Death in Breslau

by Marek Krajewski

  They approached Sonnenplatz. The city pulsated with subcutaneous life. A tram carrying workers from the second shift at the Linke, Hofmann & 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 Teichäckerstrasse, 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 Schuhbrücke, 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.

  Seventeen-year-old Marietta von der Malten was on the floor, naked from the waist down. Her loose, thick, ash-blonde hair was saturated with blood, like a sponge. Her face was contorted as if by a sudden attack of paralysis. Garlands of intestines lay scattered at the sides of her slashed body. The torn stomach revealed remnants of undigested food. Mock caught sight of something in the abdominal cavity. Overcoming his revulsion, he leaned over the girl’s body. The stench was unbearable. Mock swallowed. In the blood and mucus moved a small, vigorous scorpion.

  Forstner vomited violently in the toilet. Koblischke jumped comically as something crunched under his shoe.

  “Scheisse, there’s more of them here,” he shouted.

  They examined the corners of the saloon car with care and killed three more scorpions. “Good thing none of them stung us.” Koblischke was breathing heavily. “Otherwise we’d be prostrate like that one in the corridor.”

  When they had made sure that there were no more sinister creatures in the carriage, they approached the second victim, Mlle Françoise Debroux, governess to the Baron’s daughter. The woman, about forty years old, was lying flung over the back of a couch. Torn stockings, varicose veins on her shins, a modest dress with a white collar, yanked up to her armpits, sparse hair freed from its spinster’s bun. Her teeth biting into her swollen tongue. A curtain cord was pulled tight around her neck. Mock inspected the corpse with revulsion and, to his relief, did not see another scorpion.

  “That’s the strangest thing,” Koblischke indicated the wall, lined with striped, navy-blue fabric. Writing could be seen between the carriage windows. Two lines of strange signs. The Criminal Counsellor brought his face closer to them. Again he swallowed hard.

  “Yes, yes …” Koblischke understood him instantly. “Written in blood …”

  Mock told the obliging Forstner that he did not wish to be driven home. He walked slowly, his coat unbuttoned. He felt the burden of his fifty years. After half an hour, he found himself among familiar houses. In the doorway of one of the tenements on Opitzstrasse, he came to a standstill and looked at his watch. Four o’clock. At this time, he would normally be coming back from his Friday “chess”. Yet never had any of the exquisite sessions wearied him so much as today’s experience.

  Lying next to his wife, he listened to the ticking of the clock. Before falling asleep, he remembered a scene from his youth. He was staying as a twenty-year-old student on the estate of his distant family near Trebnitz and flirting with the wife of the manor steward. In the end, after many unsuccessful attempts, he had arranged a tryst with her. He was sitting on the river bank under an old oak tree, certain that the day had come when he was finally going to have his fill of her voluptuous body. Smoking a cigarette, he listened to an argument between a few country girls who were playing on the other side of the river. The cruel creatures, their voices raised, were chasing away a lame girl and calling her a cripple. The child was standing by the water and looking in Mock’s direction. In her outstretched arm, she held an old doll, her darned dress rippled in the breeze, her newly polished shoes were splattered with clay. Mock realized that she reminded him of a bird with a broken wing. As he watched the girl, he all of a sudden began to cry.

  Nor could he stifle his tears now. His wife muttered something in her sleep. Mock opened the window and turned his burning face to the rain. Marietta von der Malten had been lame too and he had known her since she was a child.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME MAY 13TH, 1933

  EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  On Saturdays, Mock would arrive at the Police Praesidium at ten in the morning. The porters, couriers and detectives would glance meaningfully at each other as, faintly smiling and heavy with sleep, the Counsellor would reply to their greetings, leaving behind him a waft of expensive eau de cologne from Welzel. But this Saturday he did not remind anyone of that self-satisfied policeman, their mild and understanding superior. He came into the building as early as eight, slamming the door behind him. He snapped open his umbrella several times, spraying droplets of rain all around. Without replying either to the porter’s or to the sleepy courier’s “Good morning, sir”, he took the stairs at the double, caught the tip of his shoe and all but fell. Porter Handke could not believe his ears – for the first time in his experience, he heard a ripe curse from Mock’s lips.

  “Oh, the Counsellor’s ill-disposed today,” he smiled to Bender,
the courier.

