The Capital

by Robert Menasse

  Matek peered up at the eastern tower, where the trumpeter ought to be standing at a window, but he couldn’t see him and then the Hejnał stopped.

  He didn’t go into the church; he couldn’t pray in the endless tumult of tourists taking photographs. He turned, crossed the square and passed the Cloth Hall; he could never tire of looking at it, but he knew that he shouldn’t look too closely. The shops with their beautiful old portals sold postcards showing those beautiful old shops before they sold postcards and souvenirs. The restaurants advertised “Traditional Polish Cuisine” and upheld no traditions save that of processing tourists as rapidly as possible. Beside the church where the large state bookshop used to be was now the flagship store of the fashion chain Zara. In the former textile shops tourists could buy souvenirs of old Jewish Kraków, postcards of old photographs and C.D.s of Klezmer music, but also tasteless, Nazi-style caricatures of Jews, such as woodcarvings of the greedy Jew holding a money bag or a gold coin.

  He left the square and turned into Grodzka. There on the corner he used to buy the sweet rice bread he loved so much, now the place was called “Quality Burger”. He walked down to the end of Grodzka, on and on, he walked down Stradomska, on and on, his rhythmic footsteps and regular breathing were now his prayer, on and on until he came to Paulińska, he knew a small restaurant there, the Kuchnia Adama, where he fancied a bite to eat. Here you found the best bigos in the whole city, and even though there were at least a hundred more or less official recipes for this stew, for Matek this was the only authentic one, just a hop and a skip off the tourist trail. It must never be served freshly cooked, it wasn’t really good until it had been reheated for several days in succession. At Adam’s the bigos pot stood on the cooker for at least a week. This allowed the pork belly to release all its fat to the cabbage, the aroma of the hot red paprika to develop fully, the cubes of meat to become wonderfully tender. And yet these words are just a drone and the rhymes of songs sung about Adam’s bigos pure coincidence – only the stomach can understand bigos.

  Matek ate in silence, of course he did, he was alone, but even when he was alone he ate as if still prohibited from talking during meals. A short, almost inaudibly muttered prayer, with head bowed, then eat in silence. That evening, however, so many thoughts filled his head, like a babble of voices. He heard his mother who, in an attempt to protect him, had destroyed his faith in being cared for and protected by giving him away, abandoning him to the dungeons of an underground where the blissful, steaming cooking of a loving and smiling mother no longer existed. In front of him the bigos steamed, and he could hear himself spouting heroic fantasies as he sat with his mother to eat bigos or gołąbki – where had he picked these up, these legends he recounted with great excitement while his mother listened smiling, and saying, Don’t forget to eat! And at the time he had no idea that beneath her skirt she had a gun, his dead father’s pistol. Where was his father? While she held him in her arms there was no understanding of this, but then her arms released him, she delivered him into the hands of the holy men who were also called father, and now he had brothers in a dungeon from which, after years of asceticism, he emerged as Żołnierz Chrystusa to defend a homeland he had never been to. Who had ever been there? Not his grandfather, not his father, and he himself had been driven away just as he was about to enter, through a back entrance, through the door that his mother had suddenly slammed shut. And he heard the voice of the pater prior, explaining sympathetically and with a smile dripping with grease, like this bigos, that he, Mateusz, was not destined for the priesthood, but for the Soldiers of Christ. He was obedient, he had always been obedient, first because he had confidence in the world, and then because he was schooled in the purpose and wisdom of obedience, and now he was sitting on the edge of a trap. Why, he did not know, but he had no doubt that they had laid a trap for him. He heard his mother, he heard the pater prior, he heard voices, indistinct, unintelligible, of people he didn’t know, but speaking about him like a figure on a chessboard. Silentium! he cried, and once more, Silentium! He shouted it silently, only in his head. He wished to eat in silence. Taking a deep breath, he straightened his back and looked over at the waitress, who was standing by the “no smoking” sign, puffing on a cigarette.

  He walked back to the hotel, did his toning exercises, then lay down to sleep.

  When he left the hotel at 6.00 a.m. the following morning the sightseeing buses were already waiting outside: “Auschwitz. Best price!”

  He went to the Kazimierz district, ate a hearty breakfast at Rubinstein, then called Wojciech, his old friend from his seminary days, who the brothers in Poznań had given the apostolic name of Szymon, the mason. Now he was pater of the Augustinian monastery attached to the church of St Catherine’s in Kraków. Matek knew his daily routine, the convent Mass must be over by now, which meant he would be contactable until Terce.

  Mateusz, my brother! Are you in Kraków? How are you?

  Yes, I’m in Kraków. I’m fine. I have such fond memories of us walking through the monastery gardens and talking. We need to talk.

  The gardens, yes. We’ve leased them as parking spaces. It’s sad, but good business. The renovation of the church swallows un- believable sums of money. Yes, let’s talk, after None?

  I’ve got a rucksack with me.

  You’re very welcome to stay.

