Phantoms of Breslau (30 page)

“Hey, my good man!” she shouted in a loud, almost masculine voice. “Are you visiting one of our patients? You have to report to me first!”

“Eberhard Mock,” the man said in a deep, hoarse voice. “I am indeed. I’m going to visit my father, Willibald Mock.”

Saying this he donned his bowler hat and then removed it, bowing to Sister Hermina. This greeting was as ironic as it was courteous. Without waiting for her permission, and disregarding any reaction she may have had, he walked briskly down the corridor.

“Mock Willibald, Mock Willibald,” the irate nurse repeated, running her finger down the column of names. A moment later her finger stopped short. “Ah, he’s the one who found himself on our ward on Doctor Rühtgard’s instructions. He’s the patient requiring special care! What’s that supposed to mean, ‘special care’? They all require special care! Not only the elderly Willibald Mock! I’ll soon put a stop to this!”

Sister Hermina reached for the telephone and dialled Professor Heintze’s home number.

“Doctor Heintze’s residence,” said a well-spoken male voice at the other end of the receiver.

“It’s Sister Hermina from Wenzel-Hancke Municipal Hospital. May I speak to the doctor, please?”

The butler did not deign to reply and placed the receiver next to the telephone. She knew he always behaved like this when he heard someone introduce themselves with a name not preceeded by a scholarly title. She heard the strains of a piano, merry voices and the tinkling of glasses. The usual sounds of a party being held at the professor’s on a Saturday evening.

“Yes, sister,” Doctor Heintze’s voice was none too friendly.

“That Doctor Rühtgard from the Department of Contagious Diseases, Professor, is bossing everyone around and giving me instructions as to that …”

“Ah, I know what this is about, Sister,” Doctor Heintze interrupted her snappily. “Please listen to me carefully. You may regard all of Doctor Rühtgard’s instructions as if they were my own. Do you understand me, Sister?” The receiver crashed onto its cradle.

Sister Hermina was no longer annoyed, but curious. Who was this old man with concussion and a double fracture of the leg? Most certainly someone important. That’s why Rühtgard had told them to transfer him to a private room and look after him night and day, despite the shortage of staff. And now this son of his … Elegant and arrogant.

Sister Hermina made her way down the corridor towards the private room where the older Herr Mock lay. The rustle of her starched housecoat and the sight of the broken wings on her bonnet animated the patients and filled them with hope. They propped themselves up in bed and paid no heed to their pain, certain that in a short while, with a single injection and an understanding glance, Sister Hermina would take them to a land of gentleness and peace. Their hopes, however, were in vain. Sister Hermina knocked on the door of the private room and, getting no reply, entered. It was hardly surprising no-one had invited her in: the older Herr Mock was lying unconscious while his son was pressing his father’s hand, riddled with needle marks, to his lips. She looked at the younger Herr Mock and was disgusted. She was always disgusted at the sight of a grown man crying.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1919
ELEVEN O’CLOCK AT NIGHT

Sister Hermina, urine bottle in hand, approached the door to the private room and opened it wide, certain she would see the two men asleep again. One of them, as Sister Hermina told herself somewhat bombastically, had been lulled by physical pain, the other by spiritual. This time Sister
Hermina’s otherwise faultless intuition had let her down. Neither of them was asleep. The older Herr Mock interrupted some lengthy utterance when he saw her and took the bottle with visible relief. The younger Herr Mock, obviously not wishing to disturb his father, went into the corridor and lit a cigarette. Sister Hermina carried out the embarrassing object and, remembering Doctor Heintze’s harsh words, restrained herself from pointing out to the smoker the unsuitability of surrendering to such a pernicious addiction in a place like this. The younger Herr Mock, as if reading her thoughts, extinguished the cigarette with his shoe, wrapped it in a scrap of paper and went back into the room. The sister slid the urine bottle onto the lower part of her trolley that was stacked with clean sheets, removed her impressively large bonnet and pressed her ear to a gap in the door.

