The Tower: A Novel

by Uwe Tellkamp

  ‘You suggested that last time and the joke doesn’t improve with age,’ growled Kurz. Frau Zäpter brought in candles, a Christmas stollen, home-made gingerbread. ‘I was just going to make tea anyway.’

  ‘Why else would we have a spirit stove?’ said the managing clerk, Kai-Uwe Knapp. ‘I’d even filled it – man is a creature that can learn from past experiences.’

  ‘How romantic,’ Miss Mimi and Melanie Mordewein, who was sitting next to her, sighed simultaneously; Miss Mimi had got the tone so exactly, so caustically right that the laughter came slowly and remained just an expression of admiration.

  Putting on white gloves, Niklas tipped the record, a flexible EMI pressing given him by one of his State Orchestra patients, out of its sleeve and the paper protective covering lined with foil, held the disc between middle finger and thumb (his index finger supporting it on the red label with the dog listening to his master’s voice coming out of a gramophone horn), started to stroke it with extra-soft carbon fibres, which looked like a collection of seductive women’s eyelashes, in an aluminium brush from Japan (another present from a musician patient), which was said to remove the dust more gently and yet more thoroughly than the yellow cloth that VEB Deutsche Schallplatten put in with its Eterna albums, slowly and pensively combed the fine sound track until Erik Orré, who was free that evening and had been talking to Richard about duodenal ulcers, said, ‘That’s enough, Niklas, I think you’ve gained its trust now.’ The Schwedes (she, an operetta singer squinting with charming helplessness through lenses as thick as the base of a bottle; he, with handsome Clark Gable looks, Richard thought, a toothbrush moustache, a cardigan, worked in the branch of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid on Lindwurmring; the women there, as Richard knew from Niklas, called him by his first name, Nino) were standing by the window, both holding a tulip glass of beer; Nino said, ‘If it keeps snowing like this we’ll be switching on our water-pipe heater again, Billie.’

  The whole town seemed to be in motion, pushing and shoving, things quickly breaking out in the darkness, violence kept under control by the street lamps, perhaps also by the civilizing power of other people’s looks (violence, Meno thought, that grew remorselessly since you couldn’t see the eyes of the people you were swearing at, elbowing, jostling, hitting); groups formed but only to disperse within the next few minutes; the streams of people seemed to be following the most cautious changes in conditions, perhaps just a murmured rumour, a correction in the magnetism (pushing, hoping), and at the same time to be moving aimlessly, disturbed bees whose hive had been taken away. Screaming and groaning, shouts across the dark streets, the tinkle of broken glass: had looting started already? Meno wondered, trying to keep his composure. Clinging on tight to his briefcase, he crossed the Old Market, heading for Postplatz, where he hoped to find a tram that was working. There were still a few lights on in the Zwinger restaurant, contemptuously called the ‘Guzzle-cube’ by Dresdeners, as also in the House of the Book and the fortress-like Central Post Office, built by Swedish firms. Meno was caught up in a rapidly growing swarm of people who seemed to be drawn, with moth-like instinct, to the lights, heliotropic creatures that would perhaps have been better off in the dark. A blizzard started. The theatre was in darkness, the ‘Socialism will triumph’ sign on the high-rise building had gone out. The trams had stopped, marine mammals, frozen in a ball of snow.

  ‘Replacement bus service,’ one of the conductors kept shouting resignedly, carefully wrapping himself up in a blanket, to the people crowding round. The bus for the 11 route left from the Press House on Julian-Grimau-Allee and was crowded; Meno saw Herr Knabe, the Krausewitzes, Herr Malthakus in his good suit with a bow tie, even Frau von Stern, who waved her senior citizen’s pass in sprightly fashion as Dietzsch helped her onto the bus and to a seat that had been vacated for her. ‘The opera, the theatre – all shut down,’ she shouted angrily to Meno. The bus took them as far as Waldschlösschenstrasse.

  ‘And the rest of the route? Are we to walk?’

  ‘Yes,’ the bus driver replied with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘I have my instructions.’

  After walking for a few kilometres the little cohort that was left halted at Mordgrundbrücke. The hill before them wasn’t steep but, as they could tell in the strange brightness of the driving snow, covered with a milky sheet of ice. Halfway up a tram was stuck, frozen fast up to the top of its wheels; long, bizarrely shaped icicles were hanging down from the wires and the steep slope on the Mordgrund side of the hill.