  Matek glanced about him. Nobody was looking in his direction. He pushed his sleeve up a little, wiped the knife on his napkin and gently scored his left forearm. The damn knife was blunt – typical restaurant cutlery. He tilted it slightly, drew the blade across his skin and then again, increasing the pressure. Finally his skin opened a crack, blood seeped out, he closed his eyes and put the knife down.

  At 9.30 a.m. he got the text message: “I’ll happily pass on your regards!”

  So, Brother Tomasz in Warsaw had received the letter. Tomasz would go to lunch and pay with Matek’s credit card. Then he would buy a suitcase at the large luggage store on Potockich, and later purchase a train ticket to Budapest at the station, again using the card. They would find all this out. Tomasz would then cut up the card and throw it away. Matek estimated that he had seventy-two hours’ head start until they had followed up all the traces.

  He went to the toilets and ran cold water over his arm until he felt it turn numb, then he left. He went back to the mobile shop on Starowiślna, the boy was wearing the same T-shirt. Matek put the money on the counter.

  It was an unusually warm and sunny day for the time of year.

  He strolled through the city, down ulica Józefa. Coming the other way were tour groups behind boards or pennants hoisted into the air. He turned left into ulica Bożego Ciała, there was the church of Corpus Christi, the first Catholic church after the Jewish quarter. He went inside, the morning Mass had just ended, people were getting up from the pews and making for the exit. Matek stood there like a rock in the surf, people streaming past him on either side and then out, until he turned and left the church with them, as if part of a group, back to Józefa he went, an entrance door was open, giving a view of a beautiful, hidden inner courtyard behind a dilapidated passage full of rubbish bags, a tourist stopped to take pictures on his smartphone, “This way please!” called a foreign guide, “. . . would be a perfect hideaway!” a woman said, a man laughed, “You cannot escape”, the group moved on to St Catherine’s, gardens behind wrought-iron gates, parking spaces in the garden, a young man broke into a run, ran over to a woman, they embraced, wandered hand in hand along the blind, silent façade of the monastery, past the square with the Millennium Altar that consisted of a group of seven large bronze figures, larger-than-life saints, churchmen, a German woman stood before them and said, “Hey look, this one’s got to be the Polish pope!” A man said, “Yes, that’s Wojtyła!” Another: “No, it says Św. Stanisław (1030–79)”. Priests walked past, turned into Augustiańska, then came two women with heavy bags as if chasing after the priests, they had already disappeared around the corner, the touris
t group had moved on and the millennium statues stared from dead eyes onto an empty square.

  The Union was threatening to break apart. It was suffering its biggest crisis since its foundation. Florian Susman had supported this project for many years out of a deep conviction, and of course he would have been prepared to shoulder responsibility too. You don’t moan, you accept responsibility – this had been his father’s credo. Anybody who builds up a business takes risks. How can you assess and calculate them responsibly? Florian remembered the time his parents had sat at the dinner table long after the meal was finished, looking grave as they weighed up the opportunities and risks associated with credit-financed investment in a licensed in-house slaughter facility. The debt could be their downfall, but to shy away from this step could spell the downfall of the farm too. There was an opportunity with risk attached, but there was no opportunity to “play it safe”. His parents sat there doing their sums, they came up with objections and immediately found arguments to dismiss these objections, they put their misgivings on one side of the scales and their hopes on the other, no, their misgivings about the misgivings. Florian listened. It was unusual that his parents hadn’t sent him up to bed, maybe his father thought the heir to the throne ought to listen to all of this, while Martin, the younger son, lay on the sofa reading until he fell asleep and was eventually carried to bed by their mother – no, it wasn’t as tender as that, he was shoved into bed.

  Gods, Graves and Scholars. Florian was amazed to remember the title of the book that his brother had read many times over, while he, Florian, just sat there listening to his parents talk about what they could and had to take responsibility for. Back then. Those long evenings.

  Florian drove slowly. There was plenty of time. He didn’t have to be in Budapest until the evening; it was early afternoon and he was only twenty kilometres from Nickelsdorf, twenty kilometres from the Austrian–Hungarian border. He drove as if in a trance, with cruise control, music playing softly on the car radio, a local station with folk hits interspersed with advertisements: “I’d so love to be a truffle pig,” a voice squawked, whereupon a resounding voice said, “Nonsense, little piggy, don’t you think our potatoes taste much better? Yes, farmer, oink. You’re my little potato piggy. Does that mean I’m special? Yes, you sure are.”

  Florian switched off the radio.

