Phantoms of Breslau iem-3

by Marek Krajewski

  Mock went down one flight of stairs to watch the man raging in the corridor and allowed the stream of abuse to flow on. But when the neigh-bour — who was clearly drunk and dressed in one-piece long-johns — became fully awake and came at him with a coal scuttle, Mock lost his patience. He felt a whoosh of air by his head, dodged the scuttle at the last moment and with the point of his polished brogue kicked the assailant in the shin. The blow was not hard, but it was painful enough for the scuttle’s owner to need to rub the spot. For a moment both his hands were occupied, one rubbing his smarting leg, the other holding his warlike scuttle at the ready. Mock took a swing very like the one he had aimed at the invalid during the seance, and the outer side of his palm came down hard on his assailant’s collarbone. His hand, sprained once already that day, burned with a raging fire as he felt the crunch of tiny bones in his wrist. Mock’s assailant let go of his scuttle and clutched his neck. Then all he heard was material ripping and shirt buttons hitting the wall of the corridor. He plunged down the stairs, his head struck the door to the toilet on the half-landing, and he heard nothing more.

  Mock ran back up to the top floor. He pressed his entire weight against the rickety banister and threw himself at the door to apartment 20, aiming his shoulder at a point just above the handle. There was a terrible crash, but the door did not give way. Other doors did open, however, and on every floor. The tenement residents and their four-legged friends edged out into the stairwell. Mock gathered speed once more, charged at the door and tumbled into the apartment. Bits of rubble pattered against his bowler hat and dust poured down his shirt collar.

  He lay on the floor in the hallway, on top of the door, and took stock of the apartment. Smolorz was lying down too, but on the kitchen floor. He was smiling in his sleep, misting the empty stoneware bottle of liqueur at his lips with his breath. Mock turned his head, got to his feet and went into the main room. It was empty; only Erika’s hat hung on the back of a chair. He picked it up with two fingers. On the bed sat Rossdeutscher, shouting: “Vengeance will come, Mock. The Erinyes born of the corpses of those closest to you will find you. Those whom you love, Mock … Tell us, where are they now …” Mock collapsed onto the bed and tried to catch the scent of Erika in the clean sheets which had been there for three weeks, and had not yet lost their starchy smell. Try as he may, he could detect nothing other than the sterile smell of cleanliness. There was no Rossdeutscher, no Erika.

  The neighbours of the four sailors stood uncertainly in the doorway watching the two men, one of whom was trying to clamber to his feet, while the other did not want to get off the bed. Suddenly a dog howled and barked at the threshold, and Mock got up and glared at the small crowd gathered at the door.

  “Get the fuck out of here!” he roared, and grabbed the chair in the hall and spun it as if throwing a discus.

  “We’re going, we’re going.” said Frenzel the caretaker, urging his neighbours to leave. “I know him. He’s a police officer. It’s best not to stand in his way …”

  The neighbours jumped away from the door and the chair hit Smolorz on the head. Mock’s red-headed subordinate clutched his forehead and red trickles ran through his fingers. Mock raised the chair once more and brought it down with a crash. He watched as a sizeable haematoma swelled and split on the bald patch at the back of Smolorz’s head. He kicked the chair into a corner of the kitchen and grabbed the poker from a bucket on top of a small pile of coal. He took a swing and struck. The cartilage in Smolorz’s ear crunched beneath the spiralled end of the poker. He lay in a foetal position with both hands over his head. Mock grabbed him by the arms and dragged him to the kitchen door, positioning his head against the doorframe. He grasped the door handle and swung the door shut as hard as he could. He thought he heard Smolorz’s skull crack.

  It was not Smolorz’s skull but the kitchen door he had heard as the bottom of it rammed over the poker. Splinters flew off it and Smolorz looked up with drunken eyes.

  “Sorry,” he croaked in a schnapps-baritone. “I was supposed to keep an eye on her … I don’t remember a thing …”

  Mock knelt on the floor and took several deep breaths, allowing his fury to subside. Streams of sweat ran down his neck and seeped into the pale layer of dust that covered the collar of his best shirt. His cuffs were red with Smolorz’s blood, his shoes scuffed from the kicks, his jacket torn from breaking down the door, his hands black with soot from the poker.

