West Russia
Gerhard Schroeder’s Napoleonic insanity rages across Europe like a great blood-gorged hippo. Not for him the libraries and AIDS charities of a Clinton or the UN lobbying of a Carter. Nein nein nein. Schroeder ist nicht finished with you. Already in the dark days of last September, he was brooding on a plan to get him out of the bunker. Is that libellous? It’s only a metaphor. Metaphors shouldn’t be. Just at the moment when the storm of re-born, virtuous conservatism seemed to have him cornered, he escaped through a secret pipe to his friends in the KGB. "Ich hatte keine Kenntnis von dem Vorgang." A mantra revolving in his head.
He has silenced his acne-scarred former adversaries, and he’s taken on his new job. There ain’t no stopping the fat chef of neo-politics now. He will rule Germany again, whether the Germans like it or not. “What did you do, Ben? I ruled Germany politically and then held its throat as if it were my screeching child. What did you ever do?” I am lost for words. “I hold Germany by the very life-blood of its economy. What can you or anyone do to me now?” And then he laughs, and the laugh echoes through the empty offices on Potsdamer Platz, where he has me tied to a chair on the 15th floor.