Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

Right in front of me a door flies open, a man in camouflage uniform comes out and shouts that I’m to pick up my bag and follow him. He takes me into a bare, not very big room, table in the middle, at it another man in camouflage uniform with strikingly Mongoloid features and a bespectacled man in ordinary uniform, pale, fishlike, Unpack bag, Fish orders. The Mongol grabs my bag, probably because I’m too slow, and empties it out. Underwear, a cardboard box so I can send my civvies back, my case of books. Whazzat? Fish asks. There’s books in it, I say. — Open. He even gets up off his chair and kneels down, the Mongol’s scattered the books all over the place, which doesn’t endear him to me. At Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Fish grasps his spectacles. Send back home, at once. The case is against regulations. You can’t read all those books anyway. Or d’you need them when you have a crap? Sergeant Rehnsen (that’s the Mongol), report to me when the package has gone. Name? — Christian Hoffmann. — What trade have you learnt? — None. Completed senior high. — Hm. What do your parents do? — Father doctor, mother nurse. — Hm. Hobbies? — Reading, angling, art, history. — No sport? — Chess. — Trying to be funny, eh? the Mongol rasps. — It can get tiring if you keep sticking your oar in, Rehnsen, Fish says. You’ll have your work cut out here, he says to me. Delicate blossoms need watering. Corporal Glücklich! (The man who shouted for me to get my bag comes in.) Get him kitted out. Glücklich bawls that I’m to get my stuff together: Move! Move! You’re not in the kindergarten here. Glücklich has brown skin like stretched rubber and looks like an Inca; we cadets (also known as ‘day-bags’, ‘dishcloths’, best of all, I think, is ‘furniture’: ‘You, furniture, need a good shellacking, eh?’) pretty soon agreed on the nickname. Inca pushes open a door diagonally opposite the corridor table — Your room! Bag in there! We go to another door, which he opens gently: the clothes room. He pulls down a flap, chucks me a panzer cap, a sealed package, a water bottle, underwear, two brown terry towels plus a white linen towel, army socks, an olive-green woollen pullover, gas mask, steel helmet, protective clothing and two field packs. Shirt off, green pullover on, he says to me, the furniture with two arms. Come on, come on, don’t stand around like that, you’re not here to fatten yourself up. Grab your kit and dismiss to your room. At one whistle you come out. The room (no. 227): small, bright, a big window facing the door, one table, two stools, along the left wall two steel bunk beds with blue-and-white checked sheets and one grey blanket at the foot, on the right four plain lockers, brown with age, a broom cupboard by the door. No nameplate on one of the lockers, so there are just three of us in the room. I looked out of the window; a dull evening, below the main facility road to the CEG, underneath the window a strip of grass, across the road a row of corrugated-iron sheds. To the right the road bends and goes out of sight, at the crown of the bend there’s a sentry box by an exit gate with a barrier, beside it a guard post with the sign ‘DO’ (Depot Officer/technical depot). Beyond the barbed-wire fence, the brown-coal zone. I shut the window, switched the light on. My things were still lying where I’d put them before donning the pullover. I was going to tidy them up but I didn’t know if there was any point. After a while I heard steps — the others were coming. A sharp whistle: Everybody out!

My comrades are queuing up at Corporal Glücklich’s clothes room. He throws them their things in the face, bawls, Next! C’mon, move your arse! The Mongol walks up and down the line. Now listen to me, you lot. After this each one of you will be shown his room and locker. You just place your things by the locker and come back out again immediately and line up as you are now. Right then, off you go, Corporal Glücklich. Corporal Glücklich takes a sheet of paper out of his breast pocket and bawls, First platoon, first group — Schnack, Krosius, Lahse: 225. Müller, König, Rusk. (He pauses, exchanges glances with the Mongol, Rusk? — One of them shouts, Here! — Freshly toasted, eh? Inca says. Very tasty too.) Ress: 226. Hoffmann, Irrgang, Breck: 227. First platoon, second group …

Have to stop now, I’m too tired. More soon. Best wishes, Christian.

TC Q/Schwanenberg, 11.11.84

— continuation. The masked ball, as the kitting-out ceremony is called here. Whistle: Everybody out! The Mongol has the red DS (duty sergeant) armband. Corporal Glücklich will now lead you over to the Central Regimental C/E room (C/E: Clothing/Equipment) where you will be given your remaining things. Once you are ready you come back under your own steam to the unit. Take over now, Corporal Glücklich. Off you go.

At the double — quick march!

