The Capital

by Robert Menasse

  Now he was in the resistance. So long as he didn’t keel over. La loi, la liberté!

  He walked slowly into the city centre with time to kill. It was an hour until he was due to meet his friend, Philippe Gaultier, in Restaurant Ogenblik in the Galeries Royales by Grande Place.

  He bought some chocolates at Neuhaus . . .

  These ones here, please, a small box of nine!

  Nine of “le désir”? D’accord. Would you like them gift-wrapped?

  Yes, please.

  The lady is going to love these. I think “le désir” is our best chocolate!

  Which lady? I’m giving them to myself.

  Oh.

  Brunfaut looked at the sales assistant and suddenly felt sorry for her. And sorry for himself. He had shattered an idyllic vision, even if merely the fiction of a sales scenario. Why was he so careless? It was something he couldn’t allow himself any longer: carelessness. He paid, took the artistically wrapped little box and said, I’ve changed my mind. I do want to give these chocolates to a woman after all – a woman whose smile enchanted me today.

  And he handed the box to the sales assistant.

  He ran out.

  Everything is fine, he thought with exclamation and question marks, so long as shame burns brighter than the fear of death.

  Now he was at L’Ogenblik only a quarter of an hour too early. He drank a glass of champagne while waiting for Philippe.

  Philippe was head of the Brussels police I.T. centre, fifteen years younger than Brunfaut and, despite the age difference, his best friend. The men were united not least by the fact that both were “wearers of the wet scarf”, the name they gave themselves as R.S.C. Anderlecht fans who barely missed a home fixture. So many tears had been shed into their football scarves that they would never be dry again. As they discovered over a beer after work one evening, both were of the conviction that following the bribery scandal – prior to the U.E.F.A. Cup semi-final return leg against Nottingham Forest, the referee had been offered 27,000 pounds sterling – a signal ought to have been given, a signal for a new beginning. Even a merely symbolic one would have sufficed, a minor alteration to the club’s name to emphasise that from this point onwards it was starting afresh and no longer had anything to do with bribery and corruption. R.S.C. Anderlecht – what sort of name change? Lose the “R”, Émile Brunfaut had said, just to give a signal.

  But why the “R”?

  Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté! What can we do without? Le Roi!

  They laughed. Before long they also discovered that they held similar political views on the Belgian system, this torn-apart country that shouldn’t be hopelessly stitched together by a king, but by the common legal entity of a republic. But both men had applauded the king’s decision not to appoint a government at the time Belgium held the E.U. presidency, to prevent necessary European policy decisions from being blocked by domestic coalition squabbles. Never, Philippe said, had Belgium functioned more smoothly than during this period without a government.

  They made their pilgrimage to the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium in Anderlecht, wept into their scarves and ribbed each other. Philippe went on and on about how he’d seen Franky Vercauteren play, how the team could do with someone like that now, a brilliant finisher. Oh, you haven’t got a clue, Émile had said, he – several years older – had seen Paul van Himst. Vercauteren was a lame duck compared to van Himst.

  Did everything use to be better? Nothing was better, it was just that everything was so different.

  Yes, of course! Different! But wasn’t it better too? Anderlecht used to be a Jewish district. It was the secret centre of Brussels because of the club and the cafés and shops. Now it’s a Muslim district, the Jews are gone and nobody that I know would ever think of coming here to a café, especially not with a woman – they’re not even allowed to go into cafés in Muslim areas.

  You know Gerrit Beers from C.S.I., don’t you? He’s moved to Anderlecht, he says the apartments are cheaper there, everything’s more easy-going and he’s a smoker. Nobody gives a toss about the smoking ban here. He can get a first-rate coffee and the men with their shishas don’t mind if he lights a cigarette.

  Like in Molenbeek.

  Yes. Times change. And when the club vacates the ground here and moves to the new King Badouin Stadium, it’ll still be called Anderlecht, but it won’t be playing in Anderlecht anymore. And you’re saying everything used to be better. And today you’re complaining that Anderlecht isn’t what it was twenty years ago.

  Come on, they weren’t that bad today. 2–1 against Leuven isn’t the worst.

  Three years earlier Philippe had asked Émile to be his best man. One year later Philippe became a father and Émile the god-father of little Joëlle. Now he was more than a friend – he was family.

