Death in Breslau iem-1

by Marek Krajewski

  Death in Breslau

  ( Inspector Eberhard Mock - 1 )

  Marek Krajewski

  Marek Krajewski

  Death in Breslau

  All-seeing Time hath caught

  Guilt, and to justice brought

  The son and sire commingled in one bed

  Oedipus the King, Sophocles (translated F. Storr)

  I

  DRESDEN, MONDAY, JULY 17TH, 1950

  FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  The July heat was unbearable. Director Ernst Bennert of the Psychiatric Hospital slid his hand over his enormous bald skull. He examined his wet palm with care — like a palmist. The mound of Venus was sticky with sweat, tiny drops glistening in the life line. Two flies dug convulsively into a stain left by a glass of sweet tea on the oilcloth. The light of a merciless, setting sun flooded the window of his consulting room.

  The heat did not seem to trouble the man with a shining black mane who was also sitting there. He turned his chubby face — adorned with a moustache and sprouting stubble — to the sun with evident pleasure. He rubbed his cheek with a hand on which flexed the tattoo of a scorpion. The man looked at Bennert. His eyes, dimmed by the sun’s glare, became suddenly attentive.

  “We both know, doctor,” he said with a distinct foreign accent, “that you cannot refuse the institution I represent.”

  Bennert did know. He glanced out of the window and, instead of the once splendid but now ruined tenement house on the corner, saw the icebound panorama of Siberia, frozen rivers, heaps of snow and human limbs protruding from beneath them. He saw a shed in which skeletons in torn uniforms fought to get to the iron stove with its smouldering fire. One of them reminded Bennert of the clinic’s previous head, Doctor Steinbrunn, who, six months earlier, had not agreed to the Stasi interrogating a certain patient.

  He rubbed his eyes, rose and leaned over the window sill: the sight was familiar — a young mother scolding a disobedient child, a whining lorry, loaded with bricks.

  “Very well, Major Mahmadov. I will let you into the ward myself, and you can question the patient. Nobody will see you.”

  “Just what I mean. See you at midnight then,” Mahmadov brushed the fragments of tobacco from his moustache. He got up and smoothed his trousers. As he was pressing down the doorknob, he heard a loud thump and turned abruptly. Bennert smiled foolishly, holding a rolled copy of Neues Deutschland. Two dead flies lay flattened on the oilcloth.

  DRESDEN, THAT SAME JULY 17TH, 1950

  MIDNIGHT

  The patient Herbert Anwaldt had survived “the house of torture”, as he called the psychiatric clinic on Marien-Allee in Dresden, for already five years, thanks to his imagination. Imagination was a filter for wondrous transformations; the nurses’ jabs and punches became gentle caresses, the stench of faeces became the scent of a spring garden, the cries of the sick became baroque cantatas and the shabby panelling frescoes by Giotto. Imagination obeyed him. After years of practice, he had managed to tame it to such an extent that he had entirely extinguished in himself something, for example, which would otherwise not have allowed him to survive incarceration: desire for a woman’s body. He did not have to “extinguish the fire in his loins” like a sage from the Old Testament — that flame had long ago gone out.

  Imagination did, however, betray him when he saw small, busy insects scuttling across the room. Their yellowish-brown abdomens flitting in and out of the gaps between the floorboards, their flickering antennae sticking out from behind the washbasin, the individual specimen crawling on to his eiderdown: a pregnant female dragging a pale cocoon, or a handsome male holding its body high on quick limbs, or the helpless young tracing circles with thin feelers — all this would lead to Anwaldt’s brain being shaken by an electrical charge of neurons. The whole of him would curl up painfully, flickering feelers would burrow into his skin and he would be tickled, in his imagination, by thousands of limbs. He would then fall into a fury and was a potential danger to other patients, especially since the occasion on which he had discovered that some of them were catching insects, putting them into matchboxes and hiding them in his bed. Only the smell of insecticide would calm his jittering nerves. The matter could have been dealt with by transferring the sick man to another hospital — one less infested by cockroaches — in another town, but here unanticipated, bureaucratic obstacles would present themselves and successive heads of clinic would forsake the idea. Doctor Bennert had restricted himself to transferring Anwaldt to a private room disinfected somewhat more frequently. In periods preceding the swarming cockroaches, the patient Anwaldt would be calm and occupied himself for the most part by studying Semitic languages.

