The Tower: A Novel

by Uwe Tellkamp

  59

  The crystal apartment

  When Richard was on night duty, the telephone rang and he set off with an orderly and a driver, he recalled the apartment in which his retired boss had given a farewell meal for the doctors and a few nurses – the long-serving workhorses, as Müller used to say; the apartment that seemed to consist entirely of crystal, even the front door greeted the visitor with palm trees and a bird of paradise engraved on the frosted glass, followed by glass hall-stands, crystal-clear mirrors, display cases with glass flowers by Blaschka & Blaschka of Dresden, who had supplied their fragile, handblown works of art to zoological and botanical collections from Harvard to Vienna, the dandelion-clock weightlessness of Eucalyptus globulus,

  the telephone rang, the nurse in Casualty held out the phone to him.

  ‘Frau Müller, for you, Herr Doktor’,

  or volvox algae, enlarged until they were clearly visible, fragile radial sketches, Richard was reminded of the microscopy courses when he was a student, ‘Eucalyptus globulus, habitat Australia and Tasmania’, Müller, shaking a glass of water with ice cubes, had explained,

  ‘Yes? Hoffmann’,

  ‘Yes,’ said Edeltraut Müller,

  and while Richard was looking for a formulation that sounded less off-hand than What’s wrong, What can I do for you? she said, ‘Come. Now’,

  after taking a sip of water Müller had patted his lip with his signet ring and Richard had been confused by the opulent clarity, the single-minded transparency of the apartment, confused that Müller was something like a representative of the Blaschkas, he spoke for them, and for Richard the two things didn’t fit together: Müller’s choleric rule in the clinic, the contemptuously violent cut with which he opened up his patients’ abdominal walls, his silent, vigorous advance into the depths, passing by, uninterested, anything that wasn’t relevant – and these glass anemones, freshwater polyps, cacti with cat’s-tongue flowers, irises in ballet poses; preparations of hardened, unhearing delicacy in the flexible, aerosol-light fluid that came spurting out of the lead crystal chandeliers and wall candelabras as if out of atomizers, and Müller, Richard recalled, turned away in embarrassment, perhaps also fearful, at compliments, raised-eyebrow assessments of the cost of this crystal druse, as if his self-confidence in the clinic had only been outward show, as if a man’s ability to assert his will, his decisiveness, were called into question if the one who possessed, or claimed to possess, those qualities lived in an apartment filled with watery light, burgeoning silence and glass flowers, and perhaps Müller was sorry he’d invited his colleagues, had quietly regretted not having satisfied the custom of giving a leaving party by holding it in the clinic – or did vanity and the need to show off outweigh caution; this Now-I-can-be-myself, ladies and gentlemen, this So this is me the way I never wanted you to see me while I was still in employment, but now everything’s different, now I’m retired, now I’ve escaped from you and can do as I like, can even brag unpunished, and out of relief at that I request the pleasure of your company to enjoy your little, agreeable defeat?,

  when Richard set off and they were speeding along in the Rapid Medical Assistance van to Schlehenleite on the Elbe slope above the Blue Miracle, he could still hear the words of Grefe, the junior doctor, who had come out of one of the patients’ rooms in Casualty in the fluttering, already somewhat tatty white habit of the duty doctor, still traces of plaster on his forearms and the backs of his hands: ‘The surgeon’s illness, Dr Hoffmann, pensioned off – and that’s it?’,

  ‘Come. Now’,

  but her voice had sounded calm, controlled, not strained, not trying to maintain her composure for the emergency response physician, as often happened when they were on call,

  Richard recalled the long table with the, now emeritus, professor at the head, his relaxed, inviting gestures, and the way Trautson had tapped a glass with his fork to request silence for a speech, below the one painting in the apartment, the picture of a loaf of bread,

  ‘I don’t know, Dr Grefe, your aunt just said, “Come. Now”, is there someone here who can replace you?’ But Dr Grefe was already being called for the next urgent case,

  amid the sound of the engine’s rpm angina, its whooping-cough chug-chug when the driver changed gear on a climb and double-declutched, Richard recalled that loaf painted in oils on the wall over the top end of the table, creaking (so immediate it seemed) like a carriage wheel, with a casual dusting from the lavish excesses of flour piled up beside it, partly in absolutist pointed cones, partly in churned-up heaps, as if the painter (strangely enough one didn’t think of the baker) had dug his fists into it; a loaf with its crust burst open in the form of a starfish with, coming out of the cracks, the soft, nutritiously steaming dough, giving the brown (chitin-brown, acorn-brown, double-bass-brown, tree-trunk-brown, rock-brown) crust stuttering outlines, jagging out ridges, here raising a plate that would splinter when you bit on it, there a tumour of crust swelling in a thin network of pores surrounded by the crumb that recalled the growths on gnarled beeches,

  ‘Bread, Herr Hoffmann. The man painted nothing but bread, bread all the time. It was his speciality, so to speak, and even if there’s something odd about obstinately sticking to one single subject, at least he achieved genuine mastery in that, as you will admit. The King of the Loaf’,

