywhere is fully inhabited. In any case, it didn’t sound as if old lady Grande was envious of this English, rather that Malaika had been handed a particularly harsh fate. As if she were some kind of linguistic orphan.
“Sit you down,” Malaika rants. “That must you hear.”
He sits. He tries to take her hands to calm her down. After all, he knows there’s a lot about this camp she finds appalling and the people here love her for it. They’ve been living in these conditions for so long that they had come to believe that this life was their due. But from Malaika’s reaction they can see that they too should be able to live differently, better even. And each time she’s upset by what she sees, Malaika grabs his hand. Tightly. And if he gives a gentle squeeze in response she looks at him gratefully, her anger boils over and she tells the camera team exactly what they should be filming, and if they don’t grasp what she’s getting at quickly enough she’ll seize hold of the cameraman and shove him where he’ll get the best angle. She tends to forget to let go of Lionel’s hand, pulling him behind her until eventually she realises, and then she strokes his arm apologetically. But today she doesn’t want his hand; she is so worked up that she keeps her distance.
