Phantoms of Breslau (11 page)

Mock sat on the counter and opened the first-aid box. He moistened a piece of cotton wool with hydrogen peroxide and by the feeble light of the candle dabbed at the three small wounds on his thigh and buttock. Then he approached the drainage grille. He levered it up with his fingernail and moved it aside to reveal a square hole. Mock knew the remedy for everything – for evil spirits and the cold. It was hidden beneath the grille. He felt the familiar shape of the flat bottle in his hand and pulled it out without using the candle, which was burning down on the counter. This was a task he could accomplish even in the dark. He heard a rustling in the hole. A rat? He held the candlestick aloft. A crumpled piece of paper lay embedded in the depths. A squared sheet, torn from a maths exercise book. He held it up to the flame and began to read. There were things in this world for which Mock did not have a remedy.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919
FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Mock sat next to Smolorz in a covered two-person gig manufactured years ago for the police at Hermann Lewin’s carriage factory, and blessed the skill of the builders who had laid the cobblestones on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse. Thanks to their good work he no longer had to hold his stomach and curse his gluttony as he had for an hour, from the moment he had found Julius Wohsedt’s letter in the drain of Eduard Mock’s former shop and rushed out into the street, half-naked, to catch a droschka. The four large shots of schnapps he had drunk in the night had been offset by a mountain of fat-ridden food, and should not have seethed and surged in Mock’s body as he was well trained in battling with alcohol. And yet they had made themselves felt as the droschka sped along the bumpy streets of Klein Tschansch, turned abruptly, braked and finally came to a standstill when the old hack slipped on a cobble and broke a shaft in the fall. Despite suffering digestive agonies, Mock finally made it to the XV District police station at Ofenerstrasse 30 and telephoned the lawyer Max Grötzschl who, inveighing against night-time calls, had descended several floors to pass the information on to his neighbour, Kurt Smolorz. Mock had then borrowed a police bicycle and transported his leaden stomach to the Police Praesidium on Schuhbrücke. There in the yard, coachman Kurt Smolorz was waiting for him on the box of a fast, two-person gig.

During those two nocturnal hours, Mock did not have the opportunity to re-read the letter he had found in the sewers of his house. His hands had been occupied either with his quivering stomach or with the handle-bars of the bicycle. Now, with Smolorz driving skilfully along cobbles damp with warm rain, Mock could read the peculiar text once more.

“To Eleonore Wohsedt, Schenkendorfstrasse 3. The swine is wearing an executioner’s hood.” Mock held the note up to his eyes and read the
scribbles with some difficulty. The task was not made any easier by the streaks of light and shadow gliding across the page as the carriage passed the street lamps surrounding Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz. “I wouldn’t be able to recognize him. He tortured me, forced me to admit that I’m an adulterer. It isn’t true Eleonore, my dear wife. I was forced to write the letter you’re going to get from him. I do not have, nor ever have had a mistress. I love only you. Julius Wohsedt.”

They were approaching the crossroads at Kürassierstrasse. Broad avenues ran on either side, and between them a pavement planted with maples and plane trees. This sort of road planning had been hatched by the militarized brains of German architects, who had designed the green belt with cavalry officers in mind. Just one such powerfully built soldier in cuirassier’s uniform was now riding across the street that had been dedicated to his unit. Clearly angry, he allowed the speeding gig to pass, throwing Mock a hostile look. Mock did not notice, however, being too busy observing a group of drunks who had poured out of a taproom hidden in the yard behind Kelling’s dye-works. A few men were watching two women as they fought and whacked each other with their handbags. Mock asked Smolorz to pull up. The women stopped fighting and looked at the police officers, ironically and provocatively. Through the layer of powder on the face of one of them, prickles of morning stubble were beginning to appear. Mock waved them away and told Smolorz to move on and pull up after turning right into Schenkendorfstrasse. Smolorz tied the reins to a lamp post and rang the bell. Unnecessarily. Nobody was asleep in the huge house where all lights were ablaze. Mrs Eleonora Wohsedt would certainly not be asleep. Wrapped in a checked blanket, she stood with two servants at the entrance door and stared helplessly at the police officers coming up the stairs. The butlers were ready to fend off the attack, their eyes betraying the friendliness of a cobra. Mrs Wohsedt was shaking. In the woollen blanket, and without her false teeth, she
looked like a street vendor who might stamp her feet to chase away the cold. The September morning was cool and crystal-clear.

