He walked up the left-hand aisle and was approached by a man in black dress and a dog collar: Est-ce que vous l’aimez aussi?
Pardon?
The black Madonna!
Following the man’s eyes, Erhart noticed the Madonna statue.
A miracle! You can see it, can’t you?
What do you mean? Her face? Because it’s black?
No. Take a look at her hand. Do you see? The thumb was chipped off. Back during the Reformation the Protestants desecrated the church and threw that statue into the canal. Do you see the break? And now count the fingers! There you are! Do you see? Five fingers! The Catholics recovered the Madonna, returned it to the church and erected it again. And although one of her fingers had been chipped off, she had five fingers again! A miracle! Do you see?
With a beaming smile he crossed himself.
Could it be, Erhart said, that she had six fingers before?
The man in black looked at him, then turned and walked away.
Professor Erhart left the church and walked on to the Metro station. From Gare Centrale he could take a train to the airport. But he would be there far too early, and to kill time would wander listlessly through the duty-free shops, eat a poor sandwich, drink a beer, then another out of boredom, then wander around again, buy a coffee, sit somewhere and wait. Eventually, because time simply refused to pass, he would buy some Belgian chocolates, because Belgian chocolates were what you brought home, although he had nobody he could or wanted to give them to, Trudi had liked chocolates, sometimes he used to bring her one of those Milka rolls with the blue tassel, in the early days on their dates, later as a little gift when he came home from the university and when there was still that shop on Grillparzerstrasse, around the corner from the Institute, Bonbon Kaiser, run by old Herr Kaiser who would say things like, “Please give my regards to your wife, Herr Professor”, when Erhart was still an assistant, and he had been delighted to see Trudi’s delight, but he himself wasn’t that fussed about chocolate, so why buy some now? When he was last at Brussels airport he had bought a box of chocolates from Neuhaus just to kill time. It lay around in the kitchen at home for weeks, in fact it was still there somewhere. He didn’t get out at Gare Centrale but continued on to Maelbeek; he knew of an Italian restaurant somewhere close to the station, where he’d been one time after a “New Pact” meeting. It was friendly and unfussy, and the food was so good that you could enjoy it even if you weren’t hungry. He found the Osteria Agricola Toscana again, and while waiting for his food, and then as he ate and drank his wine, he contemplated his future. Or at least that was his intention, but it wasn’t so simple. The only certainty he could have about his immediate future was that everything he was eating and drinking now would be metabolised and, once he was back in Vienna, egested. He urged himself to think less banal thoughts. It wasn’t so simple. He was enjoying the food, but it felt like a waste. Such good food just for him, and he was unable to celebrate it with anyone. The wine was excellent. He thought about his future. He thought that he might as well start pondering whether there was life after death. Yes indeed, he thought, it was called posterity. Could he leave something behind that might have a lasting influence? A testament? He thought that he might still have enough time to write a book. Could you plan and write a book in such a way as to make it a testament and establish a legacy that future generations might actually make use of? An autobiography, perhaps? He could write an autobiography cataloguing his experiences and thoughts, so that one day it would be possible to remember what might have been and what rumbled on, as yet unresolved. In Armand Moens’ autobiography he had read: “History is not only the account of what happened, but also a continual assessment of the reasons why things could not have happened more rationally.” This would have to be the epigraph of his own book, he thought, ordering an espresso and the bill. Rather than writing an autobiography that recounted his modest life, he wanted to set out what had not happened. The non-happenings of his time. And time was now short. He had to get to the airport. He paid for the entire bottle of wine.
He became fretful, he had lost track of the time.
Should he go to the rond-point Schuman and take the bus to the airport? Or head back to the Metro, three stations to Gare Centrale and take the train? He thought the train would be quicker. He ran with his hopping suitcase to Maelbeek station, stumbled down the escalator, noticing too late that it was out of order, looked anxiously up at the display board: Next train in 2 minutes.
David de Vriend heard someone shout “Stay!”, he put his hands over his ears, but heard it boom even more resoundingly in his head, this “Stay!”, as if it were being tossed from side to side inside his skull, echo following echo, “Stay!”, and he knew he had to go. Straight away. No more deliberation, just a decision. Out of here and away at once.
He didn’t even close the door behind him. He didn’t bump into anyone. In the stairwell, in the foyer downstairs, over in the dining room, in the library, it was quiet everywhere, not a soul to be seen. Most of the residents slept after lunch, or went for walks, either down rue de l’Arbre Unique to the stream with the weeping willows, where they would feed the birds, or through the cemetery to the bench, a short rest, then back for tea. The carers were now having their coffee break in the staff room, swapping notes about their problem cases.
De Vriend left Maison Hanssens as though it were a world without people. Or a railway wagon with corpses. “You’re leaping to your doom!” – those had been the last words. He had to get away, as fast as possible. But where to?
It had been a decision that had left him no time to weigh up the pros and cons. Out! Break free and out!
He went to the cemetery gate, but not into the cemetery; he had an address he needed to get to.
