Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

The larvae of some kinds of caterpillar had up to 600,000 stinging hairs between their bristles; they broke off, causing allergies, rashes, asthma. Reina coughed, Falk scratched himself. The oak processionary moth made caterpillar nests; Meno showed them the crackling, glittering shape made of cast-off skins, held his fingers up in the air, there was no wind. The wind blew the stinging hairs away, he told them, they could irritate the skin for years. Gypsy moth caterpillars were like extra-terrestrial warriors: black, with poppy-seed dots and red warty bumps (a forest of spears, darning mushrooms full of tiny splintered lances) commanded by a yellow head. Burnet moths flew, showing their red petticoats. They learnt how to distinguish fritillaries from tortoiseshells, ringlets from graylings: camouflage brown drew doors on the beeches.

Reina took the salt down from the shelf; Christian saw that her armpits had been shaved.

‘Does God exist, what d’you think?’

‘Christian wants to be a great research scientist, but he starts out with God,’ said Falk, still high from singing along, they’d been listening to Hans Albers records; ‘La Paloma’ had twisted the summer out of shape, homesickness and blue eyes had softened into musical pasta dough swirling round the full moon. ‘I’ve got another idea. Just imagine that at the end of the war Hiddensee — the whole of the island — had been made into a prison camp. Around five million prisoners. They’d have crapped in the Baltic every morning. That would’ve meant the Baltic’d be a sewage farm now and you could walk across it to Denmark.’

‘Why bother with a sewage farm, you can get to Denmark on the water just as well.’ Reina tapped her forehead at Falk. ‘Just imagine you and Heike got married. All you’d have would be latchkey children.’

‘A sewage farm becomes firm in the sun,’ Falk said, unimpressed.

‘And you think they wouldn’t arrest you while you were crossing your firm sewage farm?’

‘You’ve not got the point, Siggi. There wouldn’t be any border patrols with the stench. No one could stand it.’

‘I believe in him.’ Verena was sitting with her legs drawn up, staring at the ground. ‘We get born and we live — but what’s the point if God doesn’t exist?’

‘God rhymes with clod.’ Siegbert twisted his lips contemptuously. ‘And my mother used to say OhGodohGod when I’d done something wrong. OhGodohGod, leave me in peace with your God-squad twaddle.’

‘Red Eagle would say that God is an invention of the imperialists to stultify the people. How does it go? Religion is opium for the people. — What do you say to that, Herr Rohde?’

Meno, who had listened to the discussion in silence, glanced at Reina, shook his head. ‘I’m going out for a bit. I’ll take Pepi with me.’

‘Religion is opium for the people,’ Christian repeated after Meno had left, ‘how do they know that, actually?’

‘They spent a long time thinking about these things and they were a bit cleverer than you,’ Reina sneered.

‘Other philosophers thought about these things long before Marx and Lenin, and perhaps they were greater than Marx and Lenin,’ Christian replied in irritation.

‘Funny that you never dare to come out with things like that in class. Only to us. But when Red Eagle or Schnürchel are there you chicken out.’

‘And you — you don’t chicken out?’

‘Why are you suggesting they’re teaching us nonsense?’

‘Because —’ Christian jumped up and walked up and down excitedly. ‘Because they’re lying to us! Only Marx, Engels and Lenin are right, all the others are idiots … And their slogans? All men equal? Then all philosophers must be equal and therefore at least as smart as those three,’ he concluded with a malicious smile.

‘Sure people are equal,’ Siegbert bellowed, ‘all men’ve got a dick and all women’ve got a pussy.’

‘Hold on a minute — there’s transsexuals and hermaphrodites as well,’ Falk chortled.

‘Do you have to drag everything in the mud? You’re just like little children, can’t take anything seriously.’ Christian was still speaking calmly. ‘You say you’re my friend, Siegbert, but your language is … tasteless. Cheap and disgusting. How can you sink so low?’

Now Siegbert stood up as well. ‘Tasteless … disgusting … how can you sink so low?’ he mocked. ‘You’re in for a big surprise, my friend, when you see how things are outside. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. But not everyone’s had one of those to suck, mon cher . You’re pretty snooty for someone who wants to be a doctor, I think someone needed to tell you that.’

For hours Christian blundered about in the woods, thinking of Reina’s armpit.

Reina seemed to have been looking for him, for she came to meet him as he returned to the house by a roundabout way.

‘Why did you contradict me? Is that what you really think?’ he asked her.

‘Yes.’

‘And why did you speak up for Verena after the class test? You know it was all lies, that about her period and the rest.’

‘Christian: just because individuals don’t behave as they ought doesn’t mean the whole idea’s bad. Why should I say Verena’s lying? Schnürchel’s a bootlicker, however much of a communist he is.’

‘You like living in this country?’

‘You don’t?’

Now things were getting dangerous. Christian surveyed Reina with an alert, suspicious look, mumbled something she could take for agreement.

‘This country allows you to go to school and university for free, the health service is free, isn’t that something? Don’t you think we should give something back?’

‘You sound like Fahner, Reina.’

‘It doesn’t have to be wrong just because Fahner says it.’

Christian snorted. ‘Your free health service crams old people in retirement homes, your noble state gives those who built it up a pension that’s barely enough to keep body and soul together.’

‘How d’you know that? Where did you get that information from?’

‘Where from, where from!’ Christian exclaimed, furious at Reina’s slow-wittedness, furious at himself for getting so worked up, for opening up like this. ‘From my grandparents, for example. And from my father.’

‘He has his subjective point of view. Other doctors are of a different opinion.’

‘So you say.’

‘No. I know. My uncle’s a doctor too and he’s not one of those who only see the negative side or are only in it to earn money.’

‘What are you suggesting about my father!’ Christian cried angrily, waving his hand as if he were trying to mow down whole swathes of grass. ‘Oh, forget it. — Do you think it’s right that boys have to spend three years in the army?’

‘They don’t have to. Eighteen months is what they have to do, anything beyond that is voluntary.’

Christian dropped his arms. He couldn’t believe Reina really was so naive. ‘Fahner “suggested” we think about volunteering for the three years — the file with our assessments and what we want to go on to study was very visible on his desk. And they call it volunteering!’

‘The American soldiers have to go to Vietnam. They have to kill people for the interests of the ruling classes, of capitalism. Or do you think they’re there for humanitarian reasons? And what about the Falklands War?’

‘The Russians have to go to Afghanistan. That’s just as much an invasion. And they have to kill people there too. Can you tell me what business the powerful Soviet Union has in poor Afghanistan?’

‘That’s Western propaganda. I don’t believe that’s correct. You’ve got it from West German radio, that’s just imperialist propaganda.’