  ‘But a king at least,’ Dreyssiger broke in mockingly,

  ‘A king who is truly powerful, you never experienced the war, young man’,

  Richard recalled before Niklas Tietze opened the door to the Müllers’ apartment or, rather, dragged it open across broken glass that crunched and crackled under his feet,

  Richard saw Niklas’s stethoscope through the gaps between the splinters still left in the front door, then his face, serrated by fragments of the bird of paradise and palm leaves hanging down like icicles, saw, silently observed by neighbours, Niklas’s hands, his bow tie, his Sunday suit that he wore when going to Däne’s Friends of Music,

  ‘Yes,’ Niklas said, ‘she came to fetch us, we’d been listening to Mozart and … it’s not far for her, we were still chatting’,

  ‘What happened?’ Richard saw the ruins, the smashed mirrors, the clothes stands in pieces, the thousands of glints shooting up from fragments of glass in the light of the few remaining bulbs,

  ‘He was sent a letter demanding he declare everything,’ Niklas said, waving the orderly and driver, who’d pushed their way with the stretcher through the rapidly growing crowd of onlookers, through to the back,

  Joffe, the lawyer, came out of one of the rooms, hesitantly and with much shaking of the head – he was wearing checked slippers – seeking gaps in the piles of broken glass,

  ‘The police and forensic have been informed, everything will have to be cordoned off here, I couldn’t do more than that, Herr Hoffmann, this kind of thing isn’t my field’,

  ‘Thirty-nine ampoules of regular insulin, Dr Tietze immediately injected some glucose intravenously but I fear we were too late,’ Edeltraut Müller said, tapping a needle then pumping up a blood-pressure sleeve round Müller’s right arm, feeling in the crook of his arm with the stethoscope and slowly releasing the column of mercury with the knurled screw while Richard checked the pupil reaction with a torch: both pupils fixed; checked breathing, pulse, circulation and examined the two kidney dishes, in the one on the left the broken ampoules and two ampoule saws, a compress; in the one on the right the glass syringe with the injection cannula still attached,

  ‘He knew I was going to the Friends of Music, Dr Hoffmann, and that I’d be away for several hours; the neighbours above us were also away and the noise wouldn’t have been very audible on the floor above them,’ she said, pumping up the blood-pressure sleeve again

  ‘the letter,’ she said,

  ‘Dear Dr Hoffmann, The ampoules of regular insulin come from the stock of the Surgical Clinics, please sort that out with Administration and with Senior Nurse Henrike.

  Dearest Edeltraut, I thought they
shouldn’t have the apartment. Please don’t go to any unnecessary trouble as far as the funeral’s concerned. I’ve made the necessary arrangements with Herr Pliehwe of Earthly Journey, the undertaker’s in the Service Combine. For your widow’s pension apply to Administration, Herr Scheffler will help you. I have done forty-one years of good work. As a communist and as a doctor. This isn’t the socialism we dreamt of.’

  turned the membrane of the stethoscope, pulled out the earpieces with one hand, making them collide, pumped up the sleeve, made the column of mercury in the pressure gauge contract, but had forgotten to put the earpieces back in, pumped again, the hooks holding the sleeve had loosened so that it swelled asymmetrically,

  ‘And,’ Niklas said, his eyes fixed on the broken display cases, the smashed glass flowers, the hammer with which Müller had reduced the crystal pendants on the chandeliers to fragments,

  ‘Thirty-nine ampoules,’ Edeltraut Müller said, ‘he drew them up into a urology syringe, look’,

  certainly with a raspberry-coloured pout of his lips, certainly his eyes concentrating as he scored the ampoules, broke off the necks with the compress between glass and fingers, certainly with his owl-like eyebrows knitted, his fingers lifting, cool, professional actions, regular insulin worked quickly,

  ‘They waited until he retired,’ Edeltraut Müller said,

  Police stomped over broken glass, the duty forensic doctor nodded to Richard, who caught Edeltraut Müller before she fell onto the splinters of glass beside her husband’s corpse.

  60

  Journey to Samarkand

  Should I ever / break this my solemn oath of allegiance / may I suffer the harsh punishment of the laws / of our Republic and the contempt / of the working people

  Oath of Allegiance of the National People’s Army

  ‘At the double!’ Nip gave a sharp nod; Christian and Pancake followed him along the empty, polished company corridor. Their footsteps echoed. Musca was on duty, saluted, his blue eyes wide. Far away, Christian thought, for him we’re already untouchable. He hummed quietly to himself. ‘Shut it, Hoffmann,’ Nip ordered. The battalion building was deserted, the companies were out on a training exercise. Outside the light was so bright it made Christian sneeze.

  ‘At the double!’ Nip pushed him forward like something at which he felt revulsion, which filled him with unutterable disgust. He didn’t need to tell Pancake. He had gone quiet, his lopsided grin had vanished. He too had said something. He had taken the axe out of Christian’s hand and said, ‘But he’s right.’ Among other things. There were grinning faces at the windows of the medical centre. There was a smell of spring; the fresh green on the trees did his eyes good. On the parade ground it was ‘Left about turn! Right about turn! Right wheel – march!’ with the new recruits, the sound of engines came from the technical depot, containers of food were being loaded outside the kitchens.