  This is what he was doing when the nurse Jurgen Kopp was on his rounds. Even though Director Bennert had unexpectedly relieved him of the day’s duty, Kopp had no intention of leaving the hospital. He closed the door of Anwaldt’s room and went to a department in the next-door block. There he sat down at a table with two colleagues, Frank and Vogel, and started to deal cards. Skat was a passion shared by all the lower ranks of the hospital staff. Kopp bid a spades and turned out a jack of clubs to draw trumps. Before he could take the trick, however, they heard an inhuman cry from across the dark courtyard.

  “Who’s that yelling his head off?” wondered Vogel.

  “Anwaldt. His light’s just gone on,” Kopp laughed. “Seen another cockroach, I expect.”

  Kopp was right in part. It was Anwaldt shouting. But not because of a cockroach. Along the floor of his room, comically twitching their abdomens, paraded four handsome, black, desert scorpions.

  BRESLAU, SATURDAY, MAY 13TH, 1933

  ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  Madame le Goef, a Hungarian with an invented French name, knew how to solicit clients. She did not spend a fenig on announcements in the press or on advertisements but acted directly. Trusting her unfailing intuition, she noted about a hundred names from the Breslau telephone directory and the directory of addresses. Next a certain sumptuous prostitute with extensive connections vetted the list and it turned out that most of the names belonged to wealthy men. Apart from that, Madame drew up a list both of doctors in Breslau and of lecturers at the university and the engineering college. She sent all of these men discreet notes in plain-looking envelopes, advising them that a new club, where the most demanding of gentlemen could satisfy their desires, had been opened. A second wave of advertisements infiltrated men’s clubs, steam baths, coffee houses and theatres varietes. Amply rewarded cloakroom assistants and porters — without the knowledge of the pimps by whom they were already paid for procuring girls — slipped scented cards illustrated with an appetizing Venus in black stockings and a top hat, into their guests’ hands or overcoats.

  In spite of the pious indignation of the press and two court cases, Madame le Goef’s club became famous. Its clients were served in various ways by the charms of thirty girls and two young men.

  Nor was there any shortage of artistic performances in the salon. Artistes were recruited from among the salon staff or — as was more often the case — generously remunerated guest performances were given by dancers from the “Imperial Cabaret” or some other small theatre. Two evenings a week were designated in Oriental style (with dances — not only of the belly — by several “Egyptians” who were otherwise employed in a cabaret), two in Classical style (bacchanalia), one in bawdy German (Heidi in lace drawers), and one was set aside for special guests, who had hired the whole club for discreet rendez-vous of their own. On Mondays the establishment was closed. Before long, telephone reservations were introduced and the Prussian manor called “the little Lohe manor” in Opperau, just outside Breslau, become famous throughout the city. The capital outlay was swift
ly recovered, the more so as Madame was not the only investor. The lion’s share of expenses was borne by the Police Praesidium of Breslau. This institution’s costs were repaid not only in material form. And so everybody was happy, most of all the occasional and regular clients. The number of the latter kept on growing. Because where else could the Professor of Oriental Studies, Otto Andreae — armed with a khanjar and wearing a turban — chase a defenceless houri so as to possess her on a pile of crimson cushions; where else could the Director of the Municipal Theatre, Fritz Rheinfelder, expose his fat back to the sweet cuffs of riding boots worn by a slender Amazon?

  Madame understood men well and was happy if she could meet their demands. She had recently experienced such a moment of joy in finding for the Deputy Head of the Criminal Department of the Police Praesidium, Counsellor Eberhard Mock, two girls who could play chess. Madame especially liked this stocky man with his thick, black, wavy hair. The Counsellor never forgot to bring flowers for Madame and small gifts for the girls who were glad to serve him. He was level-headed and taciturn, he loved charades, bridge, chess and curvaceous blondes. He could gratify his passions at Madame le Goef’s without inhibition. He would arrive at midnight every Friday, enter by the side door and, without pausing to watch whatever was being performed on the stage, go to his favourite room where his two odalisques would be waiting for him. They would change him into a silk dressing gown, feed him caviar and give him red Rhine wine to drink. Mock would sit still, though his hands would rove over the alabaster skin of his slaves. After dinner, he would settle down with one of them to a game of chess. The other, in the meantime, would go under the table and do something known already to pre-historic peoples. The girl playing chess with Mock had been instructed that every successful move was assigned a specific erotic configuration. So, after eliminating a pawn or a bishop, whatever, Mock would get up from the table and land on the sofa with his partner where, for a few minutes, they would enact the configuration.

