Phantoms of Breslau

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919

EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

Waiter Helmut Kohlisch finished work at eight o’clock that day. He was tired and angry. Crossing the kitchen, he climbed the narrow inner staircase which led to the stores and pantries. His mood was not improved either by the beer stain on his shirt or by the thought of what awaited him in his dank, one-room lodgings on Buttnerstrasse, squeezed between a delicatessen and a printers: Lisbeth, his heavily pregnant eighteen-year-old daughter, her unemployed husband Josef, a communist agitator who aroused the suspicions of every policeman, and his own consumptive wife, Luise, ladling soup into their bowls. The meal would have been nutritious had it consisted of something more than water, a few pieces of potato and some pitiful strips of cabbage. All would sit there slurping the soup as their eyes bored into his pockets for the tips.

Kohlisch entered the staff room and undressed down to his vest and long johns. He carefully folded his uniform tailcoat and hung up his trousers only once the creases had been perfectly pressed together. He crumpled up the shirt stained by the copper and stuffed it into his bag. He opened the wardrobe, and inside it saw one of the customers he had served that day. Before he had time to be surprised, he had received his first blow. His assailant hit him on the jaw and he flew through the air towards some empty crates, trying to tense his muscles to soften the impact on his back. But this proved unnecessary. Someone grabbed him hard beneath his arms and wrapped him in a double Nelson. He felt the muscles in his neck weaken, the pressure making him bend his neck towards the floor. The red-headed customer clambered out of the wardrobe, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his freckled and flushed face. Kohlisch thrashed this way and that, trying to tear himself away from his assailant. This only made the latter increase the pressure, forcing Kohlisch to contemplate his own darned socks. At that moment, Kohlisch remembered that there was a way of slipping out of a double Nelson, by raising your arms and falling to your knees. This he did, and it worked. For a moment he knelt on the floor. Then he received a second blow, this time from behind. A crate smashed on his head and he felt trickles of blood run down his bald skull. Only then did he feel pain. For a few moments, darkness enveloped him. The man behind him planted the crate, now without its base, on his head and pushed it down over his arms. Kohlisch was immobilized. He knelt in front of the red-headed customer, the crate pinning his arms at his waist. He tried to turn around, but his second attacker grabbed him by the ears and turned his face towards the man with the red hair.

“Listen, Kohlisch,” he heard from behind. “We’re not going to do anything to you if you answer politely.”

Kohlisch screamed and immediately regretted it. The red-headed man’s heel hit him in the mouth, shattering a lower tooth. Saliva mixed with blood stained the floor. Kohlisch rocked a while in the stocks formed by the old crate, and then collapsed. He heard a humming all around. Someone tied his shirt, which reeked strongly of beer, around his head.

“Are you going to scream again?”

“No.” Air whistled through the gap in his teeth.

“Promise.”

“Yes.”

“Say ‘I promise.’”

“I promise.”

“Where do you get those male whores from for the ladies?”

“What whores?”

“The male ones. The ones who dress up. One as a carter, another one as a sailor, another a worker …”

“I don’t know what you’re …”

The next blow was very painful indeed. Kohlisch could almost hear whatever it was grind across his cheekbone. Someone was standing on his stomach with one heavy shoe. Blood and snot ran from his mouth and nose. The shirt around his head grew damp.

“That was a knuckle-duster. Do you want another taste of it, or are you going to talk?”

“The Baroness orders the boys …”

Someone carefully wiped his face with the shirt. A swelling on his cheek obscured the view from his left eye. With his right he saw the red-headed man throwing away the wet shirt in disgust. The strike of a match, smoke being exhaled.

“The Baroness’ name!”

“I don’t know,” Kohlisch glanced at the red-headed man and yelled. “Don’t hit me, you son of a whore! I’ll tell you everything I know about her!”

The red-headed man slipped the knuckle-duster over his fingers and looked questioningly past Kohlisch’s trembling body to where the smoke was coming from. He must have received an answer to his unspoken question because he removed the knuckle-duster. Kohlisch breathed a sigh of relief.

“So, what do you know about the Baroness?” said the man he could not see.

“I know she’s a Baroness because that’s what they call her.”

“Who calls her that?”

“Her friends.”

“What’s the Baroness’ name?”

“I’ve already told you … I don’t know … I really don’t know … Can’t you understand,” howled Kohlisch when he saw the knuckle-duster back on the red-headed man’s hand. “The whore doesn’t introduce herself to me when she wants a boy, does she?”

“I’m satisfied.” The interrogator spat on the floor. The cigarette hissed. “But you’ve got to give me something to recognize her by.”

“Her coat of arms,” Kohlisch moaned. “The coat of arms on her carriage … An axe, a star and an arrow …”

“Good. Identify it in the Armorial of Silesian Nobility, in our archives.” Kohlisch guessed that the instructions were directed at the redheaded man. “And now one more thing, Kohlisch. Explain what you mean by ‘the Baroness orders boys’.”

“The Baroness arrives and phones somewhere from here,” Kohlisch practically whispered. “A droschka pulls up outside the restaurant, with some men in costume inside. The Baroness or one of her friends wishes, for example, for a carter … Then I go and get him from the droschka … As if I’d fetched him myself … It’s a game …”

Kohlisch stopped talking. There were no more questions. The door to the staff room slammed. He flung his fat body around, taking in the room with crates thrown about all over the place. There stood two men Kohlisch had never seen before. One of them, a short man with a narrow, fox-like face, gestured to the other, a giant with bushy eyebrows. He seemed to be saying: “Take care of him!”

The giant emitted an inarticulate sound and then walked up to Kohlisch, slipped the temporary stocks from his arms and held under his nose a handkerchief permeated with a sweet and sickly, yet sharp smell. It reminded him of hospitals.

“It’s for your own good. You’re going to stay with us for a few days.” That was the last thing Kohlisch heard that day.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919

NINE O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

The villa belonging to Baron and Baroness von Bockenheim und Bielau stood at one end of Wagnerstrasse. Two cars drove up to the massive iron gates decorated with coats of arms on which ivy wound around a shield depicting an axe and a star pierced with a half-feathered arrow. From the garden at the back of the house came the shouts of children and the tinkling of a piano. The red-headed man climbing out of the first car listened intently to the sounds before he pressed the bell, holding it for some time. A butler in a tailcoat marched majestically from the villa. His face, framed by side-whiskers, radiated calm, and his long, stork-like legs in striped trousers advanced with a dancing step. He approached the gate and cast a contemptuous eye over the visitor — a travelling salesman, he presumed. He extended a silver tray to allow the intruder to slip his hand through the railing and deposit on it a business card with the name JOSEF BILKOWSKY, HUNGARIAN KING HOTEL, BISCHOFSTRASSE 13. On it was also written the word “Verte”. The butler walked slowly towards the house, lifting his legs high. A few seconds later he disappeared behind the massive door.

The red-headed man got back into the automobile and drove off. After a short while, an elegantly dressed couple appeared on the drive. The woman, in her thirties, wore a black Chanel dress with extravagant wavy stripes, a hat with a white chrysanthemum and a stole, while the older man wore a tailcoat and a white waistcoat which reflected the light from the lanterns along the drive. They went to the gate and looked around. The man opened the gate and stepped out onto the pavement. Apart from a lone car parked at some distance, Wagnerstrasse was empty. The woman fixed her faintly amused eyes on the car. Her companion’s gaze was none too friendly. Both noted the four men sitting inside. At the steering wheel sat a small individual with a hat pushed down over his nose. Next to him sprawled a well-built, dark-haired man. The smoke spiralling from his cigarette caused the two men in the back of the car to squint. One of the two had something wrapped around his face, as if he were suffering from toothache, while the other could barely fit in the back seat. The dark-haired man turned to them, caught the one with the bandage by the neck and pointed to the elegant woman.

He said something and the man with the toothache nodded. The dark-haired man touched the driver on the shoulder and the car abruptly pulled away. A moment later it had disappeared from view. The woman in the exquisite black dress and the man in the tailcoat returned to the villa. The butler looked at them in surprise. The man in the tailcoat was a little annoyed, the woman in the black dress indifferent.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH 1919

A QUARTER PAST NINE IN THE EVENING

The children’s party being held at Baron von Bockenheim und Bielau’s villa in celebration of the eighth birthday of Baron Rudiger II’s only daughter was coming to an end. Parents of those invited sat beneath canopies adorned with the Baron’s coat of arms, moistening their lips and tongues with Philippe champagne. Ladies chattered about the success of Hauptmann’s Weavers in Vienna, while men discussed Clemenceau’s threats to call for changes to the German constitution. Puffed up with the grandeur of their master and mistress’ nouvelle noblesse, the servants moved among them slowly and ceremoniously. The first of the trusted servants carried a tray of empty glasses, the second a tray of full ones. The children, wearing sailor suits or tweeds and caps a la Lord Norfolk, ran around the garden watched over by their governesses. A few girls stood around a piano singing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” to the brisk rhythm hammered out on the keys by a long-haired musician. The lanterns, like the conversations, were slowly waning. The gentlemen had decided to smoke a farewell cigarette, the ladies to take one more sip of champagne “whose bubbles”, as one of them expressed it, “added an interesting bitterness to the sweet Viennese pastry twists”.

The lady of the house, Baroness Mathilde von Bockenheim und Bielau, placed her glass on the tray offered her by Friedrich the butler. She gazed lovingly at her daughter Louise, who was running across the garden trying not to lose sight of a small kite that was still just visible in the half-light of the lanterns. Out of the corner of her eye, the Baroness saw the empty glasses on the tray. She turned around in annoyance. Had the old man failed to notice that she had already replaced her glass? Didn’t he realize that there were other guests to be seen to? Maybe something’s wrong with him? He’s so old … She looked at Friedrich with concern as he stood before her, his eyes revealing a readiness to lay down his life for his mistress.

“Did you want something from me, Frederic?” she asked very gently.

“Yes, your Ladyship.” Friedrich looked at little Louise von Bockenheim und Bielau as her governess chased her with open arms, calling with a strong English accent: “Don’t run so fast, little Baroness, you’ll get too hot!”

“I didn’t dare disturb your moment of contemplation as you admired the little Baroness, like quicksilver …”

“Did you not hear my question, Frederic?” the Baroness said even more gently.

“A telephone call for you, Baroness,” Friedrich announced. “It’s the man who handed your Ladyship that strange business card a few moments ago.”

“You should spare yourself the word ‘strange’, my dear Frederic,” hissed the Baroness. “You’re not here to make comments.”

“Yes, of course, your Ladyship.” Friedrich bowed, his eyes now revealing less readiness to sacrifice his life for his employer. “What am I to say to the gentleman?”

“I’ll talk to him.” She excused herself from the ladies for a few moments and floated across the garden, bestowing smiles all around. The warmest smile was for her husband, Baron Rudiger II von Bockenheim und Bielau.

Climbing the steps to the villa, she looked once again at the business card and the word “Verte”. On the reverse were the words: “Concerning cabbies and carters”. The Baroness stopped smiling. She entered her boudoir and picked up the receiver.

“I’m not going to introduce myself,” said a man’s hoarse voice. “I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer truthfully. Otherwise the Baron will have to find out about his wife’s secret life … Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Because you haven’t asked me anything.” The Baroness took a cigarette from a crystal case and lit it.

“I want to know the addresses of the men you take as escorts after your visits to the Hungarian King. They dress up — one as a carter, another as a cabby. I’m only interested in the ones who dress up as sailors.”

“You like sailors, do you?” The Baroness rippled with quiet laughter. “You want them to screw you, do you?” Obscenities excited her. She wanted to hear this man swear, in his voice hoarse with tobacco. She liked swearing and the smell of cheap tobacco.

“You’d know something about that, wouldn’t you? Answer me, you old bag, or do I have to speak to the Baron?” The man’s voice changed tone.

“You’re through to him already,” the Baroness replied. “Speak to this wretched blackmailer, darling!”

“Baron Rudiger II von Bockenheim und Bielau speaking,” said a deep voice. “Don’t try to blackmail my wife, dear man. It’s despicable and base.”

Baron Rudiger II von Bockenheim und Bielau replaced the receiver and left his study, kissing his wife on the forehead on the way.

“Let’s say goodbye to our guests, my little dawn,” he said.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919

ELEVEN O’CLOCK AT NIGHT

Baroness Mathilde von Bockenheim und Bielau sat at her escritoire writing a letter of warning to her friend Laura von Scheitler, a habitue of the Hungarian King whose noble title and coat of arms were brand new to her — just like her own. When she had finished the brief note, she sprayed the back of the paper with some perfume and put it into an envelope. She then tugged on the bell and, rubbing some cold cream bought at Hopp’s House of Beauty for the astronomical sum of three hundred marks into her alabaster complexion, she sat down at her dressing table in front of the mirror. She waited for Friedrich and heard a knock at the door.

“Entre!” she called, and carried on rubbing the cream into her generous decollete.

She looked into the mirror and saw two hands on her delicate skin. She felt one of them, rough and gnarled, over her mouth, while the other pulled her hair. The Baroness felt excruciating pain on her head and landed on the chaise longue. A man with red hair sat astride her, pinning her shoulders to the sofa with his knees. With one hand he again covered her mouth, and with the other slapped her sharply on the cheek.

“Are you going to be quiet, or shall I do it again?”

Baroness von Bockenheim und Bielau tried to nod. The red-headed man understood her gesture.

“The addresses of those sailors,” he said, and the Baroness realized that this was not the man she had spoken to on the telephone. “Male whores dressed up as sailors. Immediately!”

“Alfred Sorg,” she said quietly. “That’s the name of my sailor. I’ll give you his number. He brings other men too.”

The red-headed man snorted and climbed off the Baroness with obvious regret. She stood up, wrote a telephone number on a piece of paper and sprayed the reverse side with perfume. Her assailant tore the paper from her hands, opened the window and jumped down onto the lawn. The Baroness watched as he climbed the railings. She heard the roar of an engine and the squeal of tires. She pulled the scarlet cord again and sat down at her mirror. She spread a thick layer of cream onto her hands.

“I know you let him in, Frederic,” she said gently as the butler appeared at her side. “As from tomorrow, I no longer want to see you in my house.”

“I don’t know what your Ladyship cares to mean.” Friedrich’s voice was full of solemnity and concern.

The Baroness turned to her servant and looked deeply into his eyes.

“There’s only one way you can save your position, Frederic.” She turned back to the mirror and sighed. “I’m giving you one last chance.”

Seconds passed, then minutes. The Baroness combed her hair while Friedrich stood there, stiff as a poker.

“I’m listening, your Ladyship.” His voice betrayed unease.

“You’ll lose your position” — she gazed at her reflection with satisfaction and tore up the letter to Baroness von Scheitler — “unless you bring me that red-headed monster before the night is out.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919

MIDNIGHT

In the Three Crowns beer cellar on Kupferschmiedestrasse 5–6 the air was heavy with tobacco smoke mixed with fried bacon, burned onions and human sweat. This odour drifted up towards the arched vault and enveloped the pseudo-Romanesque windows which gave on to the yard belonging to the White Eagle building. The fug was not alleviated by the few blasts of cold night air which blew in as the door opened to let in new customers. The traffic in the cellar was one way only. No-one was leaving; if someone left now, they would be considered a traitor by the others. In the Three Crowns, a meeting of the Breslau division of the Freikorps was under way.

Mock and Smolorz stopped at the back of the hall while their eyes adjusted to the stinging atmosphere. At the heavy tables sat men leaden with beer. They slammed their tankards on the oak tabletops swimming with white froth, clicked their fingers at the head waiter and hushed each other. To the eye of an experienced policeman their varied headgear was just as clear an indication of the men’s social standing as any military decoration. Workers sat at tables wearing canvas caps with patent peaks, or soft caps made of oilcloth. Their social class was further highlighted by their collarless shirts and rolled-up sleeves. A little to one side were tradesmen, restaurateurs and clerks. Their distinguishing attire was a bowler hat, with the additional attribute of a stiff collar — many of which were crying out for a visit to the laundry. These men drank less and did not slam their tankards down, but it was from their cigars and pipes that the heaviest smoke bombs wafted. The third and largest group was made up of youths in helmets, or round caps with no peaks known as Einheits-feldmutzen, very familiar to Mock.

The Criminal Assistant paid keen attention to this last group. His watchful eye penetrated the smoke screen and inspected the grey uniforms with their medals pinned on here and there. Just then, a young, handsome man wearing one such uniform climbed onto a podium where usually — when the Freikorps were not meeting — a few musicians would beguile the beer cellar’s guests as they ate their rissoles, a speciality of the house. The man now standing on the podium wore a medal which reminded Mock of the so-called Baltic Cross he himself had received for his service in Kurland.

“Brothers! Fellow companions in arms!” yelled the Knight of the Baltic Cross. “We must not allow the communists to poison our nation. We cannot let our proud Germanic peoples be defiled by the Bolshevik Asians and their lackeys!”

Mock switched off his sense of hearing. Otherwise he would have climbed onto the podium and slapped the young man whose ardour to fight was as inauthentic as his Baltic Cross. He knew the speaker well; he knew that, throughout the war, he had worked as a brave informer for the political police, which vehemently hunted down any sign of defeatism or lowering of morale among civilians. While Mock was delousing himself in the trenches; while, on the order of Captain Mantzelmann, he and Cornelius Ruhtgard were exposing their backsides to the icy north wind to crap; while they were pumping fountains of blood from the heads of Kalmucks; while they were looking into the sad eyes of dying Russian prisoners of war; while they were extracting fat larvae from infected wounds, this speaker, Alfred Sorg, was doing the rounds of taverns and listening bravely to embittered people; happily leading youngsters who were caught cursing the emperor to the nearest police station by the scruff of the neck; valiantly blackmailing young wives who abused the Reich’s name, and then courageously presenting these wives who were so missing their husbands with a choice: either to face prison or to indulge in a moment of oblivion, forgetting everything and, above all, their faithfulness to their husbands.

Somebody nudged Mock and handed him a pile of pamphlets, saying “Pass them on”. Mock studied them. They urged young men to join the Garde-Kavallerie-Schutzen-Division. On one of them a member was pointing to a picture of a charming town above which a moulting, Polish white eagle with hideous talons and a foul, gaping beak spread its wings, while another Freikorps soldier aimed his bayonet at the beast. Beneath the cartoon was a quotation from Ernst von Salomon: “Germany burned darkly in daring minds. Germany was always there where it was being fought for, it showed itself where armed hands strove for its continued existence, it blazed where those possessed of its spirit dared to spill the last drops of their blood on its behalf.”

“I wonder whether Germany was in the trenches at Dunaburg,” thought Mock. “I wonder whether von Salomon, writing about ‘last drops of blood’, saw my comrades in arms dying of diphtheria, with bloody diarrhoea running down their trousers.” The Criminal Assistant looked at another pamphlet with a picture of the American president blowing soap bubbles. One of the bubbles contained the caption: “President Wilson’s pipe dreams”.

“Do what you must!” thundered Alfred Sorg from the podium. “Be victorious, or die and leave the final decision to God!”

Still trying not to listen, Mock gazed in disbelief at the five-bullet Mauser 98 rifles leaning ostentatiously against the tables. He remembered a scout at Dunaburg who had informed von Thiede, the commander of the regiment, about a meeting of Russian spies at a Jewish inn. Mock and his scout platoon had burst through the inn door. A din erupted. Platoon Commander Corporal Heinz ordered them to shoot. Mock pulled the trigger of his Mauser 98, which belched thick smoke. There was a deathly silence. The smoke subsided. The communists were either female or at most ten years old. Later, Corporal Heinz laughed his head off, and he was still laughing when a bayonet ground into his guts. One of the men in the platoon which had arbitrated at the homes of the alleged spies had lost respect for his Fuhrer. When Heinz had been found lying in the mud near his quarters with a ripped-up belly, Mock, as a police officer in civilian life, was given the task of conducting an investigation. The perpetrator was not found. Mock had been rather indolent, and a month later he was demoted by Regiment Commander von Thiede for not conducting the investigation skilfully enough. Since Mock had suffered some light wounds, von Thiede sent him to Konigsberg in the hope that the police officer with the rebellious attitude would not return to his regiment. There Mock fell out of a window, and then as a convalescent he did indeed end up somewhere else: with Field Orderly Cornelius Ruhtgard under the command of Captain Mantzelmann, who so loved the cold hygiene of the north.

