The Capital

by Robert Menasse

  Yes.

  All the best!

  You too!

  How crazy it was, totally crazy, that Fenia was now sitting at her desk, unable to work because she was waiting longingly, as longingly as a lover, for Fridsch’s call. He’d come back from his trip to Doha the day before, and that morning had been in a meeting with Queneau at which he was going to drop Fenia’s request casually into the conversation, to sound out the chances of extricating her from Culture. He had promised to call straight afterwards. She sat there, staring at the telephone. She picked up the receiver and put it back. No, she wasn’t going to call him – he should ring her. She picked up her smartphone to check for messages or missed calls, but no. Fenia put it beside the keyboard, checked her e-mails, forty-seven unread messages, but none of them from him, she picked up her smartphone again, yes, of course the reception was good, she put it back on the desk. She felt a puzzling indifference to whatever Fridsch might report back from the meeting, whether or not Queneau had given any hint of a willingness to support her wish to move, in the spirit of mobility – she just wanted to hear Fridsch’s voice. Irrespective of what he had to say. Just his voice. She felt like . . . well, how did she feel? It was madness: she was longing to hear his voice.

  Martin Susman arrived at the Ark at 8.00 a.m. The aroma of freshly baked croissants wafted into the foyer. Normally he was unable to resist it, but today it reminded him of a chemical factory; this he took as a sign that he wasn’t well. By the lift he met two young men from the Ukraine Task Force working on the sixth floor. Bohumil Szmekal had christened them “the salamanders”, an expression which had now become common currency in the Ark. This allowed them to talk disparagingly or ironically about “the salamanders” even if they were sitting at a neighbouring table in the canteen. This is the new generation here, Bohumil had said, they’re not Europeans, just careerists in European institutions. They’re like salamanders: you can toss them on the fire but they don’t burn. Their chief characteristic is their indestructability.

  These were young men in smart, skinny-fit suits with large tie knots and pomaded hair, offering even at a visual level the sharpest contrast to the staff in Culture. They were smooth, flexible and emphatically polite in a way that Kassándra called “devastating” – five minutes of small talk with the salamanders and I’m feeling depressed!

  What is your task? Bohumil had asked a salamander when the Ukraine Task Force was housed here above their heads. He learned that it was their job to develop aid programmes for Ukraine to support the democratic movement following the Maidan Revolution. The challenge they faced was to allocate money they didn’t have. They hadn’t been given a new budget of their own, so their task was one of classic repackaging – if you don’t have anything new, you repackage something old. And thus they repackaged old, long-existing aid programmes with new titles and new conditions in new combinations to make new aid packages, generating new conflicts of resource allocation with old budgets that gave rise to new statistics in which new percentages and graphic curves showed new dynamics. This assignment was the ideal baptism of fire for these young careerists: ultimately there was nothing to be gained save their own survival in the present circumstances, or the continuation of old arrangements with improved prospects for the future.

  Martin Susman’s mood was not improved by the fact that he was now waiting for the lift with the two salamanders.

  How was he? The right answer was “Excellent!”, of course, but feeling obstreperous Martin said “Crap!” and added, I’ve got a bad cold!

  Oh, I’m very sorry!

  Very sorry! the second salamander echoed.

  And now Martin went the whole hog: It was sodding cold in Ukraine!

  Oh, you were in Ukraine?

  Yes, I was! And it’s no surprise my immune system has collapsed! The people there are so frustrated, so disappointed in us, in the E.U. They feel they’ve been left in the lurch and . . .

  The salamanders beamed: Oh yes, we know all about it, you’re absolutely right, we . . .

  Absolutely right!

  We know, we have to . . .

  The lift arrived, the door opened.

  Third floor?

  Yes, Martin said.

  The salamander pressed 3 and 6, and said, We have to improve our communication. You’re absolutely right! That’s why we’re now concentrating our efforts on communication!

  The Commission needs to market itself better and we . . .

