The Tower: A Novel (97 page)

At times there was a coffee percolator snorkelling away somewhere in the depths of the Museum, at times there was a knocking in one of the painted, uncovered heating pipes running along the wall, at times a drop of water, falling from the damp patches that spread like parasitic flowers on the pale yellow ceiling with its root system of decades-old craquelure, went ‘plop’. When the snow was melting or there was heavy rain, Meno was told, the water didn’t just go ‘plop’, it poured
and streamed, cheerfully babbling, through the damaged roof and down the walls of the building that had formerly housed the Saxon Parliament. At times he also fell asleep, for in the cubicle where he was working the midday temperature on a sunny day was 40°C. And yet he was still as strangely moved by these living beings (even when they were dead they weren’t just things) as he had been as a child: musing on the ravages of time, he stood looking at Steller’s sea cow, which was just as extinct as the Tasmanian wolf, the Carolina parakeet, the passenger pigeon, the huge flocks of which Audubon had described so impressively and that once used to darken the sky over the fields of American farmers; he didn’t dare smooth the turquoise feathers of one of the European rollers he had seen as a boy on expeditions with Kurt and Anne in Saxon Switzerland. Now it had long been extinct in the country, as a card beside it said.

But it was the fate of a fish that moved him most of all, though he couldn’t say why: the Saxon sturgeon, the Latin name of which,
Acipenser sturio
, he murmured to himself like an incantation. Recorded on the Elbe as far up as Saxony and Bohemia, the sturgeon had long since vanished from the region’s rivers; the Zoological Museum possessed the only remaining specimen and even in the lodge of the Association of Elbe Boatmen, where Hoffmann’s barometer came from, they would have looked on it as a tall story, had there not still been an old document over the bar listing their privileges that included the right to fish for sturgeon. – So Meno sat there in the silence, surrounded by little colourful pharaohs stuck on pins, the remains of long-forgotten expeditions to nearby and distant tropics, read, his heart aching with a yen for faraway places, where the lantern flies and other beetles were found (the Museum had an important collection of weevils, Curculionidae, nailed up in stubborn sleep), studied the little maps for the birds lined up in drawers, murmured the names: Philippines, New Guinea, knowing he would never get there; he tried to decipher the regular characters, which looked as if they’d been drawn with a fine brush and
seemed to speak of light and bright matters, of shells from Andaman, New Caledonia (or could it be a sound-scanning system, music?), as he searched for a language that expressed what he felt at the sight of these treasures washed up on the shore of time. Thus he lived in those days. Thus he dreamt.

Christian was back with his unit in Grün. He’d been in the army for over three years now; in normal circumstances he would have been discharged in the autumn and would have started to study medicine in Leipzig. Now he was a soldier, had his school-leaving certificate and nothing else, was doing the extra service that was part of his punishment and that would last until the spring of 1988, to be followed by another year and a half of regular service: discharge autumn 1989. Apart from Pancake there were none of his old comrades left; he saw unknown faces; Nip and the regular officers remained. Nip greeted them with ‘Hoffmann and Kretzschmar – one more incident and you’re back where you’ve just come from. Understood?’ Christian was now squad-room leader, the others looked on him with a mixture of shyness and respect; he had the feeling he was out of synch, a living anachronism, as Meno would have called it. No one asked about Schwedt or Samarkand; he’d had to sign a document that he would say nothing about them. Talking had become foreign to him, if it was unavoidable he restricted himself to what was absolutely necessary. He had signed. He didn’t want to go back. He liked the bread. His comrades were nice, especially the goldsmith. The tanks were good. The sun was lovely.

