Death in Breslau iem-1

by Marek Krajewski

  MIDNIGHT

  Director Bennert walked in absolute silence down by the side staircase used only during apparent evacuations which thankfully had not recently been declared all that frequently. The shaft of torchlight cut through dense darkness. Ever since the city had been bombed, these narrow stairs had filled him with dread. On that memorable thirteenth day of February in 1945, as the noise of the first bomb resounded, Bennert had run down them to the cellar which had been turned into a provisional shelter. He had shouted his daughter’s name, searching for her among the crush on the stairs, but in vain. His cries had been lost in the din of the bomb and the horrific wailing of the sick.

  He rejected the painful memories and opened the door leading out to the hospital park. Major Mahmadov was standing in the door. He patted Bennert jovially on the shoulder, passed him by and made his way upstairs. After a while, the sound of his footsteps disappeared. Bennert did not lock the door. He took his time going up. On the half-landing, he peered out of the window. Across the grass, flooded with moonlight, strode briskly an elderly man in uniform. Bennert would remember that walk for the rest of his life. Again he heard the noise of bombs, the wailing of the sick and through this same window saw an elderly man with sparks of fire in his hair and a burned face, carrying his unconscious daughter in his arms.

  Nurse Jurgen Kopp 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 bottle of wine and turned out a jack of clubs to draw trumps. He did not have time to win a hand, however, before 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.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER

  Scorpions crawled over army trousers and hands covered in dark, thick hairs. One of the scorpions straightened its abdomen and climbed up to a double chin. It swayed on the half-open lips and stood on the gentle peak of a chubby cheek. Another, exploring an earlobe, strolled through thick, black hair. Yet another slid along the floor as if it wanted to escape from the puddle of blood pouring from Major Mahmadov’s throat.

  BERLIN, JULY 19TH, 1950

  EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  Anwaldt woke in a dark room. Before his eyes, he saw a ceiling with dancing reflections of water. He got up and, with an unsteady step, approached the window. Below flowed a river. On a barrier sat a couple tenderly embracing. In the distance flashed the lights of a great city. Anwaldt knew this city from somewhere, but his memory refused to obey him. The tranquillizers had reduced the speed of his association to zero. He swept his eyes over the room. The greyness of the floor was cut by a yellow streak of light coming in through the partially open door. Anwaldt pushed the door open wide and entered an almost empty room. Its severe, ascetic decor consisted of a table, two chairs and a plush sofa. On the floor and on the sofa articles of clothing lay strewn. He started to examine them and, after a while, segregated them clearly in his mind, using gender as the decisive criterion. From his analysis, he concluded that the man who had thrown his clothes about should have remained in nothing but one sock and underpants and the woman in stockings. He caught a glimpse of the couple sitting at a table and was pleased with the precision of his analysis. He was not far wrong: the plump blonde was indeed wearing nothing but a pair of stockings and the elderly man with a red, scarred face had on only his underpants. Anwaldt stared at him for a while and cursed his feeble memory yet again. He shifted his eyes to the middle of the table and remembered a frequent motif in Greek literature: anagnorismos — the motif of recognition. And so someone’s smell, wave of hair, some object would unravel a whole chain of associations, restore an obliterated likeness to features, generate past situations. Gazing at the chessboard laid out on the table, he stretched the string of his memory and experienced his anagnorismos.

  BERLIN, THAT SAME JULY 19TH, 1950

  ELEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  Anwaldt woke up on the plush sofa. The girl had disappeared, along with her exquisite clothes. By the sofa sat the old man, clumsily holding a cup of steaming broth. Anwaldt leaned over and drank half a cup.

  “Could you give me a cigarette, sir?” he asked in a strangely strong, resonant voice.

  “Don’t call me ‘sir’, son,” the man extended a silver cigarette case towards Anwaldt. “We’ve been through too much together to play at such formalities.”

  Anwaldt collapsed on to the pillow and inhaled deeply. Without looking at Mock, he said quietly:

  “Why did you lie to me? You set me on the Baron but that didn’t stop the Yesidi’s revenge in any way! Why did you incite me against my own father?”

