Death in Breslau

by Marek Krajewski

  “You’re half an hour late. So we haven’t got much time,” she spoke slowly, drawing out the syllables. She walked over to the large bed, gently swaying her hips. She gave the impression that crossing these two metres was beyond her strength. She sat down heavily and, with a slender hand, made an inviting gesture. Anwaldt approached quite cautiously. She pulled him firmly towards her. It seemed she would never finish the simple action of unbuttoning his trousers. He interrupted these manipulations, leaned over a little and took her tiny face in his hands. She looked at him with surprise. Her pupils had dissolved, entirely covering her irises. The shadows of the semi-darkness outlined Lea’s face – pale and sick. She tossed her head in order to sever the gentle embrace. The peignoir slipped from her shoulder to reveal fresh prick marks. Anwaldt felt the cigarette burn his lips. He quickly spat it out, straight into a large porcelain bowl. The butt hissed in a residue of water. Anwaldt removed his jacket and hat and sat down in the armchair opposite Lea. Rays of the setting sun penetrated the pink curtains and danced on the wall.

  “Fräulein Friedländer, I’d like to talk with you about your father. Only a few questions …”

  Lea’s head fell forward. She rested her elbows on her thighs as if she were falling into a sleep.

  “What do you need this for? Who are you?” Anwaldt guessed rather than heard the questions.

  “My name’s Herbert Anwaldt and I’m a private detective. I’m leading the investigation into Marietta von der Malten’s death. I know that your father was forced into confessing his guilt. I also know Weinsberg’s alias Winkler’s nonsense …”

  He broke off. His parched throat was refusing to obey. He walked up to a sink mounted in the corner of the studio and took a moment to drink water straight from the tap. Then he sat in the armchair again. The water he had just drunk evaporated through his skin. He wiped a wave of sweat with the surface of his hand and asked the first question:

  “Someone framed your father. Maybe the murderer himself. Tell me, who could have wanted to make your father the murderer?”

  Lea brushed the hair languidly away from her forehead. She said nothing.

  “Mock, most certainly,” he answered himself. “Thanks to finding the ‘murderer’, he got a promotion. But it really is difficult to suspect the Director of such naivety. Or maybe those who murdered the Baron’s daughter are the ones who pointed us to him? Baron von Köpperlingk? No, that’s impossible for natural reasons. No homosexual is capable of raping two women within a quarter of an hour. Besides, he spoke the truth when he told us about your shop as a place where scorpions could be bought, so all this does not look like being construed in advance. To put it briefly, your father was slipped under Mock’s nose by someone who knew that the Baron had once bought scorpions from you and also knew about your father’s mental illness. That someone found the perfect scapegoat in your father. Who could have known about the scorpions and your father’s madness? Think! Did anybody apart from Mock come to see you and ask your father about an alibi? A private detective like myself, perhaps?”

  Lea Friedländer turned to lie on her side and rested her head on her bent arm. A cigarette smoked in the corner of her mouth.

  “If I tell you, you’ll die,” she laughed quietly. “Funny. I can deal out death sentences.”

  She fell back and closed her eyes, the cigarette slipped out of the painted lips and rolled across the bed. Anwaldt threw it into the porcelain bowl. He was on the point of getting up from the divan when Lea threw her arms around his neck. Like it or not, he lay down next to her. Both lay on their stomachs, close to each other, Anwaldt’s cheek touching her smooth shoulder. Lea put the man’s arm on her back and whispered in his ear:

  “You’ll die. But now you’re my client. So do your bit. Time is running out …”

