Phantoms of Breslau

by Marek Krajewski

  “You know,” Mock said slowly, “I’ve got a terrible feeling … I don’t know what I’m supposed to be admitting to so I can’t say anything … I’m not going to say anything and the world’s not going to find out a thing from me … And he …”

  “He’s going to get more and more frustrated,” said Lasarius, who was standing in the doorway listening attentively to Mock’s deductions. “He’s going to wait and wait for you to admit to your guilt … Until, until …” Lasarius searched for the appropriate word.

  “Until he gets truly pissed off …” Smolorz came to his aid.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1919

  TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Above the entrance gate to Cäsar Wollheim, River Shipyard and Navigation Company at the river port of Cosel, hung enormous banners with the slogans: “Strike – Unite with our Comrades in Berlin” and “Long Live the Revolution in the Soviet Union and Germany”. In the gateway stood workers wearing armbands; some wielded Mauser rifles in their calloused hands. On the other side of the street, with West Park at their backs, soldiers from the Freikorps were arranged in battle formation, staring starkly at their adversaries’ red-starred banners.

  The droschka carrying Mock and Smolorz stopped a fair distance from the entrance to the shipyard. The passengers climbed out and the cabby pulled slowly to the side, unhitched his horse and gave it some fodder. Mock contemplated the ideological conflict before him and decided that, as a state functionary, he rather sided with the opponents of proletarian revolution. Not wanting to hear the whistle of flying bullets in the square, which was on the verge of becoming a battleground, he and Smolorz hurriedly approached the commander of the Freikorps. Mock showed his identification and, silently rueing his rough tongue swollen with yesterday’s alcohol and tobacco, forced himself to ask questions. He did not need an explanation of the present situation; all he needed was one piece of information: the location of the port’s director. Company Commander Horst Engel immediately summoned an old sailor whom he introduced to Mock as his informer. Mock thanked Engel and, stooping beneath a non-existent yet possibly imminent hail of bullets, led the informer Ollenborg to the droschka. The old sailor told him that the grand launching of a small passenger ship, the Wodan, which was to cruise the Oppeln-Stettin line, was taking place at that very moment. Julius Wohsedt, the director of the port, was sure to be there. Ollenborg then showed Mock a side gate which was not blockaded by revolutionaries.

  “Oh, he’s a very hard-working man, Wohsedt,” replied Ollenborg in answer to Mock’s question about whether the strike was not interfering with the port director’s grand launching. “He’s got to sell the new ship, but he can afford the odd strike. Haven’t you heard of strike insurance, Officer?”

  “And tell me, my good man,” Mock said, looking in bewilderment at the shipyard’s ivy-patterned side gate guarded by several Freikorps soldiers, above which hung the non-revolutionary banner “Welcome”. “Who’s going to launch his new ship for him when everyone’s out on strike?”

  “Everyone, my foot!” the old sailor said with a toothless grin. “Have you not heard, Officer sir, of non-striking workers? Old Wohsedt has considerable influence over both strikers and scabs. Besides, he persuades them both with the same …”

  They had arrived in a square where tables laden with bottles, joints of poultry and rings of sausages had been arranged in a horseshoe. At one table sat a priest with a stoup and around him perched shy port officials, as well as proud-looking businessmen in black suits and top hats. But in the faces of the ladies who accompanied them Mock read nothing other than anticipation of a sign that they could throw themselves upon the victuals. Nobody was eating yet; everybody was waiting for something. The man standing beneath a magnificent parasol selling ice creams and lemonade, however, was not waiting for anyone. He did not have to. Customers weary of the sun stood in a long queue at his cart. Smolorz, Mock and Ollenborg climbed down from the droschka and mingled with the large crowd on the shore where a small passenger ship was moored, carrying the Danzig flag with its two crosses and a crown. Ollenborg started talking to an acquaintance whom he addressed as Klaus, while Mock and Smolorz listened attentively. It soon became clear that the director of the river port and his wife, who was to be the ship’s godmother, had not yet arrived; it was for them that everybody was waiting.

