End of the World in Breslau

by Marek Krajewski

  “Which of you is Professor Nieswand?” asked the duty officer.

  “I am,” replied the grey-haired man wearing a brightly coloured tie.

  “I see I’m not the only one to be on duty just before Christmas,” smiled the duty officer. “If some madman were to get it into his head to …”

  “These are sick men, not mad men,” remarked the professor dryly.

  “And you, sirs, must be President Wilhelm Kleibömer’s trusted men,” the duty officer’s voice gave Nieswand to know that he had not been greatly impressed by this remark. “To protect the prisoner during transportation, is that right? The orders, please.”

  The two other men nodded, and one of them took an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to the duty officer. The latter opened it and read under his breath:

  “confidential instructions concerning the transportation of the prisoner Fritz Roberth for psychiatric examination … aha, good … good … signed, phew … President Kleibömer himself.”

  The duty officer stowed the instructions in his desk drawer and reached for the telephone.

  “Essmüller here,” he growled. “Bring Roberth to exit C immediately. That’s right. Take special precautions. Professor Nieswand will wait for you there – he’s taking the prisoner for examination in his own consulting room on Einbaumstrasse.” He gazed thoughtfully at the men in the room. “The prisoner is yours until eight.”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 22ND, HALF PAST TWO IN THE AFTERNOON

  There was a great deal of traffic in the city. It had not snowed since the previous day and the roads were icy. Not only did the cars skid, but the sledges and droschkas too. Breslauers squeezed into over-crowded trams and discussed the high prices of Christmas shopping.

  The eight-cylinder Horch was not able to make use of its considerable power and drove very slowly, like all the other cars that day. It was stuffy inside. All the passengers, apart from the handcuffed prisoner, kept wiping down the steamed-up windows. They came to a halt at the crossroads next to Oder Station. The Horch waited behind a huge lorry with an advertisement for Wrigley’s Chewing Gum painted on its tarpaulin. A similar lorry stood behind the Horch. The trafic policeman gave a signal and the vehicles began to move. When the second lorry had passed the crossroads, the policeman unexpectedly changed the direction of the trafic. Several cars jammed on their brakes, and a driver in a checked cap stuck his head out of the window and glared at the policeman with anything but goodwill. The two lorries drove beneath the viaduct with the Horch between them. There was no other vehicle in sight; all had already disappeared towards Rosenthalerbrücke. The first lorry came to a halt and from it leaped ten men armed with Mausers. The same number of similarly armed men appeared from the second lorry and stood behind the car. No-one inside made the slightest move. No-one said a word. A pock-marked giant walked over to the Horch, opened the door and grabbed the driver by the collar of his uniform. A moment later the driver found himself on the cobbles, where the other passengers soon joined him. All, apart from the prisoner, stood in front of the car. The armed men pointed towards the back door of the first lorry, and they crowded in. A train clattered across the viaduct. A short, smartly dressed man with a long foxy face approached the car, accompanied by an older man in a railwayman’s cap. The railwayman leaned into the car, looked the prisoner over and nodded to the little dandy. Nobody said a word. Only the prisoner began to howl; his howling was lost amid the clattering of the train.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 22ND, 1927 EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  There were only two people waiting at the tram stop on Zwingerplatz. Both had their collars turned up and their hats pulled down over their eyes. The taller of the two traced zigzags in the snow and bent towards the shorter man who was whispering something to him on tiptoes. The snow fell at a slant through the blurred boundary between the black sky and the glow of a gaslight. The taller man listened to the other’s brief report without a word.

  “Yes, just as you said, Counsellor. We let the two cops and the nutcase quack go after two hours, when it was all over …”

  “And what about the traffic policeman?”

  “I went to his place with my men and we set him and his wife free. Right after the operation …”

  “Was he very battered?”

  “Their hands had gone a bit numb. Apart from that, they were fine.”

  “Wirth, you’re to go and see him now,” the taller man said, taking a wad of notes from his inside pocket and handing it to his companion, “and leave him these few marks. Give him the money but don’t say anything.” He drew the symbol of infinity in the snow. “You’ve done well.”

