Death in Breslau

by Marek Krajewski

  The Baron, a dedicated lover of Homer, adored retardation. This time the retardation was actually an introduction.

  “I’ll ask you a brief and succinct question: do you want Kraus to see the documents I keep and which prove irrefutably that the Chief of the Criminal Department used to be a Freemason? Answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Did you know that the Chief of the Gestapo of barely a few days feverishly wants to prove himself so as to show his principals in Berlin that their decision had been correct. We have in the Gestapo now a man who is more of a Hitlerite than Hitler himself. Do you want the Hitler of Breslau to find out the whole truth about your career?”

  Mock began to wriggle in his chair. The choice cigar suddenly took on a sour after-taste. He had known somewhat earlier about the planned attack on Röhm and his Silesian followers, but he had, with particular relish, forbidden his men to intervene in any way. “Let them kill themselves, the swine,” he had told the one and only man in the police whom he trusted. And he, himself, had gladly supplied the S.S. with a number of compromising photographs. He had wanted to greet the fall of Piontek, Heines and Brückner with champagne, but as he was raising a solitary toast his arm suddenly stiffened. He had realized that the thugs had executed a purge among themselves but that they continued to rule. And that after the few bad specimens, even worse might follow. He had anticipated correctly: Erich Kraus was the worst of all the Hitlerites he had known.

  “Don’t answer, you little shoemaker from Waldenburg, you little hustler, you mediocrity! Even your interpretations of Horace had the finesse of a shoemaker’s hoof. Ne ultra crepidam.† You did not heed the warning and lied at our door. For your career. You left the Lodge. You secretly served the Gestapo. Don’t ask how I know all this … Of course, you also did this for your career. But it is my daughter who served your career best. You remember – the same one who, limping, would run to meet you. You remember how much she liked you? ‘Dear Herr Ebi’ … she’d cry when she saw you.”

  Mock got up abruptly.

  “What do you want? I’ve already handed you the murderer. Speak, as you promised, ‘briefly and succinctly’ and spare yourself this Ciceronian performance!”

  Von der Malten did not say a word, but walked up to his desk and took a tin Wiener Chocolate box from a drawer. He opened it and slipped it under Mock’s nose. A scorpion was pinned to the red velvet. Next to it lay a little blue card with the Coptic verses about death which he already knew. Underneath was added in German: ‘Your pain is still too small.’ I found this in my study.”

  Mock looked at the geocentric model of Earth and said far more calmly now:

  “There is no lack of psychopaths. In our city, too. And most certainly among your servants – who could get into such a well-guarded residence?”

  The Baron was toying with a paper-knife. Suddenly, he turned his eyes to the window. “Do you want to see in order to believe? Do you really want to look at my daughter’s dessous? I’ve put it away. It was in this box next to the scorpion and this letter.”

  Mock did, indeed, remember that Marietta’s underwear was missing from the scene of the crime. He had even told one of his men to check on all fetishists on this very account.

  Von der Malten put the knife aside and said in a voice trembling with rage:

  “I finished off that ‘murderer’ in the cellar, the man you delivered to me … That old, demented Jew … There’s only one man I hate more than you: the real murderer. You’re going to put all that’s within your power, Mock, to work and find that murderer. No … no … not you personally. Somebody else will be heading the new investigation. Someone from the outside, whom no gang from Breslau will ensnare. Besides, you’ve already caught the murderer … How would that be? You looking for him again? You might even lose your position and your medal …”

  The Baron leaned across the desk and their faces came within a few centimetres of each other. Stale breath enveloped Mock.

  “Are you going to help me or am I to ruin your career? Are you going to do everything I tell you or am I to call von Woyrsch and Kraus?”

  “I’ll help you, but I don’t know how. What am I to do?” he replied without hesitation.

  “That’s your first intelligent question.” Anger still trembled in the Baron’s voice. “Come into the drawing-room. I’ll introduce you to somebody.”

  * * *

  As the Baron opened the door to the drawing-room, two men sitting at a side table immediately stood up. The not too tall man with curly, dark hair looked like a teenager caught by his parents in the act of looking through pornographic illustrations. The younger, slim, auburn-haired man, had the same expression of weariness and satisfaction in his eyes as Mock saw in his own on Saturday mornings.

