The Tower: A Novel

by Uwe Tellkamp

  The train, a grumpy voice that sounded as if it were made of felt announced, was delayed. But now the light was falling, withdrawing, seemed to be saying, Come on, it’s up to you now, to the twilight. This was the hour of the day Christian liked best. He used to like the early morning just as much, when the air was still fresh and had a silky dampness, like a sensitive photo that had just been taken out of the fixative; but those hours no longer belonged to him, for eighteen months now they had been the hours of whistles and shrill shouts, of the start of terrible days. This wilting, this hardly perceptible waning was something different. The station, with its grubby concourse, the sleepers with their dusting of ash, the smell of toilets, Mitropa snack bars and coal, seemed to be drinking in the thinning light, gradually filling itself with it until, with its rusty red dusting of ash, it had entirely become non-poisonous copper bloom. At this moment it would be enough to spread your arms to be able to fly – as he knew and it filled him with joy and satisfaction. The other people on the platforms seemed to feel the same, he saw workers throw out their chests, stride up and down with a bouncing gait, then, when they once more became aware of being watched, pluck at their overalls in embarrassment; he saw the down-and-outs hold up their bottles of beer assessingly to the light; and all at once the two men in the uniform of the transport police were casually swinging their batons. And he – he had cyclamen. Bought at Centraflor on the station forecourt where a supply had just been unloaded from a lorry; hundreds of pots of cyclamen; no cut flowers.

  Reina alighted from the last carriage of the train that had just arrived. Christian gave an embarrassed wave, waited, set off hesitantly; he suddenly felt this meeting was inappropriate, the pot of cyclamen, which he was holding like a basket full of bees, ridiculous; the purple, turned-back flowers waved dementedly in the evening breeze. For a moment Christian thought of Ina in Berlin, of his wedding present for her and the awkward gesture with which he’d put it in her hand. He lifted up the pot, at the same time Reina also lifted up her present; unlike him she’d unpacked her cyclamen and as they exchanged their ‘Hello, Christian’ and ‘Hi, Reina’, they also exchanged their pots of cyclamen. Reina raised her shoulders, scratched her upper arm, looking for an insect bite, and Christian couldn’t think of anything to say; he searched desperately for some compliment but what occurred to him, of all things, was that the scar on her neck brought out the delicacy of her skin, the lovingly scattered freckles. But he didn’t want to say that, just like that. It would have made her even more confused, more inhibited than she seemed to be: standing there, uncertain what to do, for now she was there and that left the question of what they should do, in a strange town that Christian too only knew from its station – barracks, metal works, chemical smells, the Dutch Courage were none of them the kind of place one knew because one was at home there.

  Reina was there; he had no expectations. She’d changed in the eighteen months since the senior high, the woman she was becoming shimmered through her still girlish features, her hair was done differently: Christian found these changes strangely arousing and since he immediately began to reflect on that, he trotted along beside Reina in silence, head bowed, sensing the torment that she was trying to cover over with words that didn’t get to him. He wasn’t quite sure but he felt for a moment that he wanted to annoy her a little – that was when she was at her prettiest. She hadn’t put on very much make-up, for that he was grateful. Her new hairstyle, yes, that did look a bit dolled up, that would be the effect of the big city. That and the womanliness in her features made Reina strange beyond what he had expected and imagined, and that was precisely what aroused him, not her smell, her voice, not the glances of the others on the platform that awoke from their torpor as they passed over Reina and drew back into contempt, perhaps just indifference, when they looked at Christian. I don’t belong to you any more, the womanliness in Reina seemed to be saying and aroused desire, the instinct for possession. She fell silent; immediately he withdrew into himself, even more than he had already done with his discourteous silence that made their encounter hard work for her, an exhausting search for ways of getting a conversation going, leaving the approach to her; and now he felt bitter, decided it had been a mistake to meet Reina, especially in his situation.