When he had leaped from the train a young man had slipped him an envelope containing a safe address and fifty francs. It all happened so quickly. After an exchange of fire the train started moving again, but he saw it all so slowly, the train pulling away, the open sliding door of the cattle wagon like a black hole, behind it his parents and little brother, it was as if this image were edging forwards centimetre by centimetre, gunshots and a stamping and gasping, the clatter, now faster and faster, as iron hit iron, a shove, the man shoved him again and shouted, Run! Go and find the address – he pointed to the envelope he had just handed him – in there! And the train picked up speed, the black hole, behind which his family were huddled, was gone, another black hole trundled past, and another, and he turned and saw people running across the fields, how many were they, a hundred? Here and there he saw individuals collapse or crumple, hit in the back by bullets, and he threw himself on the ground, rolled down the railway embankment and lay flat until the train had passed, S.S. men were shooting from it at the escapees. Only then did he run away.
On the field in front of him he saw people who had thrown themselves to the ground and were now getting up. He ran past people who lay there and would never get up again. He ran into the night. He had an address.
He didn’t know the way. A bus came, stopped beside the cemetery gate.
Bus number 4 – this meant nothing to de Vriend. He got on. The bus drove off. Took him away. He left everything behind. Upon arrival in Auschwitz his parents and brother were sent straight to the gas chamber. He couldn’t have saved them even if he hadn’t leaped from the train, if he’d stayed with them. And there had been no time to discuss it: Shall we jump or not jump? What can we expect in the first scenario and what in the second? He had jumped. He had survived. His father, that small accounting clerk, that weak, delicate man with the sad, dark eyes, who was able to contribute nothing more to the workings of the world than his ruthless propriety, his trust in the auditing process, the affected pride that was in fact his defiance against the times, against the ironic, condescending smiles of those greater and more flexible than he was. Even at home, within his own four walls, he maintained this act of absolute propriety as if the king and government were watching
and nodding approvingly. And his mother, he saw her too, whenever he thought of her she had that sadly acquiescent look, both of them had those sad eyes, not because they could see what was coming, but because they believed everything would remain as it was. They hadn’t been worried, they had merely settled into the worries that they considered to be their life, rather than cobblestones on the way to their death. Only once had de Vriend heard her shout, yell even: Stay! If he had stayed he would have ended up in the gas chamber like them. He hadn’t saved them, and he couldn’t have. Is that guilt?
He had an address.
Strangers had taught him pride and resilience. They had loved him like their own child. When he was finally betrayed, there was no longer enough time to murder a strong young man through hard labour. He had been lucky. Unlucky. Lucky in his misfortune. Unlucky, lucky in his misfortune again.
He couldn’t find the address. Sitting on the bus he realised that his pockets were empty. He had to remember. He had to find the way, recognise it. He groaned. He had to remember. But there was only a black hole. He looked out of the window. What flew past wasn’t a memory. There was no signpost, nothing that linked to his experiences. Façades.
Now there was nothing. The doors of the bus opened and closed. Then the bus jolted its way past façades again. The doors opened and closed. That’s all.
The door of the wagon was wrenched open. A voice shouted: Out! Jump out!
The bus doors opened. Stay! You’re leaping to your doom!
De Vriend jumped off the bus, almost falling over. A man at the bus station steadied him.
Run! To that address there . . .
De Vriend looked around, saw people hurrying down the street, he followed them. Where was he? By a black hole. There was a fleeting moment of recognition: Maelbeek Metro station. It sounded familiar. Why? He went in, down the steps. He had to remember the way. He came onto the platform and thought, This is the way.
One more minute.
A man with a bag. A woman tapping away at her smartphone. A man with a suitcase. The train arrived. The doors opened. In the open door in front of him he saw a child holding its mother’s hand. The child wrested itself free as it jumped off the train.
Then the bomb exploded.
When Madame Joséphine and Monsieur Hugo, the caretaker at Maison Hanssens, were clearing out David de Vriend’s room, they found a piece of paper with a list of names.
Monsieur Hugo threw three shirts into a box and said, He didn’t have much.
Madame Joséphine nodded. All the names on the list were crossed out.
Very few of them have much stuff, Hugo said. I’ve been working here for eight years and I’m still always surprised by how little remains of a person in the end.
Yes, Joséphine said. She sat down and stared in amazement at the piece of paper. At the bottom of the list of crossed-out names David de Vriend had written his own.
He had nice monogrammed handkerchiefs, Hugo said, chucking them into the box too.
Only David de Vriend’s own name wasn’t crossed out.
He had nice suits! Really top notch. The homeless shelter will be delighted. But if someone goes out begging in a suit like that they won’t get a single cent. Nobody’s going to help a man wearing this suit, he said, holding up de Vriend’s tweed.
Joséphine wished he would shut up. She said nothing. On the table in front of her was a biro. She picked it up and held it like a knife.
What did he actually do in life? Monsieur Hugo said. Was he some sort of prominent figure? A politician or a high-ranking official? I mean, the Commission’s organising his funeral.
The silent funeral of an epoch, Joséphine thought.
What I can’t find, Monsieur Hugo said, is all the classic stuff: photo albums, diaries. Very unusual. He didn’t have anything, not even a photo album, everybody’s got one of those, he said, tossing the shoe trees into the box.
