But even if treaties were in place, you can’t just produce pigs’ ears, you’ve got to have the whole pig. I mean, you can’t rear those quantities of whole pigs just because of the demand for ears. What do you do with the rest?
Are you thick, or what? This means there’ll be no wastage. We’ve already got the leftover bits. Slaughterhouse waste. Pigs’ ears are just one example. The Chinese don’t just take ham, fillet, bacon, shoulder – that anyway – but also the ears, heads, tails, they eat everything, they take everything. What we call slaughterhouse waste they buy at the price of fillet. In other words, a trade agreement for pork products with China would mean a 20 per cent increase in revenue per pig and, on the basis of current demand, a 100 per cent growth in the medium term, i.e. a doubling of European pig production. Do you see? That’s the growth market. No industrial sector has prognoses like that.
I understand, Martin said, and it was no good, that bored, affectedly patient, poor attempt at a polite “I understand!” The look his brother shot him made Martin start. Hurriedly he said, I don’t understand. If this opportunity exists and the demand in China is so great, then why . . .
Because your colleagues are mad. Utterly clueless. Instead of forcing the Member States to give the Commission the authority to conclude an E.U. trade treaty with China – and also finance the expansion of pig production with subsidies – they sit there watching China play divide and rule, and at the same time take measures to reduce pig production in Europe. The Commission believes there are too many pigs in Europe, which leads to falling prices and so on. So what do they do? Provide less support. Introduce set-aside premiums even. Which means that now in Europe the situation is as follows: overproduction for the internal market, causing a drop in prices, combined with a block on access to a market we can’t produce enough for. Measures that will decrease production further, but no measures to allow us access to the market where we could sell twice as much.
By now their food had arrived.
How’s the pork in cherry beer?
What? Oh. Yes, it’s fine. Anyway, what we need now is investment on a scale that no concern could afford on its own. Subsidies, not cutbacks. Subsidies, an aggressive growth policy. Do you understand? Instead we’re getting constraints. Animal protection. A ban on sow stalls, obligatory air ducts with diffusers. H.d.t.-system . . .
I’m not even going to ask what that is.
It’s expensive. It hoovers up your profits. Here, let me show you something. He opened his briefcase, leafed through some papers and took one out.
Here: E.U. pig price statistics for the last half year. 15 July: down 18 per cent in Europe. 22 July: rock bottom – if only! 19 August: little movement on the markets. 9 September: down 21 per cent. 16 September: sharp downward trend. 21 October: pig prices fall by 14 per cent. Shall I go on?
No.
Downward trend, drop in prices, rock bottom, another drop. And no response from the E.U. Since the beginning of the year – look at this! Here! It says it right here! – since the beginning of the year, an average of forty-eight pig farmers per day have shut the barn door for the very last time. And thousands of others who have tried to hang on in there are facing bankruptcy proceedings. But with a 20 per cent higher purchasing price for a whole pig we could produce twice as much. We just need coordinated investment in the necessary infrastructure, and to talk to China. But try telling that to Herr Frigge. He tells me that unfortunately the E.U. has a different agenda for pig production. And at the same time they’re forbidding the Member States from handing out subsidies because that would be a distortion of competition. Do you know this Frigge guy?
No.
I don’t believe that. He’s a colleague of yours. I can’t see what he’s playing at. Listen, you’ve got to have a word in his ear, just amongst yourselves you’ve got to make it clear to him that . . .
Florian! The Commission doesn’t work like the Austrian Farmers’ Association!
Don’t give me that! What’s the point of having you on the inside?
There’s one thing I don’t get. You were saying something about a change of name? What did Herr Frigge want, what name are you supposed to change?
No, that wasn’t Frigge. That was the gentlemen from the parliament. Not a woman amongst them. I might have been able to work my charm on a woman, but it was just men, and they were uncompromising in their stupidity. From the European People’s Party grouping, do you get it?
No.
The European People’s Party. I’d imagined it would be a home game for me, I mean, I’m a member of the Austrian People’s Party. Here in the European Parliament it’s called the E.P.P.
