Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

‘How do you think it’s coming along, Herr Weniger? If only you could get some decent craftsmen. Recently I called the electrician because the geyser wasn’t working. “Payment in Forum cheques, is it?” And he wouldn’t come after six in the evening anyway — at that time he’d be enjoying his well-earned rest.’

‘He wanted a Forum cheque from you? The scoundrel!’

‘Or Western currency, Herr Weniger, which comes down to the same thing.’ The deputy ward sister on South I shook her head in outrage. ‘Recently my neighbour had the plumbers in to install wash-basins and when they heard he couldn’t pay in West German marks, they tipped concrete into his drains!’

‘They ought to be reported to the police, the whole lot of them!’ Weniger thumped the table.

‘Then you wouldn’t get another tradesman for the rest of your life.’ Sister Karin sighed. ‘That’s the way things are. The only solution would be — aren’t you feeling well?’ She looked at Richard, concerned; he waved her question away. ‘It’s all right now. Perhaps I should eat something. And a coffee wouldn’t be a bad idea either. No, that’s all right. I’ll get some in my own ward, thanks all the same. Shall we go, Manfred?’

He could feel their eyes on his back.

In North I they had a coffee; the nurses had put Richard’s mug out ready, an extra large tin mug with his name and the transfer of a laughing swordfish on the enamel; the coffee revived him, it was lukewarm and bitter (everyone he knew thought that was revolting); it was his favourite way of having it because he didn’t have to waste time waiting, he slurped the coffee down, like a drug, in a few greedy gulps. Weniger observed him, taking little sips, very precise, very practised, Richard found it slightly affected.

‘Problems?’ Weniger asked as they were going round the ward.

‘The usual, you know. On top of that I’ve had an exhausting day.’

‘Müller?’

‘No, no. You mean our jokes at the birthday party? Water under the bridge. We’ve other worries.’

‘Should I stop bothering you?’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. Come along, I’ll show you something.’ They went into a room; there were eight beds, each with a white-haired woman in it. A nursing auxiliary was just taking one of them off the bedpan; there was a smell of urine, faeces and Wofasept disinfectant. The women didn’t look up when the two doctors came in, they lay there, apathetic, staring into space or sleeping, their wrinkled hands on the white blankets. The auxiliary cleaned the woman with a few energetic wipes, picked up the bedpan, nodded shyly to them and scuttled out. That patient seemed to notice them. ‘Herr Doktor, Herr Doktor,’ she cried in a thin, pitiful voice, stretching out her arms. They went to her bed, sat down. Richard took her hand.

‘Herr Doktor, is my daughter going to come?’

‘She will come.’

The woman sank back into the pillows, gave a satisfied nod, leant forward again and, with a roguish smile, waggled her index finger at them. ‘You doctors are always telling fibs. Can’t I phone my daughter?’

‘When you can get up. And you can only do that when your broken thigh has healed properly.’

‘Oh, if only I could walk, Herr Doktor —’ She turned her head to the window, began to murmur; her fine, silver-white hair was like spiders’ webs round the old woman’s face.

‘Your daughter will come, I’m sure of that,’ Weniger said.

‘God bless you, Herr Doktor, God bless you. You know,’ she whispered with a sly smile, ‘I’m not mad, as they say in the old folks’ home, I … I’m just so thirsty.’

‘Sit up now.’ Richard picked up the feeding cup from the bedside table and gave her a drink, Weniger supported her.

‘Such a long life …’ She felt for Weniger’s hand, put something in it. He shook his head. ‘Keep it. You have greater need of it than I do.’ He put the mark coin on the bedside table. ‘It’s very kind of you, but please keep it.’

‘Thank you, gentlemen. Will you come again. Oh, it’s not good when you’re old and alone.’

‘We have to go. Here, take this, in case you need anything.’ Richard put the bell in her hand and attached the cord to her sheet with a safety pin.

‘They come from the care homes,’ Richard said outside. ‘They fall over when they’re going to the toilet during the night, break their femur, are operated on and have to stay in bed here until the break’s healed. Two to three months, depending on how quickly it heals. Then they lie in bed and get pneumonia. And that’s what they die from.’

‘Just like in our wards,’ Weniger said. ‘Women from the care homes, with bedsores, undernourished, confused because they’re thirsty. They’re dismissed as old and senile but they’re not, all they need is a bit of liquid. Here they’re looked after, revive — and go back to the care home.’

‘It’s the natural cycle,’ said Richard. ‘They come to you as young women and give birth, they come to me as old women and die. They haven’t got enough staff in the care homes. There’s never anything about that in the newspapers.’

‘Is there no method that makes it possible for them to put their full weight on it and stand up immediately after the operation?’

‘Not yet. Various teams over there are looking into it. I read something interesting recently. The idea is a kind of oversized nail inserted between the head and the neck of the bone. I showed the article to the technical director of the factory that supplies our equipment. Just out of interest, a general inquiry, no obligation. He phoned me: “Impossible. We haven’t even got the machines to make the machines that could make this thing.” ’

Weniger went over to the window, stuck his hands in the pockets of his white coat. ‘Cancer’s on the increase, significantly. Breast and the neck of the uterus, and the patients are getting younger and younger. — By the way, are all your patients so docile?’

‘She was a communist. Worked on the Red Flag , then, after the Nazis came to power, was active underground, went to Spain, to support the Popular Front. Emigrated to Mexico just before the end. Came back fairly late, when those returning from Moscow already had everything under control. Then she helped with building the Republic, once departed from the official Party line and was transferred to a subordinate position in the transformer and X-ray factory. And then she grew old.’

Weniger nodded, gave Richard a sidelong look; he noticed it, but avoided eye contact.

‘Let’s see what your famous supper’s like.’

The start of his spell on duty was unusually quiet. ‘No acute cases?’ Richard asked in Casualty.

‘Not so far.’ Wernstein spread his arms wide. Dreyssiger was looking after a sprained ankle, routine. The nurses were making swabs.

‘Slack tonight.’ Weniger replaced the telephone. ‘My difficult births are — asleep.’

‘Then let’s go over to my place,’ Prokosch, a senior doctor in the Eye Clinic, suggested; he’d been eating in the corner and filling in forms. He was another of the old Leipzig students at the Academy, though he’d qualified two years before Weniger and Richard. He was a brawny, stocky man who looked more like a wrestler than an eye specialist. No one could believe his short fingers, fat as cigars, had the sensitivity and delicacy of touch needed for operations on the eye that often enough, as Prokosch used to say, were as exacting as cutting a tuning fork out of a hair.

‘I’ve got a few cases that’ll interest you two. And we can always get some sleep.’

‘The god of night duty willing,’ said Wolfgang, a male nurse with thirty years’ service behind him. ‘What’s rule number one after it gets dark? Get as much sleep as you can. And be wary of those minutes of quiet — they’re the calm before the storm.’