The Hungry and the Fat

by Timur Vermes

  “Maybe we don’t have be quite as thorough as you suggest.” Kaspers says, raising his hand. “Fifteen kilometres a day isn’t that quick. Besides, we know what their plan is. They’re not looking for the easiest way in. They want to get to our border and do their victim thing there. So we can wait to see which route they take and only then reinforce whichever border as we see fit.”

  The minister nods. “All the same, we do have to send the Turks a signal as quickly as possible. So let’s take one of the potential borders and show them what we intend to do if the refugees proceed according to plan.”

  “The federal police will prepare and train for scenarios along the border with immediate effect,” Gödeke assures him. “Including the use of firearms. And with the press in situ. The media will get special treatment. And even though the army can’t lend us its soldiers, it might be able to help out with some heavy machinery? Heavy weaponry too? Who’ll look into this?”

  “I’ll deal with it,” Dr Berthold volunteers.

  “Thanks,” the minister says. “In the meantime I’ll see to it that the necessary finances are in place.”

  “All that remains is plan B,” Kaspers says, leaning forwards.

  “What plan B?” the minister says.

  “Actually, it’s plan A. What Herr Leubl was getting off the ground. Given the current state of affairs, it has to be our plan B in case—”

  “No plan B,” the minister says. “That has to be kiboshed at once. It has to be clear to everyone that we don’t have a plan B. It has to be clear to the Austrians that the refugees will put us in a catastrophic situation. That we cannot afford to open our borders.”

  “You want press coverage of this too?”

  “Full on,” the minister says. “The more, the merrier.”

  Major concern for

  Nadeche Hackenbusch

  Experts fear that the star presenter is on the verge of collapse at the most difficult time of her life. The bitter truth is that while she’s helping thousands, her ex-husband is leaving her in the lurch

  By Astrid von Roëll

  It can be likened to the most impossible task ever faced by a woman in a fairy tale: spinning gold out of straw. But this time it seems the unbelievable can be achieved; it looks as if the German presenter, superstar Nadeche Hackenbusch, will pull off the miracle. Albeit a miracle with the sad aftertaste of a weeping eye: this straw isn’t straw and the gold is silver, spilling down in a curl from the sky like a small trickle of twisted time.

  Nadeche Hackenbusch, who in May was crowned Woman of the Year by the renowned media group PRINTERNET (which includes Grandezza, EVANGELINE and Hengst), gazes thoughtfully at this trickle that fizzes from her scalp like foam on the (dark) beer of her endlessly long, dark-brown mane. “My first grey hair,” she says, winding the strand carefully around her slim index finger. She says it lightly, but can it be as easy to accept as her unmistakeably confident eyes wish us to believe? For this woman, especially?

  It is now well over a year since Nadeche Hackenbusch decided to take on probably the greatest challenge of all time. And even though it is often said that love heals all wounds, these few undeniably silver hairs tell a different story. They tell of a pain that Nadeche Hackenbusch would never wish to show.

  In all this time it has only been possible for her sons Keel and Bonno to visit their mother twice (reported exclusively in EVANGELINE). And Nadeche Hackenbusch makes no secret of the fact that it’s better this way. “This is no place for children,” says the woman whose Nadeche Hackenbusch Foundation for the Humans, with its three infant transporters now famous around the globe, makes it possible for young women to enjoy the blessing of motherhood. But each day of this march, which has stirred the hearts of the world, is also robbing Keel and Bonno of the one person a youngster should really be able to count on in life. It’s depriving them of the closeness, the warm and tender caresses that no telephone calls or e-mails can substitute for. Particularly harsh is the fact that the woman who is helping so many others is being left in the lurch at a time when she has the least opportunity to fight back.

