The Hungry and the Fat

by Timur Vermes

  “Well, there haven’t been any.”

  “There are one hundred and fifty thousand people marching across the desert, across the desert! We all knew that people could die.”

  “Could, yes. But none actually have.”

  It’s not a pleasant memory. Him sitting there, mumbling some nonsense: “But there have to be some! Are they burying their bodies at night?”

  “It’s possible,” Karstleiter said. “But unlikely.”

  “But this completely flies in the face of common sense! The whole operation is shot through with danger. What happens, for instance, if someone can’t pay?”

  “It’s a question I’ve been asking Grande for some time now,” said Reliable Anke, who might have mentioned this a bit earlier. “It seems this hardly ever happens.”

  “But where are they getting the money from?”

  “You have to realise that these people do have money.”

  “Where from?”

  “Some have saved up – they just don’t want to invest it in a country fraught with crisis. Others are financed by their families. And now, with these daily instalments, they’ve got more time to cobble the money together.”

  “It might be different for the women,” Olav said. “Nobody invests in them. But, thanks to Evangeline, we now know how gaps in funding can be bridged.”

  “What about the elderly? The sick?” Another stupid question. In retrospect Sensenbrink feels like a total arse. Somehow everyone else in the room seemed to have a better grasp of the situation than him.

  “What makes you think there are elderly or sick people on the trek?” Olav said. “Surely they wouldn’t bring them along in the first place?”

  “I can’t recall ever having seen anyone elderly or sick in one of our programmes,” Reliable Anke added.

  Sensenbrink still doesn’t fancy the juice. With a shake of the head he pushes the bottle around on his desk like a lonely chess piece. He then dished out praise at random, he seized on the nomadic prostitutes thing and ordered a special “special”, without Nadeche Hackenbusch – if there are a few tits on show they can for once do without their star. He managed get himself back on track, but now . . . this emptiness.

  He wasn’t happy, but he was facing the biggest gamble of his life. He had everything on the same horse, make or break, Sensenbrink, the man who’d handled the tricky story with the hundreds of deaths. Ice-cold, professional, assured. This is the wood they cut board members from.

  And now this.

  He ought to be relieved. He had been scared stiff, after all. But Sensenbrink only feels disappointment. He feels cheated of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Of a grand finale: you don’t know if you’re going to win, but you’re impeccably prepared. And then it’s cancelled.

  Because nobody’s dying on Nadeche Hackenbusch’s fucking trek.

  27

  Leubl feels old. He knows, of course, that he is kind of old. He also knows that his job allows him to pretend he’s middle-aged. But in all honesty, when you hit your mid-sixties you’re not young at all anymore, even if John Travolta has a different take on this. And it doesn’t make you any younger if John Travolta is one of the few faces you recognise on television. Especially when Binny’s in charge of the remote.

  Leubl eyes the fridge longingly. A second beer would be nice. But his wife doesn’t like it. Not when Binny’s there. “It’s bad enough you drinking and ignoring me,” she said. “But you’re not going to do that with your granddaughter. You’re going to talk to her!” Leubl squints at the television and sees that Nadeche Hackenbusch is up to mischief again. She’s not in the studio, but she’s hooked up to a mic and in an embrace with lover-boy. With a curious combination of brazenness and subtlety, he’s the one who’s got Germany and the television industry into this pickle. And all Binny can do is delight in it: “Aww! Look, Grandma, look how he’s staring at her. He’s so cute. So kind!”

  “Binny,” Leubl says sternly, “just because he’s cute, that doesn’t mean he’s kind.”

  “Yeah, I know he wants to f—” Binny slaps a hand over her mouth and puts on her sweetest face. Leubl pretends not to have heard. “But that’s O.K. That’s love, and if love didn’t exist, then Mama wouldn’t be here and nor would I.”

  “Hmm. That’s not just love,” Leubl says firmly. “It’s something else too. He realises that he has better options with that Hackenbusch woman than without her.”

  “Wait, are you saying that’s why it can’t be love?”

