End of the World in Breslau

by Marek Krajewski

  “Spirit, make your presence felt!”

  The candle went out. The people assembled were struck with terror. But it was not a spirit. The door had opened suddenly, creating a draught to which the weak flame succumbed. There was a click. The click of a light switch. The merciless glare of electricity removed all concentration from the faces of those seated at the table, and revealed wrinkles and bags under their eyes. It was just as unforgiving for the two unshaven men who now stood in the doorway, with the horrified housekeeper shuffling from one foot to the other beside them.

  “Criminal police,” yawned one of the new arrivals. “Which of you gentlemen is the owner of this apartment, Professor Erich Hockermann?”

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

  A black Adler approached the building at the corner, Zwingerstrasse 4, with its sign showing schiffke’s orphanage and, skidding a little on the packed snow, parked at an angle that was almost perpendicular to the road. Two men climbed out of it while another two remained inside, one of whom was clearly short of space between the window and his neighbour’s massive shoulder. The former two approached the door and thumped loudly. No sound came from within. One of the men took a few steps back and looked up as lights came on in the windows. The other turned his back to the door and kicked it three times with his heel. In the little barred window appeared the frightened face of an elderly woman wearing a bonnet. The man closest to the door held his identification card up to the window. It worked like a key.

  “How could you,” cursed the woman whose attire showed she had not been asleep. “This is an orphanage. You’re waking our children!”

  “Is Wilhelm Diehlsen here?” came the curt question.

  “Yes. He is,” the woman answered. “He’s helping Pastor Fohdorff decorate the Christmas trees.”

  The men entered the building, betraying no surprise.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 23RD, 1927 A QUARTER PAST TWO IN THE MORNING

  The Adler stopped on Ofenerstrasse – deserted at this time of night – outside an iron gate with a tin sign that read wirth & co. ~ transport and dispatch. A bolt shot back and a moment later the iron gates stood open. The Adler turned into a small, cobbled yard where the driver stopped for a few seconds, then drove on, turning left behind a tall, brick wall and coming to a standstill in front of a two-storeyed building which appeared to be some kind of warehouse. To the two handcuffed passengers climbing out of the Adler, the building resembled a prison.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 23RD, 1927 TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  One of the larger storerooms in the warehouse belonging to the company Wirth & Co. was rarely used. Usually it stood cold and empty, which did not particularly surprise any of the company workers. Even if they were eaten up by curiosity as to what their boss and his inseparable bodyguard might be using it for, nobody dared to ask. They valued their well-paid jobs too highly, and the principle of asking no questions had been instilled in them by long years spent in the clink.

  On this particular winter morning, the day before Christmas Eve, the storeroom was not empty: there were six people present. Kleinfeld, Ehlers and Meinerer wore rubber aprons, and knuckle-dusters gleamed on their fingers. They were sitting on upturned crates, stamping their feet on the oily floor against the cold, smoking cigarettes and watching as Mock circled the two handcuffed men. These men were stripped down to their long johns. In the sub-zero temperatures, this had a terrible effect on their circulation, and after he had been walking around them for half an hour Mock sensed a change in the prisoners’ attitudes. Diehlsen was shivering and kept on bending his neck to blow on his wrists where the handcuffs had left a dark mark. The Counsellor was certain he was ready to talk, but he could not say the same for Hockermann. Unlike his fellow prisoner, the school professor had been observing the policeman all along without blinking. A derisive smile kept appearing on his face, which was blue with cold. This was not, however, what aggravated Mock the most. He could not understand why Hockermann was not shivering, but for the time being he kept his anger in check. He knew he would need it later.

  “My dear gentlemen,” he said gently, “I know you’re cold. So I suggest a little warm-up.”

  He stopped his rounds and went to one corner of the room. He raised his arm and touched a rail protruding from the wall, belonging to a hand gantry that ran between two opposite walls. Mock winced and hung his hat on a rusty window handle. He then took off his coat, carefully turning it inside out so as not to get it dirty, and threw it over the rail. Having safeguarded his garment, he jumped nimbly and caught hold of the rail. He hung there for a while, then pulled himself up five times until the veins bulged on his forehead. Mock’s men stified a laugh, unlike Hockermann who gave full vent to his mirth. Mock began to laugh too.

