Death in Breslau

V

BRESLAU, MONDAY, JULY 9TH, 1934

NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

The morning proved a little cooler. Anwaldt went into the kitchen and inspected it closely: no trace of cockroaches. He knew that, during the day, they hide in various gaps, cracks in the walls, behind skirting-boards. He drank a bottle of warm lemonade. Not worrying about the sweat which had coated his skin, he began a series of swift moves. With a few drags of his razor, he tore away the hard stubble, then poured a jug of cold water over himself, put on clean underwear and a shirt, sat down in the old, tattered armchair and attacked the mucous membrane of his stomach with nicotine.

Two letters lay under his door. He read Mock’s warnings with emotion and burnt the letter over the ashtray. He was pleased with the news from Maass: the learned man dryly informed him that he had translated Friedlander’s cries and was expecting Anwaldt at ten in his apartment on Tauentzienstrasse 14. He studied a map of Breslau and soon found the street. Carried away, he burnt that letter too. He felt an enormous surge of energy. He had not forgotten anything; he gathered the plate with his smeared supper from the table, threw its contents into the toilet on the half-landing, returned the crockery to the restaurant where he consumed a light breakfast, then sat down behind the steering-wheel of the black, gleaming Adler which Mock’s chauffeur had parked outside the building for him. As the car pulled away from the shade, a wave of hot air poured in. The sky was white; the sun barely penetrated the mush which hung heavily over Breslau. So as not to lose his way, Anwaldt followed the map: first Grubschener Strasse, then — on Sonnenplatz — he turned left into little Telegraphstrasse, passed by the Telegraph Office, the Hellenistic mansion of the Museum of Fine Arts, and parked the car on Agnesstrasse, in the shade of the synagogue.

Bank Allgemeine Deutsche Credit-Anstalt was housed in Tauentzienstrasse 14. The residential part of the building was reached from the yard. The caretaker politely allowed the new tenant’s — Doctor Maass’ — guest to pass. The policeman’s irritation, provoked by the heat, increased when he found himself in the spacious, comfortable en suite apartment rented out for Maass by the Baron. Anwaldt was accustomed to difficult conditions. He could not, however, suppress his irritation when he compared this beautiful apartment to his cockroach-infested hole with its toilet on the landing.

Maass did not even pretend to be happy at seeing his guest. He sat him behind the desk and threw down a few sheets of paper covered in regular, legible writing. He himself strode around the room drawing on his cigarette greedily as if he had not smoked for months. Anwaldt swept his eyes over the elegant desk and the luxurious objects on it (the pad of green leather, the ornamental sand-box, the fanciful, round-bellied inkstand, the brass paper-press in the shape of a woman’s leg), and found it hard to hold back the bitterness of envy. Maass paced the room, clearly excited. Thirst was drying out Anwaldt’s throat. A wasp furiously pounded between the window panes. The policeman glanced at Maass’ bulging cheeks, folded the sheets, and put them away in his wallet.

“Goodbye, doctor. I’ll examine this in my study,” he emphasized the word “my” and made to leave. Maass leapt towards him, waving his arms.

“But, my dear Herbert, you’re on edge … It is the heat … Please, do read my expert opinion here … And forgive my vanity, but I’d like to know what you think of my translation right away. Please do ask questions and give me your comments … You’re an intelligent man … I implore you …”

Maass circled around his guest, pulling out cigarettes, cigars and his hissing cigarette lighter in turn. Anwaldt thanked him for the cigar and, not caring how strong it was, inhaled several times, then began to study Friedlander’s apocalyptic outbursts. He looked cursorily through a detailed description of the method used and comments on Semitic vowels and concentrated on the translation of the prophecies. The first of them read: raam — “noise”; chavura — “wound”; makak — “to spread/melt, to fester”; arar — “ruin”; shamayim — “sky”; and the second: yeladim — “children”; akrabbim — “scorpions”; sevacha — “grille”; amotz — “white”. Further on, Maass shared his doubts: “Due to the unclear recording, the last word of the second prophecy can be understood as being either chol (10 -

) — ‘sand’ or chul (IV -

) — ‘to wriggle, dance, fall’.”

Anwaldt relaxed, the wasp flew out through the open gap in the casement window. Maass’ hypothesis was as follows: “… it seems that the person indicated by Friedlander in the first prophecy will die of a festering wound (death, wound, to fester), caused by the collapse of a building (ruin). The key to this person’s identity lies in the word (shamayim — ‘sky’). The future victim may be somebody whose name is composed of the sounds sh, a, m, a, y, i, m, e.g. Scheim or somebody with the name Himmel, Himmler or such like.

“We believe that the second prophecy has already been fulfilled. It concerns — in our opinion — Marietta von der Malten (child, white shore — that’s the name given to the island of Malta), murdered in a saloon carriage furnished in checks (grille). In her abdominal cavity were found wriggling scorpions.”

The detective did not want to show what a great impression this expertise had made on him. He diligently stubbed out his cigar and stood up.

