The Tower: A Novel

by Uwe Tellkamp

  Christian entered the restaurant as the wall clock at reception was striking six. Herr Adeling followed him and stood by the door, hands clasped. All heads turned at Christian’s appearance and, feeling a blush spread over his face, he tried to make himself smaller. He was annoyed with himself. He had delayed setting off by having a look at Meno’s desk, so that the others wouldn’t have time to stare at him – but because he’d arrived on the dot, that was exactly what was happening and the feeling that the eyes of everyone in the room were on him was torture. Without looking at anyone in particular, head bowed, he nodded a greeting in the general direction of the tables, which were arranged in a rectangle and at which there must have been forty or fifty people sitting. On the right he saw the Tietze family, Meno beside them, Uncle Ulrich with his wife Barbara, Alice and Sandor. Anne was at the head of the table, between his father and the director of the Surgical Clinic. As he squinted, red as a beetroot and frowning in embarrassment, towards those seated at the tables, he also spotted Grandfather Rohde and Emmy, Robert’s and his grandmother on their father’s side. Had there been any possibility of going unseen to the empty seat between Robert and Ezzo at the lower end, of simply and suddenly appearing on the chair without anyone noticing, he would have chosen it without hesitation. He was, therefore, grateful that Professor Müller, the short, portly director, stood up at that moment and tapped his wine glass with a spoon, at which all heads turned towards him. By this time Ezzo had carefully pulled the chair back and Christian, on whose face the blush was gradually fading, sat down with a sigh of relief and, having clearly seen Anne’s look of disapproval, made a great show of leaning over to the side and hanging the bag with the barometer over the back of his chair. As he turned, he saw the mildly ironic expression in Meno’s eyes, for it was only recently that he had told Christian about the behaviour of the ostrich: ‘It sticks its head in the sand and waits – believing no one can see it because it can’t see anything itself. But that,’ Meno had added, ‘is not something for your civics teacher. Comparisons between humans and the animal kingdom are only permitted in limited cases, as sure as I’ve studied biology.’

  Professor Müller took a step back and stood there, head bowed so that his double chins bulged out over the collar of his snow-white shirt, meditatively rubbing his cheeks, which were so closely shaven they shone like slabs of lard, and making his thick, black, owl-like eyebrows hop up and down. His cuff, standing out against his midnight-blue suit, slipped back, releasing a tuft of stiff black hair that continued down the back of his hand to the base of his fingers; he wore a signet ring on the little finger of his right hand. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, clearly the notes for a speech, glanced at it briefly and put it back with a weary flap of the hand. It didn’t go right in but stuck, like a blade, several centimetres out of his pocket, so that Müller had to push it down with a delicate but firm tap. He cleared his throat, patted his upper lip with his signet ring.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen. Goethe himself said that in the life of a man his fiftieth birthday is one of special significance. We take stock, look back on what we have achieved, consider what is still to be done. Our time of storm and stress is over, we have found our place in life. From now on, as my teacher Sauerbruch used to say, there is only one organ we can count on for continued increase: the prostate gland. Exceptions, of course,’ he said, stretching out his hand and waggling his fingers, ‘only serve to prove the rule.’

  Laughter from the surgeons: the roar of dominant males; their wives lowered their heads.

  ‘The ladies will, I hope, forgive me this short excursion into the urogenital tract – I can see I will have to cut out these jokes; for a surgeon the unkindest cut of all.’ He nodded to the group of doctors and patted his upper lip with his signet ring again. ‘You will note, gentlemen, that I am borrowing the principle of covering myself from our beloved colleagues in Internal Medicine.’ A hint of mockery flashed across the faces of some of the doctors. Christian had worked in hospitals as a nursing auxiliary often enough to know about the differences between the two main branches of medicine. Müller became more serious.