  “I’m a bit past it, Professor Hockermann,” he said brightly. “Once, I could do twenty pull-ups. During the war I had to clamber out of a dry well in which I’d hidden to escape the Cossacks. And do you know what? I managed it. There was no other way out.”

  Mock came up to the prisoners and squatted next to them. He carefully felt their necks and shoulders like a slave-trader. He was not happy with the result.

  “You have no other way out either,” he said quietly. “It’s below zero, and you’re only wearing underpants. You’ll freeze to death. Unless you do what I’ve just done, but many more of them.”

  The prisoners said nothing but bewilderment appeared in their eyes.

  “Yes, yes. You’ll warm up if each of you does twenty pull-ups. And then I’ll take you back to your warm cell. It stinks a bit, but it’s warm.” He laughed out loud. “No-one’s ever died yet from a stink, eh? Well? Are you ready?”

  “You must be mad.” Hockermann’s voice was serious. “How dare you hold us here? What are you, a sadist?”

  Mock stood and walked over to the rail. He put on his coat, then took to reshaping the brim of his hat.

  “Let’s go,” he said to his men. “Christmas Eve tomorrow. We’ll go and have a stiff drink and give these gentlemen until this evening to think it over. Then we’ll meet here again.”

  “Officer, sir!” shouted Diehlsen. His round belly protruded a little over the cord of his long johns. His narrow shoulders slumped, and there appeared to be no biceps in his arms. “I can’t do twenty pull-ups, but I don’t want to die from the cold!”

  “Ut desint vires tamen est laudanda voluntas,”† Mock said.

  “Alright,” Diehlsen’s teeth chattered. “I’ll try.”

  “Meinerer, undo his handcuffs!”

  Once the handcuffs were removed, Diehlsen rubbed his hands and wrists for a long time. Then he began to spring up and down, slapping his belly and back.

  “Ready?” asked Mock.

  Diehlsen nodded and approached the rail. He jumped up and for a moment his hands gripped the rusty tee-bar. But only for a moment. Then he fell. He hissed with pain, rubbing his leg, and then limped back to the rail. He attempted to jump but only bobbed pathetically.

  “I can’t – I’ve sprained my ankle,” he sobbed.

  Mock went over to the prisoner, put his hands around his waist and lifted him up. Despite the cold, Diehlsen’s body was covered in sweat.

  “Grab it,” said Mock, shaking his head in disgust. “Right now!”

  Diehlsen grasped the rail and tried to pull himself up. He wriggled his legs as if trying to find support. Using a handkerchief, Mock wiped Diehlsen’s sweat off his own face with revulsion. He walked up to the prisoner and studied his meagre muscles. Diehlsen was slowly pulling himself up and dropping again. As his chin neared the bar, he let go and collapsed to the ground. Howling with pain, he knelt and clutched his injured ankle.

  “I can’t,” he whispered.

  “You see, Diehlsen,” Mock flung his handkerchief into a corner of the room. “Ovid was right. I praise your will to fight and, as a reward, I’m sending you to a normal police cell. There we’ll be able to have a long ch
at about the criminal history of our town. Yes, there in the warmth you’re going to spend Christmas.” He glanced at his men. “Did you hear that, Ehlers?”

  Ehlers nodded, removed his rubber apron, slipped the knuckle-dusters into his pocket, and threw Diehlsen his clothes.

  “Get dressed,” he growled. “You’re coming with me.”

  Mock turned to Hockermann.

  “You’re probably stronger than your colleague,” he said. “Show me what you can do and you too will find yourself in a detention cell.”

  “I won’t allow myself to be humiliated, you son of a bitch,” Hockermann said in a steady tone of voice. No emotion, no chattering of teeth.

  Mock stared him in the eye for a few moments, then turned to the two remaining policemen.

  “Let’s leave him to think about his manners. It’s shameful that a school professor should use such language.”

