Where will Angela Merkel’s buen retiro be
The Angela Merkel of the novelist Safier is a 67-year-old retired young woman (the story takes place in 2022, next year), for six months free from quarrels and political commitments. Pierluigi Mennitti's article from Berlin
For David Safier there is no doubt. Angela Merkel's future is not in politics, at the head of some European or international organization. The Chancellor, now a former, will not travel from country to country or continent to continent to resolve conflicts or bring food aid. Merkel's future will lie in her beloved Uckermark, the corner of paradise hidden in the eastern folds of Brandenburg, the region rich in lakes and forests, where she owns a small cottage. There he was his good retreat during the long and tiring sixteen years of chancellery, there he will spend his years after politics.
But it will not remain idle, it would not be in its nature. David Safier knows a lot. He is a 54-year-old novelist with a long chain of successful books behind him, some of which are also published in Italy, and he is one of those writers who can boast the brand of "bestselling author" released by Spiegel : a sort of guarantee stamp that German publishers stamp on the covers to attract readers. A bit like the red bands used by our publishers (“Author of 100,000 copies sold in the United States” !!!), only more reliable. And Safier, who jokingly assures that he has received some advice directly from the Chancellor's entourage, has already recounted the “day after” in black and white, in a 320-page book that will be released in bookstores on 23 March. It is called “Miss Merkel. Murder in the Uckermark ”, yellow gold cover with the (ex) chancellor in Sherlock Holmes' outfit who, with an inquisitive gaze, scrutinizes the muzzle of her pug through a lens.
Safier's Angela Merkel is a 67-year-old retired person (the story takes place in 2022, next year), for six months free from quarrels and political commitments. She is back in the Uckermark, between birches and Nordic pines, but is struggling to adapt to the slow and indolent rhythms of the new rural home. Maybe she misses the metropolis. But just as she begins to regret the hectic atmosphere of political meetings, a striking case offers her a new opportunity. Right in the Uckermark.
The unclear Baron Philipp von Baugenwitz is found dead, poisoned, in a prison of his castle, with a knight's armor still on. A mystery that needs to be revealed. And here the retired Angela Merkel wears the cap of the famous English detective, grabs the inevitable magnifying glass and with more British than Prussian style she sets out in search of the culprit. Objective: to solve the case. More is unknown, the plot is still completely covered by editorial secrecy and the author, not even on his Facebook profile, is tempted by further rumors.
But Safier still thinks he has solved the biggest mystery that intrigues the German political and journalistic world (not only) these days: what Angela Merkel will do from next autumn, when after the September elections a new government will put an end to its long season of chancellor, as long as that of Helmut Kohl alone? No one has been able to answer this question at the moment. Nothing suggests that the future ex-chancellor will immediately dive into a new political adventure, albeit at an international level. It is unlikely that she will be able to reach a European top position: too much charisma and too much authority in places where other national leaders (and so far also herself) prefer to have politicians with a profile that is not too bulky. Especially since Germany already occupies an important place like the presidency of the Commission, even if many would have preferred someone like Merkel to manage vaccine purchases rather than her faded copy, Ursula von der Leyen. But it's too late now.
Even a role of itinerant testimonial of the free world is difficult, now that Donald Trump is no longer there and all the populists in his wake are beating a retreat. Also because, for a Trump who leaves, there is an Xi Jinping always on the track and it is not that Merkel then distinguished herself in defending the rights of the people harassed by the representative of Germany's first trading partner. Not to mention Nord Stream 2 , fiercely defended against any fear of dependence on Russia. Legitimately, of course, but to become an icon of the free world one would have to pay some price.
About Russia. In the investigations in Uckermark, the novel detektive Merkel is always accompanied by a small colorful coven of men and animals. To support her in the investigation there is of course her husband Joachim Sauer (who, in order not to be too intrusive, is called Achim in the detective story), who also took refuge in the countryside after having left the role of First Gentleman and a serious professor of physical chemistry at the Humboldt University of Berlin. And obviously a bodyguard, Mike, a legacy of his successful political career. But the hound of the company cannot be missing, a small pug who wanders around with his tongue hanging out, sniffing every possible trace that leads to the killer. If it is murder. Well, the author wanted to play with one of the less exciting experiences Angela Merkel had in the early years of her chancellery, when Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed her in 2007 in Sochi, letting his huge black labrador roam in the meeting room. , she who is terrified of dogs after being bitten as a child. A story that she herself had previously told and that Putin could not have escaped. And so the pug who accompanies Miss Merkel in the investigations in Uckermark is called, in fact, Putin.
So, political ambitions aside, a Miss Marple-style Miss Merkel will devote herself entirely to solving the mysteries in the Uckermark. David Safier does not tell us if this will be the first in a long series of criminal cases entrusted to the former chancellor. Probably her destiny as an investigator will depend on the success the book will have, on the publisher's desire to bet on this trend. And from the skill of the pug Putin.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/come-sara-il-buen-retiro-di-angela-merkel/ on Sun, 14 Mar 2021 07:28:30 +0000.