  ‘Born the eldest son of a clockmaker in Glashütte, a small town in the eastern Erzgebirge, Richard Hoffmann grew up during the years of Hitlerite fascism and as a twelve-year-old – he was an auxiliary in an anti-aircraft battery – experienced the Anglo-American air raid on Dresden. On the night of the air raid, he suffered severe burns from phosphorus bombs and had to undergo lengthy treatment in Johannstadt Hospital, the present Medical Academy – in the same clinic, moreover, which he is in charge of today. It was then that his desire to study medicine took shape. Now it is true that such youthful dreams are often not realized. I remember, for example, that twenty years ago’ – he wrinkled his brow and pursed his lips – ‘all the boys suddenly wanted to be astronauts, Gagarin and Vostock and Gherman Titov; not me, I was too old already, although my wife is always telling me that the training in Baikonur, together with anchovy paste out of a tube’ – he looked down at his body and spread his arms in mock incomprehension – ‘would have done me no harm, but I think that is the too one-sided view of a dietary cook.’ Müller’s wife, who was sitting next to Anne, sent embarrassed looks in all directions and blushed sufficiently. Wernstein, one of the junior doctors in the clinic for trauma surgery, leant over with a grin to a colleague and whispered something.

  ‘Ah,’ Müller cried with an ironic undertone in his voice, stretching out his arm theatrically, ‘at least our junior colleagues do not take the view that I would interpret a relaxation of their attempts to restrain the risorius as disrespect for, or even mockery of, my physical constitution. Very bold, gentlemen. Thank you. And others among us perhaps wanted to be atomic scientists, an Indian chief like Winnetou or, dear ladies, a second Florence Nightingale, but as the years passed, elementary particles and the struggle for the rights of the Apache nation were perhaps no longer so interesting. However, surgery, the youthful dream of the man whose birthday we are celebrating today, retained its interest and since that stay in hospital he never – this I have from his own lips – lost sight of his goal of becoming a surgeon. He attended the high school in Freital, completed an apprenticeship as a fitter and then went to Leipzig to study medicine in the hallowed halls of the alma mater lipsiensis that for some of us was, to use a good old Prussian expression, the seedbed of our medical career. It was there, in the unforgettable anatomical lectures of Kurt Alverdes and later in the Collegium chirurgicum of Herbert Uebermuth, that his decision to become a surgeon was strengthened and confirmed. However, the great clinician Max Burger almost made him reconsider, which would have robbed us of one of the best trauma surgeons we have in the country, when he became aware of Richard Hoffmann’s exceptional talent for diagnosis and suggested that he should do his doctorate under him. Not that our friend was unfaithful, in his heart, to surgery. It was above all the after-effects of his injuries during the air raid on Dresden that made him hesitate; deformities of his right hand made it difficult, at times impossible, for him to clench his hand – and that is, naturally, a fundamental problem for a person who wants to specialize in the surgical field. It was only a second operation, performed by Leni Büchter, a true magician in hand surgery, and the devoted care of a certain Nurse Anne, née Rohde’ – he made a slight bow in the direction of Anne, who looked away – ‘that removed this obstacle and finally secured Richard Hoffmann for our field …’

  ‘My God,’ Robert whispered to Christian, ‘does he have a fancy way with words! I should get him to go over my German essays, that would certainly be something for Fräulein Schatzmann.’ Fräulein Schatzmann – she expressly insisted on being addressed as ‘Fräulein’, even though she was on the verge of retirement – was the German teacher at the Louis Fürnberg Polytechnic High School Robert attended. Christian had also been one of her pupils before he transferred to the senior high school in Waldbrunn and he could well remember Fräulein Schatzmann’s strict lessons, which w
ere full of tricky grammar exercises and difficult dictations. With a shudder he recalled the Schatzmann ‘ORCHIS’ rule, which she would always write on the blackboard in red chalk, to remind the careless and forgetful pupils whenever there was an essay to be written: Order – Risk – Charm – Interest – Sense; eventually Christian, on some vague suspicion, had looked the word up in his father’s medical dictionary and then, together with other pranksters in the class, had stuck a photo of a naked blonde together with a fairly explicit drawing on the blackboard before the next essay was due … Fräulein Schatzmann’s reaction had been unexpected; in a steady voice she told the class – which was waiting on tenterhooks; some of the girls were giggling, of course, and had flushed bright red, as always – that there were clearly some pupils in 10b who had learnt something in her classes, and to a certain extent had taken the ORCHIS rule to heart … Unfortunately Fräulein Schatzmann had confiscated the picture of the blonde – ‘that, gentlemen, comes under number two of my rule’ – much to the chagrin of Holger Rübesamen, who had swapped it for a high price: two football pictures of Borussia Dortmund …