  Mock walked out of the storeroom and into a gloomy corridor whose darkness was barely broken by a dirty skylight. Kleinfeld and Meinerer followed him. Seeing them, a man got up from his chair outside the door and started flapping at his sides with his arms.

  “Cold, ain’t it,” he said.

  “Watch him carefully,” Mock said, handing the man a few coins. “And here’s something for a bottle to warm yourself. Your boss won’t forget about you either.”

  “That’s not why … Just something to say …”

  “It doesn’t matter. Go in and take a look at him from time to time, and don’t let him fall asleep or lose consciousness.”

  They climbed into the Adler. Mock, turning on the engine, caught sight of his colleagues’ bewildered expressions in the rear-view mirror. The car slowly made its way across the courtyard.

  “What are you two staring at? Do you always have to wallop someone when they call you a son of a bitch?”

  “It’s not that,” said Kleinfeld after a moment’s silence. “But why did you tell them to do pull-ups?”

  Mock braked at the barrier between Wirth’s warehouses and Ofenerstrasse.

  “What’s up with you?” Mock drove off abruptly onto the snow-covered road and went into a slight skid. He stopped the car in the middle of the road and, ignoring a tram-driver’s furious bells, examined the faces of his subordinates. “Is Christmas all you’re thinking about now? Honnefelder, Geissen and that last one … well … what’s his name? Pinzhoffer … Yes, Pinzhoffer. They were murdered by somebody who is extremely strong. Only someone who’s strong can quarter a man, or hang a man by his leg from a lamp or shower. Someone who’s able to pull himself up on a tee-bar twenty times. Don’t you agree?”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 23RD, 1927 NOON

  Mock was now sitting at the round table at which the participants in the spiritual séance had formed a magic circle the night before. Cardboard files tied with ribbons lay scattered on the floor around him, and on chairs and shelves and every other possible surface. Various Kabbalistic and occult symbols had been drawn on these files, and on some appeared the signs of planets and the zodiac, or short Hebrew captions. The files were stuffed with yellowed pages of notes or small index cards covered with beautiful Sütterline handwriting, with a summary of their contents written at the top of each in red ink. Mock pulled a pair of rarely used pince-nez from his pocket, polished them, and listened absorbedly to the sounds coming from other rooms, which Kleinfeld, Ehlers, Meinerer and Reinert – who had recently joined them – were searching centimetre by centimetre. He shook his head and began to go through the notes and cards once again. All of it standard research material relating to the history of Breslau. A couple of questions gave Mock no peace: why had Hockermann coded the captions on the files if what they contained was no secret? Why had he not organized the material in the conventional way, by writing what each file contained on its cover and spine? The only explanation he could think of was that the scholar was an eccentric. Having worked through these obsessive thoughts, Mock immersed him-self in reading. He waded through notes about Polish cattle markets in fourteenth-century Elbing, about the unrest among seasonal workers in the fifteenth century, about the first Protestant Masses celebrated by Father Jan Hess, about the desecration of the Włostowic family grave by a drunken mob in 1529, until he felt his sleepless night demand its due. He closed his eyes and saw the scene with the tee-bar exercises in the cold warehouse. Shaking off a growing drowsiness, he tied the ribbons of the tenth file he had looked through that day, and with bloodshot eyes skimmed over the stacks piled on the floor and all around. He stood up and started to count them, but soon grew impatient and simplified his method as much as possible, estimating each batch of ten files. Moments later he knew: that there were approximately four hundred files. He sighed, glanced down at the notes in front of him and learned that, in eighteenth-century Breslau, prisoners were employed to clean the town.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 23RD, 1927 FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Mock still had ten files to look through. He untied the ribbons despondently, opened yet another box covered with curved Hebrew letters, and prepared himself for a fascinating account of the problems encountered by the administrator of Mochbor village, near Breslau, who did not want to pay the municipal authority tax on fish caught in the River Lohe. Whenever he was coming towards the end of some tedious task, all kinds of subjective and objective obstacles would crop up unexpectedly, making it impossible for him to complete it. The obstacle that now prevented him from reaching for the next file was of an objective nature: drowsiness assailed his head, heavily and determinedly. It was, as usual, preceded by a visual recollection of an event that had occurred recently. Mock saw his men leaving Hockermann’s apartment and heard his own voice say: “Go now. After all, it is Christmas. I’ll go through the files myself.” He saw their grateful faces and heard Kleinfeld’s attempts to protest: “I’ll stay and help you, Counsellor. I don’t celebrate Christmas and I was good at Latin in school. I can read all this.” His own laughter rang in his ears: “And what is the word for murder in Latin?” “Homicidium, I think …” Kleinfeld did not reflect for long. Mock lay his arm on a file and then rested his head on it.