  “Yes. Yes, it can,” Leubl’s wife says, coming to his assistance. “But what Grandad means is that you have to watch out with men.”

  “Wait, did you watch out with Grandad?”

  Leubl’s wife laughs. “Probably not enough.”

  Binny mutes the volume. Ad break.

  “Why would Grandma have had to watch out with me?”

  “In case it wasn’t just love.”

  “Oh, it was easier to tell back in those days,” Leubl’s wife says. “The boys all told the girls they had to go to bed with them or they were square.”

  “Wait, that means it was easier? Is that what you did?”

  Leubl looks at his wife. Do children always have to know everything? His wife looks back. Sometime you have to come clean. Sitting up in her chair, she says, “I did some things. But there was plenty I didn’t think was good.”

  “Like what?”

  “Hmm.” Leubl can see his wife assessing how much she ought to reveal. He shoots her a glance.

  “I hated the way they insisted that either you go with them or you’re a nerd. Who wants to be thought of as a silly, old-fashioned cow?”

  “So . . . ?” Binny says, glancing at Leubl. “What about Grandad?”

  “Grandad was different. I was sitting in the park with my friends and a few boys, we were smoking, and then Grandad came up to us. Quite briskly, like a child marching up to a diving board because he’s worried he’ll chicken out if he spends any time thinking about it.”

  “I know the feeling. What happened then?”

  “Well, he said some very lovely things. I could tell he wasn’t finding it easy . . .”

  Leubl clears his throat as a warning.

  “. . . because Grandad’s face was redder—”

  “—than a socialist’s flag, yesyesyes, we’ve heard it all before.”

  Binny giggles. “Wait, you believed those lovely things?”

  “I liked it that he said them in front of everyone. That was brave. The cool boys in their flares, so laid back, big sideburns, then Grandad comes along in his suit with his C.S.U. badge and says—”

  “That’s enough!”

  “—that he thinks I’m the most beautiful girl in the world, and if I go with him now . . .”

  Leubl turns away in discomfort.

  “. . . he’ll make me happy for the rest of my life. This at a time when all the boys ever said was how great it would be if you let them bonk you.”

  “Bonk!” Binny chortles.

  “Exactly,” Grandad smirks. “So making me happy was a totally novel approach.”

  “And? Did he make you happy?”

  “Well,” Leubl’s wife says generously, “he tried and . . .”

  Binny’s fascination with the past doesn’t prevent her from turning up the volume when the ad break is finished. The young presenter has just welcomed someone new into the studio. “Campino!”

  “Woah!” Binny says. “Who is that?”

  “Please,” Grandma says. “Campino! Even we know him.”

  “Well, that’s fine then.”

  “Old-school,” Leubl says, standing up. It’s worrying that a do-gooder like Campino has put his weight behind the project. In fact it’s not good at all. There must be some of that pear schnapps left in the cupboard. Leubl can sense his wife watching him, but he doesn’t care.

  “No, Grandad, it’s not old-school anymore.”

  “What is it then?”

  “Jurassic.”

 
; Shaking his head, Leubl pours some honey-yellow schnapps into a glass. The soothing aroma of pears tickles his nostrils as Campino says he finds something “über-cool, even though it’s showing on a crappy private T.V. station.”

  “Watch it!” the presenter says, laughing. “They’re paying my mortgage!”

  “Well done, mate!” Campino says, slapping him on the shoulder. “’Cause people like you normally end up on ‘Germany’s Top Welfare Cases’.”

  They switch to Nadeche Hackenbusch and she squawks excitedly about how pleased she is to see Campino there. Campino crows back that he thinks what she’s doing is “über-cool”, “wicked” and reveals that his band, “Die Toten Hosen”, are going to play a benefit gig in Berlin. “Listen to who’s going to be there: Lindenberg, Niedecken, Grönemeyer – and all proceeds go to the Nadeche Hackenbusch Foundation for the Humans.” Nadeche bursts into tears and says how lovely he is, so wonderful of him, etc.

