Death in Breslau iem-1

by Marek Krajewski

  The drive in the car gave Anwaldt the most enormous pleasure. (A beautiful city.) Unfortunately, his Adler had been burning in the high sun since morning and when he heaved himself in behind the steering-wheel, sweat poured down his shirt and jacket. He opened the windows, threw his hat on the back seat and pulled away with a screech of tyres, longing to cool himself by the current of air. With no success — his lungs filled with dry dust. As if this torment were not enough, Anwaldt lit a cigarette, drying his mouth out completely.

  Following the instructions given by von der Malten’s chauffeur, he arrived at the College of Oriental Studies at Schmiedebrucke 35 without any problems. Professor Andreae was waiting for him. He listened closely as Anwaldt imitated the way yesterday’s assailant spoke. Although the lines the policeman repeated several times were short — (“How did you get in here? Show your invitation!”) — the professor had no doubts. The German-speaking foreigner at the Baron’s ball was most certainly a Turk. Pleased with his linguistic intuition, Anwaldt bade the professor farewell and drove on to the Police Praesidium.

  In the entrance, he met Forstner. They exchanged glances and easily recognized each other: Anwaldt’s bandaged head and Forstner’s cut eyebrow. They greeted each other with feigned indifference.

  “I see you didn’t spend last night at the Salvation Army on Blucherplatz,” laughed Smolorz, greeting Anwaldt.

  “It’s nothing. I had a slight accident.” He glanced at the desk: Baron von Kopperlingk’s file lay there. “Not very thick.”

  “The thicker one’s probably in the Gestapo archives. You have to have special connections to get in there. I haven’t got any …” He wiped his sweaty forehead with a chequered handkerchief.

  “Thank you, Smolorz. Ah …” Anwaldt rubbed his nose nervously. “I’d be most grateful if you’d prepare a list of all the Turks who have lived in Breslau over the last eighteen months by tomorrow. Is there a Turkish Consulate here?”

  “Yes, on Neudorfstrasse.”

  “They’re bound to help you. Thank you, you’re free to go.”

  Anwaldt was left alone in his cool office. He rested his forehead on the slippery, green surface of the desk and felt he was reaching the lowest point of the sinusoid — the critical point of his good and bad moods. He became painfully conscious of the fact that he reacted differently to other people: the furiously burning world outside released, in him, energy and action, the pleasant coolness of the office, surrender and resignation. (Each one’s a microcosmos connected to the movement of the universe; I’m not. I’m different from them. Haven’t I been told that ever since childhood? I’m an isolated mini-universe where multi-directional gravitation rules and welds everything into heavy, concentrated blocks.)

  He abruptly got up, slipped his shirt off and leaned over the basin. Hissing with pain, he washed his neck and armpits then sat in his chair and allowed the water to run down his wounded torso in narrow streams. He wiped his face and hands on his vest. (Be active! Do something!) He picked up the receiver and instructed the runner to buy some cigarettes and lemonade, then closed his eyes and easily mastered the chaotic images. He tore them from himself and set them in order: “Scorpions in Marietta von der Malten’s belly. A scorpion on the Turk’s hand. The Turk killed Marietta.” This observation pleased Anwaldt with its self-evidence yet the prospect of ineffective work gave him cold feet. (The Turk killed the Baron’s daughter; the Turk guards Baron von Kopperlingk’s house; the Baron is protected by the Gestapo; ergo, the Turk has something to do with the Gestapo; ergo, the Gestapo is mixed up in the Baron’s daughter’s murder; ergo, I’m as weak and helpless as a child in the face of the Gestapo.)

  A knock on the door. A kn-o-ck. The runner brought in an armful of bottles and two packets of strong Bergmann Privat cigarettes. The cigarette weakened him for a moment. He drank a bottle of the lemonade in one go, closed his eyes and again the thought-images became thought-sentences. (Lea Friedlander knows who pointed her father out to Mock and made a scapegoat of him. It could be someone from the Gestapo. If she’s going to be afraid to tell me, I’ll force her. I’ll withhold the morphine, terrorize her with the needle. She’ll do anything I say!) He rejected the erotic vision “she’ll do anything I say” and got up from his desk. (Be active!) He paced the room and voiced his doubts out loud:

  “Where are you going to make her talk? In a cell. What cell? Here, in the Police Praesidium. What’ve you got Smolorz for? Great — you lock a doll like that up in a cell and all the screws and policemen are going to know about it within an hour. And most certainly the Gestapo.”

