Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

The Stenzel Sisters’ gramophone had fallen silent. The Westminster chimes sounded four times, then two strokes: two in the afternoon. Anne would be home from work soon and Robert back from school. Then there would be voices, noises, unrest; Caravel would drift back into a far-off dreamland, memories in Magellan’s telescope. Christian closed his eyes. He thought of Verena.

In the evening the Rohdes came over. ‘Ill, are we?’ asked Ina, bringing a whiff of Koivo deodorant with her and Christian felt ashamed that he hadn’t aired the room. Ina sat down on the edge of the bed, ran her eye over Robert’s footballs, Terence Hill and Ornella Muti, crossed her legs, jiggled her foot. She was wearing high-heeled court shoes, fishnet tights and a miniskirt. ‘And how are things?’

‘Not bad. And you?’

‘Lots of stress at the university. Useless room.’

Christian was sweating but he pulled the blanket up over his chin because he had a spot there. Voices sounded in the corridor; Ulrich came in. ‘What’s that Fernau prescribed for you, the drunken wretch?’ Ulrich stretched out his hand, his left hand, and, as so often, Christian fell for it and grasped the back of his hand; Ulrich liked that kind of joke.

‘Dad.’ Irritated, Ina raised her eyebrows, which had been plucked to thin arches. ‘That’s defamation, you know.’

‘Who cares … that schnappshound … I’m furious with him, furious, furious! I can’t tell you how furious I am. Look.’ He showed Christian his inflamed right index finger. ‘He treated it as a “swelling of unknown origin”, differential diagnosis: “result of an unremembered hammer blow” — does he think I’m off my head?’

‘Well, you should have gone straight to Uncle Richard.’

‘And now it hurts, it’s throbbing and I can’t get to sleep. I’ve put some aluminium acetate on it, but it’s not done any good … And I’m furious!’

‘Dad.’

‘It’s all right for you to talk, you’ve no idea what it’s like when you’re this furious … and your finger’s this sore!’ Ulrich slapped his right hand across his face, which was fleshy and dark blue from his heavy growth of beard. Ulrich was bald on top; lower down, his head was wreathed in thick, rampant Latin curls that Wiener, the barber, cursed because they blunted his scissors; he had hair on his back and on his impressive belly, which Christian knew because in the winter Ulrich liked to stomp around in the snow wearing bathing trunks, to fall down, howling, and make an angel, though he preferred to call it an eagle, that is to make fan-shaped marks in the snow with his outstretched arms. Afterwards he would have a toughening-up shower with the garden hose, if it wasn’t frozen. His eyebrows were so thick they shone like two slugs; his only similarity to Anne and Meno was in the colour of his eyes: brown with green speckles. ‘Unremembered hammer blow, have you ever heard such a stupid diagnosis … Especially as I’m not left-handed.’ Ulrich started to stride up and down the room. ‘That lousy puffball, I’m furious. I’ve got this great fury inside me and I’m not going to let it go to waste!’ He looked for an empty space on Robert’s desk and slapped it several times with the flat of his left hand, accompanying it with strangled cries. ‘Out with it, out, out!’ He grasped the tops of the table legs and shook them, at the same time moaning with pain, for he was using his swollen index finger, squeezing the table leg as if it were one of the long Borthen potatoes he was determined to squash; he went red in the face from the strain of trying not to break anything while at the same time giving free rein to his fury, like a berserker whose frenzy threatens to increase because it is not allowed to be really frenzied and therefore provokes laughter.

In his mind’s eye Christian could see the impression in the iron balustrade on the Brühlsche Terrasse that was supposed to have been made by August the Strong with his thumb … Bored, Ina jiggled her feet. Ulrich seemed to have calmed down, for he was staring at the football pictures on the table, arms akimbo. Now there would be a special footballological quarter of an hour: Ulrich could always talk about football and knew simply ‘everything’ — at least he knew as much as Robert, and that was saying something.

‘What’s this, Chrishan? Laid up again, are we? In Fernau’s firm hands? And feeling more bitter than better, closed now those songster’s lips of yours?’ That was Aunt Barbara, known to the family as ‘Enoeff’ — she pronounced the English word ‘enough’ as if it were Saxon and used it, together with a determined karate chop, to indicate that some matter had been decided once and for all. ‘How are things at school, apple of my eye?’ Robert was the potato of her eye. Christian didn’t answer at once and Barbara was immediately worried, sat down on the bed and waved Ina and Ulrich away.

‘I was just going to have a chat with him about football, Bubbles.’

‘Enoeff!’

‘Dynamo against BFC!’

