End of the World in Breslau

by Marek Krajewski

  Mock heard Hartner’s voice again: “ … a crime intended to reopen an investigation into another committed years ago … That does, indeed, sound unlikely …” He glanced glumly at Hartner. Now Mock knew why he had come. In a split second, the Director realized that his dream of a longed-for lunch might not be fulfilled that day.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 9TH, 1927 TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  A pencil with a golden ferrule moved quickly across the lined pages of a notebook. Hartner was jotting down Mock’s last instruction.

  “Is that all?” he asked without enthusiasm, mentally relishing an exquisite meat loaf.

  “Yes.” Mock took out a similar notebook, the notebook of travellers and policemen: black, bound with a rubber band, with a pencil attached by a narrow, canvas strip. “There’s one other thing I’d like to ask of you, Director. Please don’t mention my name or position to your staff. Remaining incognito is the best option in a situation where …”

  “There’s no need to explain,” Hartner said quietly, in his imagination chewing on a dumpling with crunchy crackling, covered with sauce and a tangle of red cabbage.

  “And please understand,” Mock said as he wrote the heading CALENDAR MURDERER in his notebook, “how awkward I feel handing instructions out to you.”

  “My dear Counsellor, after the ‘four sailors’ case, you can go on handing out instructions to me for the rest of your life.”

  “Yes.” The pencil found its way between Mock’s teeth. “And so you agree to my sitting in your study and working alongside you, be it till morning?”

  “On one condition …”

  “Yes?”

  “That you allow me to invite you to lunch now … I will, of course, first give the appropriate instructions to my employees.”

  Mock smiled, nodded, stood up laboriously and sat at the neat, nineteenth-century davenport desk at which Hartner’s secretary usually wrote down the Director’s orders each morning. Hartner placed the telephone in front of him and opened the door to the front office.

  “Miss Hamann,” he addressed his secretary and indicated Mock. “The professor is an associate of mine, and a friend. Over the next few hours, perhaps days, we will be working together on a few scholarly issues. My study is his study and all his instructions are mine.”

  Miss Hamann nodded and smiled at Mock. The same smile as Sophie’s, but a different hair colour. Mock dialled Meinerer’s number and, before Hartner had closed the door, embraced Miss Hamann’s slender waist and prominent bust with one glance. With the Director’s melodious words “all his instructions” still ringing in his ears, he set his imagination to work, evoking immodest and wild scenes in which he and Miss Hamann were the key players.

  “Meinerer,” he muttered when he heard his subordinate’s characteristic falsetto, “please come to the University Library on Sandstrasse. There’ll be a cardboard file with the addressee’s name on it waiting for you with Director Hartner’s secretary, Miss Hamann. You’re to take it to Hotel Königshof on Claasenstrasse. Irrespective of any tasks Mühlhaus may have given you, my order to follow Erwin still holds. My nephew should be finishing his classes in an hour. Is Reinert anywhere near you? No? Then please find him for me.”

  Quickly assured by Meinerer of his compliance, Mock waited for Reinert to come to the telephone.

  “Please ask Doctor Smetana to come and see me,” Hartner’s loud baritone resounded through the door. “He’s to bring the Register of Loans with him.”

  “Reinert, I’m glad you’re there,” Mock looked down at the notes he had made in his slanting writing. “Don’t let Prince Alexei von Orloff out of your sight for a second. You don’t know who he is? I haven’t got time to explain to you now. You’ll find something about him on every announcement pillar in town and in every newspaper, and certainly in the edition of the Breslauer Neueste Nachrichten that went out the day we found Gelfrert. You’re to alternate with Kleinfeld.”

  “Specht, from the cataloguing department,” Hartner’s voice bellowed, “is to bring the catalogue boxes labelled ‘Breslau’, ‘Criminology’, and ‘Silesia’. Alright, I’ll repeat that: ‘Breslau’, ‘Criminology’, ‘Silesia’. And please make an appointment for me to speak over the telephone to the Director of the Municipal Library, Theodor Stein. Yes, Doctor Theodor Stein. In the afternoon, evening … it doesn’t matter.”

