Death in Breslau

by Marek Krajewski

  At this point, the parallel thinking of the two policemen came up against a serious obstacle: the Gestapo guarded its secrets. In all certainty, Forstner, freed of his “vice” by the death of Baron von Köpperlingk, wouldn’t want to co-operate with a man he loathed, Mock. Getting hold of basic information about Erkin, therefore, was extremely difficult, not to speak of finding any proof of his belonging to any secret organisation or sect. Mock did not even have to stretch his memory to know that he had never in the Police Praesidium met anyone resembling Erkin. The former Political Department of the Police Praesidium, which occupied the west wing of the building on Schweidnitzer Stadtgraben 2/6, after Piontek’s downfall and Forstner’s domination, constituted territory where Mock’s feelers did not extend. Long infiltrated by Hitler’s men and officially under their control after Göring’s decree in February, it constituted an independent and secretive organism whose numerous sections were located in rented villas in beautiful Kleinburg, utterly inaccessible to anyone from the outside. Erkin might be working in just one of these villas and only be in the “Brown House” on Neudorfstrasse from time to time. In the old days, Mock would have simply turned to the chief of a particular department in the Police Praesidium for information. Now, there was no question of it. The Chief of Gestapo, Erich Kraus – the right hand of the notorious chief of Breslau’s S.S., Udo von Woyrsch – hostile as he was to Mock, would sooner own up to being of Jewish descent than to pass even the tritest of rumours beyond the purlieus of his department.

  How to obtain facts about Erkin and then arrest him was where Mock’s and Anwaldt’s plans – identical to this point – diverged. The Director’s thoughts tended to the chief of Breslau’s Abwehr, Rainer von Hardenburg; Anwaldt’s hopes focussed on Doctor Georg Maass.

  Remembering the warning he had received that morning – that one of the telephonists was the lover of Kraus’ Deputy, Dietmar Föb – Mock left the police building and, crossing Schweidnitzer Stadtgraben, made his way to the square near Wertheim’s Department Store. Suffocating from heat in the glass telephone kiosk, he dialled von Hardenburg’s number.

  In the meantime, Anwaldt, wandering through the Praesidium building, tried in vain to find his chief. Impatient, he resolved to take the decision into his own hands. He opened the door to the Criminal Assistants’ room. Kurt Smolorz was quick on the uptake and followed him into the corridor.

  “Take one man, Smolorz, and we’ll go and get Maass. Maybe we’ll sit him in the dentist’s chair.”

  Mock and Anwaldt simultaneously felt the heat turn tropical.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 16TH, 1934

  FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  An indescribable mess reigned in Maass’ apartment. Anwaldt and Smolorz, tired after their hurried search, sat in the games room and panted heavily. Smolorz kept going to the window and peeping out at the drunk who, glued to the wall, swept his strangely sober eyes all around. Maass was not coming yet.

  Anwaldt stared at the typing paper, covered in handwriting, which lay in front of him. It was something like an unfinished draft of a report, two chaotic sentences. On the top of the paper was written: “Hanne Schlossarczyk, Rawicz. Mother?” Underneath: “Investigation in Rawicz. Paid to Adolf Jenderko Detective Agency: 100 marks”. Anwaldt no longer paid attention to either the heat, or the sound of a piano upstairs, or the too-tight shirt which clung to him or even the throbbing pain caused by the extraction of the tooth nerve. He sunk his eyes into the sheet of paper and desperately tried to remember where, in the not too distant past, he had come across the name “Schlossarczyk”. He glanced at Smolorz, who was nervously shuffling the papers which lay on the cake platter, and emitted Archimedes’ cry. He knew: the name had appeared in the dossier of von der Malten’s servants, which he had gone through the previous night. He sighed with relief: Hanne Schlossarczyk would not be an unknown factor, as was Erkin. He muttered to himself:

  “I’ll find everything out from the Adolf Jenderko Agency.”

  “Pardon?” Smolorz turned from the window.

  “Oh, nothing. I was simply thinking aloud.”

  Smolorz peered over Anwaldt’s shoulder. He read Maass’ note and burst out laughing.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “It’s a funny name, Schlossarczyk.”

  “Where is the town of Rawicz?”

  “In Poland, some fifty kilometres from Breslau, just across the border.”