  ‘A water main must have copped it,’ Malthakus said in an appreciative tone. ‘The question is, how are we going to get up there. Given that no one’s going to pull us up –’

  ‘A belay such as they have with roped parties in the mountains,’ said Frau von Stern. ‘We had that during the war when it was icy.’

  ‘– otherwise we’ll all have a nice slide and they can hack us out of the stream in the morning.’

  ‘I’m not going up there with my instrument anyway,’ a double-bass player from the State Orchestra declared; a French-horn player agreed. ‘Our valuable instruments.’

  ‘Why didn’t you leave them at the Opera, then,’ Herr Knabe asked exasperatedly.

  ‘What a … excuse me, but I have to say it: stupid question. I’m sure that even in these conditions your Mathematical Cabinet will be well secured, but our miserable artists’ dressing rooms?! Do you think I’d leave my instrument by itself?’

  ‘OK then, but have you another suggestion?’

  ‘We’ll just have to go up by Schillerstrasse.’

  ‘But the water mains run along there too. They could well have burst as well … And Buchensteig is even steeper. But don’t let me stop you going to reconnoitre. Or you can simply stay here with your valuable instruments,’ Herr Knabe said scornfully.

  ‘What the hell, we can just turn round and go to a hotel,’ said Herr Malthakus. ‘I’ve got a few marks on me, perhaps they’ll let us stay in the Eckberg with a down payment.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky,’ Meno said, ‘they’re already full with evacuees from the Johannstadt district.’

  ‘Look – a snow blower.’ The French-horn player pointed to the stretch of road before Kuckuckssteig.

  The cold bit deeper, the cold crushed up the white clouds from the cooling towers of the power station that usually bloomed like a drunken dream: finding heaven here on earth and swelling up, with explosive clarity, thrillingly, fantastically into short-lived atmospheric mushrooms; the cold gave the iron of the pickaxes a different sound; the power station cables, usually buzzing with electricity, whispered like the strings of instruments with mutes on, seemed raw and sensitive to pain under the coating of ice; made by humans. Christian had been working for seventeen hours continuously. The trains bringing brown coal were lined up outside the power station, but the coal was frozen fast in the goods wagons and had to be blasted out; the detonations briefly drowned the rattle of the power hammers that had been hurriedly brought from the Federal Republic. It wasn’t pleasant to be one of the squad whose job it was to move the wagons out of the way when the explosive charge hadn’t detonated.

  ‘We’ve two candidates,’ Nip said to the drivers, who were getting their bachelors to draw lots.

  ‘Hoffmann or Kretzschmar, who’s going?’ He tossed a coin, said, ‘Kretzschmar.’

  ‘Stay here,’ Christian said, ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Why?’ Nip asked, flabbergasted.

  ‘Things’ll go wrong with him.’

  ‘All right then,’ Nip said, ‘it doesn’t bother me. I’ve nothing against heroes.’

  ‘Don’t fool yourself, Nemo. Your knees are trembling.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re staying here all the same.’ Nothing was going to happen, Christian decided. –

  A helicopter landed, letting out a few big shots, who went here and there, waving their hands about nervously, clicking walkie-talkies, talking with the crisis committee of the Brown Coal Combine (plans were unrolled, held their attention
for a moment, then there was something new and the plans, hurt, rolled up again and just stayed there); decisionmakers whose movements in front of the power station and the setting sun behind it seemed to Christian like a ritual dance of Red Indians. Before the decisionmakers climbed back into their helicopter, they stood motionless, arms akimbo, by the coal wagons, a collection of sad, impotent men.