  Émile Brunfaut finished his glass of champagne and ordered another. Philippe was just the person he needed right now: a brilliant computer scientist as well as a thoroughly trustworthy and loyal friend. He hoped. No, he was sure of it.

  His second glass arrived, he took a sip and then Philippe was standing beside him. The rest of one’s life begins with champagne and ends with herbal tea! his friend said. So? How did it go at the doctor’s?

  They embraced and Philippe sat down.

  And I’d also like to know if you’ve arrested and convicted it yet.

  It? What? Who?

  The pig, of course. Haven’t you seen the papers?

  Oh, the pig. I have a lead. We’ve secured some genetic material. Tomorrow you’re going to have to compare its D.N.A. with that of every pig registered in the Europol database.

  Philippe laughed. You know I’m always at your disposal.

  That’s precisely what I wanted to talk to you about.

  They talked and ate and drank. The food used to be better, don’t you think? Yes. But nothing’s changed here at all. Apart from the food, that is. How so? We ate the roast lamb here ten years ago. Yes, but it used to be better. Well, perhaps, but apart from that . . . anyway nothing else has changed. Maybe I ought to have gone for the grilled sea bass with asparagus risotto. Asparagus in winter? It’s from Thailand, says so on the menu. Asparagus from Thailand? Stop it! We’ve always eaten the lamb here, it’s fine. I don’t know, it tastes of corpse, it never occurred to me before that roast lamb was a corpse. Oh, come on, what’s wrong with you? It’s O.K. Yes, it’s O.K.

  Brunfaut said that the doctor had referred him to Europe Hospital, and that they were checking him out tomorrow.

  Did he give any indications?

  No. All he said was that it needed more detailed examination.

  He just wants to be certain. It’s a good thing. Then at least you’ll have clarity. So I wouldn’t worry.

  Yes, maybe. Maybe you’re right. In any case, I’m not out of action.

  Meaning?

  You know I was relieved of the Atlas case and given enforced leave?

  Yes.

  Do you know why?

  I thought that’s what you were going to tell me.

  But I don’t know.

  You don’t know? They didn’t explain why?

  No.

  I need another glass of wine.

  Listen, Philippe, all the data relating to the Atlas case have been deleted. I was at the crime scene, C.S.I. were there, I did the initial questioning – none of that exists anymore. All the files, protocols and documents have vanished without trace, the murder has vanished as if the corpse I saw with my own eyes never existed. When I got back to my computer, everything had gone, as if it had been hoovered up. Someone hacked in, probably not just into my computer, but into the entire system. And the public prosecutor is playing along. I’d like to know why.

  I don’t blame you.

  You’ve got to help me.

  The waiter cleared the table, Philippe clicked his fingers and pointed to where Émile’s plate had been, saying, The corpse has disappeared!

  Don’t joke! I’m sorry about what I said earlier. But I�
�m being quite serious: the case has disappeared into thin air, and if there’s anyone who might be able to trace how that happened and who did it, then it’s you. You head up I.T., you’re in charge of the police’s entire computer system. You have to find the loophole.

  How could I justify doing that? I can’t officially embark on a search like that without a valid reason. Especially if it’s against the public prosecutor’s orders.

  Do you know what the public prosecutor’s orders are? No. So there. You don’t need a reason, you just need to do it.

  It’s too complicated to explain how access to the central repository works, how many security mechanisms are built in and how much paperwork is needed to take even just two of maybe twenty steps.

  You don’t have to do it officially, I mean, my question is not whether you think you’d get authorisation, but whether you could do it.

  It would be against the law.

  Listen, Philippe, a murder is a criminal offence that the public prosecutor’s office is legally obliged to prosecute. If the public prosecutor’s office fails to do this, however, and instead covers up the crime, then the law has been broken by the state itself, and those who employ illegal means to solve the crime are the champions of the law. If you help me and we’re successful, then we will be the ones who have complied with the law.

  Alright then. I’ll start off by trying it from your login. Give me your password. If anything gets out, then you’ve been playing around with your computer on leave, O.K.?

  O.K.

  Mousse au chocolat?

  Definitely. Why change the habits of a lifetime, today of all days? How’s Joëlle?

