It was an autumn morning, a Monday... When he got to his desk, Hans found a message from his boss, Mr Helms. It read, I want to talk to you. Hans went up to the fifth floor, made his way down the carpeted corridor under the humming lights, and stepped through the pale oak door into Mr Helms' outer office where his secretary, Kitty, sat.
Hans went through another pale oak door and found himself in the inner office.
Mr Helms was sitting behind his very large black desk reading a telex. The walls were covered with framed diplomas. These had been awarded by film festivals all over the world for factual programmes which Mr Helms had produced. The office, as usual, smelt to Hans of coffee. Mr Helms drank Douwe Egbert, medium roast, in vast quantities.
"I want you to go to Belfast," said Mr Helms.
Although completely unexpected, this suggestion was not displeasing to Hans. He had never been before to that unhappy but newsworthy city.
Behind Mr Helms was a large picture window, and out of this Hans could see an Amsterdam canal, a row of red brick houses, and a railing with bicycles leaning against it.
Mr Helms began to speak, and although Hans, as a news journalist and a long-standing colleague of Mr Helms, hardly needed to be told about Belfast, he now sat quite still and listened.
In the mid-1980s, said Mr Helms, he was in Belfast covering the funeral of three IRA volunteers. As the coffins reached the cemetery, a lone gunman attacked the crowd of mourners. Mr Helms and his crew recorded the event and the piece was the lead story on the evening news. The company's percentage audience share rose several points.
Two days later, at the funeral of a man who had been murdered in the cemetery, two British army corporals were dragged from their car. The footage of their lynching-again the lead item on the evening news-was transmitted uncut. The company's audience share again rose several points, and Mr Helms was moved up to management.
"Now it is ten years later," continued Mr Helms, "and still there are tragedies." He alluded to a fish shop which had recently been bombed, and a pub where gunmen had attacked the drinkers in retaliation.
"However," said Mr Helms, touching and then untouching his finger ends-an infallible sign, as Hans recognised, that his boss was about to become meditative-"with all this death, we need to step back. We need to look at the bigger picture. Has so much harm and hurt been done in the last 25 years, that forgiveness and reconciliation are impossible? Or do people rise above these things? Find victims, talk to them. I want two ten minute pieces; one from each side. Good luck."
the following monday, at nine o'clock, Hans went to another fifth floor in another modern building, this time in the centre of Belfast. These were the offices of The Agency, the local Belfast company who were to provide his crew. A man wearing an earring showed him into a meeting room with hessian covered walls and prints of street scenes from old Belfast. A young woman, in her early twenties, he judged, introduced herself as Maggie. She was to be his PA, researcher and fixer.
"Do you want a cup of coffee?"
"Yes," he said.
She was very striking looking, in the way he thought women were meant to look in Ireland. She had very clear, white skin, pale blue eyes and long black hair. She was wearing a ribbed tee-shirt which moulded itself around her breasts and a plaid skirt with buttons up the front. In Holland the women wore suits or jeans; no one came to work like this.
Hans sank into a sofa filled with soft, yielding foam. "That sofa's a health risk," said Maggie, returning from the scullery. "It's only fit for couch potatoes," and she handed him a little plastic cup.
Hans sniffed the coffee. He had been warned that this was not a beverage at which the Irish excelled. Maggie asked him about his journey, his hotel, and as they talked she surprised and charmed him by saying "groovy" several times.
Then he asked about other stories she had covered and, as he listened, he wanted to ask Maggie her religion. But he did not; someone in Amsterdam had told him the Irish did not like being asked that.
He abandoned the coffee and began to describe his programmes. He wanted two ten minute pieces on victims and their attitudes, one featuring Protestants, the other Catholics.
"Sure, we can do that," said Maggie.
"You don't sound exactly enthusiastic."
"Oh no, I am."
To his ears she didn't sound in the least keen, but then, as he told himself, he wasn't acclimatised to the nuances of the local accent.
"So, we go to Sinn Fein first," he proposed. A Dutch colleague in Amsterdam had told him this was the best place to start.
an hour later, Hans and Maggie were on their way into west Belfast by taxi. Hans noticed a cardboard cut-out of a pine tree hanging from the rear view mirror, which gave off a strong but fake smell of pine. There was also a large sticker on the dashboard which said: "Thank you for not smoking," and yet the driver was puffing away.
