“Two nuns were waiting for the child at the station. It had been decided by the family of the child’s father.”
“What family? Name!”
“I don’t know. Hanna kept it absolutely secret and never told anyone. I expect she was generously rewarded for her silence.”
“Had anything else been decided?”
“Yes. The family paid in advance for the boy to be educated at a secondary school.”
Anwaldt suddenly experienced a painful spasm in his chest. He got up, strolled across the room and decided to put an end to the pain by means of its cause. So he lit another cigarette. But the effect was such that he was gripped by a dry cough. When it had passed, he quoted Sophocles: “Terrible though it is, Sir, while the witness/ Does not the truth confess, hold fast still to your hope.”
“I beg your pardon?” Anwald and Banaszak asked simultaneously, looking at the Breslau policeman as if he were mad. The latter walked up to Mieczysław Anwald’s armchair and whispered:
“What name did they give the child?”
“We christened the boy in Ostrów. The kind-hearted priest took our word that we were married. He only asked to see my passport. The godparents were some chance people who got paid for it.”
“Tell me, dammit, what was the child’s name?!”
“The same as mine: Anwald. We gave him the name Herbert.”
POZNAŃ, THAT SAME JULY 17TH, 1934
TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
Herbert Anwaldt sat comfortably spread out on the plush couch in the saloon carriage. He was reading Oedipus the King and not paying the slightest attention to the crowded Poznań platform. Suddenly, the conductor appeared and politely asked what the gentleman would like to eat during his journey. Anwaldt, not taking his eyes off the Greek text, ordered pork knuckle and a bottle of Polish Baczyński vodka. The conductor bowed and left. The Breslau train moved off.
Anwaldt got up and looked at himself in the mirror.
“I’m doing well with my money. But what the heck. Did you know,” he said to his reflection “that my daddy has a lot of money? He’s very good. He paid for me to go to the best Berlin secondary school specializing in the Classics.”
He stretched out on the couch and covered his face with the open book. He drew in with pleasure the faint odour of printer’s ink. He closed his eyes so as to bring to mind more readily the blurred future, an image persistently knocking at the threshold of consciousness, stubbornly jumping like a photograph in a peep-show which does not want to slip into the correct frame. It was one of those moments when the humming in his ears and dizziness announced an epiphany, a prophetic dream, a flash of clairvoyance, a shaman’s transformation. He opened his eyes and looked around the delicatessen with interest. He felt a stinging pain. The wounds left by the bee-stings were pulsating. The portly shopkeeper in a dirty apron laughed as he handed him some onion peelings. The smile did not leave his face. You pig, shouted Anwaldt, my daddy’s going to kill you. The shopkeeper threw himself across the counter at the boy hiding behind his tutor, who had just entered the shop. (Sir, please look at the tower I’ve built with the bricks. Yes, you’ve built a lovely tower, Herbert, the tutor patted him on the shoulder. Again. And again.) “Here you are, sir, your vodka and pork knuckle.” Anwaldt threw the book aside, sat up and uncorked the bottle. He shuddered: a child was shouting. Little Klaus in Waschteich Park, like an upside down, poisoned cockroach, was thrashing his legs against the ground. “He’s not my daddy!” The wheels rumbled rhythmically. They deafened Klaus’ cries. Anwaldt tipped the bottle. The burning liquid had an almost immediate effect on his empty stomach, clarified his mind, calmed his nerves. The policeman dug his teeth into the trembling pink meat with relish. A few moments later, only a thick bone lay on his plate. He stretched out comfortably on the couch. The alcohol conjured up an image in his mind of a dark green forest and the crooked figures of Soutine’s exiled children. Not all are exiled, he explained to himself. That little Pole from the train to Rawicz, for example, will never be expelled anywhere by anyone. You’re a Pole, too. Your mother was Polish. He sat up and drank two glasses of vodka in a row. The bottle was empty. (Scorching desert sand is settling on the stone floor. Into the ruined tomb peers a hairy goat. Hoof marks in the sand. Wind blows sand into zigzag gaps in the wall. From the ceiling fall small, restless scorpions. They surround him and raise their poisonous abdomens. Eberhard Mock tramples them methodically. I’ll die just like my sister died. Sophocles: “Unfortunate one, may you not know who you are.”)
