The Minotaur's Head: An Eberhard Mock Investigation (Eberhard Mock Investigation 4) Page 12
“And do they ever service each other?” Grabski then asked without preamble. “It’s rare but it does happen …”
To Grabski’s surprise, Źrebik did not bridle in the least, let alone explode in righteous indignation. He merely lowered his voice a little.
“There was such a one here” – the beadle looked carefully at the police officer from beneath his bushy eyebrows – “who was exceptionally hot for his colleagues. Not a Rusyn, definitely one of ours from Zdołbunowo. Son of … it’s a pity to have to say it but he was the son of a policeman. He’d walk the attic at night trying to persuade the youngsters to go with him … He’s the only one I can remember.”
“What was his name? How old is he? And what is he doing now?”
“That I’d have to check,” said the beadle, and pulled out a grease-stained notebook. He flicked through the pages and pinned one of them down with a finger yellowed by nicotine. “He’s the one, I’ve got him … Zając Antoni, born 1910 …”
“1910, right? That would make him twenty-seven.”
“Yes, that would be right.”
“And what’s he doing? Where’s he working?”
“That I don’t know. He studied law and moved away somewhere. That would be five years ago. That’s all I know.”
“And what does he look like?”
“He wasn’t big, but strong, sinewy …”
“Dark-haired, fair …”
“Dark …”
“Handsome?”
“Would I know?” Źrebik pondered. “Would I know whether this fellow or that is handsome or ugly?”
Once out on the snow-covered pavement freshly sprinkled with sand, Grabski felt a shudder of emotion run through him – something he had not felt for a long time – and realized that his regret at not working in the archives was both risible and inexplicable.
LWÓW, THAT SAME JANUARY 27TH, 1937 NOON
Aspirant Herman Kacnelson was not pleased with the task he had been allocated. He had tried to explain to Chief Inspector Zubik that the mere fact that he was of Jewish descent did not in the least predestine him to work – as his boss was wont to say – “with ethnic minorities”. Kacnelson came from a Jewish family which had long been assimilated and whose members, for the past two generations, had been Lwów lawyers. Their attitude to the religion of Moses was, to put it mildly, rather cool, whereas to socialism and Polish independence it was enthusiastic indeed. The Kacnelsons spoke only Polish and had typically Polish first names. He was the only exception in the family with a name such as “Herman”, in memory of a certain Austrian officer who had saved his grandfather’s life at the battle of Sadowa and whose portrait hung in their living-room next to that of His Majesty Franz Jozef. In fact the name Herman was very common among Polish Jews, which was why the aspirant especially hated it. He considered it an intolerable hallmark of his Jewish roots, an unnecessary burden unworthy of a modern man who decides for himself which nation he belongs to. He could not, however, change it for fear of being disinherited, as this is how his father would no doubt have reacted. So it was not surprising that he performed these “ethnicity”-related tasks allocated to him by the chief with a certain unwillingness. He awaited better days when his boss would be – as he firmly believed – Commissioner Edward Popielski, a man who appreciated his investigative talents without regard to his nationality or ethnic origins.
The prospect of talking to representatives of the Jewish religious circles who looked after the student hostels filled him with distaste. When he saw the dirty prayer rooms adjacent to the synagogues, the boys swaying in the heder pews, the threadbare gabardines, the skull-caps of the Orthodox Jews and the wigs of pious Jewish women; when he listened to the disquisitions in Yiddish, a language he did not know, he felt that he was stepping back into the darkness of an unknown world, and that his logical, rational mind – trained during his incomplete studies at the polytechnic – was being drowned in the scum of immemorial superstition.
It was with relief, therefore, that he ticked off in his notebook every religious institution which offered the youths of Moses a roof, board and laundry. There were only a few, and in each of them he received the same negative answers to his questions: none of the superiors of the Jewish orphanages would even hear of the notion that some meshugge boy capable of committing the sin of Onan or – God forbid! – that of the Sodomites, could possibly be found in their boarding house. Even though he had not found a single clue, Herman Kacnelson breathed a sigh of relief, dismissed the distant cousin he had employed as a Yiddish interpreter, and made his way to Jewish lay institutions offering board and education.