  “It didn’t hold the Yesidis back, you say. And you’re right. But how was I to know that at the time?” Mock lit up yet another cigarette even though the previous one was still smoking in the ashtray. “Do you remember that muggy July night in Madame le Goef’s brothel? It’s a shame I didn’t stand you up in front of a mirror then. Do you know whom you’d have seen? Oedipus with his eyes gouged out. I didn’t believe you’d escape the Yesidis. There were two ways I could have saved you from them: either give you hope and isolate you — at least for a while — or kill you myself and in this way protect you from the Turkish scorpions. Which would you have preferred? You’re in such a state of mind at the moment that you’ll say: I’d have preferred to die … Am I right?”

  Anwaldt closed his eyes and, squeezing them tight, tried to prevent the tears from falling.

  “Interesting, my life … One hands me over to an orphanage, the other — to a madhouse. And claims it’s for my own good …”

  “Herbert, sooner or later you’d have ended up with the lunatics. That’s what Doctor Bennert said. But to the point … I set you up to kill the Baron so as to isolate you,” Mock lied again. “I didn’t think you’d escape the Yesidis. But I knew that thanks to that you’d be relatively safe. I also knew what to do to make sure you didn’t get a long sentence. I thought: Anwaldt will be protected by the prison walls and I’ll have time to catch Erkin. After all, getting rid of Erkin was your only hope …”

  “And what? Did you get rid of him?”

  “Yes. Very effectively. He simply disappeared, and his holy dervish continued to believe that he was tracking you down. He believed it until recently when he sent another avenger who is now lying in your room in Bennert’s Dresden clinic. And you’ve won a bit of time again …”

  “Very good, Mock. So you’ve protected me for the time being,” Anwaldt raised himself from the sofa and drank the rest of his broth. “But another Yesidi will come … And will get to Forstner or Maass …”

  “He won’t get to Forstner. Our dear Max met with a terrible accident in Breslau — he was crushed by a lift …” Mock’s face turned even redder and the furrows paled. “What do you think? I’m protecting you as best I can, and you keep on thinking about the curse. If you don’t want to live, you’ve got a gun, kill yourself. But not here, because you’ll betray an apartment belonging to the Stasi … Why do you think I’m protecting you?”

  Anwaldt did not know the answer to that question, while Mock wanted to drown it out by shouting.

  “And what happened to you?” Anwaldt had never been afraid of shouting. “How did you get into the Stasi?”

  “That institution gladly took on high-ranking officers from the Abwehr, where I had moved at the end of ’34. But I told you about that when I visited you in Dresden.”

  “Scheisse, I was in that Dresden a long time.” Anwaldt smiled bitterly.

  “Because there was no possibility in all that time to get you to a safe place … I knew from Bennert that you weren’t ill any mor
e …”

  Anwaldt got up suddenly, spilling the rest of his broth on the floor.

  “I didn’t think of Bennert … He knows everything about me …”

  “Calm down.” Stoic peace beamed from Mock’s scarred face. “Bennert won’t squeak a word to anyone. He has a debt of gratitude to repay me. I pulled his daughter out from under the ruins. This is a souvenir,” he touched his face. “A blind shell exploded and flaming tar paper from the roof seared my head.”

  Anwaldt stretched and peered out of the window: he saw militia men dragging along a civilian drunk. He grew weak.

  “Mock, now I’m going to be hunted down by the militia for the murder of that Turk who’s lying dead in my room at Bennert’s!”

  “Not quite. Tomorrow, you and I are going to be in Amsterdam and in a week’s time in the United States,” Mock did not lose his self-control. He took a small piece of paper covered in masses of numbers from his pocket. “This is a coded cable from General John Fitzpatrick, a senior official in the C.I.A. The Abwehr was a way into the Stasi, and the Stasi into the C.I.A. You know what the cable says? ‘I give permission for Mr Eberhard Mock and his son to enter the U.S.A.’ ” Mock laughed out loud. “Since your papers give your name as being Anwaldt and we haven’t got time to make up new ones, let’s agree that you’re my illegitimate child …”

  But the “illegitimate child” did not feel at all like laughing. He did feel joy, but it was marred by the gloomy, sad satisfaction experienced after finishing off a despised enemy.