"Excuse me." Hans coughed. "The notice says one thing," he gestured at the picture of a cigarette with a red bar across it, "and yet you smoke."
The driver looked at him in the mirror. "Not my car, mate. Just doubling for the guy who owns it. He's having a bypass operation this week. I don't think, where he is right now, he cares one way or the other what I do."
Hans turned to look out the window at the streets of small, red brick houses they were driving past. The gable ends of some of the houses had murals painted on them. Hans was struck by one of a woman; it reminded him of the statue of the Virgin Mary in the church where he had gone every Sunday as a child with his parents.
Hans had seen so many news bulletins from Belfast, and from west Belfast particularly, that the place had a curious air of familiarity to him now. However, more curious than the recognition was what he felt about what he was seeing. It all looked flat and boring. But then the real thing never looked as good as it did on television. He wondered if now, after 15 years, he ought to give up reporting.
A few minutes later, the taxi stopped at a grimy building on the Falls road, and Hans and Maggie got out. They went to the reinforced steel door and showed their faces to the security camera which was bolted to the wall above. Maggie gave their names through the intercom.
After a few moments the door was opened up. Hans found himself looking up at the doorman. He was an enormously tall man with curly blonde hair. He reminded Hans of the man made of clay in The Golem. This was a terrifying German film which Hans' father had taken him to see as a boy.
"We're from Dutch television," explained Maggie.
The golem led them down a dark corridor and into a small room about eight foot square. It immediately reminded Hans of a prison cell.
"Sit anywhere," he said, and pointed at the half-a-dozen empty chairs lined around the walls.
Hans went to find a seat but his eye was caught by a memorial on the wall. It commemorated three party activists who had recently been murdered in the very building where he now was standing.
As he wrote the names and dates in his notebook, he felt Maggie tapping him on the shoulder.
"You've got to see this."
She led him to another wall where there was a piece of doggerel verse in a frame. The poem was addressed to a British soldier. First he was going to be killed in Ireland and buried, said the poet, after which his bones were going to be dug up by a dog.
Maggie pointed to the text. Then she caught his eye and made a retching motion. Hans could not help but notice her red, pointed tongue.
Perhaps, he thought, she was telling him that she was from the other side. Except it didn't make sense for her to advertise that here in the headquarters of the enemy. Ireland was very confusing.
But before he could think further, the phone rang.
"Ta, Ta," said the golem into the receiver, and then he shouted: "They're ready for you upstairs."
They left the room, negotiated a couple of grill doors and climbed several flights of stairs; along the way they passed a poster of Nelson Mandela that was identical to the one in the Amsterdam flat where Hans went once a month to score his grass. Eventually, they emerged on to the top landing where they found a short man with a shaved head waiting for them. He looked to Hans like someone in a George Grosz painting.
"Welcome," he said, "I'm Declan."
Declan led them to another room. It was completely empty except for three red leather chairs. The window frame, Hans noticed, was scorched black; there was a piece of plywood over the glass; and there were puddles of water in the corner.
"So sorry, so sorry, so, so, sorry," said a voice. Hans turned to find a figure bounding into the room, his arm outstretched. He was a thin man in grey trousers, a navy blue blazer and a brown woollen tie.
When Hans met strangers he often imagined what animal they might be, and this morning the comparison offered itself immediately, effortlessly. The stranger was a ferret. Hans shook hands with him. The ferret introduced himself as John Logan and explained that he was a Sinn Fein councillor on Belfast city council. Hans gestured towards Maggie with the idea of introducing her.
"We know one another well," said the Councillor.
Maggie smiled but pointedly did not shake hands. She sat. Hans and Councillor Logan sat.
"Excuse me," said Councillor Logan.
He turned in his seat towards the door.
"A Declain, faigh toit?-n domh."
Declan, the George Grosz figure, burst in, handed Councillor Logan a cigarette and bolted out again.
"Sorry about the terrible mess," said Councillor Logan. "What happened?" Hans asked, pointing at the blackened window. "Did you have a fire?"
"Two nights ago," said Councillor Logan.
Then he described, joyously Hans thought, how loyalists had started the fire with petrol bombs, and then run away through west Belfast, unhindered by any British soldiers.
"Which only goes to prove, of course," concluded Councillor Logan, "that the British forces of occupation are colluding with the loyalists. But then, in the republican movement, we've always known that."