  Anwaldt fastened his loosened tie, put on his hat and glanced with distaste at his dusty shoes.

  “You, Smolorz, and your pseudo-drunk are to take turns and sit in Maass’ apartment until he returns. When our scholar appears, please keep him here and inform Mock or myself.”

  Anwaldt carefully closed the door behind him. After a while, he returned and looked at Smolorz with interest:

  “Tell me then, why did the name Schlossarczyk make you laugh?”

  Smolorz smiled, embarrassed.

  “It reminded me of the word Schlosser – ‘locksmith’. Just think: a woman has the name ‘locksmith’. Ha, ha … what kind of a locksmith is that, without a key … ha … ha …”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 16TH, 1934

  SIX O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  Teichäcker Park, behind Main Station, was seething with life at this time of day. Its coolness was sought by travellers changing trains in Breslau, and white-collar workers from the Railroad Administration, working overtime before their longed-for holiday in Zoppot or Stralsund; children made a noise by the ice-cream kiosks, servants made room for themselves on the benches using their huge bottoms as wedges, the less sick from Bethesda Hospital reclined, fathers of families, refreshed by a shower in the shower baths and time spent with newspapers in the reading room on Teichäckerstrasse, smoked cigars and leered at the prostitutes lazily passing. A one-legged veteran played his clarinet outside Our Saviour’s Church. Seeing two elegantly dressed, middle-aged gentlemen taking a walk, he played a couplet from an operetta, expecting more generous alms from them. They left him behind with indifference. He heard only a fragment of one statement expressed in a fairly high, sure voice: “Alright, Criminal Director, we’ll check up on this Erkin.” The veteran adjusted his sign-board “Verdun – we will avenge” and stopped playing. The men sat on a bench vacated by two teenage boys, watching for a while as the boys in brown shirts and armed with shovels walked away. They were talking. The musician-beggar strained his ears. The falsetto of the very distinguished tall gentleman interwove with the bass murmurs of the shorter, stocky man in a suit of pale cord. The veteran’s excellent hearing easily picked out the high-toned lines which penetrated the street noise; the bass tones, on the other hand, were lost in the clatter of cabs, the roar of cars and the screech of trams rattling on the corner of Sadowa and Bohrauer Strasse:

  “I’ll find out, if you wish, whether the man we’re looking for speaks … What? Ah, fine … Kurdish.”

  “… ”

  “My dear Criminal Director, our lamented Emperor Wilhelm already called Turkey his ‘Eastern friend’.”

  “… ”

  “Yes, yes. Military relations were always very much alive. Just imagine, my father was a member of the military mission led by General von der Goltz, who helped – probably in the ’80s – the modern Turkish army. Following him, Deutsche Bank marched triumphantly into Turkey and built the new section of the Baghdad Railway.”

  “… ”

  “And today, we Germans remember that in 1914 the highest spiritual leader of Islam declared a ‘holy war’ against our enemies. So it is not surprising that higher Turkish officers get their schooling from us. I knew some myself when I was in Berlin.”

  “… ”

  “Rest assured. I don’t know when, but I will certainly hand you that Erkin on a plate.”

  “… ”

  “Think nothing of it, Criminal Director. I rest in the hope that you will kindly repay me.”

  “… ”

  “Until we meet again in that p
leasant place we both know so well.”

  The veteran lost interest in the two men who were at that moment shaking hands for he had seen a group of tipsy teenage lads with rubber truncheons approaching. As they passed by, he played “Horst-Wessel-Lied”. For nothing. Not a single fenig dropped into his hat, perforated by French bullets.

  * * *

  In the meantime, at Freiburgstrasse 3, Franz Huber, joint owner of the Adolf Jenderko Detective Agency, had suddenly stopped being mistrustful or refusing stubbornly to co-operate. In a flash, he had ceased wanting to see Anwaldt’s police identification, no longer wanted to call the Police Praesidium to confirm his identity, had stopped examining the detective from a Criminal Department staff which spread over eighteen police precincts under Breslau’s Criminal Police Station. Franz Huber had suddenly become very helpful and extremely polite. Staring into the black hole of a muzzle, he replied exhaustively to all the questions:

  “What did Maass want exactly? What instructions did he give you?”