  Mock, meantime, had entered his office, sat behind his desk, and lit a cigar. His unseeing eyes fixed on a glazed brick wall. Although aware that he was still wearing his coat and hat, he did not move. After some minutes, a knock echoed on the door and Forstner came in.

  “Everybody’s to be here in an hour.”

  “They are here already.”

  The Counsellor looked at his assistant with cool kindliness for the first time.

  “Forstner, please arrange for me to talk to Professor Andreae from the university over the telephone. And please phone Baron Olivier von der Malten’s residence and ask what time the Baron would be willing to see me. Briefing here in five minutes.”

  It seemed to Mock that Forstner clicked his heels as he left.

  The Detectives and Inspectors, titled Assistants, Secretaries and Criminal Sergeants, looked at their unshaven boss and the pale Forstner with no surprise. They knew that the latter’s stomach upset was in no way due to over-indulging in his favorite dish of black pudding and onions.

  “Gentlemen, you’re to put aside all other cases currently in hand.” Mock spoke loudly and clearly. “We are to use all means, lawful and unlawful, to find the murderer or murderers. You may use violence and you may use blackmail. I shall try to make all secret files accessible to you. Do not skimp on informers.

  “Now to hard facts. Hanslik and Burck, you are to question all animal handlers, starting with suppliers of the Zoological Gardens and ending with those selling parrots and goldfish. I expect a report on Tuesday morning. Smolorz, you’ll draw up a list of all private menageries in Breslau and the neighbouring regions, also a list of eccentrics who sleep with anacondas. Then you will question them all. Forstner will help you. Report on Tuesday. Helm and Friedrich, you will look through the files of all perverts and rapists in our records since the end of the war. Pay close attention to animal lovers and those who have so much as dabbled in Eastern languages. Report Monday evening. Reinhardt, you will pick twenty men, visit every brothel and question as many whores as you can. You are to ask them about any sadistic clients and those who, during orgasm, quote the Kama Sutra. Report Tuesday. Kleinfeld and Krank, your task is not easy. You are to find out who was the last to see these unfortunate victims alive. Partial reports daily at three. Gentlemen, tomorrow, Sunday, is not a day of rest.”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME MAY 13TH, 1933

  ELEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  Professor Andreae was stubborn. He stated categorically that he could only decipher the original text on the wallpaper itself; he did not want to hear about photographs or even the most perfect hand-written copies. Mock, who because of his – admittedly uncompleted – philological studies had great respect for manuscripts, conceded. He replaced the receiver and sent Forstner to bring the roll of fabric with mysterious verses on it from the evidence storeroom while he made his way to the Chief of the Criminal Department, Doctor Heinrich Mühlhaus, and presented him with his plan of action. The Criminal Director did not comment, did not praise, did not criticize, made no suggestion of his own. He gave the impression of a grandfather listening with an indulgent smile to the fantastical imaginings of his grandson. He smoothed his long, greyish beard, adjusted his pince-nez, puffed at his pipe and frequently closed his eyes. Mock tried to preserve this interesting image of his superior in his memory.

  “Don’t go to sleep on me, please, young man,” Mühlhaus barked at him. “I know you’re tired.”

  He drummed his yellow fingers on the desk: the grandfather reprimanding his grandson.

  “You have to find the murderer, Eberhard. Do you know what will happen if you don’t? I’m retiring in a month. And you? Instead of taking my place, which might well happen, you will be made commander of the Railway Protection Office in Silesian Manure, for example, or be sent to guard the fishponds near Lubin, Commander of the local Fisheries Police. You know von der Malten. If you don’t find the murderer, he’ll take his revenge. And he’s got a great deal of influence still. Oh, I nearly forgot … watch Forstner. Thanks to him the Gestapo knows every step we take.”

  Mock thanked him for the counsel and went to his office. He glanced at the town moat bordered by old chestnut trees and the sun-drenched Schlossplatz where the military orchestra was marching in rehearsal for tomorrow’s Spring Celebrations. The sunlight encircled Mock’s head with an amber halo. He closed his eyes and again saw the shunned, crippled girl beside the river. He also saw the steward’s wife approaching from afar – the object of his youthful desires.

  The ringing of the phone brought him back to the Police Praesidium. He ran his fingers through his slightly greasy hair and picked up the receiver. It was Kleinfeld.

