The Capital

by Robert Menasse

  As he left he embraced Szymon and said, Thank you, Brother. Then giving both his hands a squeeze he added, May God protect you!

  Szymon smiled: May God protect you too! And . . . have a good trip to Poznań!

  Very little fazed Matek. He was constantly on his guard, he calculated all the possibilities and was, or so he thought, prepared for every eventuality in every situation. He had the cold blood of a man who was a fourth-generation soldier. But he hadn’t counted on this. “Have a good trip to Poznań!” – it hit him like a blow that briefly stunned him. He took a deep breath, put down his rucksack and said, You know . . .

  Szymon nodded.

  . . . that I’m going to Poznań? But I didn’t tell you.

  You’re expected there. And you have nothing to fear.

  What do you know, Brother Szymon? And why didn’t you tell me anything?

  You didn’t ask. You participated in the spiritual exercises, the common prayer, the observation of silence. You came to the meals, apart from in the evening, and kept quiet at all times, not only during the prescribed silence. Otherwise you spent hours in the chapel, kneeling before “Our Lady of Consolation”. If a brother asks me something, I give information, but you didn’t ask.

  But you gave information?

  Yes.

  They asked about me?

  Szymon nodded.

  Matek looked at the floor, then slowly raised his head. He saw Szymon’s black habit, the black leather belt, the black mozzetta from the collar of which a grey neck emerged, on which Szymon’s grey face sat beneath the black hood. Matek lowered his eyes again, looked at his own hands, which were grey too, he let them fall by his sides and they disappeared in the greyish-black above the black stone floor in this gloomy antechamber. Now Matek looked Szymon directly in the eye. Szymon’s lips were red. As if he’d bitten them and drawn blood. I’m going to ask you now, Matek said. What do you know? What can you tell me?

  You had a mission. I don’t know what it was. It went slightly wrong. I don’t know how. It wasn’t your fault. You are expected. You have nothing to fear. That is what I was to say to you if you asked.

  Matek looked at Szymon, nodded, took his head in his hands, pulled him towards him and pressed his mouth onto Szymon’s blood-red lips. The blood-red, the only glow in the room, which at this very moment was outer space and at the same time just an airlock out into the world.

  Then he stepped out of the monastery into the open air, into the perilous, into the imperilled open air.

  After days in the silent gloom behind thick walls, the harsh light struck him like a thunderbolt.

  The D.-G. AGRI hadn’t responded to the Inter-Service consultation about the Jubilee Project and hadn’t sent anybody to the meeting. No-one in that directorate-general was interested in the planning of jubilees and ceremonies, particularly if the celebrations weren’t focusing on showcasing the achievements of European agricultural policy. And AGRI was even less interested if the D.-G. COMM was delegating the preparations for the celebrations to Culture, that “ark in a dry dock”, as George Morland had once called it. Every mountain knows that you can’t really make a mountain out of a molehill.

  And now it was that very same George Morland from AGRI who, after preliminary spanners in the works from the Council, had begun to weave threads in the Commission that would be-come the rope around the neck of the project.

  Like most of the British officials, George Morland wasn’t especially liked in the Commission. The British – even the president had once said this – only accepted one binding rule: that fundamentally they were an exception. In truth the British were always suspected of neglecting the interests of the Community for the benefit of London’s interests. In many instances the suspicion was justified. But in others it was more complicated: whether one liked it not, the United Kingdom was indeed a special case. The British Crown held possessions that legally were not part of the United Kingdom, such as the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, which represented an intractable problem when it came to the development of a European tax policy: the tax havens of a Member State to which there was legally no access. The Queen was formally the head of the Commonwealth States, which necessarily led to legal nit-picking, for example in all trade deals concluded by the E.U. with non-E.U. states. Had this exceptional situation not been taken into consideration each time with the implementation of special regulations, then Australia, for example, would all of a sudden have become part of the European internal market. With Britain it had been complicated from the outset, but there were definitely Brits who became Europeans in Brussels. And George Morland had to be given credit, not only for having learned a few scraps of French during his years in the Commission, but also for his significant contribution to European policy. In his role within AGRI he had always been a passionate defender and supporter of small-scale agriculture. Even if he was principally motivated by the desire to see the English countryside cultivated by traditional methods, rather than destroyed by enormous agro-industrial complexes and monocultures, it was also in the interests of Europe generally. And in this regard Morland, with his upper-class breeding, would not be bribed by agro-industries, multinational seed companies or their lobbyists. He – or his family – had a considerable landholding in the East Riding of Yorkshire, leased out to several small farmers. Morland knew the difficulties they faced as well as their successes. Defending their concerns against the radical intensification of agriculture was a classic case of self-interest that served the common good. The only monoculture he found acceptable was the golf course.

