“But look.” There was a note of satisfaction in Mock’s voice. “The dog’s behaving strangely …”
“True enough.” The doctor studied the animal which was sitting under the table with its tail curled under, growling quietly. “But who’s to know what the dog was dreaming? They have nightmares too. Like you do.”
“Alright. But you’ve noticed that my father’s a little deaf, haven’t you?” Mock would not give in. “Besides, even when he was young he was a heavy sleeper. No shot would’ve woken him up! So I fired, and he’s carried on sleeping.”
“Smell your gun,” Ruhtgard repeated in a bored tone. “And now let’s do an experiment.” He stood up, approached the open hatch and slammed it shut. Mock’s father sighed in his sleep and then opened his eyes.
“What the hell is going on!” For a man who had just woken up he had a powerful voice. “What are you doing, Eberhard? Thumping around at night? Are you pissed again or what? What a bastard …” The bed creaked as Mock’s father expressed his disdain for the night’s din with a resounding fart. Mock felt nauseated at the thought of having to lie next to him.
“Sorry,” Ruhtgard could not help laughing. “You’ve been undeservedly rebuked. But you can see for yourself, the shot would have woken him …”
“I’m getting out of here.” Mock started getting dressed.
“Listen, Ebbo.” The doctor reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a cigarette case and notebook. “There are no ghosts …” Mock froze, all ears. “They only exist in your head … After we talked this morning, I asked my assistant at the hospital to research what are known as paranormal phenomena. This what he found.” Ruhtgard lit a cigarette and opened his notebook. “I didn’t want to tell you before … I wanted to keep it as a strong argument to the very end …”
“Go on then.”
“Ghosts exist in the disturbed cerebral cortex, the so-called visual cortex of the right hemisphere of the brain. Problems in this part of the cerebral cortex influence vision. They appear as phantoms, hallucinations… The aural cortex, on the other hand, is responsible for sound. If I were to open up your head and touch this cortex you’d hear voices, or music perhaps … One composer would tilt his head and note down the music he then heard. If, in addition to this, there are disturbances in the right cerebral lobe, you have real pandemonium. Because this lobe is responsible for distinguishing between the objective and the subjective. Where it has been damaged, ‘people,’ as somebody once said, ‘take their thoughts to be real people and things’. Most likely your brain is slightly damaged, Ebbo. But it can be righted … I can help you … I’ll call on the best specialist in the field, Professor Bumke from the university …”
“I’m not convinced by your scientific explanations,” Mock said thoughtfully. “Because how does your neurology explain that I experience this anxiety, these nightmares, only in this house and nowhere else … Damn it!” He raised his voice. “I’ve got to leave this place …”
“Well then go! Move to another apartment with your father. A better apartment, one with a bathroom!”
“Father won’t agree to it. He only wants to live here, and he wants to die here too. He told me once …”
“Well then you leave for a while!” Ruhtgard extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray, stood up from the table and rested his hands on the bulky mass of Mock’s shoulders. “Listen to me! Get away from here for two or three weeks. Take a holiday and get away. Take a break from everything — corpses and ghosts … You’ll build up your strength, catch up on sleep … Go to the seaside. Nothing calms like the sound of shifting sand and the monotonous murmur of the sea. I’ll go with you, if you like. We could go to Konigsberg and eat flounder. I’ll put you under hypnosis. You can trust me. We’ll get to the root of all your problems …”
Mock buttoned up his shirt in silence. As he slipped in a cufflink he pricked himself. He hissed and glanced at Ruhtgard with animosity, as if he were to blame.
“Come on, get dressed and let’s get going …”
“Where on earth?” There was resentment in Ruhtgard’s voice.
“Get dressed, please, and let’s go … to your hospital …”
“What for?”
Mock smiled to himself.
“For the housecoat and nurse’s hat …”
“I beg your pardon?” The doctor barely controlled himself.
Mock smiled again.
“I’ve met her at last …”
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1919
TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
Mock stood outside the door of apartment 20 and tapped out the rhythm to the “Schlesierlied” for the second time.
