The Hungry and the Fat

by Timur Vermes

  A handbag shop and an iced mocha cappuccino.

  She stuffs a handful of nuts into her mouth – a mini breakfast. Nuts can get you a long way, she’d never known that. Bimsheimer Müsli has become one of the show’s main sponsors, and their ads always go on about “Germany’s nuttiest muesli”. Nutella has got involved in a big way too, even though that really stretches the definition of nuts. They asked whether they could supply Nadeche. She’s got nothing against Nutella, but it would send out a ludicrous message. The average refugee crunches their way through the day on nuts, while every morning Nadeche Hackenbusch spreads her bread with Nutella from her fridge. Because without a fridge it would turn into drinking chocolate in the heat. It’s better if she sticks to normal nuts. You get used to them anyway. But it helps that food has never been that important to her. Nicolai was the gourmet: the basil would be from here, the steak from there, and then he always pretended to be able to tell the difference. Foodies love identifying differences. The moment you tell them where something’s from they say, “Ah, yes, you can taste it!” Once she said to Nicolai, “That’s bullshit. If the bread came from somewhere else it would taste exactly the same.” And he had to agree with her.

  It really is a hell of a long way. Not just because of the flight and all that. She found out when she asked Nicolai on the phone why the kids weren’t in bed yet. “Why should they be in bed already?” he replied.

  “Already? But it’s got to be like, much later your end!”

  “Huh? What’s the time there?”

  “Half past four.”

  “Same here.”

  Only then did she realise how far away home she really was: she’s twenty-four hours ahead! And they’ve got to cover every minute of that on foot. Crazy. And no chance of any holiday.

  Now she had to admit that some things were impossible after all. She talked about it with Lionel, before the television discussion. If she abandoned the trek now, if she went home, they probably wouldn’t allow her to fly out again. They couldn’t prohibit it outright, but they could make it difficult and drag the whole process out, and in the meantime there are no Hackenbusch images to broadcast. Viewers bail out. And all of a sudden one hundred and fifty thousand refugees are one hundred and fifty thousand nobodies in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t have to be like that, but she can’t risk it. She can’t leave here.

  Although the flight alone is tempting: a bed, coffee, champagne.

  So chilled that the glass mists up on the outside.

  No. Impossible. It’s too high a risk. That’s why it has to be a live link-up too. It’s not a problem technologically. And if they want Nadeche Hackenbusch in natura, then let them come to Africa. After all, they go the whole hog for those summer interviews with politicians.

  Still, she can’t promise there won’t be occasions where she’d try to take off. She loves Lionel, no question. And these people are important too, of course they are. Increasingly important even, because there are more of them now. Four or five more lorry stations have joined the trek, another reason why Lionel is often out and about in the mornings. His people can decide most of the cases, but some are touch and go. To begin with Lionel wanted to shirk responsibility, but he realised that by engaging with the newcomers himself he was able to avoid problem cases. The supply of medicines is working well now, but there’s only one pink doctor’s car and it has to stay that way. She spent a day with it for a programme. There isn’t so much to do, but there are lots of decisions to make. If the patient is fit in two days, they can be treated. If it’s quicker than that, they just need a few pills. People can’t get really ill, it’s as simple as that. She was glad they didn’t come across any seriously ill people during their day of filming. It happens very seldom, thank God. Because Lionel only takes the right people.

  That being the case, she could comfortably go shopping for a couple of days.

  But there’s a reason why she’ll never, ever run the risk of this initiative failing. And that reason is now knocking on the side of the car.

  “Morning, Nadeche!”

  Virtually without an accent – it’s astonishing. She knows so much already. Nadeche helps her and she seems incredibly gifted. She can work hard for hours on end, and yet she’s always happy. She picks up on things so quickly that you can barely keep up. And four weeks ago she knew only two words.

  One was “t’posit”, the other “Ottobafes”.

