Jakob Arjouni - Brother Kemal

Perhaps it was the idea of clicking cameras, perhaps the memory that I had not been hired by the publishing house for my social skills but to protect him from any deranged fanatics — anyway, his facial expression suddenly turned positively solicitous. He nodded, and said, ‘Of course, you must do everything that you think right.’

Katja Lipschitz backed this up. ‘Herr Kayankaya is our security chief for the next three days, and we all ought to follow his instructions.’

Rashid nodded again. He liked the sound of that: security chief. I was convinced, however, that Katja Lipschitz did not think any greater dangers lay in wait for Rashid than a destitute colleague who might be infuriated by the sight of what went on in luxury hotels to the point of throwing a glass of beer in Rashid’s face, or a lady sitting beside him at dinner who struck his hand away from her thigh.

All the same, Maier Verlag should get an author to be taken seriously for the money it was laying out.

I went on. ‘In any critical situations, please don’t be alarmed. I carry a gun, and will bring it out if necessary. If I have to throw you to the floor or get you into cover in any other way, I’ll try to hurt you as little as possible.’

‘I see.’ He frowned. Either he thought, as I did, that this was a good excuse if the fancy took me to push him into the nearest broom cupboard, or he really did feel a little queasy.

‘When you’re giving interviews, or you’re in contact with your readers, I’ll be as inconspicuous as possible, although I must insist that if I feel suspicious — and often that’s pure intuition — I shall have the person concerned subjected to a quick search for weapons or explosives. Unless, of course, he or she is well known to you or Frau Lipschitz.’

‘Okay …’ he said hesitantly.

Perhaps he hadn’t imagined my job in such concrete terms, with so much opportunity for hand-to-hand scuffling. Presumably there had been practical, objective reasons for the decision to hire a bodyguard: genuine concern for his safety and the endeavour to make sure he appeared at the Fair to the best possible advantage. However, his image of the bodyguard himself and the nature of his job had probably been more poetic than anything. A mixture of a cheerful companion, Prince Valiant and some Hollywood hero leaping out of a helicopter.

After the barman had brought me my mineral water, Katja Lipschitz asked, ‘What line do we take during demonstrations?’

‘Demonstrations?’

‘Well, there have been indications that there might be protests by Muslim groups at the publishing house’s stand.’

‘Was that in the threatening letters?’ I asked mildly.

‘We’ve had some anonymous phone calls.’

‘Well …’ I sipped my water. ‘Either it’s possible to talk to such people, or Herr Rashid and I go off to eat a beef sausage and wait for the demonstration to be over. Are these anonymous phone calls recorded on your answering machine?’

‘My secretary took them.’

‘You know, there’s quite a lot of time between an anonymous phone call and a face-to-face appearance with a possible police confrontation — time for the caller to consider the tempting idea of staying at home on Day X and lying comfortably on the sofa, putting the next DVD into the slot. Anonymous phone calls aren’t often followed up by action.’

‘How about cases of explosives?’ asked Rashid.

‘I assume that visitors to the Book Fair are checked as they come in.’

‘Well …’ Katja Lipschitz made a vague gesture. ‘The checks aren’t particularly rigorous.’

‘That’s a pity. Then we’ll have to look out for all bags standing around unattended. And if we’ — I gave them a good-humoured smile — ‘happen to overlook the one vital bag, then at least we acted in the cause of literature and enlightenment.’

‘Yes, well, very nicely put,’ said Rashid, while Katja Lipschitz made a face as if I had cracked a joke about blondes.

‘But don’t worry,’ I went on. ‘What was it I read the other day? In Europe, the risk of dying in an attack involving explosives is a hundred times less than the risk of choking on a mini-mozzarella. So watch out for the cold buffets over the next few days.’

Rashid tried to make eye contact with Katja Lipschitz. The glance he gave her when she finally looked his way said something like: Can you please get this conversation back on sensible lines at once! Then he took his half-litre cup of coffee and disappeared behind the still-towering foam mountain. Maybe they fixed it with hairspray. If your coffee didn’t come with a mountain of foam, Deborah had told me recently, it hardly stood a chance in the coffee trade today. Milky coffee foam had clearly surpassed beer foam as Germany’s number one foam. I was wondering if I would think it funny to warn Rashid of the dangers of overfoamed milk when Katja Lipschitz finally brought the pause to an end.

‘Herr Kayankaya, I understand that, based on your work and your experience, you take such a situation less seriously than we do. But please don’t forget: Malik is a writer, his world is his desk. The fact that a literary text — and one in which Malik openly pleads for greater tolerance and opposes any form of exclusion or oppression — that such a text, one that sets out to make the world a better and more peaceful place, has led to Malik’s having to fear for his physical safety if not, indeed, his life, is a shock that has affected all of us at Maier Verlag, but of course affects Malik in particular and will do so for a long time to come. We would be grateful if you would be a bit more sensitive.’

Before I could nod and say, ‘Sorry,’ or something of that nature, there was an angry interjection from behind the mound of foam. ‘That’s nonsense, Katja! I don’t want to make the world a better place, if anything I only want to make literature better! You might as well say I wanted to change the world! And there’s your nice little UNESCO scribbler! Off I go into the paperback African Narratives series!’

Katja Lipschitz froze. I scratched my chin and tried to think of something as sensitive as possible to say. Rashid lowered his cup and shot angry, scornful glances at me. ‘As for you, you’d better read my book! Here you are, working for me, and you haven’t a clue about it! My novel has nothing to do with your self-indulgent world of mini-mozzarellas!’

‘I’m glad to hear that, Herr Rashid. Just now I was afraid, for a moment … well, since you know your way about first-class hotels so well, and if I remember correctly your central character is, well, sexually indeterminate — for a moment I wondered whether the story in your novel is set in the world of flight attendants or interior decorating … if you see what I mean? Something along those lines. But you know,’ I went on fast, before he could throw his coffee cup at me, ‘I’m just a bodyguard. I never studied at university and I must confess, to my shame, that my reading matter has been confined to the daily TV programmes for far too long. So I’m glad you’ve given me such a personal incentive to make up for that. I’ll read your book as soon as I can, and I really look forward to it. However …’

I stopped. They were both staring at me with their mouths slightly open, as if they were watching acrobatics in a circus. Was I about to break my neck? Would they break it for me?

‘Well, since I’ll be close to you most of the time over the next few days, I’m wondering whether you wouldn’t be uncomfortable if I carried your book around with me? I mean, it’s possible that people might get the idea that as your bodyguard I was, so to speak …’ I gave a short laugh, ‘forced to read it. So, I can simply read it at night. I can get through it by Sunday, and then I’d be delighted to talk to you about it. When does one get the chance to discuss an author’s work with the author himself?’