The Hungry and the Fat

by Timur Vermes

  Exactly.

  After half an hour they deigned to put a scrolling banner at the bottom of the screen, which proved to be a real afterburner. It’s all true, A.R.D. said, but if you want to see it, then switch to MyTV. A broad smile spreads across Sensenbrink’s face. The figures were like those for the moon landings. Nobody would have thought this sort of thing possible today. Late that evening Kärrner, still ashen-faced, staggered into the office and said, “Shares aren’t going to do it anymore. They’ve got to give us a stake in the holding company.”

  Oh yes.

  O.K., they didn’t manage to get the minister of the interior in front of the camera. But nor did A.R.D.

  17–0 to Sensenbrink. “YESSS!”

  And he hasn’t let the viewers off the leash since. Now they’re broadcasting a permanent live feed, up in the top left-hand corner of the screen, even during feature films. They’re counting down the kilometres to the German border. With the refugees travelling at the speed of a bus, this countdown has become meaningful. In real time. MyTV is on constantly in most offices. It’s like 9/11, but at least ten days long.

  This is why he can’t celebrate it. Except when it comes to the revenue.

  They’d already sold their advertising space for Turkey. And now it transpires that, thanks to the buses, they’ve sold far more slots than are actually available in the remaining airtime. What was going to be a three-month trek has been cut to ten days. Ten days, during which viewers will be as hooked on the MyTV logo as drug addicts on the needle. A dream market: they all want to come in, but everything’s full.

  Olav said, we’ll sell the place in the sun at moon prices.

  And the broadcaster can choose who it likes, because everyone will pay. Even at three in the morning the price per minute is too high for the regular Internet whores. MyTV sells premium advertising all night long.

  Kärrner sent him a box of cigars today. Cuban, forty euros a pop. Discreetly delivered to his house. Yesterday a crate of champagne. From Kärrner personally – officially it mustn’t come via the firm. Sensenbrink is already looking forward to what will arrive tomorrow. It could all be so fantastic if he weren’t obliged to keep his mouth shut.

  Otherwise it could get really expensive.

  Sure, live broadcasts can go differently from how you’ve planned them. Airtime can be cancelled or postponed at a moment’s notice. And all this means, of course, that the programmes can go surprisingly differently too.

  The key word being surprisingly.

  Because the element of surprise could be called into question, given that MyTV just happened to be there with fourteen drones and eight camera teams at the beginning. Yes, that’s normal for the broadcaster’s biggest show. But what does it look like if you’ve been selling advertising space for three months of Turkey for weeks, even though you knew the buses would dramatically reduce this time frame? If it were to get out that you’d sold your customers a product you knew wouldn’t exist?

  That doesn’t sound good. Yes, you can argue over whether it can be proved, or whether legal action could be taken, but these people don’t like being fucked over. These people with their budgets running to tens or hundreds of millions. And so for the past few days Sensenbrink has had to go around as if he’d been taken completely by surprise. The official line can’t then be: “What are we going to do with all this money?” but “Oh dear, how do I scale down the advertising slots? Woe is me, what am I going to tell our clients?”

  And if someone asks, the answer has to be: “We just got lucky. It’s luck and the fact that we’ve got a great bunch of people working here.” No fucker’s going to be taken in by that, but still.

  At some point, in maybe twenty years, when no cocks are twitching for Nadeche Hackenbusch anymore, he’ll be able to tell his grandchildren and everyone else how superbly he handled the whole affair. They’ll all yawn: “Grandad Sensenbrink is going on about the war again.”

  What else is there?

  Champagne, which he’s only allowed to drink discreetly.

  Cigars, which he’s only allowed to smoke at home.

  Two graphics, secretly laminated and shamefully stowed away like porn.

  Sensenbrink picks up the graphics and holds them out in front of him. Just the thought of A.R.D. heading south! He smiles.

  Cool.

