by Dan Vyleta
When the first of the whistles sounded, Zuzka flinched and left the window. A glance at the mirror would have told her that she looked dishevelled: the eyes red from crying, puffy skin around the cheeks, blouse and stockings in some disarray. She stopped at the door, heard another whistle rise behind her, then stepped on through, nearly colliding with the policeman in the hallway, big-hipped, ugly, with large hairy hands. What she said to Beer, she could not later recall. The stairs received them, the staccato click of her heels, the men running ahead of her, gaining ground with every step. Her left leg gave her trouble, would not quite move; a tightness in her chest that had not bothered her in days.
Outside, the two policemen parted for the detective and for Beer, then closed ranks before she had time to cross the yard. She craned her neck, saw a third flash spill from the lit windows, which threw the crowd into relief. It occurred to her that she’d have a better view from her own window, but realised at once that her key was in her coat. Vesalius would let her in. Vesalius was standing talking to Herr Neurath, a fur-lined cap upon her head. Zuzka shivered and stayed where she was. Someone next to her offered her a cigarette. It was a worker in overalls, a patch of grease clinging to his cheek. He did not seem offended when she declined. Someone at the back started singing a tune; another voice soon inserted a dirty verse. Half the crowd seemed to be drunk; a fairground spirit mingling with the fear.
A half-hour passed, new bodies entering the press, and now and then a whistle sounded from its thick, calling to order the drunken and the bold. Zuzka looked through the crowd for someone who might hold some information. Her eyes fell again on the divorcee who was said to make a living teaching English: the made-up face under the tumble of her hair, a little blue hat pinned into it and serving no purpose other than to add a dash of contrast to the ample locks. She wore a long black coat and lace-up boots, looked respectable and fragile, leather gloves on her hands. Her name was Klara Kovacs. Zuzka pushed through to her, avoided looking at her lips.
‘Grüss Gott,’ she said, blushing. ‘Can you tell me what is going on?’
The woman inspected her, turned up the collar of her coat, frowned.
‘There’s been a murder. Up there in that flat. Where the little cripple lives.’
‘Lieschen. Is it she who –?’
‘I heard it was the father. The door was wide open. Blood everywhere. A man told me he wasn’t the first such victim. Somebody killed Speckstein’s dog, cut him open with a hatchet.’ She gave a little shiver, reached for a handkerchief to dab her nose.
‘Yes,’ said Zuzka. ‘So I’ve heard.’
Something was happening near the door to the back wing, at the other end of the yard. A movement went through the crowd, irresistible, like the swell of the sea, at first rushing in on the space, then swiftly parting to grant passage to a group of men. It was the detective, followed by Beer, a man in uniform walking by their side. As soon as Frau Kovacs became aware of the little group, a hardness crept into her eyes and she turned abruptly to vanish into the crowd. Zuzka was left standing alone in the press of men. When she noticed that Beer was headed in her general direction, she raised her hand until he caught sight of her. The detective by his side was talking at him, his small mouth inches from the doctor’s ear. He stopped speaking as soon as she was in earshot. She noticed that he had threaded a hand through the gap under Beer’s armpit and was holding on to his arm. They both came to a halt in front of her.
‘What happened up there?’ she asked.
‘Lieschen’s father is dead.’
‘But how? Who –?’
Beer was about to answer, but stopped himself short when the hand around his arm tightened. One could see him wince under the detective’s grip.
‘It’s under investigation,’ he began again. ‘The autopsy is tonight.’
‘And Lieschen?’
‘Nowhere to be found.’ Beer paused, looked up to the detective as though seeking his permission. ‘The body is some days old. When did you last see her?’
‘I can’t remember. Two, three days ago.’
‘We must try to find her.’
Zuzka was about to ask for further details when she felt Beer’s attention shift to somewhere behind her. She looked around and saw her uncle march through the door that led from the front of the building into the yard. He was dressed in coat and tails and had evidently been drinking. His face was very flushed.
‘Somebody at the police station found me at the Mayor’s reception. He said there’d been a murder in my house.’
He peered over to the policemen who stood barring the way to the back wing, then focused in on Teuben. ‘Are you in charge?’
‘Yes, Professor. Detective Inspector Teuben. The Chief of Police will have my report first thing in the morning.’
‘Come now, my man, no need to be coy. What happened here?’
‘We have to wait for the post-mortem. Impossible to give you a sense of the case before.’ He seemed to be speaking more to Beer than to Speckstein, his knuckles white against the doctor’s coat.
‘But there must be some details you can give me.’
The detective shrugged, gave Beer’s arm a final squeeze, then led Speckstein a few yards to one side and began talking to him in rushed whispers. Beer and Zuzka gazed after them. The doctor looked tired and pale.