Hans opened his notebook and began to note down the details. He felt weary. The rhetoric nonetheless had a familiar ring to it, like the streets he had seen from the taxi on the way there.
"A Declain, faigh solas domh," shouted Councillor Logan.
The door flew open and Declan burst in again, threw his colleague a box of matches and ran out.
"You don't mind Gaelic," said Councillor Logan, striking a match and putting it to the end of his Lambert & Butler.
"Not at all," said Hans.
"We grasp every opportunity to speak our beloved Irish. In the Kesh, we got to speak it all the time."
Councillor Logan beamed proudly as Hans furrowed his brow.
"Oh, let me explain-that's Long Kesh, the internment-cum-concentration camp, although you probably know it by the British government's propaganda name, as the Maze prison. Anyhow, we spoke Irish in there all the time. There was no way the Brits or the screws could stop that."
Councillor Logan re-crossed his legs. There was something of the schoolmaster about him. It was the hideous brown woollen tie, Hans thought, but it was also the forced bonhomie. Teachers were never naturally charming. How could they be, when all their time was devoted to controlling unruly children and pedalling the thoughts and ideas of others? Teachers were all fakes and so was the ferret-faced figure puffing on a cigarette in the chair opposite.
"Can I ask you a question?" Hans asked.
Councillor Logan nodded and smiled.
"You must have people like me travelling through here every day. How do you see us?"
"So long as I get to talk about the 'real issues,'" said Councillor Logan, "then I'm happy. Can I tell you a story?"
"Yes," agreed Hans.
"A little while ago, a loyalist or a Brit put a gun through my bedroom window and tried to shoot me. They only hit the pillow.
"About a week after this, I was invited to join a phone-in to South Africa on their elections and the on-going republican involvement in the peace process here in the north of Ireland.
"Now, I had said beforehand that I didn't want to talk about the attack. I wanted to focus on politics. So I was surprised when I heard the voice from Johannesburg on the end of the line saying, 'Could you begin by telling us about the recent attack on your life, Councillor Logan?' 'No, I will not,' I said, 'I want to talk about the peace process and not my own personal drama.'
So then why go on to me about it now? Hans wondered. But he smiled encouragingly at Councillor Logan. Hans never found it hard to smile.
"So, how can I help you?" asked Councillor Logan, lifting the ankle of one leg on to the other knee. He was wearing fawn socks which matched his tie.
Hans described the two programmes he was intending to make about victims. Councillor Logan listened, nodded, and then pronounced that he had just the person. Her name was Mrs Savage.
Hans was aware of Maggie shifting in her chair.
"You know this woman?" he asked.
"She was hit by a rubber bullet," said Maggie.
Hans could not read her tone. She might be angry, but then again this might just be her way. He made the necessary arrangements with Councillor Logan. The interview was over.
"Sl?n agat," said Councillor Logan, not to him but to Maggie, with that certainty and warmth which left Hans in no doubt they were on the same side.
"Sl?n leat," she replied.
It was, Hans noticed, a correction, and a rather tartly administered one at that.
"Sl?n," Maggie continued, and with that she left through the door.
They went downstairs and ordered another taxi. It was only when they were finally in the back of the taxi and pulling away from the kerb, that she spoke-
"God, that was horrible, wasn't it."
She stuck her little pink tongue out and made as if to be sick.
"You didn't like?"
"Didn't like! The man's a child molester."
This was confusing. She was on the same side as Councillor Logan-he knew that now-and yet there was all this animosity.
Then he found himself thinking about her tongue-he had now seen it twice-and soon Hans found himself wondering what Maggie would be like to kiss? He and his girlfriend, Hannah, had not had sex for three months. They were talking about splitting up. Then Hans felt irritated and he told himself not to think about kissing Maggie. He must think about his work instead.
He looked out of the window. They were passing the red brick wall of a hospital. Children in their school uniforms were milling on the pavements.
Suddenly, Hans saw a boy in a blazer run out and jump up on to the back of the coal lorry immediately in front of their taxi. As the lorry drove away, the boy waved to his cheering friends at a bus stop.
For an instant, Hans was back in Delhi where he had once worked. Then Maggie suggested having something to eat and the memory vanished.
at the agreed hour, the following morning, Hans arrived at a street of low, red brick houses. The interviewee lived at number 12, Nepal Street. The cameraman and the sound recordist were both already outside the house of Mrs Savage. They were unloading their equipment from an estate car.
