The Seminar
The seminar room was on the third floor of an annex to the Ministry, a building that officially had no name of its own, which in a public authority by no means implied that it was any less real. On the contrary: it was often precisely the nameless things that possessed the greatest permanence there. Internally, depending on department and mood, people simply called it “the building at the back,” and those who worked there usually did not know exactly which complex of buildings they actually belonged to; an ignorance that disturbed no one, since in administration belonging was in any case less often a spatial than a documentary matter. The building dated from the nineteen-fifties, that era in which architecture had neither the courage of modernity nor the consolation of age, but made do with a decency of concrete, artificial stone and dulled brass handles which today seemed not quite ugly only because it had never had the ambition to be beautiful.
The windows looked out onto an inner courtyard, where two chestnut trees stood, a shade too ceremonial for the place, as if they had strayed here from a bourgeois park and over the decades had learned to expect nothing more. For years a bicycle had been leaning against a railing. It was not entirely clear whether one was still entitled to call it a bicycle, or whether it had already become a silent objection to the concept of mobility. No one knew who it belonged to. A caretaker had once suggested having it removed, which had been an entirely reasonable remark, but reason alone, in a ministry, is famously not enough to set a procedure in motion. Since no competent office could be identified, the bicycle had remained; and over the years it had changed from an object that was in the way into an object that would have been missed had it no longer been there. Without this ever having been decided, it counted as part of the courtyard.
The room itself was too large for meetings and too small for conferences, and thus exactly right for those events at which one produces the appearance of further training without entirely excluding the danger of actual insight. In one corner stood a coffee machine that emitted a mechanical groan with every serving, as if it had to produce not only coffee but also its opinion of humanity. The carpet was grey, the curtains beige, the tables arranged in a U-shape; an order that suggested proximity while at the same time preventing anyone from truly sitting opposite anyone else. At the front hung a whiteboard on which, in blue writing, stood: “Creative Writing in Administrative Contexts.” Beneath it, smaller and therefore more official: “Training Series Module III.”
Section Chief Dr. Franz Xaver Hohenegg regarded the board with the expression of a man who, in the course of his professional life, had learned that every new initiative either remained without consequence or became dangerous, and that the dangerous initiatives almost always resembled the harmless ones at first. He was late, which rarely happened to him and annoyed him more than he would have admitted. He had been held up by a conversation about travel-expense guidelines, more precisely by the question of whether the new regulation for official journeys to Luxembourg had been specified with sufficient precision. A rapporteur from Department IV, with that embittered objectivity found only in people who assert their last sovereignty in matters of no importance, had insisted that the relevant passage contained a gap. Only after a quarter of an hour had it been established, almost incidentally, that no one in the room had ever travelled to Luxembourg on official business; an insight that did not end the procedure, but merely raised it to a higher level of abstraction.
Hohenegg placed his briefcase on the table, nodded around the room and sat down without apologising. An apology would only have made the disturbance real. The participants barely reacted. They were those officials who had learned not to confuse attendance with attention, nor attention with agreement. Fourteen people had gathered, some out of duty, others out of curiosity, two presumably by mistake. In front of each lay a ballpoint pen that failed to work on the first attempt and a folder bearing the coat of arms of the Second Republic – a conjunction that surprised no one, because in such matters the state cultivated a symbolism that, with sufficient goodwill, might have been mistaken for self-irony.
The trainer stood by the window. He was younger than Hohenegg had expected, perhaps in his mid-forties, wearing a dark turtleneck, rimless glasses and narrow hands that looked academic in an indeterminate way, as if they had crossed out more than they had carried. His face gave the impression of someone who had spoken at universities for a long time without ever being fully understood; not because he spoke indistinctly, but because he began at a point where most listeners had already decided that the journey was too far. “Professor Dr. Leitner,” said a member of staff from Personnel Development, in a voice that wanted to sound friendly and yet already showed that slight wear which is unavoidable in repeated friendliness, “we are very pleased to have you with us today.”
The trainer nodded slowly. He did not smile. “I am no longer a professor,” he said. This produced a brief moment in which no one knew whether a response was required, since it was unclear whether the statement had been meant biographically, legally or ideologically.
The member of staff from Personnel Development smiled all the same, as a precaution. “Then Dr. Leitner.” Leitner nodded again. “That will do.” He stepped in front of the group; his movement had something theatrical about it, but not in the sense of a man seeking effect, rather in the sense of a man who had spoken too often before small groups and now left his body to a habit that no longer convinced even him.