So?
Well, I’m here in Brussels as the president of the European Pig Producers, which is also E.P.P. Do you see? I had a mandate to negotiate on two points: subsidies for expanding pig production and coordinating European pork exports. We didn’t discuss either of these for a second. The M.E.P.s said that first we had to change our name and logo. It wasn’t right that when people Google the European People’s Party, the E.P.P., the first thing they see is pigs. Don’t laugh! I said it was difficult. We’re a transnational organisation, officially registered in every single one of the Member States. That’s a huge task. Do you know what they suggested? Seeing as our name is The European Pig Producers we should include the “The” in our acronym, then we’d be called T.E.P.P. It’s outrageous, so cynical!
But weren’t you talking in German?
No, there wasn’t a German amongst them.
Then it wasn’t cynical. How are they meant to know that “Tepp” is German for “moron”?
Florian mopped up the last of his goulash with some bread, just like he used to do as a child. Their mother had always said that she didn’t need to wash up Florian’s plate after dinner.
A little bit sweet, that cherry beer sauce. Did you say something about being able to smoke in the vault? Show me! I could really do with a cigarette now.
They walked home like brothers, arm in arm, teetering and tottering on the Brussels cobblestones. They had drunk gin and tonics and, seduced by the selection, smoked cigars. The effect was noticeable when they stood up from the club armchairs, and even more so when they came up into the fresh air. After Martin dropped his brother off at the hotel it began to rain again and he realised that he’d left his umbrella at Belga Queen. He arrived home soaked through, took off his jacket and trousers, opened the fridge and hesitated briefly before taking a bottle of Jupiler and sitting by the fireplace. His brother had given him a magazine (“Look what I brought you! I’m on the cover!”) which he now flicked through rather than read: “THINK PIG! The E.P.P. information bulletin”.
Three
Ultimately death is just the beginning of after-effects.
ON THE WAY from Gare Centrale to police headquarters in rue Marché au Charbon, Émile Brunfaut always stopped and looked around, letting his gaze wander across the fronts of the buildings, watching people go about their tasks or making for their destinations, as if putting the city into operation. He loved the early mornings in Brussels as the city was waking up. He took a few deep breaths, sighed, but then noted uneasily that these were not sighs of happiness. As he crossed the Grande Place he stopped again to look: such splendour! Truly, the square only displayed its beauty at this early hour, before it became occupied by masses of tourists. He hated tourists, those barbarians that hunted down confirmation of the clichés they carried around in their heads, people who had replaced their eyes with tablets and cameras, who stood in the way, turning the living city into a museum and those who worked here into extras, museum attendants and lackeys. Brussels was already a polyglot, multicultural city before these masses, who had no business being here, arrived from countries all over the world. Taking another deep breath, he pressed his briefcase to his stomach and tried to expand his chest as far as possible. He gaped. Like a tourist. How beautiful! How beautiful this square was! But rather than happiness, he felt a worrying melancholy,
a sense of grief. Back in 1914, his grandfather had said, Brussels was the richest and most beautiful city in the world – then they came three times, twice in their boots with rifles, the third time in their trainers with cameras. We were thrust into a prison and released as servants. Émile Brunfaut had never liked his grandfather. He had respected him, yes, and even come to admire him in the end, but he wasn’t able to love him during his lifetime, that bitter, old man. Now he was growing old himself. Far too prematurely. He loved Brussels early in the morning – had he ever felt this when he was younger? No, he had merely strolled across the square to work. Now he looked at Brussels as if he were saying goodbye. Why? He had no intention of . . . He walked on, quickly, he wanted to have his coffee and prepare for the 8.00 a.m. briefing. He wasn’t sure that this sort of thing – prescience – really existed. He was an inspector. He had little time for hunches, speculation, flights of fancy. As his grandfather had always said, Dreaming of beer slakes no thirst. The inspector took a similar line and this would not have changed had he plumped for a different career.