  “I’m sorry,” Smolorz said as he cowered by the doorframe. Something had happened to his eye: it was open, bloodshot, and so big that the eyelid could not cover it. “For the love of God, I swear on my Arthur’s soul …”

  “You son of a whore,” hissed Mock. “Never swear on a child!”

  “On my soul, then” Smolorz groaned. “I’ll never touch alcohol …”

  “You son of a whore,” Mock repeated, tossing his head to the side. Drops of sweat darkened the newly polished floorboards. “Get up, pour some soap down your throat and get to work. I’ll tell you what you have to do …”

  As Mock spoke, so Smolorz sobered; with every word Mock uttered he grew more and more amazed.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 28TH, 1919

  THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  It was the second time Sister Hermina had seen the younger Herr Mock that day, and this time he made a far worse impression on her. His suit was covered in dust and torn at the sleeve, his shirt was bloodied and his brogues scuffed at the toe. Small pieces of stone, like bits of rubble, were lodged in the brim of his bowler hat. Herr Mock ran into the corridor of the Surgical Ward repeating something under his breath, something Sister Hermina could not quite make out. It was as if he were saying: “Those closest … Where are they now …?”

  “Herr Mock!” she called after him as he passed the duty room, muttering to himself. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  He paid no attention to her and ran towards his father’s private room. Sister Hermina set her thin, tall body into motion and her heels clicked loudly down the hospital corridor. Her bonnet with its four folds flapped in all directions like a sailing boat finding its course. Hearing the sound of her heels, patients woke from their painful torpor which none could call sleep, pulled themselves up in bed and waited for a merciful injection, for the gentle touch of her dry, bony hand, for a sympathetic, comforting smile. Sister Hermina’s telepathic receptors did not pick up the patients’ mute complaints and requests this time, however; they were more sensitive to the anxiety and unease of the dark-haired man who was stumbling from wall to wall, heading for the empty private room. Herr Mock tumbled in and slammed the door. Sister Hermina heard a stifled cry. Perhaps one of her patients was sharing his pain with the others?

  But it was not a patient. The younger Herr Mock was lying on his stomach with his arms spread across the clean, freshly made bed, moaning. She rushed over and shook him.

  “Doctor Ruhtgard came to collect your father an hour ago,” she said. “The gentleman felt much better and Doctor Ruhtgard took him home with him …”

  Mock had stopped thinking, stopped feeling anything. He took a few banknotes from his pocket.

  “Could you ask somebody, Sister,” he whispered, and his bloodshot eyes flashed, “to clean my suit?” He collapsed onto the pillow and fell asleep.

  Sister Hermina stroked his cheek, through which the pinpoints of a five o’clock shadow were beginning to protrude, and left the private room.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 28TH, 1919

  TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  Mock walked out of Wenzel-Hancke Hospital and stood deep in thought on the street corner next to a newspaper kiosk. Small children jostled past him in their Sunday best. Entire families hurrying to the evangelical church of St John the Baptist for morning Mass marched along the pavement. Industrious fathers strode by, their gastric juices dissolving fat Sunday sausages; next to them tripped mothers, flushed and sweating in the sun, chasing small herds of unruly children with their parasols.
Mock smiled and stepped behind the kiosk to allow four young citizens to pass as they walked in a row holding hands, singing the miners’ song:

  Gluck auf! Gluck auf!

  Der Steiger kommt!

  Und er hat sein helles Licht

  Bei der Nacht

  Schon angezundt.

  A girl of about twelve wearing a pair of thick, darned stockings was making her way behind the children, carrying a bouquet of roses and pushing it under the noses of those standing at the hospital entrance.

  Mock glanced down at his cleaned suit and his brogues; a thick layer of polish concealed the scuff marks. The sleeve of his jacket had been well repaired and he could tell from the exceptional softness of its felt that his bowler hat had been cleaned over steam. He beckoned to the girl. She ran to him with her bouquet of roses, apparently limping. Mock inspected the flowers critically.