“Do you really have no comments?” Maass’ vanity demanded praise. He glanced stealthily at his watch. Anwaldt was reminded of an incident in the orphanage: he exhausted his tutor urging him to look at the tower of bricks built by little Herbert.

“Doctor Maass, your analysis is so precise and convincing that it’s hard to find any questions. I thank you very much,” he held out his hand in farewell. Maass seemed not to notice.

“My dear Herbert,” he squeaked sweetly. “Perhaps you’d like a cold beer?”

Anwaldt considered this for a moment (Dear Sir, please look at my tower. “I haven’t got any time …”)

“I don’t drink alcohol, but I’d love some cold lemonade or soda water.”

“Of course,” Maass brightened up. Going out to the kitchen, he glanced at his watch again. Out of professional habit, Anwaldt looked over the desk more carefully than he had the first time. (Why does he want to keep me here at all costs?) Under the paperweight, lay an open, elegant, heather-coloured envelope with a coat-of-arms printed on it. He opened it without hesitation and pulled out a hard, black card, folded in two. Inside, beautifully written in silver ink, appeared:

I cordially invite you to a masked ball this evening (i.e. Monday, July 9th) at seven. It will take place at my residence, Uferzeile 9. Ladies must dress as Eve. Gentlemen are also welcome to dress as Adam.

Wilhelm Baron von Kopperlingk.

Anwaldt noticed Maass’ shadow as the latter was leaving the kitchen. He quickly replaced the invitation under the weight. He accepted the thick, hexagonal glass with a smile, emptied it in one mighty draught and tried to understand what he had just read. Maass’ falsetto did not penetrate his swirling thoughts although the Semitist, with great animation and paying no heed to his listener’s want of concentration, was describing the scientific dispute with Professor Andreae. When he got to the point of discussing matters of grammar, the front door bell rang. Maass looked at his watch and sprang to the hall. Through the open study door, Anwaldt caught sight of a schoolgirl. (Holidays, the heat, and she’s in uniform. Apparently the idiotic rules of wearing a uniform all the year round are still in force.) They whispered for a moment, then Maass landed her a racy slap on the backside. The girl giggled. (Ah, that is why he kept me here. He wanted to demonstrate that his claim about debauched schoolgirls was not unfounded.) He could not control his curiosity and left the study. He felt his stomach suddenly cramp up and a sweetish taste gather in his mouth. Before him stood the schoolgirl Erna.

“Allow me — Assistant Anwaldt, Fraulein Elsa von Herfen, my pupil. I give the young lady private tuition in Latin,” Maass emitted ever higher tones. “Fraulein Elsa, this is Criminal Assistant Anwaldt, my good friend and colleague.”

The policeman all but fainted at the sight of the girl’s intensely green eyes.

“I think we know each other …” he whispered, leaning against the door frame.

The girl’s alto had nothing in common with Erna’s quiet, melodious voice, and the large mole on the surface of the girl’s hand nothing with Erna’s alabaster skin. He realized that he had a double in front of him.

“I’m sorry …” he sighed with relief. “You look very much like a friend of mine in Berlin. Dear Doctor, you’ve already made yourself very much at home in Breslau. You’ve been here barely four days and you’ve already acquired a pupil … And what a pupil … I won’t disturb you. Goodbye.”

Before he closed the door on Anwaldt, Maass made an obscene gesture: he joined the thumb and index finger of his left hand and slipped the index finger of his right hand in and out of the circle several times. Anwaldt snorted with contempt and ran down a few steps. Then he went upstairs and stopped above the Semitist’s apartment, on the half-landing beside a stained-glass window which ran the whole height of the building scattering coloured “dancing coins” across the stairwell. He rested his elbow on an alcove where a small copy of the Venus de Milo was concealed.

He envied Maass and that envy had eclipsed his suspicions for a moment. He reluctantly greeted the reappearing memories, knowing that, although unpleasant, they would help kill the time. He had decided to wait for Elsa von Herfen so as to see what Maass’ seductive charm was worth.

Somehow a memory managed to drift to him. It was November 23rd, 1921. He was to be sexually initiated that day. He was the only one in his dormitory not to have known a woman. His friend Josef had promised to arrange everything. The young, stout, orphanage cook had allowed herself to be invited by the three wards to a small storeroom where the gym equipment, used sheets and towels were kept. Two bottles of wine had helped. She had arranged her sweaty body on a gym mat. The first had been Josef. The second turn had been drawn by fat Hannes. Anwaldt had waited patiently for his go. When Hannes had dragged himself off the cook, she had smiled mischievously at Anwaldt:

“Not you. I’ve had enough.”

The boy had returned to his dormitory and lost the desire to know women. Fate, however, had not let him wait for long. The nineteen-year-old prime pupil found himself employed as private tutor to the daughter of a rich industrialist. He disclosed the secret components of Greek to the seventeen-year-old, somewhat capricious girl, while she willingly repaid him by disclosing the secrets of her body. Anwaldt fell head over heads in love. When, after half a year of hard but very pleasant work, he asked her father for his remuneration, the latter, surprised, retorted that he had already handed over the remuneration through his daughter who, in her daddy’s presence, robustly confirmed the fact. The industrialist reacted appropriately. Two of his servants kicked the beaten-up “foul swindler” out of the manor.