Hans climbed out of his taxi and went over. The sound recordist said: "Hello." He was a large man with exceptionally thick wrists. His name was Mike.
The cameraman, who was still rummaging for something in a box, now straightened up and turned round. He was a German called Kurt; according to Maggie, Kurt had arrived in Belfast in 1969 and simply never left.
Hans shook the man's hand. The German also had great thick wrists. Perhaps, Hans wondered, you had to be built this way to work in Belfast.
Kurt lit a cigarette, asked him a couple of questions about his hotel and then said, "How's Aaron?"
Hans had forgotten about this connection.
"Of course," said Hans, "you know Mr Helms."
Kurt was the cameraman who had been in the cemetery with his boss when the man had come in with the gun, and a few days later they had been at the funeral together, the one where the two corporals had been murdered.
"Yes," said Kurt, "we go back a long way. We were here at the very beginning, you know, in 1969; ambulance chasing, I'm ashamed to say."
Inside number 12, Hans found Councillor Logan already waiting in the tiny front room. He had exchanged his brown woollen tie for a dark blue silk one and his suit was similarly sombre. Councillor Logan, Hans recognised, might be dislikeable but he was certainly adept at his job.
The interviewee was sitting in the corner beside an enormous television set. She was a small woman and the effect of the set was to make her seem even smaller. A thin wasted leg stuck out from under the woman's skirt, and a metal Zimmer frame stood beside her on the floor.
"This is Mrs Savage," said Councillor Logan.
As Hans took the small, bony hand that was extended towards him, he noticed the rouge on Mrs Savage's face and also a smell of perfume. She was wearing glasses which magnified her eyes.
"You've come to talk to me about my leg," she said. "Have no fear, I'll tell you whatever you want."
She was squeezing his hand now, indicating by the warmth of her grasp that she meant what she said.
"I've explained what you need to Mrs Savage," said Councillor Logan, "she's ready to give you just what you need. It should only take a few minutes."
Hans felt Mrs Savage relinquishing his hand. She was beaming up at him.
"We want you to talk about what happened," Hans said quickly, "what you feel now about those events, and whether you forgive?"
"I don't forgive them for depriving me of my leg," said Mrs Savage, her smile vanishing, "for while I've spent my life hobbling about, those who did this are walking around scot-free."
"You see what British justice does," interrupted Councillor Logan, "it makes hard hearts."
Hans wondered how often he had used that phrase before.
"It's an undocumented area," Councillor Logan continued tirelessly, "which you media might do well to look at. How some wounds heal and others don't."
Which was precisely, Hans thought grimly, why they were there to interview Mrs Savage.
He looked down at the carpet. It was a mixture of red and yellow blobs. It reminded him of the trifle he had eaten the evening before at the hideous hotel where he was staying. All politicians, he thought, whether revolutionaries or not, were bores.
"Did you ever get your back boiler sorted with the Executive?" he heard Councillor Logan enquiring.
As the susurrus of their speech swirled around him, Hans remembered Maggie and her retching. The day before it had seemed faintly unprofessional, but now he thought it was only human. God, he disliked Councillor Logan.
The cameraman and the sound recordist came in. Kurt set the camera on top of a tripod. Mike attached a microphone to the end of a pole.
"Okay," said Kurt, "we're ready."
The microphone sliced through the air and stopped at a point six inches above Mrs Savage's head. She glanced up, Hans noticed, but she didn't seemed troubled. On the contrary, she seemed at home with it.
"In 1974, I was walking to my home in Mortimer Street..." she now began strongly.
"Excuse me, Mrs Savage," Hans interrupted her. Everyone was smiling.
"First we have to turn on the camera," Hans explained gently. "Then we have to put the board on. Meanwhile, you just keep looking at me. Let me ask you the question, and then you start. Yes?"
"Oh, yes." Mrs Savage was laughing herself, at her own eagerness. "You've got to put on that thingumajig," she said.
She imitated the action of a clapperboard.
"I've got to learn to hold my horses," she said. "I've always been too eager. Even as a little girl, my daddy always said, 'Learn to hold your horses, girl!'"
She laughed again and put her hand over her mouth. Her huge blue eyes were alive suddenly and sparkling behind her spectacles.
Hans called out for Maggie to bring the clapperboard, and while he waited for her to appear he glanced about the room.