  Homicidium – the word echoed in his head. He blinked and experienced a new sensory incentive. Not only could he hear the word now, he could also see it when he blinked. He opened his eyes. At a distance of five centimetres from his pupils was a yellowed card of thick, woven paper, and on it, in old handwriting, was written Homicidium Gnosi Dni Raphaelis Thomae in balneario pedibus suspensi die prima post festivitatem S. Thomae Apostoli AD MDCLXXXV. Above the Latin text appeared a stamp with four numbers – 4536.

  “The murder of Raphael Thomae,” he muttered to himself. “What are the abbreviations Gnosi and Dni? And so ‘The murder of one Raphael Thomae, hung up by his legs in the public baths two days before Christmas Eve in 1685.’”

  Mock felt blood rush to his brain. He stood up suddenly, knocking over the heavy chair. He hurried around the table and into the hall. Grabbing the receiver of the Bakelite telephone, he dialled Hartner’s number.

  “What was the number of the file stolen by one of the experts?” he shouted. Moments passed. “Repeat that, please,” he said when Hartner finally answered. “Yes, I’m taking it down … 4536.”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 23RD, 1927 HALF PAST FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON

  The Adler rolled slowly into the courtyard of Wirth & Co. Transport and Dispatch. Mock climbed out to see its owner standing on the ramp, frantically shouting something, waving his hand and opening the door to the counting-room. Mock stood in the glazed office for a moment, shaking the wet snow off his coat and hat.

  “Mr Mock,” Wirth was clearly perplexed. “My man doesn’t know what to do with your naked fellow. You told him he wasn’t to leave the warehouse. But he called in my man, grabbed onto a pipe and pulled himself up twenty times …”

  “In handcuffs?” Mock interrupted.

  “Yes, in handcuffs. Then he wanted to be taken back to the cell where he�
�d been locked up ?rst. My man tried to brush him off, but he bellowed so loudly he had to be given a clout across the face. Even then he leaped up to the pipe and started pulling himself up again. Like an ape, Mr Mock. And then he yelled to be taken to that other cell, because that’s what you’d promised. Said he’d done twenty pull-ups … He got another clout, but that didn’t work. He’s yelling again. He’s some sort of lunatic, Mr Mock …”

  “See what men do, Wirth,” Mock laughed, “to secure themselves better conditions? He can pull himself up on a tee-bar wearing handcuffs. That’s nice. See how much he wants to get to a warm cell? Such determination must be rewarded. Lock him up in that cell, throw him some wood and coal, let him get the stove going and spend Christmas in the warmth.” He pulled a creased banknote from his pocket. “Buy him some bread and sausage with this. The cheapest. I’ll come and interrogate him properly after Christmas.”

  “And who’s to watch over him? My men have families, you know …”

  “I know, Wirth. They have families and they are exemplary citizens,” Mock stroked the seventeenth-century document in his breast pocket. “Nobody’s going to watch him. And I’ll hold on to the key.” He patted Wirth affectionately on the shoulder. “Happy Christmas, Wirth! Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve.”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 23RD, 1927 FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  A terrible mess reigned in Inge Gänserich’s apartment. Dresses, petticoats and stockings were strewn over two screens that stood in the middle of the room. Dirty plates with remnants of food towered on the table, while rows of empty wine bottles stood under it and on the sideboard. Dusty newspapers and magazines lay on the windowsill, above which hung a curtain held up by only one hook. In the centre of the room, next to the stove against which someone had smashed a guitar, stood the iron bed in which Erwin Mock was asleep.