  Christian sought out the shade, looked nervously to the left and right, taking on the skipping gait, ever ready to flee, to manoeuvre, of those who believe they are being followed. Sometimes he quickly ducked, clenched his fists (he’d stowed the cyclamen in the knapsack he’d brought with him) as if there were something in the empty air between them that he could only ward off in that way; sometimes he abruptly took one step back, which, as he noticed, Reina at first found irritating, then merely awkward, it seemed; but he was only avoiding an anticipated burst of light, an as yet invisible punishment that he didn’t know and couldn’t have explained but was sure to come, perhaps already had a face and was observing him; whatever he did, it would encounter him, and differently, in a different form from the one he expected. But he too could behave unexpectedly, not avoid a patch of brightness here, there take fifteen paces straight forward and suddenly swerve to the right because the punishment was thinking, right, I’ve got you now, at the sixteenth pace you’re mine – but that was precisely when he’d gone off to the side, the spear had been thrust into empty space! Christian realized that Reina had stopped.

  ‘You’re being very odd, what’s wrong? I think you’re not even listening to me.’

  That was true. Like a euphoric sower on his field, the neon sign over the station concourse kept on casting a cheerful ‘Welcome to Grün – the pearl of the West Erzgebirge’ over the floor, unconcerned that it was pale from carefully torn-up newspaper. Reina wouldn’t start to cry now. The shy Reina, as she’d written in her letter; she began to dissolve into the mocking Reina who could turn into the hurtful Reina; he felt sorry about that and yet incapable of making things any easier for her. He felt paralysed, he would have known what words to use, but they refused to roll off his tongue, it was lumpy and too steep a climb and they just couldn’t make it.

  ‘Your letter, have they … I did receive your letter.’

  Yes: he just nodded, briefly observed the way her fingers were tapping the edge of the cyclamen pot, then he gave her a bag that she accepted with a thoughtful look. There was a cupboard on the station forecourt and Christian would have thought it quite natural if the door had opened to reveal a skinny, white-eyed girl. ‘They haven’t decided anything yet. There’ll be a hearing. Military court. We should talk about something else.’

  ‘I went to see your parents.’

  ‘You said so in your letter.’

  ‘Should I go back? You’re so negative.’

  ‘No. No.’ And then another word that took a great effort to say but for that very reason he wanted to see what would happen when he did say it: ‘Sorry.’ It came out fairly easily and made him think of Waldbrunn, his walk along the Wilde Bergfrau, his arrogance that was directed at Verena.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Reina looked round, didn’t seem to like what she saw.

  ‘Dunno. Have you any suggestions? I don’t really know my way round here. Cinema?’ he said, in the hope that they would sit there next to each other, watch some film or other, remain silent. Silence was what was best. Each close to the other, just close, without words. But Reina said no. ‘We can’t talk there. Perhaps … perhaps that sounded too challenging: Where are we going? It was just …’

  They passed the cinema, it was the only one in the town. It was showing Soviet fairy-tale films: The Scarlet Flower, Gharib in the Land of the Djinns. Christian liked to go to the cinema when he had a pass. It reminded him of the Tannhäuser Cinema. The roof was damaged, on fine days the sunlight came in through a gap, rain on wet days – on sunny days a black umbrella with balloons tied on and guided by a string was floated up underneath the hole, on wet days a bucket placed under it.

  ‘You always called me Montecristo. My real name made you
laugh.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything to your parents, just as you told me. But don’t you think … Your father could do something for you.’

  ‘No. They have enough worries as it is. Especially my mother. – We could go and have a meal. My treat.’

  ‘Verena’s made an application to leave. She’s in Leipzig too, I sometimes see her.’

  ‘That could harm you.’

  ‘I’ve already had a discussion in the dean’s office. It was two of them who conducted the discussion. – But she’s my friend, they can’t forbid me to see her.’

