Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

‘Oh, Herr Hoffmann, are you waiting for someone?’ That was Heinsloe, the senior manager.

‘Me — N-no. Just getting a breath of fresh air.’

‘And quite right too, Herr Hoffmann. Now is the month of Maying … You feel a new man, don’t you?’ Heinsloe rubbed his hands. ‘I had a letter from Herr Arbogast a few days ago. Do you know him? He wrote to say that he’d like to work together with the Surgical Clinic, more specifically with your department. I’m sure he’ll write to you as well. — As far as your application for funding is concerned, I’m afraid no decision has been reached yet. Have you a moment?’ Heinsloe took Richard’s arm and drew him along with him in the direction of the Clinic for Internal Medicine. Richard was not at all in the mood for discussions about budgets, equipment or funding for a special room for operations on the hand that he had requested a long time ago and that was presumably what Heinsloe was talking about.

‘I really haven’t got time, Herr Heinsloe, you must excuse me —’

‘You have to go back to the clinic?’ He was so unprepared for the question that Richard could do nothing but nod. ‘That suits me very well, I was going to come and see you anyway, I can deal with it now. Let’s walk along together, it’ll save you having an appointment with me.’ As he went to the clinic, with Heinsloe’s chatter filling his ear, he was silently cursing the chance meeting there, of all places, with the senior manager, of all people. He only got rid of him in Outpatients.

‘Oh, and congratulations on the award of “Medical Councillor”.’ Heinsloe gave him a conspiratorial wink. Richard had no time to reflect on the broad hint, Nurse Wolfgang was waving to him. ‘Herr Hoffmann, they’ve been looking for you. Phone call for you.’

Richard went to his ward. ‘A Daniel Fischer, sounded pretty young,’ said the nurse who had taken the call.

‘What did he want?’

‘He just said that his mother had been taken into hospital.’

‘Aha. And to which one? Richard asked, leafing through patients’ charts.

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Thank you. Have a nice shift.’ It was only with difficulty that Richard managed to control himself and not to dash off. He called Rapid Medical Assistance from his office and was told that Josta had been taken to Friedrichstadt.

‘Why?’

‘One moment.’ Richard could hear the man wheezing as he got up and rummaged through some papers. ‘Suspected of having taken pills with the intention of suicide. I shouldn’t actually be telling you this, but since it’s you, Dr Hoffmann.’

‘How long ago?’

‘A good hour.’

Richard held down the cradle, closed his eyes. He stood like that for a few seconds, then he could think clearly again.

‘Hello, Anne, I’ll be late today. — No, a meeting in Administration. I met Heinsloe, it’s about the hand operating theatre. — I hope you do too.’ He was surprised he’d managed to sound calm. He went to the washbasin, washed his face, looked at his dripping reflection and spat at it. As he was wiping away the spit with a towel, he noticed a single hair on his cheek that he’d missed when shaving. He went to the cupboard where he kept a full toilet bag for when he was on duty at night, took out his razor and shaved off the hair.

Josta was in Ward 4, the intensive-care unit, of Friedrichstadt Hospital. Richard knew it, he’d often enough had to take patients there in the doctors’ emergency car when he’d been the duty doctor. Moreover he had done his clinical practice there when he’d been a student. ‘Four’, as it was called, was on the top floor of one of the Friedrichstadt clinics that had survived the war. As in all hospitals the strong smell of Wofasept disinfectant, and doctors running upstairs and downstairs. He knew the pale, freckled Nurse Markus with the red beard from the days when he’d been a student nurse on this ward, now he was the nurse in charge of the ward. Because of his beard, which had been impressive even in those days, they’d called him the ‘Evangelist’. Richard had admired him, for when it was a matter of taking a blood sample and everyone failed, they called Nurse Markus … All that went through his mind as he tried to look past Markus and get a glimpse of the resuscitation room. ‘I’d like to see Frau Fischer. We had a call in Outpatients.’

Markus pointed to one of the rooms at the back. ‘She was lucky. In a stable condition now. Her stomach was pumped out, twenty Obsidan tablets. Is she from your clinic?’

‘No. Rector’s senior secretary.’

‘Good grief!’

‘Can I see her?’

‘Five minutes. She’s still under observation.’

‘Nurse Markus —’

‘Hmm?’

‘If our big shots should turn up —’

‘Yes?’

‘Please don’t mention that I was here.’

Markus gave him a swift glance.

‘Can I rely on you? — I ought to be at a meeting.’

Markus looked past him, nodded. ‘We have a duty of confidentiality as well, Dr Hoffmann.’

‘Thank you. Can I phone you? She is your patient, isn’t she? — And it’s brought us together again, hasn’t it?’ Richard concluded weakly, hoping Markus would accept the gesture. He felt uncomfortable, had the feeling all the nurses hurrying hither and thither at the beck and call of the ringing and buzzing of the drips were giving him questioning and reproachful looks; also he didn’t want to run into any colleagues.

‘I’m on early tomorrow morning,’ Markus said, ‘you can phone me.’

‘I can still remember your number,’ Richard said in a further attempt to revive old acquaintance.

‘Do you know her family? Someone who could bring a few things?’

‘As far as I know she has a son. — Have you put her on a pacemaker?’

‘Temporarily. You can go in all the same.’

‘Perhaps it would put too much of a strain on her.’

‘Is there any message I can give?’ Again Markus gave him a swift glance.

‘Best wishes … from Dr Hoffmann.’

He ran down the stairs. He was so embarrassed he wished the ground would swallow him up. Markus had seen through him, he was pretty sure of that. Best wishes … from Dr Hoffmann! In the crumbling, ash-grey plaster of the wide façade of the R-Building, as the clinic in Friedrichstadt was called, many of the windows were open. Crows were croaking in the trees in the middle of the hospital, which was arranged in a square, patients were walking on the paths in the park. The wail of a siren came from the direction of the Yenidze cigarette factory, Richard broke out in a sweat and looked for a bench, his hands over his ears. When he took them off, the siren died away, the bells of Marcolini Palace, in which the hospital Administration was housed, and of the Old Catholic Cemetery on the other side of Friedrichstrasse rang out. It occurred to him that he ought to check on the children. Perhaps they were at home, waiting, perhaps Daniel was running round the streets and Lucie was alone in Josta’s apartment.

He drove on automatic pilot, streets and rows of houses flickered past, he almost missed the signal of a traffic policeman, starting when he whistled and swung his baton round vigorously. He rang at Josta’s door, no one opened. He waited, tried again. Finally he knocked and shouted for Daniel through the gap in the door. ‘Open up, it’s me.’ The door to the toilet on the half-landing opened to the sound of the lavatory flushing, Josta’s neighbour, Frau Schmücke, a divorced assistant in a fish shop who often seemed drunk, came out. ‘An ambulance came earlier on. Must have been pretty serious from all the noise they made. I think the boy’s there, I heard his voice. He called the ambulance. Are you the uncle? Frau Fischer told me about you.’