“Now what’s the matter with the air-conditioning? Are we all supposed to freeze our arses off, or what?”
Astrid von Roëll sits in the motorhome that Evangeline has finally hired, and shudders as she zips up her outdoor jacket. She’s working intently on a piece about Airbnb apartments in Paris. Astrid is a little shocked by how people furnish their apartments in a capital city. In a world city of such cultural repute!
“Look at that. Look. At. That!”
“I can’t just now,” Kay says from somewhere.
“I mean, they can live however they want,” Astrid says in disbelief, “but I’m not going to rent something like that!” She nudges the mouse. “I wouldn’t pay 117 euros a night for that!”
“Could you switch the aircon off and on again?” Kay shouts.
“Hmm?”
“The aircon! Off and on again!”
“How does that work?”
She hears a muffled thump, like someone hurling a heavy tool on the ground, and the door is flung open. Kay comes in and stomps pointedly over to the aircon controls, which are beside the door. “Look. Here: off. Here: on. Oh, wonder of wonders, it’s the same button!”
“Sorry!” Astrid smiles her third favourite smile. “Now I know for next time.”
“Why are you going to Paris? I thought you had to write.”
“They’ve asked me over for an interview.”
“Who? France Télévisions?”
“I’ve forgotten. Something with Tee Vee. Or Tay Vay.”
“Can you speak French?”
“May wee!”
“Wee lala!”
“The point is, they speak English.”
“What do they want from you exactly?”
“Silly question. They need an expert.”
“The apogee of serious journalism: journalists interviewing other journalists.”
Kay goes back out, slamming the door behind her. Astrid gives her the finger. She shouldn’t get so big-headed just because she knows how to hold a screwdriver. The aircon isn’t going to be broken for ever, and then she’ll be back to being a mere cameramouse.
Her footage isn’t even that good. Astrid has seen better, like those wildlife documentaries on Arte. Although the drone idea was a nice one, and Kay was the first to do it. As it flies along the procession you’re thinking it’s just a normal hand-held camera, but then slowly it pulls away and up. Or that shot of the entire column. All in one go, fifty kilometres without a cut. People are still baffled by how she did it, because not even those expensive camera drones can fly that far. And you have to stay within range for the drone to pick up the signal. Despite its length the clip is the biggest hit on the website. On the back of it the deputy blockhead gave Kay a permanent job – reacting quickly for once. But it’s a long way from being art. There’s something engineery about it, anyone could learn it if they had the time and the inkling. And there are things Kay can’t do. Astrid once watched her paint her toenails – what a sorry business that was!
“Is that supposed to be a kitchen! Where’s the microwave?”
Kay would film everything, whether people or guinea pigs. In fact this is the real difference between Kay and Astrid: Kay hasn’t grasped that she’s part of something massively important here, something unique. This is world history. This is politics, foreign affairs even. And domestic ones too. And the deputy blockhead can count his blessings that Astrid von Roëll understands the significance of all this. Because there’s nothing about it in her contract. But why did they make Lou Grant Fake News Director?
“Creative News Director,” the deputy blockhead corrected her.
“Whatever. If anyone’s making news here, it’s me!”
“Yes, but—”
“Even creative news! Well, I’m not reporting to him, no way!”
“No, no—”
“Others can report to him if they want!”
“No, of course you’ll still be reporting to the editor-in-chief—”
“Directly. I will report directly to the editor-in-chief!”
“Yes, sure. But look, someone’s got to do the work here. You’re just a bit prejudiced. You don’t have to love all your colleagues, but even if you don’t rate Herr Grant, he’s good.”
“If you’re satisfied with ‘good’ . . .”
“Frau von Roëll, how about leaving the quality control to me?”
Creative News Director. A position that never existed before. If anyone deserves it, it’s her. Because political journalists are ten a penny. Anyone can do it. These Süddeutsche and F.A.Z. lot think they’re the cat’s meow, but basically all they print is news. And if you’ve got the right phone numbers for those presidents and press officers then it’s no big deal, it’s exactly the same as what she does, just with other people. But the point is: political journalists are limited. They have no human understanding. Especially the men. All they ever think is politics.
“I just want to say,” Astrid asserted, “that we mustn’t forget who’s behind all this.”
“And?”
“Well, we ought to give that person some official status too.”
“A job title you mean?”
“Exactly. Job title, whatever. In the masthead.”
Just then she pictured the expression on his face.
“And what did you have in mind?”
“Creative News Director.”
“Hmm, I thought you’d suggest something like that.”
“At Large.”
“I’ll have to discuss this with the boss, but the most I can offer is a job share. So you’d do it together with Herr Grant from now on.”
