The Tower: A Novel

by Uwe Tellkamp

  Meno unpacked his suitcase. In the study a young woman was sitting beside Philipp.

  ‘This is Marisa.’ Philipp lit one of his cigarillos, Cuban; perhaps it was the only privilege he took advantage of. ‘I’ve already told her who you are.’

  ‘You haven’t shaved your moustache off,’ Meno replied.

  ‘She says it’s modern in Chile nowadays. One for you too?’ He handed Meno a silver case.

  ‘Not something we get every day. With pleasure.’

  ‘When your Spanish is a bit better,’ Marisa said, winking at Philipp, ‘we’ll accept you as a compañero. I’ll go and make some tea.’

  Philipp waved this away. ‘No, don’t bother. I’ll make it.’

  ‘No, you’ll stay here and talk to him. Talking is men’s business. I’ll make the tea. That’s women’s business.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘When the time comes to fight, I will fight. Fighting is women’s business as well. But now it’s time to drink tea.’ She lifted up her head proudly and went out.

  ‘Don’t think I support that. But lots of our Chilean comrades are the same. These remnants of bourgeois attitudes –’

  ‘They’re not bourgeois … whatsits. You’d be surprised how many members of the bourgeoisie in our country have long hair like you! If I go for you to bring you the tea it is out of emoción. And la revolución needs warm hearts and not the one most German comrades have –’

  ‘Corazon del noviembre?’ Philipp tried out his Spanish.

  ‘November hearrts,’ said Marisa.

  DIARY

  Discussion between Schiffner, Schevola and me before leaving for the Fair. We still have to discuss the title, The Depths of These Years. A title like that claims something that the text doesn’t yet match up to, it’s trying to meet the specification and sometimes that just doesn’t happen because the book has different ideas about itself from the author. I don’t know who it was who said that a book should be named after its ‘hero’, anything else was mere journalism – the longer I’ve been in this profession, the more I’m persuaded by that statement, though it does have its problems too, for who can say for certain that this method avoids ‘mere journalism’ and that where ‘Anna Karenina’ is written on the cover, Anna Karenina is also inside it. So Schevola’s book is to be published by us, something that was a surprise to me. Usually when Schiffner decides on a book, he puts detailed instructions in our pigeonholes – and doesn’t remain silent, as he has done in this case. Everything’s still vague, of course – as always with printed stuff in general, especially with Schiffner and especially especially with the PLAN. Frau Zäpter, his self-assured secretary – she makes the decision on unsolicited poems – was noisily making coffee as Schiffner sat down opposite Schevola and invited me to join them. He regarded his fingernails, the manuscript in front of him with two pages sticking out that, as the kettle started to whistle, he tried to tap back in. Madame Schevola seemed calm and reserved, she had put her fingers together, was staring at the table and was pale.

  ‘So you’ve written something here and now you want to publish it. Well, I’ll explain the philosophy of our publishing house, my child.’ I hate these moments – and enjoy them at the same time, strangely enough, for how an author feels when they’re greeted with stuff like that as the very first sentence – not even a ‘Good day’, that’s what the outer office is for, Schiffner just stands up, straightens, briefly runs his hand over his hair, glues the author’s wandering gaze firmly to his fatherly publisher’s gaze, extends his right hand and, with an inimitable waggling gesture, mutely indicates the penitential chair at the conference table opposite his imperial throne studded with yellow upholstery pins the size of coins – how Schevola, who looks controlled, is feeling is something I can appreciate.

  ‘We publish authors, not books. We don’t even just happen’ – he raises his chin and gently waves his left hand – ‘to publish a book, my child. No.’ The way he shakes his head as he says that! The way he says that ‘No’, not with emphasis, not with a dismissive raising of the voice, he lowers his chin and shakes his head, forbearing, as if he were talking to a badly behaved pet, his hand comes down, flat, like a seal’s flipper, gently through the air, as if there were nothing more to say apart from that soft ‘No’, and as he does this he purses his lips. Tasting the effect. And when he then raises his left eyebrow, Frau Zäpter knows it’s time to serve the coffee, with a little bobble of cream for him that sputters out of a vigorously shaken syphon, and then, after he’s taken a sip, raising his eyebrow a little higher, it’s the time for: ‘Just come over here, my child.’ Now he shows her the prints and paintings on the walls between the shelves, portraits of writers, all done by renowned figures from the Artists’ Association. He flicks out his right index finger, which has a ring with a green stone on it, stabs it in the direction of the first picture: ‘Who is that?’ – ‘X.’ Second picture: ‘Who is that?’ – ‘Y.’ Third picture: ‘And that?’ – ‘Z.’ He pats her cheek and says, ‘Wrong, it’s A.’ Then he takes a mirror off the shelf, holds it up to the baffled Schevola’s face: ‘And who is that?’ – ‘Another one?’ – ‘That’s an author who can’t write.’ He watches her closely, waiting for her response, eyes slightly screwed up, his tongue feeling its way along his left teeth; he spins the mirror round as he puts it behind him, then pauses, like a gunslinger slipping his Colt, still smoking, into its holster, then he places the mirror, carefully, precisely, as if it were a precious object, back on the shelf.

