Uwe Tellkamp - The Tower

‘I think they’ve gone already,’ said Herr Krausewitz. He was weeding and paused a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. ‘We’re going to have a summer like we haven’t had for ages,’ he said, more to himself than to Christian, ‘I bet it’ll be even crazier than last year. — Where are you off to?’

‘To the Langes’, we’re spending the night at Uncle’s.’

‘He’s gone to the Association congress, so I heard. Give him my best wishes.’

There was a fountain in the garden of Dolphin’s Lair, a stone dolphin reared up over the mossy rim, a jet of water came out of its mouth and splashed into the basin, the rippling bluish water of which reflected the five-fingered leaves of a horse chestnut. The girls stopped and listened, Heike drew the scroll ornament over the cornice, the door flanked by sandstone pillars with the bee lily above it, and Christian dug up secrets about Frau von Stern, the former lady-in-waiting who had known Kaiser Wilhelm and the last Russian Tsar, going into raptures about her apartment and her souvenirs when he saw he was making an impression; only Verena remained suspicious and asked how he came to be familiar with her apartment. Christian told them about the evenings, with the invitations to the soirées written by hand or on typewriters, when they would gather together, when ice-patterns spread over the windowpanes and Plisch and Plum in Hauschild’s coal store were only weighing out damp brown lumps that didn’t heat the apartments at all; when they all sat together in Guenon House, in Roeckler’s School of Dancing, in Elephant opposite the House with a Thousand Eyes or at Frau von Stern’s listening to a talk by the music critic, Däne, on Weber’s oboe concerto or by Hoffmann, the toxicologist, on poisons; when they discussed the latest rumours from town and country over sandwiches and mineral water. But only Reina was still listening when he looked up, Verena had gone on ahead to join Falk and Siegbert, and Heike was immersed in the perspectives of a shoe dangling from a rhododendron by the remains of its lace. Ina was standing outside the Italian House with a few of the ‘long-haired individuals’ Barbara complained about, one was holding a stereo recorder to his ear that was emitting the boom of tender, brutal music. Ina waved. ‘Hey, cousin of mine, what are you doing here?’

‘Celebrating the end of exams. We’re going to the Bearpit, sleeping at Meno’s. What’s that you’re listening to?’

‘Yeuch, the Bearpit,’ one of the long-haired group drawled, giving Christian’s summer suit a disparaging scrutiny. ‘’s called Feeling B .’ The one with the stereo recorder turned it up louder. Christian introduced the others.

‘Hi, pretty man,’ Ina said brightly. ‘Siegbert’s something different, most of the ones I know are called Ronny or Mike or Thomas. — Your girlfriend?’ Verena put her hands behind her back.

‘Perhaps we’ll see you later, you never know. You’re going to the Langes’? I like the old geezer with his sailor’s yarns, haven’t seen him for ages. — The Bearpit’s a waste of time today, we’re heading for the Bird of Paradise.’

‘Heading’s good, getting in’s the problem,’ muttered the one with the recorder and he pressed stop.

‘We’ll make it, you can trust me. I know the bouncer, I just have to let him see a bit of leg. — If you make it there, pretty man, I’ll reserve a dance for you.’

Siegbert put on his most unfathomable smile. Falk raised his hand but one of the long-haired lads pushed it back down: ‘She says for him, not for you. Right?’ Falk blew out his cheeks. As they went on, Christian heard laughter and ‘Village clodhoppers’ and ‘Hey, guys, look at him, home-made gear.’ Siegbert, who was a few paces in front of Christian, turned round. ‘Does that bother you?’ He grabbed the youth, who gave a yelp of surprise, by the hair and pulled him towards him, grasping his earlobe with his free hand and twisting it, the other dropped to his knees, Siegbert thumped him. It all happened very quickly; Ina was the first to recover. ‘Hey, we didn’t mean it that way. — I like you even more, pretty man.’

‘Stupid bitch,’ Verena, who had come to stand next to Christian, fumed. ‘Are all your relations that arrogant?’ Ina said nothing, looked her up and down, seconds during which the two groups subjected each other to hostile scrutiny. ‘She’d be the one, cousin dear.’ Ina burst out laughing; it wasn’t malicious, it was like spraying water by holding the end of the garden hose tight on a hot day, the long-haired youths laughed as well, even Reina and Falk. Siegbert shrugged his shoulders. Verena and the one he’d thumped didn’t laugh. He checked his trousers, switched the recorder back on.

‘Sorry,’ Christian apologized when they reached Mondleite, ‘that’s just the way she is.’ He nodded to Siegbert. ‘And what was said about your things isn’t what she really thinks, her mother makes clothes as well herself. I’d be glad if I could do so,’ he added. Siegbert didn’t respond.

‘We have to wait for Heike, our slowcoach.’ Reina was being nasty: Heike hadn’t seen anything of what had happened and was surprised when the others exchanged glances.

‘How’s your application going? When will you hear if they’re taking you?’

Heike squinted at Falk, rolled her shoulders, blew a lock of hair out of her face. ‘No idea.’

‘What was it you had to draw?’ Verena asked.

‘A shoe —’ She leafed through her sketchpad and showed them the shoe she’d discovered in the rhododendron. ‘They wanted it from all possible perspectives. Stupid but int’resting.’ The sketchpad was handed round, they admired the strictly naturalistic drawings of the shoe. Seen from the front, it had blue eyes. Siegbert was now walking a few paces ahead of them. Christian closed his eyes and opened them abruptly, as if they were the shutter of a camera, as if he wanted to retain snapshots of Siegbert in his memory: a slim young man in light-coloured clothes such as a ship’s officer or a member of Louis Alvarez’s entomological expeditions could have worn, had it not been for the bizarre details: Siegbert had sewn a purple button on the left leg, at the calf, triangles of green cloth under the armpits and a zip running diagonally across the back. Eyes open-shut, open-shut, on the inside his eyelids were orange, Christian saw Siegbert kicking away a stone, Siegbert raising his head when a tug’s siren boomed from the Elbe, Siegbert throwing a stick to knock an apple, wrinkled by the winter frost, off the tree and lobbing it to Verena; Siegbert and Verena, who was walking beside him and placed the apple on a fence after one bite and dropped back to Reina and Falk, walked on in front again, looking at the street through a monocle of green glass she carried on a string round her neck. The windows in Elephant were open, Frau Teerwagen was putting a bowl of punch on the balcony table. Doctor Kühnast was washing his Škoda. Heike was looking at the rose hedges, covered all over in blossom, of the House with a Thousand Eyes and shaking her head.

‘What is it?’ Christian asked, ringing the Langes’ bell; Meno had left the key with them.

‘No, no, I won’t paint that, that’s kitsch,’ Heike declared.

‘But it is there,’ Falk said teasingly.

‘That there is there.’ Heike pointed to the copper beech that was breathing like a rust lung.

The Langes had laid the table out in the garden, had set up the round iron table, which hibernated in the garden shed with flower pots, the chopping block and sawing horse, in the overgrown lower part as they did every summer; the round iron table at which the ship’s doctor and Meno, sometimes Libussa and Niklas Tietze, would tell stories.