“Who’s there?” came the voice of a sleepy child.
“Eberhard Mock.”
The door opened a little. Erika was wearing a long and rather too large nightdress. She let the door swing open and went back into the room. Mock closed the door behind him and sniffed. He could no longer detect that unpleasant odour. The kitchen table was now covered with a cloth on which stood upturned plates and glasses, their rims leaving wet rings on the material. The floor was still wet. He entered the room and placed a large package on the chair. Erika sat on the bed and stared at him fearfully. Mock was sure neither of his emotions nor his words.
“Did my man bring you the bedlinen?” he asked, to break the silence.
“He did.”
“Who washed the dishes?”
“Kurt.” Fear gradually disappeared from Erika’s eyes. “He did it very comprehensively. He doesn’t like dirt …”
“So you’re on first-name terms?” He reacted irritably, unable to bring to mind anything to substantiate Smolorz’s preference for excessive tidiness. “Just how well have you got to know each other?”
“So-so.” The trace of a smile appeared on Erika’s lips. “I just like the sound of the name Kurt. Why are you so annoyed? I’m only a whore. What was it you called me? ‘A crafty whore.’ Why shouldn’t I get to know sweet little Kurty very well indeed?”
“Where is he?” Mock ignored the question.
“About an hour after you left,” Erika said more seriously, “a large man came round. He was huge. He didn’t say anything, just wrote something on a piece of paper. Kurt read it and rushed out with him. He told me not to open the door to anyone.”
Silence descended. The headlamps and shadows of passing cars drifted across the ceiling. Coloured illumination from the neon sign of Gramophon-Spezial-Haus on the opposite side of the street seeped through the net curtain. Erika sat shrouded in red and green speckles of light and studied Mock without the hint of a smile.
“Why don’t you come and sit next to me, sir?” she asked in a low, serious voice.
Mock sat down and watched with astonishment as his hand glided across her white arm. Never before had he seen such white skin, never before had his diaphragm deprived him of air for so long, never until now had he felt such pain in his thighs. Fiat coitus et pereat mundus.† With great disbelief he felt his chapped lips part to allow her tiny tongue to enter; he could not believe that his gnarled fingers were pulling up her nightdress.
“Why don’t you take me, sir?” she asked just as seriously. She moved up the clean bedclothes and opened herself before him.
Mock sighed, got to his feet and went to the chair. He unwrapped the rustling package and hung a nurse’s hat and starched housecoat over the back of the chair.
“Put this on,” he said hoarsely.
“With pleasure.” Erika leaped out of bed and freed herself from the nightdress. As she raised her arms, flickers of neon blazed across her prominent breasts. She tied her hair into a loose bun and put on the hat. Mock unfastened his trousers. At that moment Smolorz, Wirth and Zupitza stepped into the apartment. Erika quickly jumped into bed as Mock kicked the door shut. He approached the bed and pulled the eider-down off the girl. A moment later somebody’s knuckles were tapping out the rhythm of the “Schlesierlied”. Mock sighed, walked
over to the window and gazed for a while at the street lamp which illuminated the hairdresser’s salon. He approached the girl and stroked her hair. She clung on to his hand with both of hers. He bent and kissed her on the lips.
“Wait a moment,” he muttered, and went into the hall.
Smolorz was at the door, about to knock again. Wirth and Zupitza were sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by wet dishes.
“Why are you rapping out our signal, Smolorz?” Mock scarcely managed to suppress the irritation in his voice. “I saw you come in. And now hop it, all of you! From now on I’m going to keep an eye on the girl myself.”
“Caretaker Frenzel …” Smolorz said, giving off the scent of soap. “He’s not there.”
“Tell me what happened, Zupitza,” Mock hissed through clenched teeth.
“I was at the caretaker’s” — Zupitza set his hands to work while Wirth translated into his characteristic German with its Austrian lilt — “and was keeping my eye on him all the time. He was uneasy. He kept looking around as if he wanted to go somewhere. All the more reason for me to keep an eye on him. I took him to the toilet. Stood outside the door. For a long time. In the end I knocked. Several times and — nothing. I forced the door. The window was open. The caretaker had escaped through the window. Mr Smolorz can take it from there.”