† ‘Schlossarczyk’ is the German form of the Polish surname ‘Slusarczyk’.
XIV
BRESLAU, THAT SAME TUESDAY, JULY 17TH, 1934
SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
Eberhard Mock sat shirtless in his apartment on Rehdigerplatz, resting after a heavy and nerve-racking day. He spread out the chessboard, positioned out the pieces and tried to immerse himself in Überbrand’s Chess Traps. He was analysing a particular master hand. As usual, he put himself in the defence’s position and, to his satisfaction, found a solution which led to stalemate. He looked at the chessboard again and instead of the white king, which was not being pinned down in check but which nevertheless could not move, he saw himself, Criminal Director Eberhard Mock. He stood retreating, under fire from the black knight, who bore the face of Olivier von der Malten, and the black queen, who resembled the Chief of Gestapo, Erich Kraus. The white bishop, looking like Smolorz, stood useless in one corner of the board, and the white queen, Anwaldt, was curled up somewhere on his desk far from the chessboard. Mock did not answer the telephone which rang persistently for the fourth time already that evening. He expected he would hear the Baron’s cold voice summoning him to give a report. What was he to tell von der Malten? That Anwaldt had disappeared who knew where? That the owner of the tenement and his new tenant had entered Maass’ apartment and found Smolorz there? Yes, he could of course say that he had identified the murderer. But where was that murderer? In Breslau? In Germany? Or maybe the mountains of Kurdistan? The telephone rang persistently. Mock counted the rings. Twelve. He got up and crossed the room. The telephone stopped ringing. At that moment, he threw himself at the receiver. He remembered von Hardenburg’s principle regarding telephones: wait until the twelfth ringing tone. He went to the kitchen and took a piece of dried sausage. Today was the servant’s day off. He tore a fair piece of sausage with his teeth, then ate a spoonful of hot horseradish. As he chewed, his eyes watered abundantly – the horseradish was hot – and he thought about the young Berliner who, humiliated and maltreated in the Gestapo cells, had surrendered under his torturers’ threats and left this over-heated and evil city. The telephone rang again. (Where can Anwaldt be?) A second ringing of the telephone. (I’ll sort that cursed Forstner out yet!) Third. (A nerve-racking day, but nothing really happened.) Fourth. (That’s exactly why). Fifth. (It’s a pity about Anwaldt; it would be good to have someone like him among my men.) Sixth. (Too bad, he too had found himself in a “vice”.) Seventh. (I’ve got to get a whore for myself. That’ll calm me.) Eighth. (I can’t pick it up with my mouth full.) Ninth. (Yes, I’ll call Madame.) Tenth. (Maybe it’s von Hardenburg?) The telephone rang for the eleventh time. Mock dashed into the hall and picked the receiver up after the twelfth bell. His ear heard a drunk babbling. He brusquely interrupted the stream of incomprehensible justifications.
“Where are you, Anwaldt?”
“At the station.”
“Wait for me on platform one. I’ll come and collect you right away. Repeat – which platform?”
“Plaaaatform … One.”
* * *
Mock did not find Anwaldt on platform one or on any other platform. Guided by his intuition, he went to Bahnschutz Police Station. Anwaldt was lying in a cell, asleep and snoring loudly. Mock showed the astounded duty constable his identification and politely asked for help. The constable eagerly barked some instructions to his men. They grasped the drunkard under the arms and carried hi
m out to the Adler. Mock thanked the obliging constable and his colleagues, started the engine and a quarter of an hour later was back at Rehdigerplatz. All the benches on the square were occupied. People, resting after the day’s heat, watched with amazement as a stocky man with a sizeable belly, panting loudly, dragged an inert creature from the back seat of his car.
“He’s sozzled,” laughed a passing teenager.