The speaker sat down at a table at the front next to a young woman at whose sight Mock began to quiver. He knew her well; it was to her that his friend Ruhtgard had dedicated his stories during the war. He bit his lip and once again suppressed the urge to slap Alfred Sorg across the face. The girl, unable to take her eyes off the inflamed speaker, was clapping as enthusiastically as everyone else in the Three Crowns. Everyone, that is, apart from two police officers from Division IIIb who in their search for phony sailors had dropped into a nest of Freikorps supporters. Mock showed no enthusiasm because he was overcome by sad thoughts; Smolorz did not clap because his arm was being held down by two hands belonging to a man with butler’s whiskers, who was whispering something in his ear. Smolorz had recognized him and was listening carefully.

BRESLAU, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Customers rolled out of the beer cellar after the Freikorps meeting, pumped up with equal measures of patriotism and beer. One man had drunk little, since his plans for the night would have been hindered by too much alcohol. With his arm around the slender waist of the girl next to him, Alfred Sorg felt the demon in his trousers petulantly demand an offering. He thought about his pockets — there was nothing with which to pay for a room by the hour — and about his miserable little room where two members of the so-called Erhardt brigade would shortly be snoring.

He scanned the street and noticed a shadowy opening between two buildings that led into a yard. That dark, damp cleft awoke in him a chain of associations which aroused him again. He stopped, put his arms around the girl and pressed a beery kiss onto her mouth. She parted her lips and her legs. He simultaneously slipped his tongue into her mouth and a knee between her thighs. He picked her up and they disappeared into the narrow opening. The damp draught did not surprise Sorg; the pungent smell of garlic, however, did.

A second later, as well as olfactory impressions, he experienced those of touch and sound. Chimes rang in his ear and the lobe began to swell from a hefty clout. Sorg was pushed along the alley and found himself in the yard behind Franz Krziwani’s tobacco shop. The angry face that now confronted him was not entirely unfamiliar.

He was standing before a stocky, well-built man whose height constituted a medium between a much shorter man with a foxy face and a tall beanpole who was fanning his bowler hat to cool his red-moustachioed face. From the opening emerged a giant holding the struggling girl.

“Take it easy with her, Zupitza,” said the stocky man. “Take the lady to the car and try to turn your breath away from her.”

“You shit, you Jew! What do you want to do to her?” Sorg decided to show them all that he was a real man, and threw himself at Zupitza. “Leave her alone or I’ll …”

Zupitza ignored his aggressor entirely. Sorg tumbled to the ground, having tripped over the foot of the man with the foxy face. He wanted to get up but received a hard punch on the other ear. Zupitza vanished with the girl. Sorg fell to the ground and for a moment pondered the difference between the two blows. He knew the second had been dealt with a shoe, and by somebody else. He sat on the cobblestones and stared at the stocky man who was now wiping the tip of his shining brogue with a handkerchief. Sorg knew the owner of these elegant shoes from somewhere, but could not think where.

“Listen to me, you war hero.” The hoarse voice was familiar too. “Now you’re going to tell me something. Give me some information. I’ll pay you for it.”

“Alright,” Sorg said quickly, remembering when he had seen the man before. 1914. The beginning of the war. Sorg had been blackmailing a dimwitted married woman who had a poor grasp of historical events but associated the recently declared war with the absence of her husband, who had just been called up. Sorg had promised not to tell anyone what she had said against the state if she granted him that with which Nature had so generously equipped her. The woman had consented, and that very same day had gone to the Breslau Vice Department with a complaint. There she was met with complete understanding. The following day, at the time they had agreed, Sorg heard a knock at his door. He ran to it, his demon at the ready to accept the offering, opened the door and saw several men in black. One of them, a thickset man with dark hair, had attacked him with such fury that Sorg had practically lost his life beneath those shiny, polished shoes.

“Ask me.”

“Do you dress up as a sailor and screw ladies of society?”

“Yes.”

“And do you arrange for other young men to dress up for the ladies? Carters, cabbies, gladiators …”

“I don’t, somebody else does.”

“One lady told me she rings you and you arrange it.”

“That’s right. But I ring somebody else to organize other gigolos.”

“Are you paid for it?”

“Yes, I get a commission.”

The interrogator walked up to Sorg, who was still sitting on the cobbles, and grabbed him by the hair. Sorg picked up the the sour reek of a hangover.

“Who do you ring to get the boys?”

“Norbert Risse.” Sorg did not want to smell the hangover any longer and threw the words out quickly. “That queer. He works from a ship, the Wolsung. It’s a floating brothel.”

“Here,” said the interrogator, throwing Sorg some banknotes. “Rent a room at the Sieh Dich Fur Hotel on Kleingroschenstrasse and get yourself a cheap whore. You can’t afford the girl who was with you.”

The men walked away and left Sorg sitting on the cobbles.

“You’re to go to that ship now, Smolorz,” Sorg overheard one of them say. “You’re to find out everything about the four sailors. Take the photographs.” From the corner of his eye, Sorg saw his aggressor hand Smolorz an envelope before striding off.

“Mr Mock!” Smolorz called, indicating Sorg. “What about him? You’ve just questioned him face to face … That swine might go and murder him …”

“Nothing’s going to happen to him … Do you see any murderers around here, Smolorz?” Mock retraced his steps and approached his victim, then bent over and tore the Baltic Cross from his uniform. He went to the alleyway between the houses and leaned over a drain in the gutter. The subterranean waters of the city splashed quietly below.

“He’ll buy himself a new one at the flea market,” Smolorz concluded.

“Go and see Risse, Smolorz, and I’ll take the girl,” Mock said, ignoring his subordinate’s remark. Sorg and Smolorz were left alone behind Krziwani’s tobacco shop.

“How fair is that?” Smolorz said to himself, fingering the business card given to him in the tavern by the man with the sideburns and butler’s manners. “He takes the girl and I get to go and see — a queer.”

Sorg said nothing and with his finger inspected the hole in his uniform where the Baltic Cross had hung.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

HALF PAST ONE IN THE MORNING

Wirth fired the engine, and Mock fell heavily onto the back seat next to the girl. His clothes were permeated with the smell of tobacco, and a hint of alcohol and expensive eau de cologne. The girl was intrigued by the man she had never spoken to but had frequently seen at home. Her interest was all the greater due to the circumstances of their meeting: a dark night, kisses in a back street, and men who looked like murderers. Suddenly she was overcome with disgust. Her thoughts had been absorbed by the man who was Alfred’s aggressor. And now Alfred, beaten up and humiliated, was trying to come to his senses in one of the seediest corners of the city! She turned away from Mock.

“I’m not going to say anything to your father, Christel.” Mock wanted to put his hand on the girl’s shoulder, but stopped himself in time.

“You can tell him whatever you want,” Christel Ruhtgard growled as she stared out at the military cemetery on the corner of Kirschallee and Lohestrasse. “I don’t care what you or my father think of me …”

“I’m not saying it,” Mock snorted, “to win you over or calm you down after that love scene in a stinking back street …”

“Then why are you saying it?” Christel’s eyes were blazing.

“Because I don’t know how to start the conversation.” Mock glanced at her prominent bust and recoiled a little, frightened of his own thoughts.

“Don’t even start one! I’ve got nothing to talk to you about …”

Silence descended. Mock was tired and would most happily have put the spoiled young madame across his knee and given her a thorough spanking. The thought which had frightened him a moment earlier was very innocent compared to what Mock now imagined might follow such a spanking. He plastered his cheek to the cold window and gaped dully at South Park as they approached. His eyes were closing of their own accord. Beneath his eyelids floated the lights of the Three Crowns beer cellar, then silent cemeteries. Trees rustled somewhere in the distance, a carpenter’s plane swished, and a small child cried, pressing a face wet with tears against the tired man’s face. She put her little arms around his neck and tried to say something, tugging at his arm, contorting her lips fretfully and then calling in a raised voice:

“Wake up, Mr Mock! The driver’s asking where we want to go!”

Mock rubbed his eyes, extracted his watch from his pocket and glanced at Christel Ruhtgard’s angry face.

“I wanted to see you home,” he muttered, “so that you’re not accosted by any more drunks.”

“Like you?”

Mock got out of the Horch and looked around. They were at the bottom of Hohenzollernstrasse. Wind blew through the treetops in South Park to his right. To his left, the satiated incumbents of the modern detached houses and stately villas slept the sleep of the righteous. None of them were getting ghastly notes from demented murderers; none of them had a child who had just been deserted — or maybe even orphaned — put her arms around their neck. They were not told to pay a gruesome penance for fabricated mistakes. Mock walked round the car, opened the door and offered his arm to the girl. She spurned his polite gesture and nimbly jumped onto the pavement of her own accord.

“Like me,” he replied. “Those are especially dangerous.”

“Don’t make yourself out to be a demon,” Miss Ruhtgard said and she set off towards the park. “I haven’t got far to go from here. I don’t want you to walk me home.”

“Today, not far from here,” he called after her, “my men found a man hanging from a tree by his legs!”

Christel Ruhtgard stopped and looked at Mock with distaste, as if he had been responsible for decorating trees with dead people. They stood for a while in silence.

“This park is not as safe as the promenade by the moat on Sunday mornings,” Mock said, “where people go for an ice cream after church. It’s haunted here at night, and corpses can be found hanging on trees or floating in the pond.”

“You really won’t say anything to my father about me and Fred?” Christel asked quietly.

“On the condition that I walk you home.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

They walked in silence through the dark park, lit up here and there by islands of light from the few street lamps. Mock lit a cigarette.

“You don’t know how to begin the conversation,” laughed Miss Ruhtgard quietly. She walked proud and upright. Irritation had given way to faint amusement.

“I know how to begin it, but I don’t know whether you’re going to want to talk about what interests me.”

“I’m not going to talk to you about Alfred Sorg. Is there anything else you’re interested in?”

“You’re an intelligent young lady. I could talk to you about anything.” Mock realized he had paid her a compliment and felt as embarrassed as a schoolboy. “But to touch on certain subjects we’ll have to get to know each other better …”

“You want to get to know me better? Isn’t what my father tells you enough?”

“I remember what your father said about you in the trenches at Dunaburg. You were his only chance of survival. You saved him, dear Christel.” Mock stopped and rubbed the sole of his shoe hard against the pathway, swearing under his breath when he realized he had stepped into one of the mementoes Bert and other dogs leave in parks. He wiped it on the grass and returned to his broken train of thought. “And not only him, by the way. You saved quite a few Russian soldiers. If it hadn’t been for you, your father would have thrown himself at the Russian trenches with his rifle and killed a lot of Russians, then he’d have died himself …”

“What makes you think he had suicidal thoughts?” In the dim light, Christel observed Mock as he pulled out a checked handkerchief and wiped the dust from the tip of his shoe.

“A lot of us had suicidal thoughts,” he muttered. “A good many of us tried hard to imagine the end of the war, but couldn’t. Your father did. You were the end of the war for him.”

“He talked to you about me?”

“Constantly.”

“And you listened? You sympathized with him? As far as I know, you don’t have any children of your own … How long can one listen to somebody talking about their children, about boys exploding with energy and moody girls?”

“You weren’t a moody girl in his eyes.” This time Mock pulled out a starched white handkerchief and wiped his brow. The September night was almost sweltering. “You were the very idea of a beloved child. An idea in the Platonic sense. A paragon, an archetype … After those conversations I’d envy him… I wanted to have a child like that myself …”

“And after this evening?” Christel looked at Mock in despair. “Would you still like to have a daughter like that?”

“One evening doesn’t cancel out a whole lifetime.” Even though Mock said these words quickly, he hoped the girl had heard the negative in his reply. “I don’t know what things are like between you on a day-to-day basis …”

Mock offered her his arm. After a moment’s hesitation, Christel took him gently by the elbow. They circled the pond.

“You beat up my friend,” she said quietly. “I ought to hate you for that. And yet I’m going to tell you how things are with my father on a day-to-day basis … He’s possessive. Every boy I get friendly with, everyone who visits me, he considers a rival … Once he told me that after my mother’s death — I was two at the time — I jumped for joy … I was happy my mother had died, my alleged rival … Note that … He always has books by Freud on his desk. In one of them he’s boldly underlined the father of psychology’s definition of the Electra complex. Entire pages scribbled on with horrible, smudged ink …”

“Try to understand your father.” Mock felt uncomfortable to be so near the girl. “Young ladies ought to meet young men in the company of chaperones. They shouldn’t be taking part in gatherings of drunken, fired-up commoners.”

Christel let go of Mock’s arm and looked around absent-mindedly.

“Please give me a cigarette,” she said.

Mock offered her his cigarette-case and struck a match.

“Men always strike matches towards themselves, did you know that? You did too. You’re one hundred percent male.”

“Anyone would feel one hundred percent male, walking through a park on a fine night in the company of a young and beautiful lady.” Mock suddenly realized he was courting his best friend’s daughter again. “I apologize, Miss Ruhtgard, I didn’t want to say that. I’m supposed to be acting as your Cerberus now, not your Romeo.”

“But the latter is decidedly nicer for any woman,” laughed Miss Ruhtgard.

“Is that right?” Mock asked, blessing the dark shadows for concealing his blushes. Feverishly he searched for an apt pun, a humorous retort, but his memory let him down. Minutes passed. Miss Ruhtgard smoked her cigarette awkwardly and smiled at him, waiting for him to say something. He was seized by anger — anger at himself and at this chit of a girl who was wrapping him around her little finger. What was most infuriating was the fact that the role suited him.

“Stop it, my dear,” he raised his voice a little, forsaking the formal “Miss Ruhtgard”. “You’re not a woman. You’re still a child.”

“Is that so?” she asked playfully. “I stopped being a child in Hamburg. Perhaps you’d like to know the circumstances?”

“There’s something else I’d like to know,” Mock said, in spite of himself. “Are you aware of any of Alfred Sorg’s friends dressing up and putting themselves at the disposal of rich ladies?”

“What does that mean, ‘at the disposal’?” Miss Ruhtgard asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m still a child …”

Mock stood still and wiped the sweat from his brow. He moved away from his companion a little, aware that too many cigarettes did nothing to improve the smell of his breath. To his annoyance, Christel moved closer and her eyes grew enormous and naive.

“What does that mean, ‘at the disposal’?” she asked again.

“Do you know of four young men” — Mock stepped away from the girl again and lost his self-control — “who dress up as sailors and pleasure rich ladies? They work with your friend Alfred Sorg. Maybe Alfred dresses up and screws ladies too? Does he dress up like that for you?”

Mock bit his tongue. It was too late. Silence. A chill wind blew from the pond. The lights in South Park Restaurant began to go out. The maid was waiting for the first glow of the pink-fingered maiden before going for a walk with Bert the dog. Corpses hung on trees and floated in the water. Mock felt terrible and did not look at Miss Ruhtgard.

“You’re just like my father. He’s always asking who I’ve just screwed.” Anger had turned her face to stone. “I’m going to tell him right now that you’re interested too. I’ll give him an account of our entire conversation. Then he’ll understand that people don’t stop being men and women just because they wear the words ‘father’ or ‘daughter’ on their chest. Even you, usually so self-controlled, got carried away and gloated over the word ‘pleasure’. I thought you were completely different …”

“I’m sorry.” Mock smoked the last of his cigarettes. “I’ve used inappropriate words when talking to you, Miss Ruhtgard. Please forgive me. Don’t tell your father about our conversation. It would put a strain on our friendship.”

“You ought to put an announcement in the Schlesiche Zeitung,” Christel said thoughtfully. “It would say: ‘I dispel your illusions, Eberhard Mock’.”

Mock sat on a bench and in an effort to control himself called to mind the first verses of Lucretius’ poem “De rerum natura”, about which he had once written an essay. When he arrived at the lines describing Mars’ and Venus’ amorous rapture, he was overcome with fury. Suddenly he became aware that he was not admiring Lucretius’ hexameters at all, but imagining instead how the lovers were moving against each other, tangled up in Vulcan’s net.

“Am I to feel guilty for exposing that creature Sorg to you?” His voice hissed with annoyance. “That I spared you from having to visit a doctor of venereal diseases? You don’t have to worry about catching syphilis, do you? You’ve got one of the so-called bachelor disease’s most eminent specialists close at hand! Am I to have scruples for having shown you that your knight in shining armour is, de facto, a slave in the bedroom?”

“How typical!” Miss Ruhtgard shouted. “A knight in shining armour! What a stereotype! Can’t you understand that not every woman is waiting for a fairy-tale prince, but for someone who will …”

“Give them a good screwing,” Mock finished furiously.

“That’s not what I had in mind,” Miss Ruhtgard countered in a low voice. “I wanted to say: ‘who will love them’.” She stubbed out her cigarette on a tree. “Fred is a nice boy, but I know he’s a cad. You haven’t shattered any of my illusions about him, but about you. I opened my heart to you, but you didn’t want to listen. You gave me some beautiful lines about chaperones. You didn’t want … All you wanted was to reprimand and warn me. A policeman through and through. When will you stop being a policeman? When you’re dead? Goodnight, policeman, sir. Please don’t see me home. I think I prefer the company of drowned and hanging bodies to yours.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

A QUARTER TO NINE IN THE MORNING

Mock woke up in detention cell number three. Morning light edged through the small, barred window. Sounds of the usual bustle reached him from the Police Praesidium courtyard. A horse snorted, glass smashed against the cobblestones, one man swore a thousand curses at another. Mock pulled himself upright on his bunk and rubbed his eyes. He was thirsty. To his joy he spied a jug standing on the stool next to the bunk. A strong smell of mint wafted from it. The door opened and Achim Buhrack stood there. In his hand he wielded a towel and a razor.

“You’re priceless, Buhrack,” Mock said. “You remember everything. To wake me up on time, the razor, even the mint …”

“You don’t need it today, I see.” Buhrack’s eyes expressed surprise. “Today, you’re not …”

“I’m not going to need it,” Mock took the jug from Buhrack, “not today nor ever again. I’m going to stop drinking and I’m not going to have any more hangovers.” From another jug he poured some water into a basin, then took the towel and razor from the guard. “You don’t believe me, do you, Buhrack? You’ve heard a lot of promises like that, haven’t you?”

“Oh, many times over …” the guard muttered, and he left before Mock could thank him.

The Criminal Assistant took off his shirt, washed his armpits, sat on the bunk and reached into his pocket for a packet of talcum powder. He plunged his hand in it and rubbed the talc under his arms, then generously sprinkled some into his shoes. He spent the next ten minutes scraping the stubble from his face, which was no easy task seeing as the blade was blunt. Nor did it help that he had to use ordinary soap, which dried instantly and tightened his skin. Reluctantly he slipped on his shirt from the day before. “Father must be worried,” he thought. He imagined his father hopping on one leg with a sock hanging off the other foot. “Always knocking it back,” he heard his voice nag. All of a sudden Mock longed for a bottle and the mute, empty night that followed a drinking binge. He pulled on his shoes and left the cell. He shook Buhrack’s hand warmly and made his way down the gloomy corridor through the morning hubbub coming from the cells: the groaning and the clanging of mess tins, the yawning and the passing of wind. He was glad to leave the detention wing and slowly climbed the stairs, wondering how the gunge which filled his lungs and head would react to the first cigarette of the day.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Everyone had arrived at Muhlhaus’ office punctually. Muhlhaus’ secretary, von Gallasen, stood a pot of hot tea and nine glasses in high metal holders on the table. The September sun burned the necks of the detectives sitting with their backs to the window and illuminated the streams of tobacco smoke. Mock stood in the doorway with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, scrutinizing those present. He felt a sharp pain in his chest. Smolorz was missing.