“Criminal police.” Mock held his identification under Mrs Wohsedt’s nose, and for a few moments fixed his eyes on the butlers as their faces softened. “Criminal Assistant Mock and Sergeant Smolorz.”

“That’s what I thought. I knew you’d come. I’ve been standing like this for two days waiting for him,” said Mrs Wohsedt, starting to cry. The tears fell silently and profusely. Her huge, soft body shook as she wept. Sniffing, she brushed aside the tears, rubbing them into her temples. A thought struck Mock which was so hideous and absurd that even he was disgusted by it. Swiftly he pushed it aside.

“Why didn’t you report your husband’s disappearance if he vanished two days ago? Where could he have gone?” The hideous thought would not leave Mock in peace.

“Sometimes he doesn’t come home. He takes our little bitch out for a walk in the evenings and goes down to the shipyards. He works in his office through the night and only comes home for dinner the next day. The day before yesterday he took the dog for a walk” – her alto voice lowered to a whisper – “at about six o’clock in the evening. And he didn’t come back for dinner …”

“What breed is the dog?” Smolorz asked.

“A boxer.” Mrs Wohsedt wiped away the last of her tears.

Mock imagined the scene: a little girl playing with two boxer bitches, while on an iron bed behind a partition two people covered in eczema are cavorting, Wohsedt’s fat, triple chin resting between Johanna’s shapely breasts.

“Is this your husband’s writing?” Mock showed her the piece of paper he had found in the drain, now protected by two sheets of transparent tracing paper. “Read it, but please handle it only through the tracing paper.”

Mrs Wohsedt put on her glasses and began to read, moving her sunken lips. Her face lit up:

“Yes, it’s his writing,” she said quietly, and then suddenly she shouted with joy: “I trusted him! I trusted him and he didn’t let me down! So what he wrote in that other letter isn’t true …”

“What other letter?” Mock asked.

“The one I got today,” Mrs Wohsedt said, turning in circles. “It’s not true, it’s not true …”

“Calm down, please.” Mock grabbed her by the shoulders and glared at the butlers who were ready to pounce.

“This one, this one.” She pulled out an envelope from under her blanket, tore herself away from Mock’s grasp and carried on spinning in a joyful dance. Mock noticed flaking skin on her neck.

“You’ve got a pair of gloves, Smolorz,” Mock said as he lit his first cigarette of the day. “Take the letter from Mrs Wohsedt and read it out loud.”

“‘My dear wife,’” Smolorz obeyed. “‘I keep a mistress. She lives on Reuscherstrasse …’”

“‘I was forced to write the letter you’re going to get from him,’” Mrs Wohsedt’s voice sang. “‘I do not have, nor ever have had a mistress. I love only you. Julius Wohsedt.’”

“‘… You can easily check,’” Smolorz continued reading. “‘She has the same eczema as I do. Julius Wohsedt.’”

“When did you get this letter?” Mock asked.

“At about eight.” Mrs Wohsedt’s lips turned into a horseshoe. She had clearly got to the part about the torture. “I was waiting for Julius on the terrace. I was worried he hadn’t come home yet.”

“The postman came and handed you the letter?”

“No, some scruff on a bicycle came to the fence, threw the envelope on the path, then quickly rode away.”

“Mock, sir,” Smolorz said before his chief could ask about the “scruff’s” appearance. “There’s something else …”

Mock looked at the squared sheet of paper. He ran the tip of his tongue over his rough palate and felt extremely thirsty. Faint fumes of alcohol emanated from his body, and his head was absorbing the heavy acids of a hangover.

“Lost your tongue, Smolorz?” hissed Mock. “Why the hell are you showing me this? You’ve just read it.”

“Not all of it.” Smolorz’s pale and freckled face turned pink. “There’s something else on the back …”

“Then read it, damn it!”

“‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Mock, admit your mistake, admit you have come to believe. If you do not want to see any more gouged eyes, admit your mistake.’” Smolorz turned purple. “There’s a postscript too: ‘South Park.’”

“Didn’t I tell you, didn’t I tell you,” Mrs Wohsedt said in a high singsong. “I told you he went to South Park with the dog …”

“A long walk,” muttered Smolorz as Mock tried hard to force from his mind the hideous thought that had occurred to him.

They left the port director’s house and climbed into the gig. As they set off towards Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse, Smolorz said to Mock:

“This might be silly, Mock, sir, but it’s no wonder the director had another woman.”