The first of these was the House of Jewish Orphans on Strzelecki square. After some considerable time he was allowed to see the head, Mr Wolf Tyśminicer. The police aspirant officer introduced himself, pulled out his pencil and notebook and, with a heavy sigh, commenced yet another interrogation. He asked several questions and sensed his pulse beating faster, and after a quarter of an hour’s conversation Kacnelson had ceased to curse Chief Inspector Zubik for allocating him exclusively “Jewish” tasks.
LWÓW, MONDAY, JANUARY 25TH, 1937 NINE O’CLOCK AT NIGHT
Aspirant Cygan and Vasilii Pohorylec, manager of the Bagatella restaurant and dancing club, walked through the labyrinth of narrow corridors at the back of this excellent and well-known Lwów establishment. Behind them traipsed Tshuchna and Gravadze. He could not leave them outside lest one of them should phone the “gals” in the back rooms to agree upon a common version of events. The men stopped outside a door marked “Changing Room”, with a crêpe-paper flower affixed to its top right-hand corner.
“This is it,” said Pohorylec. “Miss Stefcia and Miss Tunia from our variety show change in here with the other dancers. But I sincerely entreat you, sir, to be brief. Both ladies are about to appear on stage! When you can see for yourself what beautiful girls we have here perhaps you’ll be persuaded to visit our establishment? I’ve never seen you here before, sir! And that’s a pity, a great pity … Just listen to the fine singing up there!”
As he said this the manager pointed to the ceiling. They could clearly hear the words of a jaunty song coming from above:
My brothers, jig away,
Let the accordion play.
Grab the lasses by the arms
And God’ll give you strength.
My brothers, jig away,
In Gródyk, Kliparów,
’Cross the hall just jig away,
There’s nowhere like our Lwów.
Pohorylec nodded as if to endorse the words of the song, and without knocking opened the changing-room door. Laughter and screams of feigned fright came from within. Cygan looked sternly at Tshuchna and Gravadze who were standing in a recess by the toilets.
“Right,” he snarled. “Don’t move from that hole and wait for me!”
“And I’ll be on my way, Aspirant, sir,” said Pohorylec. “Duty calls, you know. The carnival’s in full swing. I insist you keep it brief …”
Cygan resisted informing the manager that he was talking absolute twaddle. Instead he simply nodded, entered the changing room and closed the door behind him.
The aspirant officer was already twenty-eight, had recently got engaged and no longer remembered very well the days when, as a schoolboy, he had been troubled by erotic dreams and a longing for music-hall dancers. But now the unease and fantasies returned; the sight of a dozen semi-naked women in frills and stockings, the scent of their perfumes and powders – all this hit Cygan unexpectedly and momentarily knocked him off balance. Regaining it was made no easier by the smiles, fluttering eyelashes and flirtatious, intrigued looks of the dancers. He decided to apply his unfailing remedy against sexual arousal and brought to mind the photographs of female genitalia deformed by venereal diseases which he had seen in lessons on forensic medicine during his police training in Tarnopol. It helped. He looked at the dancers with assumed gravity.
“Which of you are Stefcia and Tunia?” he ask
ed.
“We are.” Two girls stepped forward, a brunette and a blonde.
“Full names, please, not stage names!”
“I’m Stefania Mazur,” said the slim blonde. “And she’s Antonina Kaniewska, our Tunia.” She indicated her dark-haired colleague.
“Have you got boyfriends?” Cygan pulled out a pencil and rebuked himself for such a stupid question.
“Just one, Commissioner, sir?” laughed Tunia as she adjusted her stockings.
“Shut up, you stupid monkey!” Stefcia shouted and smiled at Cygan. “We do, but all of them pale in comparison to you, sir …”
This plebeian compliment had an electrifying effect on Cygan. He took his eyes off Stefcia, whose hands rested on her narrow hips as she gazed fondly at him, and laid them on the other dancer as she rolled a stocking up her shapely thigh. His imagination got the better of him, and instead of the ghastly images he saw himself in the embrace of lustful female bodies. Fortunately the bell summoning the dancers onstage resounded in the changing room.