  For Lea Friedländer, time had indeed run out. Anwaldt turned the inert girl and pulled her eyelids open. The eyes slipped away into the cranial vault. For a moment, he struggled with the desire that was overcoming him. He gained control of himself, however, removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt to the waist. Cooling himself a little in this way, he went into the hall and then into the only other room he had not yet inspected: a drawing-room full of furniture under black covers. A pleasant coolness prevailed – the windows gave on to the yard. A door led to the kitchen. No sign of the servant girl. Everywhere were piles of dirty dishes, beer and lemonade bottles. (What does the servant do in this house? Probably makes films with her mistress …) He took one of the clean tankards and half filled it with water. Tankard in hand, he entered the windowless room which ended this untypical suite of connecting rooms. (Larder? Servant’s room?) Practically the whole surface was occupied by an iron bed, a decorative escritoire and a dressing-table with an intricately twisted lamp. On the escritoire stood some dozen books bound in faded green cloth. The titles were printed on the spines in silver. One of them did not have a title and this was the one which interested Anwaldt. He opened it: a notebook half full of large, rounded writing. On the title page, meticulously calligraphed, was written: “Lea Friedländer. Diary”. He removed his shoes, made himself comfortable on the bed and immersed himself in reading. This was not a typical diary but rather memories of childhood and youth, recently noted.

  Anwaldt compared his imagination to a revolving stage. Often the scene he was reading would appear in front of his eyes with intense reality. In this way, while he had been reading Gustav Nachtigal’s memoirs recently, he had felt the scorching desert sands under his feet and the stench of camels and Tibbu guides assaulted his nostrils. As soon as he tore his eyes away from the book, the curtain would fall, the imagined sets evaporate. When he returned to the book, the appropriate scenery would return, the Sahara sun would burn.

  Now, too, he saw what he was reading about: the park and the sun penetrating through the leaves. The sun was refracted in the lace of dresses worn by young mothers, next to whom ran little girls. The girls looked their mothers in the eyes and snuggled their heads under their arms. Beside them strolled a beautiful girl with an overweight father who minced beside her and soundlessly cursed the men greedily observing his daughter. Anwaldt made himself more comfortable. His eyes rested on a painting hanging on the wall; then he returned to the pages of the diary.

  Now he saw a dark yard. A little girl had fallen from the outdoor clothes horse and was calling: “Mummy!” The father came up and hugged her, his lips smelling of familiar tobacco. The father’s handkerchief smudged the tears on her cheeks.

  He heard a noise in the kitchen. He looked out. A large, black cat was majestically strolling along the sill. Anwaldt, reassured, returned to his reading.

  The set he was now visiting was a little blurred. Thick greenery filled the picture with vivid patches. A forest. The leaves of trees hung over the heads of two little beings holding each other by the hand and walking tentatively along a path. Sick beings, crooked, distorted, choked by the dark greenery of the forest, the damp moss, the touch of coarse grasses. This was not his imagination – Anwaldt was staring into the painting which hung above the bed. He read the plate attached to it: “Chaim Soutine. Exiled children”.

  He rested his burning cheek on the headrest and glanced at his watch. It was almost seven. He dragged himself up with difficulty and went to the atelier.

  Lea Friedländer had pulled herself out of her drugged sleep and was lying on the divan with her legs spread wide.

  “Have you paid?” she sent him a forced smile.

  He took a twenty-mark note from his wallet. The girl stretched herself so that her joints cracked. She moved her head a few times and quietly squeaked.

  “Please don’t go yet …” she looked at him pleadingly, black shadows blossomed under her eyes. “I don’t feel well …”

  Anwaldt buttoned up his shirt, fastened his tie and put on his jacket. He fanned himself for a while with his hat.

  “Do you remember what we spoke about, the questions I asked you? Who are you warning me against?”r />
  “Please don’t torture me! Please come the day after tomorrow, at the same time …” She pulled her knees up to her chin in the helpless gesture of a little girl. She was trying to control the trembling which shook her.

  “And if I don’t learn anything the day after tomorrow? How am I to know you won’t fill yourself with some filth?”