  “Don’t you want to know what they did to that swine, Counsellor?”

  “They? They were but tools in my hands.”

  Wirth pocketed the money and looked at the Counsellor intently.

  “The tools slipped out of your control a bit, Counsellor.”

  The Counsellor shook hands with Wirth and set off towards the Municipal Theatre, whose hazy lights were diffused in the snowy mist. Huge posters on the columns outside urged people to come and see Wagner’s Tannhäuser, the proceeds of which were to go towards various charitable causes. A few late spectators were climbing out of sledges and cars, disseminating various scents purchased at perfume counters. The Counsellor bought a ticket for the stalls and entered the bright foyer decorated with Baroque gilding. The mighty sounds of the overture, despite its force, had managed to enrapture the stout cloakroom assistant. After clearing his throat for half a minute, Mock shook the man by the shoulder and brought him back to earth. He left his snow-covered outer garments in the cloakroom and, tapping his cane, ascended the stairs to the first floor. There he found box number 12 and gently pressed down on the handle. The horns were conveying a seascape. In the box was Criminal Director Mühlhaus, who started when the Counsellor sat down next to him. The splashing of naiads was now represented by racing violins.

  “Nobody will hear us here, Mock,” said Mühlhaus, and took a deep breath as if about to sing “Naht euch dem Strande” along with the chorus of mermaids. “You know that today Hänscher from Department IV was looking at the photograph of you holding a gun to Roberth’s head? You know you’re the one they chiefly suspect of organizing the lynch mob that attacked that unfortunate schizophrenic man?”

  The violins sawed away mercilessly, and with surgical precision. The sound of trumpets mingled with the deep blackness of the double basses. Then Venus commenced her seduction of Tannhäuser.

  “Thank you for the warning,” said Mock.

  “Warnings are for things that can be avoided. But I’ve already received orders from President Kleibömer to suspend you from service until Department IV has completed its investigation into the lynching of Roberth, of which Hänscher suspects you. This isn’t a warning – this is the end of your career.”

  “It would be the end if Department IV could prove I had something to do with the lynching. But I’ll ignite their hopes by telling them I’m pleased about Roberth’s tragic demise.”

  “So you don’t deny having something to do with all this. You only doubt that evidence will be found against you. Now you’ve confessed to me!” shouted Mühlhaus, but his voice chimed in with Tannhäuser’s aria “Dir töne Lob”. “God damn it, that man might have been innocent! He wasn’t the one who committed the murder – it was his illness! Can you not understand that, you idiot?”

  “If that were so …” Mock’s quiet voice was clearly audible under Venus’ unhappy response to her rejection by Tannhäuser, “then he was seriously ill, terminally ill even. Is it surprising that a man who is terminally ill should die? His illness killed others, and now it has killed him too.”

  Mühlhaus said nothing as Venus continued to reproach her ungrateful lover.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 22ND, 1927 HALF PAST NINE IN THE EVENING

  Breslau’s high society milled around in the foyer, puffing smoke, wafting asso
rted perfumes and sweating profusely. Ladies scythed with their peacock feathers and revelled in this gathering, a foretaste of the New Year’s Ball that was so eagerly anticipated. Gentlemen idly discussed the approaching holiday, improved business and increases in expenditure. The birdlike chirping of young women complemented the thoughtful frowns on the cloudy brows of young men, intended to convey their mature reflections on the particular interpretation of Wagner they had been watching.

  Mock took an Ariston from his cigarette-case, broke it in half and twisted it into his cigarette-holder. At that moment, a yellow flame shot up from somebody’s hand and licked the torn tip of his cigarette.

  “Good evening, Doctor Hartner.” Mock inhaled. “Thank you for the light. I didn’t know you liked Wagner.”

  “We have to talk in a quiet place.” Leo Hartner’s grey hair bristled in involuntary warning. There was something peculiar about his behaviour.