‘I should go back and look in on Eva,’ he murmured. ‘She needs to be turned.’
‘We have to find Lieschen.’
‘And where do you propose we go look for her?’
He sighed, took her hand in his own, then dropped it quickly, aware of the crowd that surrounded them. ‘But you are shivering.’
‘I forgot my coat upstairs. In your living room.’
‘I’ll go fetch it for you.’ He paused, caught sight of Speckstein, who was waving at him with the magnificence of a king, a little drunkenly, that is, curling his fingers in their white glove. ‘Just a moment. Your uncle wants to speak to me.’
Beer seemed relieved to leave her presence. She wondered whether he would be avoiding her from now on. Stung and stubborn, she followed him and stood behind his back while Speckstein instructed him to ‘take full charge of the medical side of things’. There was a large, brown stain on the expanse of her uncle’s shirt-front, in the shape of a teardrop. It surprised her. He was normally the most fastidious of diners.
A voice distracted her. Later, she would marvel that she was able to pick it out from the din of the yard. She turned around and saw Otto, in his black clothes and shabby coat, standing a few yards behind her, asking questions of an old man in the crowd. There was no greasepaint on his face and something of his sister stared out from his large, expressive eyes. A flood of thoughts and feelings rushed her, all connected to this man: about their daily awkward meetings, almost wordless now, filled with a tension neither one of them seemed willing to relieve; about the article from the magazine (she had long asked to have it back) with its strange and silly words – ‘spatial clairvoyance’, ‘ideoplastic materialisation’ – that somehow pointed to his sister, that living corpse that the detective wished to own; about the memory of his performance, the whitened lips, the silent moans, the knee he slipped between her thighs. There was no telling how long he’d been standing in the yard, nor whether he had noticed her, drifting through the crowd. He finished his conversation and set out for the side wing, passing within a yard of where she stood.
‘You aren’t working?’ she asked him quietly when he drew level, taking care not to step any closer. It was to her as though the entire yard was staring at them: had hushed, stood straining, ears cocked for his reply. Otto stopped and shot her a glance.
‘They closed the club. Something about the paperwork. The owner’s been arrested.’
His features reflected deep confusion.
She wished that she could touch him then, just as Beer had touched her a few minutes ago, reach over, hold his hand. They sat like that sometimes, up in his room – tenderly, she thoug
ht, his palm in hers – though in his face there often ruled a bug-eyed anger. He shrugged, resumed his journey, then was brusquely stopped by a hand that grabbed his collar and pulled him off balance so that he stumbled to one knee. The hand was large and it was hairy. It was Teuben’s.
If the crowd had seemed hushed to her before, it fell silent now, intent upon this scene of sudden action. The silence spread in quick concentric circles at whose centre fell the pebble that was Teuben’s hand. Only towards the back did the fairground atmosphere continue, were coarse jokes shouted, ditties sung, did people talk to trade the gossip. A ring formed around the four men, Teuben, Otto, Beer and Speckstein. Zuzka found herself in the foot or so of empty space that separated spectators and spectacle, the only one amongst the watchers who knew herself to be exposed. From high above a trumpet sounded, high-pitched, human, like a baby’s wail, then was quickly scattered by the wind. All eyes were on Teuben.
‘Who are you, my friend?’ he growled, aware of the audience, enjoying it. ‘I’ve seen you before. You live here?’
Otto nodded, pointed over to the door to the side wing. He seemed to have immediately understood that the man belonged to the police: did not struggle against the hand upon his coat, kept his eyes away from him, fastened on the ground. It came to Zuzka that he had been arrested before.
‘But how is it that I know you?’
‘I’m a performer,’ Otto muttered. ‘At the Kasperl Club. Perhaps –’
Teuben pulled Otto closer yet, stared down into his face, then dropped his eyes further to his chest and legs, the jet-black clothing of his trade.
‘Well, I’ll be damned. You’re the mime.’
Otto nodded.
‘I saw your show two weeks back. Magnificent. I laughed so hard, I nearly bust a gut.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
The detective’s hand remained on his lapel. ‘But what an extraordinary face.’
He turned to Beer and Speckstein, swinging Otto around with him and adjusting his hand which came to sit behind his captive’s neck.
‘It seems you have an artist living in your midst, Professor. Have you seen his show? No? You should, it’s magnificent.’
He paused, licked his lips, shot a gaze across the crowd.
‘I’ll tell you one thing, Professor. You should have him at that party of yours that the Chief of Police keeps talking about. Some entertainment for the guests. After dinner. Raise the spirits a little.’
Speckstein looked at him embarrassed, gathered all his dignity.
