The Hungry and the Fat

by Timur Vermes

And from then onwards Sensenbrink is known as the guy who tried to pull the plug on the biggest story of all time.

  So you leave the cameras where they are. But no-one should get wind of the fact that you’ve no idea what’s happening. The truth is there’s a lunatic wandering around with one hundred and fifty thousand refugees and all you’re doing is letting the cameras roll as you follow on behind. Sure, it’s O.K. for a broadcaster to be like a lucky dip from time to time. But only for the viewers. The people filling the lucky dip obviously need to know what they’re putting in there. And it’s almost a miracle that by uttering the magic words “Hackenbusch” and “one hundred and fifty thousand” he was able to prevent Kärrner from asking the question he’s bound to ask at the next meeting. By which time he needs to have an answer. Which is why Sensenbrink now raises the question himself:

  “So, guys: what’s our story?”

  A room full of people without a clue. Some are scribbling on their pads. It’s uncanny how much they’re able to draw in such a short space of time. And yet they don’t give the impression that they can think quickly. He can tell which are the new writers, because at least they find this uncomfortable.

  “Wakey wakey! Hello? Input! What’s our story?”

  “Nadeche Hackenbusch,” Olav says wearily.

  “One hundred and fifty thousand refugees,” Anke says. She’s reliable, at least.

  “And what then? A gangbang? What is this, some kind of word-prompt story? Hackenbusch and the refugees are our keywords, but where does the story go from here?”

  “How are we supposed to know?” Olav asks, taking a chocolate peanut from the bowl on the table. “The story’s only just unfolding.”

  “I see. So what are we going to do? Are we going to watch and write it down?”

  “Well, that’s journalism. Weren’t we planning to go in a more journalistic direction?”

  “I didn’t say ‘journalism’. I said ‘Schreinemakers’.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  This comment comes from a goatherd in a suit. Sensenbrink tries to make a mental note of his face, but he looks too much like ten other goatherds. Every day Sensenbrink hopes that beards will go out of fashion again, and you’ll be able to tell people’s ages once more.

  “Schreinemakers knew exactly what she was broadcasting,” Karstleiter says, coming to his assistance.

  “I’m going lay the silver on the table here,” Sensenbrink says sternly. “I don’t expect you know how I begged that lot upstairs to go along with this. They’ve rearranged the entire schedule to keep us on air. They should be showing some shitty repeats, but they’re not because the premise of this is cool. They’re continuing to pay you, they’re continuing to bankroll the entire department, even though repeats would be cheaper. How much longer do you think this is going to go on?”

  “For as long as the ratings are good,” a brother of the goatherd says cheekily.

  “O.K., so let’s ask whether the ratings are good. Silvie?”

  “The ratings are certainly good. Right now I think we could even risk scheduling it against the news.”

  “But you told me this isn’t always a positive sign,” Sensenbrink says, keeping Silvie on track.

  “Of course. The ratings merely tell us how many people are watching. It doesn’t say whether they like it and how much they like it, and what motivates them. We’re getting extremely mixed reactions from the viewing public. Hayat, would you like to come in here?”

  Sensenbrink still doesn’t know if the girl with the headscarf at the end of the table is a good addition or not. The more he sees her at meetings, the more he thinks that visually she’s the perfect complement to all the goatherds. Strange, how some try to be über hip and others über conservative, yet they all look as if they could have stepped straight out of an Alpine village two hundred years ago. But Hayat has also been incredibly level-headed in her analysis of the figures so far.

  “The response we’re getting is that people think the show’s cool,” Hayat says. “So far. But it’s an extremely volatile situation.”

  Sensenbrink grimaces as if he’d bitten on a cherry stone. “Who knows what volatile means?”

  Nobody speaks up. “Volatile means crap,” Sensenbrink translates, feeling stressed now. “It could flip tomorrow, which is precisely what we don’t want. Now tell us more, but in lingo we can all understand!”

  “The viewers started out as fans, but now they’re not so sure. Because A2, including the special, has always had a very positive vibe. Nadeche Hackenbusch goes to the coalface. Nadeche helps out, eases suffering, comforts people. The viewers liked that, they enjoyed watching.”