  Mock nodded, dived into the crowd of music lovers engrossed in discussion, and with gentle taps of his hands began to plough his way through to the other side. Hartner followed close behind. Mock went out to the corridor and made for a door bearing a golden triangle. A short, old man was having Difficulty trickling into the urinal. The Counsellor occupied one of the cubicles, closed the toilet seat and sat down. As he smoked his cigarette, he heard similar sounds coming from the neighbouring cubicle. The gong resounded and, although it was very loud, it did not drown out the sigh of relief emitted by the old man. The door slammed shut at last. Mock and Hartner stood next to each other, critically eyeing their reflections in the wide mirror. Mock checked in all the cubicles and then blocked the door to the gentlemen’s room with his cane.

  “The murderer is among my team of experts,” Hartner said quietly.

  “Go on,” Mock said, anticipating what was coming next: a series of questions and answers, the doctor’s application of the Socratic Method, resistant to all pressure.

  “Who in my team is suspect, and why?” Hartner did not disappoint. “Diehlsen.” The Counsellor blew into his cigarette-holder and the cigarette hit the mirror with a shower of sparks. “Since he works in the Municipal Archives and is a member of the Breslau Society of Parapsychic Research. And Hockermann, who read the same book as Gelfrert and signed himself into the Register of Loans using the names of the famous men from our Leopold Lecture Theatre … That’s right. What period does my men’s investigation deal with? … The period is limited to two, perhaps three centuries … But that is not the point. I have asked the wrong question. What dates, or what days of the year are we looking at? From the date of the last murder, meaning December 9th, to the end of the year … Yes, to find the date of the next murder as soon as possible. And what have we ascertained? … That the next murder will take place on Christmas Eve, at Antonienstrasse 27. We’re going to be there and we’re going to catch the cad. You even gave us the time of day! … I’m afraid the murder’s going to take place sooner,” Hartner was about to prove his theory. “Yesterday evening I was telephoned by the archivist at the Municipal Archives. Every day after work, my men return any files or books they have been studying that day. The archivist comes to fetch them personally from our offices on Neumarkt. It so happens that one file, number 4536, went missing. This item is most certainly the report of a trial because the files numbered 4500–4555 are all trial reports. One of the experts had stolen it.”

  “You should have detained your men the moment the theft was discovered, then telephoned the police and thoroughly searched them,” Mock said.

  “I’d have done so had the archivist discovered it sooner. He didn’t, however, go through the files at our offices. He only made the discovery when he was putting the files away back at the archives.”

  Mock went to a washbasin, turned on the tap and put his head under a stream of water. After a while he stood upright and savoured the cold rivulets trickling down inside his corset. He approached Hartner slowly and gripped him by the shoulders.

  “We’ve got him, Hartner,” he shouted, and laughed savagely. “We’ve got him at last! It’s one of your men! All we have to do is follow them … And if that doesn’t work, I’ll interrogate each of them appropriately … And Diehlsen and Hockermann most thoroughly of all.”

  “The files have to deal with to the period after December 19th,” Hartner said slowly. “Meaning the murder would have to take place some time between December 19th and 24th. You’re the one who came up with this chronology – the successive murders have been discovered sooner on each occasion. So we have to expect a murder now, and you’ll find the body on the same day. The same day as appears on the calendar page. You can’t find a body with a page dated, say, December 12th tomorrow, on December 23rd,” Hartner laughed heartily. “Yes, now I understand your excitement. As of yesterday, all my experts – especially Hockermann and Diehlsen – are being shadowed by a guardian angel from your department. The murderer will be caught red-handed.”

  Mock said nothing. On the afternoon of the day before, when he had learned that the next murder was due to take place on Christmas Eve, he had relieved all his men of their task of tailing the suspects. He now left the toilets, said goodbye to Hartner and ran down to the cloakroom. He woke the stout cloakroom assistant for the second time that evening and put his coat on. As he put on his hat, he felt something pressing on the side of his head. From behind the inner ribbon of his hat he extracted a small, rectangular Salem cigarette-box. He knew he had been behaving strangely lately: he had tried to hang himself in a toilet; he had not been drinking; he had fawned upon a youngster asking for forgiveness, and he had taken justice into his own hands. But never in his life had he bought menthol cigarettes. He pulled on his gloves, shook the box and heard something rattle inside it. He opened it and took out a small, white business card: “Doctor Adolf Pinzhoffer, solicitor, Tiergartenstrasse 32, tel. 34 21”. He turned it over and read the meticulously handwritten words: “I’ve done it again. Steam baths on Zwingerstrasse”.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 22ND, 1927 A QUARTER TO TEN AT NIGHT