“Didn’t you hear what Wirth said?” Mock growled at Smolorz. “Out with it!”
“This is what Zupitza wrote.” Smolorz handed Mock a piece of paper with large scribblings. “Then we questioned the neighours. Nobody knows where Frenzel is. One said that he was a gambler. We’ve combed the local gambling dens. Nothing.”
Yet another corpse. The following day, or in a few days time, the murderer would send Mock a letter. They would go to a given address and find Frenzel with his eyes torn out. The organ grinder’s little girl would sing yet another verse. And you, Mock, you are to go home and talk to your father, and repair all the damage you’ve done. Admit you’re defeated, Mock. You’ve lost. Hand over the investigation to others. To those who haven’t made any mistakes that will be punished by people having their eyes gouged out or their lungs pierced.
Mock walked slowly to the table and grasped its edge. The surface shuddered and bounced, and then a moment later it was up in the air. Wirth and Zupitza fled to the wall, dishes crashed to the floor, glass shattered, plates gave an ear-piercing wail and cups screeched. The noise was terrible, and became intolerable when eighty-five kilograms of Mock jumped on to the upturned table. Fragments of crockery gave out their last strains, a shattered complaint, a grating requiem.
Panting, Mock stepped off the table and immersed his head in the iron sink. Cold water rushed around his neck and burning ears.
“Towel!” he yelled from the sink’s cool interior.
Somebody put a sheet round his shoulders. Mock stood upright and covered his head with it. Streams of water flowed down inside his collar. He felt as if he were in a tent; he would have liked to be in a tent at that moment, far from everything. After a while he uncovered his head and took stock of the anxious faces.
“We’re ending this investigation, gentlemen,” he spoke very slowly. “Criminal Commissioner Heinrich Muhlhaus will take over. I’ll just take down Erika Kiesewalter’s statement and you, Smolorz, are going to hand it to the Commissioner. He’ll know that they’ve got to find a man with a daughter in a wheelchair. Well, what are you staring at? Read the statement, then you’ll know what it’s all about.”
“And what about the people in the storeroom? Are we going to let them go?” Wirth asked nervously.
“You take them to a detention cell. Tomorrow night Guard Buhrack will be waiting for you. He’ll look after them. Any other questions?”
“Criminal Assistant, sir,” Smolorz mumbled. “What about her? The storeroom, or straight to Buhrack?”
There was silence. Mock looked at Erika as she stood in the doorway. Her nurse’s hat was now askew. Her lips were trembling and her vocal organs were positioning themselves to ask a question. But the bellows of her lungs could not expel the air. She stood breathless.
“What happens” — Smolorz had become exceptionally talkative — “if Muhlhaus wants to question her himself?”
Mock was staring at Erika. She shivered as the clock in the hall struck three times. The shivering did not subside, even though she was wrapped in an eiderdown. He looked at the nurse’s starched housecoat, at Smolorz, who was unhealthily excited, and then came to a decision.
“If Criminal Commissioner Muhlhaus wants to question the witness, Miss Erika Kiesewalter, he’s going to have to put himself to the trouble of going to the seaside.”
RUGENWALDERMUNDE, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1919
NOON
Erika clenched her teeth. A moment later she sank slowly down onto Mock and snuggled her face between his neck and collarbone. She was breathing heavily. Mock swept the damp hair from her temple. Gradually her numbness passed and she slid from the man onto the tangle of sheets.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t cry out,” he said, barely able to control the shaking in his voice.
“Why?” she asked in a whisper.
“The receptionist didn’t believe we were married. He didn’t see any wedding rings. If you had yelled out that would have just confirmed his suspicions.”
“Why?” she repeated drowsily, and closed her eyes.
“Have you ever seen a married couple not leave their bed for fifteen hours?”