  Wackersdorf, Leubl thinks. He can’t hear the name Niedecken without thinking of Wackersdorf nuclear reprocessing plant and the music festivals that helped thwart its completion. If the world of pop music throws its weight behind the refugees, the government’s going to have to redouble its efforts to counteract Hackenbusch’s project.

  “Moist!” Binny says, “A bunch of old songs.”

  Perhaps it’ll only be a mini Wackersdorf.

  “Why on earth are we watching this?” Leubl says, returning to the armchair with his glass.

  “Because Schminki’s on now!”

  “Who?”

  “Schminki Pengster!”

  Leubl discovers nothing about Campino’s other plans because Binny’s busy telling him who Schminki Pengster is: the YouTube sensation. She shows him some clips on her mobile, but Leubl remains in the dark about Schminki Pengster’s magic. He knows, of course, that there are plenty of people who have what amounts to their own personal channel on YouTube, but he’d always assumed that they did things which would be too bold for television. But all this Schminki Pengster does is showcase products or play tricks on people. It’s unclear what expertise Schminki Pengster has as a product tester, but expertise isn’t the appeal. It’s the sheer professionalism with which Schminki plays the role of best friend, sharing her life with five million best friends. And the inconsistency is so glaring that Leubl can scarcely believe his smart little Binny has fallen for it.

  “But I know that, Grandad!”

  “Then I really don’t understand.”

  “Ask Grandma. She understands – look, there’s Schminki!”

  Leubl looks at his wife. With a shrug of the shoulders, Frau Leubl opens her eyes wide and says with conviction, “Grandma understands everything.” Leubl takes a generous sip of his schnapps and sees a pretty brunette flinging her arms around the young presenter as if he were a soldier returning from war. She holds out her hand respectfully to Campino and then sits between him and the presenter on a preposterous T.V. sofa, which looks like a cross between buffers and asymmetrical bars. Then she says that what Nadeche Hackenbusch is doing is “über-cool” and “lit”, and suddenly Leubl feels endless gratitude towards Campino because at least he made that comment about the crappy T.V. station.

  “So you went down there and brought us back a film?” the clone says, beaming.

  “That’s exactly what I did,” a rapturous Schminki replies. “I thought, you know, why not go and pop in on Nadeche?”

  “And we’ll be seeing that right after the break!”

  Leubl downs his schnapps and mutes the sound.

  “You watch her videos even though you know she’s not your friend?”

  “Of course!”

  “But—”

  “Of course it’s not all genuine. But you get loads of great ideas. Because she’s got such an exciting life! She doesn’t have to go on holiday to the arse end of the world. She stays in a hotel on Mallorca. With her boyfriend.”

  “Or someone playing the part of her boyfriend.”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, you don’t have a clue what happens when the camera’s switched off. They just show you what they want to show you.”

  “I don’t believe that. Schminki made a video of them breaking up and that was really sad. She was serious. That was definitely genuine.”

  Schminki’s film is now playing. Schminki throws her arms around Nadeche too – Binny’s big sister meeting her own big sister. But clearly this is more than a courtesy visit. There are a few images of excited children running after Schminki’s car and crunching on so many sweets it gives you tooth decay just listening to it. Afterwards Schminki says she wants to use the opportunity to get to know this beautiful country and showcase it for others.

  “This can’t be real, can it?” Leubl’s wife says.

  And now comes a clip which is much grimmer, both visually and in its content. Schminki travels through another part of the country where she meets a man who organises desert safaris. Tent, mattress, a nice dinner – like camping on the beach, but without the sea. The obligatory camels, a bit of shopping at some market. Schminki’s filming switches between images of herself, exotic fruits and cute animals, because “we shouldn’t forget that this is actually a very beautiful country – and not at all expensive.” Then she buys a T-shirt for three dollars and makes a call to Nadeche Hackenbusch, so the film at least ties in somehow. In its unscrupulousness the link is quite skilful, Leubl thinks, certainly more sophisticated than the stuff in Schminki’s own videos. The phone call must have been written into the script by the programme editors. Schminki thanks Nadeche for the chat, hopes that all the refugees arrive safely in Germany one day, and maybe they’ll be able to return to their former homeland on holiday one day.