It looked as though Anwaldt had lost all illusions. Unfortunately, he regained them yet again thanks to another schoolgirl, the poor, beautiful Erna Stange from a good working-class family in the Wedding district of Berlin. The thirty-year-old, having a career in the police ahead of him, thought about getting married. Erna’s father, an honest and hardened railwayman, had tears in his eyes as he watched the proposal. Anwaldt tried for a loan from the police coffers. He was waiting for Erna’s final exams and thinking about a place to live. After three months, he stopped thinking about anything but alcohol.

He did not believe in the disinterested passion of schoolgirls. That is why he did not quite believe in what he had seen a moment ago. A beautiful girl giving herself to an ugly creature.

The door to the apartment grated. Maass, eyes closed, was kissing his pupil. He gave the girl a hard slap on the backside once again and snapped the lock. Anwaldt heard the clatter of shoes on the stairs. He descended cautiously. The heels clattered through the gate. A flirtatious “goodbye” reached the shaggy ears of the caretaker. He, too, said goodbye to the caretaker, but he did not leave in a hurry. He emerged a little and observed: the girl was getting into a black Mercedes, the bearded chauffeur removed his hat, bowed and slowly pulled away. Anwaldt quickly ran to his Adler. He moved off with a roar, furious to see he was losing the Mercedes from sight. He accelerated and almost ran over an elderly gentleman in a top hat who was crossing the street. In two minutes, he found himself at a safe distance from the Mercedes, which was following a route known to Anwaldt: Sonnenplatz and Grubschener Strasse. Both cars plunged into the stream of cars, droschkas and a few carts. Anwaldt saw only the neck and head of the chauffeur. (She’s tired. Evidently lying on the back seat.) They kept going straight. Anwaldt watched the names of the streets: they were still driving along Grubschener Strasse. Past the cemetery wall, above which protruded a smooth tympanum. (The crematorium, no doubt; there’s one like that in Berlin.) The followed car suddenly accelerated and vanished from Anwaldt’s view. The policeman put his foot down and leapt over a bridge across a small river. On the left, a sign with the name “Breslau” flitted past. He turned into the first street on his left and found himself in a shady, beautiful alley along which ran villas and small houses concealed among lime and chestnut trees. The Mercedes was standing in front of a corner manor. Anwaldt turned right, into a small side street, and turned off his engine. He knew from experience that following someone in a car was less effective than doing so on foot. He got out of the Adler and carefully approached the crossroads. Peering out, he caught sight of the Mercedes as it turned back. In seconds, the car had disappeared, turned right and driven back towards Breslau. He had not the slightest doubt: the chauffeur was alone. He jotted down the number plate and went up to the manor from which the Mercedes had driven away. It was a stylish, neo-Gothic building. The closed shutters appeared very mysterious. A sign was visible over the entrance: NADSLEZANSKI MANOR.

“All brothels are asleep at this hour,” he muttered to himself, looking at his watch. He was proud of his photographic memory. He took the visiting card handed to him the previous day by the cabby from his wallet. He compared the address on the card to the one on the building. They tallied: Schellwitzstrasse. (This place just outside Breslau must be Opperau, as on the card.)

He pressed the bell at the gate to the drive for a long time. Finally, a man with the build of a heavyweight boxer appeared in the driveway. He walked up to the wicket gate and forestalled Anwaldt’s questions:

“Our club opens at seven.”

“I’m from the police. Criminal Department. I’d like to ask the man in charge a few questions.”

“Anyone could say that. I don’t know you and I know everyone from the Criminal Investigation Department. Besides, everyone from C.I.D. knows that the boss is a woman not a man …”

“Here’s my identification.”

“It says ‘Berlin Police’. And we in Opperau belong to Breslau.”

Anwaldt cursed his own absent-mindedness. His Breslau identification had been waiting for him in the personnel department since Saturday. He had forgotten about it. The “boxer” was looking at him with swollen eyes, detached. Anwaldt stood in a puddle of sun and counted the decorative railings.

“Either you open this gate, you pig, or I phone my chief’s deputy, Max Forstner,” he said in a raised voice. “Do you want your boss to be in trouble because of you?”

The gorilla was short of sleep and hung over. Slowly, he neared the fence:

“Clear out or …” he strained to think of something that would sound threatening, but Anwaldt had already noticed that the wicket gate was not properly closed. He threw himself at it with all his weight. The iron grille hit the gorilla plumb in the middle of his face. Finding himself on the property, Anwaldt jumped aside to avoid being stained with the blood spurting profusely from the guard’s nose. The man quickly recovered from the surprise of the blow. He took a swing and Anwaldt lost his breath: a mighty fist had hit him in the carotid artery. Stifling his cough, he dodged a second blow at the last moment. The guard’s fist whammed with full force into the iron fence. The gorilla stood for a few seconds examining his injured hand in disbelief. Immediately, the policeman was behind his back and took a swing with his leg as if to kick a ball. The aim was accurate — the pointed tip of his shoe hit the crotch. A second, accurate blow to the temple was decisive. The guard swayed at the gate like a drunk and tried, somehow, to remain upright. Out of the corner of his eye, Anwaldt noticed men running out of the manor. He did not reach for his gun; he knew he had left it in the car.