  The lift stopped, the door opened. Market itself! If only they knew what they were saying! Martin thought. Goodbye!

  Have a nice day!

  Have a nice day and get better soon!

  The lift door slid closed behind Martin, he took a deep breath – through his mouth; his nose was blocked. He’d arrived at work too early again, but on the other hand he urgently had to finish his paper on the Jubilee Project so he could e-mail it to Xeno. He could have done this from home too, but knowing her as he did, she would at once summon him into the conference room to discuss the paper with other colleagues from the department. So he had to be there and be ready.

  He walked past her office, the door was closed. He walked past Bohumil’s office, the door was open and Bohumil was standing on a stepladder in the middle of the room. When he saw Martin he called out, Ahoj!

  Ahoj!

  Martin’s mind was so sluggish that it wasn’t until he was in his own office that it occurred to him he ought to have asked Bohumil what he was doing on the ladder. For about an hour that seemed like an eternity he cleaned up his bullet points before sending them to Xeno. Then he worked his way through his e-mails. Most answered themselves or had been resolved during his sick leave. There was a message from Florian: “Dear brother, you parasite! Next week I’m flying to Beijing as part of a business delegation with His Highness the Austrian president and the pres. of the Austrian chamber of commerce. As things look now, according to info from the Aus. trade delegates in Beijing, the forthcoming negotiations will be a success . . . which would be a disaster. The pres. is clueless, the treaty he’s going to sign will leave us open to blackmail. I’m wondering who the bastards are in all this . . . You really have to . . .” Martin Susman stood up and stretched. He wanted a cigarette, he was desperate for a smoke. He must be feeling better. Still no response from Xeno. He peered over to Bohumil’s office but there was no sign of him, nor of the ladder. Martin stepped onto the fire escape and froze as he smoked two cigarettes, then went back into his office. He wrote a report of his official trip, calculated his expenses and took care of some admin – filled out some tables, in other words. Then he worked through some enquiries from students. There were two looking for internships, and he passed those requests on. One student was doing a Ph.D. in European Studies at the University of Passau, focusing on European cultural policy, based on a quotation by Jean Monnet: “If I were to do it again from scratch, I would start with culture.” Martin Susman had no idea why, but he got about two e-mails like this each week. The student was asking for the European Commission’s Directorate-General of Culture to give their position on this quotation. The answer was straightforward: there was no proof that Monnet actually uttered these words or published them anywhere. And even if he had, without further elucidation it was not at all clear what he meant specifically by “start with culture”. Be sure to sing “Ode to Joy” before establishing the European Coal and Steel Community? Culture was inherently universal, it had always generated solidarity and affinity between people, a unity which ultimately must be realised at the political level too. And the exchange of regional culture, which had proved to be eminently important for Europe’s integration, had only increased in intensity thanks to the political accomplishments of the European project: the elimination of borders, freedom of movement and settlement, and free trade in a common market.

  He paused. Were these clichés? On the other hand, was there any single truth that could be repeated a hundred times over without becoming a cliché? His blocked nose was b
othering him, he was anxious that his cold might develop into sinusitis, he felt a worrying throbbing in his forehead. Why was he taking so long over this e-mail to the student? His paper for the Jubilee Project – what he had written for that was anything but cliché. Still no answer from Xeno though, which surprised him. He checked the time. One o’clock. And Xeno wasn’t responding. Why wasn’t she responding?

  He went out of his office, out of his work cell. In the corridor he bumped into Bohumil.

  Are you sick?

  Yes.

  Lovesick?

  What makes you think that?

  The way you look: totally confused.

  David de Vriend stood in the middle of his room and wondered what he was doing there. He’d been about to do something . . . but what? No, he wasn’t going to ask himself that question now. He looked around as if trying to find something to do or – he noticed the telephone – as if he were waiting for something, yes, as if he were waiting for a call. He sat in his armchair, his gaze fixed on the telephone. Forgotten! He felt as if he’d been forgotten, completely forgotten by everyone and even by death. But who was left to remember him?