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Ezzo whispered. ‘Is this going to go on for long?’ But Müller seemed to have got into his stride, speaking with expansive gestures, stepping back- and forward, sketching things in the air, making his owl-eyebrows hop up and down and patting his lips with his signet ring whenever he got a laugh.

  ‘When are we on?’ Christian asked.

  ‘Your mother will give us a sign.’

  ‘And our instruments?’

  ‘In the next room.’

  ‘I can’t see a piano.’

  ‘There, just behind your uncle.’ Indeed, there was a piano in the corner behind Meno.

  ‘I haven’t even had a chance to warm up, you were already all seated when I arrived, damn it. I thought there’d be the usual chit-chat to start with and then things would gradually get going …’

  ‘You can play that at sight, Christian. But remember the sforzato on the A when Robert comes in the second time. I’m starving, and there’s all those lovely things over there …’ Ezzo nodded towards the cold buffet that had been set up along the opposite wall.

  ‘What? Have you had a look?’

  ‘Yummy, I can tell you. Loin steaks, cut very thin and fried till they’re crisp, you can see the pattern marks of the grill, and then rice’ – Ezzo pointed furtively at three large dishes with stainless-steel covers – ‘but not Wurzener KuKo stuff, I’m sure it’s from the other side.’

  ‘You’ve already had a taste?’ Robert, who had leant back a bit, whispered to Ezzo across Christian’s back.

  ‘Mmm, yes.’

  ‘You have? Didn’t you say earlier that you had to go to the loo?’

  ‘Shh, not so loud … I did … But when I came back I discovered the fruit bowl, and there happened to be no one around – look, just an inch to the right of my father and you’ll see it … Can you see it?’

  ‘The big blue one?’ Christian and Robert whispered with one voice.

  ‘That’s the one … there are apples and pears in it, proper yellow pears with little bright-green spots and oranges –’

  ‘Sour green Cuba oranges?’

  ‘No … Nafal, or something like that. Mandarins and plums and, yes, you’ve got it: bananas! Real bananas!’ There was a tremor in Ezzo’s voice.

  ‘Hey, Christian, that parcel from the other side we lugged in last week, I bet the old folks have guzzled it all already.’

  ‘Perhaps Aunt Alice and Uncle Sandor brought that stuff …’

  ‘It’s a possibility … And what else did you see? Tell me’ – Robert leant back a little more; he’d spoken rather loudly, so Christian put his finger to his lips and hissed ‘Shh!’ at his brother – ‘tell me, did you just look or did you …’

  ‘No, I didn’t, there wasn’t enough time, just a few grains of rice and then Theo Lingen appeared and glared at me as if I were a criminal, really, Robert.’

  ‘How are things at the Spesh?’

  Ezzo went to the Special School for Music in Mendelssohnallee. ‘Oh, as usual. School’s a bore. Physics is the only subject that’s fun, we’ve got Bräuer, you two must know him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Of course you do, Robert, he’s the strict guy who visited us a couple of years ago. The one that looks a bit like Uncle Owl, you know, on kids’ TV, in Pittiplatsch und Schnatterinchen.’

  Ezzo smirked. ‘Yes, that’s the one. But he’s great. Does fantastic experiments. Apart from that … Christmas is coming.’

  ‘And the Wieniawski?’

  ‘Hellish difficult piece. Don’t make me think about it. On Tuesday it’s my major again, I’ve really got work my arse off.’