The day would surely come when he would have to take his leave. He thought it would be his stomach. His large potbelly was pressing against his lungs, forcing them together. That was what it felt like and he supposed it was the reason for his breathlessness, which sounded again and again like a sigh.
It was an ice-cold January morning beneath a low, steel-grey sky. The earth a gravedigger would have to break up today was as hard as the cobbles on this magnificent square.
At the 8.00 a.m. briefing Brunfaut had to report that they had no leads in the “Atlas murder” case, not a sausage. He kept wiping his hands on his tummy, having just eaten a croissant with his coffee; its fatty crumbs stuck to his shirt. He talked and wiped, talked more and wiped more, it looked like a tic. They had a male corpse, identity unknown. The man had checked into the hotel under a false name. Ostensibly he was a Hungarian from Budapest, but his passport was forged. The receptionist had said he spoke English with a strong accent, but she couldn’t tell whether the accent was Hungarian. The men from the laboratory had worked rapidly and thoroughly, but neither the dactyloscopy nor the forensic odontology and serology tests had given any clues, while there were no matches in the Police Fédérale database. The ballistic analysis of the lethal bullet had likewise produced no results. Something might still turn up from Europol. The obduction report merely corroborated the evidence: it was an assassination, a shot to the neck from close up. The killer didn’t appear to have been looking for anything in the room and hadn’t stolen anything. The victim’s personal belongings offered no clue to his real identity, or even to a possible motive. There was nothing remarkable apart from the pig. Yes, a pig. Several people they had questioned who’d been in the vicinity of Hotel Atlas around the time of the murder, such as a neighbour, had stated that they’d seen a pig running loose in the streets around the hotel. A complete mystery, Inspector Brunfaut said. After all the investigation and questioning in this case we have but one single lead: a pig – and we don’t even know whether this pig has anything to do with the case. He wiped his chest again, then placed both hands on his stomach, pressed in and took a deep breath. Gentlemen!
None of the officers said a word, but Émile Brunfaut didn’t think that they might be keeping something from him, or that they were withholding some idea that hadn’t occurred to him. He stood up and asked the men from his team to join him in the small meeting room.
As things stand, there’s nothing we can do apart from the following, he said. First, we wait to see whether we get an answer from Europol. Second, the pig. We don’t know the identity of the victim, but we may be able to find out the identity of the pig. He gave a forced laugh. A creature like that doesn’t jump on a plane to Brussels as a tourist and go for a wander in the city centre. It must have an owner it escaped from, or someone who’s abandoned it. So let’s check out all the pig farmers in the Brussels region. Third, and most importantly, I want to know who that man was at the window of the condemned building. He might have seen something. Perhaps he was the owner of the apartment, or of the entire house. We should be able find that out very quickly. I want the information by the time I’m back here at 1 p.m. Now I have to go to the cemetery.
Only graveyards have gravity these days.
The room was overheated and David de Vriend went to open the window straight away. He discovered that it could only be tilted open, with a gap so narrow that you couldn’t even stick your arm through it. Peering down at the gravestones, which stood upright in rank and file beneath the low, grey sky, he asked whether the window locks could be changed, or better still, removed.
Madame Joséphine made it plain that de Vriend shouldn’t call her “nurse” because this was a retirement home after all, not a hospital. Alright, Monsieur de Vriend?
She talked far too loudly, she was practically yelling. After years of dealing with residents who were hard of hearing this had become second nature. David de Vriend closed his eyes as if this might allow him to close his ears too. The window, “. . . for your own safety . . .”, he heard her shout or bellow – he just wanted this woman to disappear now. Her parade-ground tone was as objectionable as her mask-like friendliness, her mouth tensed into a permanent smile. He knew he was being unfair, but if life were fair then he would have been spared all this. Now she was standing beside him, shouting into his ear: Alright? Lovely view from this window, isn’t it? All that green! He turned away, took off his jacket and tossed it onto the bed. She and her team were always here for him, alright? she said. If he ever needed help or had a problem, all he had to do was call, using the internal telephone here, or the bell beside the bed. Alright, Monsieur de Vriend? Looking around with an expression of glee, as if this tiny apartment were a luxury suite, she opened her arms and yelled, So this is your little realm! You’re going to feel at home here!