  49

  “Are you serious?” Kaspers looks at the minister of the interior in disbelief. “Have you actually had a wink of sleep?”

  “No,” the minister says. “But that’s got nothing to do with it. It’s the only practical solution.”

  The meeting is smaller than last time. Berthold, Kaspers and Gödeke are there. Migration, international affairs and the foreign intelligence service are not. There’ll be enough whining as it is.

  “You know this has been carried out twice in our history already?” Kaspers opens fire. “By the East Germans and by the Nazis! I don’t imagine anyone here would consider either role models.”

  “By the East Germans, the Nazis, and livestock holders.” Gödeke’s parents are farmers in Lower Saxony.

  The minister puts both index fingers in the air. “Before we get carried away – the task at hand dictates the possible solutions. We have about forty-eight hours to send a clear message to Bulgaria and the other countries along the Balkan route, before they have to decide what to do with these refugees. Are we all in agreement so far?”

  The trio of officials nod. Kaspers waggles his hands, then raises his palms upwards, as if to say, come on, show us what you’ve got.

  “Good. A clear message, delivered swiftly,” the minister summarises. “I see three options. One, we build a huge concrete wall. But that’s not feasible, everyone knows we’d get only a couple of hundred metres up in ten days. Two, we build a fence of steel or wire, behind which we position border guards with machine guns, instructed to shoot to kill. But let’s be honest, who’s going to believe we would mow down hundreds of thousands like at Verdun way back when?”

  “Well,” Gödeke says, “they don’t have to be armed with machine guns—”

  “Oh yes, they do. If you try sending the same message with tear gas and water cannon, you might as well give up. I saw the refugees’ faces at the Turkish border. They’re not going to be stopped by a bit of tear gas. And they’re not going to turn around either – they’re smart enough to exert enough pressure from behind so that those in front can go in only one direction.”

  “That remains to be seen . . .” Berthold says.

  “No, it doesn’t. If we want the others to make their borders as secure as ours, they can’t think, let’s wait and see. They have to think, ouch, these guys mean business.”

  “But high-voltage current . . .” Kaspers shakes his head.

  “Nothing’s off the table here,” the minister emphasises. “Whoever’s got a better idea, should come out with it.” Placing his hands on the desk he pushes himself up and bellows, “In fact you could have come out with it a while ago!” He sits down and takes a sip of water in the silence. “I do apologise for my tone just then.” He can feel his shoulders and neck beginning to stiffen. “Back to businesss. There are many things in favour of using high-voltage. First, it’s simple to put into operation. A wire fence is quick to erect, but it’s just a wire fence, even if it’s got barbed wire. A wire fence with a high-voltage current is just as quick to erect, but everyone knows it’s lethal. It’s very practical and therefore feasible. Second, it works automatically and it’s unlimited. If somebody touches the fence the body conducts the electricity. Which means there’s no reloading and, most importantly, no human factor. We don’t have to expect our border guards to undertake mass killings. Third, the whole thing is ethically justifiable. It is, after all, our border. Nobody is forcing the refugees to touch it. If they want to go to their deaths, then so be it. That is their decision.”

  “Exactly,” Kaspers says. “Like those people in the concentration camps.”

  The minister give
s him a dark look. “I . . .” It costs him the rest of his virtually non-existent composure to assume an unruffled tone. “I want constructive suggestions here, not scepticism.” He looks at the three in turn. “But before we go on, there’s something else I want to say in this regard, once and for all. Because we’re going to have to defend our decision, so I need to supply you with some arguments. We shouldn’t forget that if these people really do end up at our fence, it’s not because they’re fleeing death or torture. It’s because they’re fleeing Austria!”

  This calms the atmosphere at the table. They nod hesitantly – you certainly could look at it like that. Then Gödeke speaks.

  “But you do know that’s not quite so practical, don’t you?”

  “Why not?”

  Gödeke tries to avoid another dressing-down. “If I’ve understood right, this is a brainstorming session where everything’s on the table, yes? I mean, I don’t want to get it in the neck from anyone afterwards.”

