Phantoms of Breslau iem-3

by Marek Krajewski

  The director felt alcohol-spiced breath on the triple folds of his neck. He turned to bestow a broad and sincere smile upon what he imagined would be one of his guests, and instead saw a dark-haired man he did not know. The man, who was of medium height and slightly overweight, was clenching his jaw and holding out a business card in gnarled fingers: CRIMINAL ASSISTANT EBERHARD MOCK, POLICE PRAESIDIUM, VICE DEPARTMENT IIIB. Wohsedt glanced at his wife, and Eleonore, registering the words “Vice Department” with a flicker of her eyes, moved away with a polite smile.

  “One of your men,” said Wohsedt, reading the words on the business card, “has already been to see me today. Have you also come about those murdered sailors?”

  “Yes, I’m leading the investigation,” Mock said, resting his hands on the polished railings. “I have to establish the identities of the victims.” He took a large envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to Wohsedt. “Take another good look at them.”

  Wohsedt flicked through the photographs carelessly. As he was sliding them back into the envelope, one of them caught his attention. He pulled them out again and considered every detail, turning them upside down and even examining the reverse sides. At length he sighed and returned the photographs to Mock.

  “I don’t know them,” he said and wiped his sweaty head with a handkerchief. “I really don’t know them.”

  “You don’t know them, sir,” Mock said quietly and clearly, “but maybe those working under you, your managers, your foremen, your caretakers — maybe they know them. Maybe the agents who recruit crews for river lines know something?”

  “Do I have to ask all of them?” Wohsedt smiled at an elderly lady and lowered his voice. “Perhaps you’d like me to interrupt my negotiations with the striking workers, stop repairing ships and walk into my office every morning asking the question: ‘Does anybody know anything about the murdered sailors yet?’ Is that what I’m supposed to do?”

  “Yes,” Mock said even more softly.

  “Very well then,” Wohsedt said, yet again baring acrylic teeth. “That is what I shall do. When would you like me to report back to you?”

  “In a week at the latest, sir.” Mock slipped the photographs into an envelope on which he had neatly written: “Tuberculosis of the skin after being bitten by someone with tuberculosis”.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1919

  SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  The cruise ship Wodan, having safely navigated the Burgerwerder and Sand locks, ploughed its way to the small landing stage opposite Sandinsel, at the foot of Holteihohe. Several passengers disembarked to climb the steep embankment, leaving behind the bright, dancing deck where brogues thumped and high heels clattered. Mock was among those leaving, tormented by a keen thirst and chaotic thoughts. His throat cried out for crystalline liquids, his mind for a clear breeze which would disperse the trails of mist and fog that shrouded his capacity for cause-and-effect analysis. He found relief in the garden of the Steamboat Landing Stage Restaurant near Sandbrucke. Admiring the edifice of the modern market hall, he relished a chilled glass of schnapps, which cut the taste of the Bismarck herrings whose silver skins were slashed with black criss-crosses. He divided a hot potato with his fork and slathered half of it with the soured cream coating the herrings. The fork impaled a piece of potato, then speared a slice of onion with a crunch before finally piercing a chunk of apple. In ecstasy Mock slid all these specialities into his mouth and chased them down with some more cold schnapps to stimulate his digestion. Next, he sucked down a long draught of Kulmbacher beer, then sprawled himself comfortably with his legs apart. Threads of gossamer brushed his cheeks and neck. He welcomed imminent drowsiness with warm hospitality. A tall, handsome man approached his table and sat down opposite him. He covered his ears with outstretched fingers through which the yellowish-red fluid began to flow; his ears were bleeding, his eyes were pouring out onto his sailor’s collar. Mock sprang to his feet, knocking into a waiter who was making his way towards two distinguished-looking ladies with some apple cake and glasses of brown liqueur. The waiter neatly tossed the tray from one hand to the other, spilling only a few drops which ran down the glasses’ slim stems.

