Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

It was clear that Scheffler, the Rector of the Medical Academy, didn’t know exactly what course to set: on the one hand Comrade Leonid Ilyich had died, scarcely two months ago, and the great ship of socialism was drifting along, leaderless. On the other, Christmas was approaching — and every restriction beyond a certain limit would be interpreted not as respect for the dead, but as weakness, and an expression of paralysis. Richard glanced round the Rector’s office, Brezhnev’s gorilla face, with the sly look in his deep-set eyes beneath his bottle-brush brows, the black lines across the corner of the photograph, next to it the Comrade Chairman of the State Council in a grey suit before a sky-blue background, a winning smile on his lips; then the series of Scheffler’s predecessors.

‘So you’re rejecting my lecture?’

‘Please, Herr Hoffmann.’ Scheffler made a gesture of irritation. ‘You must understand my position. It’s bad enough that this stupid battle of the Christmas trees is starting again.’

‘We hardly have any painkillers, Rector.’

‘Yes, I know. The pharmacist came to see me this morning. There’s one thing I’m asking of you Herr Hoffmann — don’t panic. We’ll find a way to deal with it. This very day I’ve an appointment with Barsano. His wife will be there. I’ll ask for the Friedrich Wolf to help us out.’ That was something that hospital had never done, Scheffler knew that, Richard knew that. ‘Don’t panic, that’s the most important thing at the moment. There are enough rumours as it is. And what we’ve discussed is just between ourselves, yes?’ Wernstein said, as he and Richard were washing their hands outside the operating theatres: ‘They say the Internal Medicine people have found a beautiful Christmas tree.’

‘And ours?’

‘The senior nurse was at the Christmas Market, the Christmas tree stall: just the halt and the lame.’

That meant that the Surgical Clinic was in danger of losing the competition for the best Christmas tree, and to Internal Medicine of all people! That, it was decided in a specially convened meeting, must not be allowed to happen. In the Orthopaedic Clinic Wernstein had seen a rachitic specimen that had probably grown to maturity in the dry sand of Brandenburg; in the Eye Clinic a well-proportioned, charming tree, but scarcely five dioptres tall; in Urology a hulking great Douglas fir, ten foot wide at the bottom but only eight high, moreover it ended in a three twigs arranged like a whisk. Neurology was entering one from the Christmas Market, three foot wide at the bottom and twelve foot high, thin, brittle and touchy, for it had immediately started to shed its needles and still hadn’t stopped.

That evening Richard went to Planetenweg. Kühnast didn’t have a telephone at home and the porter at the pharmaceutical factory hadn’t been able to put him through. Richard had rung the House with a Thousand Eyes and asked Alois Lange to put a note on the chemist’s door. All over the district there were boxes on the doors, with a pencil on a string, for that kind of message. Please knock, bell not working, it said under Kühnast’s nameplate.

‘Ah, Herr Hoffmann, do come in. I saw Herr Lange’s note. — No, no, you can keep your shoes on. This way, please.’ They went past bookshelves, with gas and electricity meters ticking between them, and into the living room. Ground-glass doors, damp patches on the hall ceiling, fine cracks, plaster flaking off. ‘My wife’s made a few sandwiches.’ Kühnast pointed to a tray. ‘What would you like to drink?’

‘One of your liqueurs, if you don’t mind.’

A pleased expression flashed across Kühnast’s face. ‘Of course, we’re only at the trial stage. Has it’ — the chemist adjusted his glasses, which had been mended with adhesive tape — ‘got round to you then? I can recommend the peach.’ Kühnast poured him a glass and watched Richard as he tipped the liquid — it was a lurid sunset-red — down his throat. ‘Strong.’

‘Isn’t it?’ The chemist sat down, crossed his legs. ‘Right then. What can I do for you, Herr Hoffmann?’

Richard described the problem. ‘… so I thought that you, being in the pharmaceutical factory …’

‘At the source.’ Herr Kühnast nodded and, after a while, took off his spectacles and dangled them by the mended earpiece. It would soon be Christmas, he said, in measured tones. Richard didn’t quite understand. The Dresden Christmas stollen was famous, and justifiably so, Kühnast went on. Butter, sugar, flour, candied peel, sultanas — and every year it was becoming more and more difficult to get hold of the exotic ingredients; Walther’s bakery was increasingly compelled to only bake them if the ingredients were supplied. Sultanas, where could you get those? And the stollen ought to be rich in fat, when you squeezed it, the cut end should be damp, the stollen should be heavy, nourishing, rest comfortably in your stomach for a while, sweet but not sickly-sweet company for the digestive enzymes, the stollen should be rich in sultanas, the stollen should be from Walther’s bakery. ‘Twenty of them, Herr Hoffmann. All my relations, you know.’

With Wernstein and Dreyssiger, the most enterprising of the younger doctors, Richard went to Malivor Marroquin, the costumier’s; each of them hired a Father Christmas outfit. ‘A bit uncomfortable, but it’ll work. And we need camouflage.’

They parked the car with its trailer on the edge of the heath. The moon peered through the tops of the trees, making the snow beside the forest track shine like corrugated zinc. Dreyssiger shouldered the saw, Wernstein took the axe, Richard the bolt cutters.

‘As long as nothing goes wrong,’ Wernstein said. ‘If we’re caught, we’ve had it.’

‘Nah, we’ll manage it,’ said Dreyssiger, who was in high spirits. ‘Who dares wins. Or are you going to chicken out, Thomas?’

‘If only this stupid beard wasn’t so itchy. I’d guess it’s been stored in tons of moth powder. That’s what it smells like too.’

‘Careful from now on,’ Richard cautioned them. ‘It’s about ten minutes to the plantation from here. It’s guarded. By Busse, the forester, in a raised hide, and a soldier. The local pastor told me that. Busse will probably have his dog with him.’

Grinning, Wernstein help up half a blutwurst.

‘Excellent.’

‘I hate blutwurst, boss.’

‘The best tree is in the middle, slightly apart from the rest. It’s said to be clearly visible from the hillock before the plantation.’

‘Pretty well informed, your pastor.’

‘No one can stop him combining his woodland walks with observations. But let’s get on. The plantation’s fenced off, Busse’s hide is about fifty metres from the track; the soldier patrols the fence. We’ll creep up cautiously — and then this here.’ Richard held up the bolt cutters. ‘Snip, snip, snip and we’re through. Herr Dreyssiger, you and I will crawl over to the corpus delicti and saw it down. Herr Wernstein will keep a look-out. Can you imitate an owl?’

Wernstein put his hands together and blew into the gap between his thumbs.

‘Sounds OK.’ Richard gave a nod of approval. ‘Two hoots if things get dicey. From now on not a sound unless it’s absolutely necessary. And in a whisper.’

The baker’s mother had a heart condition and Walther was in principle sympathetic towards Richard’s request. But he had a bakery to run and a private one at that. ‘The taxes’ — he raised his floury hands — ‘the taxes, Herr Doktor. We have to have a new oven but the taxman takes all our profits.’ Richard gave him the sultanas from Alice and Sandor’s parcel.