  “Maybe old Wohsedt is irrigating his wife before launching the ship,” Klaus laughed, and he used his rotten teeth to lever a porcelain cap off a bottle of beer bearing the seal of Nitschke’s tavern, which was nearby. On seeing the frothy drink, Mock felt alcohol upset the balance of liquids in his body. “It’s an old custom, irrigating the wife or lady friend. Besides, the buyer might even have requested it. I’ve heard of a similar custom when carts are sold. Before sealing a deal, the seller uses the cart to transport whatever the buyer’s going to carry in it. It’s supposed to be good luck …”

  “You’re right” said Ollenborg, who could only dream of using his teeth. “Irrigation, in this case, is a must. It’s like baptizing a brothel. After all, that’s what this new ship’s going to be used for …”

  “What’s that rubbish you’re saying, old man?” A sailor with a strong Austrian accent had turned to Ollenborg. “What’s this ship supposed to be used for? A brothel? Am I to sail a brothel? Me, Horst Scherelick, a sailor on S.M.S. Breslau? Say that again, old man.”

  Klaus reassured the sailor: “Oh, come, it was a slip of the tongue. My friend meant to say ‘initiate’, not ‘irrigate’. And you, Ollenborg,” he said more quietly, “stop jabbering or somebody’s going to stick a knife in your ribs.”

  For a few minutes Mock looked on intently as Scherelick was pacified. Then he shifted his gaze to the huge magnum of champagne carried by a small boy in a sailor’s outfit. As he wondered whether the champagne was cold or warm, he once again felt a pang in his stomach and dry splinters in his throat. He beckoned to Smolorz and Ollenborg.

  “I’ve a favour to ask of you, Smolorz,” he whispered. “Find that port director and bring him to the droschka. Discreetly. I’ll question him there. And you, Ollenborg, I’d like to talk to you now.”

  Smolorz pressed his way through the throng and went off in search of the head of the river port. Mock distanced himself a little from the crowd, sat down on an old lemon crate and pulled out his cigarette case. Ollenborg squatted down next to him and willingly accepted a cigarette. The march “Under Full Sail” resounded on the quay, and an orchestra approached the ship in step with the music. When the musicians came into view, many of the sailors started cheering and throwing their hats in the air. The priest got to his feet, the businessmen looked about for the master of ceremonies and the ladies waited for the first daredevil to help themselves, uninvited, to the food and drink.

  “Listen, sailor,” Mock said. “The moment director Wohsedt appears, you’re to point him out to me.”

  “Yes, Officer sir,” Ollenborg replied.

  “One more thing.” Mock knew he had to formulate his question skilfully. He did not, however, want to have to think. He wanted to drink. “Do you know, or have you heard of four young men, twenty, twenty-five years of age? Good-looking, bearded sailors? Maybe they came looking for work here? You might have seen them wandering around the port? They wore leather underpants. Here are their photographs – dead.”

  “I don’t peer down people’s trousers, Officer sir,” Ollenborg said indignantly as he studied the pictures. “I don’t know what sort of under-pants anyone wears. And how do you know they were sailors?”

  “Who’s asking the questions here?” Mock said in a raised voice, arousing the interest of a blonde woman in a blue dress who was walking past.

  “I haven’t seen them and I haven’t heard of them,” Ollenborg smiled. “But allow me, Officer sir, to give you one piece of advice. Barba non facit philosophum.† Why are you looking at me like that? Because I’ve studied Latin? Once, on a voyage to Africa, I avidly read Georg Büchmann’s Ge
flügelte Worte;‡ I practically know it by heart.”

  Mock said nothing. He did not feel like talking. Today it seemed hard to find the right words. Lost in thought, he watched the young blonde woman in the long blue dress and veil. She was on her way to the table but suddenly changed direction, approached the ice-cream and lemonade vendor and smiled at him. As she did so, she stuck out her neck which had been hidden by a high lace collar held in place with hooks; it was covered with dark, scaly patches. The vendor handed the woman some lemonade without her having to queue. “Where have I seen that girl before?” Mock asked himself. “In some brothel, no doubt,” was his own response. Trapped in a tedious existence, between booking prostitutes, alcoholic delirium and the superhuman effort it took to continue to show his father respect, Mock realized that he saw a harlot in every woman. But this is not what horrified him. He was already used to unhappy thoughts and his own partially feigned cynicism, and he was well acquainted with his own demons. But all of a sudden he was afraid for his future. What would he do if he had a wife who, faithful up to now, suddenly started coming home late at night, her lips concealing alcohol fumes, deceit lurking in her eyes, satiation slumbering in her body, and on her breasts the marks of passionate bites? What would this brave conquerer of indifferent prostitutes and venereal pimps do then? Mock did not know how he would behave. How much easier it would be if the entire female kind was made up of harlots! Then nothing would surprise him.