“Hold it!” a woman’s authoritative voice held back the three guards hurrying to punish adequately the man who had made mincemeat of their colleague. They stopped obediently. A stout woman was standing in the window of the first floor and examined Anwaldt. “Who are you?” she called in what was clearly a foreign accent.

Not only did the battered guard not maintain a vertical position, but he lay flat out on the ground, his good hand on his stomach. Anwaldt felt sorry for the man, who had been abused simply because he had been scrupulously performing his duty. He looked up and shouted back:

“Criminal Assistant Herbert Anwaldt.”

Madame le Goef was angry but not to such a degree as to lose control:

“You’re lying. You threaten to call Forstner. He not boss of C.I.D.”

“Firstly, please do not be too familiar with me,” he smiled, listening to this peculiar German. “Secondly, my chief is Criminal Director Eberhard Mock, but I cannot telephone him. He’s away on holiday.”

“Please, sir. Come in.” Madame knew that Anwaldt was not lying. The previous day, Mock had cancelled his weekly game of chess because of the trip. Besides, she was mortally afraid of Mock and would have opened up even to a burglar if he had entered with Mock’s name on his lips.

Anwaldt did not look at the set faces of the guards he passed. He entered the hall and admitted to himself that this sanctuary of Aphrodite was, in its interior decor, second to none in Berlin. He could say the same of the owner’s study. He sat down casually, in the open window. The shoes of the guard being dragged back by his colleagues scraped along the driveway. Anwaldt removed his jacket, cleared his throat and rubbed the bruise on his neck.

“A black Mercedes drove up to your salon shortly before I arrived and a girl wearing a school uniform got out. I want to see her.”

Madame picked up the telephone and uttered a few words (probably in Hungarian).

“She’ll be here presently. She’s having her bath now.”

“Presently” turned out to be a very short moment. Anwaldt had no time to treat his eyes to the splendid reproduction of Goya’s Naked Maya before Erna’s double was standing in the door. The school uniform had been replaced by pink tulle.

“Erna …” He covered this slip of the tongue with a sarcastic tone. “Sorry, Elsa … Which school do you go to?”

“I work here,” she squeaked.

“Ah, here,” he aped her. “So cui bono^† are you learning Latin?”

The girl remained silent, having modestly lowered her eyes. Anwaldt turned all of a sudden to the owner of the brothel:

“What are you still doing here? Please leave.”

Madame did so without a word, winking meaningfully to the girl. Anwaldt sat down behind the desk and listened for a while to the sounds of summer in the garden.

“What are you doing with Maass?”

“Shall I show you?” (Erna had looked at him like that when he had stepped into Klaus Schmetterling’s bachelor apartment. They had had their eye on this inconspicuous apartment in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg for a long time. They knew that the banker, Schmetterling, had a taste for underage girls. The raid was a success.)

“No. You don’t have to show me,” he said in a weary tone. “Who hired you? Who’s the bearded chauffeur’s employer?”

The girl stopped smiling.

“I don’t know. This bearded guy came along and said some sucker likes schoolgirls. What’s it to me? He paid a lot. He drives me there and back. Oh, he’s supposed to be taking me to some big party today. I think it’s going to be at his boss’. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

Anwaldt had questioned numerous prostitutes in the past and was sure that the girl was telling the truth.

“Sit down!” he showed her a chair. “You’re going to be carrying out assignments for me now. This evening, at the reception, you’re to make sure that all the windows — especially the ones to the balcony — are at least ajar. Understand? Then I’ll have another assignment for you. My name’s Herbert Anwaldt. As of today, you work for me or you end up in the gutter! I’ll throw you to the mercy of the worst pimps in town!”

He was aware that he did not have to say this. (Every whore’s greatest fear is a policeman.) He heard the grating of his own vocal cords.

“Bring me something cold to drink! Lemonade would be best!”

Once she had left, he leaned his head out of the window. Unfortunately, the heat could not burn away his memories. (“You know her, don’t you, Anwaldt?” He kicked the door to the room furiously. Banker Schmetterling shielded his eyes from the glare of the flashes as he tried to pull the eiderdown over his head.)

“Here’s your lemonade,” the girl smiled flirtatiously at the handsome policeman. “Do you have any special tasks for me? I’ll willingly do them …” (Schmetterling’s body was immobilized. United in a love embrace. The fat body shook, the supple one writhed. Indissoluble coitus joined the fat banker to Anwaldt’s fiancee, beautiful as a dream — Erna Stange.)

The policeman got up and approached the smiling Erna Stange. The green eyes covered over with a thin film of tears as he slapped her with full force. Descending the stairs, he heard her muffled sobs. In his head murmured Samuel Coleridge’s maxim: “When a man takes his thoughts to be people and objects, he is a madman. That precisely is the definition of a madman.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 9TH, 1934

ONE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

Anwaldt sat in his office in the Police Praesidium, savouring the coolness which reigned there and waiting for a telephone call from the Criminal Sergeant, Kurt Smolorz, the only man, according to Mock, that he could trust. The small window just below the ceiling faced north, and looked out on one of the five interior yards of the police building. He laid his head on the table. The deep sleep lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour. It was interrupted by Smolorz, who appeared in person.