He was looking for colour photographs of family members or children, but all he could see were black and white studio portraits of men and women in pre-war clothes, and some colour ones of Mrs Savage with a man. So there was a husband, he guessed, but no children.
Maggie came forward, announced the take, shut the clapperboard and stepped to the side. There was a car passing outside and everyone remained perfectly still. The house fell silent. Mike nodded.
"Right, Mrs Savage," said Hans, "would you tell me what happened to your leg?"
She nodded and began. Her language was clear and simple. In 1974, when she was 24, Mrs Savage turned into the street where she was then living to discover a knot of policemen and soldiers. At the far end of the street she could see a group of boys with scarves over their faces. The boys were throwing stones. This sort of thing was common in Belfast at the time and did not surprise her.
Mrs Savage was living in the second house down the street. A young soldier was crouching on her front step. As she approached he turned and fired at her. The rubber bullet struck her on the side, shattering her hip joint and the top of her left leg. A surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital rebuilt what was left but she was never able to walk properly again. The soldier served a six month sentence. Her compensation took ten years to come through.
In the part of himself that was monitoring what was happening, Hans could not help but notice the smoothness in her delivery. But he reminded himself that he should not be surprised that Mrs Savage had told her story in public before.
And the story remained heart-rending. Hans registered the sensation he always got in these circumstances. It was like a series of faint pin pricks somewhere in his solar plexus.
"What do you feel now," he asked in a quiet voice-always lowered at moments like this-"about the man who injured you?"
"Them ones," she began, "them ones." Her accent, he noticed, had gone colloquial. She had returned to her own particularly Belfast way of speaking, he guessed, because only in her own voice could she express her feelings of outrage and hurt.
Yet at the same time he knew that at some level this was a performance, and glancing over at Councillor Logan, Hans' feelings were confirmed on seeing that the Councillor's eyes were filled with tears.
Perhaps, thought Hans, too long working in television had destroyed, not his capacity to feel-that was still intact-but his faith in human honesty?
Then Hans heard Mrs Savage swallow and he turned back to look at her.
"I was shot at point blank range," she said, "and I have never walked without that Zimmer frame from that day to this, and yet the British soldier who did this is walking today. I wouldn't wish this rotten leg like I've been dragging about on him, but I am out for justice, and I haven't had it yet."
"Thank you," said Hans, "and cut."
Kurt turned off the camera. Mike withdrew the microphone.
"That was three minutes," said Maggie, looking at the stop-watch which she carried around her neck.
"That's it," said Hans. "That's a wrap."
"That's it!" said Mrs Savage, delighted. He could see the relief welling through her. "Short and sweet, that's how I like it."
"I'll make the tea," said Councillor Logan.
"I know where everything is, don't I, Mrs Savage?"
"Indeedy," she said.
Councillor Logan walked from the room and Hans felt the eyes of Mrs Savage falling on him.
"I like Councillor Logan, I always have him here you know," she said, and then smiling broadly and pointing at Kurt she suddenly exclaimed, "Och, love, I've had you here before, too. I didn't recognise you, darling. It's these new specs." She took her glasses off and put them on again. "I haven't got used to them. I can't see properly with them yet."
"I'm afraid there's a lot more of me to see than there was the last time I was here," said Kurt. He grasped the belly which hung down over the leather belt of his trousers.
"Do you know Mrs Savage?" Hans asked.
"Yes, I was here with a Japanese producer last year interviewing Mrs Savage."
"And what about before last year?" persisted Hans. He was now gripped by the rather disagreeable idea that his boss, Mr Helms, might have even visited 12 Nepal Street himself.
"No, don't you worry," said Kurt waving a thick finger, "I was never here before then."
Hans was relieved to hear this.
"Mrs Savage," Hans began, "do you mind me asking a question?"
"No, love."
"Do you have any children?"
He saw the pale blue eyes enlarged by her glasses blinking once, twice, three times, and then tears welling up in them.
"No."
"Was it anything to do with your injuries?"
"I don't know. My husband says that has to be the reason, but no doctor's ever said so. My tests were normal..."
She sniffed and continued, "I would have loved children. I'd have given my right arm for them."
"Wouldn't it have been hard bringing them up?" said Hans uselessly. He pointed at her Zimmer frame.
She pulled a little lace handkerchief from her cuff and dabbed at her eyes.
"I may not get about but they could have come to me. Oh, I'd have loved them..."