“I have been asked,” he began, “to work with you on creative writing in an administrative context.” He spoke slowly, too slowly, as Hohenegg immediately noted: with the voice of a man convinced that thinking must be audible. “The term is problematic,” Leitner continued. “For administration already writes creatively. It simply does not know this.” No one took notes. A rapporteur from the Budget Department raised his eyebrows slightly, though so slightly that it was impossible to decide whether this indicated scepticism, fatigue or a minor muscular spasm. “Every decree,” Leitner said, “is a form of narrative reality-production.” Hohenegg took a sip of coffee. It was lukewarm and tasted of the kind of decision that had once been made in a procurement meeting against better taste, but in favour of the cheaper framework contract.
Leitner walked slowly along the table. “You may believe that administration organises facts. In reality, it organises expectations. A ministerial document does not simply describe reality. It produces a reality that is subsequently obeyed.” One participant nodded politely. Hohenegg was not sure whether she agreed or was merely trying to stay awake. “Derrida,” Leitner said, pronouncing the name with the caution normally reserved for documents originating elsewhere, “showed that texts are not stable. Meaning arises through context. An administrative decree can be read as a story. Or rather: it already is a story.” A faint rustling passed through the room. Someone leafed through the handouts, perhaps in search of an indication as to whether this sentence would be relevant for assessment.
Hohenegg looked more closely at the man. He knew the type: academics who entered administration because universities had become too practical for them and who now wished to make administration appear theoretical. It was known that Leitner had lost his position, though not officially. Officially he had left the university; unofficially it was said that in a faculty meeting he had refused to fill out an evaluation form and had instead submitted a twenty-page text on institutional violence. The story was probably invented. But it sounded credible enough, and in institutions credibility is, as is well known, the more polite sister of truth.
“Language,” Leitner said, “is never neutral.” He wrote the word LANGUAGE in large letters on the whiteboard, the marker squeaking as if objecting to the thesis with the modest means of a writing implement. “Administration produces reality through form.” Hohenegg looked out of the window. Nothing moved in the courtyard. The chestnut trees stood still, the bicycle continued to lean against the railing, and for a brief moment he had the reassuring feeling that this morning would remain entirely without consequences. Precisely for that reason he relaxed. In higher administrative functions there are few greater reliefs than the prospect of inconsequence.
Leitner put the marker down. “Today I would like us to attempt something that has become rare in administrative contexts.” He paused. No one asked what. “Imagination.” The word fell into the room like an object accidentally dropped in a church. One participant cleared her throat. The budget rapporteur began clicking his pen. Hohenegg looked at his watch. 09:47. One hour and thirteen minutes to go, he thought, and this calculation alone lent the morning a certain tolerable architecture.
“All of you,” Leitner said, “work in a system that assumes reality can be administered. But reality often begins as a linguistic draft.” He now spoke more freely, almost enthusiastically, and enthusiasm in a ministry is always a somewhat indiscreet condition. “Administration believes it describes decisions. In truth, it produces decidability.” Some participants looked strenuously interested. Others had begun looking into their folders, as if rescue instructions might be hidden there. “I would like to do an exercise,” Leitner said.
He distributed paper. White A4 paper. Without letterhead. That alone seemed suspicious in the Ministry, for a sheet without a sender is a sheet without a guardian. “Imagine,” he said, “that you had to draft an administrative text describing something entirely improbable — but in a tone that admits no doubt.” He walked slowly through the room. “No satire. No parody. Write seriously. Write as if the matter had already been decided.” Hohenegg looked up. For the first time, he was truly listening. “You mean fictional administration?” someone asked. “No,” Leitner said. “I mean administration as fiction.”
A silence arose, not embarrassing, rather cautious, as happens when a group suddenly notices that a seemingly harmless term has opened a door behind which there may be no wall. “A memorandum,” Leitner said, “for something that actually seems impossible. But please make it institutionally plausible.” To Hohenegg’s surprise, he liked that. Not the theory; the formulation. Institutionally plausible. It was an expression that in the Ministry could justify almost anything. One participant asked whether the texts would remain anonymous. Leitner smiled for the first time. “Of course.”
Hohenegg took a sheet and regarded the empty surface. It was astonishing how long it had been since he had written anything without a file number. A file number was not merely a number; it was the little baptism of a procedure, its admission into the ecclesial community of administration. Without it, a text remained unprotected, almost private. He heard the faint scratching of ballpoint pens. No one spoke. Outside in the courtyard, a leaf fell from a tree, an occurrence of such complete lack of jurisdiction that it could not have been recorded in any organisational chart.
At first Hohenegg wrote nothing. Then he began: “Preparation of a symbolic gesture for the deepening of transatlantic relations.” He paused. It was a good sentence. Neutral, unobtrusive, entirely credible. He continued: “Transfer of a tradition-related item of imperial regalia in adapted form.” He smiled slightly, not because of the idea, but because of its tone. It was exactly the language in which nonsense moved most safely. Hohenegg read the two sentences again. They appeared surprisingly solid, almost professional. The word “historical,” which had first occurred to him, he crossed out; historical sounded like a museum, tradition-related sounded like strategy.
