End of the World in Breslau

by Marek Krajewski

  “Even if you drank whole tankfuls of mint tea, you wouldn’t be able to possess me every day.” Sophie wiped tears of laughter from beneath her black eye.

  “What, does mint increase virility?” he said.

  “Apparently,” she said, still laughing.

  Mock went back to his cigar. An enormous circle of smoke drifted down to the deep-pile carpet.

  “How do you know?” he asked suddenly.

  “I read it somewhere.” Sophie stopped laughing.

  “Where?”

  “A book in your library.”

  “One by Galen, perhaps?” Mock, as a would-be philologist of Classics, possessed nearly all the editions of ancient writers.

  “I can’t remember.”

  “It must have been Galen.”

  “Possibly.” Sophie sat down and turned her cup in its saucer. Anger flashed in her eyes. “What do you think you’re doing? Not only do you mistreat me physically, but now you’re trying to torment me mentally as well?”

  “I’m sorry,” Mock said humbly. “I only want to clear the air. Where were you today?”

  “I don’t want questions or mistrust.” Sophie screwed a cigarette into her crystal holder and accepted a light from her husband. “Which is why I’m going to tell you about my day as if I were talking to a husband who is changing for the better and is curious to know how his dear wife’s day has been, and not to some furiously jealous investigator. As you know, Elisabeth and I are soon to appear in an Advent concert. She came to see me this morning, not long after you sent the roses. We took a droschka to Eichenallee, to Baron von Hagenstahl’s who is paying for and organizing the concert. We needed his blessing to hire the Concert Hall on Garten-strasse. We made a detour on the way and I left the roses at the church of Corpus Christi – I was furious with you and didn’t want the flowers. Then Elisabeth and I rehearsed. I had dinner at her apartment. That’s all. And now excuse me for a minute. I’m tired and Marta has prepared a bath for me. I’ll be back in a while.”

  Sophie finished her coffee and left the parlour. Mock peered into the hall and saw her close the bathroom door behind her. He went quickly to the telephone, dialled Smolorz’s number and issued a brief command into the receiver.

  Sophie sat naked on the edge of her bath and wondered who Eberhard was calling. The water had turned pink with Hager rose bath salts, thanks to which – the travelling salesman had claimed – “pain is diminished and tiredness disappears”. Sophie did not remove her make-up. She knew her husband liked a woman to wear make-up, especially in the bedroom. With the tips of her fingers she could already feel the fresh, stiff linen and sense Eberhard’s closeness. She submerged herself in the half-filled bath and contentedly contemplated the wall tiles showing a happy wanderer on his way somewhere carrying a small bundle on a stick. All of a sudden she bit her lip. The bath salts eased the subtle pain in her lower belly and her memory of that morning.

  “It was only revenge,” she whispered to the wanderer. “If I had not taken my revenge, I would not be able to forgive him. As it is, we’re starting from scratch today. We’re going to be together every night.”

  Argos began to bark. Sophie heard the murmur of comings and goings in the hall, a familiar masculine voice and then the slamming of a door. Shaking with nerves, she climbed out of the bath.

  “Marta, who has arrived?” she called through the door.

  “The master has left with Criminal Sergeant Smolorz,” the servant called back. Sophie angrily washed away her make-up.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 28TH, 1927

  SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  Mock and Smolorz sat in the Adler, parked outside the apartment on Rehdigerplatz. The windows and roof of the car were soon shrouded in a blanket of snow. Mock was silent because he was overwhelmed by jealousy; Smolorz, because it was in keeping with his nature.

  “What did you find out?” Mock asked finally.

  “The caretaker was drunk. He didn’t know Gelfrert. Gelfrert was a Nazi …”

  “I’m not talking about Gelfrert.” Mock kindled his cigarette to a bright tip. “I’m talking about the church.”

  “Nobody brought flowers to the church today.”

  Mock studied the windows of his bedroom; the light had just gone out.