  According to rules drawn up by himself, Mock was not allowed to satisfy his desire if either of his opponents called checkmate. It had happened once, and he had got up, given the girls each a flower and left, masking his anger and frustration behind a jester’s smile. He had never allowed himself to lose concentration at the chessboard again.

  After one such long session, Mock was resting on the sofa reading his reflections on human characters to the girls. This was his third passion, one which he revealed only in his favourite club. The Criminal Counsellor — a lover of ancient literature who surprised his subordinates with long Latin quotations — envied Nepos and Theophrastus and reconstructed, not without some literary pretensions, the characteristics of people he met. He based his findings both on his own observations and on police files. On average, he would put together a description of one person a month and top up existing ones with fresh facts. These descriptions and newly arising characteristics created great confusion in the girls’ tired heads. Be that as it may, they sat at Mock’s feet, looked into his round eyes and felt the tide of happiness rise within the client.

  Indeed, Criminal Counsellor Mock was happy and when he left — which was usually at about three in the morning — he would give small presents to the girls and a tip to the sleepy porter. Mock’s good humour was felt even by the cabby who took him along Grabschener Strasse, quiet at this hour, to the grand tenement on Rehdigerplatz, where the Counsellor would fall asleep at his wife’s side, listening to the ticking of the clock and the shouts of carters and milkmen.

  Unfortunately, on the night of the 12th to 13th May, Counsellor Eberhard did not experience happiness in the arms of Madame le Goef’s girls. He was just playing out an interesting Sicilian defence when Madame tapped gently on the door.

  A moment later she tapped again. Mock sighed, adjusted his dressing gown, rose and opened the door. His face was expressionless, but Madame could imagine what that man felt when someone interrupted an elaborate erotic-chess manoeuvre.

  “Dear Counsellor,” the owner of the club spared herself what she knew would be futile apologies. “Your assistant is downstairs.”

  Mock thanked her politely, quickly dressed — helped by his obliging geishas, one of whom tied his tie while the other buttoned his trousers and shirt — took two small boxes of chocolates from his briefcase and said goodbye to the inconsolable chess-players. He threw a goodnight to Madame and ran downstairs, colliding forcefully with his assistant, who was leaning against the crystal shade of a lamp in the hall. The crystals clinked in warning.

  “Marietta von der Malten, the Baron’s daughter, has been raped and murdered,” panted Max Forstner.

  Mock ran down the steps into the drive, got into his black Adler, slammed the door a little too hard and lit a cigarette. Forstner sat eagerly behind the steering wheel and turned on the engine. They moved off in silence. They had crossed the bridge over the Lohe before Mock finally gathered his thoughts.

  “How did you find me here?” asked the Counsellor, carefully observing the walls of the Communal Cemetery flitting past on their right. The triangular roof of the crematorium was clearly silhouetted against the sky.

  “The Criminal Director Doctor Muhlhaus suggested where you might be, sir.” Forstner shrugged as if he would have preferred to say: “Everyone knows where Mock is on a Friday.”

  “Don’t permit yourself any such liberties, Forstner.” Mock looked at him intently. “You are still only my assistant.”

