As he read the flyer she talked ever more rapidly.
It’s all here! Refuse to take your seat or fasten your belt, alert the other passengers to the fact that this isn’t just a normal case of transport, but an act of violence and . . .
Excuse me, Martin said, but it says here that the flight in question is LO 236 to Warsaw. I’m going to Kraków.
Oh! I’m sorry! I thought . . . Thank you. Thank you for your patience, your understanding. Please keep the flyer for general information. I mean, deportations are taking place all the time and . . . Thanks! And have a good day!
She turned away and he watched her briefly as she spoke to another passenger. On the back of her T-shirt it said “Resistance is Possible”.
When all passengers had taken their seats and boarding had closed, a woman stood up and walked to the front of the plane, glancing left and right at the rows of seats. When she arrived at business class a stewardess stood in her way.
Are you looking for the toilets, Madame? They’re at the back of the plane. But you can’t use them now, Madame. Please sit back down and fasten your belt.
I don’t need the toilet, she said, then she raised her voice: I’d like to speak to the captain! Apparently there’s a passenger on this plane who is here against his will. And I want to know —
Please! You must —
We have to know whether he really is on this plane against his will. Please call the captain!
She turned and walked back down the aisle. Mesdames, Messieurs, on this plane there’s a man who’s due to be deported. Please help stop this happening —
Please, Madame! You have to sit down and —
The woman continued undeterred, passing the row in which Susman was sitting.
— we must help him get off this plane.
Martin Susman’s neighbour stared at his newspaper, the woman on the other side of the aisle closed her eyes, while the man in the window seat beside her swiped away relentlessly at his smartphone.
Martin Susman stood up to get a better view of what was happening. A flight attendant was beside him at once, asking him to sit down and fasten his seat belt immediately.
Yes, he said, hang on a sec! I just wanted . . . He opened the overhead locker to fetch a pack of nicotine gum from his bag. The woman now stopped in the aisle, turned to a passenger and asked, Are you Mr Akhmatov?
The man did not respond. He had pulled a hood over his head and his chin down to his chest.
Do you speak English, Sir? Are you Mr Akhmatov?
Mateusz Oświecki glanced up and shook his head. The woman hesitated; at first she was unsure whether he was indicating that he didn’t speak English, or that he wasn’t the man she was after. They looked at each other. Mateusz hadn’t understood exactly what all this was about, but he realised that this woman was delaying their take-off and he hated her for it. He looked at her face, their eyes met, and . . .
At that moment something happened. In his diaphragm, where the pain was sitting. It felt as if an artery had burst and warm, sweet blood were oozing throughout his stomach. His head was devoid of thoughts, no words formed in his mind. All of a sudden his eyelids were incredibly heavy, he struggled to keep them open to see how this woman was looking at him, he wanted to linger a while in this gaze, savour a longing he had never known, as well as the feeling of security that he had once known but forgotten. Now it was back as a memory: he was a child with a high temperature, peering as if through a fog at his mother bent smiling over his bed. This image of his mother as an apparition in the fog had taken away all his fear, even the fear of dying were he to give in and close his eyes. This was soppy. He wasn’t a child any longer, he had been forced to toughen up and he despised mawkishness. What he felt now was unclear, as hazy as the image in his memory. The longing for a secure childhood, either because you’d had one or hadn’t had one, was shared by everyone, terrorists as well as pacifists. He just wanted to . . . her eyes . . . but the woman was on her way again. She apologised for the inconvenience of their delayed departure and asked for help in stopping the deportation. Martin Susman watched her, the passengers didn’t stir, they sat there motionless. From the expressions of some he thought they probably sympathised with the woman, others closed their eyes and bowed their heads. Now a steward was standing next to him: You’ve got to sit down now, please sit and fasten your seatbelt! The steward gently placed a hand on Martin’s shoulder, then increased the pressure. When Martin fell into his seat he heard a man’s voice saying, Just shut up and sit down!
Another voice: Would you stop delaying our take-off? You’re on the wrong plane! The man’s on the flight to Warsaw! That’s what it says on the flyer!
The woman: He was rebooked onto this flight. Because of the protest against his deportation. I got a text saying that he’s on this plane now. To whisk him off to Poland unnoticed.
Now a young man right in front of Martin Susman got to his feet and shouted: No deportation! Further up the plane a woman’s voice said, Solidarité!
Martin Susman leaned out to look back down the aisle. Now the woman was in the last row; he saw her bending over a passenger. The way he was twisted caused a sharp pain all the way up his back, from the lumbar vertebrae to his neck. He ought to stand up, he thought, but he didn’t want to run any risk – what risk? He stood up, stretched, pressed his hands into his back, the young man in front of him sat down again, the steward and stewardess had vanished, and he heard the woman say to a passenger in the back row, Mr Akhmatov? Are you Mr Akhmatov?
Yes!
The man got up. Was that really him? He wasn’t handcuffed, nor did he have a police escort. But he looked numb, as if he’d been sedated.