Hans was always blundering into these private griefs, especially in the privileged moments which always follow a successful interview, and as he sat there, Hans wished he had kept his mouth closed. He really ought to have known better.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to upset you."
Mrs Savage went right on sobbing. It was all a little embarrassing.
A few moments later, Councillor Logan returned. He was pushing a trolley on which there were a plate of sandwiches, a plate of biscuits, fine bone china cups and saucers, and a big silver teapot.
"Refreshment," boomed Councillor Logan.
Watching the trolley as it trundled in, Hans savoured the irony that it was Councillor Logan who was coming to his rescue.
Everyone sat; cups of tea and plates of sandwiches were handed round. Mrs Savage started to ask Kurt about other cameramen and sound recordists who had been to her house.
And it seemed to Hans, as he sat there listening, that Mrs Savage had given so many interviews about her rubber bullet injury, that every news crew in the world had been to see her at some point.
But eventually, the list of names was exhausted and Kurt turned the conversation to Mr Helms.
"Mr Helms is his boss," the cameraman explained to Mrs Savage, jerking his finger towards Hans.
The room now fell silent, and Hans heard himself saying to Kurt, "When was the last time you were with Mr Helms? It was when those soldiers were lynched, wasn't it?" and no sooner was the sentence out that he realised it was a mistake, here, in this house, at this moment, with these people, to touch on that subject.
"Yes, I was with him when the corporals were murdered," said the German bluntly.
"That was a terrible business," said Mrs Savage, "but what were they doing there?"
"Yes," Hans heard Councillor Logan agreeing in his most school-masterly voice.
"Someone very high up dropped those two corporals in the shit, excuse my French, and are responsible for their deaths," continued Councillor Logan.
"Oh really," said Mike quickly, "I was there and I thought the reason they died had something to do with everyone in the crowd jumping on their heads."
"But what were they doing in west Belfast?-that's the question you must ask yourself, Mike," said Councillor Logan.
"Oh, bollocks."
Mike picked up his gear and walked out.
"Is he all right?" asked Mrs Savage. Her hands, Hans noticed, were trembling slightly.
"I'm sure that he is," Hans assured her. "Everyone in this job gets on edge from time to time."
Mrs Savage put her own cup down on the table.
"The soldier shot me from ten feet away with his rubber bullet and it went in here..."
She pointed at the hip above her withered leg.
"And that bastard is walking around today, but I have to drag myself around on that frame..."
She had suffered so deeply with her leg, Hans thought, and yet she could not feel for these others who had suffered even more.
Of course, the dead corporals were her so-called enemies, but perhaps it wasn't so much a matter of animosity, he imagined, as plain old habit; she had repeated her story so often, it was simply impossible for her to comprehend something, anything, else.
"Biscuit?" he heard at his side, and turning he saw Councillor Logan offering him the plate.
Twenty minutes later, after saying goodbye to Mrs Savage and Councillor Logan, Hans went out to the camera car.
He found Mike in the front passenger seat. He was reading a book intently and did not look up.
Round the back he found Kurt sitting on the tailgate, smoking a cigarette.
"Hey, Mike," Kurt called over his shoulder to his colleague, "the producer's here."
"So what?"
"He's asked me to have a word with you."
Hans was aware of Kurt winking at him.
"He wants me to say that wasn't very tactful in there-saying 'Bollocks,' and then walking out." Kurt's tone was jovial. "You've got to learn to be more polite, old bean! Bite that tongue and all that."
"Yeah, yeah," his colleague replied, "like Pavese ought to have." Mike waved the book he was reading, Festival Nights.
"He won't learn," said Kurt to Hans. Kurt proffered his packet of cigarettes and Hans took one.
"He's always doing that sort of thing," continued Kurt. "And do you know why?"
"No."
"He reads too many books. Stupid fucker. He doesn't understand," and here Kurt turned and called back into the car again: "He doesn't understand that in Ulster, everything has been preserved in amber for us to photograph and record. This is a museum and we, the media, we are the curators."
"So don't rock the fucking boat," Kurt continued. "A bit more politeness, please Michael, and no more fucking thinking."
Hans began to laugh. Hans heard Mike in the car laughing too, and then a moment later he heard Maggie laughing behind him.
"What's next?" Hans asked.
"Father Finnegan," said Maggie, "the priest who looks after kneecap victims."
"Oh yes," said Hans, he remembered now.
Everyone piled into the car and they drove to their next interview.