  “It’s fine,” the minister sighs, “just fire away. What’s said in this room stays in this room.”

  “Good. Let me start by saying that I’m not a physicist or an electrical engineer or anything. But I do know some of the basics. If I’m not mistaken, electricity doesn’t work in quite the same way as a magnet, where you can connect as many bits of metal to it as you like – and they’re all magnetised.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “What I’m saying is that the human body possesses a certain resistance. It absorbs energy as it flows through. And so when you’ve got fifty, one hundred, God knows how many people hanging onto the fence—”

  “—which all of us, please note, hope won’t happen . . .” the minister says quickly, partly for Kaspers’ sake.

  “. . . which all of us hope won’t happen, yes,” Gödeke continues, “then at some point scrambling over it becomes about as lethal as the battery in your torch.”

  “Especially because fifty, one hundred, I’ve no idea how many people, have a certain weight too,” Berthold adds. “And the moment the power is interrupted, there’s no more current, and then our fence is just like any other.”

  The minister shrugs his tense shoulders and grimaces. “German engineers are capable of anything,” he says.

  “What?”

  “The question is not what is possible and how,” he reminds his colleagues. “The far more important question is what people believe we are capable of. Will we shoot people dead by the thousands? Or will we get a decent electrical installation?”

  “Are you saying . . .”

  The demoralised minister rubs the back of neck. “What I’m saying is that you’re not the only one who isn’t an electrician. I’m not one either. And nor are the Bulgarians. To be absolutely clear, it has to function technically, it’s not a pretty solution, and we’re in exceptional circumstances. But the key thing is we have a story that keeps the pressure at bay for a couple of days to a couple of weeks. That’s just as important as a high-voltage fence working . . . in fact, more important than it working is that the other E.U. Member States believe it works. Don’t forget, if the Bulgarians stop the refugees at the external border, if this whole thing grinds to a halt at their border, then we don’t need to test our fence at all. Then the Turks will have lost and they’ll have to build another refugee camp. Hard cheese!”

  “A smokescreen,” Kaspers says.

  “Remarkable,” Berthold says, approvingly. “A Potemkin fence.”

  “Oh no,” the minister sticks his oar in. “Just so there’s no misunderstanding: the fence has to work.”

  “The public reaction will be devastating,” Kaspers says superfluously. Despite his exhaustion, the minister can hear agreement in his voice. Kaspers won’t be pleased by the reaction, but he regards it as an acceptable price to pay in the circumstances.

  “Maybe not just devastating,” Gödeke says. “It’s so unusual and so drastic that we should at least get the approval of the entire conservative right.”

  “Pegida down by 10 per cent would be quite something,” Berthold remarks.

  “It’ll be better than that,” Gödeke says. “20 per cent, maybe 25. A government that commands the trust of the population—”

  “The reactionary section of the population,” Kaspers notes with caution.

  “Possibly,” the minister says. “But that doesn’t make us a reactionary government.” He takes out his mobile, signalling the end of the meeting. Then he says to Kaspers, “Could you please turn the television on? MyTV.”

  Kaspers presses a couple of buttons on the remote control. The minister glances briefly at the screen, then races out of the room into his office.

  “What now?” Berthold asks.

  Kaspers bends to the screen and raps his knuckle on the kilometre counter, as if it were broken.

  Berthold whistles through his teeth in shock. “Those arseholes haven’t even stopped for a break. They’re going non-stop. It won’t be long to the Bulgarian border now.”

  “Shit!” Gödeke says. “Look at the writing on those signs. It’s in Cyrillic!”

  50

  Saba isn’t saying anything.

