The Minotaur's Head: An Eberhard Mock Investigation (Eberhard Mock Investigation 4) Page 14

  “And now the next thing,” continued Mock. “You say you don’t want to conduct the Minotaur investigation because you don’t have the time. I can understand that. I’ve been in a similar situation – I didn’t care about people being serially murdered because I was going through a very difficult time with my first wife. So I understand! You obviously feel you have to devote all your time to protecting your daughter from various Minotaurs. But for God’s sake, act preventively! Remove all additional and secondary fears, such as concern about a seductive tutor! Simply dampen his ardour, catch him in a vice and put your daughter into the care of a police officer who wouldn’t hesitate to use a gun or at least a fist in her defence! And then devote yourself to our case with a pure conscience and clear mind …” Mock hesitated. “But now … there’s something I still have to ask you. Forgive me for being so direct … Are your fears for your daughter by any chance …?”

  A knock at the door resounded in the living-room and after Popielski’s vociferous “Enter!” there appeared the slender figure of Rita, who finished classes early on Fridays. This was her last schoolday but one before the winter holidays. Beneath her unbuttoned coat she wore a navy-blue uniform with a white sailor collar, and her raven-black hair was hidden beneath a warm beret. One lock had escaped and curled in a spiral over a cheek that was pink from the cold. She was beautiful, as young girls unable to conceal constantly changing emotions can be: from joy at the end of a school term, through surprise at seeing Mock, to faint fear inspired by her father’s overcast expression. “Sorry”, she muttered, and disappeared into the hall. Mock stared at the door she had just closed.

  “There, you see how I’ve brought her up?” – the sight of his daughter had brightened Popielski’s mood – “A grown young lady, and she runs away like a deer instead of politely introducing herself to you! But let’s conclude our conversation and then I’ll make the introductions. You wanted to say something about parents always thinking their children are the most beautiful …”

  “It’s nothing …” Mock frowned, as if deep in thought. “That is … I wanted to say that I understand your fears for your daughter very well. Very well indeed. But, but, let’s get back to the crux of the matter. Most importantly, I’m proposing a Popielski and Mock partnership. Just the two of us. But first you must eliminate these fears for your daughter.”

  “Right,” said Popielski firmly. “But I’ll do this my own way. The knightly way! Without any sort of pressure! That teacher is well respected, a professor at a secondary school! I’ll do it, and you, Mock, sir, are going to observe my methods. I’ll prove to you that they’re better than coercion!”

  “Alright.” Mock gave a sigh of resignation. “But if your methods don’t prove to be apt you’re standing me a large vodka, agreed?”

  “Agreed,” replied Popielski mechanically.

  “Well? A Popielski and Mock partnership?”

  The German extended his right hand. Commissioner Popielski hesitated for a moment and, guided by his intuition alone, came to a decision. Had he revealed to anyone what had succeeded in persuading him to enter this singular partnership, they would have laughed. It was Mock’s signet ring, adorned – like his own – with an onyx. “We belong to the same club,” Popielski had thought, remembering the scene in the train compartment when they had first met. “To the club of lovers of Antiquity and a woman’s body.” “I like men who belong to that club,” the blonde girl had said at the time.

  “Popielski and Mock,” said the commissioner, extending his hand. “Sounds good, too. Iamb and anapest, if I’m not mistaken. And now I’d like to introduce my daughter.”

  Popielski left the room and Mock slipped an egg wrapped in herring onto his spoon, greedily swallowed it and then took a bite of a bread roll. He stood up, looked critically at his reflection in the glass-fronted bookcase and forcefully pulled in his stomach.

  LWÓW, THAT SAME JANUARY 29TH, 1937 FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Professor Kasprzak was correcting homework on Mickiewicz’s Wielka Improwizacja† in the empty staff room. It had put him in a bad mood. He hissed angrily and slammed the exercise books onto the desk. “Do these idiots” – he was thinking about his pupils – “always have to be so unbearably highfalutin when they write, so baroque and verbose! Those stupid habits pumped into them by that old sclerotic Mąkos, I’ve been trying to wean them off them for half a year now. They used Rej’s language to write about Rej, and now Mickiewicz’s to write about Mickiewicz! But I’ll get it out of their heads! They can read a few of Kleiner’s analyses and write in his style!”

