Popielski had no time to enjoy Mock’s company before he caught sight of a hefty man behind his back. He moved away from his German friend and observed yet another man, short and with a narrow, foxy face.
“Allow me, gentlemen” – Mock turned to both men – “Edward, may I introduce Mr Cornelius Wirth and Mr Heinrich Zupitza, my men for special affairs.”
LWÓW, TUESDAY, MAY 9TH, 1939 MIDDAY
Popielski finished his story, heaved a sigh and got up from his armchair. Leokadia sat dumbfounded, afraid to look at her cousin. Never before had he caused so much anxiety in her. She could not believe that aside from the world she knew so well – bridge on Thursdays at the home of Assistant Judge Stańczyk and his wife; her reading sessions in the mornings; ancient home routines; Holy Hours sung by Hanna; Juraszki ginger biscuits and Zalewski’s cake shop – there was another world of dark and hidden places full of sadists, lunatics and morally warped madmen given to brutal appetites, monsters who gnawed the cheeks of virgins or masturbated over the cot of their own child. Her cousin was acquainted with this world of minotaurs, hybrids and sodomites, and even tried to set it right. Like Theseus he had entered the labyrinth, but unlike the mythical hero, he had not returned triumphant to his homeland with Ariadne at his side; instead he had come home to an icy loneliness, shared with a whimsical spinster.
Leokadia jumped as the telephone rang.
“Good day again, sir,” she heard Edward’s voice. “I must apologize for my behaviour earlier when I took the liberty of hanging up on you.”
“…”
“I know, it’s terrible what happened to that boy … Henio Pytko. Yes, it’s awful, and extremely dangerous politically…”
“…”
“Yes, I know … Unfortunately I’m obliged to stand by my decision … No … I’m not going to change my mind … I’m resigning and retiring …”
“…”
“I have to help my daughter, and look after my grandson since her husband – my son-in-law – Doctor Woroniecki-Kulik, was found in the underground passages on the Poltva … You don’t have to remind me, sir. I know, I do know … A family scandal …”
“…”
“This really is my final decision! I’ll bring in my written resignation tomorrow. Farewell, sir. Adieu!”
He uttered these last words almost jokingly, replaced the receiver and returned to the parlour. He moved his chair to sit down next to Leokadia, placing his hand on her frail shoulder.
“I’m no longer a police officer, my dear.” He kissed her on the temple. “I’ve become a judge and executioner. And one can’t be judge, executioner and police officer at one and the same time.”
“So now you’re only going to work in the first two professions?” She looked at him with interest.
“Not entirely.” Popielski got to his feet and began to pace around the table in a sudden spurt of energy. “No, I’m going to do something different now. I’m going to be a tracker and a hunter, a kind of private detective. That’s all I know, apart from Latin. And am I to teach Latin at my age?”
“And who’s going to be your first prey?” Leokadia stared intently at her cousin, as curious as if she were playing bridge and waiting for his answer on the aces.
“Who do you think?”
“Little Henio Pytko’s murderer?”
“That’s going to be my first case. Even if nobody pays me …”
“And what are you going to do with the murderer when you catch him? The same as you did to your son-in-law?”
LWÓW, FRIDAY, APRIL 28TH, 1939 FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
Doctor Bronisław Woroniecki-Kulik had heard many extraordinary stories about the Poltva, Lwów’s invisible river which had been covered over by the Austrians and now ran silently beneath the city. It was said that the riverine underground was a secret world of criminals, a colony of lepers and harlots, an asylum for murderers and sodomites. As a child he had imagined that bloody Furies sat there by flaming rivers, and dogs of hell filled the abyss with their howling. As an adult he had often wanted to go and acquaint himself with the cursed place which was, according to the town’s legend, worthy even of Dante’s pen.
When he did at last find himself there, he was disappointed. This was no hell on earth, but rather an enormous, foul-smelling latrine from whence paupers crawled now and then, only to hide themselves again. Seeing all this by torchlight, Woroniecki was curious to know whether the people living there were, as was rumoured, in the last stages of syphilitic putrefaction. He could not see for himself, however; there was no time. The men who led him mistook his passion for learning for an attempt to delay their progress. For his part, he was not able to explain his interest in this underground world because there was a gag in his mouth.