At the other end of the table someone was writing remarkably quickly. The budget rapporteur had already filled half a page. Hohenegg involuntarily wondered what a man from the Budget Department fantasised about; probably a cost centre without audit obligations. Leitner walked slowly between the tables. He read nothing. He merely looked, like a priest checking whether the faithful were truly praying. “Avoid irony,” he said. “Irony is mistrust of the text. Administration knows no mistrust. Administration asserts.” No one reacted, but several began to write more resolutely.
The air in the room grew warm. The coffee machine groaned again; someone had fetched a second cup, which under the circumstances signified either courage or resignation. Hohenegg set down his pen. He did not know exactly why he continued writing. Perhaps out of boredom, perhaps out of vanity, perhaps because he liked the idea of bringing something utterly nonsensical into a language that excluded all doubt. He wrote: “In view of the special historical connection between the Republic of Austria and the United States of America, a symbolic measure appears suited to making transatlantic continuities visible.” That was good. Not too concrete, but serious enough. Over the years he had learned that good administrative language must never be unambiguous. It had to create the impression that other offices had already consented. That was its true purpose: not clarity, but pre-consent.
Leitner stopped beside him. Hohenegg only noticed him when his shadow fell across the sheet. “Very institutional,” Leitner said. Hohenegg looked up. “I thought that was the assignment.” Leitner nodded. “Yes. But you do not write like someone inventing something.” — “How then?” Leitner thought for a moment. “Like someone remembering.” Hohenegg wanted to reply, but did not. It was one of those sentences that sounded too meaningful to make sense, and yet for precisely that reason remained. At the window, a ventilation duct hummed. Someone coughed. The budget rapporteur got up and went to the coffee machine, as though the knowledge of the world had made him thirsty.
Leitner returned to the front of the room. “Continue writing,” he said. “Another ten minutes.” A few participants sighed softly. Most had difficulty filling more than half a page. Administration was accustomed to commenting, not imagining; it could turn an event into infinitely many statements, but to bring an event forth from nothing was not among its expressly regulated abilities. Hohenegg continued writing: “Under consideration is the transfer of a representative replica of a historically charged emblem of rule.” He paused. Emblem of rule. That was almost too beautiful. He wondered why the phrase was used so rarely. Probably because it was too honest. In the Ministry one preferred to speak of processes, responsibilities or governance. Rule sounded like something one was no longer permitted to admit openly. He did not cross out the phrase. He even underlined it lightly.
Leitner began speaking again, not loudly, more like a commentary on an invisible text that hovered above all the sheets. “The most interesting texts,” he said, “are those that believe themselves.” One participant looked up, irritated. “Many documents in institutions do not arise from truth,” Leitner continued. “But from tone.” Hohenegg had to admit that this was true. A bad decree failed not because of its content, but because it sounded uncertain. Certainty was more important than logic. One could push through almost anything if the sentence structure was decisive enough. There was something disturbing in that, but also something comforting, because it explained a great deal.
A noise sounded in the corridor, a metallic clack, then footsteps. No one paid it any attention. The noises of a ministry were like weather; they simply occurred and only became significant when a house notice later classified them. Hohenegg wrote the next line: “A transfer in the context of a symbolic act could generate additional visibility within the framework of bilateral relations.” Now he was beginning to enjoy himself. He knew it was ridiculous, but it was precisely ridiculous, and precision generated dignity. Leitner looked at his watch. “Three minutes.” Some participants stopped at once, as if they had merely been waiting for official permission to be exhausted. Others continued writing frantically.
Hohenegg considered whether he should sign the document. Not with his name, of course; a name would have privatised the matter. Perhaps with a function. Or initials. Something that suggested authenticity without asserting it. At the bottom he wrote: “Draft for internal preliminary review.” Then he put the pen down.
At that moment the alarm sounded.
At first it was not loud, more a brief electronic signal that in a private household might have been overlooked, but in an authority immediately aroused the suspicion that somewhere there existed a form for it. Then came a woman’s voice, calm, almost polite: “Attention. Please leave the building using the marked escape routes.” No one reacted at once. Ministries were buildings in which warnings were in principle considered exaggerated until their jurisdiction had been established. The voice repeated itself, this time more insistently. Several people looked up. The budget rapporteur remained seated. “A drill?” someone asked. Leitner shrugged. “Perhaps.”
Then the light went out briefly. Not for long, only for a moment, but long enough for the participants to begin standing up. Chairs were pushed back, folders closed, coffee cups left behind. Hohenegg took his briefcase. He glanced briefly at the sheet in front of him and did not put it away. Why would he? It was an exercise. He followed the others out. In the corridor it smelled of dust, radiator paint and that old dryness which administrative buildings develop over time, as if paper were not merely stored in them but slowly exuded by the walls themselves.