“With whom did Miss Stefcia and Miss Tunia spend New Year’s Eve?” he asked in despair.
At that moment the door opened and Pohorylec, the worried manager, appeared. Tshuchna and Gravadze were in plain view behind his slight figure.
“With them!” shouted Miss Tunia joyfully and pointed to the two foreigners. “With those beautiful Cossacks! Their dance is wonderful!”
LWÓW, THAT SAME JANUARY 27TH, 1937 TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
Aspirant Grabski sat in the waiting room of Commercial Bank on Legionów and looked out of the window as he waited for Mr Antoni Zając, one of the bank’s team of lawyers. The police officer was pleased with his day’s work. After obtaining that important information from the beadle, Józef Źrebik, he had gone directly to the Law Department at Jan Kazimierz University. There the elderly secretary, Miss Eugenia Koczurówna, had slipped on a pair of over-sleeves and scrupulously searched through the student files. She had easily found Antoni Zając, born in 1910, and had taken down his index number to look through the graduate files. After this thorough exploration, which won Grabski’s true admiration, the secretary told him that Antoni Zając of Zdołbunowo had completed his law studies the previous year and had decided to undergo a year’s unpaid apprenticeship at the university bursary. Aspirant Grabski expressed his admiration for Miss Koczurówna’s rigorous accuracy and set off for the bursary. There he learned that the apprentice going by that name was working at Commercial Bank, and had been for several weeks.
Now at the bank and rather pleased with himself, Grabski stood at a window in a corridor leading to the lawyers’ offices and out of boredom watched workers clearing the snow in front of Bieniecki’s pastry shop where, as a reward for the day’s success, he intended to eat several cream cakes.
A door rattled and slow footsteps reverberated down the corridor. Grabski turned to see a young man in a dark suit approaching. The man was not tall and had a sallow complexion, black hair and large black eyes.
“Mr Antoni Zając, born in 1910?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s me,” answered the man. “What’s this about? With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“Aspirant Valerian Grabski.” The badge he showed impressed Zając greatly. “Which hostel did you live at when you were a student?”
“The House of Technicians on Issakowicz,” replied the clerk.
Grabski tipped his hat in farewell and squeezed past Zając, rubbing against his huge protruding belly as he did so.
LWÓW, FRIDAY, JANUARY 29TH, 1937 NOON
“Thank you for your report, Mr Grabski,” said Zubik in Polish and lit up his favourite Patria cigar. “Zając turned out to be an elephant, and elephants don’t climb hotel gutters …”
Kacnelson and Grabski forced a smile while Zaremba erupted with sincere and loud laughter; only Mock remained silent, not understanding a word of Zubik’s joke.
“This isn’t good, gentlemen, not good at all,” said the chief. “The two Russkies have an alibi; the other suspect is fat, too fat to perform acrobatics on a roof.” Here he changed to German. “There’s nothing from the orphanages or schools either, as Mr Zaremba has reported. And what about the ethnic minorities, Mr Kacnelson? Any clues there?”
Kacnelson grimaced at the term “ethnic minorities” and recounted his fruitless search in Jewish religious circles. In spite of his sour face, his colleagues listened eagerly because they knew that their “little yid” – as they called him behind his back – liked to spring surprises as much as he liked complex games of chess. After an innocent introduction which heralded nothing of any significance, he was capable of coming out with a real bombshell at the end of his report – indeed he had on many occasions.