Mock removed the drunken man’s jacket, soiled with vomit, rolled it up and threw it into the front of the car. Next, he threw the man’s left arm over his own sweaty neck, with his right he took him by the waist and, under the eyes of the mocking rabble, hauled him through the doorway. The caretaker, as if out of spite, was nowhere to be seen. “Anyone could walk through the door and that idiot’s probably drinking beer at Kohl’s,” he muttered furiously. He advanced step by step. His cheek rubbed against Anwaldt’s dirty, sweaty shirt. He shuddered every now and then as a sour cloud of breath swept over him, stopped on the half-landings and swore like a trooper, careless of the neighbours. One of them, the lawyer Doctor Fritz Patschkowsky, taking his dog for a walk, stood stock still, amazed, and the large Pomeranian practically tore itself from its leash. Mock glanced at the man with some hostility and did not respond to the haughty “good evening”. At last he reached his door and stood Anwaldt next to it. With one hand, he held him up; with the other, he struggled with the lock. A minute later, he was in the apartment. Anwaldt lay on the floor in the hall. Mock, sitting at the mahogany dressing-table, was breathing heavily. He closed the door and calmly smoked a cigarette. Next, he grasped Anwaldt by his shirt collar and tugged him to the games room. He took him under the arms, put him on to the gently sloping chaise longue, and searched his pockets. Nothing. (Some pick-pocket has already robbed him.) He loosened the tie, unbuttoned the shirt and removed the shoes. Anwaldt’s clothes were in a dismal condition, stained by grease and ash. On the thin cheeks, a two-day stubble fell like a shadow. Mock observed his subordinate for a while, then went out to the kitchen and ran his eyes thoughtfully over the green jars standing on the top shelf in the larder. Each of them had a parchment cap held in place by a pale rubber band. Finally, he found a jar containing dried mint. He poured two handfuls of the herb into a jug and then, with some difficulty, lit a fire under the stove. He fiddled with the stove lids for a long time until he found the right one and stood a shining, polished kettle on it. From the bathroom, he brought a tin basin and stood it next to Anwaldt’s bedding just in case, then returned to the kitchen. He lifted the steaming kettle and filled the jug containing the leaves with boiling water. Not knowing how to extinguish the fire, he drowned it with tap water. Then he took a cool bath and changed into a dressing gown. He sat at his desk, lit a fat Turkish cigar – one of the ones he kept for special occasions – and looked at the chessboard. Stalemate continued to paralyse the king-Eberhard Mock. He was still threatened by the knight-von der Malten and the queen-Kraus. But here, at the chessboard, appeared the white queen-Anwaldt – recovered from somewhere – and came to the king’s aid.
BRESLAU, WEDNESDAY, JULY 18TH, 1934
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
Anwaldt opened his swollen eyes and immediately saw the jug and glass standing on the little table. With shaking hands, he filled it with strained mint tea and raised it to his lips.
“Shall I give you a knife to separate those lips?” Mock was tying his tie, spreading a spicy scent of quality eau de cologne and smiling kindheartedly. “Do you know, I’m not even furious with you. Because how can you be furious with someone who’s just miraculously been found? Click, Anwaldt was here and Anwaldt’s gone. Click, and Anwaldt’s here again.” Mock stopped smiling. “Nod if you had a good reason to disappear from my sight.”
Anwaldt nodded. Fireworks lit up inside his skull. He poured himself some more mint. Mock stood astride, observing his hung-over assistant. He clasped his hands and twiddled his thumbs.
“Good. I see you feel like drinking. That means you won’t be sick. I’ve run a bath for you. There’s one of my shirts in the bathroom and your cleaned and pressed suit. You certainly took care of it yesterday. I paid the caretaker’s wife an arm and a leg for her efforts. It took her half the night. She also cleaned your shoes. You’ll pay me back when you’ve got some money. Someone robbed you yesterday. Take a shave because you look like an alcoholic tramp. Use my razor,” Mock was harsh and decisive. “And now listen to me. In three-quarters of an hour you’re to sit here and tell me your adventures. Briefly and concretely. Then we’ll go to John the Baptist’s Cathedral. There, at nine-fifteen, Doctor Leo Hartner’s going to be waiting for us.”
* * *
They sat in the cool darkness. The violence of the sun stopped short of the coloured filter of stained-glass windows; walls of ashlar muffled the noise and bustle of the sweating city; Silesian princes slept in silent niches; and Latin signs on the walls invoked the contemplation of eternity. Mock’s watch showed nine-twenty. As agreed, they sat in the front row and watched out for Hartner. Instead of him, a short priest with a crew-cut and silver-framed spectacles walked up to them. Without a word, he handed Mock an envelope, turned and left. Anwaldt wanted to follow him, but Mock held him back. He took the typed letter from the envelope and passed it to his assistant.