  “Smolorz, you’re on a new case.” In times of great agitation, Mock addressed his subordinate using the familiar form of “you”. “I want to know everything there is to know about a certain Baron von Hagenstahl in Eichenallee. You’re to stop work on Gelfrert’s case. I’ll take care of it myself. Apart from that, you’re not to leave my wife for a minute. You don’t need to hide especially. She doesn’t know you except by name and voice. Report to me every evening at eight, at Grajeck’s restaurant on Gräb-schenerstrasse.” Mock lit another cigarette. “Listen, Smolorz, today my wife told me she read something about the use of mint in Galen. In my library. I do indeed have Kühn’s edition of Galen’s work there, a parallel text in Greek and Latin. But my wife doesn’t know either of these languages.”

  Smolorz looked at his boss in bewilderment, unable to understand what he was talking about. But he did not ask any questions.

  And that is what Mock valued in him most.

  BRESLAU, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29TH, 1927

  SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  Mock swallowed and, for the first time in many days, felt no burning sensation in his gullet, nor any post-alcoholic protests from his stomach. Only a slight thirst reminded him that not all the liquids he had consumed the previous day had been as innocent as fresh milk, which gave off a reassuring bovine warmth, and which he was drinking now. He set the mug down, went from the dining-room to the hall and stood in front of the large mirror. The mist of eau-de-cologne, which he had dispersed with the help of a pear-shaped rubber atomizer, was settling on his cheeks. At that moment the door to the bedroom opened a fraction and Mock spied Sophie’s long fingers on its handle. He stopped spraying the spicy scent over his face and with a swift move grabbed the handle to prevent the door from being closed again. Sophie did not struggle with him. She sat down at her immense dressing table with its two-winged mirror and, with a faint hiss of impatience, began to remove the morning tangles from her hair with a bone comb. Fair strands fell diagonally across her face, covering the black eye.

  “Do you think I’m going to sleep in my study every night?” he asked in a raised voice. “That you’re going to lock yourself away in the bedroom?”

  Sophie did not even look at him. Mock pulled himself together and cleared his throat, returning his voice to the timbre which pleased his wife: soft but resolute, amiable without being sentimental.

  “I had to go out for a while. Smolorz had something important for me.”

  He thought he could detect a trace of interest in Sophie’s eyes, around which greyish circles indicated a lack of sleep. He approached her and delicately rested his hands on her shoulders, amazed as he always was by their fragility. Sophie abruptly shook herself free and Mock folded his arms over his belly.

  “I know, I know … You had forgiven me. You were magnanimous. I shouldn’t have gone off anywhere. Not even for a moment. I should have spent every minute of the evening with you. And it should have been the first of many such nights, our nights, so that you can conceive. And I went out. For a short while. That’s the kind of work I do.”

  The phone rang in the hall.

  “No doubt that’s them calling me again now.” Mock gazed anxiously into his wife’s half-closed eyes. “A summons, a corpse perhaps …”

  Sophie heard her husband’s receding footsteps and voice in the hall:

  “Yes, I understand, Taschenstrasse 23–24, third-floor apartment.”

  The clatter of the receiver, footsteps, hands on her shoulders again, a closely shaven, somewhat damp cheek against hers.

  “We’ll talk this evening,” he whispered. “I’ll be off now. I’m needed.”

  “Not by me. Go,” Sophie said, proving that she was
still able to utter a sound. She went to the window and watched the snowflakes flying by. Mock’s head began to ache. Laboriously he mulled over the amount of alcohol he had consumed the previous day; certainly not enough to induce this sudden hangover, which now gripped him. His cheeks burned, and small pendulums struck rhythmically in his temples.

  “You slut.” He wanted to sound dispassionate. “Are you trying to provoke me? You like getting your face slapped, don’t you?”

  Sophie stared at the light dance of snowflakes.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 29TH, 1927 HALF PAST SEVEN IN THE MORNING

  Mock had never seen a quartered man before. He had not realized that the muscles in the neck press tightly on three sides against a stiff wind pipe, which is itself segmented into four, that human joints contain a yellow, sticky liquid, and that bone gives off a fearful odour when sawn in two. He had never before seen severed fingers floating in a tub full of blood, a wide-open ribcage, flesh scraped from shins to reveal the tibia, or a shattered ball-and-socket knee joint split by a steel chisel. Mock had never seen a quartered man before. Until now.