Was that brazen of her? A man would never ask himself the question. She discussed it with Nadeche too, and Nadeche encouraged her, saying how important it was that she, Astrid, refused to budge even one millimetre. She mustn’t slip back behind Lou Grant. You see, Nadeche went on, it’s only when you look at it from the outside that it seems to be about power and positions and whose name is biggest in the masthead. “But behind all that,” she said, appealing to Astrid’s conscience, “behind all at it’s always about men.”
That’s Nadeche in a nutshell: clever in her own way, but uneducated. She didn’t mean men, of course – she meant women. And that’s why Astrid has to be Lou Grant’s equal, at least in the masthead, so that content by women gets the appropriate weighting.
“And like, the appropriate pay,” Nadeche emphasised.
“Actually, they’ve already bumped up my salary.”
“All the same, they’ve got to up the ante.” As far as Nadeche was concerned it was quite clear. “Every euro you don’t get goes to some guy. The more expensive you are, the more normal it becomes for other women to be more expensive too. That’s the only way it can work.”
Astrid hadn’t looked at it this way before, but Nadeche is right, of course.
“And what can Lou Grant do that you can’t?”
“Nothing. Nada. On the contrary, I’m learning something every day here!”
“Exactly, and he’s just getting like, even stupider every day.”
They laughed so much, and it struck Astrid how little time they’d spent in each other’s company recently. The months here in Africa have changed them both. More obviously Nadeche, who’s never been so thoughtful. But Astrid has changed on a human level too, for even though empathy and sensitivity have always been her strengths, she’s now made another big leap forwards. It would be impossible to experience the things she’s seen here without gaining in maturity. Here you learn how fragile life is, and yet how strong people can be. You realise that profound emotions are felt amidst extreme poverty too. Health, food, water – these are the truly important things in life. And her copy reflects this.
Astrid re-read her reports of the last few weeks recently, and the writing really is different. It has depth, it’s reflective – she doesn’t want to say it’s philosophical, but actually, why not? Other people have picked up on it. Christine, Uschi, the woman from the deputy mayor’s office and Regine – all of them have e-mailed, asking whether she was going to make it to the Oktoberfest. Unfortunately it’s not going to work out this year. And all of them said, or hinted, that her writing had developed a new, more profound tone, and her stories were raising Evangeline to a new level. They don’t even bother to read Gala anymore, they just chuck it straight in the bin.
A new level. The whole magazine!
She really does need to up the ante as far as her salary is concerned.
“Better now?” the pushy plumber/competent camerawoman asks. Pushy plumber, competent camerawoman – two “P”s and two “C”s. This kind of repetition has come to her so easily of late, it’s been tripping off the tongue. When was the last time something entered Lou Grant’s head, apart from a cotton bud?
“No.”
“Are you sure? Switch it on and off again!”
“I’m in the middle of a sentence, Kay! Sorry, but this is really important!”
She hears that thump again. The door is flung open and Kay stomps over to the controls, while four fingers carefully type:
“By Astrid von Roëll (Creative News Director at Large)”.
Dream couple
seeking security
Nadeche Hackenbusch and Lionel: in the most unfavourable circumstances the German superstar is creating a modest home for her love. The man of her heart gives his thanks – in the language of her home country
By Astrid von Roëll
One is instinctively reminded of War and Peace, that wonderfully profound novel by Leonardo Tolstoy: a young noblewoman, played by the unforgettable Audrey Hepburn, finds her great love, and this in the midst of hardship and in Russia. But when one points out this striking comparison to Nadeche Hackenbusch, and tells her that over the past days and months she has truly become an Audrey Hepburn of hearts, she just laughs modestly and reaches for the hand of Lionel, her new Bolkonsky, a man as good-looking as he is mysterious. They gaze into each other’s eyes, then Nadeche says, “With all of this going on we mustn’t forget how privileged we are. We’re able to shut ourselves away in the little free time available to us.” For there is one place where these two people, who do so much for hundreds of thousands of others, can be themselves for a while. Exclusively for EVANGELINE, they have left the door to this paradise ajar.
When we visit the two of them early in the evening, they’re a little coy, like a young couple in their first home. They emerge hand in hand from behind the pink car, looking dreamy and – there’s no other way to describe it – in love. “We washed the car especially for you,” Nadeche Hackenbusch laughs. “Well, it was me actually.”
Could we be hearing the first hint of discord in this blissful young love affair? But when Nadeche gives her Lionel an affectionate kiss, our concerns dissipate like a colourful swarm of happy butterflies. “Yes, he was against the idea,” she admits, chuckling. “Because of the water – and of course he’s right. Men are often more sensible about these things. But a woman will always be a woman!”
