by Timur Vermes
“What’s in it for me?”
“More money than you’ve ever seen in your life.”
“Listen, amigo, I’ve seen quite a lotta moolah,” Mojo says, amused.
“I know,” Lionel says seriously, looking Mojo in the eye. “I know. And because I know, I can say to you: I’ll offer you . . . more.”
Mojo leans forwards and stares at him. He’s thinking. Then he flaps his hand at Bandele, who stands up and leaves the room.
“O.K., right now a journey to Europe costs fifteen thousand bucks. Or twelve thousand if you get a good deal. But you ain’t got that kinda dough.”
Lionel nods.
“I’ve seen twelve thousand bucks and it don’t impress me.”
Lionel nods again.
“But you can scrape together more from your television thing.”
Lionel nods a third time.
“How much we talkin’ ’bout here? Fifty grand? One hundred grand?”
“More.”
Lionel leans back and casually rests his right foot in its canvas trainer on one of the desk’s corners. He contemplates pushing off and balancing the chair on its back legs, but decides against it. He’ll come across as more decisive if he’s not wobbling.
“Five hundred grand?”
“One hundred million dollars.”
Mojo shifts to the back of his chair.
“Get the fuck outta here!”
Lionel takes his foot off the desk and leans in towards Mojo. “Plus bonus.”
“Get the fuck outta here!”
“I’ll let you do the sums.”
Lionel gives Mojo the details.
Mojo does the sums.
Then he agrees. Because it all adds up.
And because Lionel tells him that this is just the beginning.
19
He takes the AK-47 by the strap from one shoulder and hangs it over the other shoulder. Four kilos are four kilos. There are days when he doesn’t feel it at all, and days when he thinks he’s carrying a lead shotgun.
The simplest thing to do, of course, would be to put it down.
Nobody’s going to come past anyhow, or at least nobody’s going to creep up on him. The landscape’s flat here, the view extends far into the distance and there’s nothing to see. What could there be? To be honest, this border post exists for one reason only: five hundred metres away on the other side is an equally redundant border post. But since it does exist then he might as well carry the gun; at least it looks like something and feels like something. And he has to stand, because he can’t hold it when he’s sitting down.
Then he sees the cloud. A cloud of dust. In itself nothing unusual, but there’s not really sufficient wind today for clouds like this. He screws up his eyes and blinks over at the other border post. He’s not sure whether he can spot any trouble, but the guy on the other side seems to be on his feet as well.
A small cloud has detached from the large one. At first he wonders whether it might be a cloud of smoke, but there’s no doubt that it’s dust. The small cloud is approaching fast, it seems to be a vehicle, but he can’t be sure because the border post is obscuring the view. Now the guard on the other side puts his hand to his head; he’s making a telephone call. He probably doesn’t recognise the vehicle either, he wants instructions, he’s going to ask his boss what to do. A bit too late, in fact, for the small cloud is racing towards them, and even if he gets hold of his boss, there won’t be enough time for instructions about the small cloud. Maybe he’s ringing about the big one?
What could it be? In the end it shouldn’t concern his counterpart on the other side of the border. Whatever’s coming, it’s leaving his country, so where’s the problem?
Is it someone important?
Someone famous?
Here, of all places?
Can’t be. If there was something special on its way the boss would be over there too, keeping an eye on it all. Because it’s certainly worth seeing, what emerges from behind the border hut: an off-roader with zebra stripes.
In pink.
The car races unchallenged along the track towards him. About one hundred metres before the border, it stops. A small group of people get out, all of them white. They indicate various positions in the dust, which they take a closer look at, then point first at the other border hut, then at his. One of them raises his hands as if using magic powers on the other hut, then he twists slowly at the waist until the magic rays are aiming at his shed. Here. There. Here. There.
The hut conjuror returns to the car, opens the tailgate and now the magic hands make sense. When he sees the man take out a camera and tripod, it’s his turn to take out his mobile and call the colonel.
“Something’s going on here and I thought you ought to take a look. You see—”
“This is none of your business.”
An unusual answer.
“Do you know about this?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“That’s why I’m telling you. It’s television. Television people. White television people. And a cloud.”
“I’ve got other things to do. Just don’t bother yourself about it.”
“Do you know what’s coming through?”
“Nothing that’s anything of our business.”
“As far as you’re concerned, it’s O.K. then?”
“As far as I’m concerned, nothing’s O.K. I don’t know anything because there isn’t anything to know.”
“I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing here. Because what’s coming my way looks like a really huge amount of nothing.”
“Now just you listen to me, you idiot. We’re not at war. Unless you see an enemy army coming towards you I don’t want to be disturbed again. I have work to be getting on with.”
“I’ve no idea what’s coming towards me!”
“What do you imagine? If an enemy were on its way, the T.V. people wouldn’t turn up beforehand, would they? And I’m not interested in anything else.”