Joséphine wondered what to do with this list of names. Throw it into the box? Or in the bin? Should she cross out David de Vriend’s name too? Is that what he wanted? Is that why he left the piece of paper here on the desk, along with the biro? So that she . . .
Monsieur Hugo chucked toothbrush, toothpaste, nail scissors, deodorant and razor into a plastic bag and the plastic bag into the box. We’re not even going to fill the box, he said.
Such a horrific death, Joséphine thought. That de Vriend, of all people, in this attack . . . But what did she mean by “of all people”? For all of them, all of them who were in the wrong place . . . for all . . . twenty dead, one hundred and thirty seriously injured.
She folded the list of names, put it into the pocket of her white work coat, patted the pocket and thought, So long as his name isn’t crossed out, so long as . . .
That’s all, Monsieur Hugo said.
Epilogue
THE EDITORIAL OFFICE of Metro had been expecting the protest by animal rights campaigners. Kurt van der Koot had warned them before the start of his series. The editor-in-chief had just laughed: a protest by radicals would only strengthen the bond between reader and paper.
The only surprise was how late the protest came – weeks after an article had appeared in Le Soir, attacking Metro and its sensationalist campaign journalism.
It was a cynical article in which Le Soir floated the likelihood that the pig on the loose in the streets of Brussels didn’t exist and that the blurry pictures from C.C.T.V. cameras were fakes. This series in Metro, it claimed, was yet another example of how free newspapers functioned: stirring up excitement with invented stories. The piece was illustrated with a photograph taken in Slagerij Van Kampen of two pig halves hanging on meat hooks. The caption: “The end of Brussels’ pig?”
Appended to the article was an interview with Michel Moreau, the president of “Animal Welfare Belgium”, who described Metro’s actions as the “greatest scandal since Marc Dutroux”. It was out-rageous and abusive, he said, to exploit a pig running through the streets for a newspaper advertising campaign, rather than trying to rescue this pig, assuming it actually existed. The city’s streets were not the natural environment for a pig which, faced with challenges such as tarmac, crowds of people and road traffic, might well be in a state of stress even more agonising for the animal than being kept in the stall of a factory farm. And he appealed to the “relevant authorities” to clarify once and for all whether there was a “real, living pig”, and if this were the case to officially capture the animal, have it examined by a vet and then taken to a farm where it could be kept in a species-appropriate way. “As an animal rights campaigner I am very careful with my animal metaphors, but what is happening here can only be described as a pig’s ear,” Moreau said.
Now Le Soir had its own shitstorm. Dozens of readers protested in letters and online about the comparison between animal torture and the child abuse and murder committed by Marc Dutroux. Within a few hours the interview with Michel Moreau got hundreds of angry emojis on Facebook.
The attack on Metro backfired and for a short time became a problem for Le Soir. All the same the editors at Metro had an even bigger problem that needed urgent solving before the public got wind of it too: The “Brussels seeks a name for its pig” competition had got completely out of hand. Readers were able to post their suggestions online or like others’ suggestions, and the rankings of the various names were updated with every new suggestion or click, corresponding to how many times a name had been suggested and the number of likes. This ranking was intended to be the basis for the jury’s longlist. To begin with the suggestions had been the most obvious names: Miss Piggy, Babe, Peppa Pig.
The only Brussels-related names were Varkentje Pis (17 likes) and possibly Catherine as well (21 likes), because the pig had first been sighted in Sainte-Catherine. But then something inconceivable happened. One name was suggested hundreds of times, and it made its way to the top of the rankings with thousands of likes: Muhammad. That could only have been the result of concerted action. As soon as the editorial off
ice realised this they took the page down. Several jury members resigned, unwilling to be associated any longer with a competition that seemed to be turning into an act of aggression against Muslim citizens.
We’re axing it, the editor-in-chief said. We’ll keep our heads down. Soon it’ll all be forgotten. By the way, Kurt, have you noticed we haven’t had any new photos of the pig for two weeks? And no reports of any sightings. It’s vanished. Vanished without trace.
À suivre.
ROBERT MENASSE was born in Vienna in 1954 and studied there before moving to Brazil, where he lived for six years as a professor of literature at the University of São Paulo. He is the author of several novels translated into English, including Wings of Stone and Reverse Thrust, and of a work of non-fiction, Enraged Citizens, European Peace and Democratic Deficits: Or Why the Democracy Given to Us Must Become One We Fight for (2016). In 2017 he was awarded the German Book Prize for Die Hauptstadt (The Capital).
JAMIE BULLOCH is the translator of Timur Vermes’ Look Who’s Back, Birgit Vanderbeke’s The Mussel Feast, which won him the Schlegel-Tieck Prize, Kingdom of Twilight by Steven Uhly, and novels by F. C. Delius, Jörg Fauser, Martin Suter, Roland Schimmelpfennig and Oliver Bottini.
ALSO BY ROBERT MENASSE
IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Wings of Stone (2000)
Enraged Citizens, European Peace and Democratic Deficits: Or Why the Democracy Given to Us Must Become One We Fight for (2016)
The Capital is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to business entities, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Capital Page 36