  The January light, a silvery-grey surface in the window frame, like the door to a locker or a safe. The keys lost, the combination forgotten. Or the iron door to a bunker, beyond it the dark tunnel leading to death.

  He stood up again and went to the window. Down below was the cemetery. Who should remember him? They were all lying there, beneath the stones under the grey mist.

  No, not all of them.

  He had become a solitary figure as those closest to him died, one by one. Their children had already struck out on their own paths that led them far away into a world with greater happiness or a quite different sort of unhappiness. Towards the end of his time in Sainte-Catherine he had still been greeted occasionally in the street – who was that? A former pupil, he’s going grey himself now! And an astonished de Vriend had returned the greeting. That’s all. Now he sat alone in the Maison Hanssens retirement home and was supposed to share common areas with people of his generation, but they had never been his contemporaries because they hadn’t been obliged to share his experiences. Their misfortune was old age, his was life. No, there was nothing to share apart from odours, the odours of the mothballs that protected their clothes, of urine, sweat, decaying body cells. Only tears have no smell. He had wanted to forget, but this had only resulted in himself being forgotten.

  He sat at the table and spotted a biro. He got to his feet again, his notepad must be lying around somewhere. Where was his notepad? A few days ago a doctor had been to see him, a psychologist from the municipal authority responsible for the old people’s home. She had come for a so-called “accommodation chat” – a what? A chat about his care. She had brought a large notepad. As she explained, she had come to ease his passage into his twilight years and to provide assistance in structuring those twilight years, but most of all to dispel any worries he might have about his twilight years – she kept saying twilight years until David de Vriend interrupted her: it would be just as illusory, but a little nicer somehow if she could just call it “the next stage of his life” rather than “his twilight years”. He was well aware that it was the last, but even so, it might bring some sunny days rather than merely exist as a perpetual dusk. The psychologist endeavoured to be empathetic. What de Vriend found especially intolerable was that this slender woman had shaved her head – why? Was this the fashion these days? Recently he’d been seeing more and more bald heads on the streets, young people with no hair and tattoos. Did they know what they were doing, what they were expressing, what associations they were evoking? He had wanted to forget the shorn heads and skeletons, and now they sent this woman to him. It made him aggressive. Go! You’re insulting me – and he became melodramatic: You’re insulting the world’s memory!

  The psychologist was empathetic. She probed further and eventually explained that she had just finished a course of chemotherapy. For breast cancer. But she was keen to keep working because . . .

  De Vriend felt ashamed. And said nothing. He said nothing and allowed her to talk, no more misplaced accusations, the occasional nod, and he nodded when she took this notepad from her bag, placed it on the table and said, I brought this for you. Some advice: jot down your thoughts and plans. Believe me, I know what it’s like. You have an idea and then you forget it. But if you write it down straight away you can always check. Have I done what I said I was going to do? Getting used to writing everything down is good practice against forgetfulness.

  Where was the notepad? There, next to the bed.

  He sat at the table and picked up the biro. It was a large pad, at the top was a strip of cardboard from which you could detach the sheets of paper. On this strip, beside the crest of the Brussels region, it read: “Bruxelles ne vous oublie pas! / Brussel zal u niet te vergeten!”

  He wanted to draw up a list, write down the names of all those who had survived alongside him and who he knew to be still alive; he hadn’t received notification of their deaths, at least. Why? He had memories, they thrust themselves forwards. Names would flash up in his mind, he saw faces, heard voices, peered into dark eyes, saw gestures and movements, and he felt the hunger, this chaff cutter of life that devours the body fat, then pulps the muscles and then the soul, which you first discover – if at all – when hunger becomes a metaphor: the hunger for life. He felt this hunger now, not as intensely, but he felt it all the same and he wanted to draw up the list, write down the names of those with whom he had shared the hunger and . . . he looked up. Hunger was the wrong word, hunger described the feeling of the well-nourished when they skipped a meal. It had nothing to do with the hunger he had survived. It was purely by chance that those who had simply lived and those who had survived spoke the same language, giving rise to a perpetual misunderstanding when they used the same terms.

