Nadeche Hackenbusch couldn’t say precisely when the thought occurred to her. Certainly not in the first week. Probably not in the second, either. But certainly not just now, a quarter of an hour ago. The thought goes: it really is quite a long way away.
She has to admit it wasn’t that clear to her. She does know that it’s a long way; she realised that on the flight out. There are some flights where you can see two films in succession, or even three films plus an episode of “The Big Bang Theory”. There are some flights where you don’t want to watch anymore films and you think, “I’d love to have a book now.” But it’s in the suitcase. Then there are flights where you get pyjamas and a sleeping mask once they’ve cleared away dinner, and when that happens even Nadeche Hackenbusch realises you’re so far away from home that you’d definitely have to change if you were taking the train. Or have a few stopovers. That’s really far away.
But not as far away as this.
She wakes up and crawls out of the car. Lionel is already up and about, and the first thing she sees is that . . . this morning looks just like yesterday morning. It’s as if they haven’t moved at all. The main difference between days is that the broadcasting van might be three metres further to the left or four metres further ahead. Every day the sky is the same shade of blue; there are no clouds here. And the best thing you can say is that it’s not as hot as it’s going to get. But there’s hardly anyone you can say that to. If you even hint at it in an e-mail, they’ll write back straightaway, saying, It’s always hot down there. But this country is too inventive for that. This country get can really cold at night as well. “This country” is definitely the right name, because you never know if you’re in one or the other. It’s not like in Europe where you’ll find a baguette in one country, but not in the next one. They may well have differences here too, of course, African differences, but to find that out you’d have to get to a town. A real town, not just something around a watering hole.
A town. What she would give for a town right now. With one shop. Selling shoes.
No . . . handbags. A town with one shop that only sells handbags.
Nadeche rummages around for her boots and knocks them together. Not that she’s ever found a scorpion inside. It’s probably a myth that scorpions hang around in shoes. A myth dreamed up by those tropical researchers, because nobody here ever wears boots. Even Lionel’s trainers are exotic. This sliders culture is something she can’t get her head around. But maybe it’s to do with one’s homeland. This African soil will never be as familiar as a German meadow.
Nadeche Hackenbusch hops out of the car. She usually feels stiff for the first few steps, but all in all she’s astounded by how easy she finds this simple existence, physically at least. The television van is opposite, with its pink zebra stripes. There’s a pretty little fleet of cars now, if you include the doctor’s car and the midwife’s car, which will be here soon for the newborns. It makes her feel proud. Many people have their own companies, but this here, this is . . . more. It’s like the Red Cross, or a bit like the pope, this new reasonable pope who likes gay people too. The HackenPush-Up was hers, and it was something she could be proud of, but it wasn’t the same, it lacked this . . . higher purpose. This here is something only she is capable of, only Nadeche Hackenbusch, no-one else. In the entire world.
A handbag shop and an iced mocha cappuccino.
She stuffs a handful of nuts into her mouth – a mini breakfast. Nuts can get you a long way, she’d never known that. Bimsheimer Müsli has become one of the show’s main sponsors, and their ads always go on about “Germany’s nuttiest muesli”. Nutella has got involved in a big way too, even though that really stretches the definition of nuts. They asked whether they could supply Nadeche. She’s got nothing against Nutella, but it would send out a ludicrous message. The average refugee crunches their way through the day on nuts, while every morning Nadeche Hackenbusch spreads her bread with Nutella from her fridge. Because without a fridge it would turn into drinking chocolate in the heat. It’s better if she sticks to normal nuts. You get used to them anyway. But it helps that food has never been that important to her. Nicolai was the gourmet: the basil would be from here, the steak from there, and then he always pretended to be able to tell the difference. Foodies love identifying differences. The moment you tell them where something’s from they say, “Ah, yes, you can taste it!” Once she said to Nicolai, “That’s bullshit. If the bread came from somewhere else it would taste exactly the same.” And he had to agree with her.
It really is a hell of a long way. Not just because of the flight and all that. She found out when she asked Nicolai on the phone why the kids weren’t in bed yet. “Why should they be in bed already?” he replied.
“Already? But it’s got to be like, much later your end!”
“Huh? What’s the time there?”
“Half past four.”
“Same here.”
Only then did she realise how far away home she really was: she’s twenty-four hours ahead! And they’ve got to cover every minute of that on foot. Crazy. And no chance of any holiday.
Now she had to admit that some things were impossible after all. She talked about it with Lionel, before the television discussion. If she abandoned the trek now, if she went home, they probably wouldn’t allow her to fly out again. They couldn’t prohibit it outright, but they could make it difficult and drag the whole process out, and in the meantime there are no Hackenbusch images to broadcast. Viewers bail out. And all of a sudden one hundred and fifty thousand refugees are one hundred and fifty thousand nobodies in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t have to be like that, but she can’t risk it. She can’t leave here.
Although the flight alone is tempting: a bed, coffee, champagne.
So chilled that the glass mists up on the outside.
No. Impossible. It’s too high a risk. That’s why it has to be a live link-up too. It’s not a problem technologically. And if they want Nadeche Hackenbusch in natura, then let them come to Africa. After all, they go the whole hog for those summer interviews with politicians.
Still, she can’t promise there won’t be occasions where she’d try to take off. She loves Lionel, no question. And these people are important too, of course they are. Increasingly important even, because there are more of them now. Four or five more lorry stations have joined the trek, another reason why Lionel is often out and about in the mornings. His people can decide most of the cases, but some are touch and go. To begin with Lionel wanted to shirk responsibility, but he realised that by engaging with the newcomers himself he was able to avoid problem cases. The supply of medicines is working well now, but there’s only one pink doctor’s car and it has to stay that way. She spent a day with it for a programme. There isn’t so much to do, but there are lots of decisions to make. If the patient is fit in two days, they can be treated. If it’s quicker than that, they just need a few pills. People can’t get really ill, it’s as simple as that. She was glad they didn’t come across any seriously ill people during their day of filming. It happens very seldom, thank God. Because Lionel only takes the right people.
That being the case, she could comfortably go shopping for a couple of days.
But there’s a reason why she’ll never, ever run the risk of this initiative failing. And that reason is now knocking on the side of the car.
“Morning, Nadeche!”
Virtually without an accent – it’s astonishing. She knows so much already. Nadeche helps her and she seems incredibly gifted. She can work hard for hours on end, and yet she’s always happy. She picks up on things so quickly that you can barely keep up. And four weeks ago she knew only two words.
One was “t’posit”, the other “Ottobafes”.