“I . . .”
“Your job is to spare me any aggro. I don’t want any whining, any hassle, any dead bodies, do you understand? And I don’t want to hear from you again unless there’s a tank up your arse!”
The line goes dead. So nobody’s going to come and see what there is to see. At a loss, he takes the rifle from his shoulder and looks over at the television people. As their camera slowly pans towards him, he feels extremely silly with his rifle in his hands, standing watch over the great big nothingness. He slings it back over his shoulder as phlegmatically as possible, as if it had simply become too heavy.
The cloud grows, it’s coming nearer. Now the television people aim the camera at him and he tries to look as if he has everything under control. He peers over to the guy on the other side. What’s he doing? He’s taken his rifle off his shoulder and has his finger near the trigger. He’s staring into the distance, but he doesn’t move onto the road, he doesn’t step in anybody’s way, he remains in the shadows as if he’s just as clueless.
The whites have enough pictures for the time being. They’re no longer beside the camera, but they’re not dismounting it either. They’re in conversation, sitting in the shade of their vehicle. He has no idea what they’re talking about, but they all keep shaking their heads in unison. If they weren’t there he’d go over and ask the other guy if he knows what this is about. But he doesn’t want to show weakness. And he can hardly move position because the television people would notice and probably start filming him again. He doesn’t want to make trouble.
The cloud grows. But another glance at his opposite number and he feels reassured. His counterpart is standing in the shade, smoking. Perhaps all of this is taking place only on his side and the television people are where they are because it affords them the best view. And his colleague is getting a walk-on part.
So why did they film him too?
Because he’s watching, of course. They often do that, they show something and then splice it with th
e image of a bored lizard or a dog, watching what’s going on and . . .
“This is none of your business.” Strange answer.
The television people start to move. One makes a phone call, then looks over the top of the pink zebra car to the other border guard. The guy with the phone leans forwards and nudges the shoulder of a colleague, who nudges the next one and so on until they’re all on their feet.
His opposite number gets moving. He wanders to the barrier and raises it. The television people peer into the distance and shake their heads. Then they look at him, as if it were his turn now to shake his head. But why, for God’s sake? He almost wishes he could see a tank because then he’d be allowed to telephone for more instructions. Why does it have to be him on duty today?
His counterpart raises a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. The wind drives the dust in his direction, and the dust is quicker than what’s churning it up. His head and the hand that looks like it’s saluting are virtually still, but the guard is turning slowly as if trying to gauge a huge distance.
What on earth can it be coming towards them?
“This is none of your business.”
What sort of an answer is that?
The colonel isn’t here, and although he doesn’t know why, he’s beginning to suspect that the colonel knows precisely why. And if it’s alright for the colonel not to be here now, can it be alright for him to be where the colonel doesn’t want to be?
What could be coming towards them that he might be able to stop?
And if he does stop it, will anyone thank him?
Or will they say he ought to have let it pass?
Although he’s got no solid proof of this, he’s suddenly convinced that the only reason nobody’s here apart from him is because nobody wants to be here.
Then he sees it. Emerging from the cloud.
Those are people.
A column of people. They’re not armed. Just lots and lots of people, and behind them presumably lots more. Some have children, others are alone. They’re carrying rolled-up blankets as if they’re planning to spend the night somewhere. They’re not running, they’re strolling calmly as if they know they’ll be allowed to keep going. In spite of the border. They don’t engage in discussion with his counterpart, they simply wander through the open barrier. They look like people from the refugee camps. They are refugees, and now he realises what his opposite number was told by his superior:
“If they want to keep going, let them.”
That’s why his counterpart is standing there so casually, watching them all stream past. Through his binoculars he sees the other guard turn around, put his binoculars to his eyes and look in his direction. Their eyes meet. With a broad grin his opposite number waves at him without putting down his binoculars. He slightly fades into the cloud of dust thrown up by the enormous column of people now moving towards the television people and him. There is no end to the mass of people.
Still peering through binoculars, the other guard points at the people, makes exaggerated counting gestures, showing one finger, two fingers, three fingers, then tries to look puzzled: “How many of them are there?” He then laughs, throws his hands in the air, lifts them higher, then higher still. You might call the expression on his face one of disbelief, but this disbelief vanishes behind the overarching relief that these people are not his problem.
He realises that they would need a vast number of guards to stop these hundreds, if not thousands – a vast number of guards with truncheons or firearms. And he also realises it’s no coincidence that he’s here on his own. He doesn’t have friends in high places to extricate him from this shit. He’s the stupid arse nobody tells anything to.
He can no longer see the pink car or the camera. Too many people. None of them so much as glances at him as they approach. People usually respect a man in combat gear with a rifle, but these hundreds of individuals believe there’s zero chance of him doing anything.