  In moments of greatest discouragement, Anwaldt always turned his thoughts to entirely different matters. And so it was now: he engaged himself in studying the Baron’s file. He found several photographs of an orgy in some garden and a list of names unknown to him — names of those present at the parties. None betrayed Turkish descent. There was very little on the host himself. The ordinary life story of an educated Prussian aristocrat and a few official notes from the Baron’s meetings with Hauptsturmfuhrer S.A. Walter Piontek.

  He buttoned his shirt and tightened his tie. He went downstairs slowly to the archives, picking up his Breslau police identification on the way. (Be active!) In the basement of the Police Praesidium, he met with bitter disappointment. On the orders of Doctor Engel — who was executing the duties of Police President — Piontek’s files had been transferred to the Gestapo archives. Anwaldt barely managed to get to his office: pain was shooting through his swollen heel, his wounds and abrasions burning. He sat down behind his desk and, in a hoarse voice, asked Mock, who was sunbathing on a Zoppot beach:

  “When are you coming back, Eberhard? If you were here you’d extract Piontek’s and Baron von Kopperlingk’s files from the Gestapo … You’d find a safe place where we could subject Lea to a morphine detox … You’d surely find a vice in your memory for that crazy Baron … When are you finally coming back?”

  Longing for Mock was longing for the Baron’s money, for tropical islands, for slaves with skin like silk … (You’ve built a fine tower, Herbert, with those bricks. Be active, force Lea to speak yourself, can’t you? You’ve built a fine tower, Herbert.)

  † To what good? (Latin).

  VI

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME TUESDAY, JULY 10TH, 1934

  SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  On the main road which lay at the end of Hansastrasse, Anwaldt found a small restaurant. Out of professional habit, he noted the owner’s name and the address: Paul Seidel, Tiergartenstrasse 33. There he ate three hot sausages immersed in a mash of boiled peas and drank two bottles of Deinart mineral water.

  Ten minutes later and feeling somewhat heavy, he stood outside Fatamorgana Studio of Photography and Film. He thumped for some time — loudly and stubbornly — on the closed door. (No doubt she’s topped herself up with morphine again. But it’s the last time.) The old caretaker shuffled out of the gate on to the pavement.

  “I haven’t seen Fraulein Susanne going out anywhere. Her servant left an hour ago …” he muttered, inspecting Anwaldt’s identification.

  The policeman removed his jacket and resigned himself to the trickles of sweat: he did not even attempt to wipe them off with a handkerchief. He sat down on a stone bench in the yard next to a dozing pensioner in a perforated hat. One window-vent in Lea’s apartment, he noticed, was not quite closed. He barely managed to climb on to the sill — his swollen heel was aching and his stomach lay heavily. Slipping his hand inside, he turned the brass handle and, for a moment, struggled with the tangling curtain netting and rampant ferns standing on the window sill. He felt at home in this apartment and took off his jacket, waistcoat and tie, hung all this on the back of a chair and set off in search of Lea. He made towards the studio where, so he thought, he would find her lying, intoxicated. But, before he got there, he turned to the bathroom: the peas and sausages were sending out strong physiological messages.

  Lea Friedlander was in the bathroom, her legs hanging
over the toilet bowl, her thighs and shins smeared with faeces. She was naked. The thick cable wrapped around her neck was attached to the overflow pipe just below the ceiling and the corpse’s back was touching the wall. The painted crimson lips revealed gums and teeth from between which protruded a blue, swollen tongue.

  Anwaldt threw up the contents of his stomach into the bidet. He then sat on the edge of the bath and tried to collect his thoughts. In no more than a few minutes, he was sure Lea had not committed suicide. There was no stool in the bathroom, nothing from which she could have kicked herself off. She could not have rebounded from the toilet bowl because she was not tall enough. She would have had to tie the loop on the thick drainpipe below the ceiling and then, holding on to it with one hand, place the loop around her neck. (Such a feat would have been hard for an acrobat let alone a morphine addict whom half a dozen men must have shagged that day. It looks as if someone very strong strangled Lea, hung the rope in the bathroom, lifted the girl and slipped her neck through the loop. Except that he forgot about the chair which would have made the trick credible.)