  Sergeant Smolorz interrupted these dismal thoughts.

  “The port’s director was in his office,” he said loudly, trying to shout above the orchestra which was now playing “Der Präsentiermarsch”, a tune from the time of East African colonization.

  “And what, was he irrigating his wife?” Ollenborg said, spitting out his cigarette butt.

  “Probably,” Smolorz muttered and pointed to the blonde who was drinking lemonade from a thick glass. Her scaly blotches were not visible. “She looks quite happy, doesn’t she?”

  “That’s the port director’s wife?” asked Mock.

  “I found his office. Went in. He and that woman were there. I introduced myself. He said goodbye to her nervously: ‘Bye, my little wifey. I’ll be there in a minute.’”

  “Take me to his office,” Mock said, springing to his feet and talking more fluently now. “Now that he’s irrigated his wife, and before he launches the ship, the port director has some questions to answer.”

  “I’ve already asked them,” Smolorz said as he pulled out a notebook. “And I showed him the photographs. He didn’t recognize the murdered men. But he gave me a list of all the agents in Breslau who recruit river-boat sailors.”

  “How did you know I wanted to ask that?” Mock secretly admired the terseness and love of hard facts which distinguished his colleague.

  “Ah well, I just guessed. I do know you a little.” Smolorz reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of dark beer with the Biernoth Tavern label. “I guessed this too. I do know you a little.”

  “You’re irreplaceable,” Mock said as he spontaneously squeezed Smolorz’s hand.

  The orchestra began to play “Marsch der freiwilliger Jäger”. From behind the building strode a red-faced, fifty-year-old man in a top hat. His cheeks looked fit to burst with a surplus of blood, and the buttons on his waistcoat strained under the pressure of excess fat. He approached the table, picked up a glass of champagne with his plump fingers, and raised it in a toast.

  “That’s Wohsedt, the director of Wollheim’s shipyard,” Ollenborg informed them.

  The buzzing in Mock’s ears – intensified by the bubbles in the beer – drowned out Wohsedt’s speech. The police officer heard only the words “godmother” and “my wife”. Whereupon a buxom, short, fifty-year-old woman who had previously been sitting next to the priest made her way to the table where the magnum of champagne stood. She smashed the bottle against the hull of the ship and gave it its mythological Germanic name. The blonde in the blue dress put down her glass of lemonade and watched the ceremony. Mock sipped his beer slowly, straight from the bottle. Unlike Smolorz, who no longer knew which was the wife and which the mistress, he was not surprised by anything. To his satisfaction he was able to confirm that the world was returning to its old ways.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1919

  FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Cabby Helmut Warschkow, who for several years now had been working solely for the Police Praesidium, was riding up on the box in a most uncomfortable position, forced as he was to share the seat with Sergeant Kurt Smolorz, the size of whose body was inversely proportional to the economy of his speech. Pressed into the iron frame by Smolorz’s hefty shoulders, he lashed his whip, deep down beside himself with indignation that his carriage was being used for ignoble purposes by Eberhard Mock from Vice Department IIIb. Mock had closed the roof and, having thus isolated himself from prying eyes, was subjecting an innocent girl in a blue dress – whom he had none too courteously invited into the droschka during the ship-launching ceremony – to a ritual as old as the hills. Warschkow’s suspicions, however, were wrong. The rocking of the carriage was not caused by the movement of Mock’s loins but by the bumpiness of the alley in South Park along which they were travelling. The otherwise lecherous Mock, looking at the scales on the girl’s neck, thought of everything but the mating dance and its consequences. The girl herself was in no way innocent; on the contrary, she was highly amenable to the kinds of requests made by men that no virgin could satisfy. Now she was reacting with equal submission to Mock’s demands, beating her shapely breast and swearing to “sir” that, whatever the consequences, she would confirm that she had been kept by Wohsedt for several months now, especially since it was he who had infected her with “this filth”.