  Behind this Moses lies an unhappy marriage

  Of course Nadeche Hackenbusch will not say a bad word about Nicolai von Kraken. Keel’s alcopop scandal, Bonno’s transgender plans – it would never occur to this woman to lay the blame for her children’s crises on the poor parenting skills of Nicolai von Kraken. But she is also weary of defending her ungrateful ex-partner time and again. She was even generously accepting of his bizarre affair with Internet sensation Schminki Pengster, twenty-three years his junior, which met with all-round disbelief, disgust and hostility. But worried friends are noticing that she falls silent when conversation turns to her family, a family who for so long now have had to forgo Nadeche’s much-needed help. When the adoptive father of her own children makes more absurd financial demands by the day via an armada of unscrupulous star lawyers. Not to mention the custody issue. “Of course,” Nadeche Hackenbusch says indulgently, “Keel and Bonno are in good hands for the time being. But there’s no denying that in the long-term women make better mothers.”

  These burdens continue to intensify, while day by day the greatest rescue operation ever led by a woman shows no sign of abating. The fact that they are approaching Turkey can only be small consolation. “Sure, I’ll be delighted if we make it there,” the successful presenter says with confidence. “They have streetlamps, it’s a completely different kind of country. You can see this in places like Antalya. They’ve got trams there.”

  But it is this very proximity to their goal that lends this hopeful march its inexorable drama. While hundreds of thousands of people, thanks to the sacrificial devotion of Nadeche Hackenbusch, are on the threshold of a happier life, her few really close friends able to peek behind the scenes are asking: How much longer can this woman cope with the relentless strain? How long can the portentous love of young Lionel relieve the inhuman pain inflicted by this unusual life?

  “Modern women such as Nadeche Hackenbusch are particularly at risk,” Professor Gabriel Schaffhausen warns. All this time the assistant professor of cosmetic psychology has been observing the unsettling course of events from his position at the renowned Heribert Sinsheimer Institute in Munich. “These women constantly achieve and expect more from themselves than most men, even top executives,” the expert says. “The symptoms can be complex and bewildering, but the isolated appearance of grey hair is not untypical and could be a warning signal. That is distressing in itself. If the strain goes on for longer, there’s the danger of burnout.” Or something even worse? “It cannot be ruled out,” the 77-year-old says, deeply concerned.

  How much longer can this woman cope with the relentless strain?

  But Nadeche Hackenbusch doesn’t have time to react to risks like this. Thousands have their hopes tied up in her, especially thousands of women. She is both role model and pilot at a disorienting time of high emotion. And these people are happy that they can rely on a woman like Nadeche Hackenbusch. This story is a story of a modern, female Moses. But this Moses is looking back on more than a long march through the desert. Behind this Moses lies an unhappy marriage which has failed because the love died.

  45

  The minister of the interior feels uncomfortable. It’s not the first time he’s worn a bullet-proof vest, but even during his spell in the army he always felt awkward in one.

  “Where’s your bloody vest?” the corporal would scream at him. “What do you think’s going to happen to you if you don’t wear a vest?”

  “Nothing,” was his standard answer, “so long as I shoot first.”

  The corporal: “Are you alright?”

  He feels a nudge in his ribs. “I asked if you were alright.” Beside him is Cilic, the minder and liaison officer the Turks have assigned him. The minister gives a start. He nods and adjusts his vest. They’re in the monitoring centre at the Habur border crossing point. A medium-sized room of the sort you only find in this part of the w
orld: a concrete box chilled to ice-age temperatures, four walls painted in an indeterminate colour, slight cracks in the plaster, tiled floor and all the monitors somehow bare, despite the mass of technological equipment, as if the building were about to be torn down. Hanging on the wall is a solitary portrait of Atatürk, still, it seems. Men sit at tables and screens, someone pops in occasionally, but not often, as if reality outside could upset the images on the monitors. Three screens show the security cameras at the border crossing, two others show the C.N.N. pictures and – no doubt as a concession to their German guest – those from MyTV. One monitor is in reserve, and the two remaining ones are relaying the slightly shaky footage from the helicopters. Some of these are clearly violating prohibited airspace on the other side of the border – they’re a good way into Iraq. The pictures do not fill the minister with confidence.