  “You don’t have a way out …” Suddenly Lea threw herself forward and clung to him with her whole body. “The day after tomorrow … The day after tomorrow … I beg you …” (Lips smelling of familiar tobacco, the warm underarm of a mother, exiled children.) Their embrace was reflected in the mirrored wall of the atelier. He saw his face. Tears, of which he had not been aware, had dug two furrows in the ash deposited on his cheeks by an unfavourable wind.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 8TH, 1934

  A QUARTER-PAST SEVEN IN THE EVENING

  Mock’s chauffeur, Heinz Staub, braked gently and parked the Adler on the approach to Main Station. He turned and looked questioningly at his boss.

  “Wait a moment, please, Heinz. We’re not getting out yet.” Mock took an envelope from his wallet. He spread out a letter, covered in tiny, uneven writing. He read carefully yet again:

  Dear Herr Anwaldt!

  I would like you to be quite clear at the start of your investigation about the course which my own took. I state that I never believed Friedländer to be guilty. Nor did the Gestapo believe it. Yet both I and the Gestapo greatly needed Friedländer to be the murderer. Accusation of the Jew helped me in my career, the Gestapo used it in their propaganda. It is the Gestapo who turned Friedländer into a scapegoat. I would, however, like to argue with your reasoning here: “He who framed Friedländer is the murderer”. It is not the Gestapo who is behind the Baron’s daughter’s death. Indeed, the late Hauptsturmführer S.A. Walter Piontek eagerly made use of the track suggested by Baron Wilhelm von Köpperlingk (who, by the by, has many friends in the Gestapo), but it would be nonsense to state that the secret police committed this crime so as to destroy an unknown dealer and then use the whole case for the purposes of propaganda. The Gestapo would rather have carried out some obvious provocation so as to widely justify their planned pogrom of the Jews. Here the most fitting person would be one of Hitler’s dignitaries, and not the Baron’s daughter.

  The fact that the Gestapo is not behind the crime does not, however, mean that men from this institution will be pleased with an investigation into the matter. If somebody finds the true murderers, then the entire propaganda will be turned into a laughing stock by the English and French newspapers. 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.

  This letter is proof of trust on my part. The best proof on your part would be to destroy it.

  Yours respectfully,

  Eberhard Mock

  P.S. I’m leaving for my holiday in Zoppot. During my absence, the official car is at your disposal.

  Mock slipped the letter into the envelope, sealed it and handed it to the chauffeur. He got out of the car and tried to breathe. The burning air shocked his lungs. The pavement and the walls of the station reflected the heat of the stifling day. Somewhere far beyond the city, the faint announcement of a storm was departing. The Chief of Police wiped his brow with a handkerchief and made towards the entrance, ignoring the flirtatious smiles of prostitutes. Heinz Staub dragged two suitcases behind him. As Mock was nearing the platform, someone quickly walked up to him and took him by the elbow. Despite the heat, Baron von der Malten was dressed in an elegant, worsted suit with silver stripes.

  “May I walk you to your train, Eberhard?”

  Mock nodded, but he could not control his face: it expressed a mixture of amazement and aversion. Von der Malten did not notice this and walked beside Mock in silence. He tried to delay ad infinitum the question which he had to ask Mock. They stopped in front of a first-class carriage. The chauffeur carried the heavy suitcases into a compartment; the conductor signalled to the passengers to board the train. The Baron clasped Mock’s face in both hands and pulled it towards himself as if he wanted to kiss him but instead of a kiss he posed a question, then immediately covered his ears so as not to hear an affirmative reply.

  “Eberhard, have you told Anwaldt that I killed that luckless Friedländer?”

  Mock triumphed. Heinz Staub stepped down from the carriage, informing them that the train was about to leave; Mock smiled; the Baron squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears; the conductor made polite requests; the police dignitary tore the Baron’s hands from his ears.

  “I haven’t told him yet …”

  “I beg of you, don’t!”

  The conductor grew impatient; Staub insisted; the Baron looked at Mock with imploring fury; Mock smiled. Clouds of steam spurted from under the engine; Mock entered his compartment and shouted through the window:

  “I won’t tell him if you let me know why it’s so important to you.”