  Mock raised his bowler hat and apologized to the waiter and the two ladies, then turned to confront the spectre which had disturbed his sleep. In its place, a little sparrow was hopping around on the table, picking at what remained of the potato on his plate. Mock did not shoo it away. He rolled a cigarette of Georgian blond tobacco and lit it, listening to the chimes of the school chapel’s bells. Moments later the frightened bird flapping its wings in his heart had also calmed down. Mock’s thoughts and chain of logic became clearer: “The murderer commits a spectacular crime to force me to admit to some past mistake. Here one has to consider two things,” he explained to the sparrow hopping across the starched tablecloth. “Firstly, the singularity of the crime; secondly, my past mistake. The singularity of the crime might have gone unnoticed if the corpses had been discovered only later, in a decomposed state, after several months, for example. In that case, it would only have been noticeable to Doctor Lasarius and his men, who would find gouged eyes and broken bones even in a jelly of corpses. So why does the murderer count on his luck? But is it luck? Every day a large number of people cross Ottwitzer lock to the island and then continue on to Klein Tschansch. The bodies would certainly have been discovered, and news of the four murdered men would have gone round the whole district and then the entire city. Then there’s my past error, if one is to presume that the victims are there to illustrate the gravity of this error, accusing me through their very absurdity, then none of their characteristics have anything in common with me. The crime is little more than ostentation, form without content.”

  The sparrow flew away and Mock noticed with some surprise and satisfaction that his thoughts were not only mere associations, not only a stream of chaotic images, but were acquiring the form of a small treatise, dictated in perfect, elaborate sentences. The more inebriated he became, the more sober were his thoughts. He forgot about the spectre with lymphatic fluid pouring from his ears, quickly pulled out a notebook and began to write feverishly: “The dead men have two characteristics that have been deliberately emphasized by the murderer. These are the only characteristics we have that can lead us to identify the victims. They were sailors, and their genitals were adorned with leather thongs. Wohsedt will take care of the first aspect; I will deal with the second. Wohsedt is dealing with sailors, and I with lechers. To whom would genitalia be displayed in such a dissolute manner?”

  Here Mock interrupted himself and recalled a certain illegal brothel in the centre of Ring, which he and Smolorz had come to know about via an informer. The stool pigeon had been trying to destroy the competition and at the same time distract the police from his own establishment, which was fronted by a kind of photographic studio. Mock and Smolorz swept both places off the face of the metropolis. In both they had discovered an assortment of outfits and straps, and no shortage of leather underwear consisting of nothing but a belt and suspensoria.

  “It matters not to whom one displays one’s genitalia,” Mock wrote. “More important is where this is done. The answer is: in brothels. Another question springs to mind: what might the victims have had to do with brothels? There are two possible answers: they could either have worked in one, or they could have made use of the pleasures on offer. Unfortunately, utrum possible est. If they were clients at some brothel and wanted to enhance their arousal by wearing suspensoria, then our investigation should begin with an interrogation of all the prostitutes in Breslau.”

  Mock was surprised to note how paper and a pencil appeared to ennoble his morals. If he had been relating his train of thought to someone in speech, he would have said “whores in Breslau”.

  “If, on the other hand, they worked in a brothel to arouse guests of the female sex (after all, Lasarius had ascertained that they were not homosexuals), we have but to delve into the memory of Breslau’
s brothel specialist and ask him: where would a four-man crew serve to enthral female clients?”

  And here Breslau’s most accomplished bawdy-house specialist fell into hopeless reflection which yet another cigarette failed to enlighten. It could only be an illegal brothel, kept strictly secret and intended solely for trusted members. It dawned on Mock that, in fifteen years of working for the police Vice Department, or in his numerous official and unofficial wanderings through the temples of the goddess Ishtar, he had never come across a club where women were not employees, or where men were anything other than clients, or guards there to keep an eye on the clients.

  “And on top of all that, these sailor’s hats!” Mock muttered to himself, forgetting that he was venturing into territory allocated to Wohsedt. “It would have to be an exclusive and secret brothel for society ladies! A Chinaman in one room, a sailor in another, and a soldier in a third!”

