Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

‘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 electricity 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.