“Here are the dinner jacket and mask,” the red-haired, portly man smiled amicably. “And now for some important news: the black Mercedes with the number plate you gave us belongs to Baron Wilhelm von Kopperlingk.”

“Thank you. Mock didn’t overestimate you. But where on earth did you get hold of that?” he pointed to the black, velvet mask.

In reply, Smolorz put a finger to his lips and retreated from the room. Anwaldt lit a cigar and leaned back in his chair. Wrapping his hands behind his neck, he stretched his whole body several times. Everything was coming together into a uniform whole. Baron von Kopperlingk had fulfilled Maass’ sweetest dream when he had sent him the beautiful schoolgirl. “How did he know about it?” he noted on a piece of paper. (Not important. Maass does nothing to hide his predilections. He was loud enough expressing them in the park yesterday.) “What for?” the nib squeaked on the paper once more. (So as to control Maass and, indirectly, my investigation.) “Why?” the successive question appeared on the squared paper. He set his memory to work and summoned a few lines from Mock’s letter before his eyes: “… the late Hauptsturmfuhrer S.A. Walter Piontek eagerly made use of the track suggested by Baron Wilhelm von Kopperlingk (who, by the by, has many friends in the Gestapo) … If somebody finds the true murderers, then the entire propaganda will be turned into a laughing stock by the English and French newspapers. I warn you against these people — they are ruthless and capable of forcing anyone into giving up an investigation.”

Anwaldt felt a wave of pride surge though him. He pulled the mask over his face.

“If the Gestapo gets to know the reason for my investigation, it’ll certainly put an end to it — for fear of being ridiculed by France and England,” he muttered, walking up to the small mirror on the wall. “Yet I think there are some people within the Gestapo who will want to put a stop to it for an entirely different reason.”

The velvet mask covered two-thirds of his face. He pulled a joker’s expression and clapped his hands.

“Maybe I’ll meet them at the Baron’s ball,” he said aloud. “Time for the ball, Assistant Anwaldt!”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 9TH, 1934

HALF-PAST SEVEN IN THE EVENING

With no difficulty, but at the cost of a five-mark note, Anwaldt convinced the caretaker of tenement Uferzeile 9 that he wanted to make a few sketches of the Zoological Gardens in the evening glow. He opened the door to the attic with the key given him and climbed the wobbly ladder to the gently sloping roof. The roof he was now intending to climb rose three metres higher. From his backpack, he pulled out some thick rope with a steel, three-forked hook knotted to its end. Some ten minutes went by before the hook finally fastened on to something. Anwaldt climbed to the higher roof, not without effort. As soon as he got here, he threw off the dirty drill trousers and long apron under which his dinner jacket and patent leather shoes were disguised. He checked that he had his cigarettes and looked about him. He quickly found what he was looking for: a slightly rusty ventilation outlet covered with a small triangular shelter. He affixed the hook to it and very slowly, taking care so as not to get dirty, lowered himself a few metres down the rope. Two minutes later, his feet were touching the stone balustrade of the balcony. He stood there for a fair while, panting. When he had cooled a little, he looked into the lit window and realized that the windows of two rooms gave on to the balcony. A moment later, one of his eyes found itself in the light. He observed what was happening in the room attentively. On the floor lay the taut bodies of two females and two males. Half a minute passed before he understood this complicated configuration. Nearby, on the sofa, a man wearing only a mask spread himself while two girls in school uniform knelt on either side of him. Worried by a strange sound, Anwaldt moved to the other window. It was the hiss of a whip: two girls in long boots and black uniform were flogging a scrawny blond lad handcuffed to the gleaming door of a tiled stove. The man yelled as the iron tips of the large whips lacerated his bruised body.

Both windows were wide open. The air, saturated with the scent of incense, quivered from the more or less fake moans of women. Anwaldt entered the first room by the balcony door. As he had correctly supposed, none of those present paid any attention to him. He, on the other hand, examined them all carefully. He easily recognized Maass’ receding chin and the “schoolgirl’s” hand with its mole. He went out into the hall and closed the door gently behind him. Several niches had been fashioned out in the spacious corridor where small marble columns stood. Moved by a chameleon’s instinct, he removed his dinner jacket and shirt and hung them on one of the columns. The soft sound of stringed instruments drifted up from below. He recognized Haydn’s “Emperor Quartet”.