  “Now I know why you’ve been protecting me all your life. You wanted a son …”

  “You know sod all,” Mock feigned indignation. “Amateur psychologist! I was deeply involved in the case myself and am afraid, first and foremost, for myself. I value my belly too much to make a home for scorpions of it.”

  Neither of them believed it.

  XVIII

  NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 14TH, 1951

  FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  The Hotel Chelsea on 55th Street was, at this early hour, silent and sleepy. Most of the residents were permanent — travelling salesmen and insurance agents who went to bed early on weekdays so as to leave for work the next morning without sand in their eyes or their breath stale from alcohol.

  The exception to this general rule was an inhabitant of a large, three-roomed apartment on the sixteenth floor. He was believed to be a writer. He worked at his desk by night, slept until noon, went out somewhere in the afternoons and frequently enjoyed female company in the evenings. This evening stretched to three in the morning — at which hour, a tired girl in a navy-blue dress with a large sailor’s collar left the “literary man’s” apartment. Closing the door, she sent a kiss into the depths of the apartment and walked to the lift. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of two men advancing down the long hotel corridor. She shuddered as they passed. One of them instilled fear with his monstrous face covered in scars, the other with his flaming eyes of a fanatic. The girl sighed with relief when she found herself in the company of the dozy lift-boy.

  The men walked up to the door of 16F. Mock knocked softly. The door opened just a little. The face of an elderly man appeared in the gap. Anwaldt grabbed the handle and with all his strength pulled the door towards him. The old man’s head was caught between the door and the frame; the steel casing crushed his ear. He opened his mouth to cry out but was instantly gagged with a handkerchief. Anwaldt let go of the door. The old man stood in his hall and pulled the improvised gag out of his mouth. The swelling on the ear was already growing. Anwaldt dealt him a swift blow. His fist squashed the hot ear. The old man fell. Mock closed the door, dragged the assaulted man into the room and sat him in an armchair. Two silencers stared at the man unwavering.

  “One move, one raised voice, and you’re dead,” Anwaldt tried to keep calm. Mock, in the meantime, went through the books on the desk. Then he turned and looked derisively at the defenceless man:

  “Tell me, Maass, can you still get it up? You still like schoolgirls, I see …”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Maass rubbed his burning ear. “You’ve taken me for somebody else. I’m George Mason, Professor of Semitic Languages at Columbia University.”

  “We’ve changed, eh, Maass? I, Mock, was scalped by flaming tar paper falling from a roof and Herbert Anwaldt has grown fat on dumplings, his favourite meal in the lunatic asylum.” He turned the pages on the table. “You, on the other hand, your jowls have sunk and the rest of your once so beautiful locks have fallen out. But the temperament remains the same, eh, Maass?”

  The questioned man stayed silent, but his eyes grew larger. He opened his mouth in horror, but did not manage to cry out. Mock firmly pressed his arms into the armrests and Anwaldt, quick as lightning, pushed the handkerchief almost down his throat. After a few minutes, Maass’ terrified eyes had dimmed. Anwaldt removed the gag and asked:

  “Why did you betray me to the Turk, Maass? When did they buy you? Why weren’t you loyal to Baron von der Malten? His gratitude and money would have freed you of the trouble of seeking private tuition for the rest of your life. But you’ve always liked private tuition … Particularly with debauched schoolgirls …”

  Maass reached for the bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the table beside him and took a long swig straight from the bottle. Tiny drops appeared on the bald head.