  The waiter serving Mock a third glass of schnapps listened to this monologue with surprise and interest, as did the two women of a certain age who were drinking cocoa liqueur at the next table. Mock looked at them intently and set his imagination to work — one of them approaches and asks him: “Kind sir, I would like a sailor … where can I find one?” He glanced again at the ladies nearby and realized how inauthentic such a hypothetical scene sounded. In fact the inauthenticity was so acute that he tasted its bitterness in his mouth. He decided to rinse it out with rowanberry schnapps.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1919

  A QUARTER TO MIDNIGHT

  Mock sat at a table in the dance hall of the Hungarian King Hotel and, holding a square bottle of gin to his eye, observed three couples dancing on an area marked out with coloured lights. The surrounding tables were occupied by a few lone men, all of whom were leaning on the railings encircling the floor, puffing out clouds of smoke, occasionally drinking from their glasses and watching the movements of the dancers. Beyond the tables and up a few steps were alcoves, some with cherry-coloured velvet curtains drawn across them, some with the curtains pulled back. The open alcoves shone with emptiness, and those that were closed resounded with women’s high-pitched laughter. Whenever the head waiter discreetly struck his little hammer against one of the iron curtain rods, Mock pricked up his ears and strained his eyes. The waiter would then draw the curtains aside, and the ladies would adjust their hair and run slender fingers over their velvety nostrils. There were not many men in the alcoves. Mock smelled sweat and face powder, as well as the scent of perfume. The haughtiness with which they addressed the waiters made it apparent that the ladies belonged to high society. Their laughter, on the other hand, was quite plebeian, and greatly aroused the plebeian in Mock.

  The orchestra played a shimmy in the rhythm of a funeral march and it was obvious that the musicians would have liked most of all to return to their former occupation, namely that of immersing their moustaches into enormous tankards of beer. The dance hostesses displayed a typical Monday-morning willingness to work as they turned with studied elegance in the arms of three merry dancers, while their eyes — which Mock could see quite clearly through the magnifying lens of the gin bottle — betrayed reluctance and indifference.

  This observation made Mock think of women of ill repute, who — like dance hostesses tired out after a working Sunday — also concealed smooth apathy in their eyes. Eyes that would usually come to life three times in a session: once when the girl approached her client, once when she feigned pleasure and once when she took his money. In the first two situations, she was generally a poor actress; in the last, an efficient calculator. He remembered his reasoning: the dead men were clients, not employees of a brothel. The thought had been prompted when he had imagined one of the ladies sitting next to him in Michael’s restaurant asking for a sailor-stud, and the image had not rung true. Sensing this inauthenticity at the time, he had resolved to take the difficult and long road which he was going to describe at the briefing the following day in Muhlhaus’ office. He was going to question all the prostitutes in town, starting now. He poured his first glass of gin and conceded that he was going to stop at the one. He did not want to fall asleep. There was no way he wanted to fall asleep. Dreams were not his allies, either in this investigation or in life.

  Mock the rationalist intended to begin his questioning at this very venue. He would fire the prostitutes with questions concerning clients who had a penchant for leather underwear. If, however, someone had asked him why he had begun his explorations at the Hungarian King on Bischofstrasse, he would not have known what to say. Had he been sober, his answer would have been: “Because the lighting is good and the venue is made up of three ascending circles — the dance floor, the tables and the alcoves — so it has the best view. I need to start in a place like this before I bury myself in the dark corners of those forbidden dives near Blucherplatz.” Had he been drunk, he would have retorted: “Because the prettiest whores are here, and I want them — all at the same time.” Mock the rationalist did not want to permit the thought that something might be controlling him; he did not want to admit, with his petty bourgeois conscience, that his trousers concealed a ruthless and capricious demon. Right then it reminded him of its existence.

  Mock removed the cold bottle from his burning cheek and acknowledged that the statement about the beauty of the girls working there was indeed true. He got up and made towards the steps leading down to the dance floor. As he walked by one of the alcoves, he heard a woman say to a waiter in a slurred voice: “Call me a cabby!” He passed, followed by the woman’s persistent: “I want a carter! Now! Immediately!” and the waiter’s reply: “Right this minute, at your service, my lady.” Mock stepped onto the dance floor and sensed the eyes of the men at the railings turn to him; the opera glasses and pince-nez belonging to the ladies in the alcoves burned into him; and the eyes of the female dancers enticed him. He asked one of them to dance, a petite, slim, red-headed girl with Jewish looks. He held her tight, and beneath the thin material of her dress he could feel the hooks of her brassiere. After a few wrong steps the girl helped him catch the rhythm. Not for long. Mock had no talent for dancing. After a while he realized that his partner’s dancing skills were not up to much either. Fortunately, the orchestra took a break and the weary musicians sank their noses into their frothy beer. The girl stood helplessly in the middle of the dance floor, not knowing what to do with herself. Mock kissed her on the hand and offered his arm, aware of the ironic smiles of the lone drinkers and the astonishment of the ladies in the alcoves. “He kissed a whore on the hand,” he could almost hear them whisper.