  ‘… my father gave me strength and height, my earnest application, my mother dear my humour bright and Fromme – not only him – my joy in operations …’ Müller declaimed, earning a round of applause. ‘I hope the literary specialists in the audience will forgive my distortion of Goethe’s famous lines; all I can say in my defence is that it is in a good cause. But to come to the point – and what’s the point of birthdays if not presents – we in the clinic, Herr Hoffmann, spent a long time thinking about this. We are all, of course, aware of your love of classical music – when the nurses see a trolley heading for your operating theatre, where you are about to operate to, say, a violin concerto, they say the patient is “going to face the music”.’ He cleared his throat, seeming to expect applause which he then waved down. ‘Since, as your wife was good enough to divulge to me, we will have the opportunity to enjoy a piece of classical music later on, we, that is your colleagues, the nurses and I, have thought of something different. Your love of painting and the fine arts is also well-known in the clinic, so we organized a little collection, the result of which is the object which I now ask these gentlemen to please bring from the adjoining room.’

  Two junior doctors went into the side room and returned with a large, slim, carefully tied-up parcel.

  ‘Dad on the throne of trauma surgery,’ Robert whispered to Christian, ‘and instead of a sceptre he’s holding a scalpel …’

  Herr Adeling brought in the easel. By this time Wernstein had unpacked the picture, apart from a last layer of tissue paper, and he placed it on the easel that Herr Adeling, furiously wielding a gigantic duster, had cleared of chalk powder. Wernstein stepped back. Müller thrust out his chin and pursed his lips in a raspberry-coloured pout – a pose, well known to every junior doctor in the Surgical Clinic, with which Professor Müller would conclude the moment of hesitation to which all surgeons are subject before they make the first incision into the still-inviolate skin lying before them, pale in the glare of the spotlight. With solemn tread he made his way over to the easel and, with a vigorous but well-calculated tug, at the same time giving Richard, who had stood up and was beside him, a malicious smile, pulled the tissue paper away from the picture. It wobbled a little, but Herr Adeling, who probably knew the easel well and had followed Müller’s actions with raised eyebrows, had unobtrusively positioned himself behind it and, with a sideways twist with which one avoids giving offence during a fit of coughing, he surreptitiously supported the easel with his left hand, now in a white glove, during Müller’s revelatory tug, while simultaneously covering two dry coughs with his still ungloved right hand before urgent business sent him hurrying off in the direction of the foyer.

  ‘A watercolour by one of our most important painters, who unfortunately died too young: Kurt Querner. There you are.’

  Richard Hoffmann, almost a head taller than Müller, had slumped in on himself, his dark-blue eyes, which Robert had inherited, were staring in disbelief.

  ‘His Landscape during a Thaw – Professor, that can’t be … so it was you?’

  ‘Herr Wernstein was so good as to travel to Börnchen for us and acquire this watercolour.’

  ‘But … I’m flabbergasted. Frau Querner told me that this picture was only to be sold after her death …
It meant so much to her husband … And then it wasn’t there any more, we were told it had been sold after all … Anne, come here, our favourite picture.’

  ‘Our surprise for you.’

  ‘But’ – in his agitation Richard ran his fingers through his short, sandy hair; it had a blond strand at the crown, which Christian also had in the same place – ‘but Professor, colleagues, that must have cost a fortune! I can’t possibly accept it.’

  ‘As I said, there was a collection, so it was spread among us. By the way, there is an interesting perspective to the picture when it is seen à contre-jour as you might say …’

  ‘À contre-jour?’ Taken aback, Richard walked round the picture.

  ‘For Richard Hoffmann – gratefully, Kurt Querner,’ Müller read out loud. ‘He knew that this was the picture you liked best. You and your wife had “crept round it too often”, as he put it. If he wanted to give it to anyone, it was you, and when Frau Querner heard about our plan, she allowed herself to be persuaded.’

  Most of the guests had stood up and were crowding round the picture. As his father shook the hands of his colleagues from the Academy in thanks, addressing each by their first name and hugging them, Christian could see that he was moved.

  ‘Just accept it, Richard,’ said Weniger, a senior doctor from the Gynaecological Clinic. ‘You can hang it up in your living room, next to that bird in the buff with the magnificent horse’s arse,’ he went on, deliberately falling into a local accent, ‘that’s a kind of landscape too. Pardon my French, Anne.’