He descended the stairs and saw three pairs of doors wide open. He stood in one of them and looked around. The glass partition walls of three enormous rooms had been drawn aside to form a huge hall thirty metres long, forty wide. The entire floor was taken up by wooden tables laden with fruit, glasses and bottles in ice buckets, and by umpteen low two-seater sofas and chaise-longues occupied by naked, slow-moving bodies. The Baron was conducting the quartet with a peculiar baton — a human tibia. The beautiful-eyed servant, dressed only in an Indian sash which covered his genitalia, was pouring generous measures of wine into tall glasses. This Ganimede interrupted his activity for a moment and graciously circulated among the guests, scattering rose petals. He was making sure that each of the guests was happy and was very surprised to see a tall dark-haired man stand in the doorway then quickly sit on a chaise-longue from which a female couple had just rolled away. He danced up to Anwaldt and asked melodiously:

“Does the respected gentleman desire anything?”

“Yes. I just went to the toilet for a moment and my partner disappeared.”

Ganimede frowned and sung:

“No problem. We’ll get you a new one.”

The stench of manure drifted in from the Zoological Gardens; from time to time, the roar of animals irritated by the heat rose towards the sky. The Oder surrendered the remains of its moisture to the dry air.

The Baron threw the tibia aside and began a striptease. The instrumentalists, in wild passion, hit their bows against taut strings. The Baron, completely naked, fixed a great red beard to his face and donned the tiered hat of Nebuchadnezzar. Some of the orgiasts were growing weak and slipping on their own sweat. Other couples, trios and quartets were trying in vain to surprise each other with ingenious caresses. Anwaldt glanced above the bodies and met the intent gaze of Nebuchadnezzar who had, in the meantime, donned a heavy golden cloak. (I look like a cockroach on a white carpet lying here alone, wearing trousers, among naked people. None of them are alone. It’s not surprising that that prick is looking at me like that.) Nebuchadnezzar stared, the string instruments turned into percussion, women moaned in feigned rapture, men writhed in forced ecstasy.

Anwaldt writhed under the Baron’s attentive gaze. He decided to accept the invitation of two lesbians who had been calling him to them for a long time. Suddenly Ganimede appeared, leading a somewhat intoxicated blonde in a velvet mask. Nebuchadnezzar ceased to be interested in him. The girl squatted by Anwaldt’s sofa. He closed his eyes. (Let me get something out of this orgy, too.) Unfortunately, his expectations were not fulfilled; instead of the girl’s delicate hands and lips, he felt hard, calloused fingers press him forcefully to the sofa. A huge, dark man with an aquiline nose was leaning his hands against Anwaldt’s biceps and ramming him into the sofa. The Baron’s servant was holding Anwaldt’s dinner jacket and a handful of black invitations to the ball. The assailant opened his mouth, breathing garlic and tobacco:

“How did you get in here? Show your invitation!”

Anwaldt had heard a similar accent before when interrogating a Turkish restaurateur in Berlin who had been mixed up in opium smuggling. Now he lay paralysed, not so much by the strong hold, as by the sight of the strange tattoo on the assailant’s left hand. With the steel grip, the muscle between the index finger and the thumb bulged large and round, quivering at the slightest movement. The muscle’s quivering set a neatly tattooed scorpion in motion. The assailant wanted to immobilize his victim yet more, but as he threw his leg over the sofa in order to straddle the policeman, the latter quickly flexed his knee and hit the garlic lover in a tender spot. The man, under the stress of pain, tore his arm from Anwaldt’s shoulder who, partially regaining his freedom of movement, struck his opponent in the face with his forehead. The tattooed man lost his balance and fell off the sofa. The policeman ran towards the exit. Nobody was interested in the fight; the quartet continued to perform its crazed rondo as more and more ever-weaker people lay strewn across the wet dance floor.

The only obstacle Anwaldt had to overcome was Ganimede, who had slipped out of the hall earlier on and was in the process of locking the front door. Anwaldt aimed a strong kick at his armpit, a second thumped his ribs. The servant, however, managed to lock the door and push the key through the letterbox. The key clattered on the other side, on the stairwell floor. A third blow, in the head, deprived Ganimede of consciousness. Anwaldt, unable to escape by the door, made his way towards the first floor of the apartment by the internal stairs. He heard the heavy breathing of the foreigner behind him. The blast of a shot being fired tore the air and even mildly alarmed the orgiasts, who were resting after their great efforts. The policeman felt a pain in his ear and hot blood on his neck. (Godammit, I haven’t got my gun again; it spoiled the cut of my jacket.) He bent over and snatched one of the heavy rods pressing the purple carpet to the stairs. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that his assailant was preparing to shoot again. But the blast came only once Anwaldt was on the first floor. The bullet chipped a marble column and ricocheted a moment or two in the stone niche. The policeman threw himself towards a door from which protruded a large key. He turned it and leapt out on to the stairwell. The chasing man was close by. Bullets hit the ceramic tiles covering the walls. Anwaldt ran down blindly. A floor below, by the main entrance to the apartment, stood a late arrival. From behind the black mask escaped stiff, red hair. Alarmed by the shots, he held a revolver in his hand. He saw Anwaldt and shouted “Stop or I’ll shoot!” The policeman squatted, took a swing and threw the rod. The metal bar hit the red-head in the brow. As the man slipped to the floor, he fired two shots into the ceiling. Plaster and dust rained down. Anwaldt picked up the rod and, with a bound, flew over the banister. He found himself on the next landing. The building shook with gunfire. He ran, tripped and fell, until finally he reached the last landing. He backed away abruptly: four men, armed with huge shovels for sweeping snow, were climbing the stairs. Anwaldt guessed that the caretaker had joined the hunt with three of his colleagues. He turned and opened the window to the yard, jumped headlong and fell straight on to a wagon. Splinters from rough planks dug into his body; piercing pain twisted his ankle. Limping, he scrambled across the yard. The evil eyes of the windows flared up — he was as visible as on an open palm. The blast of shots shook the empty well of the yard. He ran under the walls of the building and tried to get into one of the houses by a back door. All, as luck would have it, were bolted. The chase was close. Anwaldt stumbled down the stairs leading to the cellar of another house. If that door too proved to be locked, the men pursuing him would corner him in the concrete rectangle. But the door gave way. Anwaldt bolted himself from the inside just as the first assailant arrived at the door. The smell of rotten potatoes, fermenting wine and rat droppings was, for him, the sweetest of smells. He slid down the wall, grazing his back against raw brick. He put his hand to his ear. A sharp shudder shook him, drops of thick blood streamed down his neck again. His twisted ankle pulsated with warm pain. On his forehead, at the hairline where the assailant had cut the skin with his teeth, a cloying jelly had congealed. Knowing that before his persecutors had surrounded that block several minutes would have gone by, he tried to get out of the cellar’s labyrinth.