“You read. I can’t see properly in this light and we’re not going out into that cursed heat.” On saying this, Mock realized that he was speaking in familiar terms to Baron von der Malten’s son. (If I was on familiar terms with Marietta, I can be the same with him.)
Anwaldt looked at the sheet of paper embossed with the University Library’s golden crest beneath which appeared the elegant letters of the Director’s typewriter.
Dear Excellency.
I apologize for not being able to attend our appointment personally, but family reasons prompted me to leave suddenly yesterday evening. I called Your Excellency several times, but you were not in. So let me speak through this letter for I have several important things to impart. All that I am now going to say is based on the admirable book Les Yesîdîs by Jean Boyé, published ten years ago in Paris. The author, a well-known French ethnographer and traveller, stayed with the Yesidis for four years. They liked him and respected him to such a degree that he was admitted to some sacred rituals. Among the many interesting descriptions of the religious cult of this secret sect, one is particularly significant. And so, our author stayed somewhere in the desert (he doesn’t say exactly where) with several of the Yesidi elders. There, they visited an old hermit who lived in a grotto. This elderly eremite would frequently dance and fall into a trance like the Turkish dervishes. While he did so, he pronounced prophecies in an incomprehensible tongue. Boyé had for a long time to implore the Yesidis to clarify these prophetic cries. They eventually agreed and explained them. The hermit proclaimed that the time of vengeance for the murdered children of Al-Shausi had come. Boyé, knowing the history of the Yesidis very well, knew that these children had died at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He was surprised, therefore, that these born avengers had waited so long to fulfil their sacred duty. The Yesidis explained to him that, according to their law, vengeance is only valid if it corresponds exactly to the crime which it is to avenge. So that if someone’s eye had been gouged out with a stiletto, then his avenger had to visit the same barbarity on the criminal or his descendant, and not just with any ordinary knife but with a stiletto and – best of all – the very same one.
Vengeance for Al-Shausi’s murdered children would only be in keeping with their law if the children of the murderer’s descendant were killed in the very same way. But this could not come about for centuries, up until the moment that the deity Malak-Taus manifested himself to the hermit and announced that the awaited time had come. These hermits are profoundly venerated by the Yesidis and are considered to be the guardians of tradition. And the duty to avenge belongs to the sacred tradition. So that when the eremite announced that the time was right, the gathering chose an
avenger whose right hand was tattooed with the symbol of vengeance. If this avenger did not fulfil his task, they hung him before everybody’s eyes. So much for Boyé.
Dear Excellency, I too, unfortunately, am unable to answer the question which so troubled Jean Boyé. I looked through the entire genealogy of the von der Malten family and think I know why the Yesidi’s vengeance could not be fulfilled for so many centuries. In the fourteenth century, the von der Maltens branched into three: the Silesian, the Bavarian and the Netherlandish. In the eighteenth century, the last two dried out. The Silesian branch did not propagate abundantly – mostly singleton boys were born to this well-known junker’s family, and the vengeance – let me remind you – could only be considered valid if it was carried out on siblings. In that family’s entire history, siblings were born only five times. In two cases, one of the children died when still an infant, in two others, the boys died in unknown circumstances. In the last one, Olivier von der Malten’s aunt, his father Ruppert’s sister, spent all her days in a strictly closed, sequestered convent, so that vengeance on her was effectively hindered.
Dear Excellency, I wrote that I know why revenge has not been taken. Unfortunately, I do not know why this elder had insight and announced ceremoniously that the moment of vengeance had come. The only living male descendant of Godfryd von der Malten, Olivier, did not, at the time of the hermit’s insight, have any other children apart from the hapless Marietta. So that her terrible murder is a tragic mistake of a demented old shaman, caused by the hashish which is so popular in his country.
I finish my overly long letter and apologize for not verifiying Maass’ translation of Friedländer’s last two prophecies. A lack of time rendered it impossible; much time was spent in my examining the Yesidi’s curse and on complicated family matters which unexpectedly hastened my departure. I remain sincerely yours, Doctor Leo Hartner.
Death in Breslau Page 20