There was no reply. He got out of bed, pulled on his long johns and trousers, then stretched his braces and let them go. They slapped loudly against his naked torso. He whistled the well-known song “Frau Luna”, opened the window that gave onto the sea and breathed smells which transported him to the Konigsberg of his past, when nobody demanded he admit to some nameless offences or blackmailed him with eyeless corpses. The waves beat hard against the sun-baked sand and the two piers built on mounds of vast boulders. As he gazed at these constructions which embraced the port like a pair of arms, Mock tasted microscopic salty drops on his lips. From the nearest smokehouse wafted an aroma which set this fanatical lover of fish quivering nervously. He swallowed and turned towards Erika. She was no longer asleep. The slap of his braces had evidently woken her and she was resting her head on her knees, staring at him. Above her head hung a model of a sailing yacht which swayed in the salty breeze.
“Would you like some smoked fish?” he asked.
“Yes, very much,” she smiled timidly.
“Well, let’s go then,” Mock said as he buttoned up his shirt and tried on the new tie Erika had chosen for him in Koslin the previous day.
“I don’t feel like going anywhere.” She got out of bed and, stretching after her short nap, ran several paces across the room. She put her arms around Mock’s neck and with slender fingers stroked his muscular, broad shoulders. “I’m going to eat here …”
“Shall I bring you some?” Mock could not resist kissing her and gliding his hand over her naked back and buttocks. “What would you like? Eel? Plaice? Salmon, perhaps?”
“Don’t go anywhere.” She moved her lips towards his. “I want eel. But I want yours.”
She clung to him and kissed him on the ear.
“I’m afraid,” Mock whispered into her small, soft lobe tangled in a net of red hair, “that I might not be able … I’m not twenty any more …”
“Stop talking,” she rebuked him in a stern voice. “Everything’s going to be fine …”
She was right. Everything was fine.
RUGENWALDERMUNDE, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1919
TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
They left the Friedrichsbad Spa House Hotel holding hands. Two droschkas and a huge double-decker omnibus with a metal sign announcing its route between Rugenwalde and Rugenwaldermunde were parked in front of the porch of this massive building. Not far from the hotel stood a group of primary-school children and a bald, stout teacher who, as he fanned himself with his hat
, was telling his charges that during the Napoleonic wars Prince Hohenzollern himself had taken the waters at this spa; the corpulent preceptor made use of his finger and pointed to a name plaque attached to the wall. Mock also noticed a pretty girl sitting alone on a bench outside the spa house, smoking a cigarette. He had worked long enough in the Vice Department to be able to indentify her profession.
They passed several houses on Georg-Buttner-Strasse and stopped at an ice-cream parlour. Erika attacked her icy column of raspberry scoops like a child and, much to Mock’s surprise, even bit into it, the very idea of which made his own teeth ache. The rasping of a barrier announced that the raised bridge had now been lowered. They crossed it and found themselves on Skagerrak Strasse. They followed the left side of the street and entered the first house on the corner, a tavern. Mock asked the innkeeper, a Mr Robert Pastewski — this was the name that appeared above the entrance — for a dozen Reichsadler cigarettes for himself, and the same number of English Gold Flakes for Erika.
The strength of the burning September sun was tempered by a wind coming from the sea, which entangled Erika’s hair as she stood on the narrow pavement.
“I’m hungry,” she complained, and looked meaningfully at Mock.
“But …” — Mock was troubled — “we’d have to go back to the hotel …”
“I’m not speaking in metaphors now.” The wind tossed a strand of hair into her eyes. “I really do want to eat.”
“Then we’re going for some real smoked eel,” he said. “But I’ll buy you a roll first. Let’s go …”
He stepped into a nearby bakery and was enveloped by the smell of warm bread. The only customers in the place were two sailors, who were leaning on a counter decorated with starched tapestries and talking to the fat baker. They were speaking so fast in a Pomeranian dialect that Mock could hardly understand what they were saying. But one thing he did know: neither of them was buying anything, and the baker was not paying the slightest attention to him. Mock felt a vague unease, but could not get to the root of it. “It’s the two sailors, no doubt,” he thought to himself, “not four but two.”
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