He was not in the least bit frightened by the three men who had burst into his Rohatyna apartment during the night. He was convinced it was all a practical joke played on him by a friend who betrayed a weakness for peculiar pranks and had once crept through the window of his apartment disguised as a ghost to tear him from his sleep. So Woroniecki-Kulik walked quite calmly, and despite his gag and bound hands he was in good spirits. He was waiting for his friend, the joker, to loom out of the darkness at any moment. It would not have occurred to him that anyone in this city would dare lift a finger against Commissioner Edward Popielski’s son-in-law. Besides, one of the abductors had taken Bronisław’s walking stick with him. Anyone wanting to do him harm would surely not worry about such details.
They came to a halt behind a turn in the wall and switched off their torches. Total darkness. Woroniecki-Kulik felt somebody’s breath on his face; it smelled of nicotine and alcohol. The fourth assailant. Then he picked up the scent of an eau de cologne he recognized. This was not the scent his friend used. It was then that he began to feel afraid. Nobody in Lwów would dare lift a finger against Commissioner Edward Popielski’s son-in-law. Save Edward Popielski himself, perhaps.
A shaft of light fell onto the mathematician’s face, but it did not blind him. He clearly saw an elegantly gloved hand emerge from the darkness, his walking stick between two of its fingers.
“Is this what you injured my daughter with?” he heard Popielski’s voice say. “Did you push a walking stick like this into her womb?”
Woroniecki-Kulik began to shake, which surprised him because he was not in the least bit frightened. His analytical mind was working impeccably, without a shred of emotion. But his body was not listening to his mind; it shook with panic and fear, and was bathed in sweat. It seemed to him that the entire stench of that underground cesspool emanated from him.
“Did you shove a walking stick into the womb which bore your son?”
Another hand loomed out of the darkness and tore the gag from his mouth. He heard a splash. He knew he would live for as long as he refused to answer the question in the affirmative; he felt relieved. He would refuse, and he would live. His logical mind was infallible.
All of a sudden he felt his coat being torn off him, then his pyjamas. The silk tautened and split. He felt cold. A firm pressure on the nape of his neck made him kneel, then fall on his face. The stench of the sewers grew even stronger. Somebody sat on his back; somebody else parted his bare legs.
“You’re going to suffer as she did” – Popielski’s voice again – “except that your suffering will be worse. It will be hopeless, and final.”
Woroniecki-Kulik heard the tapping of his walking stick. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed torchlight on his shins. His hands were bound tighter. And then he realised he had overestimated his mathematical mind. He had not foreseen that Popielski knew the answer to the question he had already asked twice. And then he no longer thought of anything. He was one burning pain.
When, a quarter of an hour later, he was thrown into the Poltva with his hands bound, and the foul-smelling water filled his lungs, he considered it a liberation.
MAREK KRAJEWSKI was for many years a lecturer in Classical Studies at the Uni
versity of Wroclaw. His Eberhard Mock series, which includes Death in Breslau (2008), The End of the World in Breslau (2009) and Phantoms of Breslau (2010), have enjoyed huge success in Europe and have been rewarded with Poland’s premier literary and crime novel prizes. The Minotaur’s Head is the fourth in the series to be translated into English.
DANUSIA STOK is the author/editor of Kieslowski on Kieslowski and the translator of a range of modern Polish literature and language books, including the rest of the Breslau series.
† Equivalent to sergeant.
† Student fraternities in interwar Poland often had anti-Semitic or nationalist tendencies.
† In Polish “Swabian” was a derogatory term for a German, much as “Kraut” or “Fritz” were used in the English language.
† “I am human, therefore nothing human is strange to me.”
† Equivalent in rank to junior officer.
‡ “cygan” is Polish for Gypsy.
† Justly or unjustly.
† “Great improvisation”, from Adam Mickiewicz’s poetic novel Dziady.
† Under constraint.
‡ Arsehole.
† Yiddish: “Come and buy! Come and buy!”
† “And Who Cares About Our Love?”
The Minotaur's Head: An Eberhard Mock Investigation (Eberhard Mock Investigation 4) Page 29