That was an order. To his astonishment he saw that she was now offering him her hand. It took a while for him to react. She was just about to pull it back when finally he held out his. There was a bit of a kerfuffle before the handshake took place. I wish you all the best here, she said, then noticed the number tattooed on his forearm. Alright? she added softly, before leaving the room. De Vriend contemplated his little realm and was surprised that he hadn’t noticed this before when visiting various old people’s homes and opting for this one: everything in the room was fixed and screwed down tight. There wasn’t one piece of furniture you could shift and set in a different place. Not just the bed with its table and the cupboard – half wardrobe, half cabinet with glass doors – but also the coffee table and L-shaped sofa were built in, the television was screwed to the wall and even the picture above the bed – a pseudo-impressionist Venice in the rain – was fixed so you couldn’t take it down. Why Venice? And why in the rain? Was it supposed to be of comfort to the burghers of Brussels in their twilight years that it rained even in the most beautiful places on earth? A small built-in kitchenette. There was nothing you could move, change, arrange differently. Not even a chair. Everything was unalterable and permanent. He went to the cupboard, where the few books he had brought with him were behind glass, wedged between a pair of ceramic bookends – two reading pigs. A present from his final class of school-leavers before retirement. He wanted to take out some books, put them here and there, on the table, on the bed, they would be the only moveable things in this room. He opened the cupboard door, his eyes scanned the spines, then again, and he felt unsure. What did he want to do? Read? Had he wanted to read? No. He stood there, staring at the books, then closed the cupboard again. He wanted – what did he want? To get out? He wanted to get out. He went to the window. Brussels city cemetery. There was nothing within reach, but plenty in sight. He dressed warmly.
It was a short hop from the Maison Hansens retirement home in rue de l’Arbre Unique to the main cemetery gate. The icy cold. The grey sky. The wrought-iron gate. He found it reassuring to see birds – crows and sparrows. And so many mo
lehills between the graves, he couldn’t recall ever having seen so many molehills in a cemetery. In fact he couldn’t recall ever having seen even one in a cemetery before. And fungi growing everywhere amongst the creeping ivy, vast numbers of fungi, that was . . . that was . . . he couldn’t remember the name. He knew them, what did it matter? They were inedible. That’s all. And here was an upside-down tomb, literally, turned upside down by the thick roots of an enormous tree. Beside it gravestones broken by fallen trees or branches. Moss on the shattered stones. Young, newly planted trees next to the old ones that had fallen or been felled, and which lay decaying between the graves. Even the trees perished on this field of death and sank into the earth. Small plaster wreaths hung on old gravestones. Sometimes two or three, and a few of these wreaths lay in front of the headstones or beside the graves. As if morbid children had been playing hoops.
He stopped by several graves, read the names and looked at the enamel photographs. He liked strolling through cemeteries, how lovely it was that people had graves with their names marked on them. People you could visit after they had died. He saw the graves of children, of people who had died young as a result of illness, an accident, or who had been murdered – tragic destinies, but at least they had a grave. So long as cemeteries existed, there was the promise of civilisation. His parents, his brother, his grandparents – their graves were in the air. No place you could visit, care for, where you could place a stone. No resting place. Just a persistent restlessness which could never find a place of peace. In the memory that would die with him, only one image of his family remained, captured with a final glance – and that glance was merely an assertion. He hadn’t seen his mother’s face, just her hand holding on to his sleeve until he tore himself away. He had no image of his father, just a memory of him shouting “Stay!”, shouting “Stay there! You’re leaping to your doom!” And his brother? Faceless, just the child’s back pressed tight to his mother. What else? Memories that felt stolen from other people’s stock of memories: father–mother–child memories, all-purpose memories, the happiest. As black as the ashes of burnt photographs.
The Capital Page 6