  Mock dialled another number and soon managed to persuade a young man at the other end to interrupt Counsellor Domagalla’s important meeting.

  “Warm greetings to you, Herbert,” he said when he heard the somewhat irritated voice of his bridge partner. “I’m conducting an important case just now. Yes, yes, I know I’m disturbing you, but the matter is very urgent. I’m going to have to look through the files of all the followers of sects your men have investigated. Apart from that I need to know everything there is to know about the Sepulchrum Mundi and its leader, Alexei von Orloff. Fine, note it down … You don’t know how to spell Sepulchrum? What did you get in Latin? Just as I thought …”

  “From the main reading room” – the Director’s voice betrayed excitement – “they’re to bring me the following books without delay: Barthesius’ Antiquitates Silesiacae and The Criminal World of Ancient Breslau by Hagen.”

  Mock telephoned again but gave no more orders; instead, he listened to Mühlhaus’ raised voice. At one point he held the receiver away from his ear, tapping a cigarette against the davenport with his free hand. When the voice fell silent for a moment, Mock put the cigarette between his lips and began a strange dialogue in which his own laconic statements were constantly interrupted by the angry and intricately constructed phrases of his chief.

  “Yes, I know I behaved like a boor leaving the meeting like that … This is a new avenue … I’ll explain everything tomorrow … Yes, I know, it’s my last chance … I have abused your patience … I know … I’ll be there tomorrow … At eight in the morning … Yes, certainly … Thank you, and I’m sorry …”

  Mock replaced the receiver and once again thought fondly of Reinert and Kleinfeld. They had said nothing to Mühlhaus and had gone out to follow von Orloff. Hartner finished handing out instructions and reentered his study carrying Mock’s coat and hat. A moment later, both were making towards the door. Hartner let Mock go first and smiled radiantly at Miss Hamann. His dream of a meat loaf was to be fulfilled.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 9TH, 1927 TEN O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  Breslau was sinking under a soft down of snow. All was silent and still on Sandstrasse. From time to time a car growled, and once in a while sleigh bells tinkled. Even the screeching of the last trams gliding towards Neumarkt and the Post Office was muffled by the soft filter laid down by the blizzard. The windows of the Norbertan monastery glowed with friendly warmth. Mock watched all this from a window in the old Augustinian monastery on Sandinsel, where the University Library was located, and his mood was far from the joyous, festive expectation that seemed to dazzle the entire city. He was not interested in either Sand-brücke or Matthiasgymnasium, or the Museum of Mineralogy. He was interested in the windows, ablaze with Christmas trees, of the poor tenements huddled around the perimeter of Ritterplatz, where a work-worn father, waiting for his dinner, was putting aside his pipe of smoking, cheap tobacco to bounce the children sitting on his knees and yelling joyfully. Their wild cries did not annoy either father or mother who, with an apron tied around her waist, was standing a pot of her husband’s soup on a hot stove – day after day the same barley soup with smoked bacon. Then satisfied burps, a kiss after supper, a mouth full of smoke; scolding the children and chasing them off to bathe in a steaming tub; small faces flushed with sleep; the husband’s hands under the heavy eiderdown. Day after day the same – faith, hope and love.

  Mock approached the door to Hartner’s study and reached for the handle.

  “In those rented houses,” he thought, “in those smoky kitchens, behind the bug-infested wallpaper resides yet another virtue, a virtu
e which does not belong to the Gospels, which could not find a place in the sterile, five-room apartment on Rehdigerplatz. That virtue could not be lured there by force, flattery or expensive presents, and it would not remain there a moment longer. Not long after their wedding, it abandoned the ethereal wife and self-confident husband who could not express their needs to each other; she – because she didn’t know how, he – because he didn’t want to. It left them to themselves; her – haughtily silent, him – furiously thumping his square head against the walls. What is the name of that virtue that spurned the apartment on Rehdigerplatz?”