The woman showed him the flyer with his photograph to make sure. He said, Yes!
It’s all over, the woman said. Don’t you worry, stay on your feet, just stay on your feet and we will get off the plane.
The man started to cry. He put his hands up to his face, his wrists pressed together as if he were shackled.
Police officers came on board and accompanied the two of them off. Passengers applauded. Why? Because of the woman’s show of bravery? Or because the authorities had weighed in? Or because the plane could finally take off? Everybody had their reason.
It was four hours until Frigge’s flight. Dubra packed his suitcase. And he still had a meeting with George Morland, his colleague from the D.-G. AGRI. Conflicts and squabbles over who had authority for what had always existed between AGRI and TRADE, it was tradition. In fact it was a very old game indeed. But now the conflict had escalated and the disagreements couldn’t be laughed off any longer, they couldn’t forge compromises on a case-by-case basis, then go and have a beer together or – if the chemistry with the organic farmers wasn’t right – politely decline a drink for lack of time. Now it was war; you had to be armed, and seek arbitration. The issue that had led to the escalation was pigs. It was what Frigge called the “pig’s ear”; others in the Commission referred to the conflict between TRADE and AGRI as “Sow Wars”. AGRI was looking to reduce pig production by cutting subsidies, and thus halt the fall in pork prices on the European market. TRADE, on the other hand, wanted to substantially boost pig production because it saw major opportunities for growth in foreign trade, especially with China. For this reason TRADE was seeking a mandate to orient European pig production to demand on world markets, in order to negotiate and implement the export of pork products to third countries for Europe as a whole. AGRI, however, sought to regulate only the internal market and implement common standards, but this was complicated by the fact that veterinary standards fell under the jurisdiction of the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety. And both wanted to leave the export treaties in the sovereign hands of the individual countries.
The result of these squabbles, however, was that each European country undertook their very own bilateral negotiations with China; Europe was divided, and this competition between European states gave rise to an even more pronounced pri
ce slump, both on the internal market and for export, while no country alone could satisfy the international demand because at the same time pig farmers were being urged to quit agriculture. Frigge thought the whole thing completely insane. And this Morland drove him round the bend. But why, in fact? Frigge wondered. Why was he getting so worked up? For now, the Commission had no mandate to negotiate for all Member States. The Member States were content to be able to exploit the situation to their own advantage and extract the maximum benefits for themselves alone. It was a fallacy, of course, and at some point they would realise this, but just now there was nothing he could do to change it. All he could do was let things wander across his desk, look on impassively, avoid getting on anybody’s nerves and at some point move upwards again. But no! He found the situation so irrational that he couldn’t remain impassive. So wherever he could he blocked the “business as usual” to force a decision.
The quarrel over jurisdiction was based on the fact that the pig was a transdepartmental good: the live pig in its pen “belonged” to the D.-G. AGRI; after slaughter as ham, ribs, schnitzel or sausage – in short, as a “processed agricultural good” – it was the responsibility of the D.-G. GROW; and only when it left Europe, for example as a pig in a cargo ship or lorry did it belong to the D.-G. TRADE. The problem was that you couldn’t negotiate over a pig in a container if you were unable to make decisions about the pig in its stall. In this matter the D.-G. GROW wasn’t hostile. They dealt with the regulations for listing ingredients, determining the maximum permissible levels of pharmaceuticals and chemicals, and quality criteria. They didn’t give a fig about the pig so long as it was properly labelled. The match had to be decided between AGRI and TRADE.
George Morland had been avoiding a conversation with Frigge for weeks. He’d answered e-mails with empty promises: let’s speak about it soon, when all the facts are on the table. But he responded to proposed appointments with clichéd references to his especially busy diary. The commissioners were holding back. They were new and they wanted to learn the ropes first. But time was pressing. The Dutch, German and Austrian governments had progressed furthest in their negotiations with China. Over the course of the past calendar year the German chancellor had been to China eight times. Next week the Austrian president was due to fly to Beijing with a plane full of ministers and representatives from industry, trade and agriculture. At the very top of the agenda: trade in pigs. And the Dutch had announced that they were visiting again straight afterwards. If one of these countries succeeded in concluding a substantial bilateral treaty with China, from a political perspective it was unlikely that the E.U. would get a mandate for negotiations. And then the serious contest would begin, the undercutting, the attempt to oust one’s neighbour. Instead of proceeding jointly, they would destroy each other and in their desire for national growth they would precipitate a European crisis. It was as sure as eggs are eggs, to put it in Kai-Uwe’s words. Of course Morland knew that Kai-Uwe Frigge was going on a work trip that day. And it was insidious of him to suggest this time for a meeting, three hours before Frigge was due to board.
Frigge had remained cool and agreed to the meeting. And now he was sitting face to face with this pig. A cheap association maybe, but Frigge couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stand Morland, he thought him devious, cynical and irresponsible. That in itself was enough to justify the unflattering comparison. But then there was Morland’s appearance: his round, pink face and in the middle of it his little, broad nose, like a plug. He was in his mid-thirties but looked much younger, this scion of the British upper classes, as if he had only just started shaving, which was why his cheeks always glowed with such rawness. He had thick red hair, which he kept trimmed in a crew cut. Bristles, Frigge thought.