  Thus Morland was a very ambivalent case. He knew he wasn’t popular, but that had little to do with his work in the Commission. He had suffered already in his youth, first as a schoolboy, then as a student at Oxford. He cut an unfortunate and at first glance comical figure, and despite his every effort he lacked charm. His round pink face, his flat nose, his thick red hair that he could tame only by means of a crew cut, his short, stocky frame – as a child he had spent many a night sobbing into his pillow because of the nasty names that had been flung at him. But his background had protected him from a worse fate than taunting. Like a kind of psychological self-defence, it had ultimately made him haughty, but also especially ambitious. He learned how to earn respect through the posts he held during his career, although he was, with his ironic smile, thoroughly old school: Morland ensured that if in doubt, anybody who didn’t have a high regard for him should fear him.

  Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of Brussels.

  But the sun was being eclipsed. He was an E.N.D., an Expert National Détaché, and his time in Brussels was running out. And in all the chaos of the negotiations around Great Britain’s exit from the Union he’d made a grave error that had critically damaged his reputation back home. The Germans had indeed concluded a bilateral trade agreement with China, opening up the Chinese market for their pig production. Pigs! He had failed to take this seriously; he had been heavily involved in boycotting all attempts to bring about a treaty between the Union and China, trying to defend privileges for the United Kingdom, and he hadn’t been able to see the consequences. That Kai-Uwe Frigge had been right after all! The turbulence on the London Stock Market had been considerable and had accelerated the transfer of important funds to Frankfurt. All because of pigs! It had left Morland stunned. He simply couldn’t understand the vast economic significance of China’s intention to import the offal from pigs too. In times of hunger the Irish had bought pigs’ trotters for a few pence and cooked them for hours – wretched food in times of extreme poverty – while butchers in London had given away pigs’ ears to regular customers for their dogs. And the pig’s head . . . well, he’d once stuck his penis into the mouth of a dead pig to be accepted as a member of the Bullingdon Club, the exclusive student society at Oxford for the offspring of “better” families. This initiation ritual had been his final humiliation, mitigated by intoxication and the cheering of other members. Afterwar
ds he merely earned respect. Pig may contain traces of Tories. Yes, ha ha! How they were laughing now, the Germans! They were selling offal for the price of fillet, but Britain wasn’t getting a slice of it and soon the U.K. would be out altogether.

  It was crazy, totally irrational, but this pig story was a major reason why George Morland now shifted to a policy of radical obstruction. If Britain was suffering the damage, then at least it ought to be able to mock the party that inflicted the damage. And now every failure by the Commission was strengthening the U.K.’s position in the forthcoming negotiations. If the Commission, allegedly under the patronage of the president, was preparing a P.R. campaign, then it must fail. If the Commission had a poor image, it was a good thing. For Britain.

  Morland leaned back in his chair and filed his fingernails. Why were they tearing, splitting and breaking all of a sudden? He pondered as he filed away, occasionally blowing the nail dust from his chest.

  And dear Mrs Atkinson! Morland smiled. It might not be a matter of national – and certainly not of European – significance, but it would be a nice footnote in the history of his political endeavours if this frigid woman with her muff were damaged in the collapse of the Jubilee Project. It was only because of the female quota that she had landed that job, which he had aspired to and for which he had initially been regarded as the favourite. George Morland would never admit it, it wasn’t exactly what he would call “an objective necessity”, but the mere thought that he might be able to bring about Mrs Atkinson’s downfall pleased him greatly.

  Assuming he had analysed the situation correctly, he had a clear idea of what now had to be done. A few lunch dates with important colleagues from other directorates-general, preferably in Martin’s, which with its lovely garden kept the smokers amongst them happy and much more relaxed, open. There he would serve up bespoke arguments to unnerve them and turn them against the project.

  Morland changed files. After the coarse, now came the fine.

  To begin with it would have a certain momentum of its own – gossip, rumours – and then the anxiety would have to be guided carefully in a particular direction, so as to create the need for a Council working group to thrash out the problem and solve it.

  “Solve the problem.” George Morland was conservative in relation to this phrasing too. Over the past few years an astonishing language shift had taken place within the Commission and nobody had noticed, or at least nobody had commented on it, let alone questioned it. Whereas people used to talk of “solving a problem”, now they said: “bringing a solution to the problem”. Whereas it used to be “making a decision”, now it was “effecting a decision”. Instead of “analysing something”, that thing now “underwent an analysis”. Arrangements that once were “made” were now “facilitated”. You could compile an entire lexicon of the new “Comitology-Speak”, and it was astonishing how in this Babylon certain linguistic trends immediately caught on in all languages. George Morland was sensitive enough to recognise this. Although he was no expert in semiotics, hermeneutics or linguistics, he nonetheless had the sure feeling that this development was a sign, had a significance that was symptomatic of the state of the Commission, of its helplessness, its paralysis. “Facilitating” was clearly different, more defensive than “making”. These formulations betrayed the fact that it was no longer about the destination, only the journey. That was broadly how he saw it. But he wouldn’t accept it. He insisted on the good old “solving a problem” and in this instance it was straightforward: kill the project, kill Mrs Atkinson.

