Rage
“What video?” asks Yasira.
“Three migrants,” Steven begins and immediately corrects himself, “I uh . . . I mean displaced persons . . .”
Who actually came up with that, Yasira wonders.
This new language code? It was undoubtedly well-intentioned, but whether it has helped or harmed more is open to debate.
In the end, isn’t it just a linguistic distinction that allows Malte, a third semester philosophy student, to feel morally superior to his great-aunt Erna in the backwoods, even though it was Erna who persuaded her husband Heinz, against his declared will, to take the pregnant Syrian woman for an ultrasound?
While Malte has never . . . But she’s probably cynical again.
Malte doesn’t beat anyone up or set fire to asylum seekers’ shelters. Malte isn’t the problem.
“. . . so these three filmed themselves raping the girl,” Steven continues.
Yasira closes her eyes and shakes her head slightly. She breathes in and out deeply. Of course, her thoughts immediately turn to Zara. What if something like that were to happen to her daughter? She opens her eyes again.
“Show me!”
“It’s really gruesome. I don’t know if you . . .”
“Steven, . . .” Yasira says calmly, “I’m a chief inspector at the BKA, Department for Serious and Organized Crime!” There, now it was out. “I’ve seen things that would keep you awake for weeks. A video can’t shock me. Give me the phone!”
Steven hands her his smartphone without any further resistance. She presses play.
After the first few seconds, Yasira knows that this video will change everything. It is the drop, the spark, the detonator. Steven is right. The video is explosive.
Her criminally trained eye immediately focuses on the details.
The crime scene is a small clearing in a forest. The recording is dark, but everything and everyone is still recognizable.
So it didn’t happen at night, because you can’t see shit in the forest at night.
Dusk probably. Currently that would be around six p.m. The three men are Black, probably in their mid-twenties, and the girl is white, slim, brunette.
Under eighteen, Yasira estimates. Probably younger.
Just slightly older than her own daughter.
Maybe just as old. She’s lying on a table at one of those rest areas found along some hiking trails.
The ones with benches attached to the table.
The girl’s flowered dress is torn. Her whole body jerks with every jolt.
She is sobbing. It’s heartbreaking. Her name is Lena.
Lena.
Yasira has often found that knowing the victim’s name makes the crime even more unbearable.
She wants to cry along with her—at the same time clenches her fist. The men are obviously drunk.
Beer bottles are on the benches. The brand is unrecognizable.
Two of the guys are holding Lena down. The one on the left has a gray baseball cap on his head, the visor facing backward.
The one on the right is wearing a sweater with a cute comic dog on it.
Snoopy. All you can see of the rapist at first is his back and his curly hair.
The two accomplices holding Lena laugh, then the one on the right points toward the camera and says something.
He speaks French with a heavy accent. Yasira can’t understand him.
But it’s clear that the rapist only now realizes that he’s being filmed by a fourth man.
He turns around and lets go of the girl.
You can see his face, he is angry and approaches the camera.
He curses loudly, the man who is filming backs away, but the rapist grabs the camera and the picture goes black.
The video is less than a minute long. Perfect TikTok length.
Yasira hands the phone back.
“Shit!” she mumbles.
Some unfortunate colleague will have to ring Lena’s parents’ doorbell, is the first thing she thinks.
There are few things worse in her job. Being the bearer of bad news always makes you feel somewhat responsible for the person in front of you being thrown into this bottomless, inner abyss of despair.
And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
What if one day a colleague has to ring her doorbell with bad news about Zara? No, no. Don’t even think about it.
“I’m sorry,” says Steven. “I shouldn’t have . . . I wish I hadn’t clicked on that.”
“Poor child,” murmurs Yasira.
“Yes,” Steven simply says.
Both remain silent for a long minute, lost in thought. Why do people do such things to each other? What happened after the crime? What happened to Lena? The mother in Yasira hopes. The chief inspector in her has hardly any doubt that the girl is dead.
“The crime is terrible,” Steven finally says. “But I’m also afraid of the reactions. I’m scared of everything that’s going to happen now. Does that make sense?”
Yasira thinks, then nods.
She, too, feels anger. Anger at these men.
Anger at what is to come. Anger at this world.
One minute was enough for her to hate these men to the core.
For what they did to Lena. For their cruelty.
For their lack of empathy. But she also hates them for being so imbecilic as to film themselves committing the crime and sharing the recording with some jerk who thought it would be a good idea to post the video online.
She can already imagine the headlines: The foreigners, the Blacks, the refugees, our daughters, our women, our values. The downfall of the West is imminent.
“All the right-wing channels will gratefully pounce on this ammunition,” assumes Steven.
“Yes,” says Yasira. “And yet one could frame the crime in a completely different way. Once again, it’s men committing violence against a woman.”
“I just recently wrote an article about that,” Steven reports. “In Germany alone, more than thirty women are sexually abused every day. And most of them are of course, logically given the population structure, raped by German men.”
“Only they don’t film themselves doing it,” says Yasira.
“That’s probably not even true,” Steven replies. “I’m sure there are countless rape videos on the darknet.”
Yasira just nods.
“But this video will just be used to make sweeping generalizations again,” Steven says. The truth is: among refugees, there are some assholes. Among Nazis, there are only assholes.”
“It will make things even worse,” she says.
Steven sips his beer. Once again, an awkward silence sttles over their table.
“I . . . well, it’s kind of difficult now . . . er . . . to move on to another topic . . .” Steven seems to want to make an attempt to save the date. Brave, but almost futile. “So you’re with the BKA? How did you . . .” Steven stops.
“How did someone like me end up in the police force?” asks Yasira. “Well, I used to be very idealistic. I thought that for things to change, people like me had to join the police. At least that’s what I told my father and my friends. But maybe I just watched too many crime shows as a child.”
“You used to be very idealistic?” asks Steven. “Aren’t you any more?”
Yasira shrugs.
“Reality has this stupid habit of grinding down one’s idealism. Don’t you think?”
Steven just sighs.
Shortly afterwards, they split the bill and go home.
Each to his own. Steven didn’t make another attempt to save the date.
He deserves credit for that. The air is out.
The evening is over. On her way home, the rain lashes into Yasira’s face.
Tomorrow, she thinks, the video will tear the country apart.