Frigge was from a family of teachers in Hamburg. Hanseatic internationalism, an understanding of historic German guilt, a major abstract expectation of peace and justice in the world, personal application and decency, a mistrust of fashions and the mainstream – these were the pegs his parents had hammered in to mark out the field in which he grew up. He knew he was being unfair to Morland. But he also knew that he had bloody good reason to be.
Morland stared at his fingernails and explained his perspective on things. Frigge closed his eyes, not wanting to witness the pomposity. Morland was right on every count. Yes, that’s how it was, that was the situation. But the distinction wasn’t that Frigge saw things differently; it was that Morland thought the situation a reasonable one and defended it, while Frigge wanted to extricate himself from it entirely.
O.K., George, Frigge said, just imagine you’re a serf.
Why on earth —
It’s just an idea to play around with. Anyway —
I don’t want to play around with an idea like that!
Fine. Once upon a time there was serfdom. Right? You’re aware of that? Now, imagine a peasant going up to his master and saying he needs to talk to him.
Were slaves allowed to talk to their masters just like that?
I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. All that matters is what he says – the serf, not the slave – anyway, he says, Master, I think serfdom is a very bad thing, it’s degrading, it goes against what the Bible says—
This story is in the Bible? I didn’t know.
In the Bible it says that all men are equal before God, and that was the serf’s argument, so —
Was he actually able to read? And Latin? To my knowledge the Bible was only available in Latin in the Middle Ages and most people were illiterate.
O.K. Forget the Bible. At any rate the peasant disagrees with serfdom. And using some rational arguments he suggests his master sets him free. What do you think his master’s response is?
I imagine you’ll tell me.
He tells the peasant that he’s a serf because his father was a serf and his grandfather was a serf at the time his own grandfather was master. The world is as it is, and has been thus for generations, from the year dot, and surely there must be a purpose to it all.
I’d call that a reasonable argument. Or what do you think?
O.K., George, now tell me: does serfdom still exist?
I don’t know. Anywhere in the world?
George! Once again! Somewhere in Europe a peasant complains and —
In the Middle Ages I imagine he’d sooner have been hanged, drawn and quartered than demand his freedom.
Precisely. And the master says it has always been so. But now let me ask you again. Does serfdom still exist? Do you see what I’m getting at? Everything you’ve said is right, absolutely correct – but only “inside the box”. Objectively, however, it’s absurd, and in the medium to long term it’s completely untenable. Time and again we see things disappear that we thought would last for ever and —
Are you taking about the E.U.?
No, I’m talking about national interests. Surely it’s absurd that the European states form a common market but can’t act together when it comes to foreign trade. That each pig which leaves Europe can only enter the global market with a visa from its nation state. O.K., that’s the situation at present, but at some point it will be different because things change. In fact we could organise it more rationally right now.
I’ll have a think about your serfdom story, although I’m not convinced it’s what we’d call a terribly useful example.
Kai-Uwe Frigge knew, of course, why Morland was resisting any further development of Community policy: first and foremost he was a Brit, not a European, and within the Commission he wasn’t a European official, but a British official in the European civil service. And it was Great Britain’s iron policy to prevent further transfer of national sovereignty to Brussels, however minor. With E.U. money they restored Manchester, which had fallen into total disrepair, but rather than express their gratitude they see the spruced-up façades of the city as proof that Manchester Capitalism will henceforth vanquish all competitors. This bloated, perfumed pig no doubt began his day by singing “Rule Britannia!” with h
is early-morning tea, and . . . Frigge took a deep breath, then stood up and said, Well, I must be off to the airport. Let’s talk again next week!
Anytime, Morland said.
Frigge had prepared a powerful departure. As he put on his coat he said, By the way, I assume you know that in the next few weeks the German government will be concluding a bilateral trade treaty with China? Well, it’s only for pigs, which isn’t so important for the United Kingdom, is it?
Is that confirmed?
Yes, it’s a done deal.
Frigge buttoned up his coat and put the documents in his briefcase.
It’s exclusive, to all intents and purposes a gateway for German business to the Chinese market. And it’s not just about export statistics.
He offered Morland his hand.
The major investors will know how to interpret it, the financial markets will respond accordingly. The City of London will decline in importance as a financial centre while the Frankfurt stock exchange will be the dramatic winner.
Frigge clapped Morland on the shoulder.
Funny, isn’t it? Misery for Britain, and all because of German pigs. O.K., I’ve got to go. Call me next week, we need to continue this conversation. I’m sure we’ll find a way to work it out more sensibly, more equitably. But the Commission must be united.Frigge opened the door and glanced back at Morland. Pigs! he said with a shake of his head, and then he laughed. He was still grinning in the taxi on the way to the airport.
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