Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

‘Quasimodo,’ one of them in a more distant corner of the room said.

‘Yes, on his rounds again.’

‘Could be on the fourth, above us, from the echo.’

‘He’s got a dimpled cosh.’

‘How d’you know that?’

‘My arse tells me.’

‘Pull the other one! You’re just having us on.’

‘Italian job, he showed it me, very proud of it he was, before using it. ’s got little bobbles on it — doesn’t leave any blue marks.’

‘A rubber truncheon that doesn’t leave any weals, did you ever hear the like of it?’

‘Just arrived.’

‘And they pay hard currency for that …’

‘Have you ever seen his daughter?’

‘They say she’s in a wheelchair. Our PO told me he’s supposed to be a good father. Looks after her, that kind of thing.’

‘He gives his wife flowers on her birthday and International Women’s Day.’

‘Hey, sonny!’ That was Christian. ‘If he gives you flowers as well — keep your back to the wall.’

‘Otherwise those cyclamen — might turn into a lily wreath, haha.’

‘And your mother gets a telegram …’

‘Exactly!’

‘But you can bribe him.’

‘Nah, y’can’t. I’ve tried it. Thought, even a PO needs winter tyres. Was against his honour … He refused to go along with it.’

‘And?’

‘Well, cyclamen.’

‘We ought to do him in. Just a little bit.’

‘What with? All you’ve got here’s the toilet chain and the plastic stuff would break. And blunt knives.’

‘If I ever meet him outside …’

‘Then you’ve got a long wait.’

Shut it! Saw some logs.’

Lance Corporal Christian Hoffmann

8051 Dresden, Heinrichstrasse 11

SUMMONS

In the criminal proceedings against you, you are required to attend the

Dresden Military Court on

Friday, 6 June 1986, 8.00 a.m.

Also invited to the proceedings are:

Dr Sperber, Lawyer, Dresden and Berlin.

Representative of the Collective … Witnesses …

Ascanian Island . Handcuffed, Christian and Pancake were taken into a round domed room. It bore some resemblance to a lecture hall, there was even a blackboard. Christian saw his parents and Meno; his parents were pale; he avoided looking at them. The guard pushed him and Pancake into the front row of the benches that had been set up facing the table with a red cloth over it. On either side of a grooved column, from which the ormolu was flaking off, there were windows with pot plants on the window ledges. Hung high up on the column was the coat of arms of the German Democratic Republic. Sperber gave Christian’s parents an encouraging smile.

The court entered. Christian and Pancake were jabbed in the back: Up! They got up, Christian stood there even though he couldn’t put his weight on his right leg and, clearly visible to the court (a colonel, an assessor with the rank of captain, a clerk), was wobbling to and fro. The colonel nodded to those present. The representative of the Collective — it was the taciturn goldsmith, who, Christian now realized, was a member of the Socialist Unity Party — read out an assessment of the two accused: Lance Corporal Hoffmann was a suspiciously taciturn member of the army who, despite that, could argue eloquently once he had been drawn out; he liked reading in his free time, once poems by Wolf Biermann. Several times he had described the practice of sealing up the cassette compartment on the radios as ‘daft’; several times he had swept the copies of Junge Welt put out in the day-room off the table in a manner suggesting contempt. As far as performance of his duties was concerned, he had done nothing to draw attention to himself apart from the two incidents during the last military exercise. The judge waved this away impatiently: these were not a matter for the court, would the Comrade Lance Corporal please stick to the matter in hand! Nip was called and took Ina’s letter from Cuba out of his briefcase. Hoffmann had been stubborn, they had frequently had to take corrective measures . Next the evidence was heard. The witnesses stepped forward: Musca, Wanda, the driving instructor who had passed on the company commander’s order to Christian. They were asked about the precise wording of the things Christian and Pancake were supposed to have said. Every one remembered something different. The judge became annoyed. He ordered the interrogation transcripts that the witnesses were to confirm to be read out.

Then the accused were called up to state their case . First Christian, then Pancake. Christian apologized, he’d been confused, in an exceptional situation. Most of all he would have liked to scream, to mow down the whole lousy lot of them (he had to be careful not to let that expression slip out) with a machine gun, if he’d had one with him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Sperber was unhappy with this. Pancake spoke, head bowed, in a low, halting voice. Just like his comrade, he too had not meant it like that. He bitterly regretted his misdemeanour and wanted to make up for it. There was no one there for Pancake, it looked as if he had no relations or, if he did, they didn’t care. The court ordered a recess.

They were taken, handcuffed, to a room where there were two cells in the form of barred cages. Each was given a cage and they had to wait. Christian’s handcuffs were too tight, he pointed it out to the guard. The guard informed the officer in charge, who loosened them a little. Then he asked if they were all right like that. Sperber arrived. ‘You almost did something stupid, Herr Hoffmann, when you pointed out the special situation you were in, I thought we’d discussed that? I told you that that’s my business. Control yourself, otherwise you’ll just make things worse.

‘Herr Doktor Sperber …’

‘I know what you want to know. Are you always so impatient? Have a smoke first, calm down.’

‘Will I be acquitted?’

The lawyer looked at Christian in disbelief, then at Pancake, who couldn’t repress a grin.

‘It seems you still don’t really understand what you’ve done, Herr Hoffmann. You said something very bad. I would just advise you not to panic, panic’s always an inappropriate response. From my experience I would say that things aren’t desperate. It’s the breakfast recess now; at lunch I’ll have another word with the judge advocate, we know each other from our student days.’

‘Then I’ll be convicted? Prison?’

‘Don’t keep trying to anticipate decisions. It’s not a question of detention but of the terms.’

‘And … my place at university?’

‘Herr Hoffmann’ — Sperber seemed seriously exasperated — ‘you can’t really be that obtuse.’ Shaking his head, he lit himself a cigarette. ‘There’s one thing I have to tell you. As I’ve already explained to your father, appeals’ — he blew his cigarette smoke out of the window, it wasn’t barred — ‘are as good as never successful. They’re just a waste of paper and can cause you trouble. Accept the verdict as it is. From the outset the courts make their decisions on the principle that the punishment must fit the crime. In your case, in both your cases’ — Sperber nodded across at Pancake, who was immediately roused from his apathetic state — ‘the plain facts constitute an infringement of the laws cited and you, Herr Kretzschmar, must be very careful as to how you act; you will know why.’

In his summation Sperber described the mental state of the accused at the time of the offence as ‘diminished’. He disapproved of what had happened, but at least in the case of Herr Hoffmann it could not be a question of a consistently hostile and negative attitude to ‘our state’. After all, he had been the agitator in the group council of the senior high school and had received the certificate ‘For good study in a socialist school’ several times. He was socially active, had, for example, been editor of several wall newspapers at the high school and the senior high school. And he begged the court to remember his mother’s maiden name.