  ‘If that’s your opinion why did you even bother to ask me to come here?’

  ‘Ah, my dear, it’s good that you’re furious. In general the talent of authors who can get furious is capable of development.’ He contemplated his fingernails, then looked at me: ‘That is a task Herr Rohde will undertake; you are already acquainted with him. An experienced editor of great tact and sensitivity. One more thing.’ He took a book down off the shelves: ‘You make inflationary use of the semi-colon. Here is a book by Gustav Regler. Do you know Gustav Regler? – Well you ought to. You’ll sit down now and study the way Regler uses the semi-colon in chapter four. It is’ – index finger raised, the green stone flashes – ‘a substitute for a full stop! One can also discuss the rule for using it before “but” with a following main clause. Study the old grammarians. And nota bene: German is a complex language with some features that don’t appear to make sense, but when you look more closely there is a good reason for everything. Come and see me again in an hour.’

  She does so. In the meantime Schiffner has made a telephone call, leafed through folders of prints, ruminated out loud on the three rules about starting a complete sentence after a colon with a small letter, eaten an ice cream from the office freezer with great relish and freshened up by rubbing his temples with eau de Cologne. He takes the book from her and puts it back on the shelf. He looks at her breasts, gives her a pile of books worth a thousand marks and dismisses her.

  We spent weeks preparing for the Leipzig Book Fair. We didn’t go there just to pick up a few books, open then close them; we went to look through a window into the Promised Land. The window could be in sextodecimo, octavo, quarto and folio format but most often it measured 19 × 12 cm, had no hard cover, but three fishes or ‘rororo’ on the front, was in a rainbow-coloured row, or was white and had drawings in pastels: then Niklas or someone would say, we’re in the right place; then the covers were by a man called Celestino Piatti and the books with his scrawl on it became the subject of many a plan. 19 × 12 cm: paperback format. The measurements were established with a ruler and Barbara used them to tailor the inner life of Book Fair coats, for paperbacks needed a pocket into which they fitted snugly.

  DIARY

  Today I, as a zoologist, learnt something: the African desert locust has an East German relative, the book-grasshopper (Locusta bibliophila), a two-legged species wearing Wisent or Boxer jeans, hand-knitted roll-neck pullovers and olive-green or earth-brown ‘habits’ (parkas) that co
me down over their calves (special models from the Harmony Salon furrier’s on Rissleite, undertaken during free time or by arrangement with the boss – he too has preferences in his reading – after which Barbara and, depending on demand, a colleague are diverted from their contribution to the realization of the socialist to that of the individualist plan). Locusta bibliophila feeds on books, though only on those from the Non-Socialist Economic Area. Locusta bibliophila’s attack is planned like a military operation weeks before the Leipzig book-feast and I, happy to be the advance guard in the cyclically recurring paper comet, was given strict orders: ‘Where are they? When are they coming? You must prepare them. For us. You must take lockers at Central Station. We have to think about a system of signals. Perhaps a handkerchief on which you blow your nose at the approach of danger. What d’you mean, it’s the time of year when everyone gets a cold. Of course you have work to do there as well – but you can do that once we’ve left.’

  The book-grasshopper’s combat gear (the aforementioned parka-style Book Fair coat) is subjected to a thorough examination about two weeks before the campaign; right interior: two parallel rows of five pockets each, sewn in from breast-top down to about the knee (partly overlapping), size: 21 × 14 cm, the ease of insertion is checked using the Harmony Salon’s copy of Heinrich Böll: ‘Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa …’, which has to go

  ‘smoothly’

  ‘fully covered’

  ‘with minimal bulge’

  into the pocket. The habit is two sizes too big and not fitted with the standard Solidor zip (the zip gets stuck at the bottom too often, also in this version of the habit it is so low down that the wearer would have to bend, which might perhaps be detrimental to the desired minimality of bulge), but with snap fasteners that can be closed more quickly – and at different points. On the left-hand side are two large pockets for coffee-table books or others of unusual format. On the outside of the Book Fair coat there are more large snap-fastening pockets and, in addition, over each hip a snap karabiner attached to a sturdy leather loop: they are to take the many plastic bags into which it is intended to slip ballpoint pens, brochures, books, chocolate, catalogues, bananas, even more ballpoint pens, Western cigarettes and even more books – leaving the hands free and the bags can’t be appropriated by fellow citizens and sufferers.