  Six thousand transporters are processed here every day. But on this day hundreds, maybe thousands of lorries are backed up along the road to the border. The Iraqis have closed it to trucks as well as private cars. They’re keeping the way free for the refugee column, which is marching past the queueing lorries. An endless train of people, with the occasional small gap, but endless nonetheless. The lorry drivers wave, some hoot their horns angrily because the refugees are preventing them from crossing the border. The cameras capture the water tankers far in the distance. They have stayed at the back, presumably so the refugees can make a more impressive display of their numbers later on. The minister sighs and glances at the ugly digital clock on the wall.

  Four in the afternoon. Back home it’s an hour earlier. Lunch is over, families are bored, young people are bored. Everyone’s so bored that even the Grand Prix is worth watching. But not today. Today everyone’s watching this mass of people conquering the most important stage of their infinitely long journey. And everybody wants to see if Leubl was right. As far as Iraq is concerned it seems he was. The minister shrugs.

  “But that was to be expected.” Cilic must have read his thoughts.

  “Of course,” the minister says, irritated. He wishes he were less transparent. And then he feels cross straightaway, because his anger must be audible. And silly. Did anyone seriously think the Iraqis would hold them up? How childish, the minister thinks, like when he was younger on his way to school and hoped until the very last corner that the building had burned down. But assistance from Iraq had been conceivable at least. Until now.

  The lorry drivers are out of their trucks, making tea, eating, chatting. The behaviour of car drivers is more ominous. Many are turning around and driving back the way they’ve come, as if the border will not be passable in the foreseeable future. Several days, probably the exact time needed to allow a few hundred thousand refugees to walk across it.

  “What’s in it for them?” Cilic says, taking up the thread of the minister’s thoughts. The minister closes his eyes so nobody can see him rolling them. He’d like nothing better than to go outside and have a cigarette. But he doesn’t smoke.

  “Can I bring you a tea?”

  “That would be very kind.”

  Cilic makes a sign and somebody leaves the room. On the screens they now see the first refugees leaving Iraq and entering that strange no-man’s-land between two border crossings, which has never belonged to either side. They don’t appear to be in any hurry. They could take a short cut by going cross-country, the option’s there, but instead they follow the road with its sharp bend. It is almost as if they’re determined to stick to the official route. Taking the more westerly of the two roads, they approach the Turkish border as per the regulations. Their lorries are still out of sight; perhaps the concern is that all that steel looks too powerful, too aggressive, not vulnerable enough. As if this advancing column weren’t aggressive in itself. Coercion, the minister thinks. Ultimately this is coercion pure and simple. He wonders whether Turkish law currently recognises something like coercion.

  Or something like law.

  He looks at the map on the wall, comparing it again with Google Maps which has a zoom function. In the next few minutes they’ll probably cross the Habur, which forms the border with Iraq here. They’re walking more slowly now, using the bridge to make the human column denser. Women, children. Nadeche Hackenbusch is clearly visible on the screens, the beaming Joan of Arc of commercial television. She’s holding the hand of a little girl, and even the minister can see she’s cute.

  The minister peers outside, through the Venetian blinds that keep the room dark. “Let me tell you what I think,” Cilic says. “If I were in your position I’d have bombed the bridge. Or blown it up.” He takes one of the glasses of hot tea from the copper tray a young boy has just brought in, and hands it to the minister.

  “Thank you. The Federal Republic of Germany doesn’t just blow up other countries’ bridges.”

  “In the past you weren’t so . . . finckty? Finckity?”

  “Finickity. In the past we weren’t the Federal Republic.”

  The tea boy is definitely not with the army, so how come he can just walk in here? He could have been bringing in half a kilo of T.N.T. Why bother with the bulletproof vest?

  “Sorry, I didn’t intend to be impolite,” Cilic says, “but without that bridge they wouldn’t find it so easy. In matters like this I’m a military man through and through. This isn’t an invitation, of course. I mean, the bridge belongs to us.”