  Suddenly, he heard the curtain flutter in the window through which he had climbed. A draught. (There must be another window open in this apartment.)

  In the door, stood a huge, dark man. He took a rapid swipe. Anwaldt jumped aside, treading on the silk petticoat lying on the floor. His right leg slid back; the entire weight of his body rested on his swollen left foot; it was more than he could take. The left leg gave way under him; Anwaldt bent forward in front of the Turk. The latter clasped his hands and gave a blow from below — to the chin. The policeman collapsed backwards into the enormous bathtub. Before he realized what had happened, he saw the assailant’s face over him and an enormous fist armed with a knuckleduster. The punch in his solar plexus took his breath away. A cough, wheezing, a blurred image, wheezing, wheezing, night, wheezing, night, night.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 10TH, 1934

  EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  The icy water restored Anwaldt’s consciousness. He was sitting, quite naked, in a windowless cell, tied to a chair. Two men in black, unbuttoned S.S. uniforms were observing him. The shorter of the two twisted his long, intelligent face in a grimace reminiscent of a smile. He reminded Anwaldt of his secondary school maths teacher who used to pull similar faces when one of his pupils could not solve a problem. (I warn you against these people — they are ruthless and capable of forcing anyone into giving up an investigation. If, God forbid, you ever find yourself at the Gestapo, please stubbornly state that you are an agent of the Abwehr uncovering the Polish Intelligence network in Breslau.)

  The man from the Gestapo walked around the cell, where the stench of sweat was almost palpable.

  “Bad, Anwaldt, isn’t it?” he clearly expected an answer.

  “Yes …” the tortured man gasped. His tongue caught the jagged remains of his front tooth.

  “Everybody’s bad in this city.” He circled the chair. “Yeees, Anwaldt. So what are you doing here … in this Babylon? What brought you here?”

  The man in uniform lit a cigarette and put the flaming match to the prisoner’s crown. Anwaldt flung himself about; the stink of burning hair was suffocating. The second torturer, a sweaty, fat man, threw a wet rag over his head, extinguishing the fire. The relief was short-lived. That same Gestapo man squeezed the prisoner’s nose with one hand while, with the other, he shoved the rag into his mouth.

  “What’s your assignment in Breslau, Berliner?” the muffled voice repeated. “Enough, Konrad.”

  Freed of the stinking gag, Anwaldt fell into a long fit of coughing. The slim Gestapo man waited patiently for an answer. Not getting one, he looked at his helper.

  “Herr Anwaldt doesn’t want to answer, Konrad. He evidently feels safe. He thinks he’s protected. But who’s protecting him?” he spread his hands. “Criminal Director Eberhard Mock, perhaps? But Mock isn’t here. Do you see Mock anywhere, Konrad?”

  “No, I don’t, Herr Standartenfuhrer.”

  The slim man bowed his head and uttered in a pleading voice:

  “I know, I know, Konrad. Your methods are foolproof. No secret remains, no name blotted from memory, when you question your patients. Allow me to cure this patient. May I?”

  “Of course, Herr Standartenfuhrer.”

  The smiling Konrad left the cell. The Standartenfuhrer opened an old, tattered briefcase and took out a litre bottle and a half-litre jar. He poured the contents of the bottle — some kind of suspension — over Anwaldt’s head. The prisoner tasted something sweet on his tongue.

  “It’s water with honey, you know, Anwaldt,” the torturer reached for the jar. “And this? You know what this is? Alright, alright … I’ll satisfy your curiosity.” He shook the jar several times. A low buzzing of insects emanated from it. Anwaldt looked: two hornets were furiously jumping on each other and thrashing against the sides of the jar.

  “Oh dear, what awful monsters …” the man from Gestapo lamented. Suddenly, he took a swing and smashed the jar against the wall. Before the disorientated hornets had found their wings in the small cell, the prisoner was alone.