  Mock opened the door, allowing the caretaker to pass with a heavy bucket of coal, and heard Hartner’s voice:

  “Yes, Director Stein, I do mean jotting down the book entries from the general catalogue; that is, compiling a factual catalogue of the following key subjects: Silesia – Criminology – Breslau. If you could find a cross-reference in any book that would be wonderful. If not, then I’d be very grateful if you could send me a list of the books to which at least one key word applies. And if I then decided to borrow the books … Yes? That’s wonderful, thank you for kindly agreeing …”

  Mock closed the study door and went to the bathroom. Passing the caretaker, he put an arm around him and whispered:

  “Do you know what it’s called, the virtue that didn’t want to live with me?”

  “No, no I don’t,” replied the owner of the ear so thickly covered with hair.

  “Faithfulness,” breathed Mock, and entered a cubicle. He locked himself in and scrupulously examined the small window beyond which a city of faithful wives, children smiling in sleep and work-worn fathers was falling into a slumber, a city where stoves belched warmth, and faithful dogs with wise eyes yelped for joy. In this city, a certain five-roomed apartment was an incongruent curiosum, a gloomy aberration.

  “There, in all four corners of every room, lurks the evil demon of violence, the resigned demon of delusion and still one more …” thought Mock, undoing his belt, “still one more …” he repeated, executing a well-known act, old as the world and condemned by the Church, “the demon of death”. When he had found the appropriate word, he slipped his head into the noose formed by his belt and secured it to the handle of the window, beyond which Breslau was becoming whiter than the snow that enveloped it.

  WIESBADEN, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13TH, 1927 ONE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Private Detective Rainer Knüfer got out of the carriage at Spa Park and walked through the black, leafless chestnut trees towards the casino. A gust of cold wind from the pond broke through the trees and soared upwards in spirals of powdery snow. Knüfer pulled down his hat, turned up the collar of his coat, briskly passed the stone flower-beds dusted with hoar-frost and burst into the brightly lit temple of gambling. A page leaped to his side, energetically brushed him down, happily accepted a few coins and ran off to the cloakroom with the client’s coat and hat. Knüfer stood in the foyer looking around, admiring the white and brown chequerboard flooring, the stained-glass window above the entrance, the arched vault and the enormous statues that lined the walls. When he had contemplated all this splendour, he turned into the great gambling hall on his left. Standing in the doorway, he squinted in the merciless blaze of the chandeliers, which revealed every wrinkle around the gamblers’ eyes aggravated by a lack of sleep and by their addiction, reflected off bald pates covered in droplets of sweat – a manifestation of their owners’ loss – highlighted the artificial blush on the cheeks of ageing aristocratic dames, and gleamed on the alabaster skin of young ladies whose habits were as frivolous as the multi-coloured ruffs of feathers in the bands encircling their immaculately cut and glossy hair. Knüfer’s eyes rested for a moment or two on one of the younger ladies. He was not sure whether he had found the right person. According to the description given to him by Mock, Sophie’s hair was long. The cut of this smiling woman’s light-blonde hair was fashionably short and sporting. Other aspects of the description tallied. Her breasts, which heaved against the silk of her dress and rose delightfully when she lifted her arms suddenly and joyfully, corresponded to Mock’s accurate description: “prominent bust with an almost visible firmness”. Her voice cut through the stuffy air of the hall with a silvery hue and could easily be described as “pearly” (Mock’s description again). With Difficulty he tore his eyes away from the blonde and peered into the card-room next door. When he was satisfied that none of the other ladies present fitted the description drawn up by the Criminal Counsellor, he sat down at an empty roulette table near to where an old, chubby croupier was standing at his post and, placing a few fifty-mark chips on the red, he began to weigh up the problem: if this is Sophie Mock, why is she being so noisy? By the time the croupier had pushed a doubled column of chips towards him, Knüfer had already found two explanations. Firstly, the blonde was not denying herself champagne, and secondly, her shouts of joy and raised arms were a response to the gambling successes of a small man with sorrowful, melancholic eyes. Knüfer decided to play an even-money bet. He placed all his chips on red again and quickly memorized the features of the short man on whose shoulder the blonde had just laid her head, tenderly grasping the place where other men usually have biceps. The player was not much taller than the gaming table. He tossed his chips nonchalantly and they landed in a gentle arch on the coarse, green baize, invariably finding a place on one of the thirty-six squares.