  “He found out from the Baron’s old caretaker about the illegitimate child whom Olivier von der Malten had fathered with a chambermaid. The only woman who had served the Baron now lives in Poland, in Rawicz. She’s called Hanne Schlossarczyk. My instructions were to find out whether she really did have a child by the Baron and what has happened to the child now.”

  “Did you go to Rawicz yourself?”

  “No, I sent one of my men.”

  “And?”

  “He found Hanne Schlossarczyk.”

  “How did he persuade her to talk? After all, people aren’t usually very willing to admit to such a sin.”

  “My man, Schubert, presented himself as a lawyer looking for any heirs to the supposedly deceased Baron. That’s what I thought up.”

  “Clever. And what did your man find out?”

  “The rich, old lady, on learning of a great inheritance awaiting her, readily admitted to the misdeed of her youth, then started crying so much that Schubert could hardly calm her.”

  “So she was sorry for her sin.”

  “Not quite. She was furious at herself for not knowing anything about her son, who would have been the Baron’s heir. That’s why she was crying.”

  “So she had qualms of conscience?”

  “So it would appear.”

  “And so the Baron has an illegitimate son by her. That’s a fact. What is his name, how old is he and where does he live?”

  “Schlossarczyk worked for the Baron from 1901–1902. That’s presumably when she got pregnant. Thereafter, Baron Ruppert von der Malten, Olivier’s father, never again employed a woman, not even as cook. So her son must be thirty-one or thirty-two. His name? We don’t know. Certainly not the same as the Baron. His mother got a handsome sum to keep quiet, enough for her to live comfortably to this day. Where does the bastard live now? That we don’t know either. And what do we know? That until he became of age, he lived in an orphanage in Berlin, where he landed up as a baby from his loving mother’s arms.”

  “What orphanage?”

  “She doesn’t know herself. Some merchant took him there. An acquaintance of hers.”

  “The merchant’s name?”

  “She didn’t want to give it to us. She said he had nothing to do with it.”

  “And your man believed that?”

  “Why should she lie? I told you she cried because she didn’t know her son’s name. If she did, she’d have been pleased. She’d got an inheritance, after all.”

  Anwaldt automatically asked another question:

  “Why did she hand him over to an orphanage? She could have lived comfortably with her son on the money the Baron gave her.”

  “That my man didn’t ask.”

  The detective put his pistol in his pocket. He could barely breathe through his parched throat. His gum was aching and swelling. The hornet stings, too, were playing up again. He opened his mouth and did not recognize his own voice:

  “Was Maass happy with you?”

  “Yes and no. Because, after all, we only partially carried out his instructions. My man established that Hanne Schlossarczyk had a child by the Baron. But he did not establish either his name or his whereabouts. So we only got a half from Maass.”

  “How much?”

  “A hundred.”

  Anwaldt lit a Turkish cigar which he had bought in the covered market by Gartenstrasse. The pungent smoke took his breath away for a moment. He mastered the spasm in his lungs and exhaled a huge ball of smoke towards the ceiling. He unbuttoned his shirt collar and loosened his tie. He felt embarrassed: a moment ago he had held the man in his sights and now he was smoking in his company as with an old friend. (I got carried away needlessly and terrorized this man. My gun opened nothing but his lips. That’s all it did. It didn’t guarantee the truth. Huber could have simply made it all up.) He glanced up at the certificates and photographs hanging on the wall. On one of them, Franz Huber was shaking hands with a high-ranking officer in a spiked helmet. Under the newspaper photograph the legend read: “The policeman, Franz Huber, who saved the child, receives the congratulations of General Freiherr von Campenhausen. Beuthen 1913.” Anwaldt smiled in conciliation. He was resigned.

  “Herr Huber, I apologize for pulling out that pop gun. You used to be a policeman (how do you people in Breslau call it? Schkulle?), and I treated you like the suspect’s associate. It is no surprise that you were suspicious of me, especially as I do not have my identification with me. All it resulted in was my leaving now without knowing whether you lied to me or not. In spite of that uncertainty, I’ll ask you one more question. Without the gun. If you answer, it might just be the truth. May I speak?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Doesn’t it seem strange to you that Maass dispensed with your services so easily? It’s obvious, after all, that he’s looking for the Baron’s illegitimate son. Why did he stop halfway, pay half your fee and not try to look for him any more with the help of your agency?”