  The approach of the book-grasshopper takes place in carpools: Anne and Robert in Rohde’s Moskvitch, Malthakus and Dietzsch in Kühnast’s Škoda, Prof. Teerwagen and his wife take the Knabes, whose Wartburg is being repaired, Trüpel, the owner of the record shop, with the Tietzes. Conversations: Oh, look at that magnificent opera book, oh, and that magnificent Picasso book (Däne, the music critic, and Adeling, who arrive by train); the strategy for outwitting the people on the doors (the ‘fall-guy’ system: one starts bellowing and the others take advantage of the subsequent confusion to get their spoils out). I’ve prepared things for my colleagues, I’ve managed to lease two (!) lockers in Leipzig Central. – ‘Only two?’ Däne’s despair comes from ignorance, even after all these years of attending the Book Fair. He should know that lockers in Leipzig are handed down from one generation to the next.

  The attack of the book-grasshopper comes in waves, a keen observer will recognize that it is about to begin from the way its eyes, which have a greedy look anyway, narrow to hungry slits. Its hunger is mainly for colours. The more colourful its booty, the better. And the more of it there is, even better. What most arouses its lust are red covers. They spark off the suspicion that it must have something to do with us. Once the hunger-slit has noted the name of a dissident, action must follow immediately. The editor on sentry duty is to be engaged in strategic conversation by book-grasshopper B while book-grasshopper A, heart pounding, breaking out in a cold sweat and blind with courage, trots like lightning over to the shelf (the claw must embrace the book like a soft caress, then comes the decisive pause, the moment of happy fear: I’VE GOT IT! My fingers are enclosing it, the cover is smooth, it’s from the West), now:

  release studs on Book Fair coat

  glance upwards elegantly, wet dry lips with tongue

  feign coughing fit

  bend down

  intensify coughing

  open Book Fair coat

  close eyes and

  one

  two

  three –

  (‘Hey, you there, what d’you think you’re doing?’ – ‘But you … usually always look the other way?’ Uproar. Form a barrier. Take care not to be recognized as a unit, otherwise a Book Fair ban. Book Fair ban = catastrophe. Catastrophe = drive home with ‘You could have got it if you hadn’t been so stupid!’ Barbara cries out, sinks to one side. Emergency. ‘Thank you, I’m all right now.’ Malthakus and Teerwagen slip away. Spoils: Isaak Deutscher: Stalin. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: The Gulag Archipelago, Part 1. An anthology of writers against atomic weapons. Friedrich Nietzsche: Why I am So Clever. Outside. End of round one. Tranquillizers from the first-aid kit in Ulrich’s car.

  ‘A close-run thing, Professor.’ – ‘Worth it, though.’ – ‘Have you a list of who gets to read what when?’ A mouthful of tea from the Thermos. A comparison of the contents of the plastic bags. Check the coats. Take a deep breath. Back for round two.)

  It was the year of the apocalypse. Almost all the books on display dealt with global catastrophes. The forests were dying. Rockets were being deployed, Pershing and Cruise missiles, there was SALT II and a programme for a war of the stars; the total of explosives in the world was sufficient to blow up the Earth several times. The mood at the Book Fair was gloomy – editors, publishers, authors: all were grimly determined to perish. One raised his glass, hoping he would at least see the end of the world in the evening glow outside his cottage in Tuscany: You don’t feel so afraid then.

  When editors from Western publishers came to the Hermes stand, Schiffner would wave them over, give his enterprising smile and whisper, pushing the intimidated Judith Schevola, whom he’d summoned to the Book Fair, forward, ‘One of our most talented writers. We’re going to hear a lot more from her.’ But the editors would just lower their heads sadly and sip the red wine resignedly. Schiffner would pat Schevola on the shoulder and tell her it meant nothing. But the apocalypse made people hungry, the bars and restaurants were crowded, no places left in Auerbachs Keller, Zills Tunnel, the Paulaner restaurant. It was only when they tried the Jägerschänke, not far from the Fair building, that the members of an important Frankfurt publishing house managed, with freely convertible arguments, to persuade a waiter to release the regulars’ table with the ‘Reserved’ sign, in the corner next to a stove, surmounted by a stuffed capercaillie. Hermes-Verlag had been invited: Schiffner was a friend of the Frankfurt publisher Munderloh; they’d both written theses on Hermann Hesse and in a letter to Munderloh, which mainly concerned typographical errors and two passages with incorrect German in a book from their autumn programme five years previously, he had told him that his whole Frankfurt publishing house was nothing other than the Glass Bead Game writ large. The two men formally opened the Book Fair drinking session.