  30 December: the evacuees came out of the town on army lorries labouring up the track that had been chipped free up the Mordgrund; more water kept running down the hill and freezing; gravel and ash didn’t stop the route from turning into a dangerous skid-pan. Richard saw companies of soldiers and some of the staff from Grauleite swinging pickaxes to keep the way clear; some acquaintances were spreading grit. Where was the water coming from? The power cut – it was the south of the Republic that was said to be affected, the capital with its special fuse protection was still bathed in the pre-New Year glow – had allowed the water to freeze in many of the pipes, causing them to burst. But that was ice? Richard thought, as he strode through the snow beside Niklas observing the water flowing over the road; more kept bubbling up and quickly turned to ice, those spreading grit couldn’t keep up with it. Niklas was pulling a handcart with bandages and medicines they’d taken from his practice. Richard was quietly cursing, he’d thought he was going to spend a relaxing New Year with punch, conversations, some post-Christmas reflections, a walk to Philalethes’ View to watch the blaze of rockets over the city and to drink to the New Year … Anne was still at Kurt’s in Schandau and of course there were no trains running; they’d arranged for Richard to phone the pastor of St John’s (Kurt still wasn’t connected) but the line was dead – that too, then. Now Anne was stuck in Schandau and he was trudging through ice and snow with Niklas to attend to the sick – and there were probably some waiting there already. They were going to the military hospital, that was where Barsano and his crisis team had set up their base, people were being evacuated there from the new developments: Prohlis, Reick, Gorbitz, Johannstadt.

  ‘Have you noticed that your sense of touch seems to get duller if your hearing’s worse?’ Niklas, Richard thought, was aware of the seriousness of the situation. ‘Ezzo must be stuck in the Academy of Music, Reglinde was going to see the New Year in with friends in Neustadt, Gudrun was supposed to be on stage – Meno! Hey, Meno! Have you seen Gudrun?’

  Meno, who was getting off a lorry, shook his head. ‘She wasn’t on our bus. – You’re going to the military hospital?’

  ‘Herr Rohde!’ Barsano called from the gate with the red star and waved. ‘Come and help us – you speak Russian. I’ve got enough to do coordinating things. We can use you as an interpreter. Herr Hoffmann, Herr Tietze, will you please report to the duty doctor.’

  A Forbidden Place, a place of dust, Meno thought, going through the gate that a confused sentry was trying to guard. NATURA SANAT was the greeting from the former ladies’ pool, in front of it, with a Kirghizian smile, the silver head of Lenin. The suspended walks were dilapidated, windowpanes shattered, art nouveau decoration faded, wind and rain had gnawed at the roof. From the eaves, off which many of the projecting rafters had broken away like teeth off one of those hand-sawn beauty-salon combs anointed with good wishes and promises, a proliferation of icicles was hanging down, heavy and dirty, as if they wanted to silence a music box, the gracefulness of which would have enlarged the cracks in the buildings and amplified the throb of the conveyor belts from the heating plant on the slope. On the covered walks outside the former patients’ rooms were the old tubs, crammed full of sticks of wood and newspaper. Spiders’ webs, like the ornaments on Tartar helmets, hung down from the carved wood, black, glittering with frost. But were they spiders’ webs? Meno thought he had been mistaken. None of the spiders’ webs he was familiar with were shaped like that, not even ones made over decades and with many layers, only to be destroyed in moments. They were lichens, long mossy growths, hanging down, sucked into the flesh of the arms of the trees at the outpost; felty beards of indefinite colour on the roofs that the woods seemed to be trying to draw back into their kingdom in a slow embrace. Barsano waved Meno over to join his deputy, Karlheinz Schubert, who led the way to Heinrichshof, a half-timbered villa that had belonged to the former owner of the sanatorium and now housed the hospital headquarters. The gentlemen’s massage room and the kitchen were empty, boarded up. Blocked gutters, missing roof tiles, clouds of dry rot building up on the woodwork of the corridors that had once been glazed, black mould creeping across the ceiling. Schubert said nothing, marched on with long strides that ate up the ground, as if he were afraid of missing his footing with short ones, past piles of dead leaves and snow that had been blown in, doors marked with Cyrillic letters and meticulously drawn numbers; glassy-eyed, he silently greeted the occasional patient they encountered, who glanced at the two men apprehensively. The musty smell of the corridors, the greeny-blue gloss paint that had been plastered over the walls to counter the damp and the pests that had taken up residence in them; the mosaics that had been shamelessly taken up from the floor where corridors crossed, only the odd pale tile left to suggest ancient Roman bathing scenes; on the other hand the dust-swathed chandeliers dangling in the fluctuating draughts over smashed windows were untouched; wall newspapers with the current editions of Pravda and the satirical magazine Krokodil – both present impressions and old memories that awoke many things in Meno’s mind. In a faltering voice Schubert asked Meno to wait; after a few minutes he came back, shaking his head: the lavatory basins had all been torn out, packed up and addressed to be sent home, and two soldiers were squatting over holes, a camp stool with the board on it between them, playing chess … But Karlheinz Schubert seemed to pull himself together and, pressing his lips into a thin line, reminded Meno that it was allies they were talking about, brother socialists. In Heinrichshof, where they had to wait, Meno looked at a framed silhouette hanging in the vestibule; it was, as he could see from the fine cut-out signature, one of Frau Zwirnevaden’s, showing scenes from Goethe’s poem ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ in which the apprentice himself, who was usually portrayed (by the author too) as in despair at his unbiddable creation, appeared to be waiting for his master’s return with cool interest.