Christian shot up. ‘When?’

‘Enoeff, I tell you! Out!’

Ulrich gave Robert’s net of footballs an appreciative thump with his fist. His face twisted. ‘You’ll have to get a move on, Cuddles.’

‘Don’t call me that, Dad,’ Ina protested, ‘how often do I have to tell you?’

‘Out you all go. There’s a sick guy here, he needs some peace and quiet. — Did he lose his temper again? He’s impossible. And I’m married to him. Shows no consideration whatsoever and here you are, ill in bed. Men! … I tell you, Chrishan … You’re young and foolish and you meet them and before you know it, whoops! you’ve got a bun in the oven! I’m only telling you this because I hope you’re not like that. And don’t start something with Ina, that … wouldn’t be a good idea. Where would it lead, cousins …? I recently read an article about the risks with incest. You mustn’t let it go any farther, believe you me. I’ve already had a hint of the odd disaster. God, I’ve lost any influence over that child. She does what she wants and the guys she brings home, they’ve all got long hair and smoke! And listen to that horrible music. Chrishan’ — she took his hand and leant over him, her blue-grey eyes with the fine mascara lines round them looked like porcelain discs — ‘listen to me. You know what I always say … you mustn’t be a pipsqueak in this world. No, definitely not. We’re not big shots, no, not by a long chalk. But we’re not pipsqueaks either. — So, how are things at school?’

‘Quite good —’

‘You’re saying that out of modesty, aren’t you? You Hoffmanns have a tendency to keep things in a low key. Quite right too. What do you think of my new hairstyle? Sorry for putting you on the spot like that, but no one ever tells me anything. — You don’t have to say anything if it embarrasses you. I have great sympathy for the male psy-kee. You know that. And you read such a lot and people always say the more a person reads, the more problems he has with words. If you think my hairstyle’s good you can, for example … just give my hand a squeeze.’ Barbara smiled and shook her head proudly.

‘Were you at Schnebel’s?’

‘What an idea! I don’t go to that cheap hairdresser. Chrishan — it can’t look that bad, can it?’ The expression on Barbara’s face was the one she had when she stroked Chakamankabudibaba’s back and said, ‘You looovely cat’, as if she were checking what part of the coat she was working on at the moment its soft fur could be used for. ‘You do give a person a fright! I went to Wiener’s, of course. He’s the only one who understands women’s hair. It’s so difficult to get an appointment with him … Even those women from East Rome want to go to him, despite the fact that in ’56 … I think he even went to jail, down there in dear old Hungary. If only they knew? But I’m sure they do know, those … tarts. Yes, that’s the word. Wiener’s an old charmer and a bit eucalyptical as well — I mean, that toupee! He really shouldn’t, especially one that’s as black as liquorice — and he’s sure to be well into his fifties. And the hairnet as well. I mean — a man! And a hairdresser into the bargain. With a hairnet and that hussar’s moustache! At his prices … And then he walks in such a lah-di-dah way’ — Barbara had got off the bed and was imitating Lajos Wiener’s gait — ‘his hands raised as if he had to waddle along on them, and then he wiggles his hips and lisps, “I hope we shall see you again soon, dear madam.” My God, with his waiting list?! Then he gives you such an outrageous wink, screwing up the whole of his cheek, you have the feeling there must be a gypsy band lurking in the background and someone’s going to start hammering with those thingies on the what-d’you-call-it … You know, those little hammers that look like the spoons in the milk bar and those … zithers. Yes. Those boards with strings over them on which they … magyarize!’ She sat down again, stretched out her fingers with their generous complement of flower-rings, regarded her nails with their raspberry-coloured paint. ‘You know, Chrishan, I’m not just asking you for fun. The women at work are just jealous, you can’t talk with them about that kind of thing. They don’t tell you whether it looks good, for if they say that, they’d say it would ’ve been better if they hadn’t said that. Of course Ina thinks: the aged parent’s gone off her rocker. And of course I could ask Snorkel’ — that was what Barbara called her husband — ‘but he’d just mutter, “That’s really great, Bubbles”, but wouldn’t even look up from his SoWe — Soccer Weekly or whatever the magazine’s called. But you: I can ask you. I know that. You have an honest opinion and eyes in your head as well. Wiener, the man who won’t admit to fifty, just tells you what you want to hear because he wants you to come back. — I can see you’re too embarrassed to tell your aunt how much you like it. It’s nothing to cry over. After all, we’re all going to end up in communism and then we’ll have to cut off our hair anyway. Enoeff, my dear. You mustn’t talk so much, it’ll just tire you out. Have a good sleep.’