  “I beg of you, don’t lock me up … I have to work … I have a small child … No doctor’s going to stamp my book …”

  “You have two options,” Mock said, feeling disgust towards the sick girl, and disgusted with himself for revelling in her consternation. “Either I bring you in for having an out-of-date health record or I don’t. In which case you have only one way out: to work with me. Agreed?”

  “Yes, agreed, honourable sir.”

  “Now you’re addressing me as you should.”

  “Yes, honourable sir. And that’s how I’m going to address you from now on, honourable sir.”

  “So you’re Wohsedt’s kept woman. Do you have other clients as well?”

  “Sometimes, honourable sir. He keeps me, but he’s too miserly to have exclusivity.”

  “Are you sure he’s the one who infected you?”

  “Yes, honourable sir. He had it already the first time I was with him. He liked biting my neck. He infected me like a rabid dog.”

  Mock studied the girl. She was shaking. Tears glistened in her cornflower-blue eyes. He touched her cold, wet hand. She was moulting, layers of skin flaked from her neck. Mock felt sick; he was revolted by all kinds of things when he had a hangover. With a hangover he could never be a dermatologist.

  “What’s your name?” he said, swallowing.

  “Johanna, and my three-year-old daughter’s name is Charlotte.” The girl smiled, pulling her high collar further up over her neck. “My husband died in the war. We’ve also got a little boxer. We love her … She’s called …”

  When he was young Mock had a boxer at his family home in Waldenburg. The dog would lie on its side and little Ebi would snuggle his head into its short fur. In the winter, the dog was happiest lying beneath the stove. Dog-catcher Femersche also lived in Waldenburg. The dogs he disliked most were Alsatians and boxers.

  “I don’t give a damn what your mongrel is called!” Mock roared and pulled out his wallet. “I don’t give a damn about your bastard child!” He took out wads of banknotes and threw them into the girl’s lap. “I’m interested in one thing only: that you get rid of that fungus! There’s enough money for you to live off for a month. The doctor won’t take anything fro
m you, he’s a friend of mine: Doctor Cornelius Rühtgard, Landsbergstrasse 8. You’re to come and see me in a month, when you’re cured! If you don’t, I’ll track you down and destroy you! You don’t believe me? Ask your friends! Do you know who I am?”

  “I do, honourable sir. You paid me a visit when I was working in the Prinz Blücher cabaret, Reuscherstrasse 11/12.”

  “Ah, that’s interesting …” Mock tried to remember the circumstances. “Was I a client of yours? And what? How did I behave? What did I say?”

  “You were …” she hesitated, “after some alcohol …”

  “And what did I say?” Mock felt increasingly tense. Often, after nights of heavy drinking, he would hide his head in the sand like an ostrich. To his companions in these nocturnal escapades he would say: “Don’t remind me of it. Don’t talk about it. Not a word. Not a single word.” But now he wanted to know. May it fall on him like a sentence.

  “You told me, honourable sir … that I look like your beloved … nurse… Except that she was ginger …”

  “One says ‘red-headed’ or ‘flame-haired’. And what else?”

  “That of all dogs, honourable sir, boxers are your favourite …”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1919

  FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Cabby Warschkow stopped once more at the wharf of the Wollheim shipyard, alongside the Wodan which had been launched that day. The guests were just boarding the ship, where the rest of the festivities were to take place. Blood-like stains of wine remained on the tablecloths alongside yellowy spillages of beer. Chewed duck and goose bones were being swept into a bowl to form a crumpled skeleton, a funeral pyre of poultry. Mashed potatoes and beetroot – which only moments earlier had encircled ducks’ breasts, but now looked more like tubercular spittle – were being scraped off plates with a spoon. The September sun casting its benevolent light on this culinary battlefield revealed nothing, but did add radiance. The last of the revellers, unwilling to part with their bratwurst, were stepping onto the ship which was to sail up the Oder. Just as they were about to raise the gangway, one final passenger appeared: Eberhard Mock. Nobody asked for his invitation, nor was anyone surprised by his somewhat staggering gait.