“If you’d been at home at the time,” she heard the sick man’s muffled moan, “you’d have scared off that burglar who made such a racket in the night …”

“It wasn’t a burglar, Father,” the hoarse, bass voice interrupted him. “Burglars don’t make a noise … If you’d agreed to move out of the house, if you weren’t so stubborn, this accident wouldn’t have happened …”

“If, if …” The older man must have been regaining his strength since he was aping his son so well. “What a louse … Telling me it’s all my fault… Is that it? My fault? Who was it who went off with some whore to God knows where, and left the old man alone without any help? Who? Father Christmas? No, my own son, Eberhard … No-one else but he … And you, old man, you can snuff it, it’s time for you to go … That’s how grateful he is to his father …”

“And what, in truth, should I be grateful to you for, Father?” Sister Hermina had heard that tone many times before, that suppressed timbre. This was the way people spoke who, on learning of the death of someone close to them, were trying desperately not to show their weakness.
Intonation through the whole range of notes, like in an adolescent boy.

Silence. Steam hissed in the sterilising units, patients groaned in their sleep, the kidney-shaped metal dish containing Herr Hadamitzky’s cancerous tissues clattered against the flagstones of the operating theatre; the hospital was falling asleep; the cockroaches under the sinks and in the damp crannies beneath the sewer pipes were waking.

In the gap of the door left ajar appeared the eye as well as the ear of Sister Hermina. The sick man was gripping his son’s hand tightly. The two hands with their short, fat fingers were identical.

“You’re right.” The older man’s voice wheezed like that of a dying man. Pain crossed his face in waves. “Any ass can have it off and spawn. You’re right … That’s all you have to be grateful to me for …”

The son squeezed his father’s hand so hard that Sister Hermina could have sworn it made the old man’s leg jump, even though it was encased in stiff wooden splints.

“I’ll never leave you again,” the son said.

He stood up and rushed to the door. Sister Hermina sprang away. The departing visitor had a strange glint in his eyes as he passed her. “He must have noticed my embarrassment,” she thought as she adjusted her bonnet. Her dry, downy cheeks glowed. “And he’s going to think I’m knocked out at the sight of him.”

Sister Hermina was wrong. She was the last person Criminal Assistant Eberhard Mock was thinking about at that moment.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1919
A QUARTER PAST ELEVEN AT NIGHT

A new Adler stood on Korsoallee opposite Doctor Rossdeutscher’s grand villa. Four glowing cigarettes betrayed the presence of the passengers
inside. Similar lights glowed beneath two large linden trees next to the villa’s railings, spiked like flames. The windows of the house were lit up, and through the partially lowered blinds came the sound of raised voices, as if someone were arguing or taking a ceremonial oath.

A solitary man appeared in the silent street. There was a cigarette glowing in the corner of his mouth too. He approached the car and pulled open the back door on the driver’s side.

“Move up, Reinert,” he said hoarsely. “I’m not slim enough to squeeze in next to you any more.”

“It’s Mock,” Reinert said, and obediently moved across the seat.

Mock looked around the interior of the dark car and recognized other police officers from the Murder Commission: behind the steering wheel sat Ehlers, and the back seat was occupied by the inseparable Reinert and Kleinfeld. Next to the driver was a man in a top hat with his fat thighs spread across the seat. Mock did not recognize him.

“Tell me, gentlemen,” Mock whispered, “what are you doing here? And what about those clever investigators by the trees? Their cigarettes are visible from the banks of the Oder. Everyone leaving the Am Alten Oder tavern is asking himself: who are those two lurking beneath the trees? Don’t you think Doctor Rossdeutscher’s servants might be asking themselves the same question?”

“The servants aren’t home,” Ehlers said. “The cook and butler left the house at about six.”

“Who’s this?” said the stranger in the top hat. A monocle gleamed in one angry eye. “And what right has he got to be asking such questions?”

“Criminal Assistant Eberhard Mock, Doctor Pyttlik,” Ehlers said coldly. “He has more right than anybody to be asking such questions. And it’s our duty to answer them.”

“Don’t lecture me on my duties, Ehlers.” The monocle fell onto the lapel of the infuriated Doctor Pyttlik. “I, as the representative of the
municipal authorities, am your superior here. I know who Mock is and I know the pitiful role he is playing in this case. I also know that Mock has been removed from the investigation and is on leave.” Doctor Pyttlik suddenly swivelled his hundred-kilogram body in his seat and the Adler rocked on its suspension. “What are you doing here, damn it, Mock? You ought to be mushroom-picking, or fishing …”

On his face Mock felt breath permeated with the smoke of a cheap cigar. In his head he counted to twenty in Latin and stared at the enraged Doctor Pyttlik.

“Herr Pyttlik, you said …” Mock was still whispering.

“
Doctor
Pyttlik,” corrected the owner of the scholarly title.