  Matek knew there was no chance of going underground without trace. By now they would know that he hadn’t boarded the plane for Istanbul. They would surely consider the possibility that he had flown to Poland, even though they’d cancelled his ticket, and for them it was child’s play to find him on the passenger list for a flight to Kraków. So when he arrived in Kraków he could assume that they were only one step behind him.

  He had already learned this during his basic training, as Żołnierz Chrystusa: don’t try to cover your tracks – it’s impossible. Don’t try to cover your tracks – nothing gives your pursuer more confidence than coming across traces you have tried to efface. So if you can’t avoid leaving them, produce more of them! Lots of traces, conflicting traces! While they’re being weighed up, you’ll get a head start. And if they have to come back on themselves having been on the wrong track, you’ll have increased your head start.

  Of course he knew that they knew that he knew this, but they would still have to follow up the traces he produced, whether they were suspicious of them or not.

  He calculated that it would take him three days to find out what had gone wrong in Brussels, and why they then wanted to send him to Istanbul, contrary to the original plan. Three days’ head start – that was feasible, that was routine, and then he’d consider his next steps.

  When he arrived at Kraków airport he went to the information desk and had them put out an announcement for him. Would Mateusz Oświecki please go to the Kraków Pastuszak express shuttle counter. Mateusz Oświecki! Your driver is waiting for you at the Pastuszak express shuttle counter!

  He knew that passenger announcements called over the P.A. system were stored for forty-eight hours. He went to the shuttle service counter. He had booked his transfer into the city online from Brussels airport. If they hacked into his mailbox they would have only two clues. He paid by credit card. Clue three. He was driven to Hotel Europejski, ulica Lubicz.

  By tomorrow lunchtime they would know what he would not have been able to keep hidden: that he had arrived in Kraków. The following day they would know where in Kraków he had gone. By handing them the address on a silver platter he would be able to put them on the wrong track and have them chasing their tails for the three days he needed. He checked into the hotel and asked the receptionist to find out when the first train to Warsaw left in the morning. She tapped away at her computer, shook her head and said, Do you really want the first train? It leaves at 4.52 and —

  That’s far too early!

  The next one leaves at 5.41, arriving at —

  The one after that, please!

  Then there are trains at 6.31 and 7.47 and —

  The 6.31! When does that get in?

  At 8.54, and the 7.47 gets in at 10.00.

  That’s too late. 8.54 would be perfect. Tell me again, it’s at 6 . . .?

  Six thirty-one. From Kraków Główny.

  Excellent. Could you please purchase an online ticket for me and print it out? Here’s my credit card. And I’ll pay for my room up front too. That’ll save me time in the morning.

  Bardzo zadowolony, panie Oświecki.

  Matek took his rucksack up to the room and wrote a letter on the hotel’s writing paper, which he put in an envelope along with his credit card. He stuck down the envelope, addressed it, and left the hotel. Tomorrow afternoon they would have six clues that pieced together logically that he had arrived in Kraków and gone on to Warsaw the very next morning. But he would stay in Kraków. Until they realised this, he would have some time.

  He walked to Starowiślna, where he remembered there was one of those dodgy shops that sold used mobiles. The shop still existed. He bought a primitive old Nokia and a 100-zloty prepaid card. Matek watched the boy force open the phone with a bent paperclip and insert the card, he watched him as if he were an odious and yet pitiable animal in a terrarium. Everything about this boy was a cry for help as well as a demonstration of defiance and disdain. His grotesque haircut, shaved at the sides, and long and artfully dishevelled on top, the thick blue-black strands styled with gel. He wore a red T-shirt with a big fat middle finger on the front. He had a wolf’s hook tattoo on his right upper arm, beneath it a kneeling naked woman in chains. But more striking than this childish swagger was his left forearm. It was evident that the boy self-harmed, a whole array of red lines, more or less newly scabbed-over cuts probably made with a razor blade. Matek remembered this from the seminary. He knew that rush of pain-relieving endorphins, that explosive feeling only when you cause yourself pain, when you divert the pain with a razor blade from your soul to your skin. Endorphins and adrenaline, they were the key. He had heard that women experience this sensation in the stress and pain of childbirth. God had arranged it thus. In the seminary, cutting and scarification on the arms and belly were widespread, and sometimes – when inflicted by mutual arrangement – on the back, rarely on the genitals.