“What are you doing here, Mock?” Muhlhaus freed his mouth of excess smoke. “You’re supposed to be working for the Vice Department. Yesterday morning I terminated your transfer to the Murder Commission. Could it be that you’ve forgotten? Have you reported to Councillor Ilssheimer today?”

“Commissioner, sir,” Mock said, sitting down uninvited between Reinert and Kleinfeld. “In this world of ours, people have killed in the name of God and the emperor. People commit murder with a sovereign’s name on their lips. Over the past few days people have been murdered in this city in my name. The name Eberhard Mock has become this swine’s trademark. He has murdered six people and perhaps made an orphan of a little child who wept in my arms last night. Forgive me, please, but today I don’t want to book pimps or check the medical records of whores. I’m going to sit here with you and think about how to get rid of that bastard who is murdering in my name.”

There was silence. Mock and Muhlhaus measured each other. The others stared over their steaming glasses of tea at the chief of the Murder Commission. Muhlhaus put his pipe aside, scattering shreds of blonde Virginia tobacco over his files.

“The person to decide who sits here,” he said quietly, “is myself and myself alone. It is no secret that I consider you to be an excellent policeman. That I want to see you in my commission. But after the Four Sailors case. Only then.”

Muhlhaus poked a cleaning skewer into his pipe and twisted it forcefully into the stem.

“Take a rest, go away somewhere.” Unlike the expression in his eyes, the Commissioner’s tone was exceptionally gentle. “Just for a while. Until this investigation is concluded. I don’t want any more dead bodies, so you can’t question anybody else … How do we know that the swine isn’t going to think up something else? … Or start killing everyone you talk to? … When I’ve locked him up, I’ll gladly welcome you amongst my men. I’ve spoken to Councillor Ilssheimer. He has willingly agreed to your transfer. But now you’ve got to go away. Don’t think you won’t be helping us in the investigation. Doctor Kaznicz is going to talk to you again, and you might remember some clue as to the identity of the murderer.”

Mock studied his colleagues around the table. All were contemplating the colour of the hot drink in their glasses. They had been taught to obey their superiors. They were unfamiliar with words of dissent, and they felt no guilt; it was a long time since a child had wept into their starched collars. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself, Mock. You don’t deserve any pity.”

Mock remained seated. “We all know that the murderer began with a spectacular crime, and then murdered two more people whom I had questioned. Listen to me, gentlemen! I propose …”

“We’re not interested in what you propose, Mock,” Muhlhaus interrupted him. “Are you going to let us get on with our work, or do I have to throw you out? Do I have to take disciplinary action?”

Mock stood up and approached Muhlhaus.

“First take action against your secretary, von Gallasen. He’s made a mistake too. He brought two glasses too many. There are seven of you. Smolorz isn’t here yet, and I’m no longer here.” He went to the table and with a swipe knocked over the two empty glasses, which smashed on the stone floor. He bowed and left the office of the chief of the Murder Commission.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

HALF PAST NINE IN THE MORNING

The windows of Criminal Councillor Josef Ilssheimer’s large office looked out onto Ursulinenstrasse, or strictly speaking onto the gable roof of the Stadt Leipzig Hotel. Ilssheimer liked to observe one of the clerks working there who, in his spare moments, would arrange coloured pencils in a fixed and unchangeable order in his drawer, and then close his eyes, randomly pull one out, and draw a line on a piece of paper to see whether he had chosen the right one.

Ilssheimer was observing this spatial memory exercise now, but he tired of it more quickly than usual and remembered that Eberhard Mock had been sitting at his round table for a good few minutes, waiting in silence for orders or instructions.

Ilssheimer cast his eyes around his office, cluttered from floor to ceiling with files of cases which the Vice Department of Breslau’s Police Praesidium had conducted under him over the past twenty years. He was proud of the order which reigned there and, despite the suggestions of successive police presidents, he would not allow the material to be moved to the main archives located on the ground floor.

“I’m sorry,” Ilssheimer began, “that you’re not on the Four Sailors case any more, Mock. It can’t be pleasant for you.”

“Thank you for the words of consolation.”

“But you won’t be removed from the investigation altogether.” Ilssheimer was somewhat offended that Mock had not addressed him as “Councillor sir”. “You’ll be talking to Doctor Kaznicz. He’ll draw information out of you which will help Muhlhaus apprehend the murderer.”

“I’ve already lived through one psychoanalytical session with Doctor Kaznicz and it didn’t give us anything.”

“You’re a little impatient, Mock.” Ilssheimer leaned over the man he was addressing and was disappointed; he did not detect the smell of alcohol. He began to stroll around the office, hands clasped behind his back. “And now listen to me carefully. These are your official instructions. Tomorrow you go to Bad Kudowa with Doctor Kaznicz. You’ll stay there for as long as is necessary …”

“I don’t want anything to do with Doctor Kaznicz.” Mock sensed that a heated and painful argument was going to be inevitable. “I don’t want to see him. Do you really believe, Councillor sir, that a man whom I neither trust nor like is going to draw anything out of me …”

“I understand you perfectly, Mock.” Ilssheimer blushed on hearing his title. “The doctor is equally aware of your dislike for him. That’s why he’s decided to change his method …”

“Ah, that’s interesting,” muttered Mock. “So he’s not going to talk to me about the time I stole apples from a stall any more, and he’s not going to ask what I felt when I squirted people passing under my window with a water siphon when I was six?”

“No.” Mock’s words clearly amused the Criminal Councillor. “Doctor Kaznicz is going to subject you to hypnosis. He’s a specialist in the field.”

“I don’t doubt it. But let him subject somebody else to his methods. I’m a police officer and I want to conduct a normal investigation,” Mock grew more and more worked up with every word. “People I’ve come into contact with on the Four Sailors case are dying. But I don’t have to talk to anyone personally; I don’t have to question anyone at all. Somebody else can do that … I can do it over the telephone … I’ve got an excellent and simple idea …”

“Can’t you understand, Mock, that nobody is intending to argue with you? I repeat, I’ve given you official instructions and I don’t care if you’re going to cry or stamp your feet in fury at the sight of Kaznicz.”

Silence descended. Ilssheimer glanced out of the window at the clerk exercising his memory. He decided to continue.

“You drink a great deal, Mock.” He rested his head on his hands and stared at his subordinate. There had been a time when criminals had writhed under Ilssheimer’s glare. “Many policemen abuse alcohol and this is tolerated by their superiors. But not me!” he yelled. “I do not tolerate alcoholism, Mock! Alcoholism will lead to your dismissal! Do you understand, God damn it?”

Ilssheimer fixed his black eyes on Mock. In the past, his eyes had burned holes in the petrified consciences of bandits. Mock’s faintly ironic expression told him that those times had long passed.

Mock stood up and allowed the wave of anger that gathered within him to settle. For the first time in many years he felt he had an advantage over Ilssheimer; one word from him could destroy the chief of the Vice Department. Mock clasped his hands behind his back and walked over to the window. “It’s not going to work, it’s not going to come off,” he thought, adopting an attitude of defensive pessimism. He went to the hat-stand, took the chief’s bowler and turned it around in his hands. Brand new, made by Hitz, as the inner ribbon informed him.

“You’ve bought yourself a new bowler,” he said, purposely omitting Ilssheimer’s title. “Where’s the old one?”

“What’s it to you, Mock? Are you mad? Stop trying to change the subject!” Ilssheimer did not move a muscle.

“I’ve got your old hat,” Mock said, gloating over his advantage. “I found it in August’s room at the South Park Hotel.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ilssheimer’s eyes grew pensive and distant. “As a police officer from the Vice Department I questioned August Strehl, a male prostitute… It’s true … I must have left my hat there …”

“Not only your hat. You also left indelible memories in August’s heart. Indelible to such a degree,” Mock said, without believing that his bluff would work, “that August wrote them down. Very interesting reminiscences …” Mock rested his hands on Ilssheimer’s desk and said very slowly: “Don’t you think, Councillor sir, that Doctor Kaznicz is going to be a little short of time over the next few days? And besides, did you know, Councillor sir, that I’m not particularly susceptible to hypnosis?”

Ilssheimer glanced at the clerk who, having failed to pull out the right pencil this time, saw his mistake and threw a file at the wall in fury.

“Indeed,” Ilssheimer said, without changing his expression one iota. “Doctor Kaznicz has been very busy of late …”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

NOON

Wirth and Zupitza parked their Horch near a meringue shop not far from the university. They got out and set off towards the eighteenth-century Police Praesidium building, stopping on the way at the Opiela Inn so that Zupitza could buy some Silano cigarettes. In the vestibule of the Praesidium, a solid barrier prevented anyone from climbing the stairs. Appended to it was an arrow which very clearly directed any visitors straight to the duty room, where the two caretakers, Handke and Bender, sat with grim expressions and bristly moustaches. One of them would telephone to announce any arrivals he was not personally familiar with, while the other would bore into visitors with suspicious eyes, as if X-rays radiated from his pupils. They did not stop Wirth and Zupitza, nor pierce them with X-ray eyes. They never did so when the arrival of an outsider had been announced by a high-ranking police official. Looking at the short dandy and the tall, gloomy bruiser, Bender and Handke ascertained that the descriptions Councillor Ilssheimer had give them an hour earlier were very fitting.

“I know those mugs from somewhere,” Handke muttered, observing the duo as they disappeared behind the glazed doors of the main lobby.

“We know a lot of criminal mugs,” Bender replied. “Goes with the job …”

Wirth and Zupitza crossed the courtyard and went through the gate, to where a police van had just arrived from Ursulinenstrasse. The guard opening the gate eyed them suspiciously. They climbed the winding stairs to the second floor and stood outside a heavy door with a plate that read:

DEPARTMENT IIIB

DIRECTOR: CRIMINAL COUNCILLOR DR JOSEPH ILSSHEIMER

POLICE OFFICERS: CRIMINAL ASSISTANT EBERHARD MOCK

CRIMINAL SECRETARIES: HERBERT DOMAGALLA AND HANS MARAUN

CRIMINAL SERGEANTS: FRANZ LEMBCKE AND KURT SMOLORZ

Zupitza knocked hard. A few seconds later the door was opened by a thirty-year-old with thinning hair who, without asking any questions, led them down a narrow corridor. Before long they found themselves in a large office with three desks. A sleepy Mock sprawled at one of them, another stood empty, and the man who had shown them in sat down at the third next to a door with the nameplate dr joseph ilssheimer, and carried on with his interrupted telephone conversation.

Mock indicated two heavy chairs to the newcomers. They sat down in silence.

“Hot, isn’t it?” Mock managed the unoriginal greeting. “I’ve a favour to ask, Domagalla,” he then said to the balding man on the telephone. “Could you bring my guests some soda water?”

Domagalla nodded with no sign of surprise, replaced the receiver and left the room.

“Now listen to me carefully.” Mock got up from his desk and angrily rubbed his poorly shaven cheek. “You’re forming an investigative team with me. Apart from us, there’s Smolorz. As from tomorrow our base will be your office, where you’re holding the whore Kitty and that waiter from the Hungarian King. We’ll meet there for a briefing every day at nine in the morning.” Mock glared at Zupitza. “What are you laughing at? That you’re going to play at being a policeman? Explain it to him, Wirth!”

Wirth made some movements with his hands, and Zupitza turned serious.

“When we’ve finished today’s briefing,” continued Mock, “we’ll go and find Smolorz. When we’ve found him, we’ll separate. Smolorz is going to get on with the tasks I’ve given him. I’m going to go for a stroll and you’re to follow, watching carefully to see if anybody is tailing me. The minute you see someone suspicious, you pull his arse in. Understood?” When Wirth nodded, Mock began to bark instructions. “I’m going to Norbert Risse’s floating brothel. You know the ship I mean? I’ll question the boss there. Then you and your men are not to let him out of your sight. You’re to tail him without fail, and discreetly protect him at the same time. We’re setting him up as bait. Somebody will want to kill him. You’re to catch that person and then hold him at your place. And then I’m going to want to get to know him. Everything clear?”

Domagalla entered the room with a soda siphon and some glasses. He stood them on the empty desk, then sat down at his own and spread out the Breslauer Zeitung in front of him. The headlines on the front page shrieked: DISTURBANCES AND FIGHTING ON BRESLAU’S RING. Nobody felt like drinking anything.

“What did you tell your pal a moment ago?” Mock asked abruptly.

“Not to air his fangs needlessly,” Wirth replied.

“And that’s all?”

“No, there was something else …” Wirth hesitated.

“Well, go on!” Mock said impatiently.

“I said policeman, bandit, sometimes it’s all the same.”

“And that’s God’s own truth,” Domagalla added from behind his newspaper.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

HALF PAST TWELVE IN THE AFTERNOON

Caretakers Bender and Handke took their time deciding whether or not to allow the latest arrival in. It was not the man himself who made them doubtful — they knew him well — but the state he was in. Criminal Sergeant Kurt Smolorz did not stink of alcohol, but swayed on his legs and smiled like a moron. They detained Smolorz in their duty room, placed a steaming mug of tea in front of him and stood at the barrier deliberating quietly.

“He’s fixed his hangover with a beer,” Handke muttered to Bender. “But why doesn’t he stink of booze?”

“Damned if I know,” Bender replied. “Maybe he’s eaten something. I’ve heard parsley can kill any smell.”

“Yes.” Handke was relieved. “He must have stuffed himself with parsley. Besides, we haven’t disobeyed our instructions prohibiting drunken policemen. This one’s not drunk, only a bit …”

“You’re right,” Bender’s face brightened. “How are we to know whether a policeman’s drunk or just in a good mood? Only by his breath. And his doesn’t smell of booze …”

“Best phone for Mock,” Handke said glumly. “Not Ilssheimer. That pain in the arse can’t stand alcohol. But Mock’s our man. He can decide what to do with his friend.”

As they resolved, so they did. A moment later Mock tore his subordinate away from his mug of tea, discreetly led him by the arm out of the duty room, turning right and down the corridor to the toilets. One of the cubicles was occupied, as indicated by the sign. Mock and Smolorz went into another. They stood in silence, waiting for the neighbouring cubicle to become vacant. After a while they heard the grating of the cistern’s handle and flushing water. The cubicle door clattered, the door to the toilets clattered, Mock’s teeth grated in anger.

“Where were you, you shit?” he growled. “Where did you get so pissed?”

Smolorz sat on the toilet and stared at the brown wainscoting on the walls. He said nothing. Mock grabbed him by the lapels, dragged him to his feet and pinned him to the wall. He saw laughing, bloodshot eyes, damp nostrils and crooked teeth; it was the first time he had noticed that Smolorz was ugly. Very ugly.

“Where were you, you son of a whore?” roared Mock.

A smile stretched Smolorz’s pink skin and his pale freckles receded. Grains of powder showed white against his moustache and there was a faint smell of a woman’s expensive perfume. Smolorz was repulsive. Mock raised his hand but then lowered it a second later. He left the cubicle, slamming the door with such force that the sign above the door handle jumped to OCCUPIED. Smolorz tried to open the door but the lock was badly buckled and would not move. He hammered. Mock returned to the locked cubicle. His highly polished shoes rang out loudly. Smolorz’s hand emerged from beneath the door and a business card appeared on the floor.

“That’s where I’ve been,” echoed the voice of the imprisoned man, and then he produced another business card. “And this is where the murdered sailors lived.”

Mock gathered up the two cards. Besides the printed text, both bore a handwritten note. On the first, which was decorated with a coat of arms, were the words: BARONESS MATHILDE VON BROCKENHEIM UND BIELAU, WAGNERSTRASSE 13, and instructions had been written on the reverse in a woman’s rounded writing: “Please visit me today in my boudoir, otherwise the person delivering this letter will lose his job here.” On the back of the other card, which was printed: DR NORBERT RISSE, ENTERTAINMENT AND DANCING, THE WoLSUNG, Mock recognized Smolorz’s uneven hand: “Four sailors, Gartenstrasse 46”. He left the toilets and lit a cigarette. He made off briskly, sensing that his lungs and head were reacting positively to his tenth nicotine hit of the day. As he passed the duty room, he said to the caretakers:

“Smolorz is going to stay in the lav for a while. He’s not feeling too good.”

“Goes with the job …” muttered Bender.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

A QUARTER TO ONE IN THE AFTERNOON

Mock stepped into his office waving Norbert Risse’s business card. Wirth and Zupitza were still sitting in their heavy chairs, and Zupitza was wielding the siphon and squirting soda water into the tall glasses. He handed one to Wirth and another to Mock, who downed the contents in one gulp and threw Risse’s business card on the table.

“That’s where we’re going.” He pointed a stubby finger at the address Smolorz had scribbled down. “You’ll do exactly as I said, except for one thing: you’re not going to tail Risse, you’re going to tail whoever it is I question at this address, understood? The caretaker, for example, or one of the neighbours.”

Angry invectives could be heard issuing from Ilssheimer’s office. Mock approached the door and began to eavesdrop.

“What sort of order is this, damn it!” Ilssheimer’s voice was harsh and swollen with anger. “You’re a police pen-pusher, Domagalla. You ought to keep our archives in order!”

“Councillor sir, that whore could have had the tattoo done recently.” Mock sensed determination in Domagalla’s voice. “Our files are ordered alphabetically by surname, not according to distinguishing marks.”

“You know nothing about our filing!” Ilssheimer yelled. “I drew up various sub-files myself, including one for distinguishing marks. At Muhlhaus’ request. If there was a problem identifying the body of some prostitute we could always refer to the file. And now some whore has committed suicide, so Muhlhaus turns to me and says: ‘Look into your excellent archive and find me a whore with the sun tattooed on her backside.’ And what? I have to tell him: ‘Unfortunately, Councillor sir, I don’t have one like that amongst my files — my archive’s a mess.’”

Domagalla said something so quietly Mock did not hear.

“Damn it!” Ilssheimer shouted. “Don’t tell me the whore came here just to make a guest appearance during the war, and that’s why she’s not in our archive! I worked here in the war and I kept the register in good order!”

Domagalla mumbled something else.

“Domagalla …” Mock glued his ear to the door. Ilssheimer was hissing, a sign that he was at his wits’ end. “I know for a fact that the prison archives have accurate descriptions of all tattoos …”

Mock heard nothing more. “No, it’s impossible,” he thought, “it definitely isn’t Johanna, Wohsedt’s mistress. She didn’t make any ‘guest appearances’, she was a Penelope waiting for her Odysseus. And it was only when he didn’t return from the war that she took to prostitution. She certainly wasn’t in some prison getting a tattoo done on her backside.”

He decided to adopt the method which had proved so effective during his talk with Ilssheimer that day. “That swine must have got at her,” he thought. “He must have killed her, gouged her eyes out and hung her, gloating at the sight of her suffering; first he would have told her to write a letter to me saying it would save her, and then he would have broken her arms and legs, like he did the sailors’.” Mock was invaded with such evocative images that they horrified him. He shuddered, thinking, “Death has looked me in the eye.”

He knocked, and hearing a loud growl which he interpreted as “Come in”, he entered his chief’s office.

“Nolens volens I overheard your conversation, gentlemen,” he said. “I apologize, Councillor sir, but would you mind telling me a bit more about this suicide?”

“Tell him, Domagalla,” sighed Ilssheimer.

“Criminal Secretary von Gallasen phoned me,” Domagalla said. “He’d been sent to a suicide. Probably a prostitute, judging by her clothes and make-up. On her backside was a prison tattoo of a sun with the writing: ‘You’ll get hot with me.’ I’m just looking through our files to speed up identification of the body.”

“Where did this happen?” Mock asked.

“On Marthastrasse. Probably jumped off a roof.”

“How old was she?”

“Looking at her — well over thirty.”

The sigh which issued from Mock’s lips made the leaves of the palm in the corner of Ilssheimer’s office tremble. A current of air set them moving again as Mock closed the door behind him.

“We’re off,” Mock told Wirth and Zupitza. “To Marthastrasse.”

“Not Gartenstrasse, as on the business card?” Wirth asked.