  “But it’s just like that now,” Olav says.

  “And with a love story to boot!” says Reliable Anke.

  “No, there is a difference. With ‘Angel in Adversity’ you could count on everything turning out alright in the end. There were a few problems and the problems were solved. But people can’t see any solutions here. There’s no certainty about how it’s all going to pan out.”

  “Doesn’t that make it exciting?”

  “In some ways, yes. But it detracts from the enjoyment.”

  “What, is it now our job to solve the refugee problem?”

  “All I know is that the discussion is very animated,” Hayat says. “There’s no end of traffic. We’re getting the standard questions too, of course. Plenty of people want to donate and don’t know where to send money, or what for. But people are also confused. They don’t know what sort of a story it is we’re telling.”

  “That doesn’t matter, so long as it’s a good story,” Olav says with a broad grin.

  “For the moment that may be true. In the long term, however, it’s a risk for the broadcaster. If A2 is to keep going, I’d suggest that we take a clear, unassailable position on this. If we don’t, other people might stick us in a pigeonhole we can’t wriggle out of.”

  Sensenbrink is amazed by everything coming from the headscarf. A headscarf that’s sticking her neck out rather, but she’s giving an accurate description of the situation.

  “It would be a pigeonhole our advertisers wouldn’t fancy sharing with us either,” he says, to lend the comment a boss’s weight.

  “Surely that depends on the product,” Olav says casually. “We just need to make it clear to people that we’re telling a completely new type of story. A docusoap without a script.”

  “A bit like those celebrity chefs, but with a cause,” a goatherd pipes up.

  “A whole new dimension in reality T.V. A bit like ‘Kardashian Marries!’ – ‘Nadeche Hackenbusch Migrates!’”

  “. . . and fucks a black man!”

  “Ooooooh!”

  Sensenbrink slaps the table several times. He can see the headscarf taking a deep breath. She doesn’t dare speak without being invited, so he gives her a gesture of encouragement. Better than him actively getting involved. She seems to have an opinion on this and Sensenbrink would give anything to have one himself.

  “A documentary is when you film whatever happens. But to put it bluntly, this time it’s us who set all this in motion. You could even argue that the entire initiative only works because we’re there with our cameras,” Hayat says impatiently. When she gets no reaction she adds, “The viewers are thinking that people might die. Dead bodies! Because. We’re. There. With. Our. Cameras.”

  “Well, I don’t see it quite like that,” Sensenbrink insists, “but Hayat is absolutely right – it’s possible to twist it wilfully. Let me state again that, owing to a chain of quite extraordinary events, we find ourselves well behind the eight ball, but the great thing is that we’re facing up to our responsibility 110 per cent. Which other broadcaster would do that? But . . . we also have a responsibility to the firm.”

  Sensenbrink is thinking hard. Now he needs a bridge, a convincing link to his plan or something along those lines. If only he had an idea.

  “What do you mean by that?” Reliable Anke says. />
  “I mean,” Sensenbrink lurches, “that I . . . I mean all of us knew this was a major experiment. That’s why we asked Nadeche to stay on down there, right? My God, I really badgered that poor woman! But, as Olav quite rightly said, we don’t know how this thing is going to pan out. It could even . . . how should I put it . . . not pan out particularly well. Some people might indeed die. Or lots of people, if it really goes tits up. And then we can’t . . .” Sensenbrink stops mid-flow. He feels quite giddy at the thought of being summoned by Kärrner because the first corpses of children have appeared on screen.

  “Then we can’t be the broadcaster that exploits refugees to bump up our ratings,” Karstleiter finishes his sentence. “You see, we need to be in a position where we can show what’s going on, without being negatively associated with it.”

  “That’s a rather business-like way of putting it,” Sensenbrink says. “Let’s just say it mustn’t look like the MyTV Great Refugee Escape.”