  Back when his father, a small-scale pig farmer, expanded the barely profitable farm into a pig enterprise and slaughterhouse, he also got involved in lobbying. Soon he was accepting positions in professional associations and in the Austrian Farmers’ Association. We can’t just wait and see what they’ll do for us, we need do something ourselves, he said. Participating in discussions was all very well, but he couldn’t improve conditions in the sector, and he certainly wasn’t able to halt the fall in prices. And so he took a chance on volume to combat the ever-dwindling profit margins. The extra investment increased their debts, but it increased turnover too. And this enhanced his father’s status on the committees. Florian wondered whether this ever more irritable and querulous man had in some quiet moment asked himself if there was a way back to that point at which necessity and freedom were in balance, where effort and hard work were rewarded with satisfaction and security. Probably not. Some ways go in only one direction, with no opportunity to turn off. Like this motorway he was gliding along, and if anything were to come towards him on this carriageway it could only be ghosts, danger.

  Florian had to step into his father’s shoes quite suddenly. Assume responsibility. And he found that the shoes were too small. Which is unusual for the sons of strong fathers. But very soon he realised that to save what his father had built up he would need larger shoes, several sizes larger. Austria had joined the E.U. and it took the national lobby groups a long time to recognise that they were in a trap. They defended their domestic market, which now existed only in the minds of some elderly officials, and ensconced themselves in a system of subsidies that did not lead to fair prices but, with an increasing administrative burden, to a dependence on handouts. There wasn’t even a guarantee in the medium term for these, nor was there any plan in place for what would happen after the expiry of the transition arrangements that had been agreed upon during the course of the accession negotiations. He recalled a session in the Austrian chamber of commerce in Vienna, focusing on strategies for pig producers. He was young at the time, and still quite insecure. His father’s shoes were pinching him. He was perplexed by how the old officials reacted when he asked questions – as if he weren’t asking questions but questioning everything, particularly them, the lords of a sunken world, the princes of Atlantis.

  Although he was naive, he grasped the key lesson: he needed bigger shoes, because given the new conditions in Europe he wasn’t going to get any further with Austria’s national lobby groups. He became involved with the Union of European Pig Producers, the E.P.P. And now he had been its president for a year.

  Florian was overtaken by a police car, its blue lights flashing and siren wailing, with another one right behind it, and then an ambulance.

  Once a year the E.P.P. representatives met in a European city for a three-day general assembly, at which they appointed a new president or agreed to keep the incumbent in office. They swapped experiences, discussed the contradictions between European rules and national regulations, drew up lists of demands for European governments and the Commission, visited local farms and each year there was a central theme – this time it was “European Foreign Trade in Pigs”.

  This year’s event was being hosted by the Hungarian delegation, which had caused uproar in the Union of European Pig Producers, and even organised resistance in the course of preparations for the conference. There were statutory and political reasons for this. According to the statutes of the E.P.P., a representative of the host country must sit on the board of the union. At that moment, however, Hungary was politically ostracised because its government had ruthlessly expropriated European pig breeders who had invested in Hungary and acquired an interest in Hungarian farms after the collapse of communism. Until now they had simply ignored the note they had received from the European Commission requesting them to explain this breach of European law and setting them a deadline to reverse these illegal measures. A grouping was formed calling for the boycott of Hungary. It consisted principally of Dutch and Germans demanding that the annual conference take place in a different city – Madrid was proposed, given that Serrano and Iberico sows were very much in the ascendant. The Austrians, Italians and Romanians, however, took the view that the conference really should be held in Hungary to give a clear signal that the E.P.P. itself was willing to defend the interests of its Hungarian members.

  It began to rain. Florian Susman glanced at his satnav: only ten kilometres to the border. More sirens wailed and another ambulance raced past.

  As president, Florian had had his work cut out trying to prevent the E.P.P. from falling apart, and engineering a compromise between the two camps. The compromise was brittle, in effect consisting of statements of intent which were to be discussed only now at the conference. All the same, it was a compromise and the conference was taking place in Budapest as planned. As host, the Hungarian delegation had voiced its willingness to add its signature to a protest note to the Hungarian government. He would wait to see whether they followed through on this, for the larger Hungarian pig producers had benefited from the renationalisation of the farms. On the other hand, they now found themselves undercapitalised and the export of Hungarian Mangalica pigs had dropped by almost 25 per cent. But that was the central topic of this year’s conference.

  Florian Susman had no concerns that he might be voted out as president. After all, he had succeeded in achieving this interim compromise – a fact that was widely acknowledged – and so far no rival candidate had put themselves forward.

  More sirens and blue lights. There was a flickering in the rear-view mirror, a flash in the now somewhat misted windscreen. He switched on the fan, two police c
ars sped past.

  He was certain that he would be re-endorsed as president, but he wondered whether this was in fact what he wanted. He was no longer naive. On the contrary, he was in danger of becoming the type of pragmatist he had always loathed: someone who only ever did what was possible, but was never able to implement what was necessary. He was heading for an abyss; he could try to put the brakes on, but he couldn’t change course.

  In truth there was no real solution to the division within the E.P.P., or at least he couldn’t see one. The aim of this Budapest conference was to work together with Hungary against the European Commission, because the latter wasn’t capable of negotiating – or not willing to negotiate – a higher export quota with China for pigs. At the same time they would be working with the European Commission against Hungary, because the latter was in breach of E.U. law.