Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

It was cold in the cabin; the tall cylindrical stove beside the door was only lukewarm, so Christian went to fetch a few briquettes and put them in. They clattered down the cast-iron shaft, flames shot up. In the bathroom next door, which the Langes, the Stahls and Meno shared — only the top-floor apartment had a small bathroom of its own — he washed his hands and shaved with the chunky Bebo Sher razor he had been given by his father. Then he changed, leaving his bag, still with all his things in it, on the bed where Anne had laid out linen, blankets and pyjamas for him, looked round the room once more and drew the curtain over the bullseye window before going downstairs.

He fetched the bag in which he’d put the barometer, left the kitchen door ajar for Chakamankabudibaba, checked his tie in the mirror. Now it was quiet; he could no longer hear Libussa’s television. He picked up the key and put out the light. As he closed the door, he heard the ten-minute clock strike five times; the chimes seemed to come from far, far away.

‘The beautiful, refined Felsenburg, hot and cold running water in every room,’ he read on the enamel sign by the entrance. Brambles and roses cast shadows across the pavement, which had been swept and gritted as far as Vogelsang’s butcher’s shop. In the street the cars were closely parked — Christian had even seen the Opel Kapitän belonging to the director of the Surgical Clinic.

In the foyer, facing the stairs that led up to the rooms, there was a sign on an easel: PRIVATE PARTY — PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB. A bit of a cheek, Christian thought; after all, the Felsenburg did also offer accommodation and even though he knew from what his parents said that there was a direct connection between the goodwill of the restaurant staff, encouraged perhaps by repeatedly rounded-up bills, and the availability of certain tables close to the stove — especially now in winter — or clearly in the waiter’s field of vision, he could still, as he slowly walked towards the restaurant door, put himself in the place of one of the poor people who were staying the night but otherwise weren’t to disturb the private party. So there! But what had they had to eat?

‘Ah, the Herr Doktor’s eldest son, if I’m not mistaken?’ A half-smile flitted across Herr Adeling’s cheeks. ‘Of course you are, you’ve been here before, I remember. But you’ve grown since then, oh yes, tall oaks from little acorns grow, as they say. This way, please, your father’s birthday party has almost commenced.’ Herr Adeling hurried out through the flap in the reception desk and calmly took Christian’s coat. He was wearing classic waiter’s tails and there was a badge on his chest with his name engraved in clear, legible letters. He was against the decline in standards in the catering industry. One of Reglinde’s friends was in training with him and she had told Christian what that meant for the ‘bu-bils en-drusded to my kare’. That he only fell into the Saxon dialect in places where any genuine Saxon venturing out onto the slippery ice of High German would fail hopelessly could perhaps be explained by the fact that Adeling was still, as Reglinde’s friend, full of understanding, had told them, a ‘worr-k in bro-kress’. Because of his centre-parting and manner of speaking, the trainees had nicknamed him ‘Theo Lingen’ — like the film actor, Herr Adeling was also fond of pursing his lips, clasping his hands and, after briefly rocking on his immaculately polished shoes, gliding across the dining room, his head tilted to one side and swinging his arms gracefully. He was, as he said, ‘just one lin-g in the chain’, and for him the PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB sign could well be just one more example of the declining standards in the catering industry.

Christian entered the restaurant as the wall clock at reception was striking six. Herr Adeling followed him and stood by the door, hands clasped. All heads turned at Christian’s appearance and, feeling a blush spread over his face, he tried to make himself smaller. He was annoyed with himself. He had delayed setting off by having a look at Meno’s desk, so that the others wouldn’t have time to stare at him — but because he’d arrived on the dot, that was exactly what was happening and the feeling that the eyes of everyone in the room were on him was torture. Without looking at anyone in particular, head bowed, he nodded a greeting in the general direction of the tables, which were arranged in a rectangle and at which there must have been forty or fifty people sitting. On the right he saw the Tietze family, Meno beside them, Uncle Ulrich with his wife Barbara, Alice and Sandor. Anne was at the head of the table, between his father and the director of the Surgical Clinic. As he squinted, red as a beetroot and frowning in embarrassment, towards those seated at the tables, he also spotted Grandfather Rohde and Emmy, Robert’s and his grandmother on their father’s side. Had there been any possibility of going unseen to the empty seat between Robert and Ezzo at the lower end, of simply and suddenly appearing on the chair without anyone noticing, he would have chosen it without hesitation. He was, therefore, grateful that Professor Müller, the short, portly director, stood up at that moment and tapped his wine glass with a spoon, at which all heads turned towards him. By this time Ezzo had carefully pulled the chair back and Christian, on whose face the blush was gradually fading, sat down with a sigh of relief and, having clearly seen Anne’s look of disapproval, made a great show of leaning over to the side and hanging the bag with the barometer over the back of his chair. As he turned, he saw the mildly ironic expression in Meno’s eyes, for it was only recently that he had told Christian about the behaviour of the ostrich: ‘It sticks its head in the sand and waits — believing no one can see it because it can’t see anything itself. But that,’ Meno had added, ‘is not something for your civics teacher. Comparisons between humans and the animal kingdom are only permitted in limited cases, as sure as I’ve studied biology.’

Professor Müller took a step back and stood there, head bowed so that his double chins bulged out over the collar of his snow-white shirt, meditatively rubbing his cheeks, which were so closely shaven they shone like slabs of lard, and making his thick, black, owl-like eyebrows hop up and down. His cuff, standing out against his midnight-blue suit, slipped back, releasing a tuft of stiff black hair that continued down the back of his hand to the base of his fingers; he wore a signet ring on the little finger of his right hand. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, clearly the notes for a speech, glanced at it briefly and put it back with a weary flap of the hand. It didn’t go right in but stuck, like a blade, several centimetres out of his pocket, so that Müller had to push it down with a delicate but firm tap. He cleared his throat, patted his upper lip with his signet ring.

‘Ladies and gentlemen. Goethe himself said that in the life of a man his fiftieth birthday is one of special significance. We take stock, look back on what we have achieved, consider what is still to be done. Our time of storm and stress is over, we have found our place in life. From now on, as my teacher Sauerbruch used to say, there is only one organ we can count on for continued increase: the prostate gland. Exceptions, of course,’ he said, stretching out his hand and waggling his fingers, ‘only serve to prove the rule.’

Laughter from the surgeons: the roar of dominant males; their wives lowered their heads.

‘The ladies will, I hope, forgive me this short excursion into the urogenital tract — I can see I will have to cut out these jokes; for a surgeon the unkindest cut of all.’ He nodded to the group of doctors and patted his upper lip with his signet ring again. ‘You will note, gentlemen, that I am borrowing the principle of covering myself from our beloved colleagues in Internal Medicine.’ A hint of mockery flashed across the faces of some of the doctors. Christian had worked in hospitals as a nursing auxiliary often enough to know about the differences between the two main branches of medicine. Müller became more serious.