  The open-cast mine looked like an army camp. Soldiers had been transferred, were camping in hastily erected tents. To go by the rapid-rumour network, power supplies were unaffected in the north of the country and the capital. To the south of a line corresponding roughly to the course of the middle Elbe between Torgau and Magdeburg, the excavators were at a standstill, the houses in darkness, the supply chain collapsed; Samarkand no longer received its most important raw material and the huge power stations, coal-consuming tumours pumping energy into the life around that had knotted themselves with an abundance of veins into the lunar landscape, remained dark, unnourished, unexpectedly starving.

  The soldiers went out on twelve-hour shifts – there weren’t enough tents, one shift could sleep while the other was working. Christian’s room now housed sixty men, the ten bunk beds had been given a third storey (for those on the top the gap between body and ceiling was so narrow that they couldn’t turn over) and there were only twenty lockers for the sixty men – some now had three padlocks on them, which didn’t contribute to the quiet in the room. Pancake and Christian shared bunk and locker; Pancake threatened to beat up anyone daring to claim room in the locker and the former circus blacksmith’s physical strength and violent temper made an impression on even the toughest types. A piece of soap, a cigarette, a letter not handed out on time could lead to a punch-up, and since the men came from other units and their officers were far away, Nip had no power over them. ‘Oh, go to hell,’ they said to him when, lying drunk in his room, he pointed to the mail (forgotten letters that should have been sent out, forgotten letters that should have been distributed) with a mournful, apathetic gesture; before his very eyes, which had taken on the dull this-ness of hard-boiled eggs, they wrote their names in the exit log
, stole his schnapps and underpants, which, bawling and shouting, they hung on poles they stuck into the pile of spoil beside the shed – where they fluttered in the wind, exposed to everyone’s pity – or soaked them in miner’s hooch the brown-coal engine drivers sold to them, then roasted the spirit-infused item over a fire.

  A shower tent had been put up, ten showers for a hundred filthy bodies, with the water coming in dribbles and ice-cold from the nozzles; the crudely chopped-up slabs of soap made no foam. Christian was revolted at the idea of fighting for a few jets of water in a cramped space, he hated the enforced removal of the last bit of privacy remaining to those who had managed to keep an individual self alive in the uniform and tried to keep it out of the compulsory ‘us’ of the army. Recalling the winter water from Kurt’s tank, he washed himself far away from the shed in one of the puddles that were steaming with cold.

  On New Year’s Day the water in the tanker that supplied the units in the camp was frozen and there wasn’t enough to eat, a lorry with the meals had got stuck somewhere, the Komplekte had all gone long before Christian and Pancake arrived; to his astonishment Christian discovered that hunger existed. He’d never gone hungry. Not in Schwedt, not on the Carbide Island, certainly not at home, where everyone he knew groused but strangely enough had everything … acquired, of course, through contacts and endless chasing round, but bread cost onezerofour, a roll one groschen, milk had gone up from sixty-six to seventy pfennigs, but all that had always been available …

  ‘We need something to eat, Nemo.’ Pancake wondered whether to take the Komplekte from one of the younger, weedy soldiers who had been in front of him in the queue, but others in the line of waiting soldiers behind them were doing that already, the tough ones were taking the food away from the less tough ones, the faster pursuers from the less fast ones running away, and whenever anyone protested against this law of the jungle, it was fists that decided who was in the right. ‘Any ideas, Cap’n?’