In the winter of 1988 the theatre evenings started again. It was freezing in the rooms, in the ramshackle buildings, and what better way to get warm than with a glass of grog or a cup of tea while watching a play put on by Erik Orré or Joffe in the Schlemm Hotel, the Tannhäuser Cinema or a private house? Christian was granted extended leave.
Before he went, he had to show Nip his fingernails, his tunic collar bind and sewing kit. It was already dark when he arrived at Dresden Central and he stood waiting for an 11 at the tram stop in his walking-out uniform, his patched kitbag over his shoulder, freezing. The wind was playing in the lamps suspended over the rails, ruffling the edges of poorly stuck posters on the advertising pillars. Country buses went from Leninplatz out to Waldbrunn, Zinnwald, the Westergebirge; the 11 approached from the hill on Juri-Gagarin-Strasse outside the Russian Church and buildings of the Technical University, a bobbit worm with two chemical antennae. Christian sat in the single seat on the right in front of the middle door, it was his favourite seat in the tram: it was good for observation, no one could sit next to you, there was underseat heating that usually worked. The lights were flashing on Prager Strasse. People were rushing past the Lenin memorial in both directions.
Robotron
, the fluorescent writing on the multistorey factory building on Leningrader Strasse promised. The Round Cinema, left behind. ‘Drink Margon Water’ a neon sign on Dr-Külz-Ring recommended. Left behind. Left behind: the Ring Café, Otto-Nuschke-Strasse, Postplatz with its after-work bustle, Thälmannstrasse with the House of the Book. A white banner was hanging from the theatre on which it said, in red letters: ‘ANATOMIE TITUS FALL OF ROME’. ‘Socialism will triumph,’ neon writing on a high-rise building proclaimed. The Zwinger Crown Gate, the wing with the Porcelain Collection were mourning in the brash light of a few construction floodlights, there were gaps in the row of putti on the Long Gallery, there were schnapps bottles and disappointed-looking swans on the Zwinger moat. Rome, Christian thought. No, Troy. This here is Troy. The city seemed cold and alien as never before, the people going home sat there in the unpadded seats, heads bowed, worn out by worries and their days of work, the cardboard signs with the names of stops clattered, knocking against the scratched Plexiglass windows; get on, get off, a swill of lights, of
human exudations, regularly interspersed with the expressionless voice of the driver announcing the stops.

Christian slept in the House with a Thousand Eyes. He had the apartment to himself, Meno was in Berlin for committee and editorial meetings, contentious points in Hermes’s annual programme and outline programme for the future had to be fought through, one of the books Meno had prepared for the acceptance procedure was threatened with being cancelled. The living room was cold, the ash pan hadn’t been emptied; Christian lit the stove, fed Chakamankabudibaba; he purred round his legs, he’d grown old and infirm. The television was on in Libussa’s apartment. Christian wondered whether to go up, but he wanted to be alone. The Stahls’ little girl was crying, the engineer’s powerful voice arguing with the Honichs could be heard on the stairs; the woman’s voice sounded shrill and outraged. When Christian had said hello, Stahl had responded with a curt and, as it seemed to Christian, indignant nod. ‘You’ll have to go to the Querleite bathhouse for a shower, Meno’s registered you with Herr Unthan. Our bathroom and toilet have a schedule of use.’ The last words he shouted upstairs, his hand beside his mouth. The ten-minute clock struck. How soothing the sound was, like something in a dream … In the pool of light from the lamp on Meno’s desk were periodicals (
Sinn und Form
,
Neue Deutsche Literatur
,
Reichenbachia
), the two Schelling books, two of Plato’s dialogues, the
Timaeus
and
Critias
, and, open in the middle of the literature wing of the desk, Judith Schevola’s
The Depths of These Years
. Christian carefully closed it after he’d read the handwritten dedication to Jochen Londoner on the title page. Perhaps the ship’s doctor is in the conservatory, Christian thought, leafing through books about sailing ships and puffing away at a pipeful of Copenhagen vanilla tobacco. Christian went up through the concealed door but found not Alois Lange but the Kaminski twins smoking and watching a colour television. ‘Aha, young Hoffmann. The conservatory’s no longer accessible to all. It’s
now part of our apartment. But if you feel like watching a James Bond video we’ll make an exception this time,’ said Timo or René, casually taking his feet off a chair and offering him it with a gesture of invitation. Without a word Christian went back down the stairs. There was a ring at the door.

‘Evenin’,’ two furniture movers mumbled. ‘We’re supposed to be collecting Herr Rohde’s ten-minute clock.’

Surprised, Christian said nothing.

‘It’s all right. It’s for the play. It’s being put on tomorrow. Herr Rohde said you’d been informed.’

‘One moment, please.’ Christian went to Meno’s desk, found a sheet of paper in the typewriter. A few notes and comments such as Meno always wrote for his guests when he wasn’t there. A PS mentioned the furniture movers. The only strange thing was that, contrary to his habit, Meno had not left a telephone number where he could be contacted. The men waited.

‘Have you any papers?’

The driver handed down a folder. ‘Don’t make difficulties, young man, we have other things to collect. It’s been arranged with your uncle.’

‘I simply can’t imagine my uncle would leave his grandfather clock in the care of complete strangers,’ Christian said. ‘I’ll call him and check.’ He went back in and waited a while. When he came out, the men and the lorry had disappeared.

