highly significant if it were detonated at the right moment in parliament. There was no doubt about that. Only, Keetenheuve was no thrower of bombs. With that news, though, he could strengthen and support Knurrewahn, who dreamed of becoming the man of reunification (a common enough dream). But had the newspapers not picked up on the report yet, and run with it, so that the government would be tipped off, and have their denials already in place? Dana indicated no. The press in the Republic would give the interview little space, if any. The delight of the generals was too touchy a matter, a real body blow for the government, and so, at best, it would be tucked away somewhere where it would be overlooked. Keetenheuve had his dynamite. But he didn't care for explosives. All politics were squalid, it was like gang warfare, the means were dirty and divisive; even someone who was on the side of good, might easily become another Mephistopheles, who invariably does ill; for what was good and what ill, in this field that stretched, like a vast empire, far into the future? Keetenheuve looked sadly out the open window at the rain now spurting again like steam. Through the window came the botanical smell of warm dampish soil and plant mulch, and pale lightnings twitched over the hothouse. Even the storms seemed to be manmade here, an artificial entertainment in the restoration businesses of Fatherland & Sons, Inc., and Dana, the mild and experienced old man, had dropped off in spite of the rumble of thunder. He lay back in his sensitive rocking chair, a balanced observer, a sleeper, and a dreamer. He was dreaming of the Goddess of Peace, but unfortunately the goddess came to him in his dream in the guise of Irene, an Annamite prostitute, whom Dana had consorted with a quarter of a century ago, in a brothel in Saigon. Soft had been her arms, frisky as small rushing streams, and her skin had smelled of flowers. Dana had fallen asleep peacefully in the arms of the peaceful Irene, only later to have to take bitter medicine. That's the way it was with the Goddess of Peace. It's a game. We're playing cops and robbers cops and robbers again and again
3
K EETENHEUVE HAD GONE TO HIS OFFICE IN THE NEW section of the Bundeshaus, the annex built onto the Pedagogic Academy. The corridors and the MPs' offices were floored with a waxy, dust-free linoleum. In their gleaming salubriousness, they were reminiscent of the antiseptic wards of a clinic, and maybe the politics that were practiced here on the sick electorate were sterile as well. In his office, Keetenheuve might be a few steps closer to heaven, but he was no nearer to clarity; new clouds and new thunderstorms kept rolling up, and the horizon was draped in brooding black or sulfurous mists. To help his concentration, Keetenheuve had switched on the neon lighting and sat in a kind of twilight where its brilliance encountered the uncertain light of day. His desk was full of mail, full of petitions, full of cries for help; it was full of abuse and insoluble difficulties. Under the neon, Elke was eyeing him. It was just a little picture of her that he had here, a snapshot of her with untidy hair in a street of rubble (but dear to him, because that was how he had found her), but now it seemed to him as if she was as big as a flickering shadow on the cinema screen, and her hair was now brushed, and she was regarding him with friendly mockery, as if to say: "Well, you can have your politics now and your deals, because you're rid of me!" It pained Keetenheuve to hear her talking like that, particularly as it was her voice from the grave that was talking to him, and that could no longer be revised. He picked up Elke's picture and put it away. He filed Elke away, laid her ad acta. But what did that mean, ad acta , to be filed? The files were unimportant, and what was important, whether it appeared in the files or not, was current and pending, was there all by itself, and would remain until sleep, until
3
K EETENHEUVE HAD GONE TO HIS OFFICE IN THE NEW section of the Bundeshaus, the annex built onto the Pedagogic Academy. The corridors and the MPs' offices were floored with a waxy, dust-free linoleum. In their gleaming salubriousness, they were reminiscent of the antiseptic wards of a clinic, and maybe the politics that were practiced here on the sick electorate were sterile as well. In his office, Keetenheuve might be a few steps closer to heaven, but he was no nearer to clarity; new clouds and new thunderstorms kept rolling up, and the horizon was draped in brooding black or sulfurous mists. To help his concentration, Keetenheuve had switched on the neon lighting and sat in a kind of twilight where its brilliance encountered the uncertain light of day. His desk was full of mail, full of petitions, full of cries for help; it was full of abuse and insoluble difficulties. Under the neon, Elke was eyeing him. It was just a little picture of her that he had here, a snapshot of her with untidy hair in a street of rubble (but dear to him, because that was how he had found her), but now it seemed to him as if she was as big as a flickering shadow on the cinema screen, and her hair was now brushed, and she was regarding him with friendly mockery, as if to say: "Well, you can have your politics now and your deals, because you're rid of me!" It pained Keetenheuve to hear her talking like that, particularly as it was her voice from the grave that was talking to him, and that could no longer be revised. He picked up Elke's picture and put it away. He filed Elke away, laid her ad acta. But what did that mean, ad acta , to be filed? The files were unimportant, and what was important, whether it appeared in the files or not, was current and pending, was there all by itself, and would remain until sleep, until
Similar Books