“After questioning all the Orthodoxes” – that is how Kacnelson always described committed Orthodox Jews – “I set my sights on lay student hostels and hostels run by Jewish welfare organisations. The director of the House of Jewish Orphans, Mr” – he glanced at his notebook – “Wolf Tyśminicer, presented me with an interesting clue. A twenty-year-old resident at the hostel, a not very tall, slim dark-haired young man called Izydor Drescher, only too readily took on female parts in school performances. After finishing merchant school he worked in the Ingber and Wiener timber company and was to stay at the hostel on condition that he left as soon as he had found alternative lodgings. Then one day Mr Tyśminicer found the lad drunk on the hostel stairs and immediately turned him out. Drescher moved to lodgings on Zielona. I asked the caretaker there about him and was told the man in question was no longer working at the timber company but was drinking heavily and working as a stage artist at Kanarienfogel’s tavern nearby. The evening before last I watched the artistic programme offered at this den, and it certainly was something to behold!” He snorted in disdain. “Drescher, with an abundant beard and wearing a dress, was spinning around the stage in a Jewish dance yelling ‘Ay, vay’ to klezmer music, while a crowd of soldiers and non-commissioned officers from the barracks on St Jacek’s hill roared in delight. I approached Drescher after the performance and questioned him in detail. Above all I wanted to check whether his beard was real.”
“Why?” asked Zubik.
“The suspect is remarkable for his feminine beauty, right?” Kacnelson stared lengthily at the chief. “If he had a beard he probably wouldn’t have been compared to a woman in Breslau, would he?”
“Well, what happened to the beard?” asked Mock. “Did you tear it off?”
“Something happened alright. But to my face.” Kacnelson touched his cheek where a large bruise was evident. “I didn’t want to explain when you asked about the bruise earlier because you know how much I enjoy surprises.” He smiled sourly. “So, when I pulled Drescher by his very real beard some tough fellow, a friend of his who thought I wanted to harm the dancer, threw himself at me. And I got a fist in the eye.”
“Where is this friend, and what’s his name?” asked Mock.
“I don’t know.” Kacnelson shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. “He ran away and I couldn’t detain him. I hadn’t taken my gun that day, as it happens.”
With every report presented that day Mock grew redder and redder, especially on the neck, but after Kacnelson’s account his neck turned purple. He raised his stubby-fingered hand, the onyx signet ring glistening, and looked Zubik in the eye.
“Please go ahead,” the chief nodded. “I hand the voice to you!”
“Thank you, Inspector.” Mock got to his feet and cast his eyes over the assembled company. “I wouldn’t like to offend you, gentlemen, but I regret Commissioner Popielski not being here. I have something important to say and he would translate it extremely well …”
“He’s not here,” said Zubik, annoyed, “because it’s too early for him. The sun’s out today. He could suffer an attack of an illness nobody’s ever seen …”
“I beg your pardon, sir.” Zaremba leapt from his chair. “I’ve witnessed it and swear …”
“Please do!” said Zubik, turning angrily towards Mock and almost upsetting the overflowing ashtray.
“Firstly,” Mock now spoke calmly, “all of you, gentlemen, are working on your own when you should be working in pairs. That’s elementary! Mr Kacnelson was assaulted, and what would have happened if this Drescher had indeed been the murderer? He and his minder would have got away while a police officer would have lain unconscious in the corner of a room somewhere. Secondly” – he took a deep breath – “you’re too gullible and, forgive me, too naive. How can you approach a suspect without knowing exactly who he is, what his weaknesses are, or how he might be pressed into a confession? You’d save yourselves masses of time if you asked the witnesses what the suspect looked like, whether he was thin or fat, had a beard or not …”
“Please don’t lecture us!” growled Zubik. “What’s that supposed to mean, ‘press’? Blackmail? We don’t blackmail those we question. We act according to the law! What you’re proposing is some sort of … some sort of … torture.” He had remembered the German word and added emphatically: “Those are fascist methods which might hold good in Germany, but not here, understand, Criminal Director, sir?”
Before Mock had managed to calm down and collect his thoughts after this biting riposte, the door opened and Miss Zosia stepped into the office. The sight of her and her gentle smile soothed each of the men. Zubik pulled his waistcoat down over his protruding belly, Zaremba began to roll his eyes, Grabski tore himself away from his notebook, Kacnelson stopped rubbing his cheek and Mock instantly forgot that indirectly he had been called a “fascist”.