  At this time of day the only men who frequented the public baths on Zwingerstrasse were those who were hungry for each other’s company. They stood around the walls, some wrapped in towels, some half-dressed; others who were ready to leave fanned themselves with bowler hats damp from sweat. Nobody was able to leave the establishment, however, since the exit was being blocked by a fat, uniformed policeman who took up the entire breadth of the narrow corridor leading to the bathrooms. Counsellor Mock just about managed to squeeze past him and advanced slowly to-wards the bathhouse attendant, who was pointing through an open door.

  Doctor Adolf Pinzhoffer was tightly bound from his neck to his toes with coarse rope, as if someone had squeezed him into a cocoon of cord. The cocoon had clearly been started at the neck since the end of the cord, which had been wound between his feet several times, was secured to the shower arm with a series of complicated knots. Doctor Adolf Pinzhoffer’s body was held in the vertical position by another rope tied to his legs, while his head was immersed up to his neck in a chipped bucket and encircled by a gently swirling wreath of floating hair. The bucket stood in the bathtub directly below the shower head, from which gushed extremely hot water. It ran down the body, heating it to redness par excellence, and filling both bucket and bath. In the bucket, tied to the victim’s neck, floated a small jar containing a scrap of paper.

  Mock was not especially surprised by this last discovery. He approached the bath and, through the steam rising from the scalded skin, saw that it was almost full – the outlet had been stopped with a plug. He turned off the water and looked at the attendant, who was swallowing hard.

  “How long has the water been running into the bath? How long does it take to overflow?”

  “How should I know?” stammered the attendant, trying not to vomit. “It must be about twenty minutes, half an hour …”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 22ND, 1927 MIDNIGHT

  Mock sat on the e
dge of a bath in his hat and coat and stared at the floor tiles. He listened to the technicians in the next-door bathroom safeguarding evidence and positioning metal signs beside any vital details. He heard the crack of magnesium and the clattering of hundreds of pairs of feet up and down the corridor. Suddenly, into this apparently chaotic racket, there crept a suggestion of order and hierarchy. Heavy, slow steps in metal-capped shoes reverberated, silencing all other noises with their ceremonious echo. This was accompanied by the ominous wheezing of diseased bronchi. The majestic footsteps came to a halt outside the bathroom in which Mock sat.

  “Grüss Gott, Mock,” the deep voice corresponded to the sound of the shoes. “That’s what they say in my beloved Munich.”

  “Good evening, Police President, sir,” Mock said, standing up from the bath.

  Wilhelm Kleibömer was in evening wear, obviously on his way home from the opera. His eyes swept across the room and he shuddered at the sight of a cockroach scurrying along the bottom of the wall.

  “You’re surprised to see me here, Mock,” he squashed the insect against the wall with the tip of his shoe, “when I should be sleeping. Well, you’ve been keeping me awake at night recently. But not for much longer. To the end of the year. Only to the end of the year”

  Mock did not utter a single word. He took off his coat and slung it over his shoulder.

  “You’ve got until the end of the year,” wheezed a high-pitched, asthmatic intake of breath. “If you haven’t caught the ‘calendar murderer’ by the end of the year, your position will be taken by Gustav Meinerer. The hero who arrested that paedophile. Breslau needs heroes like him. Not Don Quixotes, Mock. Not Don Quixotes.”

  BRESLAU, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23RD, 1927 TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  The candle standing in the middle of the round table illuminated only the attentive faces and tightly closed eyes of those who sat around it. They raised their outstretched hands above the table surface, with thumbs touching and little fingers meeting those of their neighbours. On the table stood a perfectly still porcelain saucer. An elderly lady suddenly opened her eyes and shouted: