The Cusanus Game

  The train passed through shafts made of concrete components that had been mounted in metal frames. They too had long been conquered and overgrown by the climbing plant, and when the view opened up onto the landscape, I saw in the meadows tall-growing variants of the Urticaceae, the black stinging nettle, and in the depressions cohorts of huge Heracleum mantegazzianum, the giant hogweed, which assembled like units of elite troops for an assault.

  But worst of all was the invisible enemy, which had infiltrated long ago and now exercised its power: the spores of mutant, aggressive fungi, which were spread through the land not only by the rail and road transport but above all by the wind. I saw cornfields in which the seedlings, scarcely two handbreadths tall, had already become withered and brown, and winter wheat rusting in the spring sun. The grass still seemed largely unscathed, though densely starred with the magnificent yolk-yellow of the dandelion—a sign of ruined soil due to overfertilization and a genetically overbred and weakened vegetation.

  The farms bore witness to the pride of their former cultivators. Their descendants seemed to have less cause for it. At the hearts of the villages crowded broad, sturdy houses, which displayed wealth with ornate wooden facades and ostentatious balcony architecture. Toward the outskirts cheap prefabricated houses predominated. Bavaria had seen better days. Here too livestock death had repeatedly wreaked havoc.

  A shower between two sunny stretches. Thin rain crosshatched the window, drew speed diagrams. The dashed lines became more and more vertical—the train stopped.

  Rosenheim. A gorgeous name! But there were no roses in sight far and wide. Ugly square troughs cast in river gravel and concrete were lined up on the platform. In them were mountain pines that had perished from air pollution and rust fungi; the bare spots in the soil between them were planted with pansies—exposed in autumn, frozen in winter.

  Alongside the tracks clustered dreary low buildings in red and yellow, from which the paint peeled; crumpled blinds in the windows. A rusty metal bridge on thin concrete stilts spanned the tracks and platforms; on both sides of the steps stood filthy dumpsters spray-painted with radical slogans of the Asens and Kicobs and surrounded by hundreds of greasy bottles and blue garbage bags. On the next track a freight train with tanks that were covered with camouflage tarps was shunted.

  We rolled on.

  The small houses were built much too close to the tracks; kiddie pools, plastic-covered porch swings in tiny front gardens. I could imagine the desperate defensive battles of the owners, how they took a stand with poison and garden shears against the onslaught of vegetation. But probably they had long been overrun by hyperactive ants, which marked their trails through living rooms and bedrooms and plundered provisions, by roundworms and earthworms, millipedes, centipedes, and pauropods, by spiders and other insects, springtails and diplurans, woodlice, which, crowded together in damp darkness, waited for their hour, by adapted termites, which invisibly ate away at the house over the heads and under the feet of the occupants.

  Long before the arrival in Munich I noticed the sprawling city: container homes, stacked up triply, even quadruply in rows—the upper ones reachable by external stairs. Between them dead-straight camp roads stretched to the horizon, lined by streetlamps and makeshift sidewalks. Bus stops, playgrounds, air-supported halls. Train stations: Eglharting, Zorneding. Placards were stuck to the walls along the tracks: WE CENTRAL GERMANS PROTEST AGAINST THE SELLING OUT OF OUR HOMELAND and THE EU BETRAYED US. WE DEMAND OUR RIGHT TO A HOMELAND. Bridge piers, concrete walls, and dumpsters were spray-painted with graffiti, ugly and aggressive: ASEN—the raised fist. KICOB—the hurtling-down short sword.

  “Don’t be fooled by the view,” said the young man from the bus, who was suddenly leaning in the doorway of the compartment. “Munich is still better than Calcutta or Mexico City. At the moment we may be somewhat inundated with Saxons, but in the meantime they’ve already learned to speak some German.”

  Among the passengers in the compartment there was loud protest. The man winked at me; only now did I notice that he was missing an incisor. Probably he said things like that often.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked with a grin, holding his hand stagily in front of his mouth. “They already understand me really well. They’re diligent, these people. We’re going to manage. Have a nice trip!”

  He gave me a thumbs-up in parting and got off. The signs said MÜNCHEN OST. Then we rolled on and, shortly thereafter, crossed a shallow river glistening in the sun.

  “Isoh,” declared the woman in the window seat opposite me, giving me a somewhat reserved but not unfriendly nod.

  * * *

  IN NEU-ULM THE passengers from Württemberg had to wipe their feet. They went through a hall from which foul-smelling chemical fumes emanated. BAVARIAN RED CROSS said a large sign in red letters. Underneath in threatening black: DISINFECTION FACILITY. NO ADMITTANCE. ENTRY ONLY BACKWARD.

  I did not really understand the sign, but the conductor informed me that, because I was a south-north traveler, as opposed to the north-south travelers, it did not apply to me, but that I could go directly through to the other part of the train station.

  “Forward?” I asked, to make sure.

  He seemed not to understand me, but nodded.

  So I left the fawn brown, pine green train of the Bavarian State Railroad and proceeded to a yellow and black one, which was indistinguishable from it, except that it belonged to the BADEN-WÜRTTEMBERG STATE RAILROAD and on its coat of arms bore three lions facing left. Shortly thereafter, we rolled across the Danube. To the right over the city rose the cathedral in the midday light; a tower that looked as if it were made of pleated lace, stiff and gray with old age.

  Two different states, but to me the same image presented itself: abandoned small businesses in all stages of decay, overcrowded tower blocks, rotary clotheslines made of wire and plastic in front of the windows, peeling facades on which old-fashioned antennas grew rampant like tree fungi. Stacked-up container homes with off-white plastic coating, stained brown by sewage and rust, calcified pipes and corrugated hoses, ladders on which playing children clambered around.

  The train snaked down into a narrow valley. On the slopes fresh beech green below a crystal-clear sky of a refreshing light blue. Strange quaint names, as in a fantasy game: Geislingen, Süßen, Eislingen, Uhingen, Plochingen, Untertürkheim, Feuerbach, Zuffenhausen, Pforzheim … finally: Heidelberg—end of the line.

  For a long time the outpost of the human-inhabited world at the border of the death zone, the “unsettled area,” as the authorities officially called it. “Unsettled” it would undoubtedly remain for the next twenty or thirty years, even if the decontamination continued to proceed according to plan and the required expenses of approximately five trillion euros were met. “Unsettled” for the next twenty to thirty thousand years in the core zone between Saarbrücken and Erfurt, according to pessimists.

  “Heidelberg,” said the voice on the loudspeaker. “Final stop. Everybody off!”

  VI

  The Octopus

  History itself and how magnificently far we have come we owe, after all, to the fact that the right side has always won, the right decisions have always been made, the right people have always lived. Gloria! Victoria! Historia! To wish to rethink all this—is that not an unwarranted and wanton ingratitude toward the Norns?… Only a concept of history pruned of its most fruitful part contents itself with reality. If the point of history is to free us from the prison of the present, then it does something more by teaching us to look out of the narrow world of the real into the great space of the possible. Here there is a whole dimension to be gained.

  ALEXANDER DEMANDT

  Still more cadavers—fourteen or fifteen, Fingerhut counted. They lay on a pasture along the stream. Senselessly picked off. Dark brown heaps of fur, hooves, and bared teeth.

  “Why do they kill the camels?” Fingerhut shouted over the rotor noise.

  The pilot turned to him. “Those are animals that do
n’t belong here!” he shouted back. “They say that they’re unnatural, completely degenerate animals.”

  “Do you believe that too?” asked Fingerhut.

  The pilot shrugged.

  Fingerhut checked on the monitor in front of his left eye whether the free-flying camera drone following them had a good view of the dead camels. He grabbed his steering collar and zoomed in on one of the cadavers.

  “They seem to have set their sights on exterminating those animals.”

  “And their owners right along with them,” the pilot added with a laugh. “Listen, mister, I’ll drop you off now somewhere around here.”

  “You will fly me to the meeting point,” Fingerhut replied firmly. “When we receive the arranged signal, we will land. That’s the deal.”

  “Just a second! There was mention of Wettin, just beyond the autobahn between Löbejün and Lettewitz,” the pilot countered. “The autobahn is the border for helicopter flights. Meanwhile we have passed the Saale and are almost within range of Eisleben. There in the south I already see Lake Süßer. I’m not permitted to fly farther west. Besides, it hasn’t rained for weeks. The rotor is whipping up so much radioactivity that the Geiger counters between Oslo and Helsinki are ticking. I’m not crazy!”

  “I’ve paid you a lot of money to take me to this area,” Fingerhut said threateningly.

  “Money! Money!” moaned the pilot in a Saxon singsong. “I’m risking my license, mister. I can’t afford that.”

  Fingerhut flicked the microphone in front of his mouth. “Dear viewers, you’ve heard it for yourselves. We’re now flying over a heavily radioactively contaminated area. We’re in the so-called death zone. The pilot refuses to penetrate deeper into the restricted area; it’s too risky for him. He doesn’t want to jeopardize his health. He’s young. He wants to father healthy children. That’s an argument that we can understand and that we should respect.”

  “I only said that I don’t want to jeopardize my license. I didn’t say anything about health,” the pilot protested crossly.

  But Fingerhut had turned down the external mike so far that the objection could not be understood, and went on: “Nonetheless, tens of thousands of people are living in this area by now, refugees from Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, from countries whose coastal regions were destroyed in recent years by the rising oceans—from Micronesia and from the Maldives, which have in the meantime sunk in the sea. They have volunteered to come to Central Europe in order to fight here against the radioactivity and defeat it. They’ve knowingly taken the radiation risk and have dared to brave the cold climate of this region, unfamiliar as it is to them. As I have already shown you, my viewers, these courageous people cope astonishingly well with these challenges. The worst enemy opposing them here, however, is neither the cold nor the radioactivity, but people with extreme racist attitudes, who take intensely brutal action against them. These are small paramilitary units, first and foremost the ASEN, the Aryan Sons of the European North, and the KICOB, a radical international splinter group of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan in the United States, which exhibits its goal in its name: Kill the Colored Breed. They receive financial support from international racist organizations and—though it is denied despite overwhelming evidence—from the Central German refugee associations.”

  The pilot flew in circles and strained to keep a lookout down below. He was beginning to get rather nervous.

  “If everything goes according to plan, you, dear viewers, will get to know some of these defenders of their race and their fatherland and possibly witness a conversation with one of their leaders.”

  “Do you see that over there?” shouted the pilot. “They’re burning down a village.”

  The helicopter flew over destroyed greenhouses. The plastic coverings were slit open; laser guns had burned large holes in them, the black shriveled edges of which looked like the gaping mouths of corpses.

  “Closer!” commanded Fingerhut; he fiddled with his steering collar and corrected the course of his drone.

  “I’ll drop you off here. If they’re engaged in combat, I’m at risk of getting hit by a surface-to-air missile. They’re all crazy. They’re sick, I tell you.”

  “Did you hear that, dear viewers? We are in danger here of getting hit by a surface-to-air missile…”

  “That’s what I just said.”

  “What do you mean by sick?”

  “That virus they’ve been infecting each other with, those idiots. During sexual intercourse or their crazy rituals. Blood brotherhood, loyalty unto death … What do I know? That’s what people say anyway.”

  “So you believe that these people have been infected?”

  “I’m getting a signal!” the pilot shouted; his thin face in his black full shell helmet was pale.

  “Good,” said Fingerhut, pointing downward. “Land!”

  “I see movement over there.” The pilot gestured to a group of trees.

  “That must be the commando. Give the arranged sign.”

  “I already have.”

  “And pick me up here again in three hours,” ordered Fingerhut, looking at the monitor on his instrument collar. “Six thirty P.M. Okay? Later the light can no longer be used. Six thirty. Do you understand?”

  “Understood, mister.”

  No sooner had Fingerhut climbed out than the pilot again put the helicopter into a climb and accelerated.

  It was two boys, no older than fifteen or sixteen. They wore green and brown camouflage suits and black ski masks with the balled fist, the ASEN logo, on the forehead. Each of them had a LasGun lying in the crook of his arm. They signaled to the reporter with a nod to follow them. The camera drone hovered indecisively over them. Having noticed the buzz of the minirotors, one of the young men looked up and raised his weapon.