  The boy forced the parts of the mobile together until they shut with a snap, then pressed a few buttons, looked at the display and said, Dopasować!

  Dziękuję, Marek said. He paid the eighty zloty for the telephone and one hundred for the card, and then hesitated, as if something had suddenly occurred to him. Looking pensively in his wallet he said, I’ve got one more question, you might be able to help . . . He took out a hundred-euro note and placed it on the counter, his hand on top.

  Do you by any chance know anyone who’s going to Warsaw?

  The boy looked at Matek’s hand on the banknote.

  I’d have to ask around. What’s this about, a car share?

  No. A letter. I need someone to take it for me.

  Matek placed another hundred-euro note on the counter.

  What’s wrong with a post office?

  The post offices have been closed for half an hour. And the letter is urgent.

  My brother might be planning to go tomorrow. He’s got a girlfriend in Warsaw. I’ll have to ask him.

  Matek added another fifty.

  The letter has to be there by ten o’clock at the latest.

  He won’t mind getting there a bit earlier than planned.

  He’ll have to leave very early. Half past six at the latest.

  He’ll want petrol money too.

  Wasn’t he going anyway, to see his girlfriend?

  Matek lifted his hand from the banknotes
, took the letter from his inside jacket pocket and placed it on top of the money.

  I’ll be back here at ten tomorrow morning. If I’ve received confirmation by text – he held up the Nokia – that the letter has arrived, you’ll get the same again. That’ll give him enough petrol money, he’ll be able to visit his ladyfriend twenty times more and take her out for the evening. If their relationship lasts that long.

  She’s faithful.

  Good. Faithfulness is always good. The address is on the envelope.

  Matek wandered down Starowiślna towards the city centre, to Rynek Główny, the main market. The beauty and magnificence of this vast mediaeval square moved him every time he came to Kraków. It was lined with grand buildings, the strict symmetry broken only by St Mary’s Basilica. With its two towers it took a step forwards, as it were, from the façades on this side of the square, standing at an angle, brazen, proud, soaring above everything else, its two towers of differing heights. The reason for this was recounted in ancient legends, which Matek knew, of course, but he regarded them as heathen insolence. For him there could be only one possible reason for this break in symmetry and harmony: not even when constructing the house of God could man presume to create something perfect, for God alone and his plan of creation are perfect. There can be no perfection from the hand of man that may rank alongside God’s perfection, not even in the belief that such an aspiration would honour Him in the highest glory. St Mary’s Basilica, which stood diagonally to the market, thereby metaphorically standing on the toes of people going about their business there, drew itself up high to reach for the stars, with one tower too short, the other closer to the firmament, a representation of human ambition that grows but falls short of perfection – for Matek this church was the most apposite expression of the relationship between man and God. All very different from Notre-Dame. A year ago Matek had an assignment in Paris. Of course he wanted to see the cathedral of Notre-Dame and of course he was at first impressed when he stood before it. But . . . what? Then it dawned on him. This overbearing, in effect puffed-up mediocrity, signifying a belief that geometric rules adjusted to bombastic dimensions can reflect the divine harmony of the universe . . . it annoyed him, he found it blasphemous. And this was probably why God had looked on with cold indifference as the heretical philosopher Abélard had fornicated with the canon’s niece Héloïse on the altar of this cathedral. Matek had listened to a guide telling this story to a group of English tourists who were giggling un­- controllably: And here on this altar, ladies and gentlemen, the young philosophy scholar Pierre Abélard deflowered his great love, Héloïse, the niece of the canon of this cathedral. A story told and sung time and time again, Abélard and Héloïse, this here was the altar of their love! The pope decided to have Abélard castrated, which Matek considered right and just, verging on lenient, but not even this punishment, which as the guide explained was actually served, could in Matek’s eyes undo the fact that this conceited house of God had been desecrated, and remained so. He had sensed it. How different St Mary’s Basilica was here in Kraków. He looked up, it was now 7.00 p.m. and, as on every hour, the trumpeter in the tower began to play the Przerwny Hejnał: a signal to warn of advancing enemies, which is interrupted. In commemoration of the trumpeter who was hit in the throat with an arrow during the Tartar attack of 1241, it was only played to the last note he was able to blow before he fell.