  “Which means Nadeche is the problem here,” Olav says calmly.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, if she weren’t down there, we wouldn’t be either. I mean, we’d planned to stop filming, hadn’t we? If we’d just broadcast the finale and she’d come back home there wouldn’t be a problem now.”

  “We’ve got to get her back, then,” Karstleiter sighs. “It can’t be that difficult. Let’s face it, she wasn’t that keen at the beginning.”

  This is going in the wrong direction, Sensenbrink thinks. “That . . . that shouldn’t be our first option,” he says. “We need to think of the company’s figures, our advertisers. And the people.”

  “Advertisers are people,” Olav needles him.

  “I know you fought for this,” Reliable Anke says. “But you said yourself that it’s just too great a risk.”

  “But we can’t pull out now,” Sensenbrink says. There’s determination in his voice, because he’s just thought of a good argument. “If you see it as Hayat has outlined, if all this is only happening because our cameras are there, then conversely our viewers would complain if we took the cameras away. Not only the cameras” – here Sensenbrink introduces a pause – “but hope, too. It would look like we were abandoning them. We and, er, all the viewers.”

  “But the viewers could keep giving donations and all that,” a goatherd says.

  “We can’t be the conduit for that,” Beate Karstleiter says, shaking her head.

  “That’s what others do.”

  “Yes, for refugees in camps. That’s fine. But we can’t collect donations for refugees who are on their way to us. We’d almost be people smugglers.

  “Hold on a moment,” Reliable Anke protests. “People smugglers take money. We don’t.”

  “That doesn’t make it kosher,” Sensenbrink says curtly. “Think about it! MyTV brings one hundred and fifty thousand refugees to Germany – that’s completely illegal! Give me strength. We need realistic suggestions.”

  “Menschen für Menschen!” Hayat blurts out. “Remember?”

  “What?”

  “Menschen für Menschen,” she says again. “Don’t you remember?”

  “Whatshisface?”

  “That guy in the Sissi films?”

  “He helped people in Africa too. It started out with a bet on ‘You Bet!’ He raised money then went to Africa to help people.”

  “Karlheinz Böhm,” Olav says. “That was his name!”

  “Great. But what good does it do us?”

  “We can replicate the model,” Hayat says. “Which means we wouldn’t have to bring Frau Hackenbusch back.” Sensenbrink can tell from the other faces that he’s not the only one who can’t see where the difference lies.

  “And,” Hayat says, a little less certain now, “it wouldn’t be our campaign. We could just report on it in the normal way.”

  “If it’s Nadeche Hackenbusch raising the money?” Karstleiter probes.

  “Wow!” Olav says. “That’s it. The story is that we’ve made a standard documentary, during which Nadeche got the idea—”

  “She sets off with the refugees and if anyone wants to donate, the money goes via her,” Reliable Anke says, finally twigging too.

  “Obviously it would have to be organised so that nothing comes to us,” Karstleiter says. “We’re just the television crew reporting on the story, as any other broadcaster might—”

  “With the difference that we’ve got access to the key figures at any time,” Sensenbrink underlines.

  “But we’re totally committed. We’re suffering too, we’re hoping too, we’re supporting too—”

  “—we’re not supporting their cause—”

  “—never support their cause, that’s what the right wingers said—”

  “—never take the side of a cause—”

  “—no, but the people—”

  “Exactly, the people!”

  “We’re with them every day, we’re behind Nadeche Hackenbusch’s plan—”

  “—It needs a cool name—”

  “Na-dash to Europe!”

  “I’m a Refugee, Get Me Out of Here!”

  Sensenbrink leans back, feeling relaxed. He looks sympathetically at Hayat and gives her a smile. He knows what he’s going to propose to Kärrner at their next meeting: “We’ve got Karlheinz Böhm with tits.”

  21

  The under-secretary is poking around his salad without enthusiasm.

  “Did you catch your girlfriend on telly yesterday?” Lohm says.

  Lohm is sitting opposite and has almost finished his pasta.

  “Don’t!” Maybe he ought to have gone for a soup, but Carlo’s soups are usually a bit dull. “She’s finally lost it.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, it’s fun to have a laugh about, but if I’m being honest it’s going down the Karlheinz Böhm route.”