  “Take the flowers into the hospital, to the nurse who was on night duty.” He handed the girl ten marks and a small card printed with the words EBERHARD MOCK, POLICE PRAESIDIUM. “And attach my business card.”

  The girl hobbled to the hospital and Mock was reminded of the cripple he had killed the previous day. He thought of Erika’s empty bed. His diaphragm heaved, and his gullet filled with burning bile. He felt faint and held on to the railings surrounding the hospital. Everything seemed to be at a slant. The elegant Neudorfstrasse grew distorted in yellow-black reflections. The mighty buildings with their elaborate decoration rolled and pressed down on one other. He rested his head against the railings and closed his eyes. His head was bursting, as if he had a hangover. The worst hangover was better than a bad conscience, than the invalid’s contorted legs thrashing against the floor and the empty bed where there was no longer even a trace of Erika’s scent. Mock wanted a hangover, wanted to suffer, anything so as not to hear the baying of the Erinyes. He looked up and saw the sun-drenched street in its proper perspective. Among the shop signs, one stood out: m. horn — colonial goods. Mock knew the owner and knew he could persuade him to sell him a bottle of liqueur, even on a day of rest.

  He set off in the direction of the shop, but stopped at the kerb. The street was very busy. Carriages and cars carrying citizens to church wound their way towards the town centre; in the opposite direction strolled those intending to enjoy an autumnal walk in South Park. All of a sudden there was a commotion. A cab had almost hit a speeding motor with its shaft. The horse yanked at its harness and the cabby swore at the driver, aiming his whip at the elegant gentleman sitting in the open-topped car. Making the most of the confusion, Mock leaped into the street and ran towards the shop and its shelves of bottles filled with colourful sweetness.

  But before he could reach them he was accosted outside the shop by a newspaper vendor.

  “Special edition of the Breslauer Neueste Nachrichten!” yelled the boy in the cap. “Vampire of Breslau commits suicide!”

  When Mock saw the article on the front page, he forgot all about alcohol:

  VAMPIRE NO LONGER THREATENS CITIZENS OF BRESLAU

  Last night, during a spiritual seance, the well-known Breslau doctor, Horst Rossdeutscher, committed suicide. Notes were found in the suicide’s house, a singular diary in which he admits to the cruel murder of four men, unidentified to this day, of Julius Wohsedt, director of the Wollheim river port, and of a young prostitute identified as Johanna Voigten. The diary claims that the murders committed during the first four days of September were of a ritualistic nature. According to the Chief of the Murder Commission of the Police Praesidium, Criminal Commissioner Heinrich Muhlhaus, Rossdeutscher had summoned the souls of those he had killed during spiritual seances and, using occult practices, had channeled them to harm an employee of the Vice Department. Neither Criminal Commissioner Muhlhaus nor the aforementioned employee himself, Criminal Assistant Eberhard Mock — we give his name here for the organ grinders of Breslau sing of him! — can explain why Rossdeutscher harboured such a burning hatred for Mock.

  Yesterday at midnight, during a successful operation by the police under Criminal Commissioner Muhlhaus and the Mayor’s plenipotentiary, Doctor Richard Pyttlik, all those taking part in the seance were arrested. They were, according to the notes, members of a secret occult brotherhood that worshipped ancient Greek deities. Among those arrested were eminent representatives of learning, such as a prominent Hittite linguist at one of the oldest and most renowned German universities. They have been apprehended in order to investigate the matter, but there are unofficial reports that Rossdeutscher’s notes — which consist of obscure and garbled notions on mythological subjects — cannot form the basis of a charge.

  An unfortunate incident occurred during the seance. Rossdeutscher’s handicapped and wheelchair-bound daughter, Louise (twenty), used by her father as a medium to enable the brotherhood to communicate with the dead, suffered a fatal accident as she fell from her wheelchair. On witnessing the death of his beloved daughter, Rossdeutscher shot himself.

