Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

‘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 were 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 …’