  This sounded threatening, but it did not make the slightest impression on Forstner. Mock did not lower his gaze from the broad face (“small, fat, red-haired scoundrel,” he was thinking) and for the nth time resolved, against his better judgment, to destroy his insolent subordinate. This was not going to be easy since Forstner had been received into the Criminal Department when the new President of Police, the fanatical Nazi, Obergruppenfuhrer S.A. Edmund Heines, had taken over command. Mock had learned that his assistant was not only Heines’ protege but boasted of having good relations with the new Supreme President of Silesia, Helmuth Bruckner, who had been imposed upon them by the Nazis shortly after they had won the elections to the Reichstag. But the counsellor had worked in the police for nearly a quarter of a century and knew that anyone could be destroyed. While he had the authority, while the Chief of the Criminal Department was the old Freemason and liberal Heinrich Muhlhaus, he could keep Forstner away from serious cases and transfer him, for example, to booking prostitutes outside the Savoy Hotel on Tauentzienplatz or checking the credentials of homosexuals beneath the statue of Empress Auguste on the promenade by the School of Fine Arts. What most irritated Mock was that he did not know any of Forstner’s weaknesses — his files were clean and day to day observation prompted only one, concise description: “a dumb stickler”. The close bond with Heines, who was well known to be a homosexual, did provide Mock with murky suspicions, but that was not enough to bend this “mole”, Gestapo agent Forstner, to his will.

  They approached Sonnenplatz. The city pulsated with subcutaneous life. A tram carrying workers from the second shift at the Linke, Hofmann amp; Lauchhammer factory grated on the corner, gas lamps flickered. They turned right into Gartenstrasse: carts delivering potatoes and cabbages crowded by the covered market, the caretaker of the art-nouveau tenement on the corner of Theaterstrasse was repairing a lamp and cursing, two drunks were trying to accost prostitutes proudly strolling in front of the Concert House with their parasols. They passed the Kotschenreuther and Waldschmidt Car Showroom, the Silesian Landtag building and several hotels. The night sky dispersed a light, misty rain.

  The Adler drew up on the far side of Main Station, on Teichackerstrasse, opposite the public baths. They got out. Their coats and hats were soon covered with watery dust. Drizzle settled on Mock’s dark stubble and Forstner’s clean-shaven cheeks. Tripping over the rails, they made their way to a side track. Uniformed policemen and railwaymen stood all around, talking in raised voices. The police photographer, Helmut Ehlers, with his trademark limp,
was just approaching the scene.

  The old policeman, who was always sent to the most macabre crimes, came up to Mock carrying a paraffin lamp.

  “Criminal Sergeant Emil Koblischke reporting,” he introduced himself unnecessarily; as usual, the Counsellor knew his subordinates well. Koblischke hid his cigarette in his cupped hand and looked gravely at Mock.

  “Where you and I, sir, are both to be found, things must be bad.” With his eyes, he indicated a saloon carriage with the sign “BERLIN-BRESLAU”. “And things in there are very bad indeed.”

  All three carefully stepped over the body of the prostrate rail worker in the carriage corridor. A bloated face, frozen in a mask of pain. There was no sign of blood. Koblischke grasped the corpse by the collar and sat it up; the head flopped to one side and, as the policeman pulled down the collar, Mock and Forstner leaned forward to get a better view.

  “Bring that lamp nearer, Emil. I can’t see a thing,” Mock said.

  Koblischke stood the lamp closer and turned the corpse over on to its front. He freed one arm from the uniform and shirt, then tugged hard and exposed the dead man’s back and shoulders. He moved the paraffin lamp even closer. The policemen could see several red marks with blue swellings on the nape and shoulder blade. Between the shoulder blades lay three dead, flattened scorpions.

  “Three insects like that can kill a man?” For the first time Forstner betrayed his ignorance.

  “They’re not insects, Forstner, they are arachnids.” Mock did not even moderate his contempt. “Apart from which, the post-mortem is still to come.”

  While the policemen could be in some doubt with regard to the rail worker, the cause of death of the two women in the saloon car was only too obvious.

  Mock frequently caught himself reacting to tragic news with perverse thoughts, and to a shocking sight with amusement. When his mother had died in Waldenburg, the first thought that had come to him was about orderliness: what was to be done with the old, massive divan which couldn’t be lugged out either through the window or the door? At the sight of the thin, pale shins of a demented beggar cruelly beating a puppy near the old Police Praesidium on 49 Schuhbrucke, he had been seized by foolish laughter. So too now, when Forstner slipped on the puddle of blood which covered the floor of the saloon car, Mock burst out laughing. Koblischke did not expect such a reaction from the Counsellor. He, himself, had seen a great deal in his time, but the spectacle in the saloon car set him shaking for a second time. Forstner left the carriage, Mock began his inspection.