  “Criminal Director,” the Baron addressed Mock. “Let me introduce Doctor Georg Maass from Königsberg and Criminal Assistant of the Berlin Police, Herbert Anwaldt. Doctor Maass is a fellow at the University of Königsberg and an eminent Semitologist and historian; Assistant Anwaldt a specialist in crimes of a sexual nature. Dear gentlemen, this is Chief of the Criminal Department of the Police Praesidium in Breslau, Criminal Director Eberhard Mock.

  The men nodded to each other, after which – following the Baron’s example – they sat down. The host continued ceremoniously:

  “In keeping with his courteous assurance, the Criminal Director will give you any help you need. Files and libraries stand open to you. The Criminal Director has kindly agreed to employ – as of tomorrow – Assistant Anwaldt in the establishment under his command as Official in Charge of Special Affairs. Am I right, Criminal Director?” – Mock, astounded by his implied “courtesy”, nodded – “Assistant Anwaldt, having access to all files and information, will commence a highly secret investigation into my daughter’s murder. Have I omitted anything, Criminal Director?”

  “No, you have omitted nothing, Baron,” confirmed Mock, wondering how he would assuage his wife’s anger when she found out that she would be spending the first days of her holiday alone.

  BRESLAU, SATURDAY, JULY 7TH, 1934

  EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  A uniform heat prevailed over Breslau. The hollow in which Breslau lay roasted in streaks of burning air. Sellers of lemonade sat under parasols on street corners, in shops and other places rented out for the purpose. They did not have to advertise their goods. All were employing helpers who supplied them with buckets of ice from the stores. Fanning itself incessantly, the sweaty crowd filled the cafés and pastry shops on elegant Gartenstrasse. Musicians, soaked in sweat, played Sunday marches and waltzes on Liebichshöhe where, under the spread of chestnut and plane trees, the weary middle class breathed the dusty air. Squares and parks were peopled with old folk playing skat and angry nursemaids trying to calm over-heated children. Older pupils, who had not yet left for the holidays, had long forgotten about sine or about Hermann and Dorothea and were organizing swimming competitions on Bürgerwerder. The lumpenproletariat from the little, poor, dirty streets around Ring and Blücherplatz drank tankfuls of beer and, by morning, lay sprawled in doorways and gutters. Youngsters arranged hunts for rats which were rummaging among the dustbins in unusually large swarms. Damp bedclothes hung dolefully from windows. Breslau gasped under the weight of the heat. The manufacturers and sellers of ice-cream and lemonade rubbed their hands. The breweries worked at full steam. Herbert Anwaldt was beginning his investigation.

  * * *

  The policemen sat in the briefing room without their jackets, their collars loosened. The sole exception was Mock’s deputy, Max Forstner, who – although sweating in his rather too tight suit and stiff collar – did not allow himself even the appearance of informality. He was not much liked. The reason for this antipathy lay in the conceit and malice which he dealt out to his subordinates in small yet virulent doses. Here he would criticize someone’s cut of hat as being unfashionable, there pick on someone’s badly shaven stubble or stained tie, or dispute yet other trivialities, which – according to him –
spoke ill of a policeman’s image. But this morning the heat deprived him of any arguments in all eventual dispute regarding his subordinates’ wardrobe.

  The door opened and Mock came in, alongside him a slim, auburn-haired man of about thirty. The new policeman looked like a man who could not get enough sleep. He was stifling his yawns, but his eyes betrayed him with their tears. Forstner grimaced at the sight of the pale beige suit.

  Mock, as usual, started by lighting a cigarette, an action repeated after their superior by almost all the men.

  “Good morning, gentlemen. This is our new colleague, Criminal Assistant Herbert Anwaldt, who until recently was working with the Berlin Police. Assistant Anwaldt, as of today, is employed as Official in Charge of Special Affairs in our Criminal Department and is heading an investigation. He is responsible solely to me for its progress and results. Please execute his requests scrupulously. For the length of this investigation, Criminal Assistant Anwaldt is, in keeping with my decision, as good as your superior. This does not, of course, include Forstner.” Mock extinguished his cigarette and remained silent for a moment; his men knew that the most important item of the briefing was about to follow. “Gentlemen, if Assistant Anwaldt’s instructions momentarily deter you from your existing cases, leave those aside. Our new colleague’s case is, at the moment, of prime importance. That’s all, please return to your duties.”