“No,” Mock said, irritated. “Von Gallasen is very young. A twenty-something-year-old prostitute, ravaged by life, could look forty to him.”

Wirth understood nothing, but he asked no more questions.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

ONE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

Mock sat in the Horch next to Wirth, cursing the September heat. The dust rising from the cobblestones irritated him, as did the odour of the horses and their manure, and the threads of gossamer that stuck to his stubbly cheeks. When irritated or perturbed, he generally called to mind passages from writers of antiquity, which he had analysed years earlier as a schoolboy and student. He would recite the lofty and concise phrases of Seneca that he had once learned by heart, Homer’s fleeting hexameters, and the sonorous endings of sentences by Cicerone.

He squeezed his eyes shut and saw himself in his uniform, sitting in the front row at secondary school, listening to the simple, crystalline sounds of ancient Roman speech. Into the din of the street broke his Latin teacher, Otton Moravjetz, his mighty voice reciting a painfully relevant passage from Seneca’s On Solace: “Quid est enim novi hominem mori, cuius tota vita nihil aliud, quam ad mortem iter est?”^†

Mock opened his eyes. He did not want to hear anything about death. At the newspaper kiosk on the corner of Feldstrasse and Am Ohlauufer, a little boy handed the vendor a small pile of banknotes and received in return a copy of Die Woche with its children’s supplement.

Ten-year-old Eberhard Mock runs to the kiosk at Waldenburg railway station, a one-mark coin for Sunday’s Die Wochechildren’s supplement clasped in his hand. Soon he’ll be reading about Billy the Kid’s adventures in the Wild West; soon he’ll find out what happened to Doctor Volkmere, the explorer. Will he escape the cannibals’ cauldron? The newsvendor shakes his head. “None left. Sold out. Go and look somewhere else.” Little Ebi runs hopefully to the kiosk near his school; soon he’ll buy it, read it — but again the apologetic smile, a shake of the head. Ebi drags his feet home. Now he has learned to think negatively. You have to keep repeating to yourself: it’s not going to work, it’ll all end in a fiasco, I’m not going to read about Billy the Kid’s adventures, I’m not going to find out what’s going to happen to Doctor Volkmere.

Thirty-six-year-old Eberhard Mock found it difficult to breathe the Breslau dust and was amazed at the depth of his childhood reflections. “Defensive pessimism is the best attitude,” he thought, “because the only disappointment you can suffer will be a pleasant one.”

Comforted, Mock observed a horse-drawn wagon carrying barrels and crates marked: WILLY SIMSON. REAL FRANCISCAN BEER FROM BAVARIA, which was blocking the way into Marthastrasse. Two workers in soft caps and waistcoats were unloading the beer onto the platform of a three-wheeled cart. Mock imagined it to be a wagon belonging to the Forensic Medical Department, and instead of frothy drink in barrels it was Johanna’s body beneath the tarpaulin. Her corpse’s eyes are a sea of blood, a little girl and a howling dog are at her side. The girl tugs at one of her hands. If she could read she would learn from the piece of paper held tightly in the dead woman’s fingers that she had died because of a certain Eberhard Mock, who should own up to some mistake but does not want to, which means that others will die.

They found themselves in Marthastrasse, a quiet little street lined with high tenements. Mock patted Wirth on the shoulder, indicating that he should stop the car. They were about a hundred yards from the crowd milling on the pavement outside number ten, near Just’s Inn which, as Mock knew only too well, was accessed by way of the yard. The Criminal Assistant got out of the Horch while Wirth and Zupitza were instructed to stay inside. He went through the gate, showing one of the uniformed policemen his identification, and began to climb the stairs. On each side of the staircase were large rectangular alcoves from which three sets of double doors led to three apartments. The windows in these peculiar shared hallways, as well as all the kitchen windows, gave onto the ventilation pit. This was how apartments for less wealthy tenants were now being built — they were cheap, of poor quality and very cramped. Two men stood at the windows on the ground floor; one, a uniformed policeman on whose enormous head sat a shako adorned with a star, was answering the questions of the other, an elegantly dressed young man. Mock shook the hand of both. He knew them well, having seen the policeman in uniform several months earlier, and the civilian only that morning. Officer Robert Stieg was on the beat in that district, and Gerhard von Gallasen was Muhlhaus’ assistant. Mock peered into the pit, at the bottom of which lay a small bundle covered with a sheet. “It was once a woman,” he thought hard. “It had a young child and a boxer bitch.”

“Do you know her name yet?” Mock asked (and then told himself, “She must have been called Johanna.”). “Were her eyes gouged out?”

“We don’t know her name,” von Gallasen replied, surprised that Mock had shaken hands with an ordinary beat officer. “None of the gawpers knew her. Your colleague Domagalla has dug up the address of a pimp living in the vicinity …”

“They’re just bringing him in,” said Officer Stieg, pointing to two uniformed policemen and a short man with wispy blond hair and a top hat who was traipsing up the steep stairs between them.

“I asked you whether her eyes had been gouged out,” Mock said, and his thoughts replied: “Yes, he stuck a bayonet into her eye socket and twisted it a couple of times.”

“No … Of course not … The eyes are untouched,” muttered Officer Stieg. “Tieske, tell the character in the top hat to have a good look at her, then bring him here! At the double!” he yelled to the uniformed policemen.

“Stieg, please tell me everything ab ovo!” Mock said, irritating von Gallasen who was higher than Stieg in rank, height and birth, and therefore believed that he ought to have been asked first.

“Ab what?” Stieg said, having no idea what was expected of him.

“From the beginning,” Mock explained. “Didn’t you learn Latin at school?”

“This morning, Christianne Seelow from number twenty-four on the fourth floor,” Officer Stieg began, “was hanging out her washing on the roof. A gust of wind blew one of her sheets down into the ventilation pit. She went downstairs and discovered the body. The caretaker, Alfred Titz, ran to the police station. That’s it. Do you want to see her?”

Mock shook his head and imagined Johanna’s body covered by a sheet blown down from the roof by a merciful wind. The blond man in the top hat appeared next to them, evidently not pleased at the sight of Mock.

“Do you know her, Hoyer?” Mock asked, and in his mind he heard the pimp reply: ‘Yes, her name is Johanna. I don’t know her surname.”

“No, Commissioner sir,” Hoyer answered. “She wasn’t from our district. I once saw her in the inn by the yard, but my girls soon drove her out. We don’t like competition.”

“What, was she so pretty?” asked Mock.

“She wasn’t bad,” Hoyer said, smiling at his lewd recollections. “To be honest, someone could have made quite a profit out of her … I wanted to take her on, but my girls didn’t like her. They teased her.” Hoyer smiled again, this time at Mock. “I’ve got six girls to look after. Sometimes I give in. You can’t argue with all six at once …”

“Fine,” Mock muttered, and tipped his bowler hat in farewell. He was bursting with joy. It was not Johanna. “Defensive pessimism is the best possible attitude to have in the world,” he thought, “because is there anything worse than unpleasant disappointment, than a painful surprise?”

“Teased her? How?”

Mock heard von Gallasen question Hoyer and thought: “The lad wants to ask at least one question. He likes interrogating people. One day it’ll bore him.”

“They called her names.”

“Such as?” asked the novice detective. Mock paused on the stairs to hear the answer.

“Eczema,” laughed Hoyer.

3. IX.1919

Recently my thoughts have been focussing on an anticipation of events. This evening as I passed a shop selling clocks, I caught sight of a painting advertising a timepiece on a strap which you fasten around your wrist. These watches are still a novelty, and one often sees them advertised in the windows of department stores. The black strap in the painting encircled a man’s suntanned wrist. It immediately reminded me of a woman’s leg sheathed in a stocking. The black watch strap reminded me of a suspender. A short while later I went into a restaurant and ordered dinner. The waiter discreetly placed the business card of a brothel on my table. On it was a drawing of a young woman wearing a tight dress and displaying legs in stockings with suspenders. I ate my supper and approached the tenements into which the prostitute I was tailing the day before yesterday had disappeared. I waited. She emerged at about midnight and winked meaningfully at me. A moment later we were in a droschka, and a quarter of an hour after that at the place where we bring offerings to the souls of our ancestors. She undressed, and for a generous sum allowed me to tie her up. She did not protest even when I gagged her. She had terrible eczema on her neck. This constituted the fulfilment of anticipation. After all, yesterday I offered up to science Director W., aged sixty, who had identical eczema. And his was on the neck too!

After a while I began my lecture. She listened, and suddenly she began to reek of fear. I moved away from her and continued my subtle interpretation of two passages from Augsteiner. I’ll summarize what I told her here:

Incarnations of the soul, writes Augsteiner, appear in a space that is hostile to them. The soul, which in itself is good because it is identical to the concept of man, because he himself is eo ipso the effluence of the element of the soul, which ex definitione cannot be evil because ex definitione it is opposed to that which pertains to substance, ergo bodily, ergobad; and so the soul becomes incarnate where the bad element finds expression, in order to balance out the attributes of evil which dwell within it. In this way, the emanation of the soul brings about a natural harmony, namely deity. And now for a partial, empirical confirmation of Augsteiner’s theses. The soul of that vile Director W., aged sixty, appeared in the place where he became a victim of torment — in this very house, on the ground floor. And it is this soul which indicated where Director W. had hidden the letter to his wife, deceitful yet protesting his innocence. This does not tally with Augsteiner’s views because the soul remained deceitful — just as it had done in this man during his lifetime, so the soul continued to do evil because it convinced the wife that her husband was no shameless adulterer, but an angel. But the soul destroys the evil in the otherwise correct suspicions of Director W.’s wife, allowing her to be steeped in blissful ignorance. Blissful ignorance is the absence of evil, ergo — is good.

Using the prostitute as an example, I wanted to check whether the soul is more intelligent than I who direct it, or whether — according to Augsteiner — the elementum spirituale can become independent of its conjurer. And here is the experiment I carried out. Once I had induced a sense of horror and dread in the woman, I broke her arms and legs one at a time, and each time I said that her suffering was due to Eberhard Mock who lives in Klein Tschansch, at Plesserstrasse 24. I didn’t gouge out her eyes because I wanted to see the fear in them, and the desire for revenge. Besides I had another reason not to do so: I wanted her soul to remember me well. To whom would it come? To me, who tortured her, or to the man who is the main cause of her death? I’m interested to know whether I have power over her soul, and whether I can direct it to the house of the man who is our greatest evil. If manifestations of spiritual energy occur at this address, it will be proof that I have power over the elementum spirituale. I will be the creator of a new theory of materialization. A theory which, we must add, is true because it has been proven.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

HALF PAST ONE IN THE AFTERNOON

The cocaine had already ceased to have an effect on Kurt Smolorz’s nervous system. The jester, who a moment earlier had been in fits of laughter at being imprisoned in a toilet, was now trying to think of a way to get himself out. First he resolved to let anyone entering the toilets know of his predicament. Minutes passed, then a quarter of an hour, half an hour, but all the policemen who needed to answer a call of nature stubbornly avoided using the toilets on the ground floor. Smolorz closed the toilet seat and cursed the two people responsible for his pitiful state: Mock, and the person who had designed the toilets. By making the distance between the floor and the bottom of the cubicle door only ten centimetres, and by installing a partition made up of eight small panes of glass between the top of the door and ceiling, the latter had immobilized Smolorz for longer.

Smolorz looked at his watch and realized he had been sitting in his prison for over an hour. This meant that Mock had not informed the caretakers about the door being stuck, which in turn meant that he had decided to punish his subordinate. The thought made blood rush to his head. At that moment his wife, Ursula, was no doubt dishing out lunch to the two little Smolorzes, not knowing whether their father was alive or whether he was lying in some dark side street, or on his deathbed in a hospital … He could have gone home in the early hours of the morning, slipped beneath the warm duvet and cuddled up to his wife’s back. Instead he had snorted white powder up his nose. Cocaine had robbed him of all feelings for his family and changed him into a laughing fool, who wallowed in the Baroness von Bockenheim und Bielau’s silk sheets. He remembered the tension his chief was living under, bringing death to innocent victims; and then he remembered his own nocturnal antics and felt disgusted at himself.

He took off his jacket, wrapped it around his hand and stood on the toilet seat. With a mighty blow he knocked out two panes. The sound of glass shattering on the floor was horrendous. Smolorz waited for someone to come into the toilet and listened hopefully to the sounds coming from the courtyard and corridor. Nothing. He thought of his chief’s attitude to life. He knew the gist well. If he persuaded himself that nobody would hear him, a swarm of people would appear immediately. Smolorz took another swing at the piece of wood that separated the now-shattered panes. After the fifth blow the wood split with a crack and a moment later Smolorz’s heels were grinding into the glass scattered across the floor. He ran out of the toilets and up the stairs to the offices of the Vice Commission. He opened the door with a key. Mock was not there. The only person was Domagalla, barely visible amidst stacks of files and binders. He looked up hopefully.

“Help me, will you, Smolorz,” he said. “We’ve got to identify that whore by her tattoo. A sun on her arse with the words: ‘You’ll get hot with me.’ We’ve got to go through all the files.”

Smolorz glanced at Mock’s desk. On it was a brown envelope.

“How long has this letter been here?” he asked.

“Bender just brought it up,” Domagalla said.

Smolorz reached for the envelope.

“But it’s not for you!” Domagalla was outraged.

Smolorz opened the envelope, telling himself: “It’s bound to be from the murderer. That Johanna with the eczema is bound to have been murdered.”

“Do you know the meaning of ‘Confidential’?” Domagalla insisted.

“‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. I’m dying because of you, Mock. Mock, admit your mistake, admit you have come to believe. Unless you want to see more little children crying. Johanna Voigten,’” read Smolorz quietly.

The term “defensive optimism” came to mind, and at that moment he stopped believing in Eberhard Mock’s psychological theories.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919

THREE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

At Mock’s command, Wirth stopped the Horch near the Red Tavern on Karl-Marx-Strasse.

“You can go back to your business.” Mock climbed out of the car. “The investigation’s over.”

He wandered slowly along the dusty pavement. The September sun warmed his neck and shoulders. He removed his bowler hat and slung his jacket over his arm. His feet slid around in their hard shoes. He sniffed and realized that he smelled, a discovery which made him change his plans and bypass the Red Tavern in a wide arc. He dragged his feet and stared at the tall tenements to his left. Beyond them stretched allotment gardens. A boy on a bicycle rode out of the gate holding a bucket of apples with one hand. “That’s the end of the investigation, the end of sleepless nights, the end of alcohol. Nobody else is going to die because of me.” Workers were leaving Kelling’s dyeworks after the first shift. They shook hands with each other and dispersed into smaller groups. “I’ll change my job, go away from here.” Pastor Gerds greeted him as he emerged from the evangelical school. Dust, sweltering heat, gossamer, and Johanna lying in the ventilation pit. “I wonder if the rats scurrying along the pit walls in search of food kept on windowsills have had a go at her yet.”

He was glad to leave Karl-Marx-Strasse behind and made towards Plesserstrasse, an empty, cobbled street lined with acacias. His was the first building on the left. He went up the stairs to Uncle Eduard’s old butcher’s shop, then on up to his room on the first floor. Nobody was at home. On the kitchen table stood the leftovers of lunch: cucumber soup and potatoes seasoned with crackling. He opened the window and heard Dosche’s dog growling. Mock’s father was sitting on a bench in the shade and playing with Rot, teasing him with his walking stick. Mock waved to him and tried to smile. The elderly man got to his feet and came towards the house, looking furious. Mock carried the washbasin into his alcove and filled it with cold water from the bucket. He hung his clothes on the bedstead, threw his underwear and socks under the bed and stood naked over the basin, listening to the sounds coming from below: the creaking of the stairs, the crash of the hatch, the wheezing of paternal lungs.

“You’re pissed again!” he heard his father say.

He soaped his neck and armpits, mumbled something in reply and sat down in the basin, feeling his testicles contract with cold. Rot burst in from behind the curtain and stood up on his hind legs, wagging his tail. Mock stroked him on the head with wet hands and returned to his ablutions.

“What is this, damn it? What’s this supposed to mean?” his father shouted, clattering the lids on the stove. “Where were you last night?”

Mock washed his feet and rinsed off the soap with water from the jug. The floor was soaked. He wrapped an old dressing gown around himself and emerged from the alcove. His father’s grey hair stuck out alarmingly in all directions, and behind his pince-nez his eyes flashed with anger. Mock took no notice. He fetched a rag from under the stove, wiped the water off the floor, then lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. The damp patches on the wall formed the features of a face. Mock strained his imagination, but the face did not appear familiar. “After today, I ought to be seeing Johanna’s face everywhere,” he thought. He felt pangs of guilt that it was not so.

“Come and get some soup!” called his father.

Mock sat at the table and reached for a spoon. The first mouthful flowed down to a stomach of stone. The second stopped somewhere on the way. Mock set down the spoon.

“I’ll eat in a minute.”

“In a minute it’ll be cold. Am I supposed to heat it up for you again? Do you think I’m your cook or something?”

Little Ebi is sitting in the kitchen eating dumplings. “Eat up or they’ll get cold” says his father, lighting his pipe. Ebi washes them down with soured milk and feels the doughy balls expand. They fill his gullet and mouth, the grey dough swells, sticks to his palate, he cannot breathe. “Daddy, I can’t have any more.” “You’re not leaving the table until you’ve eaten. The dumplings are delicious, you little brat, and we haven’t got any pigs! Everything’s got to be eaten! Look at Franz, he’s polishing it off!” …

“I’m not eating.” Mock pushed the plate of soup aside. “Don’t cook anything for me, Father. I’ve told you so many times.”

He went to his alcove, opened the wardrobe and laid out a clean shirt and long johns on the bed.

“Pushing his plate away like that, the little rat.” The wheezing in his father’s lungs turned to rasping. “And you, old man, you wash up, you do everything for him …”

Mock dressed carefully and raised the hatch; his heels rang out against the steps. He went outside and stood in the sunlight. He no longer felt like a visit to the Red Tavern. He sat down on a bench beneath an acacia and lit a cigarette. He heard Rot barking and his father’s footsteps on the stairs; a moment later Willibald Mock appeared in the small porch to which his brother Eduard’s clients had once swarmed on slaughter days. In his hand was a tin plate heaped with steaming potatoes.

“Maybe you’ll eat this?” he asked.

Eberhard Mock stood up and walked away. He turned and looked at his father standing in the porch. Short. Helpless. Mashed potatoes steaming in his hands.

BRESLAU, SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

The red-headed nurse stroked Mock’s hand. Her skin was so fair and smooth he thought the tear now falling from her lashes would slide down her cheek in one hundredth of a second. The nurse removed her bonnet and let down her hair. The thick copper locks fell with a gentle rustle onto the starched collar of her housecoat. She leaned over Mock. He caught the scent of her breath. Gently, he touched the fabric stretched across her large breasts. The girl stepped back abruptly, knocking over the bedside table. Mock had expected a sharp, metallic sound, but it was dull and somewhat muffled. All of a sudden the sound exploded, as if someone were thumping their fist against a wooden door. Mock sat up in bed and pulled aside the curtain. A penetrating cold shudder ran through him. “Must be hunger,” he thought. “I didn’t have anything to eat yesterday.” It was pitch black. He lit a candle and looked around the room. His father was snoring quietly, and Dosche’s dog was looking at him attentively, his eyes glowing amicably in the dark. Mock reached under his pillow where he kept his Mauser, a wartime habit, and stood in the middle of the room. He could have sworn that the noise which had woken him had come from the hatch leading down to the old butcher’s shop. He lay flat on the floor, opened the hatch a little and peeped through the smallest gap by the hinges. He knew any intruder would attack where the gap was widest. He yanked open the hatch and jumped back. Nobody attacked. With shivers still running down his spine, Mock held the candle to the opening. He could not see further than the first few steps. He glanced at the dog; it was resting its head peacefully on its outstretched front paws, blinking sleepily. The animal’s behaviour vouched there was no danger. Mock went down the stairs, holding the candle high.