  The train moved slowly away. The conductor slammed the door; Staub waved goodbye; von der Malten clung on to the window and pronounced four words in a booming voice. Mock fell back on to the sofa cushions, amazed. The Baron jumped away from the window. The train gathered speed. The conductor nodded menacingly. Staub walked down the stairs. A beggar pulled at the sleeve of the Baron’s jacket (“the respected gentleman nearly fell under the train”). The Baron stood erect, all but brushing the train. And Mock sat motionless in his compartment, repeating to himself over and over that what he had heard was not just a Freudian illusion.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 8TH, 1934

  A QUARTER TO EIGHT IN THE EVENING

  Maass sat in his three-roomed apartment on Tauentzienstrasse 14, listening to the crackling gramophone record and reconstructing the Hebrew words by ear. He dipped his nib in the round-bellied inkpot with enthusiasm and marked the paper with strange, slanting signs. He was lost in his work. He could not allow himself any hesitation, any doubt. The doorbell painfully tore his attention away from the Biblical language. He turned off the light, deciding not to open, then heard the grating of a key in the lock. (The inquisitive owner of this tenement no doubt. He thinks I’m not at home and wants to snoop around a bit.) He got up and made his way furiously to the hall, where – he supposed – he would see the cunning hypochondriac with whom he had already managed to argue on the first day about rent. Maass, to be sure, did not pay a fenig towards the rent from his own pocket but had accused the landlord of extortion on principle.

  The men he did see were no more to his taste. Next to the terrified owner, three men in S.S. uniform stood in the hall. All three were baring their teeth at him. But Maass was in no mood to smile.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 8TH, 1934

  EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  Returning home in a droschka, Anwaldt lay on the seat and anxiously regarded the tops of the tenements. He thought the parallel lines of the roofs opposite met and merged over him in an undulating ceiling. He closed his eyes and, for a while, repeated in his thoughts: “I am normal, there is nothing wrong with me.” As if to negate this creed, Chaim Soutine’s painting of “Exiled Children” swam before his eyes. A boy in short trousers was pointing something out to a little girl with a deformed leg. She could barely walk and held tightly to her companion’s hand. The yellow path cut the blue-black of the azure vault in the distance and met the teasing greenery of the forest. On the meadow burst red ulcers of flowers.

  Anwaldt instantly opened his eyes and saw the enormous, bearded, weather-beaten face of the cabby looking suspiciously at his passenger.

  “We’re on Zietenstrasse.”

  Anwaldt slapped the cabby gruffly on the shoulder. (“I am normal, there is nothing wrong with me.”) He grinned broadly:

  “And do you have a good brothel in this town? But it’s got to be,
you know, first rate. Wenches with backsides the size of a horse. That’s the kind I like.”

  The cabby narrowed his eye, retrieved a small visiting card from his breast pocket and handed it to the passenger: “Here the respected gentleman will find all the dames he wants.”

  Anwaldt paid and went to Kahlert’s corner restaurant. He ordered the elderly waiter to bring him a menu and, without even looking at it, pointed randomly to an item. He wrote his address on a napkin and handed it to the polite head waiter.

  At home, he found no shelter from the heat. He closed the south-west-facing window and promised himself to open it only late into the night. He undressed to his long johns and lay down on the carpet. He did not close his eyes – Soutine’s painting might otherwise have floated in again. The knocking on the door was insistent. The waiter passed him a plate covered with a silver lid and left after receiving his tip. Anwaldt went into the kitchen and turned on the light. He leaned against the wall and groped for the bottle of lemonade which he had bought the previous day. His diaphragm jerked, he felt his throat cramp up: his gaze fixed on a large cockroach which, alarmed by the current of air, disappeared as fast as it could somewhere under the iron sink. Anwaldt slammed the kitchen door. He sat at the table in his room and swallowed half the bottle of lemonade, imagining it to be vodka.