  ‘Oh yes they can. They have ways of doing it. The guy who died offered to spy for them if they saw to it that he was transferred. They said: It’s where you are now that we need you, Comrade Burre. Of course we’ll protect you, we know what military ethics means. They can do as they like.’ They crossed the marketplace to the fountain. Jets of water came from a four-headed gryphon in black sandstone. ‘And Siegbert?’ Christian asked.

  ‘They’ve separated.’ That wasn’t the self-confident, sometimes haughty Reina he’d known any more. She seemed apprehensive, cautious, often looking round, scrutinizing the passers-by, the policemen strolling across the marketplace. ‘You know, I always wanted to write to you, but I didn’t dare. So much has changed. We left school and … well, perhaps it sounds odd now … so naive. Perhaps that’s the way we were. I mean, I knew I couldn’t say everything, not to Schnürchel nor to Red Eagle and certainly not to Fahner. And I asked myself: why not, actually? They’re communists, they claim to be honest … And us? Why do we talk one way at home and quite differently at school … just churn out what we know’s expected of us so as not to get into trouble? But why should you get into trouble when you have an opinion that’s counter to other opinions? And why is there this contradiction: on the one hand reality – on the other what’s written about it and they’re completely different? I was so blind … I didn’t know anything. Sometimes I would sit in my room in the school hostel and think of you and that you probably despise me for my cluelessness. But you … you were fortunate –’

  ‘Siegbert sometimes accused me of that.’

  ‘I’m not reproaching you for that, far from it. It’s just … upbringing. I was brought up to believe in the country, in the ideals, the system. Well, brought up …’ Reina laughed nervously. ‘… there were so many things my parents couldn’t care less about. Apart from: as long as you expect us to support you –’

  ‘Can Verena continue her studies?’

  ‘She’s been kicked out. Before that she was one of the best, people couldn’t do enough for her – then her application and she was dropped like a hot potato.’

  ‘This tender butterfly with dark brown eyes.’

  ‘You were in love with her.’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘She wasn’t worth it!’ Reina declared in a sudden outburst of hatred.

  ‘She was so. – How’s her sister?’

  ‘She and their mother both still have their jobs. Her father was dismissed immediately she made the application. Apart from me all her friends have turned their backs on her. Siegbert already had problems of his own and one of them told him that if he didn’t break off his relationship with Fräulein Winkler they couldn’t guarantee anything any more.’

  ‘Does he still want to go to sea?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why they’ve got him where they want him. He’s studying education now, sport and geography.’

  ‘Siegbert a teacher! And his enlistment for four years?’

  ‘He’s withdrawn it. – All her friends have turned their backs on her. As if she were a leper. And me? What should I do? They tell me straight out that I should break off the relationship.’

  ‘Then do that. Eventually she’ll be over there. And what use will it be to you if Verena’s gone and you’re not allowed to go to university?’

  ‘Do you really think that? You?’

  ‘I don’t know what I think. I just know the way things are.’

  ‘You can’t really think that. Siegbert yes. But not you. And you know that. It’s only for the sake of argument that you’re pretending to be so cynical. But you’re not like that.’

  ‘Why not? There’s something to what I said. Anyway, I don’t know myself what I’m like. But you claim you do know. We haven’t seen each other for ages and there was a time –’

  ‘What d’you mean by that – you don’t know yourself?’

  ‘There are situations, decisions you have to take … But things turn out differently and you’re surprised. Perhaps you were more of a coward than you thought. Perhaps you thought you were an honourable person who knew what was right and that there were certain things you wouldn’t do – and then you find yourself secretly reading somebody else’s diary. – What was it like at my parents’? Why did you go to see them?’