  33

  “Now what’s the matter with the air-conditioning? Are we all supposed to freeze our arses off, or what?”

  Astrid von Roëll sits in the motorhome that Evangeline has finally hired, and shudders as she zips up her outdoor jacket. She’s working intently on a piece about Airbnb apartments in Paris. Astrid is a little shocked by how people furnish their apartments in a capital city. In a world city of such cultural repute!

  “Look at that. Look. At. That!”

  “I can’t just now,” Kay says from somewhere.

  “I mean, they can live however they want,” Astrid says in disbelief, “but I’m not going to rent something like that!” She nudges the mouse. “I wouldn’t pay 117 euros a night for that!”

  “Could you switch the aircon off and on again?” Kay shouts.

  “Hmm?”

  “The aircon! Off and on again!”

  “How does that work?”

  She hears a muffled thump, like someone hurling a heavy tool on the ground, and the door is flung open. Kay comes in and stomps pointedly over to the aircon controls, which are beside the door. “Look. Here: off. Here: on. Oh, wonder of wonders, it’s the same button!”

  “Sorry!” Astrid smiles her third favourite smile. “Now I know for next time.”

  “Why are you going to Paris? I thought you had to write.”

  “They’ve asked me over for an interview.”

  “Who? France Télévisions?”

  “I’ve forgotten. Something with Tee Vee. Or Tay Vay.”

  “Can you speak French?”

  “May wee!”

  “Wee lala!”

  “The point is, they speak English.”

  “What do they want from you exactly?”

  “Silly question. They need an expert.”

  “The apogee of serious journalism: journalists interviewing other journalists.”

  Kay goes back out, slamming the door behind her. Astrid gives her the finger. She shouldn’t get so big-headed just because she knows how to hold a screwdriver. The aircon isn’t going to be broken for ever, and then she’ll be back to being a mere cameramouse.

  Her footage isn’t even that good. Astrid has seen better, like those wildlife documentaries on Arte. Although the drone idea was a nice one, and Kay was the first to do it. As it flies along the procession you’re thinking it’s just a normal hand-held camera, but then slowly it pulls away and up. Or that shot of the entire column. All in one go, fifty kilometres without a cut. People are still baffled by how she did it, because not even those expensive camera drones can fly that far. And you have to stay within range for the drone to pick up the signal. Despite its length the clip is the biggest hit on the website. On the back of it the deputy blockhead gave Kay a permanent job – reacting quickly for once. But it’s a long way from being art. There’s something engineery about it, anyone could learn it if they had the time and the inkling. And there are things Kay can’t do. Astrid once watched her paint her toenails – what a sorry business that was!

  “Is that supposed to be a kitchen! Where’s the microwave?”

  Kay would film everything, whether people or guinea pigs. In fact this is the real difference between Kay and Astrid: Kay hasn’t grasped that she’s part of something massively important here, something unique. This is world history. This is politics, foreign affairs even. And domestic ones too. And the deputy blockhead can count his blessings that Astrid von Roëll understands the significance of all this. Because there’s nothing about it in her contract. But why did they make Lou Grant Fake News Director
?

  “Creative News Director,” the deputy blockhead corrected her.

  “Whatever. If anyone’s making news here, it’s me!”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Even creative news! Well, I’m not reporting to him, no way!”

  “No, no—”

  “Others can report to him if they want!”

  “No, of course you’ll still be reporting to the editor-in-chief—”

  “Directly. I will report directly to the editor-in-chief!”

  “Yes, sure. But look, someone’s got to do the work here. You’re just a bit prejudiced. You don’t have to love all your colleagues, but even if you don’t rate Herr Grant, he’s good.”

  “If you’re satisfied with ‘good’ . . .”

  “Frau von Roëll, how about leaving the quality control to me?”