  Huber took off his jacket and poured himself some soda water. He remained silent for a moment and gazed at the framed photographs and certificates.

  “Maass laughed at me and my methods. He thought I had bungled it, that I could have put pressure on the old woman. He decided to find it all out for himself. I knew he liked to brag, so I asked him how he was going to find the man he was looking for. He said that he would restore the old bag’s memory with his friend’s help and that she would tell him where her little son was.” Huber opened his mouth and sighed loudly. “Listen to me, son. Your pop gun didn’t frighten me. I’ve got that old Jew Maass and you up my arse,” he panted angrily. “I didn’t lie to you because I didn’t want to. And do you know why? Ask Mock. I’ll have a word with him about you. And you’d better get yourself out of here if it turns out he doesn’t know you.”

  XIII

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 16TH, 1934

  EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  Anwaldt was, indeed, leaving Breslau, but not because of Huber’s threats. He sat in a first-class carriage, smoking cigarette after cigarette and watching with indifference the monotonous, Lower Silesian landscape in the orange light of sunset. (I’ve got to find that descendant of von der Malten’s. If some curse really is hanging over the Baron’s descendants, then they’re in mortal danger from Erkin. But why am I really looking for him? After all, Mock and I have found the murderer. No, no we haven’t, we’ve only identified him. Erkin works through Maass; he’s watchful, knows we’re looking for him. There’s no doubt that Erkin is the “friend” who’s going to squeeze the information out of Schlossarczyk. So, looking for Schlossarczyk’s son, I’m looking for Erkin. Dammit, he might be in Rawicz already. I wonder what orphanage the boy was at in Berlin. Maybe I knew him?) Lost in thought, he burnt his fingers on his cigarette. He swore – not only in his thoughts – and swept his eyes over the compartment. All the travellers on the night train had heard his crude expletive. A boy of around eight, podgy, very Nordic and dressed in a nav
y-blue suit was standing in front of him and holding a book in his hand. He said something in Polish and put the book on Anwaldt’s lap. Suddenly, he turned round, ran to his mother – a young, stout woman – and sat on her knees. Anwaldt glanced at the title of the book and saw that it was a school edition of Oedipus the King by Sophocles. It was not the little boy’s book; some secondary school pupil going on holiday must have left it in the compartment. The boy and the mother watched him expectantly. Anwaldt gesticulated that it was not his book. He asked his fellow passengers about it. Apart from the lady with the child, there were a student and a young man with pronounced Semitic features. Nobody owned up to the book and the student, seeing the Greek text, reacted with a “God forbid”. Anwaldt smiled and thanked the boy by tipping his hat to him. He opened the book at random and caught sight of the familiar Greek letters which he had once so loved. He was curious whether, after so many years, he would be able to understand anything. He read under his breath and translated verse 685: “There was the voice of dark suspicions which gnaw at the heart”. (I still remember Greek well; I did not know two words; it’s a good thing there’s a little dictionary at the back of the book.) He turned over a few pages and read verse 1068 – Jocasta’s lines. He did not have the least problem with the translation. “Unfortunate one, may you not know who you are.” The aphoristic character of these sentences reminded him of a certain game he used to play with Erna: Biblical fortune-telling, so called. They would open the Bible at random and point to the first verse that came to hand. The sentence thus found was to constitute a prophecy. Laughing quietly, he closed Sophocles then opened him again. The game was interrupted by the Polish guard asking for his passport. He examined Anwaldt’s documents, touched the peak of his cap with his finger and left the compartment. The policeman returned to his divination, but he could not concentrate on the translation because of the fixed and stubborn gaze of the boy who had presented him with Oedipus the King. The lad was sitting and staring at him without blinking. The train moved off. The boy continued staring. Anwaldt lowered his eyes to the book then glared at the boy. It did not help. He wanted to attract the mother’s attention, but she was fast asleep, so he went out into the corridor and opened the window. Pulling out the cardboard box of cigarettes, he touched – with relief – the new police identification card which he had picked up from the Police Praesidium Personnel Department after leaving Huber’s office. (If a little brat can manage to make me so anxious, there is something wrong with my nerves.) One inhalation and nearly a quarter of the cigarette was burned down. The train drew into a station. A large sign announced RAWICZ.