  “Sir, the last person to see the victims alive was the waiter Moses Hirschberg. We’ve questioned him. He brought coffee to the ladies in the saloon car at midnight.”

  “Where was the train at the time?”

  “Between Liegnitz and Breslau, past Maltsch.”

  “Did the train stop anywhere between Maltsch and Breslau?”

  “No. It would only have waited for the green light in Breslau, just before the station.”

  “Thank you, Kleinfeld. Check this Hirschberg most carefully – see whether we’ve got anything on him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The telephone rang a second time.

  “Counsellor, sir,” Forstner’s baritone resounded, “Professor Andreae recognized the alphabet as being ancient Syrian. We’ll have the translation on Tuesday.”

  The telephone rang for the third time.

  “Baron von der Malten’s residence. The Baron expects you as soon as possible.”

  Mock discarded his first instinct – which was to give the impudent major-domo a dressing down – and assured him that he would be there shortly. He told Forstner, who had just returned from the university, to drive him to Eichen-Allee 13, where the Baron lived. The residence was besieged by journalists who, recognizing the Adler, ran towards the policemen. They avoided them without a word and, let in by the guard, entered von der Malten’s domain. They were greeted in the hall by the butler Matthias.

  “The Baron wishes to see only the Counsellor.”

  Forstner could not conceal his disappointment; Mock smiled to himself.

  The Baron’s study was adorned with prints full of occult symbolism. Esoteric knowledge was also the subject of numerous volumes identically bound in maroon leather. The sun, barely seeping in through the thick, green curtains, illuminated four porcelain elephants carrying a globe on their backs. In the semi-darkness shone a silver model of celestial bodies with Earth at their centre. Olivier von der Malten’s voice, coming from the games room next to the library, distracted Mock from geocentric matters.

  “You have no children, Eberhard, so spare yourself the condolences. Forgive this form of conversing – through the door. I don’t wish you to look at me. You knew Marietta since she was a child …”

  He broke off, and Mock thought he heard suppressed sobs. A moment later, the Baron’s somewhat altered voice made itself heard again.

  “Light yourself a cigar and listen carefully. First and foremost, get rid of those scribblers outside my door. Second, send for Doctor Georg Maass from Königsberg. He is as excellent a specialist on matters occult as he is on Eastern languages. He will help you find the perpetrators of this ritualistic murder … Yes, ritualistic. Your ears do not deceive you, Eberhard. Third, if you do find the murderer, hand him over to me. Such is my advice, my request or, if you prefer, my ultimatum. That is all. Smoke your cigar in peace. Goodbye.”

  The Counsellor did not say a word. He had known von der Malten since his student days and knew that any attempt at a discussion would be futile. The Baron listened only to himself; to others he issued instructions. Counsellor Eberhard Mock had long lost the habit of listening to orders because, after all, it was hard to describe the kind-hearted grumpiness of his chief, Mühlhaus, as such. Besides, Mock was not in a position to refuse – if it
were not for Olivier von der Malten, he would not have earned the title of Criminal Counsellor.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME MAY 13TH, 1933

  ONE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Mock gave Forstner instructions regarding the journalists and Doctor Maass, while he himself summoned Kleinfeld.

  “Do we have anything on this Hirschberg?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bring him to me for questioning. At two.”

  He felt himself losing the self-control for which he was renowned. It seemed to him that he had sand in his eyes; his swollen tongue was covered with a sour coating of nicotine; his breathing was loud and his shirt clung to him with sweat. He waved down a taxicab and ordered to be taken to the university.

  Professor Andreae had just finished his lecture on the history of the Near East. Mock walked up to him and introduced himself. The professor peered at the unshaven policeman suspiciously and invited him into his office.

  “Professor, you’ve been lecturing at our university for thirty years now. I myself had the pleasure of listening to you when I studied classical philology years ago … But among your students there were also some who dedicated themselves entirely to Oriental Studies. Can you, perhaps, remember any who may have behaved strangely, revealed any aberrations, perversions …?”

  Andreae was a short, shrivelled old man with short legs and a long torso. He sat now in his enormous armchair, circling his feet in their little laced shoes. Mock half-closed his eyes and smiled to himself. He had already built a simple caricature of the professor in his mind: two vertical lines, the nose and goatee; three horizontal lines, the eyes and lips.