In the house the noise rose and subsided, there was the clatter of footsteps, a kettle whistled in the Langes’ kitchen, the scratching and scraping behind the walls moved up and down. Herr Honich seemed to be calling someone who was hard of hearing, in his powerful voice he kept bellowing, ‘What? How?’ into the receiver. Christian decided to go for a short walk. Light rain had started, making the black of the copper beech shine, whispering in the gutters. The Bhutan pines were giving off a tangy scent. From the depths of the park came the ‘too-wit’ of an owl. Christian set off for Caravel, went down Wolfsleite, crossed
Turmstrasse, where, grunting and squealing, accompanied by regular chanting of individual syllables by a few of the staff from Arbogast’s institute, a procession of fluorescent fire salamanders the size of crocodiles was going down the street.

‘Well, well, Herr Hoffmann’ – startled, Christian turned round to see Sperber dressed as a weather-glass seller. ‘Have you been given leave? As you can see,’ he went on, nodding towards the salamanders that crunched past on wooden wheels and shouting ‘Good evening, Herr Ritschel’ to one of the figures accompanying them, ‘Joffe’s play’s made a big impression even before it’s started. We’re doing
The Golden Pot
. Your cousin Ezzo’s playing Anselm and Muriel the snake Serpentina – I’ve even seen her laugh again. But now you must excuse me, I have to go to the rehearsal. Ah, our Archivist. Good evening, Herr Lindhorst,’ he said to a man in a long black coat. ‘How was your flight in this weather?’

Falling in with the joke, Arbogast spread out his arms; the material of his sleeves was ribbed, like a bat’s wings. ‘Herr Marroquin had to dig deep in his props box and what he didn’t have the Institute ordered from Herr Lukas and Harmony Salon. The scenery comes from Rabe’s, the joiner’s. Worked out well, hasn’t it? In another place they call it sponsoring. I’m really looking forward to our little play.’ Arbogast waved his stick cheerfully. ‘Best wishes to your father,’ he called out to Christian before he and Sperber, the clink-clank of whose weather glasses was quickly swallowed up by the rain, disappeared in the gloom of Turmstrasse; the yellow patches of the salamanders still glowed in the dark.

Christian turned back. Caravel would be dark and deserted, perhaps there’d be a light on in the Griesels’ living room, on the garden side, or at André Tischler’s; the Stenzel Sisters went to bed early. Anne and Richard were away, Robert in the army, Reglinde at the Tannhäuser Cinema, where the play was to be put on.

Summer
1988 began with red spots. Shaking his head, Herr Trüpel wiped them off the record sleeves. In Binneberg’s café they crawled over the Black Forest gateau, custard pies, marzipan slices and cream puffs, ruining the old ladies’ coffee morning, and formed a crust on the bottles of syrup in the greengrocer’s. They squatted on the picture postcards in the window of Malthakus’s philately shop, lay, weary unto death, between the covers of Postmaster Gutzsch’s books of stamps, crept across his pre-war Pelikan inkpads and sent his St Bernard into itchy spasms. They buzzed in through the open windows of the Roeckler School of Dancing, found Korra’s Paper Boat and Priebsch’s stock of spare parts, hid under Lamprecht’s gentlemen’s hats, sprinkled spots over the cloth at Lukas’s, the tailor’s, were squashed under the characters of the secretaries’ typewriters, ruined Lajos Wiener’s wigs (Meno had never seen the Hungarian in a frenzy of rage: red as a beetroot, hairnet askew, he was holding the fair and dark toupees in both hands and smashing them down again and again on a fire hydrant). They made Pastor Magenstock’s cassock look as if it had scarlet fever. Gave choirmaster Kannegiesser’s organ pipes sore throats. The Rose Gorge below Arbogast House vibrated with dry rustlings and cracklings, like short-wave interruptions to hair electricity, became an infected system of blood vessels; fat bunches of red were stuck to the rose buds and stems: Frau von Stern had never, she said, not even with the Tsar in the summer of ’17, seen so many ladybirds. ‘Where you have ladybirds, you also get greenfly,’ said the pest controllers as they fanned out but could not get the plague under control.

Christian’s unit was to contribute to the national economy, was put on work detail. It was Samarkand again, but this time the open-cast brown-coal mines and he wasn’t there as a convict. The company was allocated a shed in the treeless lunar landscape churned up by excavators and lorries. The beds were made with fresh lemon-yellow linen. Christian’s job was as an assistant on a power shovel. The soldiers were collected from the shed by a lorry and, when the shift was over,
brought back from the shovels and slag-transporters. Christian had been put on night shift, that was where they were most short of workers.