  At moments such as these the Polish teacher would recall his own thesis, which he had written on Romantic drama and defended, summa cum laude, to Professor Juliusz Kleiner himself ten years earlier. Those praiseworthy moments made him immensely proud and had been, as he realised years later, a prelude to his bright career. On completing his studies at twenty-three, he had immediately obtained a position as Professor of Polish Literature at Queen Jadwiga’s Secondary School for Girls, thanks to Wilam Horzyc, director of the Grand Theatre, whose assistant he had been on several occasions. Horzyc’s influence had proved exceptionally effective, for it broke down the resistance of the headmistress, Ludmiła Madler. She would have preferred to take on an elderly, solid person for the vacancy rather than a handsome young man draped in a Hidalgo coat, who would turn the head of many a schoolgirl. To the headmistress’ great relief, Professor Kasprzak had married a year after starting work at the school, and his wife, a Jewish-Christian convert who was older than him, had given birth to four children in ten years of married life. His teaching achievements, especially where the theatre was concerned, were so great that Headmistress Madler had agreed to his request to teach Romanticism and Modernism to the lower and upper sixth forms. In order to maintain his growing family, the teacher had also begun to work with several well-known theatre directors. This was a semi-clandestine collaboration which involved providing theatres with an audience. Kasprzak took his pupils to shows – and sometimes to the same ones – twice a week, and the theatre managers paid him a fee on the side: one zloty per head. So the Polish tutor made a fair profit and kept in with excellent acquaintances in theatrical circles, and on top of that was held in high regard by the educational authorities because of his untiring extra-curricular activities, namely, staging several plays a year at Queen Jadwiga’s Secondary School for Girls. These successes had changed him to a large extent: he had become haughty, self-confident and arrogant, could not see the world beyond theatre, and had begun to neglect his teaching duties. For months on end he neglected to mark tests or homework, to which Headmistress Madler, troubled by complaints from the parents, politely yet firmly drew his attention. Then Kasprzak began to despise the parents and his work as a teacher, and looked forward to the end of the school year and the holidays, after which a cosy position on the Board of Education awaited him.

  With relief he threw the last exercise book on the pile, knowing that there was only one day of work still ahead of him and then two whole weeks of winter holidays! He would devote them to planning his new show which he had been promised would be premiered in a real theatre even though the actors were schoolgirls, and would be seen by the whole of Lwów. He got dressed, grabbed his walking stick and hat and left the school, barely acknowledging the caretaker.

  On Piłudski Street he jumped onto a moving number 3. Noticing the conductor’s severe expression he realized that leaping onto a tram did not befit the dignity of a school professor. He got out at Halicki Square and made along Hetmańska towards the Grand Theatre whence stretched his true destination: a labyrinth of small streets inhabited almost exclusively by Israelites. Here too was Krakidały, the flea market where everything could be either lost – by playing various gambling games, of which “three cards” was the most popular – or bought, from horsemeat to unbreakable combs. On Friday afternoons, however, these streets were almost deserted due to preparations for the Sabbath, and in the gath
ering dusk they seemed rather dangerous. This sense of danger was heightened by the presence of a few gloomy traders who had failed to sell their goods and blamed the entire world for their misfortune. They glowered at passers-by as they dismantled their stalls. But this did not discourage the professor; he had arranged to meet a second-hand book dealer, Nachum Rudy, whom he had commissioned to find for him old editions of Romantic plays and theatre programmes. Kasprzak passed his beloved Grand Theatre, crossed Gołuchowski Square and plunged into Gęsia, a narrow street on the other side. From here it was not far to Zakątna, where Nachum had his stall. He glanced at his watch and quickened his pace. At that moment he heard a loud voice behind him:

  “Professor, sir! Excuse me, Professor!”