  ‘I’d done this work experience year, in a clinic. A small clinic. I saw things there … We had no syringes. Then we did have some: there were patients who’d gone to the West and brought back syringes and bandages from there. They go to the West and buy their insulin syringes, their cannulas, there so that we can give them to them. We did Socialist Aid in a care home. There were no nurses there, the old people were lying in their nappies that no one had changed. There was one male nurse, he went round the wards and said he’d wipe up the shit of anyone who had Western money. Said the oldsters can travel over there, I can’t. There are beds and whole wards you can only get in if you can pay with hard currency. Your father confirmed that. He explained: the health service doesn’t bring in foreign currency, it’s funded by the state, which urgently needs foreign currency and therefore has to sell what’s available –’

  ‘Yes, we weren’t told about that at school.’

  ‘Svetlana’s gone to the Soviet Union. There’s no fire here any more, she said, only ashes. She couldn’t bear it any longer, the weariness, the bureaucracy.’

  ‘And now she’s looking for the fire in our friends’ country. She might be lucky enough to find some. There was a splendid one in Chernobyl recently.’

  ‘You’ve become very cynical. That’s not like you. I know Svetlana … was special. I felt more sorry for her.’

  ‘I believe she would have thought nothing of reporting Jens or Falk if they’d been careless enough to say what they really thought when she was listening.’

  ‘Do you know Svetlana?’

  ‘Go on, tell me she wouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘She was in love with you.’

  Christian said nothing.

  ‘You often used to study in the school library.’ Reina smiled. ‘You were as arrogant as a turkey-cock. And condescending. Svetlana wrote a love letter to you on the blackboard on the easel, I was to check it for spelling mistakes. I thought the letter was somehow … unsuitable. Unsuitable for her. So self-abasing and at the same time schoolmarmish … She wiped it all off shortly before you came.’

  ‘And now she’s in the Soviet Union hoping for less bureaucracy. Oh yes.’

  ‘Schnürchel got her a university place in Leningrad, for Russian teachers. She must have met a man there. I respect her despite everything, for her it wasn’t just an empty word, socialism. And that everyone should have a decent life. Did you never wonder why she was a boarder – when her family lived in the next village? Her mother was an alcoholic, her father the same – and he used to beat them. She had six brothers and sisters, and Svetlana was a mother to them.’

  ‘And why are you telling me all this, what am I supposed to do with that sentimental story? What are you trying to prove? That I’m an arsehole? Funnily enough, Verena tried that. That I’m too quick to judge people? My uncle’s hinted at that already. Are you trying to teach me how to behave? – That’s what they’re trying to do all the time – teach people how to behave!’ Christian cried. ‘Teach yourselves!’ A fit of rage was coming on, a crust was bursting open, heat fizzed through his veins, a generator seemed to be pumping dark electrici
ty into his fingertips, loading them with manic power, sharpening his eye for some target he could demolish with one slash of the knife or punch of the fist or blow of the axe – Christian had raised the tank axe at his company commander. He could feel the fit coming on, that too part of his Hoffmann heredity, Richard was liable to frighteningly violent outbursts of fury, Christian had seen his grandfather Arthur, half-crazed with rage, smash the living-room window with a meat-grinder, raving, roaring, he’d bombarded Emmy with clothes pegs. Christian dragged Reina into an entrance hall, bit her hand, then kissed the place he’d bitten. Her armpit! he thought. You wanted to kiss her armpit first. Now that had come to nothing. There was rubble in the hallway, plaster had trickled down to form bright cones of dust on the floor. He had to laugh when he heard Reina protest. How soft she was, her arms, her cheeks – so soft. Splinters of sunshine came in from the back yard, where the dustbins were, but only as far as a rusted bicycle. He was in a blind rage of desire. Go out with her. Talk to her. Reina was crying. He noticed that he was pressing the bag with the cyclamen against her. A door shut somewhere on a higher floor. He pushed Reina away, she let herself slide slowly down the wall, crouched there, face turned away though not crying any more. He could see himself the way he’d looked at himself, naked, in the mirror, his nauseating skin, covered in pimples, that longed for a touch and feared it. He flattened a little pile of plaster under his shoe, waiting, uncertain as to what was going to happen. He’d have to say, Sorry, please, again, and then go, but he really didn’t feel like that at all.