  “He doesn’t think at all,” the chubby croupier whispered to Knüfer. “He surrenders to chance. He throws a few chips at random and generally lands them spot on. If a chip falls on, say, twenty-two red, he bets either on evens or on red. He never plays en plein, or even a six line …”

  “And what happens,” Knüfer divided his considerable column into two and again placed both on red, “if a chip falls on a line between two squares? For example, between eighteen red and seventeen black? Where does he place his bet?”

  “A larger part of the chip,” the croupier spun the wheel, “always falls on one or the other. The line between two squares never cuts a chip exactly in half.”

  “So he has no method whatsoever.” Knüfer looked on dispassionately as the ball bounced and settled in the twenty-nine red slot.

  “That’s right.” The croupier pushed four columns of chips towards Knüfer. “He isn’t superstitious like other players; he doesn’t believe in some magical sequencing of numbers, or in attracting opposites; doesn’t wear copper jewellery when Saturn is in opposition to Mars, or play va banque on twelve. Or les voisins du zéro at the beginning of the month. He believes, so to speak, in the determinism of chance.”

  “Who is he?” Knüfer placed everything once again on red.

  “This is the first time you’ve been here, isn’t it, sir?” The croupier spun the wheel of disappointed hopes. “He’s a well-known player, very famous …”

  Dear Elisabeth,

  I’ve been in Wiesbaden since Friday and am keeping Bernard von Finkelstein company. He’s a film director at the U.F.A., and was well known at the beginning of the twenties under the pseudonym Bodo von Finckl. After this short piece of information about my present stay, I give up. There’s so much I’d like to write to you about that I don’t know where to start. Maybe with my leaving Breslau? No, no, and thrice no! I don’t even want to think about that town where I met with such base behaviour. Not on your part, of course, darling; everything that brought us together was so pure and so good!

  I’ll just tell you what I’m doing here in Wiesbaden, and at whose side I now find myself. I met von Finckl five years ago in Berlin, when I was trying to get a minor part in Fritz Lang’s filmDer müde Tod.† I must have made a great impression on von Finckl because he invited me to dinner the day we met, and revealed to me the most hidden recesses of his soul. He turned out to be a timid man who, despite his wealth and elevated position in the art world, yearns above all for love, clear as crystal and full of rapture. He asked me at the time to fulfil a certain eccentric, intimate desire of h
is and when I refused – somewhat indignantly and yet, I must admit, also very intrigued – he begged my forgiveness and swore to entrust me with the part for which I was auditioning. I then met him another couple of times and, despite his desperate and feverish insistence, allowed him only to kiss my slippers – which he did with great joy, bestowing on me in this way his reverence and adoration. Von Finckl was a true gentleman, and he charmed me with culture and, above all, a love of art. I might even have married him had not my late Papa – who by then had found me in Berlin after a long search – become entangled in the whole affair; he called von Finckl a stinking Jew and then took me back to Passau where a certain Bavarian landowner was also seeking my hand in marriage. However, I didn’t end up as a Bavarian Hausfrau, but in the company of a certain painter – oh, this love of mine for art! – made my way to Breslau where I quickly found myself in fashionable society.

  † Der müde Tod — Destiny.

  But going back to von Finckl. When I arrived in Berlin a few days ago he was already waiting for me at the station, alarmed by my telephone call in the night (luckily, I never throw my old address books away, as you know) – I called him the very night Eberhard raped me. Von Finckl hadn’t changed one bit: he was still sad, misunderstood by others, full of complexes and bizarre, dark needs. I realized that, in tying myself to him, I would have to satisfy his desires and decided to do so on the very first day. Don’t ask me what they were; maybe I’ll whisper them in your ear one day. Suffice it to say that von Finckl is prepared to give up his life for me. How easy it is to make someone happy! He has become confident and claims that – with me at his side – he could face any challenge. He wants to make a fortune so he can finance a new film, and with me in the starring role! After analysing all the chance coincidences that led me to him and allowed him to achieve his greatest happiness, Bodo has come to the conclusion that there exists a higher determinism of chance, and has come here with me to Wiesbaden to make the money he needs and to prove his theory. And just imagine – he’s winning all the time …