  He also saw several streams of blood, coagulated now, on the walls, blood-stained floorboards, a chamber pot protruding from under the bed, tangled, dirty linen, soot-covered chairs and a greasy kitchen stove. He noticed a Liebes pocket diary lying on the table, open at November 17th, with two streaks of blood crossing over the date. Nor did he fail to register Ehlers’ ashen face or the flushed cheeks of his superior, Criminal Director Heinrich Mühlhaus.

  The usually kind-hearted face of the latter was now contorted in a derisive smile which, as Mock knew, heralded immense agitation. Mühlhaus pressed his stiff bowler onto his forehead and indicated with a movement of the head that Ehlers should leave the room. When the photographer had relieved his superiors of the sight of his pained face, Mühlhaus fixed his eyes on Mock’s chest. This evasion of Mock’s eyes did not portend anything good.

  “A macabre murder, Mock, is it not?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  “Indeed, Criminal Director.”

  “Does my presence not surprise you, Mock?”

  “Indeed it does, Criminal Director.”

  “Yet it shouldn’t.” Mühlhaus pulled a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it. Mock lit a cigarette. The intense taste of his Bergmann Privat smothered the stench of chopped limbs.

  “I had to come, Mock,” Mühlhaus went on, “because I don’t see your men here. Neither Smolorz nor Meinerer. After all, somebody besides you has to be at the scene of such a dreadful crime. Somebody has to help you perform your duty. Especially when you’ve got a hangover.”

  Mühlhaus blew out a thick swirl of smoke and drew near to Mock, carefully avoiding the tub of fingers whose nails were covered in dirty, coagulated blood. He stood so close to Mock that the latter felt the heat from his pipe, shuttered as it was with a metal lid.

  “You’ve been drinking for a good number of days now,” Mühlhaus continued in a dispassionate tone. “You’re making some peculiar decisions. You’ve detailed your men off to other cases. And what cases are these? More important, perhaps, than two macabre murders?” Mühlhaus, sucking energetically, tried to re-kindle the tobacco before it went out. “What is more important right now than the walled-in musician Gelfrert or Honnefelder, the unemployed locksmith’s apprentice, who has been hacked to pieces?”

  Mock opened his mouth in mute astonishment, provoking a malicious smile on Mühlhaus’ face.

  “Yes. I’ve done the work. I know who the deceased was.” Mühlhaus sucked on his extinguished pipe. “Someone had to do it. Why not the Chief of the Criminal Department?”

  “Criminal Director …”

  “Silence, Mock!” Mühlhaus shouted. “Silence! The constable on duty who took down the report this morning found neither Smolorz nor Meinerer. It’s a good thing he found the hung-over Counsellor Eberhard Mock. Listen to me, Mock. I’m not interested in your private investigations. Your job is to find the perpetrators of these two crimes. That is what this city wants; that is also what your friends and mine want. If I discover one more time that instead of working you have gone for a beer, I’ll have a word with those men of rigid moral principles to whom you owe your promotion and I’ll tell them a story about a wife-beating alcoholic. As you see,” he added calmly, “there is nothing I don’t know.”

  Mock carefully stamped out his cigarette and thought about the Horus Lodge Masons who had helped him in his career; he thought too about the subordinate Meinerer who, feeling himself undervalued, had poured out his troubles to Mühlhaus; and about loyal Smolorz, now hiding in a droschka staring fixedly at the door of the tenement on Rehdigerplatz, his eyes watering in the wind; and about the young painter, Jakob Mühlhaus, who, thrown out of the house by his morally impeccable father, sought happiness in the company of other male artists.

  “If you know everything, Criminal Director,” Mock said, tapping another cigarette against the bottom of his cigarette-case, “then I should very much like to hear about the locksmith’s apprentice Honnefelder before he encountered the embittered and frustrated woodcutter.