  Startled, he turned to see a breathless man he recognized immediately: Commissioner Edward Popielski, father of Rita, one of his pupils. The man rested his hands on his knees and panted for a few moments. Kasprzak did not like him; he was irritated by his masculinity, and by his reputation as a brute and alcoholic as well as a vanquisher of crooks. There was yet another reason why the teacher did not like the commissioner; he suspected him of informing on him to the school authorities. Besides, it was not at all to his liking that anyone should meet him on Krakidały which, because of its gambling, prostitution and the underhand sales of pornographic postcards, did not enjoy the approval of the learned circles to which he aspired.

  “I sincerely apologize for daring to accost you in the street, Professor,” began Popielski. “I was at the school and the caretaker told me you had made your way towards the theatre. I ran and managed to spot you. I have an exceptionally urgent matter. I’m the father of your pupil Rita Popielska. Do you recognize me, sir?”

  “How can I help you, Commissioner?” said Kasprzak dryly, glancing at his watch.

  “I won’t take up much of your time, Professor.” Popielski had straightened up and was now towering over the teacher. “My daughter has told me that you’re planning to put on a performance of Euripedes’s Medea in the near future. Hence the urgency. To put my request to you before the winter holidays. I kindly ask that Rita does not take part in the performance. For her acting is a reward, and she doesn’t really deserve one, bearing in mind the report she got this term. That’s all, I won’t take up any more of your time. May I count on your kind agreement?”

  Kasprzak was speechless with astonishment. He could not absorb the absurdity of the whole episode: the famous Commissioner Popielski accosts him here on Krakidały and makes demands! He looked about him as if searching for witnesses to this unseemly and grotesque scene. His offended gaze was wrongly interpreted by a shady character in an old Austrian army coat, lugging a basket from which poked the shaggy heads of several puppies. The character looked at both men and asked:

  “All due respect, would either of you kind gentlemen fancy some near-pedigree pups?”

  “No,” growled Popielski, knowing it wasn’t easy to shoo away a desperate salesman on Krakidały.

  This growl, this blunt, self-confident growl, irritated Kasprzak all the more. “What?” he thought, “Does this bald prick think he can impose his will on everyone? This degenerate whom the whole town says is living with his own first cousin?”

  “Commissioner, sir,” said Kasprzak, barely controlling his annoyance, “this performance is to be a great theatrical event. And do you know why, Commissioner? Apart from anything else, because your daughter is going to play Medea. She is a phenomenally talented actress. You ought to be proud of her!”

  “My superior, Chief Zubik, has already mentioned the performance to me.” Popielski smiled sweetly. “They talk about you a lot, Professor, in the official high circles of Lwów … A lot …”

  “Well, I’m not surprised.” Kasprzak brushed the snow off his coatsleeves and for a moment forgot Nachum Rudy. “I’ve done my bit for the town …”

  “You have such a great talent, Professor,” Popielski gushed in admiration, “that it is even marvelled at by police officers who, according to opinio communis, are thick and rarely go to the theatre …”

  “Well, I don’t know, I don’t know,” said Kasprzak, wallowing in the compliments. “Come to think of it, I myself wonder whether police officers go to the theatre at all. I don’t know anyone in those thrilling spheres of higher authority apart from you, Commissioner, and I’ve never seen you at a theatre …”

  “Yes, a great talent” – Popielski grabbed the professor by the elbow and tilted his head in admiration – “which is bound to be appreciated by exactly those higher authorities with whom I’m on very good terms …”

  Kasprzak looked at the police officer carefully, his brain working fast. Popielski’s eventual support would definitely not outweigh the near-certain success of Medea. “Besides, he might start making fresh demands,” he thought, “for example that Kasprzak should pull some strings with other professors so that his silly – though certainly pretty – little goose might pass her final exams in a year’s time. Oh no! Was he, Professor Jerzy Kasprzak, to have dealings with police types who probably have the blood of more than one man on their hands? Certainly not!”

  “She’s going to perform in the play, Commissioner”, said Kasprzak firmly. “It would be a failure without her. And a man in my position cannot allow failure.”