  Creative News Director. A position that never existed before. If anyone deserves it, it’s her. Because political journalists are ten a penny. Anyone can do it. These Süddeutsche and F.A.Z. lot think they’re the cat’s meow, but basically all they print is news. And if you’ve got the right phone numbers for those presidents and press officers then it’s no big deal, it’s exactly the same as what she does, just with other people. But the point is: political journalists are limited. They have no human understanding. Especially the men. All they ever think is politics.

  “I just want to say,” Astrid asserted, “that we mustn’t forget who’s behind all this.”

  “And?”

  “Well, we ought to give that person some official status too.”

  “A job title you mean?”

  “Exactly. Job title, whatever. In the masthead.”

  Just then she pictured the expression on his face.

  “And what did you have in mind?”

  “Creative News Director.”

  “Hmm, I thought you’d suggest something like that.”

  “At Large.”

  “I’ll have to discuss this with the boss, but the most I can offer is a job share. So you’d do it together with Herr Grant from now on.”

  Was that brazen of her? A man would never ask himself the question. She discussed it with Nadeche too, and Nadeche encouraged her, saying how important it was that she, Astrid, refused to budge even one millimetre. She mustn’t slip back behind Lou Grant. You see, Nadeche went on, it’s only when you look at it from the outside that it seems to be about power and positions and whose name is biggest in the masthead. “But behind all that,” she said, appealing to Astrid’s conscience, “behind all at it’s always about men.”

  That’s Nadeche in a nutshell: clever in her own way, but uneducated. She didn’t mean men, of course – she meant women. And that’s why Astrid has to be Lou Grant’s equal, at least in the masthead, so that content by women gets the appropriate weighting.

  “And like, the appropriate pay,” Nadeche emphasised.

  “Actually, they’ve already bumped up my salary.”

  “All the same, they’ve got to up the ante.” As far as Nadeche was concerned it was quite clear. “Every euro you don’t get goes to some guy. The more expensive you are, the more normal it becomes for other women to be more expensive too. That’s the only way it can work.”

  Astrid hadn’t looked at it this way before, but Nadeche is right, of course.

  “And what can Lou Grant do that you can’t?”

  “Nothing. Nada. On the contrary, I’m learning something every day here!”

  “Exactly, and he’s just getting like, even stupider every day.”

  They laughed so much, and it struck Astrid how little time they’d spent in each other’s company recently. The months here in Africa have changed them both. More obviously Nadeche, who’s never been so thoughtful. But Astrid has changed on a human level too, for even though empathy and sensitivity have always been her strengths, she’s now made another big leap forwards. It would be impossible to experience the things she’s seen here without gaining in maturity. Here you learn how fragile life is, and yet how strong people can be. You realise that profound emotions are felt amidst extreme poverty too. Health, food, water – these are the truly important things in life. And her copy reflects this.

  Astrid re-read her reports of the last few weeks recently, and the writing really is different. It has depth, it’s reflective – she doesn’t want to say it’s philosophical, but actually, why not? Other people have picked up on it. Christine, Uschi, the woman from the deputy mayor’s office and Regine – all of them have e-mailed, asking whether she was going to make it to the Oktoberfest. Unfortunately it’s not going to work out this year. And all of them said, or hinted, that her writing had developed a new, more profound tone, and her stories were raising Evangeline to a new level. They don’t even bother to read Gala anymore, they just chuck it straight in the bin.

  A new level. The whole magazine!

  She really does need to up the ante as far as her salary is concerned.

  “Better now?” the pushy plumber/competent camerawoman asks. Pushy plumber, competent camerawoman – two “P”s and two “C”s. This kind of repetition has come to her so easily of late, it’s been tripping off the tongue. When was the last time something entered Lou Grant’s head, apart from a cotton bud?

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? Switch it on and off again!”

  “I’m in the middle of a sentence, Kay! Sorry, but this is really important!”

  She hears that thump again. The door is flung open and Kay stomps over to the controls, while four fingers carefully type:

  “By Astrid von Roëll (Creative News Director at Large)”.