It is hard not to agree with Nadeche Hackenbusch. This warmth, this inimitable naturalness, this deeply felt humanity. Who wouldn’t feel sympathy for this special woman, especially now, in these days, weeks and months? Incomprehensible criticism still rains down from her embittered-and-soon-to-be-ex-husband Nicolai von Kraken in Germany. I ask whether she’s any the wiser as to why the less-than-successful producer is so indifferent towards the welfare of his children. She just looks away and wipes a tear from her eye. She is still distressed by how von Kraken forced her sons Keel and Bonno into the spotlight. That appalling appearance on a much-watched television programme, when they begged their mother to come home. Many experts have since condemned this stunt, most recently Germany’s most famous family lawyer, Karl-Theoderich zu Boten-Fürstett, who did not mince his words: “This is a real case of abuse of two innocent children.” Alone, a mother remains powerless if the rule of law has no feelings.
Nadeche Hackenbusch changes the subject, and who can blame her? She takes us around the car, an ISUZU D-MAX Single Cab (from 22,500 euros). Attached to a frame mounted on the flatbed is a tarpaulin that covers the back of the vehicle like on a real lorry. “It’s a weatherproof tarpaulin,” Nadeche says tenderly. A simple fabric covering – is this the Nadeche Hackenbusch of old? “Yes, of course,” she laughs with a wink of the eye. “Look, they’ve dyed it specially so it matches the rest of the car. I mean, it’s got to look right too. A leopard can’t change her spots, can she?”
And yet this top presenter hasn’t lost her practical nous. The tarpaulin can be rolled up on all three sides. “We could have got a matching hard top instead,” Nadeche says (available in all colours, price on application). “But the people on the march with us don’t have hard tops.”
It’s astonishing what the deft hand of a woman can conjure in a simple cargo space of 2,305 mm × 1,570 mm. She’s got two pink cushions (Morphea, covers by Katinka Svensson), and she’s styled the floor surface into a cosy dream with two exclusive insulated sleeping mats (EnForcer DreamHill, www.summitz.com). An inviting haven that tempts one to spend time there. Photographs of her sons are fixed to her side of the flatbed. “Lionel did that for me. I’m not so handy with a screwdriver,” she says. “Now every night before I go to sleep I can think of my two boys.”
“Now every night before I go to sleep I can think of my two boys”
Two L.E.D. lanterns stand tall in the cargo area, one on either side, with drinks holders humorously attached. They (LightUp, various, inc. www.handwerk.de) also match the colour of the car. This is nothing like camping in the 1970s. Which is no coincidence as Nadeche Hackenbusch has experienced these grim aspects of the past too: “Sweaty times in polyester, I really don’t need that anymore,” she grins. “But with modern, functional clothing, who does? These days we don’t do that Adidas tracksuit look.” We have to agree with her. Even though Nadeche Hackenbusch doesn’t look quite smart enough for the Salzburg Festival, her plain merino shirt from Mufflon would be fine for any day in the office.
But the question must be asked: can they, in the midst of such persistent suffering and struggle, allow themselves such an oasis of peace? “Lionel always tells me we can sleep when we’re in Germany,” Nadeche says. “But my response is that if you don’t get enough rest, you’ll arrive there dead.” And there’s another reason the dream couple need to spend time alone: Nadeche Hackenbusch reveals exclusively to Evangeline that she’s teaching Lionel German. For the German media, but also for the future he dreams of in the Federal Republic. “I don’t want to be lazy,” he says with astounding fluency. “I’m thinking of working as a chief executive.”
This sounds amazingly ambitious, but every day he shows astonishing management capabilities. “Lionel thinks of things I’d never come up with,” Nadeche marvels. “While I prefer to take each day as it comes, half the time it’s like he’s already got as far as Uruguay or whatever.” Nadeches serves up the customary porridge plus a few nuts. “In Germany I’d start by drinking a prosecco,” she says. “So cold it makes your teeth fall out. Lionel doesn’t know prosecco yet, but I’ll teach him about that too.” Then she laughs out loud and says, “I’ll sort that out before you become a chief executive.” She harbours no doubts: “I spent enough time with a man who called himself a producer without producing anything worthwhile. Lionel produces more here every day and he risks his life for the hundreds of thousands who need help.”
“The first altercation in this young, blissful love affair?”
The sun sinks over the endless horizon of Africa. We take our leave as the two of them retire to their tiny nest (maximum load: 1,225kg). As we walk away, we can see the little lamps light up inside the ISUZU D-MAX. It’s a light of hope in a land that can turn darker than any other place on earth.