  Anwaldt had never imagined that these enormous insects gave off the same sound with their wings as small birds. The hornets first threw themselves at the wire-encased light bulb but, after a moment, changed direction. They made strange convulsive movements in the fusty air and with every shudder fell lower. Soon, they found themselves in the vicinity of Anwaldt’s head where they were drawn by the smell of honey. The prisoner tried to use his imagination to escape the cell. He succeeded. (He was walking along a beach washed by gentle waves, rippled by a fresh breeze. His feet sank into the warm sand. Suddenly, a wind arose, the sand grew white-hot, the waves — instead of licking the beach — roared and lashed out at Anwaldt in raging froth.)

  His imagination refused to obey. He felt a slight current of air near his lips which were stuck together by the honey and water. He opened his eyes and saw a hornet which clearly had its eye on his lips. He blew at it with all his strength. The hornet, propelled by the rush of air, settled on the cell wall. Meanwhile, the second insect had started to circle his head. Anwaldt moved abruptly with his chair and flung his head from side to side. The hornet sat on one of his collar bones and dug its sting into his skin. The prisoner pressed it down with his chin and felt a searing pain. A blue, pulsating swelling merged the jaw with the collar bone. The squashed insect contorted its black and yellow body on the floor. The other hornet broke away from the wall and made to attack — stubbornly towards the lips. Anwaldt tilted his head and the insect, instead of landing on the lips, found itself on the edge of an eye socket. The pain and swelling spilt over the entire eye. Anwaldt jerked his head and, together with the chair, tumbled on to the concrete. Darkness flooded the left eye. Then the right.

  A bucket of ice-cold water restored his consciousness. The Standartenfuhrer dismissed the helper with his hand. He grabbed the chair by the backrest and, without the least difficulty, returned Anwaldt to a vertical position.

  “You’ve got fighting spirit,” he looked at the prisoner’s swollen face with concern. “Two hornets attacked you and you killed them both.”

  The policeman’s skin was painfully taut over the hard spheres of swelling. The hornets were still twitching on the rough floor.

  “Tell me, Anwaldt, is that enough? Or do you want me to ask those aggressive creatures for help again? Do you know, I’m even more frightened of them than you are. Tell me, Anwaldt, is that enough?”

  The prisoner affirmed with a nod. The fat torturer entered the cell and placed a chair in front of the officer. The latter sat astride it, rested his elbows on its back and looked amicably at his victim.

  “Who are you working for?”

  “The Abwehr.”

  “Your mission?”

  “To uncover the Polish spy network.”

  “Why did they bring you in all the way from Berlin? Isn’t there anybody good enough in Breslau?”


  “I don’t know. I received orders.”

  Anwaldt heard a stranger’s voice coming from his own vocal cords. Every word was accompanied by pain in his throat and facial muscles stiff between the lumps made by the stings on his eye and jaw.

  “Untie me, please,” he whispered.

  The Standartenfuhrer observed him without a word. A warmer emotion flickered in his intelligent eye.

  “Uncovering Polish Intelligence. And what have Baron von Kopperlingk and Baron von der Malten to do with it?”

  “The man I was following was present at Baron von Kopperlingk’s ball. But von der Malten has got nothing to do with the matter.”

  “What’s the man’s name?”

  Anwaldt was taken in by the torturer’s friendly expression. He filled his lungs with air and whispered:

  “I can’t tell you …”

  The man in uniform laughed silently for a while then began a strange monologue. He asked questions in a deep voice then answered himself in a trembling falsetto:

  “Who beat you up at the Baron’s ball? Some swine, officer. Are you afraid of the swine? Yes, officer. But you’re not afraid of hornets? Oh, I am, officer. How come? After all, you did kill two! Without even using your hands! Oh, I see, Anwaldt, two’s not enough for you … You can have more …”

  The man from Gestapo finished his bass-falsetto medley and deliberately stamped his cigarette into the swelling on Anwaldt’s collar bone.

  A stranger’s voice practically tore apart Anwaldt’s swollen throat. He lay on the floor, yelling. One minute. Two. The Standartenfuhrer called: “Konrad!” A bucket of cold water silenced the prisoner. The torturer lit a new cigarette and blew on its tip. Anwaldt stared at the glow in horror.

  “Name of the suspect?”