  Dream couple

  seeking security

  Nadeche Hackenbusch and Lionel: in the most unfavourable circumstances the German superstar is creating a modest home for her love. The man of her heart gives his thanks – in the language of her home country

  By Astrid von Roëll

  One is instinctively reminded of War and Peace, that wonderfully profound novel by Leonardo Tolstoy: a young noblewoman, played by the unforgettable Audrey Hepburn, finds her great love, and this in the midst of hardship and in Russia. But when one points out this striking comparison to Nadeche Hackenbusch, and tells her that over the past days and months she has truly become an Audrey Hepburn of hearts, she just laughs modestly and reaches for the hand of Lionel, her new Bolkonsky, a man as good-looking as he is mysterious. They gaze into each other’s eyes, then Nadeche says, “With all of this going on we mustn’t forget how privileged we are. We’re able to shut ourselves away in the little free time available to us.” For there is one place where these two people, who do so much for hundreds of thousands of others, can be themselves for a while. Exclusively for EVANGELINE, they have left the door to this paradise ajar.

  When we visit the two of them early in the evening, they’re a little coy, like a young couple in their first home. They emerge hand in hand from behind the pink car, looking dreamy and – there’s no other way to describe it – in love. “We washed the car especially for you,” Nadeche Hackenbusch laughs. “Well, it was me actually.”

  Could we be hearing the first hint of discord in this blissful young love affair? But when Nadeche gives her Lionel an affectionate kiss, our concerns dissipate like a colourful swarm of happy butterflies. “Yes, he was against the idea,” she admits, chuckling. “Because of the water – and of course he’s right. Men are often more sensible about these things. But a woman will always be a woman!”

  It is hard not to agree with Nadeche Hackenbusch. This warmth, this inimitable naturalness, this deeply felt humanity. Who wouldn’t feel sympathy for this special woman, especially now, in these days, weeks and months? Incomprehensible criticism still rains down from her embittered-and-soon-to-be-ex-husband Nicolai von Kraken in Germany. I ask whether she’s any the wiser as to why the less-than-successful producer is so indifferent towards the welfare of his children. She just looks away and wipes a tear from her eye. She is still distressed by how vo
n Kraken forced her sons Keel and Bonno into the spotlight. That appalling appearance on a much-watched television programme, when they begged their mother to come home. Many experts have since condemned this stunt, most recently Germany’s most famous family lawyer, Karl-Theoderich zu Boten-Fürstett, who did not mince his words: “This is a real case of abuse of two innocent children.” Alone, a mother remains powerless if the rule of law has no feelings.

  Nadeche Hackenbusch changes the subject, and who can blame her? She takes us around the car, an ISUZU D-MAX Single Cab (from 22,500 euros). Attached to a frame mounted on the flatbed is a tarpaulin that covers the back of the vehicle like on a real lorry. “It’s a weatherproof tarpaulin,” Nadeche says tenderly. A simple fabric covering – is this the Nadeche Hackenbusch of old? “Yes, of course,” she laughs with a wink of the eye. “Look, they’ve dyed it specially so it matches the rest of the car. I mean, it’s got to look right too. A leopard can’t change her spots, can she?”

  And yet this top presenter hasn’t lost her practical nous. The tarpaulin can be rolled up on all three sides. “We could have got a matching hard top instead,” Nadeche says (available in all colours, price on application). “But the people on the march with us don’t have hard tops.”

  It’s astonishing what the deft hand of a woman can conjure in a simple cargo space of 2,305 mm × 1,570 mm. She’s got two pink cushions (Morphea, covers by Katinka Svensson), and she’s styled the floor surface into a cosy dream with two exclusive insulated sleeping mats (EnForcer DreamHill, www.summitz.com). An inviting haven that tempts one to spend time there. Photographs of her sons are fixed to her side of the flatbed. “Lionel did that for me. I’m not so handy with a screwdriver,” she says. “Now every night before I go to sleep I can think of my two boys.”