The minister of the interior could swear it happened just when the firefighters hauled him back. A groan swept through the kettled-in crowd, the section of fence came springing towards him and the firefighter he was taking it in turns to cut with grabbed him by the collar and dragged him away from the danger zone. They watched a ten-or fifteen-metre length of fence come down as if it were as soft as wax. Then they saw the refugees burst from their confinement, a seething mass of people screaming in horror, in their panic running over and into each other. He saw that even saving them would cost lives, and he prayed that it wouldn’t be many. Please let it be fewer than fifty, he prayed, or at least fewer than a hundred, oh Lord, let it be few, for it is my fault they are dying, punish me but spare them. They wanted to enter the Promised Land, just as Your people once did, and what I did to the merest among them I did a thousand times.
He prayed that the rest of the structure would give way as soon as possible, so that they didn’t all have to squeeze through this ridiculous gap, and he remembers seeing the fence sway and tip over at the other end too. This completely irrational feeling of happiness, this unbelievable relief, as if there were the prospect of a happy ending after all, even though of course it won’t be a happy ending because he can already predict that what they will find on this side of the fence is going to be dreadful, and not just because of the boy with the dead eyes.
Then he remembers a series of fireballs rising from the valley, glowing, yellowy-red pearls on a chain, targeted with great accuracy one after the other, as if by a particularly pedantic god. He saw them heading his way and then the kettle of people exploded in ten or twenty of these fireballs. The minister remembers a body flying towards him, circling like a dancer with arms outstretched, but with no legs or head, although in his hand was a strange, burning hat, a sort of captain’s cap. Here, part of the minister’s memory is missing, it seems. It must be missing, for what is happening right now doesn’t fit with the flying man.
The minister is walking along the motorway. He walks past the buses, there are hundreds, probably thousands of buses, there’s no end in sight, and each of these buses is in flames. Thick clouds of black smoke billow from the glassless windows, fat as gigantic, grub larvae. The seats and interior of the buses burn like torches doused in filthy oil. Some of the black bars bend in the heat, these are huge, burning cages. In the seats he can see people, their black heads sometimes tipped forwards, but mostly backwards, dark silhouettes against a flaming background. Mouths gape in skulls like vast notches in tree trunks. Sometimes he can see the teeth. From the way they’re sitting, some appear resentful, but many look as if they’d just been thinking about all their efforts and privations, and then about the outcome, and as if they’re laughing, loudly and bitterly.
Next to these heads he can make out smaller heads and black arms around black necks, and everywhere those open eyes, open more widely even than the mouths, those horrifically open eyes that will never close again.
People are standing beside some of the buses, watching the inferno. Some scorched figures keep trying to get back onto one of the buses, they raise their arms helplessly, they try to walk until they realise the futility of their undertaking, only to try again. The minister sees a man filming with his mobile, and a sobbing woman, perhaps his wife, place her hand on his forearm. He drops his phone and embraces her.
The air is thick with the acrid stench of diesel, burning plastic, rubber and charred flesh. Now and then the shifting wind envelops the minister in thin swathes of narcotic smoke, and people emerge from the plumes as if from an underworld. Many are missing skin, with others it’s impossible to tell where the clothes end and the body begins. He doesn’t know what he can do for them, without any equipment, without medicines, without water, and with only one arm he’s still able to move. He ought to turn back, but he feels it’s his duty to plough on; he wants to know if that terrifying god really has, with all thoroughness, turned every bus into a burning coffin.
Then the minister sees the woman and the child.
They’re moving slowly, like the walking dead, but they are moving. The girl can’t be older than seven or eight, but it’s the girl who’s leading the woman by the hand. The girl has a sooty face, as does the woman who could be her mother. She looks straight ahead with a serious expression and walks tentatively, as if here, on this motorway, she has to decide with each step whether it’s worth the effort. The fuel tank of a bus behind the girl goes up in flames, she barely reacts. For a brief moment she stays where she is, a dark shape in front of the whitish-yellow inferno, then continues on her way.
The minister stops. The girl is walking with small steps, dragging the woman behind her, determinedly but with little strength, as if she were a toy. The girl stops beside the minister. She turns to look up at him. There is nothing in her eyes, no supplication, no anger, no reproach, no complaint.
The minister holds out the hand that he can still use to the girl. She hesitates, but then places her small hand in his. The minister holds it tightly and turns around. Then he heads for the border with the two of them.
Speculation over
Tauern disaster
At least 300,000 feared dead – the search for those responsible continues
Berlin – Ten days after the appalling attack on hundreds of thousands of refugees at the German–Austrian border, the federal government has once again strongly condemned the action and demanded swift results in the search for those responsible. “The deliberate and ruthless killing of more than 300,000 people is nothing less than the greatest mass murder since the Second World War,” the chancellor said to relatives at a funeral ceremony for those police officers, firefighters and paramedics who died in the attack. “In the name of civilisation and humanity it is our duty to bring these killers to justice.”
While the authorities in Germany remain tight-lipped, investigators continue to hunt for clues. “The logistics necessary for such an operation reduce the number of possible suspects,” one high-level Russian government official told this newspaper. “A coordinated military attack using stealth drones capable of hitting several hundred targets at the same time requires both substantial military capability as well as the appropriate technology. It is no secret that at present there are only two states in the world which have both. And Russia isn’t one of them.”
Experts and military specialists interpret this as a pointer towards the U.S.A. and Israel, although they describe both possibilities as “hard to imagine”. Indeed, both the United States and Israel have unequivocally and unconditionally condemned the attack in the U.N. Security Council and the General Assembly. International scepticism is growing, however. Under-secretary Volker Lohm, said, “When there’s a dead deer lying in the forest, it’s difficult not to point the finger at the only person in the village with a rifle. Especially if it’s the hunter.”
With this analogy Lohm is picking up on theories doing the rounds, suggesting that Israel has the greatest interest in preventing Germany from sliding into right-wing extremism. The possible objective is to retain Germany as a reliable partner. Experts emphasise, however, that such an undertaking would require the tacit approval of all the states through whose airspace the drones flew. Groups critical of the E.U. have advanced the explanation that the aim of this action was to preserve Germany as a financially strong member of the E.U. Lohm believes this, too, is highly implausible: “That’s very far-fetched. And before we leap at the wildest conspiracy theories it would be wise, at least where some of these theories are concerned, to offer up some proof. If no bullet was shot from the hunter’s rifle, then no clues will be of any help.”
The logistics necessary for such an operation reduce the number of possible suspects
Meanwhile, it continues to prove difficult to establish the precise number of fatalities, although sources are now ruling out any figure below 300,000. The injured and the dead are still being recovered, as well as those who have been severely traumatised by the catastrophe. Official organisations involved suggest that the chief obstacle to determining a more accurate figure is the greatly increased willingness of the population to take in refugees and hide them from the authorities. (a.p./d.p.a./Reuters)