  “She will perform” – Popielski stopped smiling – “if I let her. Who has the final say in my child’s upbringing? Do I, or does the school? The father or the teacher?”

  “Please don’t get upset, Commissioner,” said Kasprzak, changing his tone as he prepare to deliver the final blow. “Agree to your daughter taking part in this play! You can have no idea of the gratitude that will come your way. You’ll win Rita back completely! She’s told me a great deal about you, about her late mother whom she never knew …”

  Kasprzak broke off as he saw Popielski’s jaws moving beneath taut skin. The Commissioner leaned towards the teacher and whispered in his ear:

  “You’ve debased me now, but you’re not going to debase Rita.”

  Popielski walked away. He held his bowler high in his outstretched right hand as a dusting of snow settled on his bald head.

  LWÓW, THAT SAME JANUARY 29TH, 1937 FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  Eberhard Mock rubbed his eyes in amazement. He had never seen anything like it. If it were not for the snow and frost he would have been certain that he had found himself at some Turkish or Arabian market. Bearded Jews, reeking of garlic, were closing their stalls and shoving various objects under his nose. Efforts to repel these pests with curses in German had the opposite of the desired effect. The pedlars simply switched to a peculiar German dialect, began to praise their wares even more ardently and there, before Mock’s eyes, extended a veritable panorama of shoddy goods: cigarette lighters, metal tape measures, cufflinks, calendars, whetstones for razor blades, elasticated braces, watches, contraptions for tying neckties and holding trouser legs in place, suspenders, scented soaps and clothes hangers. Mock felt completely helpless in the face of these traders, and so he decided to allow them to gather around and touch him, in the hope that they would eventually tire of it.

  They tired of it faster than he had anticipated and before long there were no more pedlars nearby. So he gazed with fascination at the dirty houses with their Hebraic signs, at the dogs running from doorways and the screaming children in round caps with long ringlets dangling at their ears. For a change, two musicians – one playing an accordion, the other a mandolin – now appeared at his side. Despite the cold they wore only jackets, and instead of ties had colourful scarves wrapped around their necks.

  Clouds of mist drifted in from the narrow streets, dusk began to fall, and the musicians came closer and closer. They gave off the smell of alcohol, and their eyes shone with insolence. The lively tune, combined with the dusk, the fog and the men’s wicked intentions, created a sinister atmosphere. All of a sudden Mock remembered something: a waltz on a deserted, rusty, spinning merry-go-round in Breslau, benea
th the merry-go-round a murdered child. He felt ill at ease, looked around for Zaremba and at that moment caught sight of Popielski disappearing down the street. The commissioner was bare-headed, his bowler hat held high in his hand.

  Mock pushed the surprised musicians aside and made after the man to whom Popielski had just been speaking. The brisk footfalls of the two angry drunk men were soon drowned out by the roar of an engine. Mock looked round.

  Kasprzak did the same and saw, a few paces away, a man of medium height, stocky and square-shaped. Behind him were two irate musicians. And even further behind, in the snow flurry, yet another man came running. All these people were heading in his direction, while a black car crawled alongside the pavement. Anxious now, the teacher turned abruptly into Bóżnicza, where the synagogue was, and tried to cut quickly across the road.

  He did not have time. The automobile stopped and blocked his way. The square-shaped man came up close and made a swift movement with his leg. Kasprzak felt pain pierce his shin. He seethed with unbridled anger that someone should have the audacity to assault him in the centre of Lwów, and instead of attending to his agonizing leg he threw himself at his assailant. The latter raised his other leg and propelled a heel into Kasprzak’s knee. Kasprzak groaned and took a swipe with his fist. The assailant ducked and the professor struck the roof of the car. The passenger door opened. Instinctively Kasprzak lowered his head and peered inside. Just then he received a blow to the back of his head which nearly threw him into the car. Then he got another in the face from the driver, close-up. His mouth filled with blood. As he was dragged into the car by his tie and the lapels of his coat, the stitching of his over-tight jacket ripped. Suddenly he felt pain everywhere: in his shin, his knee, his hand, on the back of his head and his nose.