  The grisly investigation known by the police as the “Four Sailors” case has come to an end. Certain individuals allegedly at risk of death at the hands of the vampire, and for that reason held in isolation by the police, have now been released. The city breathes a sigh of relief. But one question arises: what is happening to our society when one of its foremost representatives, a well-respected surgeon, yields to superstitions which lead him to commit such monstrous crimes? It would be understandable for some eccentric aristocrat, or a shopkeeper tormented by rampaging inflation, to find solace in supernatural powers, but an enlightened representative of science? Sic transit Gloria mundi.†

  At the bottom of the page there was a large photograph of a young woman with the caption “Erika Kiesewalter”, and beneath it the following text:

  Twenty-three-year-old Erika Kiesewalter, actress and dance-hostess at the Eldorado Restaurant, disappeared on the night of 27th to 28th September. Dark-red hair, medium height, slim build. No distinguishing features. Anyone with information regarding the missing person is requested to contact the Police Praesidium. Information resulting in Erika Kiesewalter’s discovery will be rewarded with the sum of fifteen thousand marks.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 28TH, 1919

  ELEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  Mock climbed to the first floor of the imposing, detached tenement near South Park and knocked energetically at the door to one of the apartments. It was opened by the owner himself, Doctor Cornelius Ruhtgard, who was wearing a crimson dressing gown with velvet lapels and embossed brown-leather slippers. From beneath the velvet lapels peeped the knot of a black necktie.

  “Come in, come in, Ebbo,” he said, opening the door wide. “Your father feels much better.”

  “Is he with you?” Mock asked, hanging his bowler hat on the clothes stand.

  “He’s at my hospital,” the doctor said, taking Mock’s walking stick.

  “The nurse told me he was with you.” Mock made his way along the familiar corridor towards the doctor’s study.

  “Because he is with me.” Ruhtgard sat down at a small coffee table and gestured for Mock to sit down opposite him. “At my hospital.”

  “Maybe that’s what she said.” Mock clipped the end of the Hacif cigar Ruhtgard had offered him. “That’s probably what she said … I was so tired and devastated I didn’t take anything in.”

  “I know, I read about it in the Breslauer.” Ruhtgard stood up. “It’s all over. You shouldn’t be devastated. It’s finished. Nobody’s ever going to sing another mournful ballad about the vampire of Breslau. I’ll make you some coffee. It’s the servants’ day off, and Christel’s not here either. She’s gone on an excursion with the Frisch Auf gymnastics society.” He studied his friend. “Tell me, Ebbo, how did that handicapped girl die?”

  “I killed her.” Mock gazed out at the rustling chestnut tree as it generously bestowing the earth with its yellow leaves. “Unintentionally.” The wind murmured, the yellow leaves drifted. “No doubt there’s a storm and gales
by the sea,” he thought, then said out loud: “I hit her when she attacked me. She bit her tongue off and choked on her own blood. Is that possible, Corni?”

  “Of course.” Ruhtgard forgot about the coffee, opened the sideboard and took out a carafe of Edelbranntwein and two small glasses. “In the state you’re in, this will do you more good than coffee and cake.” He poured with an experienced hand. “Of course it’s possible. She drowned in her own blood. If you were to open somebody’s mouth and pour a glass of water into it in one go, they would choke and could drown in that small amount. And there would certainly be more blood if you bit your tongue off than one glass.”

  “I killed her.” Mock felt a burning sensation under his eyelids. “And I killed another woman too, though indirectly.” He ran his fingers over his eyelids and felt the sand that had built up through lack of sleep. “A woman I fell in love with … She was a prostitute and a dance-hostess … I’d spent three weeks with her in Rugenwaldermunde …”

  “Is it that Kiesewalter?” Ruhtgard asked, reaching for the Breslauer Neueste Nachrichten. He looked very tense, his face like a petrified mask of pain. The doctor leaned towards Mock and grabbed him by the biceps. His fingers were as strong as they had been when he picked up his shattered friend in a Konigsberg street.

  “What’s happened, Corni?” Mock said, putting down his full glass.

  “Brother,” Ruhtgard stammered, “how sorry I feel for you … That girl” — he sprang out of his armchair and slammed his palm down on the photograph on the front page of the newspaper — “is your dream. It’s the girl of your dreams, your nurse from Konigsberg who doesn’t exist …”