The butcher’s shop was empty. He directed the light to the grille on the drain, and finding nothing went out on to the porch. The September night was fair but cool. He made sure the door to the shop was locked securely and went back upstairs. He yawned, stood the lighted candle on the table and got into bed without drawing the curtain. Images drifted before his eyes: a discussion in the street, scraps of conversation, a lame horse pulling a droschka, a porter pulling the shafts of a two-wheeled cart. Something falls from the cart and lands with a loud noise on the cobbles.

Mock leaped to his feet and looked at his father and the dog. His father was snoring, but the dog was growling. He shuddered — the animal was staring at the hatch and baring its teeth. He sat down on his bed, the Mauser in his hand, and felt sweat trickling from his armpits. Suddenly Rot jumped up and started wagging his tail. Standing on his hind legs he went round in circles, just as he had done when he had greeted Mock some hours earlier as he was washing behind the curtain. The dog then lay down to sleep in his usual place. For a long time Mock heard nothing but the dull thumping in his chest; unlike the dog, he did not sleep a wink that night.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Birdsong could be heard through the open window of Doctor Cornelius Ruhtgard’s office. Mock stood next to the sill, breathing in the cool mist formed by sunlight on damp grass. Doctor Ruhtgard himself could be heard singing in the bathroom adjacent to the office, a sure sign that a well-honed razor was making fine work of his morning stubble. The doctor’s servant knocked on the office door and entered silently to place a tray with a coffee service on a small table by the desk. Mock turned away from the fresh scent of the awakening park, thanked the servant with a nod and sat in the armchair next to the small table. He noticed that his hands were shaking as he clumsily knocked the spouts of both the coffee pot and the milk jug against the rim of his cup. To alleviate this classic ailment suffered by insomniacs, he concentrated instead on admiring the Waldenburg porcelain, the provenance of which was disclosed by the letters t.p.m. As he inhaled the aroma of Kainz coffee he heard an unsettling sound, like a muffled moan. He set down his coffee on the marble tabletop, rested his stubby hands on the edge of the table and listened. The singing in the bathroom grew by turns louder and quieter as Doctor Ruhtgard gargled to rinse out the tooth powder. During a moment of silence Mock went out into the hall. He heard another moan from behind a closed door next to the kitchen. As he approached it he sharpened all his senses. His hearing told him that someone was crying behind the door, tossing and turning in their sheets and thrashing their pillow with every moan. His nostrils caught a faint whiff of perfume and the stuffiness of a bedroom.

“I hope you’re not intending to visit my daughter in her room.” Doctor Ruhtgard was glaring at Mock from where he stood at the other end of the corridor in a dark-crimson quilted dressing gown with velvet lapels. He did not look like a man who only a moment earlier had been humming a couplet from Ascher’s operetta, What Young Girls Dream Of. He marched into his office and slammed the door.

Mock could not explain his friend’s behaviour. The thought of his walk two nights earlier with the rebellious young madame who had provoked such an improper response in him now entered his tired and aching head. His ears, which a moment earlier had listened so attentively to the sound of a girl’s muffled despair, rang with the various forms of the verbs “to pleasure” and “to screw”, with which he had tried to shock the young woman torn between her love for a sensitive good-for-nothing and her possessive father. He realized that it had been two days since he had questioned that good-for-nothing, leaving him at the mercy of a murderer. He pictured Christel Ruhtgard behind the closed door of her bedroom, burying her face in her pillow so as to muffle the sobs that were tearing her apart. He reached for the telephone receiver in the hall and dialled Wirth’s private number. Ignoring the maid who had just entered the apartment with a basket of hot bread rolls, Mock croaked into the receiver:

“I know it’s early, Wirth. Don’t say anything, just listen. You’re to lock Alfred Sorg up in the ‘storeroom’. He’s the man I questioned in the yard behind the Three Crowns. He’ll either be there or at the Four Seasons.”

He replaced the receiver and became aware of Christel Ruhtgard standing in the doorway of her bedroom. The anger in her swollen eyes made her resemble her father.

“Why do you want to lock Alfred up? What’s he done to you?” Mock heard her say as he made towards her father’s office. “You’re a foul monster! A miserable, drunken beast!” she yelled as he closed the door behind him.

Doctor Ruhtgard was leaning out of the window, pouring the hot coffee from Mock’s cup onto the lawn. He turned towards Mock.

“You’ve had your coffee, Mock. And now leave!”

“Don’t behave like some offended countess.” Mock was clearly pleased with his comparison. He felt perfidiously exhilarated and a faint smile appeared on his face. “Spare yourself the melodramatic gestures and tell me what’s happened! And without any preludes such as ‘You’re asking me?’”

“The day before yesterday my daughter returned from a concert at night. She was shaking all over.” Ruhtgard stood holding an empty cup with tracks of aromatic Kainz coffee running down its sides. “She said she bumped into you during the walk she decided to take after the concert. You were drunk and insisted on seeing her home. On the way you were vulgar towards her. By this you’re to understand that you’re forbidden from entering this house again.”

Mock strained his memory, but no Latin verse, no passage of prose came to mind which might calm him. He stared at a print on the wall showing a scene from the Gospels — the healing of the man possessed. At the bottom was written the year 1756. It dawned on Mock how he might quell his anger. He recalled an episode from school: Professor Moravjetz had thrown dates from German history at his pupils, who quickly translated them into Latin.

“Anno Domini millesimo septingentesimo quinquagesimo sexto,” Mock said, and flopped into the armchair.

“Are you out of your mind, Mock?” Ruhtgard gaped in amazement and the cup twisted on its handle spilling a few drops of coffee on his desk.

“If you believe your daughter, there’s no point in us talking.” Mock got to his feet and leaned over the desk. He looked into Ruhtgard’s eyes without blinking. “Shall I go on, or am I to obey your order and leave?”

“Go on,” Ruhtgard sighed, and he placed his hand on the head of a stork standing on a small, mahogany grand piano. The piano opened, the stork bent over and in its beak caught a cigarette which had appeared in place of the keyboard. Ruhtgard took the cigarette from the bird’s beak and closed the lid of the cigarette case.

“Only one thing in what your daughter says is true: the fact that I used inappropriate language towards a young lady from a good home. I won’t say any more. And not because I gave her my word of honour that I’d be discreet. I could quite easily grant myself dispensation … No, that’s not the reason … Someone once said that at times, truth is like a sentence. You don’t deserve a sentence.”

Ruhtgard pulled greedily on his cigarette for a minute and exhaled the smoke through his nostrils. A blue fog hung over the surface of the desk.

“Pour yourself some coffee,” he said quietly. “I’m not interested in what my daughter has been up to … Probably the same thing her mother liked so much … I never told you …”

“About her mother? Never. Only that she died of cholera in Cameroon. Before the war, when you had a well-paid job there.”

“I’ve told you too much then.” Ruhtgard did not look at Mock, but squinted at a point somewhere in the corner of the room. “May she be swallowed by eternal silence.”

Mock fell heavily into the expansive armchair. Silence. Ruhtgard quickly stood up and went to the Waldenburg service to pour Mock some coffee. He pressed the stork’s head and stuck the cigarette offered by the bird into Mock’s mouth. He walked out of his office, leaving his guest with an unlit cigarette between his lips.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

HALF PAST SEVEN IN THE MORNING

Mock and Ruhtgard sat in the dining room and buried their spoons in a mixture of soft-boiled eggs, butter and several leaves of parsley which filled two tall glasses delicately etched with slender lilies.

“Tell me, Ebbo.” Ruhtgard poured a stream of honey onto a crispy roll. “Why have you come to see me?”

“The diet didn’t help.” Mock sucked up the eggy concoction with gusto and helped himself to two fat veal sausages. “I still had nightmares. I’m going to tell you something you might not believe, or might even laugh at.” Mock broke off and fell silent.

“Go on, then.” Ruhtgard attacked a soft pear with his fruit knife.

“Remember how we used to entertain ourselves at night on the front with weird stories?” When Ruhtgard murmured his affirmation, Mock went on: “Remember Corporal Neymann’s stories about his haunted house? Well, my house is haunted. Understand, Ruhtgard? It’s haunted.”

“I could ask what you by mean haunted,” Ruhtgard said. “But first of all I know you don’t like that kind of question and, secondly, I’ve got to go to the hospital in a minute. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to hear you out. We can talk on the way. So, how does this ‘haunting’ manifest itself?”

“Noises …” Mock swallowed a mouthful of sausage. “I’m woken up by noises in the night. I dream about people with their eyes gouged out, and then a thumping on the floor wakes me up.”

“That’s all?” Ruhtgard allowed Mock to pass at the dining-room door.

“Yes.” Mock accepted his bowler hat from the servant. “That’s all.”

“Listen to me carefully, Eberhard,” said Ruhtgard slowly once they were on the stairs. “I’m not a psychiatrist but, like everyone else these days, I am interested in the theories of Freud and Jung. There are some very good passages in them.” They stepped out onto sun-drenched Landsbergstrasse and set off alongside the park. “Especially where they write about the relationship between parents and children. Both scholars write about paranormal phenomena. Jung apparently experienced them in his own house in Vienna … Both he and Freud advise hypnosis in such situations … Perhaps you could try it?”

“I don’t see why.” They turned left into Kleinburgstrasse. Mock stopped to let a young woman with a child in a huge wicker pram go by before they briskly walked on, passing the Communal School building with its garden and playground. After a lengthy silence he said: “This is happening in my house, not in my head!”

“I read several of Hippocrates’ tracts in Greek during my medical studies.” Ruhtgard smiled and led Mock to the right into Kirschallee, towards the enormous water tower. “That’s your field … I suffered like hell over that Greek text … I don’t remember now which of them has a description of the brain of an epileptic goat. Of course we can’t be sure if it really did have epilepsy. Hippocrates dissected the brain and concluded that there was too much moisture in it. The poor animal might have had hallucinations, but it would have been enough to drain some water from its brain. The same applies to you. A part of your brain is responsible for your nightmares and for the noises in your house. All we have to do is work on it — perhaps with the help of hypnosis — and it’ll be over and done with. You’ll never dream of those dead, blinded people whose murderer you’re after ever again.”

“Are you trying to say” — Mock stopped, removed his bowler and wiped his brow with a handkerchief — “that those terrifying phantoms are in my brain? That they don’t actually exist?”

“Of course they don’t,” Ruhtgard exclaimed with joy. “Can your father hear them? Can that dog hear them?”

“My father can’t hear them because he’s deaf.” Mock stood stock still. “But the dog can. He growls at someone, jumps up at someone …”

“Look, the dog is reacting to you.” Ruhtgard was flushed with the ardour of his argument. They passed the water tower and made their way along the narrow path between the sports ground and the Lutheran community cemetery. He took Mock by the arm and accelerated his step. “Come on, let’s walk faster or I’ll be late for the hospital. And now listen. Something wakes you, something that’s in your head, and you wake the dog. The dog sees his master on his feet and greets you. Understand? He’s not fawning on a ghost, he’s fawning on you …”

For a long while they did not say anything. Mock tried to choose his words carefully.

“If you saw what I saw, you’d think differently.” They were nearing the imposing Wenzel-Hancke Hospital building, where Doctor Ruhtgard worked in the Department of Contagious Diseases. “The dog was on the other side of the room, standing by the hatch in the floor wagging its tail.”

“You know what?” Ruhtgard stopped on the steps leading up to the hospital and looked intently at Mock’s ravaged countenance. Every wrinkle and every bit of puffiness caused by his sleepless nights was accentuated by the merciless September sun. “I’ll prove to you that I’m right. I’ll stay at your place tonight. I sleep very lightly, the slightest sound wakes me up. Today I’ll find out whether phantoms actually exist. See you this evening! I’ll come to your place after supper, before the ‘phantom’s hour’, meaning midnight!”

Ruhtgard opened the hospital’s huge double door and was about to reply to the old porter’s greeting when he heard Mock’s voice and saw his friend’s massive frame coming up the steps. The Criminal Assistant caught him by the sleeve, his face hard and his eyes fixed.

“You mentioned some dead blinded men a moment ago. Tell me, how do you know about the investigation I’m conducting?” Fear rang in Mock’s voice. “I must have blurted something out on Wednesday, when I was drunk. Is that it?”

“No. It’s not.” Ruhtgard squeezed Mock’s hand tightly. “You do far worse things when you’re drunk, things you push out of your conscious mind. I know about the murders from little Elfriede on Reuscherstrasse.”

“From who? What the bloody hell are you talking about?” Mock tried to tear his hand away from the iron grip.

“You know those buildings on Reuscherstrasse.” Ruhtgard would not let go of Mock’s hand. “The ones enclosing all those courtyards. If you were to go into one of the yards at midday, what would you hear, Ebbo?”

“I don’t know … children screaming and playing certainly, on their way home from school … noise from several factories and taverns …”

“What else? Think!”

“The crooning of organ grinders, that’s for sure.”

“Right.” Ruhtgard let go of his friend’s hand. “One of the organ grinders is called Bruno. He’s blind. Lost his eyes in the war, in an explosion. He plays and his daughter, Little Elfriede, sings. When Elfriede sings, tears flow from Bruno’s eye sockets. Go there today and see what Elfriede is singing about.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

NOON

Mock sat in his office in the Police Praesidium trying to stifle the incessant musical rondo which had been going around in his head for over an hour, ever since he had returned from his gloomy walk through the labyrinth of inner yards between Reuscherstrasse and Antonienstrasse. In the dark side streets, from which not even the sweltering September sun could burn away the musty dampness, pan vendors had set up temporary stalls; grindstones whistled in a hiss of sparks and organ grinders set down their boxes and played picaresque and romantic urban ballads. The yard’s morality play, sung by Bruno the organ grinder’s ten-year-old daughter, did not belong in either of those categories:

In the city of Breslau after the war

No longer safely can you all live.

For a vampire prowls, a terrible brute,

Like a spider, a bloody web does he weave.

Mock looked up at his colleague, Herbert Domagalla, who was clattering on the platen of a Torpedo typewriter, transforming the statements given by the prostitute sitting opposite him into the rhythmic scansion of well-oiled machinery. Mock grabbed a pencil and snapped it in two. A small splinter of wood hit the prostitute on the cheek, and she glared at Mock. He was looking at her too, but he did not see her. Instead he saw himself the day before: an energetic police officer who blackmails his chief, gets carte blanche to do what he likes and then, his head brimming with ideas, follows in the murderer’s footsteps with his loyal helpers from the criminal underworld. After the death of a prostitute covered in rashes, that same police officer turns into a dried-up, moaning little soul who renounces everything he is doing and at night shakes with terror at imaginary ghosts. The following day that weepy and meek anima over-dramatizes his experiences in the presence of a friend from the front.

The vampire kills in our dark city streets.

Our officers strive to track the fiend down.

Led by our brave Commissioner Mock,

A hunt for the vampire runs through the town.

Soon I will tell you why Mock leads this case,

I’ll tell you what gives him this admirable knack

But now, for the moment, I must be still

For a grim shudder runs down my back.

Mock rested his chin on one fist and thumped his desk with the other. The inkwell and chewed bone penholder jumped, the antique sand shaker with Breslau’s coat of arms rocked, the rolled-up newspaper with its headline prisoners of war return rustled. The prostitute glared at Mock again.

“If only you had seen me yesterday,” he said to her and broke off.

“Pardon?” Domagalla and the prostitute said at the same time.

Mock ignored them and continued in his head: “… you’d have seen a moron, fluctuating between contradictory decisions. One minute he abandons Alfred Sorg to the mercy of the murderer, then he locks him up in Wirth’s ‘storeroom’. One minute he wants to attack the perpetrator, the next he practically drowns in tears for fear that somebody he has questioned is going to die. I’ve got the address of the four sailors. Why haven’t I gone there? Because I’m afraid of killing somebody. I’m like Medusa: I kill with my eyes. I drill holes in stomachs and pierce lungs with my eyes alone. So how am I supposed to conduct this investigation, damn it? Not look at people? Not question them? Write letters?” After this last question, an answer occurred to him.

“Use the telephone,” he said, and this time neither Domagalla nor the woman were surprised.

With eyes gouged out whole, and hearts pierced with pins,

This violent vampire’s offering’s grim

O, dear Commissioner, when is it ending,

The vampire’s fearful and terrible hymn?

Only Mock knows the truth, only he understands

In all of the world it is only he,

O, dear Commissioner, when can you stop this?

Why all this killing? Pray tell this to me.

Mock dialled the number of Smolorz’s neighbour, the lawyer Max Grotzschl, and asked him to let the Criminal Sergeant know that he had called. Ten minutes later a polite voice, polished by appearances at tribunals, informed him that a tearful Mrs Ursula Smolorz did not have the slightest idea where her inebriated husband had gone the previous day. Mock thanked Mr Grotzschl and hung up in a fury, almost overturning the telephone. Unlike Mrs Smolorz, he knew perfectly well that for the past two days her husband had been mingling with Breslau’s aristocracy.

The vampire sends notes to Commissioner Mock,

In which he reveals those motives of his.

Read these aloud to the folk of your city

Tell the people of Breslau the horror that is.

Another thought silenced the nagging of the little organ grinder’s daughter in Mock’s head. Smolorz was not the only member of his informal investigative team. There were others he could trust absolutely. He dialled the number of Bimkraut amp; Eberstein, the forwarding agency. After two rings he heard a voice which did not belong to either Bimkraut or Eberstein; nor could it, since both had died long since and their names, carefully copied from gravestones in the old St Bernard’s cemetery, had been used as a front to register a business whose boss was somebody completely different, and whose undertakings had little to do with the forwarding of goods.

“Listen, Wirth,” Mock said, but his eyes followed the prostitute who, with a charming smile, whispered something in Domagalla’s ear as she left. “What? What’s that you said?” Mock continued. “Don’t be vulgar … Sorg and Kohlisch are forcing themselves on Miss Kathe, you say! … Yes, keep her away from them! And now stop bothering me with your nonsense and listen! We’re making a move …” Mock glanced at Domagalla as he left with his charge and immediately issued instructions. In his head, Elfriede the organ grinder’s daughter was singing her last verse:

When will my organ stop grinding so sadly

This terrible story, this tearful song?

How long, Commissioner, must our torment endure?

Please tell us, dear Mock, oh for how long?

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

Erich Frenzel, the caretaker of a block of houses between Gartenstrasse, Agnesstrasse, Tauentzienstrasse and Schweidnitzerstrasse, was sitting in the yard he administered, straining his uncomplicated brain to its limits over an equally uncomplicated problem: whether to spend Saturday night there, in Bartsch’s Inn, with a tankard and bowl of black pudding, peas and bacon, or in the back rooms of Cafe Orlich, with walnut schnapps and cabbage with crackling. The first possibility was tempting because of the new accordionist in Bartsch’s who came from Swabia, like Frenzel, and played beautiful tunes from the fatherland; the second possibility, on the other hand, appealed to Frenzel’s love of gambling. In a secret room at the back of Cafe Orlich at Gartenstrasse 51, brawny men gathered for arm-wrestling contests across the tables, flexing their muscles and entirely ignoring gamblers like Frenzel as they looked on and cheered. Remembering one strongman who was coming to Breslau from Poland, and his own substantial loss the previous week, he was gradually inclining towards the latter option.

He did not make a final decision, however, because his entire attention was drawn to a huge wagon which had rolled through the gates and into the yard from Agnesstrasse. The wagon was empty. Being short-sighted, Frenzel could not decipher the company name on the tarpaulin, which fluttered freely in the wind and revealed the empty interior. He got to his feet, buttoned up his jacket, adjusted his cap with its broken peak and, feeling like a soldier, clattered loudly across the cobbles in his tall, highly polished boots. He was fuming with rage at the audacious carter who had the cheek to drive into the yard, despite the clear no entry sign hanging above the gate. His presence — which was, after all, forbidden in his yard — could not in any way be justified since there was no business in that block of tenements to which any sort of goods could be delivered. Frenzel snorted in anger as he passed three little girls, two of whom were turning a thick piece of rope while the third skipped over it, performing all kinds of acrobatics. He grew red with fury when he saw a short man jump from the box, stand with his legs apart facing the old linden tree planted by Frenzel’s father, and unfasten his trousers.