People moved slowly towards the staircase. No one seemed alarmed. Some used the opportunity to make a quick phone call; others regarded their mobile phones with the serious expression of people who, even in an emergency, first check whether the emergency fits into their calendar. In the courtyard the participants gathered. The chestnut trees stood still. The bicycle continued to lean against the railing. Hohenegg looked up. On the third floor, the window of the seminar room was open. A draught moved the curtains. Inside, the sheets still lay on the tables, white, unordered, insignificant — at least at that moment.
No one spoke about the seminar while they stood in the courtyard. This was remarkable, not because of the content, but because of the Austrian rule that events are taken seriously only once someone else has mentioned them first. The participants stood in small groups. Some smoked. Others looked at their phones. The member of staff from Personnel Development explained to a colleague that the alarm had probably been triggered by construction work. No one asked questions. A ministry was not a place where one looked for causes. One waited for jurisdiction.
Hohenegg stood slightly apart, his hands in the pockets of his coat. The morning had grown cooler. In the courtyard everything looked smaller than it had from the window; the chestnut trees were less majestic, the bicycle now looked unmistakably broken. Leitner stepped beside him. He no longer had coffee in his hand, and for the first time he seemed slightly uncertain, as if reality had interrupted him during a lecture on reality. “Interesting group,” he said. Hohenegg nodded. “So I have always found them.” Leitner smiled weakly. “I think administration has a literary quality that is underestimated.” Hohenegg said nothing. He did not know whether this was a compliment or a diagnosis. “Most of the texts here,” Leitner continued, “are actually unconscious novels.” — “Novels?” — “Yes. With characters, conflicts, expectations. Only without readers.” Hohenegg looked up at the window on the third floor. “Perhaps that is for the best.” Leitner nodded. “Possibly.”
A siren fell silent. Someone from building services emerged and spoke briefly with a safety officer. The news spread slowly, as news in institutions spreads: not as information, but as permission for a particular movement. False alarm. Return in ten minutes. The groups began moving back towards the entrance. Hohenegg remained standing for a moment. He did not know exactly why. Perhaps because of the interruption, perhaps because of the sentence about novels, perhaps because he was suddenly no longer certain that the seminar had been entirely irrelevant. He looked at Leitner. “What actually happens to the texts?” Leitner shrugged slightly. “Usually nothing.” The word remained briefly in the air. Usually.
They went back into the building. In the stairwell it smelled of cleaning agent. A caretaker pushed past with a trolley of paper rolls; his face showed that calm knowledge of things possessed by people who work in buildings about which others merely pass resolutions. No one spoke. When Hohenegg entered the seminar room, the first impression was disorder: shifted chairs, coffee cups, open folders, paper. Paper everywhere. Some participants went directly to their places; others stood around briefly, disoriented. The atmosphere had changed, not strongly, but perceptibly, as if the room had briefly belonged to someone else in their absence.
Hohenegg sat down. His sheet was still there, slightly displaced. He looked at it. The sentences seemed more official now than before. Perhaps it was the distance. Perhaps the fact that he no longer saw them in the act of writing, but as finished text. A written sentence, once it has outlived its writer by even a moment, possesses a small impertinence: it pretends to have arisen independently. Leitner stepped back in front of the group. “We shall continue,” he said. No one protested. “I would now like you to exchange your texts.” A faint groan passed through the room. “Do not worry,” Leitner said. “This is not about assessment. Only about effect.”
The participants began hesitantly passing their sheets on. Hohenegg considered for a moment, then placed his document to the right, towards the youngest participant in the room. As far as he knew, she worked in the Protocol Department, a woman in her early thirties with precise hair and rapid handwriting; one of those people in whom one could see that they did not merely note down sentences, but examined their admissibility. She took the sheet without looking up. In return Hohenegg received a text about an imaginary reform of the federal museums. He skimmed the first line. It concerned new visitor guidance. He lost interest at once.
Beside him the young woman was reading his draft. He noticed how she slowed down. Then she read the first paragraph again. She frowned slightly, not in irritation, rather in concentration. After a while she looked up. “This sounds very real,” she said. Hohenegg shrugged. “It is administration.” She nodded, but not as if he had answered her. “No. I mean — it does not sound like an exercise.” She tapped the line with her finger: “Transfer of a tradition-related item of imperial regalia in adapted form.” “This,” she said. “This could exist.” Hohenegg smiled slightly. “Almost anything could exist, if one formulates it carefully enough.”
She said nothing. But she kept reading. And for the first time Hohenegg had the feeling that someone not only understood his text, but took it seriously. That, as he could not yet know in that moment, was the more dangerous error.