  * * *

  Anwaldt looked around Mock’s office with curiosity. Try as he might, he could not find anything in this room that might express any individuality, that might bear any mark of the person occupying it. Everything had its place and was clean to the point of sterility. The Director suddenly unsettled the balance of all this paraphernalia – he removed his jacket and threw it across the back of his chair. Between the blue braces with their singular pattern (naked female bodies entwined in an embrace) proudly protruded a rather prominent belly. Anwaldt, pleased to finally discern a man of flesh and blood, smiled. Mock did not notice; he had just asked for two cups of strong tea over the phone.

  “Apparently, it’s excellent for quenching thirst when it’s so hot. We’ll see …”

  He passed Anwaldt a box of cigars. Unhurriedly and methodically, he cut the tip of one with a small pair of tweezers. Mock’s assistant, Dietmar Krank, laid a jug and some cups on the desk.

  “Where would you like to start, Anwaldt?”

  “Criminal Director, I have a suggestion …”

  “Forget the formal address. We’re not as ceremonious as the Baron.”

  “Of course, as you wish. I spent last night reading the case files. I’d like to know what you think of the following reasoning: somebody made a scapegoat of Friedländer, ergo somebody wants to hide the real perpetrator. Perhaps it’s precisely that somebody who is the murderer. I have to find the person or persons who framed Friedländer, meaning – in other words – those who planted him for you to devour. So I’ll start with Baron von Köpperlingk because he pointed you to Friedländer.” Anwaldt smiled surreptitiously. “But, by the way, how could you have believed that a sixty-year-old – within half an hour – managed to kill a railway man, then have intercourse twice, which – one may surmise – the victims did not make easy. Then kill both women, write some squiggles on the wall, thereafter jump out of the window and dissolve into the mist. Show me a twenty-year-old who could perform such a feat.”

  “My dear man,” Mock laughed. He liked Anwaldt’s naïve enthusiasm. “Exceptional, superhuman powers can occur quite often in epileptics, after a fit, too. All such behaviour is the result of mysterious hormones, which Friedländer’s physician, Doctor Weinsberg, elaborated to me in detail. I’ve no reason not to trust him.”

  “Exactly so. You trust him. But I do not trust anyone. I have to see that doctor. Perhaps somebody told him to tell you about the extraordinary gifts of epileptics, dervishes’ trances and other such …” Anwaldt could not find the word, “other such nonsense.”

  Mock slowly drank his tea.

  “You’re very categorical, young man.”

  Anwaldt drank half a cup in one go. He wanted, at all costs, to show the Director how confident he felt in matters such as these. And it was precisely self-confidence that he lacked. He was behaving, right now, like a little boy who has wet his bed in the night and, on waking in the morning, does not know what to do with himself. (I was chosen. I am the chosen one. I will earn masses of money.) He finished what remained of his tea.

  “I’d like a transcript of Friedländer’s interrogation, please,” he tried to give his voice a hard edge.

  “What do you need a transcript for?” Mock’s tone was no longer playful. “You’ve been working in the police for years and you know that sometimes the person being interrogated needs to be appropriately pressurized. The transcript has been touched up. It’s better that I tell you what happened. I’m the one who questioned him after all.” He looked out of the window and started to invent fluently. “I asked about an alibi. He didn’t have one. I had to strike him. (The man from the Gestapo, Konrad, forced him to talk in short order, no doubt. He has his methods.) When I asked about the strange writing with which he filled thick notebooks, he laughed that it was a message to his brothers who were going to avenge him. (I have heard that Konrad slashes through tendons with a razor.) I had to be far more persuasive. I told them to fetch his daughter. That did the trick. He calmed down immediately and confessed he was guilty. That’s all. (Poor girl … What to do? I had no choice but to hand her over to Piontek … He got her addicted to morphine and packed her into bed with various high-ranking types.)”

  “And you believed a madman?” Anwaldt’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. “Whom you subjected to blackmail like that?”

  Mock was sincerely amused. He assumed Mühlhaus’ attitude in face of Anwaldt – a kind-hearted grandfather stroking the head of a fantasizing grandson.

  “Isn’t that enough for you?” A sarcastic smile spread over his lips. “Here I have a madman and epileptic who, as the doctor states, can perform miracles shortly after a fit; no alibi, strange writing in notebooks. If you, having such evidence, continued to look for the murderer, you’d never finish your investigation. But maybe you were equally discerning in Berlin and old von Grappersdorff finally sent you off into the country?”

  “Director, sir, did all this really convince you?”

  Mock consciously gave slow vent to his irritation. He adored the feeling: to control waves of emotion and to give them free reign at any moment.