“Herr Pyttlik, you said you know the pitiful role I’m playing in this whole affair. And what role are you playing? Is it not equally pitiful?”

“How dare he!” Pyttlik choked on self-righteous indignation. “Tell him, Kleinfeld, who I am in all this …”

“You can tell him yourself,” Kleinfeld smiled. “You’re not some taciturn Moses for whom the eloquent Aaron has to speak.”

“I am here as the Mayor’s plenipotentiary.” Pyttlik raised his voice. “And I’m to see to it that the apprehension of Doctor Rossdeutscher takes place according to the law. Besides, I’m in charge of the operation and I’ll give the order when to start.”

“He’s in charge? He’s the boss here?” Mock gave himself a light slap on the cheek as if to sober up. “This is the new police president?”

“Without Herr Pyttlik’s decision …” Ehlers said.

“
Doctor
Pyttlik.” The plenipotentiary was fuming.

“Herr Pyttlik decides.” Ehlers did not pay the slightest attention to the man. “Those are Commissioner Mühlhaus’ orders.”

“Where is Mühlhaus?” Mock rubbed his eyes.

“What business is that of yours?” Pyttlik lowered his voice to a whisper. “Go somewhere else, take a break … Go and pick some mushrooms …”

“Where is Mühlhaus?” Mock looked Reinert in the eyes.

“Negotiating,” Reinert muttered. “He’s asking the Mayor for permission to detain and question Doctor Rossdeutscher.”

“Now? He’s negotiating at night?” This time Mock looked at Pyttlik.

“Not now,” sighed the plenipotentiary, resigned. “Unfortunately, no. Just now the Mayor’s at a reception and won’t be receiving Commissioner Mühlhaus until tomorrow. And we have to sit here until the morning to wait for the Mayor’s decision. Because we can’t leave this house …” He threw a longing glance at the nearby tavern.

Mock climbed out of the car and slammed the door. He stood on the pavement for a moment and stared at one of the windows of the villa. Suddenly a woman’s voice rose above all the others. A high-pitched incantation reached the ears of the police officers. The song of the sirens. This association helped Mock regain peace of mind after his exchange with Pyttlik. He was back in the classroom in his secondary school, in a classics lesson. Amidst maps of Italia and Hellas, amidst plaster busts on which pupils had left the marks of their schoolboy woes, amidst Greek and Latin conjugations, young Eberhard Mock gives his answers. He recites a fragment of
The Odyssey
, and with the help of pacy hexameters reveals the image of Odysseus tied to the mast, summoned by the siren song of the temptresses. Homer’s verses rang out in the quietness of Korsoallee.

“They’re happy. Singing away,” Pyttlik said, indicating the bright windows of Rossdeutscher’s villa. “But what’s with him?” He pointed at Mock. “Has he gone mad? What’s he gabbling about?”

Mock walked around the car and up to the passenger window from which poked a top hat.

“Thank you for your explanation, Doctor Pyttlik,” said Mock. “I have one more question. I wanted to make sure. I don’t know whether you are aware … Doctor Rossdeutscher made use of the services of the four
murdered male prostitutes, so he is most likely the last person to have seen them. He has to be questioned. Nobody is doing so. Instead the Mayor sends you, Doctor, makes you responsible for the entire operation – in other words entrusts you with Commissioner Mühlhaus’ duties, but has no time for Commissioner Mühlhaus himself. Is that it, Doctor Pyttlik?”

“I won’t take this,” Pyttlik said and flounced in his seat, making the car sink once more on its new, beautifully balanced suspension. “Your insinuations regarding the Mayor are highly …”

Mock whistled three times. He then spread his fingers across Pyttlik’s bloated face and gave it a hard push towards Ehlers. He heard the crunch of a top hat being crushed. Six men rushed into the street from the tavern side, and seven more from the park. The two detectives beneath the trees left their posts and walked up to the Adler in bewilderment. Pyttlik tried to clamber out of the car in his squashed hat.

“Now I’m in command,” Mock said to the face of the raging boor, and he jammed the door with his foot.

“This is an act of violence!” Pyttlik yelled, unable to climb out of the car. “An assault on a representative of the Mayor! I’ll make you pay for this, Mock. You’re finished! Seize him!” he shouted to the two detectives who had left their posts beneath the linden trees and were now watching the whole incident with expressions of indifference. “Arrest him!”