  Nor is Nadeche. She wishes she had something to do right now. The T.V. crew got out an hour ago. They’ve been broadcasting thirty-six hours on the trot and now they’re trying to edit a feature to send from the mobile unit to the broadcaster. Or they’ve fallen asleep. She’s sitting beside a woman who’s snoring like two men, and who has a small boy on her lap. Nadeche regrets offering her the seat. Two seats – what a luxury that would be now! They’d kept the double seat free for Malaika, but Nadeche refused special treatment, insisting that the woman take it. How else could she have reacted? It’s incredible how jam-packed the buses are. This has nothing to do with the Turks, but with the euphoria of the refugees when they caught sight of their transport.

  “If we don’t have to walk, we don’t mind it being a bit more of a squeeze.”

  An adult on every seat and a child on most adults. And the aisles full of people. The smell must be appalling. Nadeche doesn’t notice it anymore, but the way her skin feels, the way everything sticks to everything else in this bus – and everyone to everyone else – is revolting. Even Saba stinks a little, sitting there on her lap, and Saba usually doesn’t stink at all. But her smell is not half as bad as her silence.

  Nadeche runs a sticky hand through Saba’s sticky hair. She doesn’t know what to do. If they were in her car she could drive for a bit, just to pass the time, but the car was given the elbow. By Lionel. And now that everyone’s on a bus, she can’t do much to help anymore. Distributing water, aspirins – all that’s done at the service stations by the army.

  Nadeche takes a filthy scrap of material from her filthy trouser pocket. Carefully, because there’s not much water left in the bottle, she moistens it and wipes Saba’s brow. Then she makes her a hippie headband with the material. She can see why people used to think hippies looked like tramps, but it does keep the forehead cool.

  Saba doesn’t react, she just lets all this happen. She stares out of the window. Then she says, “You didn’t know either, did you?”

  “No,” Nadeche said.

  Saba turns and looks at her. “What about him?”

  “He didn’t either.”

  “But he must have known! And you too!”

  “He doesn’t tell me everything. I’m sure he knew more than I did, but he didn’t know that.”

  Saba turns back to the window.

  “He couldn’t have known, sweetheart! Nobody did. Not even the Turks. The plan was different.

  The little hippie doesn’t react. It’s hard to tell whether Saba doesn’t believe her, or whether Nadeche just isn’t getting through to her. In desperation she gives Saba a squeeze.

  “He told me himself. The plan was actually very different.”

  The plan was that the column of refugees should board the buses in the same order in which they’d been walking. Every day one sec
tion of fifteen kilometres would board. And the buses would wait until a large convoy was ready. The Turks thwarted this plan. They made some calculations and showed Lionel how it would only lead to a huge traffic jam. When a convoy comes to a halt it takes an eternity for it to get moving again. Because the buses can’t all drive off at the same time like coaches on a train. The one at the front has to set off first, and only then can the second one go, then the third – this all adds up. With ten buses, if everything goes smoothly, it’ll take four minutes. With a hundred buses it’s forty minutes. And with a thousand it’s more than six hours. So for the entire process to be quick, each bus needs to leave immediately and then keep going, on and on and on. Two drivers per bus, fixed fuel stops, fixed toilet stops, fixed water stops and nothing in between. But even the Turks thought they would board the buses in phases. They thought they could use the intervening time to drive the next buses over to the car park.

  But the refugees didn’t see it that way.

  The little hippie lets out a sob. Nadeche can feel her shoulder becoming damp.

  She can understand them. After a year and a half ’s trek, and seeing the people ahead of them board a bus, no-one’s going to lie down after kilometre number fifteen and wait till the next day. So what do they do? They walk one more kilometre, which means they’ve done sixteen that day – it’s not so much. And the ones behind realise they haven’t stopped as they usually would. So they walk on as well, because it’s only another two kilometres – it’s a piece of cake after the distance they’ve already covered. And it goes on like this because word gets around that there are buses waiting. Which everyone automatically translates as: if we lie down now and go to sleep, the buses might all be gone tomorrow. So they up their pace. Not only that, the further back you are, the more kilometres you have to add on to your normal daily march.