  “Are you running an investigation or drawing up a psychological profile of my person?” he shouted. But he had played it wrong; he had not scared Anwaldt in the least. Mock did not know that shouting did not work on him. He had heard it all too often in childhood.

  “Sorry,” said the Assistant. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Look, my son,” Mock spread himself comfortably in his chair, toying with his wedding ring and, in his thoughts, constructing his own keen profile of Anwaldt. “If I had such thin skin, I wouldn’t have been able to work for what’s coming up to twenty-five years in the police.” He immediately realized that Anwaldt was pretending to be humble. This intrigued him to such an extent that he decided to join in this subtle game.

  “You didn’t have to apologize. This way you revealed your weakness. I’ll give you some good advice: always hide your own weak points, expose those of others. That way you ensnare others. Do you know what it means, ‘to have something on somebody’ or ‘to hold someone in a vice’? That ‘vice’ might, for example, be gambling; or it might be harmoniously built ephebes; or again, Jewish origins. By tightening that vice, I have triumphed an infinite number of times.”

  “Can you now use my weakness against me? Can you catch me in ‘the grips of anxiety’?”

  “But why should I?”

  Anwaldt ceased being humble. This conversation was giving him a great deal of pleasure. He felt like the representative of a rare scientific discipline, who suddenly meets ano
ther demon of the science in a train and is trying not to count the stations passing by inexorably.

  “Why? Because I’ve renewed an investigation which you concluded with such incredible success. (From what I know, the investigation advanced your career prodigiously.)”

  “Then run the investigation and don’t perform psychological vivisections on me!” Mock had decided to lose his temper a little again.

  Anwaldt fanned himself for a while with a copy of the Breslauer Zeitung. Finally, he risked: “And so I am. Starting with you.”

  Mock’s whole-hearted laughter resounded in the room. Anwaldt timidly chimed in. Forstner was listening at the door – in vain.

  “I like you, son,” Mock finished his tea. “If you have any problems, call me any time, night or day. I’ve got a ‘vice’ for almost everybody in this city.”

  “But not yet one for me?” Anwaldt was putting the elegant visiting card away in his wallet.

  Mock got up, giving the sign that he considered the conversation over. “And that’s why I still like you.”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 7TH, 1934

  FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Apart from the kitchen, Mock’s study was the only room in his five-roomed apartment on Rehdigerplatz 1 to have north-facing windows. Only here was it possible to enjoy a pleasant coolness in the summer. The Director had just finished eating lunch, brought to him from the Grajecka restaurant across the courtyard. He sat at his desk and drank cold Haselbach beer which he had taken from the larder a short while ago. As usual after a meal, he was smoking and reading a book picked at random from his bookshelf. This time he had picked the work of a banned author: The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud. He was reading the paragraph about slips of the tongue and slowly falling into much-desired sleep when it came to him that he had called Anwaldt “my son” that day. It was a slip of the tongue which, in Mock’s speech, was highly unusual. He considered himself to be a very reserved man and, under Freud’s influence, he believed it was precisely slips of the tongue which disclosed our hidden needs and desires. His greatest dream was to father a son. He had divorced his first wife after four years of marriage when she had betrayed him with a servant because she could no longer tolerate his increasingly brutal accusations of barrenness. Later, he had had many lovers. If one of them had only become pregnant, he would have married her without any hesitation whatsoever. Unfortunately, the succession of lovers all left the gloomy neurotic, found someone else and created more or less happy herds. They all had children. Mock, then forty, still did not believe in his infertility and continued to search for a mother for his son. Finally he found a former medical student whose family had disowned her because of her illegitimate child. The girl was expelled from university and became the mistress of a certain rich fence. Mock was questioning her regarding a case in which the fence was involved. A few days later, Inga Martens moved into an apartment on Zwingerstrasse which Mock had rented for her, and the fence – after the policeman had caught him in a “vice” – very willingly moved to Liegnitz and forgot about his lover. Mock was happy. He would come to Inga every morning for breakfast after intensive sessions at the swimming pool next door to her house. After three months, his happiness reached it zenith: Inga was pregnant. Mock made the decision to marry a second time; he had come to believe the old Latin saying – “amor omnia vincit”. After a few months, Inga moved out of Zwingerstrasse and gave birth to the second child of her lecturer, Doctor Karl Meissner who, in the meantime, had got a divorce and married her. Mock, for his part, had lost his faith in love. He stopped living an illusion and married a rich, childless Danish woman, his second and last wife.