  Inquiry. Handed over to a duty officer in headquarters. On the first floor they waited at a barred door. Christian and Pancake were interrogated separately by a man in civilian clothes.

  ‘You have not yet found your place in society, Hoffmann. You’re still young.’

  ‘The problem is not what you did, but what you said. You have betrayed the trust put in you. It is not the death of Comrade Lance Corporal Burre that we are dealing with here. That is regrettable. We will investigate it, of course. But that is not at issue here. That is a completely different case. We will investigate that separately. No, Hoffmann, you and your crony Kretzschmar, with whom we are already acquainted, very well acquainted, made remarks. You defamed us. Openly attacked our state! But we know all about that … harmful pests. Both of you. You have betrayed our trust, made subversive comments. To defame our state! That is the worst.’

  ‘You made disparaging remarks about us in public, Hoffmann. That will have serious consequences.’

  ‘We know you as well, oh yes, you and your fine family. – Oh, you don’t know? Well, you have a sister. Your fine father cheats on his wife in his free time. You don’t know that. But we do. He’s screwing your girlfriend, Fräulein Kossmann. But your sister isn’t hers. Half-sister, to be precise. Thunderstruck, eh? Have a look here.’

  ‘You think we don’t know you? Came to our notice through a particular incident at the pre-military training camp. Got out of it through the legal tricks of your lawyer. Already called attention to yourself at high school. Said the following at senior high school … But that’s clear. Morally degenerate. And we allow something like you to go to university, something like you that betrays our trust! I can’t even bring myself to repeat what you said. There, read it out yourself. Come on, don’t be shy. Coming the prissy little middle-class mummy’s boy, are we? And then one incident after another … We’ve got it all down in writing, confirmed by witnesses. Go on, read it out.’

  ‘Something like that’s only possible in this shitty state,’ Christian read out falteringly.

  ‘So, found our tongue again, have we? – But you’re still young. There’s still hope. At the senior high school you and a certain Heike Fieber made a great portrait of Karl Marx, in the Karl Marx Year. That shows that there is some good in you, deep down inside. That’s the influence of your mother, who comes from an illustrious family. That’s the legacy of your revolutionary grandmother, who fought and suffered for the just cause. There’s goodwill there, your blood has not yet been entirely corrupted.’

  Penal Code, section 220

  PUBLIC DISPARAGEMENT

  1. Anyone who in public disparages the state’s system of government or state bodies, institutions or social organizations or their activities and measures taken is liable to a sentence of up to three years’ imprisonment or a suspended sentence, a prison sentence, a fine or a public reprimand.

  The guard led Christian towards a checkpoint. He didn’t go out of the barracks, he was taken to the guardroom. One of the detention cells was unlocked. Christian saw: a rectangle, the rear left corner of which was cut off by sunlight, a tightly made up bunk bed, a stool. Christian turned round to the guard but he shook his head: Don’t speak. The guard locked the door behind Christian, taking care not to make too much noise. Christian sat down. The walls had been painted with mud-grey gloss paint. UNDER CONSTRUCTION, he thought. What will they do? What will happen? They’re not saying anything. He could hear the voices of the instructors coming from outside: ‘Right turn! – Left turn! At the double – march!’ The thud of boots, now and then a bellowed command: ‘Regiment atten-shun!’ The regimental commander had come and the duty officer made his report. The rumble of engines. From outside, from the guardhouse, the usual rhubarb, rhubarb before and after the changing of the guard, the clunk of metal as they took off their machine pistols, belts and mess kit. In the evening drunken soldiers bawled at him from the neighbouring cells, ‘Hey, pal, why’d they lock you up?’

  ‘UA.’ Unauthorized absence, Christian thought. Unauthorized. Absence. Morally degenerate. You have a sister. ‘And you?’ That was to Pancake.

  ‘Hey – can’t you open your mouth?’

  ‘Shut your trap.’

  ‘And you, mate?’ That was to Christian. He was sitting on the stool and heard it as if it came from far away. He didn’t reply. The soldiers swore. Pancake and Christian stayed in the detention cell for three days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. They were given their food in the guardroom, in their mess tins. A piece of cake on Sunday. If they needed the toilet, they had to shout. The sun moved across the cell in thin stripes from left to right, towards evening the stripes became longer, thinned out, leaving one stripe that disappeared over the edge of the folding table. Christian spent most of the time sitting on the stool, by the evening he couldn’t bear the precise awareness of the slight dips, lumps, cracks in the wood, the places smoothed by the clutches of his predecessors (hands under their thighs). Despite that it was important for him to get to know this small square on which he sat, on which after a few hours sitting he felt sore – look closely, Meno and Richard had
taught him that.

  He couldn’t lie on the bunk during the day. The bells rang from the tower of Grün church at 6 p.m.; Christian had never registered the peal before. Then he would lie down on the floor, as close as possible to the radiator and its lukewarm fins. Five fins: ivory on the colour of the silicon stove-enamelling (silver). It had flaked off in 117 places, none of them triangular. The window was accessible.