“Hey, you undertaker!” shouted Frenzel as he charged towards the wagon. “You don’t piss here, you little shit! Children play here!”

The shorter carter looked up in surprise at the approaching caretaker, fastened his flies and clasped his hands together pleadingly. His gesture made no impression on Frenzel. He was now drawing near, his moustache bristling. Once more he was Frenzel, the bombardier who had lived through so much and had sent many a man packing. He took a swing of his broom. The short man did not turn a hair, quite unabashed by the caretaker’s threatening gesture. Frenzel took another swing, this time aiming at the intruder’s head. But the broom was stopped in mid-air. The caretaker stared at his implement, which now looked tiny in the hands of a powerfully built man dressed much like Frenzel himself: peaked cap, waistcoat and high boots. This image was the last Frenzel would recall of that sleepy afternoon. After that came darkness.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

THREE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

Eberhard Mock walked slowly out onto Schuhbrucke, which was drenched in blistering sunshine. He looked about him and strolled along the pavement towards the vast mass of Matthiasgymnasium. The chestnut trees by the statue of St John Nepomuk were taking on new autumn colours. Contemplating nature’s changing ways, Mock stepped into the Matthiasgymnasium church. A minute later, a tall man appeared at the door through which Mock had disappeared and watched with suspicion anyone who approached the church. An elderly matron dressed in black walked up to the door of God’s house. The man barred her way.

“The church is closed today,” he said politely.

The woman’s eyes bulged in surprise. She soon collected herself and said in a condescending tone:

“My good man, this is not a shop that can be closed. The church is always open and you’ll find room for yourself in there too, I assure you.”

“Are you going to make yourself scarce, Madame, or do I have to kick you up the arse?” the church’s Cerberus asked in the same polite tone.

“You lout!” shouted the lady, looking around. As she did not see anybody who could help her, she turned and marched off towards Ursulinenstrasse, angrily tossing her considerable rump.

Another guard stood at the church’s sacristy door, which gave on to the school garden. The door opened abruptly and the guard watched as Mock and the parish priest shook hands. A moment later, Mock was beside him.

“Nobody?” he asked.

“Nobody,” was the answer.

“Duksch is at the main entrance. Tell him he’s free to go. You can go too.”

Mock took the small, narrow street and out onto Burgstrasse. The school warden locked the church door behind him. At Mock’s back stood the Matthiasgymnasium building, in front of him a low wall beyond which the murky Oder flowed sluggishly by. He watched the traffic on Burgstrasse for a while, then dashed across the road and walked alongside the wall, observing the river’s current and the people walking down the street. He stopped at the beginning of Sandbrucke, leaned against a pillar plastered with posters informing people about Lo Kittay’s seances of non-tactile telepathy, and stood motionless for about twenty minutes. Everyone he had seen on Burgstrasse had disappeared, yet Mock still stood surveying the busy street. All at once, he briskly crossed Sandbrucke. He passed several houses and the Phonix watermill before ending up on Hinterbleiche. Ignoring a swarm of schoolboys who were releasing the stress brought on by their poor knowledge of elliptical equations and Latin conjunctions in clouds of cigarette smoke, he passed Hennig’s distillery and ran on to the footbridge leading to Matthiasstrasse. As he set foot on the wooden planks, two uniformed policemen appeared behind him. With their massive shoulders they barricaded access to the footbridge to anyone who might have wished to cross to the opposite bank. Mock ran across the bridge, making it sway gently, and found himself on a wide riverside boulevard. A large Horch stood at the curb. Mock jumped into the car and fired the engine. He immediately accelerated and made towards Schultheiss brewery, which was smoking in the distance. Now he could be sure nobody was tailing him.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

Someone removed the hood from Frenzel’s head. He gasped for air and looked around. He was in a semi-circular room whose bare brick walls were illuminated by two small windows. The stool he sat on was the only piece of furniture. His eyes, at first unaccustomed to the darkness, could make out only two other objects, one of which he supposed to be a wardrobe, the other a small nematode. A moment later, he recognized the wardrobe as the man who had blocked his broom, and the nematode as the short carter who had tried to answer Nature’s little call in his yard. He pulled a watch from his pocket. Its hands — as well as his aching neck — were irrefutable proof that he had spent three hours in a jolting wagon before trekking up countless stairs. He got to his feet and stretched his shoulders, then made his way hesitantly towards one of the windows. The wardrobe moved fast. Frenzel stood still, terrified.

“Let him look at the view of the city,” the other man said quietly and gestured enigmatically with his hand.

Frenzel walked to the window and was spellbound. The orange autumn sun enhanced the squat building of the church of St John the Baptist on Hohenzollernstrasse and slid along the elaborate cornices of the Post Office building and Juventus manor, leaving the magnificent art-nouveau tenements which circled Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz in soft shadow. Further afield he identified the church of Carolus Boromeo and the modest tenements of the working-class district of Gabitz. He was about to look eastwards, towards the wooded cemeteries beyond Lohestrasse, but stopped short as he heard a new sound. Someone was issuing halting instructions in a hoarse voice and muttering something in approval. Frenzel turned and in the dim light saw a well-built man in a pale frock coat and bowler hat. Beneath the folded wings of his gleaming white collar was the fat knot of a black silk tie, cut through with crimson zigzags. The picture was rounded off with a pair of carefully polished, patent-leather shoes. “Either a pastor, out whoring secretly, or a gangster,” thought Frenzel.

“I’m from the police.” The dandy’s hoarse voice dispersed Frenzel’s doubts. “Don’t ask me why I’m interrogating you here — I’ll only say it’s none of your business. Don’t ask me any questions at all. I want answers, O.K.?”

“Yes, sir,” retorted Frenzel dutifully.

“Stand in the light so I can see you.” The police officer sat on the stool, exhaled, unbuttoned his jacket, removed his bowler hat and placed it on one knee. His ribcage and belly constituted one unified mass. His face suggested future corpulence.

“Name?”

“Erich Frenzel.”

“Profession?”

“Caretaker.”

“Place of work?”

“I look after the yard on Gartenstrasse, behind Hirsch’s furniture shop.”

“Do you know these men?” The dandy shoved a photograph under Frenzel’s nose.

“Yes, yes,” Frenzel said as he studied the stiffened features of the four sailors. “Oh hell, so that’s why I haven’t seen them for a week … I knew they’d end up like this …”

“Who were they? Give me their names.”

“I don’t know their real names. They lived in an annexe on Gartenstrasse. Gartenstrasse 46, apartment 20, to be precise. At the very top. The cheapest there is …”

“What do you mean you don’t know their names? They must have registered somehow. Who did they register with? The tenement’s landlord? Who owns it?” Frenzel was inundated with questions.

“A man called Mr Rosenthal, Karlsstrasse 28. I’m his right-hand man at the tenement. The apartment was standing empty, and that worried Mr Rosenthal. These four came along in June. A bunch of wastrels — like so many others discharged from the army after the war. They were a bit tipsy and, by the look of things, they hadn’t a pfennig to their names. I told them there weren’t any vacancies, but they asked politely. One of them showed me some money and said: ‘This is a good spot, old man. We’ll conduct our business here and pay you regularly.’ Somehow he managed to talk me round. I get a commission from Mr Rosenthal for every new lodger.”

“You didn’t ask for their names?”

“I did. And they said: Johann Schmidt, Friedrich Schmidt, Alois Schmidt and Helmut Schmidt. That’s what I noted down. They said they were brothers. But they didn’t look like each other somehow. I know what life’s like, Commissioner sir. No shortage of chaps like that after the war. They loiter, steal, haven’t got anything to do … They prefer to conceal their real identities …”

“And you took the risk for a few measly pfennigs and registered who knows who, bandits maybe?”

“If I had a suit like you, sir, I wouldn’t be registering anyone …” Frenzel said quietly, and was immediately alarmed by his impudence.

“And they paid up regularly?” His comment left no impression on his interrogator’s face.

“Yes. Very regularly. The one who called me ‘old man’ always came with the rent towards the end of the month. I gave it to Mr Rosenthal and he was perfectly happy.”

“What sort of business were they in?”

“They were visited by ladies.”

“What sort of ladies, and what for?”

“Rich ladies, judging by the way they dressed. They wore hats with veils. And what for? What do you think, Commissioner sir?”

The police officer lit a cigarette and stared at Frenzel for a long time.

“Remember what I said at the beginning of our talk? The rules of our conversation?”

With difficulty Frenzel breathed in the dust that swirled in the light falling from the window. He racked his brains and had no idea how to answer the question. All he knew was that in two hours the strongman from Poland was going to be sitting at a table in Cafe Orlich.

“I’m the one asking the questions here, Frenzel, not you. Understand?”

“Sorry,” Frenzel said. “I’ve forgotten what you asked me.”

“What did the ladies visit them for? Answer quickly, don’t pick your words.”

“They visited them” — a toothless grin brightened Frenzel’s face — “for hanky-panky.”

“How do you know?” There was not a trace of amusement on the face of the interrogator.

“I eavesdropped at the door.”

“How many rooms in the apartment?”

“One room and a kitchen.”

“The lady would be in the room with one of the boys and the others stayed in the kitchen?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t go in. The ladies came alone, sometimes in pairs. Sometimes one of the Schmidts would go out during these visits. Sometimes all of them were there. It varied …”

“And this didn’t disturb the neighbours?”

“There were only two complaints, about the ladies shrieking and shouting … Because there weren’t all that many ladies. Barely more than a handful.”

“Did you ever see these men dressed up?”

“Dressed up?” Frenzel did not understand. “What do you mean? How?”

“Have you ever been to the theatre, Frenzel?”

“A few times.”

“Did the Schmidts ever wear costumes like actors in a theatre? Zorro, for example, knights and so on?”

“Yes, sometimes, when that fat man came for them.”

“What fat man?”

“I don’t know. Fat, spruced up. He drove a car with ‘Entertainment’ or something written on it … I’m not sure, my eyesight isn’t that good.”

“How often did the fat man come?”

“Several times.”

“Did he go up to their apartment?”

“Yes, and then they’d all climb into his car and go off somewhere. He must have paid them well because they’d drink twice as much afterwards and go and have a good time at Orlich’s, not far from here.”

“Did any other men visit the Schmidts?”

“There was one other. But he never came alone. There were always two women with him, one in a wheelchair. He’d lug the wheelchair with the invalid up the stairs himself.”

“Would you recognize the man?”

“I’d recognize the man and the other woman. They didn’t hide their faces.”

“And the one in the wheelchair?”

“The cripple always wore a hat with a veil.”

“What did the man look like, and the other woman, the one who wasn’t an invalid?”

“I don’t know … He was tall, she had red hair. A pretty woman.”

“How old?”

“He was about fifty, she about twenty.”

“Weren’t you surprised when those four men disappeared? Why didn’t you report it to the police?”

“Surprised? Yes, I was surprised. Sometimes they’d drink for two days at Orlich’s before coming home, but now a whole week … As for the police … Sorry, I don’t much care for the police … But I would have reported it today anyway …”

“Why today?”

“The Schmidts were always here on Saturdays because that man with the girl and the invalid came on Saturdays.”

“Are you saying they came regularly, every Saturday?”

“Yes, every Saturday. At the same time. But not together. First the man with the invalid, then a few minutes later the red-head.”

“At what time did they come?”

“They’ll be there in about half an hour.” Frenzel pulled out his watch. “Always at six.”

“Were they there last Saturday?”

“Yes. But without the red-head.”

“Was that the last time you saw the Schmidts?”

“No, it was the previous day. The fat man came for them in his car. They went off somewhere.”

“How do you know they were at home on Saturday if you saw them for the last time on Friday?”

“I didn’t see them, but I heard them in their apartment.”

“You eavesdropped?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you hear?”

“Their voices, and the moans of the invalid woman.”

“Did you hear the man too?”

“The man? No.”

“You’re free to go.” The police officer took out his watch and showed Frenzel the door. “Here’s for a cab.” He tossed him two ten-mark notes. “You can go home. But remember, this giant here” — he indicated the man-wardrobe — “is going to keep a discreet eye on you for the next few days. Wait, just one more thing … Tell me, why don’t you like the police?”

“Because they’re too mistrustful, even when you go to them of your own accord and want to report something.” Again, he was frightened by his own impudence. “But that doesn’t apply to you, sirs … I really … Besides, you don’t look like a policeman …”

“So what do I look like?”

“A pastor,” Frenzel replied, and thought “out whoring.”

He went to the winding staircase and ran down as fast as his legs could carry him. Once he reached the ground floor and was out of the building, all his tiredness left him. He ran to the nearest crossroads and whistled with two fingers to passing droschkas, showing no interest whatsoever in the enormous, multi-storied building from which he had just emerged. Frenzel could only think of how to get home as quickly as possible, fetch his money, and go to watch the strongmen arm-wrestling across a beer-soaked table in a back room at Cafe Orlich.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

A QUARTER TO SIX IN THE EVENING

The stairs groaned under the heavy footsteps of the three men. Mock, Wirth and Zupitza finally made it to the fourth floor of the tenement at Gartenstrasse 46. They stood panting outside the door of apartment 20 and sniffed the air in disgust. The rank odour came from the toilet on the landing.

“The lav’s probably blocked,” muttered Wirth as his gloved hand unlocked the apartment door with a picklock.

Mock kicked the half-open double door with a patent brogue — very gently, so as not to scuff the toe. Fetid air surged from the room. He screwed up his nose at a stench he abhorred, one which reminded him of a changing room at a sports gymnasium. He pulled out his Mauser and nodded to Zupitza to do likewise. Once in the dark hallway, he groped for the light switch and turned it on, drenching the hall in a dirty yellow glow. He leaped at once to the side to avoid a possible attack. None came. The brown, painted floorboards in the hallway creaked beneath their shoes. Zupitza wrenched open a huge wardrobe. It was empty save for some coats and suits. The dim light of a bulb covered with newspaper made it impossible to examine the clothes properly. Mock gestured to Wirth and Zupitza to search the main room while he turned on the light in the kitchen. The lighting proved as miserable as that in the hallway. He could, however, discern the mess one might expect to find in an apartment devoid of the female touch: stacks of plates covered in congealed tongues of sauce, cups with sooty traces of black coffee, rock-hard remnants of bread rolls and chipped glasses streaked with a tar-like liquid. This was everywhere: in the deep, semi-circular sink; on the table; on stools, and even on the floor. Mock was not at all surprised to see several glistening blowflies which lifted off at the sight of him to settle on the flaking wainscoting and on an embroidered picture bearing the words “The Early Bird Catches the Worm”. Despite the open window, there was an overwhelming smell of wet rags.

“No-one here!” he heard Wirth call from the main room. He left the kitchen and entered quarters which he thought would be far cleaner, as befits a place of work where hygiene plays rather an important role. He was not mistaken. The room had a window which gave on to the main road, and it looked like any other room that had not been cleaned for a week. Two huge iron beds were neatly covered with bedspreads embroidered with red roses. Between them was a bedside table on which stood a lamp with an intricately twisted shade. There were no pictures on the walls. It was a room with no soul, like in a miserable hotel where all one could do was lie on the bed, stare at the lamp, and try to banish suicidal thoughts. Mock sat on one of the beds and looked at his men.

“Zupitza, go and keep an eye on the caretaker for the rest of the evening and the whole of tomorrow.” He waited for Wirth to pass on his instructions in hand signals, then turned to the interpreter. “Wirth, you go and see Smolorz at Opitzstrasse 37, and bring him here. If he’s not at home, go to Baron von Bockenheim und Bielau’s villa at Wagnerstrasse 13 and give him this note.”

Mock took out his notebook, tore a page from it and wrote in an even, slanted script, far smaller than the classic Sutterline handwriting: “Kurt, come to Gartenstrasse 46, apartment 20, as soon as possible.”

“And I,” Mock said slowly in answer to Wirth’s mute question, “am going to wait here for the red-headed girl.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

A QUARTER PAST SIX IN THE EVENING

Mock had realized long ago that, since leaving the hospital in Konigsberg, he was highly susceptible to women with red hair. Not wishing to believe that the red-headed nurse taking care of him was merely a figment of his imagination, a phantom brought to life by morphine, he would carefully scrutinize every pyrrhokomes (as he called them) he met. Walking down a street he would often see loose red locks escaping from beneath a hat in front of him, or fiery, thick plaits bouncing on spry shoulder-blades in time with their owner’s brisk footsteps. He would rush after these women, overtake them and look them in the face. He would raise his hat, whisper “I beg your pardon, I mistook you for somebody else,” and walk away as they looked after him with eyes full of fear, disdain or disappointment, depending on whether they were inexperienced virgins, happily married women or debauched maids. As for Mock, he was usually deeply disappointed, not to say frustrated. Because when these red-headed women revealed their faces to him, not one of them resembled the face of the nurse in his dreams.

He was not frustrated now, even though he could not be at all sure that the girl standing on the threshold was not the one he had told Ruhtgard about during those frosty nights in Kurland. So little light came from the four sailors’ room that any woman standing in the doorway would have looked like a vision from a dream.

“Sorry I’m late, but …” Seeing a stranger, the girl broke off.

“Please, come in.” Mock moved away from the door on which he had heard a gentle knock a moment earlier.

The girl entered hesitantly. She looked around the empty apartment with unease and wrinkled her slightly upturned, powdered nose in disgust at the sight of the filthy kitchen. Mock closed the door with his foot, took her by the arm and led her into the main room. She removed her hat with its veil and tossed her summer coat onto one of the beds. She was wearing a red dress which reached down to her calves and stretched teasingly across her considerable breasts. The dress was old-fashioned, giving nothing away, and to Mock’s irritation it ended in a pleated frill. The girl sat on the bed next to her discarded coat and crossed one leg over the other, revealing high, laced boots.

“What now?” she asked with feigned fear. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Criminal Assistant Eberhard Mock,” he replied, squinting at her. He said nothing more. He could not.

The girl gazed at him with a smile. Mock did not smile. Mock did not breathe. Mock’s skin was on fire. Mock was sweating. Mock was by no means sure if the girl sitting in front of him resembled the nurse in his dreams. At that moment the image of the red-headed angel from Konigsberg was blurred, indistinct, unreal. All that was real was the girl who was smiling at him now — charmingly, disdainfully and flirtatiously.

“And what of it, Criminal Assistant, sir?” She rested the elbow of her right arm in her left palm and gestured mutely with her middle and index finger that she wanted a cigarette.

“You want a cigarette?” Mock croaked, and seeing the amusement in her eyes he began to search his jacket pockets for his cigarette case. He opened it right in front of her nose and was taken aback when he realized that its lid had almost grazed her delicate nostrils. She deftly plucked out a cigarette from under the ribbon and accepted a light, holding Mock’s trembling hand in her slim fingers.

Mock lit a cigarette too and remembered old Commissioner Otton Vyhlidal’s advice. He was the one who had assigned him to work in Department IIIb, in a two-man team which, after the eruption of prostitution during the war, had become the official Vice Department. Vyhlidal, knowing that the young policeman could be vulnerable to a woman’s charms, used to say: “Imagine, Mock, that the woman was once a child who cuddled a fluffy teddy to her breast. Imagine she once bounced up and down on a rocking horse. Then imagine that once-small child cuddling to its breast a prick consumed by syphilis or bouncing up and down on greasy, wet, lice-ridden pubic hair.”

Vyhlidal’s drastic words acted as a warning now as Mock fixed his eyes on the red-headed girl. He set his imagination to work and saw only the first image: a sweet, red-headed child nuzzling her head into an ingratiating boxer. He could not envisage the child dirty, corrupted or destroyed by the pox. Mock’s imagination refused to obey him. He looked at the girl and decided not to overstretch his imagination. He sat on the bed opposite her.

“I’ve told you who I am,” he said, trying to make his voice as gentle as possible. “Now please reciprocate.”

“Erika Kiesewalter, Assistant Orgiast,” she said in a melodious, almost childish voice.