  “If it reassures the soldier in you, we would have considered it if this were a river like the Rhine or Danube. We would even have paid to have the bridge torn down and rebuilt. But the Habur . . . I mean, on a good day you can get across it with your trousers rolled up.”

  “The Habur looks different in the spring,” Cilic says.

  “Tell them that. Maybe they’ll wait.”

  The minister abruptly puts down his tea glass. Through a window he can now see them coming, the first refugees he’s seen in real life rather than on television. They’re walking across the bridge, a dense column of people, an endless, dense column. And it looks much bigger than on T.V. His eyes dart from the window to the screens and back again, he sees Lionel in close-up on MyTV, dismantling his phone – he pointedly removes the battery, killing the connection, making further communication impossible.

  The minister steps outside. He stands on the metal grate of the top step and leans forwards slightly. The procession is not moving particularly fast, a bit like human lava, and there is no end in sight. From here you can see for miles, you ought to be able to see where it ends. The reality of this mass of people in motion catches him unprepared. He’s watched the television footage, like everyone else, but he suddenly feels as if he’s underestimated the whole enterprise. Hurriedly recapping the last few days, he really can’t find fault with himself. He set in motion what needed to be set in motion, he pulled out all the stops. Construction of the wall began four days ago. They chose Passau because the confluence of the Danube and the Inn allow them to achieve maximum visual impact at minimal cost. The border bridges alone make a striking impression. Eight-metre-high concrete walls crowned with razor wire, which is nonsense, but on balance it doesn’t cost any more than not having the razor wire, and it looks more menacing. The wall doesn’t extend for ever of course – they didn’t factor in especially good swimmers among the refugees – but at least people can see how seriously Germany is taking the matter. The Austrians and the E.U. didn’t hesitate to lodge protests because of Schengen, but a minister of the interior can delegate that to his colleagues. And he’s been proved right by the success of this measure. There was no immediate let up in the protests, but nor have they got any bigger. It’s clear that his actions have been welcomed, the population is reassured. And yet right at this moment he feels as if he hasn’t done his homework, he hasn’t revised the material, not enough at any rate, now, minutes before the big test.

  By contrast, the Turks have definitely done theirs.

  They gave him a promise and they’ve kept their word. They won’t give the refu
gees the slightest encouragement. Even the helicopters delivering the video footage are armed. The border is blocked with heavy steel barriers and lined with infantry with MPT-76 assault rifles. Up until a few years ago they still bore the German G3, Heckler & Koch. Some are still in use, but the Turks have responded to German sensitivities. There are no Leopard tanks keeping watch over the valley from the hillsides either; the Turks have drafted in U.S. equivalents. These tanks are on standby, loaded with live ammunition, and if deployed, nobody can argue they were German weapons. The Turks have brought along water cannon too. Every option must be kept open to avoid them being compelled to fire live ammunition from the outset.

  Only now does he realise that the ancient loudspeakers have been croaking away continually in Turkish and something you could, with a great deal of imagination, take to be English: “This is the Turkish army speaking. You are illegally approaching the Turkish border,” Cilic translates for him. “Stop where you are and turn around. Or we will open fire.” Again and again. The words have no effect. Then he hears a roar and Cilic claps him on the shoulder. He hands him ear protectors.

  The minister looks up to see several fighter planes circling in the air, F-16s probably. Two of them now approach at low altitude. Although he puts on the protectors, the noise is still unbearable. As the jets thunder so low that the refugees can practically count the rivets on the undercarriage, children burst into tears and scream. The minister watches women try to shield the children’s heads with their hands. Many look for things to stuff in their ears. But what he doesn’t see is anybody stopping. He looks back through the open door into the control centre. MyTV is cutting between different shots of the mass of refugees, occasionally inserting images of Nadeche Hackenbusch striding forwards in that idiosyncratic, semi-religious combination suitable both for a school outing and for national mourning. And now the lens is pointing at him. Weeping women and children, and in between the minister with his well-protected ears. An idiotic image.