  Schevola, taking nervous puffs at her cigarette, was grateful to Meno for offering her a chair next to him. Eschschloraque, the playwright, came in, giving Meno the opportunity to observe him. There was a certain unproletarian grandeur about him. Despite the cool conditions in Leipzig at that time of the year and despite the air that was dirty from the exhaust fumes and brown-coal particles, which was the reason why one seldom saw people in light-coloured clothing in Leipzig, Eschschloraque was wearing a lightweight cream suit of a cut and quality that made its bespoke tailoring apparent. He had a trench coat over his arm and a red cashmere scarf wound several times round his neck, the ends of which, with their long fringes, hung down elegantly, enveloping the writer’s slim figure in a way that was both becoming and discreet. Enveloping – the word seemed appropriate. No, the ends of his scarf did not ‘flatter’ and certainly did not ‘bring out’ Eschschloraque’s slim figure. He
took off his hat, stood in the half-light of the large chandelier at the entrance, upright, proud, not part of the noisy, beer-drinking, cutlery-clattering tavern-throng. He scrutinized one table after the other, calmly but with the swift assessment betokening the alertness of an experienced observer. He was still holding his hat in his hand, his right arm half raised in a gesture characteristic of distinguished petitioners or actors who have grown old and know what success they have had but not whether the person they’re facing does, and now, with this politely nonchalant gesture, are attempting to conceal the fact that they have to beg for a part less from the other person than from themselves and, since their internal commentator is not open to bribery and makes ironic remarks, at least execute the gesture perfectly: futile but perfect – they owe that to themselves. Eschschloraque stepped back a little, perhaps he felt the spot where he was standing was too bright: it could be indiscreet to draw attention to oneself in that way, it was platitudinous to say the least; a gentleman does not intrude and it would have been an intrusion if Schiffner or Redlich had felt obliged to leap up and greet him, the author of dramas and poems in the classical style (What does the ‘classical’ style mean here? Meno wondered, for him there is no other style, one ought to say: the author of dramas that have style), profusely and with attention-drawing ceremony. At the same time Eschschloraque could see better in the gloom, wasn’t dazzled. Slowly he lowered his hat. It was a brown Borsalino, an expensive hat scarcely obtainable in shops in this country; Meno remembered having seen a similar one in Lamprecht’s hat shop, it cost 600 marks and was reserved for Arbogast. A waiter jostled Eschschloraque and the way he stood there at that moment: trench coat over his left arm, hat in his right hand, a look of uncertainty in his eyes for a few seconds, Meno felt a sudden upsurge of sympathy for this man who was surrounded by a known but well-glossed-over aura of loneliness. In order to give a reason for his movement (that it was ‘giving a reason’ seemed indisputable to Meno), he gently tapped his hat with his left hand to dust it, accepted that this made his trench coat waggle rather a lot (the unsatisfactory gesture would distract attention all the more because of its unsatisfactory nature), shook his hat as if there were raindrops or snowflakes on the brim, but since it had been neither raining nor snowing and a possible observer would know that, he once more corrected his improvised gesture by rubbing his fingers over the hatband, as if he’d just noticed dust on it. At that moment he seemed to sense that he was being observed, not seen but observed, by someone who knew him, for he abruptly looked across at Meno’s table and, as he passed through the light, he made no attempt to conceal himself: to conceal himself would have been the reaction of an inexperienced person who thus betrayed his suspicion. He went to the coat stand and hung his hat on the hook beside Meno’s, stopped short, looked round quickly, took the other hat, read the name on the inside. His head shot up, Eschschloraque eyed Meno coolly, slowly hung the hat back on the hook. There were no seats free at the table and Meno waited eagerly to see how Eschschloraque would solve the problem. He strolled over, compensating for his uncertainty with exaggerated body movements, staring at an imaginary point – as if he didn’t want another’s eyes to meet his, arousing embarrassment, shame, perhaps even annoyance at their discourtesy in failing to give the dramatist Eschschloraque preferential treatment. The people from the important Frankfurt publishing house had their backs to him. Munderloh was holding a glass of raki, thumped it on the table in the course of an argument with Schiffner, licked the drops off his wrist. Schevola and Josef Redlich had noticed Eschschloraque, Redlich nudged Schiffner, he waved. Now Eschschloraque was at the table, in a kind of stand-to-attention posture, no one stood up. The conversations died away.