“You’re witty.” Mock, because of the contrast between her voice and the licentious nature of her words, remembered old Vyhlidal’s warning and slowly regained his self-control. “You like to play with words?”

“Yes.” She inhaled deeply. “I like games of the tongue …”

Mock did not register this innuendo because he was seized by a terrible thought: that his interrogation was sentencing this girl to death, to having her eyes gouged out, to having a metal needle stuck in her lungs. “To save her,” he thought, “I’ll have to isolate her in the ‘storeroom’. And what if I never catch the murderer? Will she have to sit in Wirth’s old counting-room for years while her velvety skin wrinkles and withers? I can still save her! I won’t ask her any questions. But if the murderer’s following me, how can he know whether I’ve questioned her or not? He’ll kill her anyway. Yet without her evidence I might not catch him, and I’ll be forcing her to stay in that old counting-room, with blemishes and wrinkles creeping over her withered skin. Besides, if we don’t catch the murderer, everyone stored away at Wirth’s place is going to get old, not only the girl.”

“Stop staring at me like an idiot and don’t talk nonsense,” he snarled — and forced himself to think, “What do I care about some whore and her alabaster skin!” — “Answer my questions! Nothing more.”

“Yes, Officer sir.” Erika stood up, opened the window and flicked a column of ash into the warm, autumnal evening. The air resounded with the grating of trams and the clip-clopping of horses’ hooves. The waist of her dress was dark and sat on her hips, accentuating their roundness. Mock felt that strong tension which awakens teenage boys from the deepest sleep, and which for ageing men is a sign that not everything in life has yet been lost. “I’ll ask her a question,” he thought, “and she’ll answer me. I’ll ask her another and be calm.”

“Answer my questions,” he repeated hoarsely. “Quickly. First question, what’s your profession?”

“Hetaera,”^† said the girl, making way towards the bed. This time she sat modestly, and her face displayed nothing but concentration.

“How do you know that word?” Mock’s surprise diminished the tightness he felt.

“I read this and that.” A smile appeared on her face which Mock thought impudent. “I’m especially interested in antiquity. I even played Medea in an amateur production. I’m trying my hand at acting.”

“Why did you come here? To this apartment?” Mock closed his eyes to conceal the contradictory feelings that were preying on him.

“I’ve been coming here every Saturday. For several weeks.”

“And you plied your … profession here?” Mock took his time picking the right words.

“The one I ply, but not the one I dream of.”

“And what do you dream of?”

“Acting,” she whispered and a blush suffused her cheeks. She clenched her teeth as if trying to stop herself crying. Then she laughed derisively.

“You’re to describe accurately what you did here last Saturday,” said Mock, and thought, “She’s probably mentally ill.”

“Same as every other.”

“Tell me everything.”

“It excites you, does it, sir?” she asked, lowering her childlike voice.

“You don’t have to give me the details. Tell me broadly.”

“I don’t know what that means, broadly …” Another smile.

“Go on, damn it!” Mock yelled. “The four men who used to live here are dead. Do you understand?”

“I’m sorry.” Mock wanted to believe that the fear in her face resulted from his shouting and not her acting abilities. “Right, I’ll tell you. I was hired by a wealthy man. I don’t know his name. I met him in the Eldorado, where I’m a dance-hostess. He had a beard. He danced with me, then we went to my room. He proposed a regular commission. To partake in debauchery. I agreed, on condition that I could back out after the first time if I didn’t like it.”

The girl fell silent and picked at the bedspread with her slender fingers.

“Go on,” Mock said quietly, so as to hide his hoarseness. “It’s not the first time I’ve met somebody like you. I’m not aroused by stories of hetaeras … Gone are the days when I was excited by the works of Alciphron.”

“Shame,” she said gravely.

“Shame? Why?” Anger surged in Mock. He felt himself being manipulated by this crafty whore.

“I’m ashamed to talk about it,” she said in the same serious tone of voice. “If I aroused you, I’d simply be doing my job, which is arousing men. But otherwise, I don’t know how to say …”

“Use the term ‘to look after’ to describe the act you abandon yourself to when you’re doing your job.”

“Fine,” she whispered, and told him everything. “The man accepted my condition and gave me this address. I was to come here every Saturday after six. He was quite insistent about the time. So I came. I didn’t do anything perverted. There were six people in the room. The man who hired me, a young girl in a wheelchair and four young sailors. The sailors lived here. I suspect they weren’t sailors at all, but dressed up. Sailors live on ships, they don’t rent themselves out as … On my client’s instructions I’d get undressed. One of the sailors would look after me. My client would transfer the girl from the wheelchair to the bed and then the three other sailors took care of her. The girl would watch me and my … the one who was with me, and it obviously had a great effect on her because when she’d had enough of watching she very willingly looked after the three sailors all at once. It was like that every time.”

“And your client never looked after you?” Mock gulped. “Or the girl in the wheelchair?”

“God forbid!” Erika shouted.

“Why weren’t you with them last Saturday?”

“I was indisposed.”

“So the four sailors took care of the invalid?”

“Probably. I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

Somebody knocked energetically. Mock pulled out his Mauser and made towards the door. Through the peep-hole he saw Smolorz. He let him into the hallway and breathed in the smell of alcohol. Smolorz was swaying slightly.

“Listen, Smolorz, you’re to keep an eye on the girl,” he said, nodding towards Erika, “until we transport her to the ‘storeroom’. You’re even to accompany her to the toilet. And one other thing. You’re not to lay a finger on her! Come back in one hour. I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but you have to be sober. Do you understand?”

Smolorz nodded and left. He did not argue or protest. He knew his chief well enough, and knew what it meant when his chief addressed him informally, as he had done in the note delivered by Wirth: it certainly did not bode well. Mock closed the door behind him, went back into the room and looked at Erika. Her expression had changed.

“Sir,” she whispered. “What storeroom? Where do you want to lock me up? I’ve got to work. This job is finished. I’ve got to dance at the Eldorado.”

“No,” Mock whispered back. “You’re not going to work at the Eldorado. You’re going to work here.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

A QUARTER PAST SEVEN IN THE EVENING

Mock lay next to Erika straining his memory to count the women he had had in his life. But this was not in order to add another trophy to his collection. They were no trophies. Most were prostitutes, usually when he was drunk, and usually without much satisfaction. Mock counted all the women he had had and could not fully square his accounting. Not because there had been a vast multitude of them, but because during intercourse he had often been in a stupor or a fever, and could not remember whether these encounters could be called what is commonly termed finis coronat opus. Touching Erika’s warm thigh, he decided to include only those times that could in all certainly be summed up by the Latin maxim. Erika put an arm around his neck and mumbled something. She was falling asleep. Mock stopped counting, he stopped thinking of anything at all. But he was sure of one thing: up until now, til this day, til this evening spent with a red-headed prostitute in a room belonging to murdered male whores, he had never really known what teenage boys dream of, and what makes ageing men start believing in themselves again. This evening Erika had revealed the secret to him. Without saying a word.

He got up and covered the girl’s slim body with his jacket. He could not resist running his hand over her white skin speckled here and there with islands of freckles; he could not resist slipping his hand beneath her arm to touch her sleeping breasts, which only a moment earlier had been full of life and urgently demanding their due.

He stood wearing nothing but his long johns and observed her shallow sleep. A scene from Lucretius’ poem “De rerum natura” unexpectedly came to his mind: a man is drenched in sweat, his voice and tongue falter, a hum fills his ears. This was precisely the state he was in. He had been struck down dead. His school professor, Moravjetz, had described the scene as “pathographical” when they had discussed it in the optional Classics group. He had compared it with Sappho and Catullus’ famous verses on how the human body reacts to violent emotions. Mock had been struck dumb, not by his recollection of Professor Moravjetz, but by the words his teacher had used to describe the scene in the poetry.

“The pathography of love,” he said out loud. “But there’s no love here. I don’t love this crafty whore.”

He walked up to Erika and tore his jacket from her. She woke up.

“I don’t love this crafty whore,” he said resolutely.

She smiled at him.

“Crafty, are you?” Mock felt the flame of anger rise in him. “Why are you laughing, you crafty whore? Are you trying to annoy me?”

“God forbid!” said Erika barely audibly.

She looked away. Mock sensed her fear. His anger branched and crackled in his breast. “She’s frightened, the crafty whore!” he thought and clenched his fist. At that moment there was a knocking at the door. Slow-slow-slow, pause, slow-slow-slow-slow-quick-quick. Recognizing the code to be the rhythm of “Schlesierlied”, Mock opened the door to Smolorz, who no longer reeked of alcohol but instead gave off a scent of soap. To all intents and purposes he was sober.

“Have you been eating soap?” Mock said as he dressed, not in the least embarrassed by Smolorz’s presence. Erika wrapped herself in her dress.

“Water and suds,” said Smolorz. “To spew it all up and get sober.”

Mock donned his hat and left the apartment. He paused on the stairs. As the stench from the blocked toilet reached him, he was overcome with nausea and took the stairs two at a time. When he got to the gate he stopped and took a few very deep breaths. The nausea left him, but his mouth was still filled with saliva. He was only too familiar with these feelings of self-disgust. He heard his own voice: “Are you trying to annoy me, you crafty whore?”, and was struck again by Erika’s fearful gaze — the gaze of a child who does not understand why it will soon be beaten, of a red-headed little girl who likes to snuggle her face into a happy boxer’s fur. He heard her reply: “God forbid!” He slapped his forehead and ran back upstairs. He tapped the rhythm of “Schlesierlied” on the door. Smolorz opened it. He had been sitting on a chair in the hallway. The stench of wet rags wafted from the kitchen and he could hear the buzzing of blowflies.

“Get the caretaker, Smolorz.” Mock screwed up his nose and handed his subordinate a wad of notes. “Pay him to clean the kitchen. And tell him to bring the girl some fresh sheets. Well, go on, what are you waiting for?”

Smolorz left. The door to the main room was closed. Mock opened it and found Erika sitting on the bed in her summer coat, shivering with cold.

“Why did you say ‘God forbid’?” He went to her and rested his hands on her fragile shoulders.

“I didn’t want to annoy you, sir.”

“Not now, before. When I asked you if your client took care of you or the girl in the wheelchair you shouted ‘God forbid’. Why?”

“It wouldn’t have been so awful if he had taken care of me. But the girl in the wheelchair called him ‘Papa’.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

HALF PAST TEN AT NIGHT

“Why do you need my dog for the night?” Dosche the postman looked at Mock in surprise. They were sitting on a bench in the yard at Plesserstrasse, staring at the light shining in the window of the Mocks’ apartment. They could distinctly make out two heads bent over a table: Willibald Mock’s rugged grey mane and Cornelius Ruhtgard’s parting, laboriously perfected over the years.

“What are they doing?” Dosche asked, momentarily forgetting Mock’s strange request.

“The same as you do with my father every day,” Mock answered. “Playing chess. But going back to my request …”

“Exactly. What do you need my dog for?”

“See that?” Mock pointed to the sky where a swollen moon hung suspended, its soft light gliding across the dark windows of the building, the privy door and the stoop of the pump. “It’s full, isn’t it?”

“Correct.” Dosche decided to have his last smoke of the day and extracted his tobacco pouch from his pocket.

“I’m going to tell you something.” Mock glanced meaningfully at the man to whom he was speaking. “But it must remain absolutely confidential, understood? It’s to do with the investigation I’m conducting …”

“Ah, the one everybody’s going on about?”

“Shhh …” Mock put a finger to his lips.

“Yes, sir.” Dosche struck his breast and a cloud of smoke escaped through his lips. “I swear I won’t say a word to anybody!”

“The first murder was committed a month ago …”

“I thought it was a week ago …”

“Shhh …” Mock cast his eyes around and, noticing Dosche’s perplexed expression, went on. “Well, the first murder was committed at full moon, like tonight. I’ve got a suspect who hasn’t got an alibi. If he did commit the murder, he would have had to keep the corpse in his room for a few days. Please don’t ask why! I can’t tell you, my dear Dosche.” He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in the direction of the chess players, who were noisily putting away the chess pieces. “The suspect has a dog and says he couldn’t have kept the corpse at his place because the dog’s howling would have alerted the neighbours. Howling, you understand, my dear Dosche? Dogs howl in the presence of a corpse, or so the suspect claims. I’ve got to verify that tonight! Using your dog!”

“But, Mock,” Dosche wheezed through his old pipe, “are you going to take my Rot off somewhere? To some corpse? Where?”

“Shhh … If my experiment is successful, I’ll take you there, too. Would you like that?”

Sparks erupted from Dosche’s pipe. He passed the leash to Mock.

“Fine, fine, take him. But shhh …”

Mock took the leash and tugged the sleepy Rot out from under the bench. He shook Dosche’s hand and went home.

Ruhtgard stood on the threshold of the old butcher’s shop smoking a cigarette.

“Is this our gauge for measuring the strength of the spiritual event?” With the glowing stick he indicated the dog, which was looking at him distrustfully.

Mock winced when he heard Ruhtgard’s joke and said, “Who won?”

“Three to one.”

“To you?”

“No, to Mock senior. Your father plays very well.”

Mock felt himself flush with pride.

“Are we going to go to sleep now?” he asked.

“We are. I think your father’s already made up the beds.” Ruhtgard looked around uncertainly. “Where can I throw my cigarette away? I don’t want to leave rubbish outside the house …”

“This way.” Mock opened the door. “There’s a drain in Uncle Eduard’s old shop. I even thought the noises might have been made by rats getting into the shop that way.”

Ruhtgard went behind the counter, lifted the grille and disposed of his cigarette butt. He went up the stairs. Mock carefully bolted the door, blacked out the shop windows with wooden shutters, filled the lamp to the brim with paraffin and hung it from the ceiling. The place was now well lit. He then went upstairs to their quarters, pulling the somewhat reluctant dog behind him. The hatch door lay open; he did not shut it. He unhooked the dog’s leash, lowered the wick in the lamp and only then cast his eye around the semi-darkness of the room. Ruhtgard lay covered with a blanket on his father’s wooden bed, with eyes closed. Carefully folded trousers, jacket, shirt and tie hung over the headboard. Mock’s father was asleep in the alcove, turned towards the wall. Mock undressed down to his long johns, placed his clothes on the chair, just as neatly as his friend had and stood his shoes to attention next to the bed. He slid his Mauser under the pillow and lay down next to his father. He closed his eyes. Sleep did not come. Erika Kiesewalter came several times, however. She leaned over Mock and, contrary to a prostitute’s principles, kissed him on the lips. As tenderly as she had done that evening.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

MIDNIGHT

Mock was woken by the sound of laughter from below. Malicious laughter, as if someone were playing a practical joke. Mock reached for his Mauser and sat up in bed. His father was asleep. From his sunken, toothless mouth came an asthmatic whistle. Ruhtgard was snoring, but the dog was trembling, its tail between its legs. The hatch was open, just as he had left it before going to sleep. He shook his head. He could not believe the laughter. Releasing the safety catch of his gun, he approached the hatch and lay down on the floor beside it. The dog howled and ran under the table; Mock caught a glimpse of a shadow gliding beneath the ceiling of the old shop; the dog squealed; something ran past Mock as he lay there, something larger than a rat, something larger than a dog. It slipped past his hand and under the bed, avoiding Mock’s blow. He grabbed the paraffin lamp and pulled up the sheet, damp with his own sweat, which covered the gap between the bed and the floor. A child was sitting there. It flared its nostrils and smiled. Out of its nose slid a blowfly, green and glistening. More malicious laughter came from below. Mock leaped up, wiped the sweat from his chest and neck and threw himself towards the open hatch. He knocked into the chair laden with clothes. It toppled over and hit the basin. Hearing the clanging of metal above him, he slid down the stairs on his buttocks, ripping his long johns. There was nobody there. He heard a rustling from the drain. He quickly jumped over the counter and lifted the grille. Something was moving down below. Mock aimed the muzzle of his Mauser. He waited. From the grille loomed Johanna’s head. The scales on her neck rattled quietly. Two needles were lodged in her eyes. He fired. The house shook with the noise. Then Mock woke up for real.

BRESLAU, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1919

A QUARTER PAST MIDNIGHT

Mock stood beside Ruhtgard’s bed, gun in hand, and stared down at his closed eyes. The doctor twitched his eyelids sleepily.

“Did you hear that?” asked Mock.

“I didn’t hear a thing,” Ruhtgard slurred, his tongue stiff with sleep.

“Then why aren’t you asleep?”

“Because you’re leaning over me and staring at my eyes.” He wiped his pince-nez and pressed it onto his nose. “I assure you, when you stare at someone so intensely when they’re asleep, they’re bound to wake up. That’s how we sometimes wake patients from a hypnotic trance.”

“You really didn’t hear anything? But the chair fell over onto the basin and made a racket, I fired at Eczema’s head …” Mock sniffed. “Can’t you smell the gunpowder?”

“It was only a dream, Ebbo.” Ruhtgard sat up in bed and lowered the thin legs that protruded from his nightshirt to the floor. He took the gun from Mock’s hand and held it under his large nose. “There’s no smell of gunpowder. Take a sniff. There was no shot, or it would have woken your father up. See how fast he’s asleep? The chair is still standing where it was too.”

“But look.” There was a note of satisfaction in Mock’s voice. “The dog’s behaving strangely …”

“True enough.” The doctor studied the animal which was sitting under the table with its tail curled under, growling quietly. “But who’s to know what the dog was dreaming? They have nightmares too. Like you do.”

“Alright. But you’ve noticed that my father’s a little deaf, haven’t you?” Mock would not give in. “Besides, even when he was young he was a heavy sleeper. No shot would’ve woken him up! So I fired, and he’s carried on sleeping.”

“Smell your gun,” Ruhtgard repeated in a bored tone. “And now let’s do an experiment.” He stood up, approached the open hatch and slammed it shut. Mock’s father sighed in his sleep and then opened his eyes.

“What the hell is going on!” For a man who had just woken up he had a powerful voice. “What are you doing, Eberhard? Thumping around at night? Are you pissed again or what? What a bastard …” The bed creaked as Mock’s father expressed his disdain for the night’s din with a resounding fart. Mock felt nauseated at the thought of having to lie next to him.

“Sorry,” Ruhtgard could not help laughing. “You’ve been undeservedly rebuked. But you can see for yourself, the shot would have woken him …”

“I’m getting out of here.” Mock started getting dressed.

“Listen, Ebbo.” The doctor reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a cigarette case and notebook. “There are no ghosts …” Mock froze, all ears. “They only exist in your head … After we talked this morning, I asked my assistant at the hospital to research what are known as paranormal phenomena. This what he found.” Ruhtgard lit a cigarette and opened his notebook. “I didn’t want to tell you before … I wanted to keep it as a strong argument to the very end …”

“Go on then.”

“Ghosts exist in the disturbed cerebral cortex, the so-called visual cortex of the right hemisphere of the brain. Problems in this part of the cerebral cortex influence vision. They appear as phantoms, hallucinations… The aural cortex, on the other hand, is responsible for sound. If I were to open up your head and touch this cortex you’d hear voices, or music perhaps … One composer would tilt his head and note down the music he then heard. If, in addition to this, there are disturbances in the right cerebral lobe, you have real pandemonium. Because this lobe is responsible for distinguishing between the objective and the subjective. Where it has been damaged, ‘people,’ as somebody once said, ‘take their thoughts to be real people and things’. Most likely your brain is slightly damaged, Ebbo. But it can be righted … I can help you … I’ll call on the best specialist in the field, Professor Bumke from the university …”

“I’m not convinced by your scientific explanations,” Mock said thoughtfully. “Because how does your neurology explain that I experience this anxiety, these nightmares, only in this house and nowhere else … Damn it!” He raised his voice. “I’ve got to leave this place …”

“Well then go! Move to another apartment with your father. A better apartment, one with a bathroom!”

