Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

The knives they were given to eat with were blunt. The stapler Christian had to use to keep documents together was so made that the slot where the staples were inserted could only be opened by a little key the guard kept. When all the staples were used up Christian had to wait until the spyhole was opened and he could make a sign. The waiting time did not count towards the time allowed.

Visits . Christian received a letter. Sperber, the lawyer, wrote that, at his parents’ request, he would take over his defence.

Visits. A visitor for Kurtchen. Kurtchen had a girlfriend. His girlfriend was making difficulties. She wanted to be screwed, Kurtchen explained, and he wasn’t there, of course. Kurtchen had had an idea and asked Christian’s advice, for he had been to senior high and had imagination. Christian didn’t want to advise him, he was sick of the evenings when Kurtchen used the word ‘imagination’. At that Kurtchen frowned and explained that he didn’t want to get angry.

‘Should I let her get laid by my best friend, what d’you think?

Christian avoided a direct answer. ‘Perhaps … but there must be other possibilities to consider first.’

‘Nah, not any more. She has a dildo, from over there. But now she wants a guy on the end of it, an’ there aren’t any batteries for it either. An’ just using her imagination’s not enough any more, she says.’

‘Well, if it’s your best friend —’

‘Keeps it in the family, yeh. ’s what I thought too. Then I’ll tell her that, since you say so. You get a tube for that. Should I give her your best wishes?’

Lawyer’s visit . Sperber was well dressed, shiny suit, lilac-coloured shirt, slim gold wristwatch that he wore with the face on the inside of his wrist and now and then shook round to the outside. The ‘sweet’ was in the buttonhole of his left lapel. Limp handshake, it felt to Christian as if he’d squeezed a raw chop instead of a hand. Sperber gave Christian some cigarettes. He’d been told by his father, he said, that he didn’t smoke, but they were the common currency in there. Christian wasn’t paying close attention. He was fascinated by the lawyer’s smell. It came from outside. He hadn’t realized that the world outside had a smell that was clearly different from the one inside the jail. After all, it was the same air that came in through the window and at night sometimes even the scent of the lime tree. But that belonged in there — its smell was so strong it mocked them.

Sperber had examined Christian’s files but at the moment, he said, apart from the cigarettes there was nothing he could do for him.

‘We must wait for the indictment. You will be indicted, young man. And until then you will continue to be remanded in custody. — Your parents are very worried.’ His tone changed to one of fatherly concern, then of mild reproach. ‘They know where you are. How could you get carried away like that? Your father taught you how to avoid that. Remember Herr Orré’s lessons. Are they to have been so much wasted effort?’ So the lawyer knew about that. Now he was smiling, anticipating Christian’s question. ‘Word gets round, Herr Hoffmann. But you’ve done something very stupid. In fact you quite often, so it seems to me, do stupid things.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘How you meant it is neither here nor there. What matters is what is in the files and you signed the transcript.’

‘But the situation —’

‘Courts don’t concern themselves with situations,’ Sperber broke in, giving his arm a friendly pat, ‘but with verifiable facts. I feel sympathy for you, certainly, but sympathy gets us nowhere.’

‘Herr Doktor Sperber.’ Christian found he suddenly had to fight back the tears, which seemed to embarrass the lawyer, his expression cooled. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’

‘We’ll have to wait and see. It doesn’t look that bad. Don’t worry about that for now. — Have you always wanted to study medicine?’

‘N-no,’ Christian said, surprised.

‘Good. So you do have alternatives. It’s better not to get too set on one thing. Well, chin up, young man. Things will sort themselves out, I’m doing my best.’

Waiting . Christian was getting fatter, his skin was pale and puffy.

‘That’s the food and the lack of exercise,’ Kurtchen said. At some point Christian stopped being bothered at using the toilet in the cell. It did bother him if the door was flung open at the moment when he was squatting down on the seat and the PO ordered a room count. In the evening Christian sometimes recited poems, Once more the valley quietly fills / with your misty glow … Twilight spreads its wings once more. Korbinian leant against the window and recited psalms. Kurtchen would stay silent then. If Korbinian became too loud the key would crash in the lock and the guard take Korbinian out of the cell: ‘At the double!’

The trial was set for 6 June 1986. It was a sunny day. After breakfast Christian was given a food bag.

‘We’ll see each other again,’ Kurtchen said.

‘You think so?’

‘You’re not going to get out of here,’ Korbinian said cheerfully. ‘The Lord be with you. Farewell and forgive us.’

‘Farewell and forgive us,’ Kurtchen cried as Christian went out of the cell door. He was taken to Transport, but first to Effects. Christian was shown his possessions, had to check them, sign that they were all there.

Handcuffs. The long corridors lit by bare bulbs and smelling of floor polish. The light outside hit Christian like a blow in the face. He lifted up his hands, the movement alarmed the accompanying officer, who immediately drew his pistol. The Black Maria drew up.

The Black Maria was grey. The door was opened, Christian pushed in. A guard took over. There were little cells inside the Black Maria, each with room for one delinquent. Tip-up seats, no windows. The Black Maria set off, cell bolts clanking; Christian listened to the slow resolution of the clink-clank of the bolts that were outside the basic rhythm, after a while all the bolts were in time with each other, a vigorous metallic ringing, comforting and oddly full of the joy of living; then it dissolved again, in a mirror image of the synchronization, into individual rhythms.

‘Get out.’

Remanded in custody . Once more he was taken down long subterranean passages. The walls were sweating, damp had left patches on the ceilings, some looked like the clouds of smoke at the mouths of cannons that had just been fired. Christian and the other detainees from the Black Maria went ‘yoked’, their handcuffs had been chained together.

‘Halt!’ They waited by the wall in a corridor, hands raised. Christian was put in a custody room in the basement. There were six bunks, four already taken. The door slammed shut. The toilet was under a barred window.

‘Welcome to Ascania,’ one of the detainees muttered. ‘What are you in for, then?’ By now the answer came automatically to Christian’s lips.

‘Food for the national economy,’ the detainee replied with a grin. His front teeth were missing. No questions, that was something Christian had learnt by this time. It wasn’t his place to ask questions, the others, the older ones did that, not him.

During the night he heard shouts. At first he thought he’d been dreaming but the man on the bunk next to his was restless, grunting, perhaps in his sleep. The air was cold, the cell bathed in the bluish glow of the nightlight. Christian lay there, motionless, arms along his body, under the blanket. He suddenly sensed that no one else was asleep. The light sleep of prisoners … That wasn’t true. In the tram in the first detention centre, on Coal Island, most had slept a deep, snoring sleep. Even Kurtchen had slept well and wasn’t so easily disturbed. Not even by the shouts, which had always woken Christian, or so he thought.