He hears curses he can’t understand. Squinting through the dust and the people he sees the pink zebra car again, and a man cursing and shouting – he must have wanted to film the guard’s reaction to all these people, but the camera can’t pick up anything because of the dust. He himself can barely see the pink car.
What’s going to happen tomorrow? Where are all these people going? Nobody’s going to be happy to see them. Questions will be asked. And he can’t conceive of any sequence of events that doesn’t end with someone, at some point, wanting to know who was actually on border guard duty at the time.
It won’t be a question of “who?”, but “which idiot?”.
Helplessly he gazes in the direction of where these people are coming from. He cannot see where the stream ends. It strikes him now that there are scarcely any old people among them, and everybody seems to be travelling fairly light, as if they’d had no time to pack.
Or they don’t need much where they’re heading.
With his rifle slung over his shoulder, he wanders casually to the road and tosses a question into the crowd: “Where are you all off to, then?”
He’s answered by a woman holding two children by the hand.
“To Germany.”
“You’re walking there?”
“I’m not one of the organisers. If you’ve got any questions, ask the tall guy back there!”
He tries to spot a tall man in the chaos coming his way. The woman moves on. The little girl holding her hand laughs and gives him a wave.
“Ottobafes!”
He reckons it’ll be ten or twenty minutes before the pink zebra car has made its way through the crowd to his border post on the other side. So he’s got between ten and twenty minutes until the cameras are here. He takes a deep breath, then realises what’s going to happen.
The white people will come to his hut. They’ll be ranting as they leap out of the car, scolding the driver for having taken so long. Then the television people will look for something or someone.
They won’t find anybody. Someone will beckon the cameraman, who’ll just have to film what’s left: his uniform on a chair. And his abandoned rifle leaning against the hut.
And his cap, hanging from the muzzle.
20
Sensenbrink has had better days. He slept dreadfully last night, and the night before too. He’s been shouting at his wife because she’s getting on his nerves. She’s noticed, of course, that he’s not drinking, and she knows this is a bad sign; he stops drinking the moment he’s got problems. It makes him feel he can really be in control of things. Sensenbrink knows this is nonsense; he doesn’t drink that much as it is.
Then there’s her bloody sympathy: “If there something bothering you?” Even the tone of voice is enough to drive him crackers. Normally he doesn’t have anything against his wife, but that fucking tone of voice.
That sympathetic tone, that maternal tone.
That’s probably it. It’s the maternal tone of voice, which makes you react like you’d react to your mother. You stomp up to your room, slam the door then push the wardrobe in front of it. But to be fair, it’s not the silly baggage’s fault.
It’s that stupid bloody cow’s.
He can sense the rug being pulled out from under his feet. It’s that feeling of risk, and Sensenbrink hates risk. He’s a manager, for God’s sake. If he loved taking risks he’d be an entrepreneur. But now this half-wit has practically tricked him into entrepreneurship.
This madwoman!
It was a brilliant programme, it just got more and more popular. Created out of nothing, nobody gave it the slightest chance, but that’s precisely his strength – even if people have forgotten this of late. Sensenbrink has a sixth sense for the unconventional. He doesn’t spend his time chasing after the mainstream because he’s seen quite a lot in his time and he knows what works. But for this you’ve got to be a little older than all those bunnies in the office. If you ask Gretchen Daftbint and Co. which channel Loriot developed his material on they say, “YouTube!”
&nbs
p; It was Radio Bremen!
Now that was television!
So can it be pure coincidence that it was him who turned A2 into a cash cow? The last series alone earned around 150 million euros, and that was just on advertising. Merchandising was on top. And what about the increase in the firm’s share price – Kärrner made a tidy sum from his options. It could have gone on quite happily like that, and by next year they would have felt obliged to offer him a place on the board. A perfectly simple, bombproof idea. And what does that asinine bimbo turn it into? A kamikaze mission!
Nobody knows how this is going to end.
No, actually, it’s quite clear where it’s going to end: in a shitshow. It can only end in a shitshow. If you’re at the roulette wheel and your number comes up, not once but twice, then you don’t bet the whole lot again. You get up and say, “Thanks, ladies and gentlemen, I’m done!” But that nutter put all the money back on the table so quickly they didn’t even see it.
And before you’ve blinked she’s marching across the border with one hundred and fifty thousand other nutters. What other choice was he left with than to sell this to Kärrner as the story of the century? What else could he have said? “Hackenbusch has got too much for me, I can’t keep her under control. We need to abort A2 right now!”
They could have pulled out the camera team, of course they could have. You don’t have to admit your star has lost the plot, you can just say people have had enough of poverty and misery, that sort of thing. But then Kärrner would say, “Are you telling me Nadeche Hackenbusch is walking to Europe with one hundred and fifty thousand refugees and we’re not there?” Or, worse: “We were there, we had exclusive access and you pulled the plug? How stupid can you be? Go and see Frau Schaabe tomorrow, she’s already prepared your termination contract.”