Mock did not say anything. He did not want to admit even to himself that the hideous thought which had tormented him from the moment he set eyes on Mrs Wohsedt had now been put into words.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919
FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

South Park was completely empty at this hour. In the alleyway leading from Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse appeared the figure of a woman in a long dress. Next to her, tugging her from side to side, trotted a large dog. The cold, pale-pink glow of the goddess Eos sharpened the image: the woman wore a bonnet, and on her body was not a dress, but a coat from beneath which trailed the straps of a nightgown. She was walking briskly, not allowing the dog to stop for any length of time to do what a dog sets out to do on its morning walk. She passed the pond and skipped along the footbridge, hastened by the sight of a man in a peaked cap standing beneath a tree. She ran to him and threw herself into his arms. Now left to its own devices, the giant schnauzer bucked up at its mistress’ decision. The man twisted his moustache, turned the woman around and pulled up her nightdress. The woman bent over, supported her hands on the tree and noted with relief that no lights were burning in the enormous edifice of the Hungarian King Hotel and Restaurant. All of a sudden the dog growled. The man in the peaked cap stopped unbuttoning his trousers and looked round.

Some fifty metres from them two men were forcing their way through the bushes. Both wore bowler hats and had cigarettes between their teeth. The shorter one kept stopping, grasping his stomach and groaning loudly.

“Quiet, Bert,” the woman whispered as she stroked the dog. Bert growled softly and watched the two men shake thick drops of dew from their clothes.

The shorter man removed his bowler and wiped the sweat from his brow, and the two of them continued on their way towards the pond where some fat swans had now appeared. Suddenly the shorter of the two stopped and said something loudly, which the woman understood as: “Oh, damn it!” and her partner as: “Oh, fuck!” The groaning man handed
his bowler and coat to his taller companion and, pressing his thighs together, he pushed his way into the bushes and squatted. The unfulfilled lover decided to carry on with humankind’s eternal act, but his consort had a different idea. She tied the dog to a tree and hid behind it. Leaning out a little, she watched anxiously as the squatting man ran his fingers over his cheek, looked at them carefully, then looked up. Once again he blurted out the words which the maid and her lover had understood so differently, but now his voice was amplified by horror. At the crown of the old plane tree swung a man hanging by his legs. The dog yelped, the woman screamed and her lover saw a freckled hand covered in red hair with a gun aimed at his nose. The early morning tryst had ended in total disaster.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919
HALF PAST FIVE IN THE MORNING

Mock was familiar with the right wing of South Park Restaurant. There was a hotel in the wing where two rooms were forever reserved. Just under a year earlier, when he and Cornelius Rühtgard had been sent, much to their delight, on a Polish train to Warsaw, where the Poles disarmed them, both had sensed a favourable wind at their backs. They had passed through Łódź and Posen on their way to the Silesian metropolis which, as Mock assured his friend, was to Königsberg like fat carp to dry cod. On arriving in Breslau they had lodged with Franz, Mock’s brother, and that same day they had gone to South Park Restaurant. Their table had been next to the pond, by the stone steps leading down to the water, and the autumn sun had been exceptionally strong that day. Conversation had flagged because Mock’s eight-year-old nephew Erwin, bored by his uncle’s wartime stories and fed up with feeding indifferent swans, had kept on interrupting. Everyone had feigned distress at losing the war,
when in fact all had been thinking about their own affairs: Franz about his frigid wife; Irmgard about little Erwin’s tendency to tears and melancholy; Erwin about the gun which he believed must be hidden in his uncle’s backpack; Rühtgard about his daughter Christel, who was taking her final exams that year at a Hamburg boarding school for well-born young ladies, and whom he was to bring to Breslau; and Eberhard Mock about his dying mother in Waldenburg, with the old shoemaker Willibald Mock sitting at her side, trying to hide the tears that ran down the furrows on his face. When Franz’s family had hurriedly said their farewells and set off for the nearby tram terminus, Mock and Rühtgard sat in silence. The festive mood which accompanied them through the elegant restaurants of Warsaw, the dens of Łódź that smelled of onions, and the steamed-up restaurants of Posen, had somehow evaporated into thin air. As they were knocking back their second tankard of beer that day, they had been approached by a head waiter endowed with impressive whiskers. As he changed their ashtray, he had smacked his lips and winked. Mock knew what that meant. Without a moment’s hesitation they had paid and gone up to the first floor of the hotel where, in the company of two young ladies, they had celebrated the end of the war.