He walked in absolute darkness, groping his way, frightening a few rats and wrapping his face in rolls of cobweb. He lost all sense of time and was being overcome by sleep when a distant reflection effectively overpowered his drowsiness. He easily identified the light of a street lamp penetrating a dusty window. He opened the window and, after a few unsuccessful attempts, managed to get outside, tearing the skin on his stomach and ribs in the process. He closed the window behind him and looked around. Thick bushes, from behind which came the patter of several people’s feet running here and there, separated him from the pavement and street. He lay supine on the lawn, panting. (I have to wait a few hours.) He looked around and found the ideal hiding-place. The balcony of the first-floor apartment was overgrown with wild vine hanging to the ground. Anwaldt crawled in and felt consciousness slip away.

The dampness of the earth and the surrounding silence woke him. Taking cover between the trees and benches of the promenade along the Oder, he crept to the car parked outside the Engineering College. He could scarcely drive. He was sore and lacerated. Climbing up to his floor, he clung to the banister. He did not turn on the light in his kitchen so as not to see the cockroaches. He drank a glass of water in one draught, threw his torn trousers down in the hall, opened the window in his room and collapsed on to the tangled sheets.

BRESLAU, TUESDAY, JULY 10TH, 1934

NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

On waking, Anwaldt could not lift his ear from the pillow. The congealed blood formed a strong adhesive. He sat up in bed with difficulty. His hair, plastered with blood, bristled stiffly on the crown of his head. His entire torso was grazed and covered with bruises. His heel ached; his swollen ankle was turning purple. Hopping on one leg, he made his way to the telephone and called Baron von der Malten.

A quarter of an hour later, the Baron’s personal physician, Doctor Lanzmann, arrived at Anwaldt’s apartment. After a further quarter of an hour, they were at von der Malten’s residence. After four hours, the patient, Anwaldt — having slept well, his head and torn ear dressed, his sprained ankle immobilized in bamboo splints, and yellow stains all over his body — was smoking a long, choice Ahnuri Shu Przedecki cigar and relating the previous night’s events to his employer. When the Baron — having heard him through — went out to his study, Anwaldt phoned the Police Praesidium and asked Kurt Smolorz to prepare all the material on Baron von Kopperlingk for six that evening. Then he got through to Professor Andreae and arranged to meet him for a talk.

Baron von der Malten’s chauffeur helped him downstairs and into the car. They moved off. Anwaldt asked, with interest, about practically every building, every street. The chauffeur answered patiently:

“We’re driving along Hohenzollernstrasse … On the left is the water tower … On the right, St John’s Church … Yes, I agree, it’s beautiful. Recently built … Here’s the roundabout. Reichprasidentenplatz. This is still Hohenzollernstrasse … Yes, and now we’re coming on to Gabitzstrasse. Yes? … You know these parts? We’ll go under the viaduct and we’ll be on your Zietenstrasse …”

The drive in the car gave Anwaldt the most enormous pleasure. (A beautiful city.) Unfortunately, his Adler had been burning in the high sun since morning and when he heaved himself in behind the steering-wheel, sweat poured down his shirt and jacket. He opened the windows, threw his hat on the back seat and pulled away with a screech of tyres, longing to cool himself by the current of air. With no success — his lungs filled with dry dust. As if this torment were not enough, Anwaldt lit a cigarette, drying his mouth out completely.

Following the instructions given by von der Malten’s chauffeur, he arrived at the College of Oriental Studies at Schmiedebrucke 35 without any problems. Professor Andreae was waiting for him. He listened closely as Anwaldt imitated the way yesterday’s assailant spoke. Although the lines the policeman repeated several times were short — (“How did you get in here? Show your invitation!”) — the professor had no doubts. The German-speaking foreigner at the Baron’s ball was most certainly a Turk. Pleased with his linguistic intuition, Anwaldt bade the professor farewell and drove on to the Police Praesidium.