  “No!” Fingerhut howled.

  The boy lowered the weapon.

  “Dear viewers…”

  “Shut up!” said the other one.

  “Listen…”

  “I said shut up!”

  Fingerhut spread his hands. “Okay, okay. Take it easy, gentlemen,” he murmured.

  * * *

  THE PACK LEADER shoved the toe of his boot under the hip of the corpse and turned it onto its back. The bony chest of the man was a charred, shriveled-up mass. The laser must have been fired at him from up close. The eyes of the dead man were wide with terror. The mouth, opened to scream, suggested the man’s horrible pain. He had several missing teeth; his long yellowish brown incisors jutted out almost horizontally under the dark, leathery upper lip. Probably he had been the village elder or spokesperson for the settlers. The sign of his position, a long, carved staff, he held in his hand even in death.

  Fingerhut zoomed in on the wound and then panned to the face. He bowed his head and clenched his teeth in order to hold steady the targeted sensor of his shoulder camera. He refrained from commentary. The images spoke for themselves.

  “You wanted an action interview, if I understood you correctly, Herr Fingerhut,” said the pack leader with his high, youthful voice. He emphasized the name, seemed to find it funny.

  “Do you have a name too, Herr Pack Leader?” Fingerhut asked, annoyed that under the strain his voice sounded somewhat shrill, almost a little squeaky. Like a beginner, he said to himself. Like a damn beginner! But the guy really did frighten him. Unpredictable. A psychopath.

  “That’s irrelevant here,” said the pack leader. “We all serve a greater task.”

  His gaze was directed into an indeterminate distance. Fingerhut had him very close and in profile. He had a soft, almost beardless face, deeply suntanned skin, and extremely short-cropped curly hair—dyed light blond.

  The pack leader gestured to the almost-burned-down houses all around. It was windless. The smoke rose almost vertically. The wood of the collapsed roof beams crackled.

  “We’re the purifying fire,” he said in his drawn-out way of speaking, as if he were on drugs, but his eyes flashed coldly and alertly, and his
gestures were smooth and precise. “We exterminate the rank growth, the inferior. We eradicate the superfluous, the worthless.”

  “Ah, I see. And you decide what is of value and what is expendable.”

  “It’s providence that gives us the knowledge. The great ones above have chosen us to prepare the earth for their arrival. You have, I see, no idea, Mr. Fingerhut. From the ashes the new will emerge, a new, greater world. Have you ever read Blavatsky? Helena Petrovna Blavatsky? Or Gurdjieff? Never heard of them, huh?” He nodded mockingly. “But Aleister Crowley you must have heard of, at least. Or Bulwer-Lytton. Englishmen like you. You are English, right? Or are you American?”

  “American.”

  “Get rid of him!” the pack leader shouted to the two young men and pointed to the corpse. Only now did the reporter notice that the man was wearing elegant gloves made of fine dove gray suede. Why is he wearing gloves? Fingerhut wondered. Is he loath to touch this world before it has been purified of all that is “inferior”? Blavatsky. Gurdjieff. Oh yes, he was acquainted with them. Not their works, but their names. And their paranoid ideologies. Von Sebottendorf, Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, Guido von List, Hanns Hörbiger, and whatever the names of all those protofascist mystics of the superhuman and World Ice Theory were, who at the beginning of the previous century not only fogged the small minds of a Hitler or Hess, but also polluted all Europe with the haze of their abstruse ideas. Had they risen from the grave here and now?

  Two of the young people grabbed the dead body by the feet and pulled it across the street. It was as if the old man, in a last surge of protest, were shaking his head as he was dragged across the asphalt.

  In a front garden they had dug a shallow grave with a bulldozer. “Dear God,” Fingerhut whispered in horror when he saw that thirty or thirty-five corpses were lying in it—old people, young people, men, women, children, probably all the residents of the small settlement. His knees shook as he aimed the camera at the dead. He brought the drone into position at a height of ten yards and checked the wide shot on the monitor.