  “What in your view, Anwaldt, is the most important thing in the world?” he had stopped hiding behind his fictitious name. Without waiting for a reply, he continued: “The most important thing is truth. But what’s truth to you when you curse your burning masculinity at night, when the swaying of a passing female’s hips destroys ingenious pyramids of conclusions which give rise to each other, and unaffected levels of syllogisms. You can only experience peace when the most renowned scholarly periodicals long for your articles and the exquisite nymphs for your phallus to subjugate them every night … Have you ever experienced that, Anwaldt? Because that’s what I experienced sixteen years ago in Breslau when Kemal Erkin sent undiscovered manuscripts for me to look at and compliant houris at my feet in return for one simple expert opinion. I know the girls did not love or desire me. So what? It was enough that they fulfilled all my whims every day. They assured me peace in my work. Thanks to them I could free myself of the furious and capricious lord hiding within my loins. Not having to think about him, I got on with my work. I published a manuscript which was considered lost and the discovery brought me world fame. When endowed by Erkin with an enormous sum of money and a photocopy of the manuscript — the one supposedly lost — I fled Breslau. I knew that every department of Oriental Studies would be open to me.” He took another swig of whisky and grimaced. “I chose New York, but you found me even here. Just tell me: why? Primal revenge? You’re Europeans, after all, Christians … What about your commandment to forgive?”

  “You’re mistaken, Maass. But Anwaldt and I have a great deal in common with the Yesidis or — to be more precise — after what we’ve been through, we believe in the power of fate.” Mock opened the window and gazed at the huge neon sign advertising Camel cigarettes. “And you, Maass, do you believe in destiny?”

  “No …” Maass laughed, revealing snow-white teeth. “I believe in coincidence. It’s a coincidence that my pupil introduced me to Erkin, a coincidence that I discovered your real parentage, Anwaldt …”

  “Again you’re mistaken, Maass,” Mock settled himself comfortably in the armchair and spread out his elegant file. “I’ll prove the existence of fate to you in a moment. Do you remember Friedlander’s last two prophecies? In your translation, the first of them went: arar ‘ruin’, chavura ‘wound’, makak ‘fester’, afar ‘rubble’, shamayim ‘heaven/sky’. That prophecy referred to me. Makak is nothing other than my name — Mock. The prophecy proved true. Captain Eberhard Mock of the Abwehr died and an officer of the Secret Communist Police, Stasi, Major Eberhard Mock, was born. Different face, different person, same name. Destiny �
� And now look at that second prophecy, Maass. It goes: yeladim ‘children’, akrabbim ‘scorpions’, amotz ‘white’, and chol ‘sand’ or chul ‘to wriggle, to fall’. I thought that this prophecy referred to Anwaldt (yeladim sounds like Anwaldt). And it almost proved true. A major from the Stasi, a hefty Uzbek with pockets full of scorpions, arrived at the psychiatric hospital so as to accomplish the secret mission. Anwaldt was to die within white walls (amoc — white), in a room where windows were fitted with bars (sevacha — a grille), with his belly full of scorpions wriggling (chul — to wriggle). But I interpreted that prophecy differently and altered destiny. Anwaldt became a language specialist who — in hospital — taught himself to be a pretty good expert in Semitic languages. And the Uzbek and his brothers from the desert stayed in the Dresden hospital …”

  Mock strolled up and down the room, proudly thrusting his hefty chest forward.

  “So you see, Maass? I am destiny. Yours too … Do you want to know my interpretation of that last prophecy? Here it is: amoc is ‘Maass’, then — jeladim ‘children’, akrabbim ‘scorpions’, chul ‘to fall’. ‘Children’, ‘scorpions’, and ‘to fall’ are omens of your death.”

  Mock stood in the middle of the room and raised his arms above his head. He froze in this position of a pagan priest and in a grave voice proclaimed:

  “I, Eberhard Mock, relentless fate, I, Eberhard Mock, impending death, ask you, son, do you prefer to fall to the street from this floor or die from the venom of little scorpions, children still, scorpion children but with murderous poison already in their tails?”

  Mock clearly emphasized the words “scorpion children” and “to fall out”. Maass could not understand what scorpions he was talking about until Anwaldt opened a small medical box. Maass peered inside and paled. Little, black arachnids were rotating their pincers and flexing their abdomens as they tried to clamber out of the box. The German language long unheard by him repeated itself in his ears. The verb ausfallen — “to fall out” — hissed and vibrated. He made towards the open window.