Hundreds of cadets were waiting outside the Regimental Clothing Room, an orange corrugated-iron shed. Light in the entrance that only shone on those at the very front. At regular intervals the searchlights of the watchtowers passed over the queue that went right round the parade ground. It was quiet, most seemed occupied with their thoughts (that is, assuming they had any). Noise came from inside the shed, a knocking, clattering, rumbling, thrumming and humming, now and then a few bars of the ‘Radetzky March’, loudspeaker crackle. The hall seemed like a gigantic open maw swallowing up the queue. At a few places in the queue they were doing knee bends, at others jogging on the spot; the smokers in our platoon, which was right at the back, clicked their lighters and held the flames to each other’s hands; the army pullovers hardly kept us warm at all and it was over two hours before we got into the shed. Inside it smelt of washing powder. The noise thumped our ears, there were sounds like those of boxing gloves on sandbags, the soft trickle as they sway back. Steel shelves several metres high, little spotlights attached to them, oddly enough always in motion, as if they were flying saucers or spinning tops. The light didn’t move in time to the ‘Radetzky March’, which they were playing from a tape, sometimes it started droning and jolting, as when an ignition key’s trying to get a recalcitrant car to start, then I thought of muscles, a biceps doing unending pull-ups until all its fibres gradually snap. The steel shelves angular, their arrangement unclear, crammed full, as far as I could see, with uniforms, boots, groundsheets, belts, caps, next to a bundle of belts was a packet of lemonade powder, which I stuck in my pocket. In front of each set of shelves was a table onto which assistants, who were climbing all over the shelves, threw things down after we shouted the size of the item up to them. Kit orderlies were dashing hither and thither. Always batches of four; we were pushed to the boot shelves, there was a cardboard sign: ISSUE POINT 1. The orderly whispered (that’s what it looked like, I couldn’t hear anything because there was a ‘Radetzky March’ loudspeaker right above us), I bawled out my shoe size, sweating and bright red, he clambered up a ladder and chucked two pairs of boots straight at me. Irrgang, who has the bed next to mine, pointed up: there were bathtubs with claw feet hanging there: the chips in the white enamel were like a flurry of stars merging in the black of the bottom of the tub. I dropped one of the pairs of boots, they were tied together with string, bent down, one of those pushing from behind stumbled over me, taking others down with him, there were five or six people on top of me, I could see arms, the weight became heavier, perhaps even more were falling on top of me, then I saw Irrgang give a few a good kick in the backside, making them crawl away. The orderly shouted, Hey, you’re holding everyone up, come on, come on, get along, follow the chalk line, I pulled myself up by the shelf struts, saw the red line and staggered on. ISSUE POINT 2: groundsheet, winter uniform, coat. The orderly there waved us over to the table, slapped four groundsheets down on it, pack your stuff in that, scrutinized me, dropped two stone-grey uniforms and a heavy military coat on me, coarse cloth, felty, here there was an even stronger smell of washing powder, the things had probably been dry-cleaned. I felt revulsion, someone or other’s worn them before me, I thought, they’ve been soaked in someone else’s sweat and God knows what other exudations. Your stuff in the groundsheet, you’ve to tie it into a sack, there are buttons along the sides, and don’t form a coral reef, on you go, on you go. ISSUE POINT 3: gym shoes, dress shoes, caps, carrying frame, a few things thrown in my face. ISSUE POINT 4: sports kit, brown tracksuit, yellow gym shirt, red shorts, the colours of the Army Sports Association. ISSUE POINT 5: black overalls for working on the tank, combat uniforms. Size! — M 48. The black overalls, two lined and one unlined combat uniform flutter through the air like woodland birds. That’s the way out and get your arse in gear, cadet. A corridor, hollowed out by two floodlights, there was still the dadadum, dadadum, dadadumdumdum of the ‘Radetzky March’, this was where the smell of washing powder was most powerful, Irrgang pointed to another bathtub, only this time it was on the floor, assistants were dipping lavatory brushes in it and giving the cadets a good scrub as they hurried past, shouting ‘Earholes, earholes’ and ‘It comes out through your arsehole’, jiggling with laughter. Then off we go to join the company. All line up. Preparing kit for inspection! Inca snarls. A corporal we haven’t seen yet comes. That, we are told, is the ‘assdusarge’ (‘assistant to the duty sergeant’). The assdusarge holds up a piece of cardboard with a standard locker drawn on it, as he barks he stresses every syllable so that when he turns round I automatically look between his shoulder blades to see if there’s a key to wind him up. We fill our lockers: shirts with the edges flush, ties with the edges flush, valuables and service identity card in a lockable drawer, cutlery and brown mug into the compartment with a ventilation filter, uniform on hangers, steel helmet, tank hood, gas mask (called protective mask here), field packs (called monkeys) and protective suit (called a jumbo) on top of the locker. The Mongol walks along and inspects the lockers. Most have everything wordlessly tipped out; do it again. Your locker’s like a pigsty. Do it again. Get a move on, there is a standard time, Comrade Cadet! Whistle. Everybody out! Masked ball, Inca snarls. Clothes back out of the cupboards that we’ve just laboriously transformed into standard lockers, the Mongol grins, the assdusarge bawls down any moaning. Now in front of each cadet is the cardboard box in which our civvies, including handkerchiefs, socks and shoes, are to be sent home. Beside it is the groundsheet with our army things. The assdusarge holds up cardboard signs each showing a standard AM (army member). It must be three in the morning when we squat down. First command: Item: steel helmet. Stretch out right hand, grasp helmet! It’s not precise enough for the Mongol, Everyone up! Stand to attention! Thumbs on trouser seams! Down! Kneel down. Item: steel helmet. Stretch out right hand, grasp helmet! Second command: Present! Stand up, present the steel helmet with arm outstretched. One is starting to droop, the Mongol bawls, Did I say anything about putting it down? Inca walks along the row, very slowly, the steel helmet gets heavier and heavier. Finally: Put down! So kneel down again. And that happens with every item. Knees bends alternating with changing clothes: Standard time, comrades! There are too few epaulettes, every time we change uniform we have to unbutton the epaulettes from the one we’ve just taken off. We change clothes, transferring the epaulettes with the pink stripe. Irrgang, who’s next to me, gets tangled up because the sleeves of his overalls are sewn up, all part of the fun. The wind-up assdusarge breaks wind noisily a lot. Perhaps he’s furious since he can’t get to bed because of us. We’re like a colony of brooding albatrosses with the flutter of sleeves and trouser legs all over the place. Check. Stand to attention. One of the Group Two cadets has a beard. The Mongol, who, as we now know, wants to be an actor and doesn’t just wake us for early-morning exercises by kicking the bed but likes to brighten our start to the day with dramatic monologues, grasps the cadet by the chin and says, Itchie, kitchie, razor blade, beardies never make the grade. The cadet pulls back, doesn’t quite know what’s happening to him. Dismiss to scratch your beard, Gorse-face!