In the entrance, he met Forstner. They exchanged glances and easily recognized each other: Anwaldt’s bandaged head and Forstner’s cut eyebrow. They greeted each other with feigned indifference.

“I see you didn’t spend last night at the Salvation Army on Blucherplatz,” laughed Smolorz, greeting Anwaldt.

“It’s nothing. I had a slight accident.” He glanced at the desk: Baron von Kopperlingk’s file lay there. “Not very thick.”

“The thicker one’s probably in the Gestapo archives. You have to have special connections to get in there. I haven’t got any …” He wiped his sweaty forehead with a chequered handkerchief.

“Thank you, Smolorz. Ah …” Anwaldt rubbed his nose nervously. “I’d be most grateful if you’d prepare a list of all the Turks who have lived in Breslau over the last eighteen months by tomorrow. Is there a Turkish Consulate here?”

“Yes, on Neudorfstrasse.”

“They’re bound to help you. Thank you, you’re free to go.”

Anwaldt was left alone in his cool office. He rested his forehead on the slippery, green surface of the desk and felt he was reaching the lowest point of the sinusoid — the critical point of his good and bad moods. He became painfully conscious of the fact that he reacted differently to other people: the furiously burning world outside released, in him, energy and action, the pleasant coolness of the office, surrender and resignation. (Each one’s a microcosmos connected to the movement of the universe; I’m not. I’m different from them. Haven’t I been told that ever since childhood? I’m an isolated mini-universe where multi-directional gravitation rules and welds everything into heavy, concentrated blocks.)

He abruptly got up, slipped his shirt off and leaned over the basin. Hissing with pain, he washed his neck and armpits then sat in his chair and allowed the water to run down his wounded torso in narrow streams. He wiped his face and hands on his vest. (Be active! Do something!) He picked up the receiver and instructed the runner to buy some cigarettes and lemonade, then closed his eyes and easily mastered the chaotic images. He tore them from himself and set them in order: “Scorpions in Marietta von der Malten’s belly. A scorpion on the Turk’s hand. The Turk killed Marietta.” This observation pleased Anwaldt with its self-evidence yet the prospect of ineffective work gave him cold feet. (The Turk killed the Baron’s daughter; the Turk guards Baron von Kopperlingk’s house; the Baron is protected by the Gestapo; ergo, the Turk has something to do with the Gestapo; ergo, the Gestapo is mixed up in the Baron’s daughter’s murder; ergo, I’m as weak and helpless as a child in the face of the Gestapo.)

A knock on the door. A kn-o-ck. The runner brought in an armful of bottles and two packets of strong Bergmann Privat cigarettes. The cigarette weakened him for a moment. He drank a bottle of the lemonade in one go, closed his eyes and again the thought-images became thought-sentences. (Lea Friedlander knows who pointed her father out to Mock and made a scapegoat of him. It could be someone from the Gestapo. If she’s going to be afraid to tell me, I’ll force her. I’ll withhold the morphine, terrorize her with the needle. She’ll do anything I say!) He rejected the erotic vision “she’ll do anything I say” and got up from his desk. (Be active!) He paced the room and voiced his doubts out loud:

“Where are you going to make her talk? In a cell. What cell? Here, in the Police Praesidium. What’ve you got Smolorz for? Great — you lock a doll like that up in a cell and all the screws and policemen are going to know about it within an hour. And most certainly the Gestapo.”

In moments of greatest discouragement, Anwaldt always turned his thoughts to entirely different matters. And so it was now: he engaged himself in studying the Baron’s file. He found several photographs of an orgy in some garden and a list of names unknown to him — names of those present at the parties. None betrayed Turkish descent. There was very little on the host himself. The ordinary life story of an educated Prussian aristocrat and a few official notes from the Baron’s meetings with Hauptsturmfuhrer S.A. Walter Piontek.

He buttoned his shirt and tightened his tie. He went downstairs slowly to the archives, picking up his Breslau police identification on the way. (Be active!) In the basement of the Police Praesidium, he met with bitter disappointment. On the orders of Doctor Engel — who was executing the duties of Police President — Piontek’s files had been transferred to the Gestapo archives. Anwaldt barely managed to get to his office: pain was shooting through his swollen heel, his wounds and abrasions burning. He sat down behind his desk and, in a hoarse voice, asked Mock, who was sunbathing on a Zoppot beach:

“When are you coming back, Eberhard? If you were here you’d extract Piontek’s and Baron von Kopperlingk’s files from the Gestapo … You’d find a safe place where we could subject Lea to a morphine detox … You’d surely find a vice in your memory for that crazy Baron … When are you finally coming back?”

Longing for Mock was longing for the Baron’s money, for tropical islands, for slaves with skin like silk … (You’ve built a fine tower, Herbert, with those bricks. Be active, force Lea to speak yourself, can’t you? You’ve built a fine tower, Herbert.)

† To what good? (Latin).