  “That woodcutter,” Mühlhaus smiled sourly, “judging by his love of calendars, must also be rather a good mason.”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 29TH, 1927

  TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  It had become warmer and melting snow had begun to course down the streets. Dirty clumps slid off the roof of the droschka as Sophie and Elisabeth Pflüger climbed in. Both women were wearing furs, and their faces were hidden by veils.

  “Menzelstrasse 49, please,” Elisabeth instructed the cabby, then turned to Sophie. “Do you feel like more of the same today?”

  Sophie did not say anything as the mournful tones of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony resounded in her head. She came to moments later when Elisabeth snuggled up to her.

  “Oh, please, not today.” Sophie was clearly upset, still thinking about her husband. “Do you know what that cad said to me this morning? That I provoke him on purpose to get slapped across the face. That I must like it! He thinks I’m a pervert!”

  “And is he entirely wrong?” Elisabeth rested her head on Sophie’s shoulder and watched wet lumps of snow as they fell from the branching chestnut trees next to the school on Yorckstrasse. “Are you not a little pervertette?

  “Stop.” Sophie resolutely moved away from her friend. “How dare he treat me like that? Spending day in day out with corpses has deranged him in some way. One day he beats me up, the next he pleads for forgiveness, and then, when I forgive him, he leaves me alone for the evening and begs forgiveness again the following day, and when I’m on the point of forgiving him, he coarsely insults me. What am I to do with the lout?”

  “Take your revenge,” Elisabeth said sweetly as she watched a tram grating its way along Gabitzstrasse. “You said yourself that it helps and makes it easier for you to put up with the humiliation. Revenge is the delight of goddesses.”

  “Yes, but he humiliates me every day.” Sophie observed a poor wretch as he heaved a double-shafted cart to the municipal stoneyard on Menzel-strasse. “Am I to take my revenge on him every day? If so, vengeance will become routine.”

  “Then your revenge will have to get harsher and harsher, and become ever more painful.”

  “But he can take even that away from me. He was highly suspicious yesterday when I carelessly mentioned something about a mint infusion.”

  “If he deprives you of the possibility of revenge,” Elisabeth said seriously, tapping the cabby lightly on the shoulder with her umbrella, “you’ll be all alone with your humiliation. Completely alone.” The droschka stopped outside Elisabeth’s house.

  Sophie began to cry. Elisabeth helped her friend out of the droschka and put an arm around her waist. As they went through the gate, they met with the friendly and anxious gaze of the caretaker, Hans Gurwitsch.

  Five minutes later, the caretaker bestowed the same gaze upon the stocky, red-haired man who, with the he
lp of a ten-mark note, was trying to draw information from him about Miss Elisabeth Pflüger and the company she keeps.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 29TH, 1927 TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Bischofskeller on Bischofstrasse was alive and busy. The front room was crowded with corpulent warehouse owners greedily swallowing huge dumplings garnished with hard, fried crackling. Before Mock had time to work out whether the dumplings constituted a main course or merely a side dish, the polite waiter Max clicked his heels, smoothed down his pomaded whiskers and, with a starched white napkin, brushed away the invisible remains of a feast enjoyed by some other merchants who, in polishing off the spongy dough and hard crackling, had set their digestive tracts a difficult task only moments earlier. Mock decided to take the risk too and ordered the same dumplings to go with his roast pork and thickened white cabbage, to Max’s evident approval. Without needing to be asked, the waiter stood a tankard of Schweidnitzer beer in front of the Criminal Counsellor, as well as a shot of schnapps and a dish of chicken in aspic garnished with a halo of pickled mushrooms. Mock stabbed a trembling gelatine square with his fork and bit into the crispy crust of a roll. A drop of vinegar, trickling off the cap of a boletus edulis, seasoned the bland chicken. Next, he knocked back the tankard and with pure pleasure washed away the stubborn aftertaste of nicotine. True to the maxim primum edere deinde philosophari,† he thought neither of Sophie nor of the investigation, and got to work on the dumplings drenched in sauce and the thick slices of roast meat.

  Before long Mock sat smoking a cigarette, an empty glass and a wet tankard with froth dripping down its sides in front of him. He reached for a napkin, wiped his lips, pulled a notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket and began to fill it with nervy, slanting writing.