Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

‘May … might I ask for a dance, Comrade Esch … sch … You do have a funny name, Herr …’

‘I don’t think you should dance in your state, Frau Honich.’

‘Ki-king of the f-fancy fish, ha ha. That’s what they call you. Come on, you miserable lord, you … Bolshy-wigg.’

‘Herr Rohde, I think I’ll just go out for some fresh air, are you coming?’

‘Then you dance with me … Nemo … Rohde. Another o’ those funny names. Oops! My brooch’s fallen in your solyanka soup.’

‘Unfortunately I can’t dance, Frau Honich.’

‘Limp-dick … you’re both the same … no toothpaste in the tube … you —’

‘Don’t … please.’

‘— cocksuckers. The pair of you! Pansies!’

‘Yeah, the night shift. And nothing left of the toothbrushes. The news spread like wildfire right across the Republic that there was likely to be a toothbrush shortage in the near future. We had to respond! People started hoarding toothbrushes like mad so that there really was a shortage. But the Japanese helped us. Sent an aeroplane full of toothbrushes at once. In return we sent them some half-timbered houses, from the brown coal, they had to be pulled down anyway. The samurai’re very keen on ’em. Rebuild ’em, in authentic style. And we had our toothbrushes — made in Hong Kong, the Japanese import those things as well.’

‘Whether it’s possible to teach virtue, that’s the problem.’

‘Just look at the Kaminskis. The Honich woman’s just given them a clout round the ear. Does she know what she’s doing?’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please for our solidarity tombola. Don’t worry, every ticket’s a winner! A fanfare for Frau Herrmann, you will all know her from Tele-Lotto , where she makes sure everything’s done according to the rules … Our Comrade First Secretary is drawing the first prize — he unrolls the slip of paper — the furrows disappear from his brow — he hands me the slip of paper — he has won: a sociable get-together over coffee and cakes with veteran workers of the Elsa Fenske Retirement Home!’

‘click,’

said the Old Man of the Mountain.

‘click,

I hear the lighter strike, the blue light flares up, but the wind blows it out; to the East, to the East, the drummer boy cried and the soldier tightened the straps of his knapsack. To the East the tanks rolled on, the Greatestleaderofalltime cried Deutschland Deutschland; the soldier had a comrade, he opened his darling’s letter, laughed as he started to read, a bullet punched a hole in his steel helmet and he fell down, his eyes staring up at the sky. At once another comrade wanted to have his boots

click,

and the soldier was on guard at night when they were bivouacking by the river and he didn’t guard them very well for he was reading a book by moonlight and partisans came at night to the bivouac by the river and stabbed the other guards, who had not gone down to the river, and stabbed his comrades while they were sleeping, finally the company commander’s dog barked and those who could still see saw the soldier pull himself up, he didn’t say anything, didn’t shout anything for he could no longer do that; but the others shouted and grabbed their rifles, shots cries fire the red flashes from the muzzles, and he saw the company cook with a carving knife

you bitch you bitch you Russky bitch

cut the throat of a female partisan, and before that her chapka rolled off into the snow and her hair fell down, her soft blonde hair

click click,

an anthem rings out, hands are raised in the white oval, the Greatestleaderofalltime steps up to the microphone, declares the Summer Olympics, Berlin 1936, as open, a grammatical error the young blond man reflects on for just a second, for in a moment the camera up there on the rails with the bold young woman director will swing round to focus on his troop, the youth of Germany will perform gymnastic exercises, the youth of classical antiquity, the youth of all ages below a sky of blue silk with an aeroplane sliding across like a slim flat-iron, the young man’s pulse is racing, he senses his movements fusing with those of the others, Gau Brandenburg, Gau Breslau, Warthegau, into something higher, hears the stadium announcer’s voice, shimmering with enthusiasm, what a magnificent day, what a magnificent life, then the blond young man seeks out his father’s eye, he’s in the delegation of the Silesian NSDAP, for the first time he looks proud and the blond young man feels something tighten his throat, go through his veins, into his eyes, a swimmer as free as the bright clouds up above.

Snow. Mother Holle shaking out her eiderdowns. An old woman with a kindly face, they sometimes saw it, slumbering in the lakes, quivering and vanishing among the water lilies when the pike awoke. Snow filling the muddy furrows of Russia, soft, creeping snow. The horses’ bodies steamed, the soldier and the sergeant rubbed them dry. They whinnied, fearfully jerked their heads back, shied in their harnesses, their eyes like lumps of pitch. Flakes, hands slowly descending, white, six-fingered hands, stroked his comrades’ hair, shoulders, felt the tents, the radio truck, motorbikes, tanks. White hands cut white osiers, wove white baskets round the bivouac. White feather-hands, scattered down, plunging down, no longer melting; outside Moscow the soldier saw the towers, the Spasskaya and the red star on Lomonosov University, the colourful onion domes on St Basil’s Cathedral; outside Moscow the winter, cross-hatched by the anti-aircraft fire, tightened its frosty vice, the company was caught in its icy jaws. The snow grew coarser, didn’t caress them any more and sometimes the soldier heard scraps of songs or voices drifting towards him, the little mermaid was dead, the red flower was frozen in Malachite Mountain, the soldier thought he could hear the snow rattling, the flakes clinked like little pewter plates. A comrade passed water beside him, it froze up from the ground, he swore and broke it off. Snow packed up the jeeps, the blankets on the horses that nudged the frozen-stiff tents with their frosted nostrils. Snow blocked the tanks heading for Moscow and then the diesel froze, then the oil froze, and the soldiers of the company saw people hurrying to and fro in the streets of Moscow, saw trams and banners.’

‘And swing to the left, then swing to the right, that keeps your eyes both clear and bright. Dance your way into May, comrade ladies and gentlemen.’

‘What is it that comes up out of the deep sleep of time,’ Meno heard Eschschloraque murmur, ‘out of the deep sleep of time and then, Rohde, this melody quivering up, this swan-white melody flickering, yes, flaring up, a star over Moscow, and Levitan spoke, but you know him, don’t you know him? You were a little boy, I know, I know your father, I knew your mother, what is it that comes up out of the deep sleep of time?’

‘click,’

said the Old Man of the Mountain, ‘goebbelstongue crackled from the radio, Lale Andersen sang Lili Marlene and Zarah Leander sang I know some day a mi-hiracle will come, Christmas on the German front line, and Goebbels shouted and the Greatestleaderofalltime shouted and the voices on Reich radio and the Russians shouted. Urrah, urrah, they broke out from Moscow, at first black dots on the white background, pinpricks, intermingling swarms, then lumps, then nests and then the tanks came at us from both sides and ours were stuck there, tracks broken by ice, and had no fuel and one comrade shot a bazooka at the oil tank of a T34 that sprang a leak, the oil a black trail in the snow that caught fire, spiders of flame ran over the tracks, but the T34 drove on, they could drive without oil, and then over the comrade in his tank-hole, turn to the right first, the soldier emptied his magazine but it just went ping ping ping on the sides of the tank, then turn to the left, until his comrade’s cries could no longer be heard, and then across and the soldier picked up a handful of snow and looked at it, he couldn’t think of anything else