  He picked up the soft nail brush, to remove any tiny particles of nail dust that might still be in evidence, then fetched the colourless nail polish from his desk drawer. As he cheerfully varnished his nails he thought, with just a touch of derision, of Mrs Atkinson hiding her cold fingers with their chewed nails in her muff.

  And only two weeks later, above any suspicion, he was able to join in the general chorus of those calling for the creation a Council working group under the aegis of the C.A.C. (“Cultural Affairs Committee”).

  Mrs Atkinson knew at once that this was the end of the project she hadn’t at all been in favour of herself. It had been Culture’s initiative. Externally the project was entirely associated with that Xenopoulou woman, who had been throwing her weight around. For her part, Xeno wasn’t so sure; she felt that if there was need for further discussion, then Martin should deal with it. After all, the project had been Martin Susman’s idea. And she had assigned all the organisational work to him.

  And Martin wasn’t there.

  Where the Maison Hanssens retirement home now stood there had once been a gravestone manufacturer’s. Piet Hanssens, a fourth-generation stonemason, had no children, nor was he able to find anybody who wanted to take over the business and keep it running. When, at the age of seventy-three, his silicosis forced him to give up work and embark on a degrading odyssey through hospitals and care homes, he left his house, the workshop and the grounds to the Ville de Bruxelles, on condition that the city or Brussels region build a dignified retirement home on the land. Then he passed away. The financially strapped city accepted the legacy, but it was years before the old gravestone manufacturer’s could finally be converted and extended into a modern “Centre of Excellence for Geriatric Care” with the help of E.U. money from the European Fund for Regional Development and the European Social Fund. The former workshop now housed the dining room while the home’s library and common room were in the former showroom. Apart from that, nothing remained of the original structure; nothing recalled the history of this place any longer.

  Well, almost nothing. Next to the library there was a side entrance, an emergency exit in fact, and behind it a dozen blank gravestones stood on a patch of grass, display pieces left over from the old manufacturer’s. It wasn’t clear if these stones had simply been forgotten or deliberately left there as a reminder of the place’s past. Nobody save the caretaker, Monsieur Hugo, who also mowed the grass around the house, normally got a glimpse of them.

  But then David de Vriend discovered the gravestones. Wanting to leave the home – he couldn’t remember why – he had momentarily become confused when he stepped out of the lift on the ground floor, what did he want, where was he planning to go, out, he went left instead of right to the front door, now found himself beside the emergency exit, pushed the large red bar that opened it, and in front of him were the gravestones that he stared at in astonishment – he hadn’t gone to the cemetery, he’d just wanted a bite to eat. He noticed that there were no names on these headstones – a cemetery of the anonymous? Thousands, hundreds of thousands of people no longer had a name when they were forced to die, the names of millions of people were extinguished before they were sent to their deaths, they had been turned into numbers, but innumerable, and here – he looked and began to count – there were only: two, three, four, five . . . A carer grabbed him by the arm; de Vriend had set off the alarm by opening the emergency exit.

  What are you doing here? Did you want to go out? Yes? That’s the wrong door. Come on, I’ll take you . . . Where do you want to go?

  Now de Vriend said assertively that he wanted to go for something to eat.

  In the dining room?

  No! Outside, in the restaurant, in the – he pointed – in the, there! Next door.

  Soon afterwards he was sitting in Le Rustique, the waitress brought him a glass of red wine and he felt ashamed. This was another moment of clarity. And clarity meant shame. He wondered why . . .

  Of course he knew why . . .

  And he became angry. He didn’t want to . . .

  It was unbearably hot. De Vriend took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and wiped the sweat from his brow with his handkerchief. He couldn’t think. It was too loud. At the neighbouring table the large, chattering family, the shrieking children. Irritated, he looked over and smiled. It was a reflex. He had always smiled when he saw children. Out of delight, sympathy or just politeness.

  He noticed a girl lo
oking at him inquisitively. How old might she be? Eight, perhaps. Their eyes met. She came over to his table.

  Please don’t! he thought

  Cool! she said, pointing to the number tattooed on de Vriend’s arm. Is that real?

  Yes, he said and put his jacket back on.

  Cool! she said and showed him a transfer on her forearm.

  Four Chinese characters.

  But this isn’t real, she said. I’m not allowed a real one.

  Do you know what it means? de Vriend said. No? But you like it? Yes?

  He tapped the characters.

  The first one: All

  The second: People

  The third: Are

  The fourth: Swine

  . . .

  I got it wrong he said and tapped

  the first one: Old

  and the fourth: Silent.

  Prof. Alois Erhart followed António Oliveira Pinto into the meeting room. He saw the members of the Reflection Group sitting in a semi-circle around the chair from which he was to talk. A semi-circle of laptops and tablets, behind them lowered eyes, gazing at the screens, and he heard the soft, rapid clicking of keyboards.

  Erhart stood there and eventually took his seat. The eyes began to focus on him.