  The girl held him gently by the arm and allowed herself to be led to his table. She was very docile and devoured the snacks and drinks Mock bought for her with relish. She agreed with everything he said, which was not hard since he did not say much, nor did he ask for her opinion. She nodded automatically. But she did not consent when he proposed they spend the night together in a hotel. Instead she invited him to a room she rented in the house next door.

  I.IX.1919

  An ordinary school day. I was woken by the cries of children hurrying to school. I tried to get back to sleep. Despite tremendous tiredness, I did not succeed. This happens sometimes. You are dead tired, yet are not able to fall asleep. Maybe it is your daimon which prevents you from doing so.

  It is noon. I am going to the Municipal Library.

  Evening. Today I translated a number of pages from Augsteiner’s work. It is written in difficult Latin. It is as if some spirit is speaking through the author. Sentences are broken and unclear. Often there are no predicates. Yet one can look at them from a different angle: they are the notes of a scholar, lacking grammatical brilliance, yet abounding in the brilliance of truth. Augsteiner fascinates me more and more. According to him, Platonic notions are nothing other than souls. This is not, however, a primitive animism of reality. Augsteiner makes precise distinctions between souls. He divides them into active and passive on the one hand, and potential and actual on
the other. Objects have a passive soul, meaning they are ordinary reflections of the ideal, while human beings have an active soul, meaning they are independent reflections of the ideal. Independent in the sense that they possess the possibility of abstraction. This may take place actually or potentially. The author poses the question: How can a subject, that is, a human being, abstract the active soul? But unfortunately he does not offer an answer. His complex epistemological system, saturated with the ideals of Christian Rosenkreuz (not surprising, they lived at the same time!), lacks even the slightest nod towards spiritualism. There are no instructions whatsoever: How is one to set about it? How is one to abstract a man’s soul from him? This past night, I followed Gregorius Blockhus’ instructions and tried to perceive the souls leaving these four bodies at the moment of their deaths. I proceeded according to Blockhus’ writings. I opened up the energy channels in their bodies, did away with the blockages in their joints and arranged them just as he advised. By puncturing them at precise points, I took away their breath. According to Blockhus one cannot help but perceive such concentrated energy. I did not sense this energy. I failed. I do not know whether I understood Augsteiner’s difficult Latin correctly, or Blockhus’ instructions, which smack of superstition. Tomorrow I shall get down to Augsteiner’s work again. Maybe there will be other passages with instructions on how to proceed. Maybe Augsteiner will finally drop his haughty philosopher’s mask and assume the attitude of a classical spiritualist?

  BRESLAU, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2ND, 1919

  SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  The small yard at Plesserstrasse 24, in the Breslau suburb of Tschansch, was full of the the usual morning bustle. Pastor Gerds’ maid was hanging bedlinen over the balustrade, while the concierge, Mrs Bauert, scrubbed away at the wooden stairs that lead to the locksmith’s workshop at the back of the small building. Konrad Dosche, the retired postman, emerged from the lavatory, and a small ginger mongrel leaped at his feet with unrestrained joy. Streams of sunlight cut through the yard, and as the pump squeaked and tiny particles of dust soared above the linen recently thrashed by the strong hands of the pastor’s maid, an elderly man walked out into the yard. The skin on his face and hands was deeply furrowed, his eyes were bloodshot, and his breathing wheezy. He sat down heavily on a bench and whistled to the ginger dog, which raced up and began to fawn at his feet, all the while glancing at its master. Dosche approached the elderly man and shook his hand.