“Father won’t agree to it. He only wants to live here, and he wants to die here too. He told me once …”

“Well then you leave for a while!” Ruhtgard extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray, stood up from the table and rested his hands on the bulky mass of Mock’s shoulders. “Listen to me! Get away from here for two or three weeks. Take a holiday and get away. Take a break from everything — corpses and ghosts … You’ll build up your strength, catch up on sleep … Go to the seaside. Nothing calms like the sound of shifting sand and the monotonous murmur of the sea. I’ll go with you, if you like. We could go to Konigsberg and eat flounder. I’ll put you under hypnosis. You can trust me. We’ll get to the root of all your problems …”

Mock buttoned up his shirt in silence. As he slipped in a cufflink he pricked himself. He hissed and glanced at Ruhtgard with animosity, as if he were to blame.

“Come on, get dressed and let’s get going …”

“Where on earth?” There was resentment in Ruhtgard’s voice.

“Get dressed, please, and let’s go … to your hospital …”

“What for?”

Mock smiled to himself.

“For the housecoat and nurse’s hat …”

“I beg your pardon?” The doctor barely controlled himself.

Mock smiled again.

“I’ve met her at last …”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1919

TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Mock stood outside the door of apartment 20 and tapped out the rhythm to the “Schlesierlied” for the second time.

“Who’s there?” came the voice of a sleepy child.

“Eberhard Mock.”

The door opened a little. Erika was wearing a long and rather too large nightdress. She let the door swing open and went back into the room. Mock closed the door behind him and sniffed. He could no longer detect that unpleasant odour. The kitchen table was now covered with a cloth on which stood upturned plates and glasses, their rims leaving wet rings on the material. The floor was still wet. He entered the room and placed a large package on the chair. Erika sat on the bed and stared at him fearfully. Mock was sure neither of his emotions nor his words.

“Did my man bring you the bedlinen?” he asked, to break the silence.

“He did.”

“Who washed the dishes?”

“Kurt.” Fear gradually disappeared from Erika’s eyes. “He did it very comprehensively. He doesn’t like dirt …”

“So you’re on first-name terms?” He reacted irritably, unable to bring to mind anything to substantiate Smolorz’s preference for excessive tidiness. “Just how well have you got to know each other?”

“So-so.” The trace of a smile appeared on Erika’s lips. “I just like the sound of the name Kurt. Why are you so annoyed? I’m only a whore. What was it you called me? ‘A crafty whore.’ Why shouldn’t I get to know sweet little Kurty very well indeed?”

“Where is he?” Mock ignored the question.

“About an hour after you left,” Erika said more seriously, “a large man came round. He was huge. He didn’t say anything, just wrote something on a piece of paper. Kurt read it and rushed out with him. He told me not to open the door to anyone.”

Silence descended. The headlamps and shadows of passing cars drifted across the ceiling. Coloured illumination from the neon sign of Gramophon-Spezial-Haus on the opposite side of the street seeped through the net curtain. Erika sat shrouded in red and green speckles of light and studied Mock without the hint of a smile.

“Why don’t you come and sit next to me, sir?” she asked in a low, serious voice.

Mock sat down and watched with astonishment as his hand glided across her white arm. Never before had he seen such white skin, never before had his diaphragm deprived him of air for so long, never until now had he felt such pain in his thighs. Fiat coitus et pereat mundus.^† With great disbelief he felt his chapped lips part to allow her tiny tongue to enter; he could not believe that his gnarled fingers were pulling up her nightdress.

“Why don’t you take me, sir?” she asked just as seriously. She moved up the clean bedclothes and opened herself before him.

Mock sighed, got to his feet and went to the chair. He unwrapped the rustling package and hung a nurse’s hat and starched housecoat over the back of the chair.

“Put this on,” he said hoarsely.

“With pleasure.” Erika leaped out of bed and freed herself from the nightdress. As she raised her arms, flickers of neon blazed across her prominent breasts. She tied her hair into a loose bun and put on the hat. Mock unfastened his trousers. At that moment Smolorz, Wirth and Zupitza stepped into the apartment. Erika quickly jumped into bed as Mock kicked the door shut. He approached the bed and pulled the eider-down off the girl. A moment later somebody’s knuckles were tapping out the rhythm of the “Schlesierlied”. Mock sighed, walked over to the window and gazed for a while at the street lamp which illuminated the hairdresser’s salon. He approached the girl and stroked her hair. She clung on to his hand with both of hers. He bent and kissed her on the lips.

“Wait a moment,” he muttered, and went into the hall.

Smolorz was at the door, about to knock again. Wirth and Zupitza were sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by wet dishes.

“Why are you rapping out our signal, Smolorz?” Mock scarcely managed to suppress the irritation in his voice. “I saw you come in. And now hop it, all of you! From now on I’m going to keep an eye on the girl myself.”

“Caretaker Frenzel …” Smolorz said, giving off the scent of soap. “He’s not there.”

“Tell me what happened, Zupitza,” Mock hissed through clenched teeth.

“I was at the caretaker’s” — Zupitza set his hands to work while Wirth translated into his characteristic German with its Austrian lilt — “and was keeping my eye on him all the time. He was uneasy. He kept looking around as if he wanted to go somewhere. All the more reason for me to keep an eye on him. I took him to the toilet. Stood outside the door. For a long time. In the end I knocked. Several times and — nothing. I forced the door. The window was open. The caretaker had escaped through the window. Mr Smolorz can take it from there.”

“Didn’t you hear what Wirth said?” Mock growled at Smolorz. “Out with it!”

“This is what Zupitza wrote.” Smolorz handed Mock a piece of paper with large scribblings. “Then we questioned the neighours. Nobody knows where Frenzel is. One said that he was a gambler. We’ve combed the local gambling dens. Nothing.”

Yet another corpse. The following day, or in a few days time, the murderer would send Mock a letter. They would go to a given address and find Frenzel with his eyes torn out. The organ grinder’s little girl would sing yet another verse. And you, Mock, you are to go home and talk to your father, and repair all the damage you’ve done. Admit you’re defeated, Mock. You’ve lost. Hand over the investigation to others. To those who haven’t made any mistakes that will be punished by people having their eyes gouged out or their lungs pierced.

Mock walked slowly to the table and grasped its edge. The surface shuddered and bounced, and then a moment later it was up in the air. Wirth and Zupitza fled to the wall, dishes crashed to the floor, glass shattered, plates gave an ear-piercing wail and cups screeched. The noise was terrible, and became intolerable when eighty-five kilograms of Mock jumped on to the upturned table. Fragments of crockery gave out their last strains, a shattered complaint, a grating requiem.

Panting, Mock stepped off the table and immersed his head in the iron sink. Cold water rushed around his neck and burning ears.

“Towel!” he yelled from the sink’s cool interior.

Somebody put a sheet round his shoulders. Mock stood upright and covered his head with it. Streams of water flowed down inside his collar. He felt as if he were in a tent; he would have liked to be in a tent at that moment, far from everything. After a while he uncovered his head and took stock of the anxious faces.

“We’re ending this investigation, gentlemen,” he spoke very slowly. “Criminal Commissioner Heinrich Muhlhaus will take over. I’ll just take down Erika Kiesewalter’s statement and you, Smolorz, are going to hand it to the Commissioner. He’ll know that they’ve got to find a man with a daughter in a wheelchair. Well, what are you staring at? Read the statement, then you’ll know what it’s all about.”

“And what about the people in the storeroom? Are we going to let them go?” Wirth asked nervously.

“You take them to a detention cell. Tomorrow night Guard Buhrack will be waiting for you. He’ll look after them. Any other questions?”

“Criminal Assistant, sir,” Smolorz mumbled. “What about her? The storeroom, or straight to Buhrack?”

There was silence. Mock looked at Erika as she stood in the doorway. Her nurse’s hat was now askew. Her lips were trembling and her vocal organs were positioning themselves to ask a question. But the bellows of her lungs could not expel the air. She stood breathless.

“What happens” — Smolorz had become exceptionally talkative — “if Muhlhaus wants to question her himself?”

Mock was staring at Erika. She shivered as the clock in the hall struck three times. The shivering did not subside, even though she was wrapped in an eiderdown. He looked at the nurse’s starched housecoat, at Smolorz, who was unhealthily excited, and then came to a decision.

“If Criminal Commissioner Muhlhaus wants to question the witness, Miss Erika Kiesewalter, he’s going to have to put himself to the trouble of going to the seaside.”

RUGENWALDERMUNDE, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1919

NOON

Erika clenched her teeth. A moment later she sank slowly down onto Mock and snuggled her face between his neck and collarbone. She was breathing heavily. Mock swept the damp hair from her temple. Gradually her numbness passed and she slid from the man onto the tangle of sheets.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t cry out,” he said, barely able to control the shaking in his voice.

“Why?” she asked in a whisper.

“The receptionist didn’t believe we were married. He didn’t see any wedding rings. If you had yelled out that would have just confirmed his suspicions.”

“Why?” she repeated drowsily, and closed her eyes.

“Have you ever seen a married couple not leave their bed for fifteen hours?”

There was no reply. He got out of bed, pulled on his long johns and trousers, then stretched his braces and let them go. They slapped loudly against his naked torso. He whistled the well-known song “Frau Luna”, opened the window that gave onto the sea and breathed smells which transported him to the Konigsberg of his past, when nobody demanded he admit to some nameless offences or blackmailed him with eyeless corpses. The waves beat hard against the sun-baked sand and the two piers built on mounds of vast boulders. As he gazed at these constructions which embraced the port like a pair of arms, Mock tasted microscopic salty drops on his lips. From the nearest smokehouse wafted an aroma which set this fanatical lover of fish quivering nervously. He swallowed and turned towards Erika. She was no longer asleep. The slap of his braces had evidently woken her and she was resting her head on her knees, staring at him. Above her head hung a model of a sailing yacht which swayed in the salty breeze.

“Would you like some smoked fish?” he asked.

“Yes, very much,” she smiled timidly.

“Well, let’s go then,” Mock said as he buttoned up his shirt and tried on the new tie Erika had chosen for him in Koslin the previous day.

“I don’t feel like going anywhere.” She got out of bed and, stretching after her short nap, ran several paces across the room. She put her arms around Mock’s neck and with slender fingers stroked his muscular, broad shoulders. “I’m going to eat here …”

“Shall I bring you some?” Mock could not resist kissing her and gliding his hand over her naked back and buttocks. “What would you like? Eel? Plaice? Salmon, perhaps?”

“Don’t go anywhere.” She moved her lips towards his. “I want eel. But I want yours.”

She clung to him and kissed him on the ear.

“I’m afraid,” Mock whispered into her small, soft lobe tangled in a net of red hair, “that I might not be able … I’m not twenty any more …”

“Stop talking,” she rebuked him in a stern voice. “Everything’s going to be fine …”

She was right. Everything was fine.

RUGENWALDERMUNDE, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1919

TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

They left the Friedrichsbad Spa House Hotel holding hands. Two droschkas and a huge double-decker omnibus with a metal sign announcing its route between Rugenwalde and Rugenwaldermunde were parked in front of the porch of this massive building. Not far from the hotel stood a group of primary-school children and a bald, stout teacher who, as he fanned himself with his hat, was telling his charges that during the Napoleonic wars Prince Hohenzollern himself had taken the waters at this spa; the corpulent preceptor made use of his finger and pointed to a name plaque attached to the wall. Mock also noticed a pretty girl sitting alone on a bench outside the spa house, smoking a cigarette. He had worked long enough in the Vice Department to be able to indentify her profession.

They passed several houses on Georg-Buttner-Strasse and stopped at an ice-cream parlour. Erika attacked her icy column of raspberry scoops like a child and, much to Mock’s surprise, even bit into it, the very idea of which made his own teeth ache. The rasping of a barrier announced that the raised bridge had now been lowered. They crossed it and found themselves on Skagerrak Strasse. They followed the left side of the street and entered the first house on the corner, a tavern. Mock asked the innkeeper, a Mr Robert Pastewski — this was the name that appeared above the entrance — for a dozen Reichsadler cigarettes for himself, and the same number of English Gold Flakes for Erika.

The strength of the burning September sun was tempered by a wind coming from the sea, which entangled Erika’s hair as she stood on the narrow pavement.

“I’m hungry,” she complained, and looked meaningfully at Mock.

“But …” — Mock was troubled — “we’d have to go back to the hotel …”

“I’m not speaking in metaphors now.” The wind tossed a strand of hair into her eyes. “I really do want to eat.”

“Then we’re going for some real smoked eel,” he said. “But I’ll buy you a roll first. Let’s go …”

He stepped into a nearby bakery and was enveloped by the smell of warm bread. The only customers in the place were two sailors, who were leaning on a counter decorated with starched tapestries and talking to the fat baker. They were speaking so fast in a Pomeranian dialect that Mock could hardly understand what they were saying. But one thing he did know: neither of them was buying anything, and the baker was not paying the slightest attention to him. Mock felt a vague unease, but could not get to the root of it. “It’s the two sailors, no doubt,” he thought to himself, “not four but two.”

“And what would the esteemed gentleman like?” the baker asked in a strong Pomeranian accent.

“Two doughnuts, please. What’s the filling?”

“Wild rose jam.”

“Fine. Two please.”

The baker took his money, handed him a paper cone of doughnuts and went back to his conversation with the sailors.

“Listen, Zach,” Mock heard one of them say as he was on his way out. “Who was that?”

In response he tinkled the bell above the door and glanced at Erika, who seemed bored. With the tip of her shoe she was drawing some figures in heaps of sand scattered across the uneven pavement. Mock handed her the cone and absentmindedly erased the mysterious annotations with his shoe.

“Noli turbare circulos meos,”^† Erika said, pretending to take a swing at him; instead she stroked his clean-shaven cheek. At that moment he recognized the source of his anger.

“What am I supposed to say,” he thought as he walked beside her in silence. “I’m supposed to ask her where she knows that sentence from, and whether she went to secondary school, but every idiot knows it, after all. It doesn’t prove she’s educated or well read. ‘I’m a hetaera,’ she said to me when I asked about her profession; she uses the concept of a ‘metaphor’ correctly and quotes Cicero. Who is this whore, this crafty little whore? Maybe she wants me to start asking her about her past, her parents and her siblings; maybe she wants me to feel sorry for her and hug her. And she’s putting me to the test. Delicately and subtly. First she ruts like a she-cat in heat, then she quotes sentences in Latin which must be rattling around somewhere in that head of hers, which must be as good as empty with all this debauchery. ‘I partake in debauchery,’ she said. I wonder if she did the same way as that cripple — with three at a time.”

They walked on. Erika ate the second doughnut with relish. As they passed a large square house with huge green doors carrying a sign which read SOCIETY FOR THE AID OF THE SHIPWRECKED, Erika crushed the empty cone and asked casually:

“I wonder if there’s a society for the aid of the life-wrecked?”

Crafty whore. She wants me to feel sorry for her; she wants me to see her as a child snuggling into the fur of a fawning boxer.

Mock stopped outside the smokehouse and said something he later long regretted.

“Listen to me, Erika” — he controlled the tone of his voice but not what he said — “you’re not a whore with a heart of gold. There’s no such thing. You’re simply a whore. And that’s all. Don’t confide in me; don’t tell me about your miserable childhood; don’t tell me about your monster of a step-father and your mother whom he raped. Don’t tell me about your sister who gave herself an abortion at the age of fifteen. Don’t try and squeeze any tears out of me. Do what you’re best at, and don’t say anything.”

“Alright, I’ll watch myself,” she said with no suggestion of tears. “Are we going to that smokehouse or not?”

She walked past Mock and made her way towards a temporary counter on which a fishmonger in a rubber apron and sailor’s hat had arranged lightly smoked eels. He watched her slim back, which was shaking. He ran to her, turned her round and made to kiss away her tears. He did not do so, however, as Erika was not crying, she was shaking with laughter.

“My childhood was normal and nobody raped me,” she spluttered. “And talking of life’s wrecks, I wasn’t thinking about myself at all, but about a certain man …”

“A man who goes by the name of Kurt, no doubt? Go on, say it!” Mock was shouting, heedless of the fishmonger’s knowing eyes which said “that’s what young wives are like”. “That’s why you like the name Kurt so much, eh? You told me that the day before yesterday! Kurty, eh? Who was Kurty? Go on, tell me, damn it!”

“No.” Erika became serious. “The man’s name is Eberhard.”

8. IX.1919

It was remarkable, the occultists’ conference organized by Professor Schmikale, the representative of the Thule order in Breslau. The whole world and their father were invited! Ludwig Klages himself, Lanz von Liebenfels and even Walter Friedrich Otto! They did not, however, trouble themselves to come to this out-of-the-way Silesian province. Instead, the first of these sent his assistant, some lisping lad who gave a completely incomprehensible lecture on the cult of the Pelasgians’ Great Mother goddess. Furthermore he kept on suggesting that Klages’ master, Friedrich Nietzsche, was in constant spiritual contact with the Magna Mater. It was she who allegedly gave him the idea to call Jahwe and Jesus “usurpers of divinity”. At the same time he mercilessly criticized the young Englishman Robert Graves, who in a lecture had dared to claim that it was he who had come up with this term for the Jewish gods. It’s ridiculous! A paper on who was the first to think up some trivial formulation!

From the order of the new Templars it was not von Liebenfels who came, but a Doctor Fritzjorg Neumann, who foretold the return of Wotan. His lecture was rewarded with applause, not because of his searing antiSemitic and anti-Christian attacks, but for the lecture’s constant reiteration of the support of Erich von Ludendorff — chief quartermaster of the Emperor’s Armies — for the concept of Wotan’s Second Coming.

It is not surprising that after Neumann’s utterances the next lecturer, an intelligent, young Jewish woman, Dora Lorkin, was met with iciness and contempt. Oh, you profane people! Oh, you idiots with “von” before your names! Oh, you quarrelling chieftains who see nothing beyond your own dull tribes! You’re unable to appreciate true wisdom! Because through this young woman spoke Athena! Dora Lorkin was the represen tative of W.F. Otto’s polytheistic spiritualism. It transpired from the insightful theories of the Master she was representing that the human soul is a playing field for the ceaseless action of the Greek gods, who are the only true beings, while all other gods are mere myth. I will pass over her ontological reasoning. It is not vital. What made the greatest impression on me was the not new — as, after the lecture, some people accused it of being — but very apt notion of the Erinyes as the workings of a bad conscience.

Several sentences on the subject led me to ponder deeply, and allowed me to modify the piece on which I was working. Because as yet our bitter enemy has not admitted to his guilt, has not confessed his mistake. First I set free the spiritual energy of four young men. This energy was to guide him to a rightful way of thinking. The gouged eyes and the quotation from the Bible were supposed to make things evident to him. Our enemy, in his stubbornness, has not admitted to anything. In his house, some former butcher’s shop, I forced the evil spirit of an old libertine to return and torment the inhabitants. Still no confession of any guilt. Finally, for our cause, I offered up a harlot covered in scales. Admittedly I did not tear out her eyes. He is bound to know by now what we want of him! It should not take the rheumy eyes of an adulteress to make him realize! But he persists in his silence.

Only now, after Dora Lorkin’s lecture, have I understood that I must bring down true evil — the Erinyes — upon him. Then his torments will reach their zenith and he will admit to everything. At home I had a look at my shelf of books by writers of antiquity and took down Aeschylus’ tragedies. After reading for several hours I understood. I will bring down the Erinyes upon our enemy, and sacrifice his father as an offering to him. The Erinyes persecuted Orestes because he killed his mother. Aeschylus writes that they did not listen to Orestes’ reasonings or his pleas for mercy. Only one thing was important to them: to punish him and avenge his mother’s blood. At that point I had doubts. Our bitter enemy would not, after all, be guilty of patricide because I would be the one offering his father in sacrifice. Will then the Erinyes come down upon him? After all it is he who, de facto, has exposed his father to death by abandoning him and going off with a harlot. He has abandoned his father to his fate because now his father has to face the demons I have set loose in their house. When his father is left entirely alone and learns from me that his son has gone away to have it off with some courtesan, he will be jealous. He will be jealous of the whore, the basest scum in the bourgeois hierarchy.