‘I’m afraid there won’t be a party. It might not be safe, given recent events.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Teuben, speaking louder than was necessary. ‘We must keep up the Germanic spirit. Stoic in the face of danger, chin out and marsch. Tell you what, Herr Professor, I will see to the security myself. Just leave it to me; I’ll blend in with the guests and nobody’ll be the wiser. Dr Beer is coming, too, I presume – your esteemed colleague? Yes? Wonderful. And a bit of cabaret to go with the dessert. How about it, Herr –?’ (and here he snapped his fingers at the mime).
‘Frei.’
‘Herr Frei. Are you free on Saturday night? For a private performance, I mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it’s all settled. What do you say, Professor? A little entertainment for your guests, and Beer and I to make sure nothing untoward is going on. Or are you worried that it’ll be too vulgar? High and low, it’s all a nonsense of the past. There is no such thing as class – only Germans! Go on, Comrade Zellenwart, it’ll be a blast.’
Speckstein excused himself soon after, struggling for dignity. He grabbed Zuzka’s wrist and dragged her after him, and was quickly followed by Frau Vesalius whom he ordered to draw a bath and bring his pipe. Teuben and Beer returned to the scene of the killing. The crowd in the yard dispersed after another hour, when it started to drizzle.
Later, the back wing was reopened, the door to the victim’s flat sealed with a wax stamp. It was the night of the 31st of October 1939. When Zuzka sat down on her bed, still wearing all her clothes and shivering from her hour in the cold, her body failed her and she found herself unable to move either of her legs.
6
Beer told Eva. He sat on her bed, had rolled her on to her left side, held on to an arm and was massaging its muscles, all the while talking, catching her eye. She blinked now and then, moistened her gaze. He took it for a sign she understood. It was late, almost morning; the doctor looking haggard and worn.
‘So he marched me over to that house of death,’ he told her. ‘No, that’s not true. It wasn’t Teuben who was marching me. I wanted to go, the moment we stepped out into the yard and saw the crowd there, craning their necks. I was just the same as them – I wanted to see first hand. And then I wondered, what if something had happened to Anneliese? Her father was a drunk, you know; she watched him from the window every day. Sometimes, a man like that, he doesn’t need a reason, love will do it the same as hate. For violence, I mean: to do the girl harm. I was afraid of what we might find.’
He broke off, licked his lips, fingers kneading Eva’s skin.
‘On the way up the stairs, I kept calling her name. We were both of us running, Teuben in the lead. He turned once and told me to shut the hell up. Up on the landing, he grabbed hold of my arm. I wasn’t sure then, was he steadying me, or holding me back? We entered like that, walking arm in arm.
‘The door was wide open, the front hallway trampled with fresh mud. You’d think they’d know better, respect the crime scene, but they had barged right in, first the neighbour who had found the corpse – a war vet by the name of Kopp: he was sitting in the hallway on a chair, a leg and a half stretched out in front of him, answering the same questions over and over for different men – then the policeman whom he’d fetched from down the street, wet and surly on his beat. Three leather soles and the rubber peg of a crutch: they had come in together, trailing in mud, and had found a second neighbour who had chanced upon the open door, his hands deep in the dead man’s pocket – looking for his passport, he said, which he read is what you do. The policeman left the two in charge while he went to find a telephone. What else was he to do? Nobody was to enter the flat while he was away.
‘The door hadn’t been forced. That’s the first thing I noticed: that the door hadn’t been forced. I used to study these sorts of things, you know, when I was still half a boy, and anatomy bored me. Kept a copy of Gross’s Handbook of Criminal Science by my bedside, read it whenever I could. That’s before I discovered psychiatry. It seemed more elegant than blood-splatter patterns and bullet trajectories, more suited to the type of man I sought to be. I took a fancy to the criminal mind. It led me to Hannover and Düsseldorf, and from there into Teuben’s arms. I should have studied ophthalmology, but then that’s not a young man’s choice.
‘The lock, in any case, had been picked or opened with a key, sometime between four o’clock and six, in the stretch of time when Kopp had left the building to wet his whistle in a bar. He passed a closed door on the way down; found it open on his return. There was some blood near the entrance, looking old, I thought – days old, not hours – though at this point I wasn’t yet sure: two or three smudges just about halfway up the wall. We followed them into the flat, Teuben walking me along, telling everyone I was an expert, which I suppose is somewhat true. The kitchen was a clutter, the table overturned, broken bottles on the floor, and a jack-knife in the sink, five inches long, with a two-tone handle made of horn like you can buy in any old Tabak. It was lying on a pile of unwashed dishes. Someone must have picked it up, then thrown it back quite recently. On the topmost plate there was a broken crust of dried-in blood.