  He was going to write “Survivors”. That’s what he wanted to call his list, it was his idea. Who still alive spoke the same language as he did? The telephone rang. He paused, then began to write, but the telephone irritated him so he put down the biro and picked up the receiver.

  It was Joséphine. Why hadn’t he come to lunch? Had he forgotten it was lunchtime? We have to eat something, don’t we, Monsieur de Vriend? She was bellowing down the phone. We don’t want to go hungry, do we?

  He was the only mobile resident who hadn’t appeared in the dining room and —

  The only what?

  There’s fish with rice and vegetables. It’s wholesome and healthy, and —

  Yes, yes, I forgot the time. I’ll be down shortly.

  David de Vriend put on a tie and jacket and took the lift down to the dining room. He looked about to see whether there was anywhere he could sit on his own. No. Joséphine hurried over and took him to a table. She said how pleased she was that he’d come; she’d been worried about him. We don’t want you feeling faint all of a sudden, do we, Monsieur de Vriend?

  At the table sat two men and a woman and Joséphine introduced them: a retired judge, an emeritus professor of history and a former registrar, all three of them widowed. They were very friendly and de Vriend found them immediately repellent. They were so – de Vriend searched for a word – so . . . entrenched in this life. All had been here for some years, they knew the system, the structures, the customs, they had their contacts with the management and staff, they knew their way around and had made themselves at home. What was more, they could be of assistance to a new arrival, but they could also make life difficult for him. This became clear after a few minutes. Then came the question: So, what did you do in life?

  De Vriend understood of course that all they wanted to know was his profession, but he choked on his soup and started coughing, now his fish was arriving and his fellow diners were already on their pudding: crème de lait. De Vriend pushed away the soup and began to eat the fish, he ate quickly, not to catch up with the others, but because he wanted to get this meal over with as qui
ckly as possible and leave. He wolfed down the fish and felt a bone slip down his windpipe and stick there. He took a few deep breaths to try to loosen it, but only felt it dig in more tenaciously, he panicked, he panted, clearing his throat and taking deep breaths, then exhaling forcefully. He leaped up, bent over, tried in turn to swallow the bone or bring it up, but it was stuck fast in his windpipe, choking him. He hit his chest, blew out as hard as he could, everything went red and he screamed. First a croaky Aaaaa that gradually got louder, then a curse, the professor and the registrar jumped to their feet, people at other tables were gaping in horror, Joséphine came running. The professor slapped him on the back and said, Breathe! He kept saying, Breathe! Breathe! The registrar tried to give him a glass of water, Joséphine stood behind him, threw her arms around his chest, pressed and shook him, but he pushed her away with his elbows and wheezed.

  The registrar tried to get her fingers into his mouth, de Vriend swatted her away, she toppled and fell onto a chair.

  He was screaming hysterically, this couldn’t be happening, he had survived concentration camp and now he was choking to death on a fish bone . . . until all of a sudden he stopped because now he could only feel a slight irritation, he couldn’t even say whether the bone was, in fact, still stuck in his gullet. Saliva oozed from his mouth, he sat down, took some deep breaths and said, It’s fine. It’s fine.

  Everything O.K.?

  Yes.

  Are you sure?

  Yes.

  Do you need a doctor?

  No.

  A few moments later de Vriend apologised and went back to his room.

  He lay on the bed, but felt so anxious that he had to get up again and sat at the table. There was the notepad, on it in his handwriting: “Survive”. He had intended to write “Survivors” and draw up his list, but then the telephone had rung . . . Why “Survive”? He lit a cigarette and closed his eyes.