  “Absolutely,” Leubl’s wife says, “Ideally on a T.U.I. package tour. I think I’m going to be sick.” She gets up, walks briskly to the television and switches it off.

  “Grandma!”

  “Binny, we need to have a chat.”

  “Wait, what? Now? Turn it back on, Grandma!”

  “Never in my life have I seen such cynicism.”

  Leubl fancies another schnapps. He can see his wife steeling herself for a fight and he senses the battle is already lost. He’s seen it before, like when Binny’s mother was determined to be together with that dreadful man. George or Paul – it was a Beatles-like name. There was nothing they could do to stop her, she would have to experience herself, even though both Leubl and his wife made it clear from the outset that the guy was a bastard. But at least the Beatles arsehole was an amateur. Binny is entering a world of professional bastards.

  He watches as his wife sits beside Binny and explains what is so terribly obvious to her and to any halfway normal adult. Binny protests and says her grandmother’s got it all wrong, she’s perfectly capable of telling the difference, and she’d love to spend the night in the desert, eating fruit. She says she’d like to live in a world where everyone could go on holiday. The battle is lost, Leubl thinks wearily, we don’t have a snowball’s chance against this Schminki, who lives the sort of life every fourteen-year-old dreams of. No meddling parents, only smart hotels, acres of clothes and cosmetics, and a boyfriend – all proof of success and the right way to live. She’s got talent too. This Schminki moves as if she were born for television. She’s in a state of happy excitement, but not nervous; she comes across as confident, but not arrogant; she’s got everything most people would have to spend years practising. There’s only one thing she’s lacking: a stance.

  And whereas George or Paul, the bastard, had been perfectly satisfied with a bit of sex, this Schminki will well and truly exploit his granddaughter by hoovering up her attention.

  Something’s got to be done, Leubl thinks as he dozes off. It’s a job for the minister of the interior.

  28

  He told everybody that they were walking at their own risk. There could be no guarantee of success, only a better chance of succeeding. Yes, they said. Great that you even got it off th
e ground.

  “I can’t promise you anything,” he told them all, “except that you won’t drown.” A great joke, it goes down well every time, he must have told it at least a hundred times by now and everyone always laughs. On a few occasions he followed it up with “and you won’t need a life vest either”, but it detracted from the joke, so he dropped it.

  He also told his guys, “Don’t make any promises!” And they certainly won’t have; after all, they’re not getting kickbacks, at least none worth mentioning compared to before. All he said was that he was the one organising it all because somebody had to. But that didn’t mean he was the tour guide or mayor or whatever.

  So why has he now become just that?

  He never wanted to be mayor. He’s the one who came up with the idea, and maybe a couple of helpful solutions, but that’s all. The whole organisation with the lorries, for example, that wasn’t him; it was Mojo’s idea. Or the contact with the regional warlords: you pay one and he keeps the others at bay. You just need to know which of them stands by his word, but the system of regular payments is amazingly effective at keeping them in line. Everything comes from Mojo, who obviously gets his cut, but that was precisely the plan. Sometimes one person has an idea, then another, and sometimes Malaika can help out or U.N.H.C.R. or the T.V. people. He is not personally responsible, so nobody needs to thank him, he doesn’t want anyone singing his praises if things go well, but nobody should level complaints at him either. He’s just the guy leading the march.

  He sees a cloud of dust on the horizon. A pick-up with mounted machine guns on patrol. There have been one or two attempted ambushes, traffickers in girls perhaps, maybe just competitors trying to show that those now acting as guards can’t guarantee protection. But they can – as soon as they came within range the pick-ups raced towards them. And that’s been the sum of it, up till now at least. It helps that there isn’t much to steal. The lorries, food, water – none of it is really worth the bother. Water, food, electricity, it’s all so well organised now that there’s just the odd tweak needed here and there. And otherwise he just walks. Fifteen kilometres per day isn’t much. In the evenings the odd shag with the angel, and dreams of the future.