  “Karlheinz Böhm?” The under-secretary utters the name as if it’s an imposition. “Are you serious? A nutty Karlheinz Böhm, perhaps.”

  “Maybe, but the fact that it’s someone like Hackenbusch doing this—”

  “Well, it just goes to show how barmy the whole thing is.”

  “But exciting too. No normal individual would do it – you need idiots to pull something like this off.”

  “Not you too!”

  “Who else?”

  “I’ll give you three guesses. The old man. It’s sheer nonsense, just doom-mongering.”

  “But Leubl hasn’t been completely wrong so far, has he?”

  Now the under-secretary pushes his salad away definitively. Lohm raises his eyebrows and, when there’s no reaction, he casually pulls the bowl towards him. “Your boss has a pretty good understanding that the situation is going to be hard to control.”

  The under-secretary watches Lohm fish out slices of carrot with his fork.

  “Yes, yes, madness is always hard to control. But it’s still madness.”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth,” Lohm says, crunching into the carrots.

  “It’s going to end in a human catastrophe!”

  “Is that any worse?” Lohm is now spearing cherry tomatoes by variety.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Lohm says as a tomato rolls off his fork. He picks it up with his fingers and pops it contentedly in his mouth. “It started as a human catastrophe.”

  The under-secretary ponders this for a moment.

  “It can get worse, and nobody wants that. Just imagine: one hundred and fifty thousand people running into the desert, without a plan!”

  “Perhaps they have a plan.”

  “Are you actually trying to be a pain in the arse?”

  “No, but why would one hundred and fifty thousand people go running off into the desert?”

  “Am I Jesus Christ? Nobody knows why whales beach themselves either.”

  “But these aren’t whales.”

  “It’s mass hysteria, then, or whatever.”

  “Is it? These people are risking their
lives. Sure, there are always some prepared to take more of a risk. But not one hundred and fifty thousand.”

  The under-secretary breathes in angrily and breathes out angrily. “O.K., fine. Let’s assume you’re right and this isn’t a case of mass hysteria. So what does this plan look like?”

  “No idea. Why are you asking me? All I know is that human beings aren’t whales.”

  The under-secretary falls into a silent sulk. Catching the eye of a waiter, he orders two espressos while Lohm folds salad leaves into his mouth with astonishing dexterity. The coffee arrives. The under-secretary doesn’t take sugar, but he stirs it with his spoon.

  “O.K., then. Let’s assume there is a plan. How’s it going to work?”

  Lohm chews thoughtfully. “One hundred and fifty thousand people. Maybe that just sounds like a lot, but in fact isn’t.”

  “They might also be exaggerating,” the under-secretary muses. “But let’s leave it at one hundred and fifty thousand. Now get onto the civil defence organisation and ask them what you’d need to keep one hundred and fifty thousand people in supplies, at even the most rudimentary level. Find out the basic cost of a neighbourhood party.”

  “I expect these people can get by on less. From what I hear they don’t have so many neighbourhood parties down there, so they won’t need any police officers.”

  “Still,” the under-secretary interrupts him tetchily. “What’s the minimum? What does each person need?”

  “Water.”

  “Right. And we’re not even talking about showers here, just water for drinking. Let’s say each individual needs ten litres per day – that’s one point five million litres.”

  “Is that a lot? How much can a tanker hold?”

  “Half a million?”

  “A bath takes 120 litres I think.”

  “How many bathtubs make up a tanker?”

  Lohm puts down his fork and picks up his iPhone. He taps about on it for a moment, then reads out: “A tanker can hold between thirty and forty thousand litres.”

  “O.K., let’s say thirty thousand. One point five million litres divided by thirty thousand . . . that makes fifty lorries.”

  “It’s not impossible.”

  “Yes, but we’re not just talking about once. This is every day. And you don’t just need lorries, but the drivers too, and not just for a fortnight. If they’re planning to walk the whole way, they’ll need to be kept supplied for years.”