End of the World in Breslau Read online

  “What did you find?” asked Mock.

  “This.” From a brown envelope, Smolorz extracted a wallet of crocodile leather and handed it to Mock.

  Mock examined the wallet. It contained an identity card in the name of Emil Gelfrert – born February 17th, 1876, musician, bachelor, living at Friedrich-Wilhelm-Strasse 21 – a notebook with addresses and telephone numbers, a receipt from a laundry in the same name, a card for the Municipal Library, a few tram tickets and a postcard from Riesengebirge with the words: “To my sweet, best wishes from the mountains, Anna, Hirschberg, July 3rd, 1925.”

  “Is that all?” Mock asked, as the men from the mortuary carried “sweet” to the hearse parked nearby.

  “No, there was this too. Someone had pinned it to his waistcoat.” With his tweezers, Smolorz held up a page from a universal calendar dated September 12th, 1927. No writing, simply an ordinary page from a calendar, which some unfortunate people – those who monitor the passing time, that is – tear off each day. The page was pierced by a small safety pin.

  “No fingerprints,” Meinerer added. “Doctor Lasarius estimates the date of the murder as being in August or September.”

  “Smolorz, we’re going to Friedrich-Wilhelm-Strasse, to the musician’s apartment.” With some relief, Mock became aware of pangs of hunger. His body was ready for a beer and a roll with paprika dripping. “Maybe we shall meet the faithful Anna there, waiting patiently with her needlework for her artist’s return from the Philharmonia?”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 28TH, 1927

  TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  Elisabeth Pflüger undressed slowly, arranging her clothes neatly on a chair. She unfastened her stockings from her suspenders. Sophie Mock admired her narrow, white hands as they slowly rolled down the smooth stockings. Elisabeth removed the suspender belt, then slipped off her silk knickers. She was completely naked. In the slender fingers of her left hand she held a small silver case; in her right dangled an engraved spoon with a long handle. She dipped the spoon into the case and held it close to Sophie’s face.

  “It’s very good cocoa,” she whispered. Sophie inhaled through her nostrils, shuddered and ran her fingers over her velvety, slightly reddened nose.

  “Cover your face with a veil,” Elisabeth said. “You’ll hide the bruise and you can stay incognito. You don’t have to show your face to anyone. Everything you do will be entirely of your own free will. Or you can just watch. And you can leave at any moment. Those are the rules.”

  Elisabeth took her friend’s hand and opened the door that led from the boudoir to the Moorish bedroom. Sophie stood somewhat helpless, holding the basket of tea roses in her free hand. On the bed, under a yellow canopy, sat a naked young man drinking an infusion. The room smelled of mint. Elisabeth approached the man and took the empty cup from him. From a jug nearby she poured herself a cupful.

  “It’s mint,” she told Sophie. “A drink called Venus.”

  The drink was clearly beginning to take effect on the man.

  “Remember,” Elisabeth said, pretending not to see this and blowing into her cup. “You can leave any time you like. The boudoir leads straight out to the staircase.”

  Sophie did not go anywhere.

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 28TH, 1927

  ELEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  Gelfrert had occupied a small room in the garret of a sumptuous tenement at Friedrich-Wilhelm-Strasse 21. Apart from a stool, a basin, a mirror, a clothes stand and an iron bed, the room contained only empty bottles of Guttentag alpine herb liqueur, neatly arranged beneath the window. On the sill stood a few books and a case containing a French horn.

  “He had a delicate palate,” Ehlers remarked, spreading his tripod.

  Mock gave his men the appropriate instructions, went downstairs, crossed the street and made his way towards Königsplatz. It had stopped raining and the sun had come out, accentuating the bright sign of Grengel’s Inn. A moment later, Mock was devouring a much-needed pork-lard roll, washing down the hot taste of paprika with a beer. He drank the last drops with relief and experienced a faint dizziness. He tossed some small change to the sympathetic bulldog who was drying tankards behind the bar, and shut himself in the telephone booth. It took him a while to remember his own number. Adalbert picked up after the first ring.

  “Good day, is the mistress at home?” Mock enounced the syllables slowly.

  “Unfortunately, Counsellor, Mrs Sophie left an hour ago,” Adalbert spoke quickly; he knew his master would want to be told everything without having to ask. “She went shopping with Miss Pflüger shortly after some roses were delivered to her. She took the basket with her.”

  Mock hung up the receiver and left the bar. His men were back in the Adler, filling the car with cigarette smoke. He joined them.

  “Gelfrert had a fiancée once, a large blonde of about thirty. She used to visit him with a two-year-old boy,” Smolorz recounted his questioning of the caretaker. “An unmarried woman with a child. The caretaker hasn’t seen her for quite some time. Gelfrert worked in some orchestra and visited pupils. Gave piano lessons. He had been in a bad way recently. He drank. Nobody visited him. Neighbours complained he left shit in the crapper after he used it. Nothing more from the caretaker.”

  “We found a request form from the Municipal Library.” Ehlers held a piece of printed paper under Mock’s nose. “September 10th, Gelfrert returned a book entitled Antiquitates Silesiacae. The library gave him a receipt confirming the book’s return.”

  “So he was still alive on September 10th. Taking Doctor Lasarius’ reckonings into account, our musician was walled in at the shoemaker’s workshop in the Griffins yard between 10th and 30th September.”

  “Someone lured him there, or dragged him when he was unconscious,” Smolorz opened the window to let in a breath of air.

  “Then he was gagged and tied to the hook on the far wall of the recess, so that he wouldn’t thrash around and knock down the newly erected wall,” added Mock. “One thing interests me: wasn’t our Bluebeard afraid that the following day a new tenant might move in and discover a wall had just been built or, worse still, hear inarticulate sounds uttered by the victim, despite the gag?”

  The men did not say anything. Mock thought about another tankard of beer, then spread himself out on the passenger seat and turned to the policemen in the back. His hat, tipped back to the crown of his head, gave him a rakish appearance.

  “Smolorz, you’re to drag that drunken caretaker of the Griffins from his underground lair and question him. Then check for the deceased in our files, as well as all the acquaintances in his notebook. You, Ehlers, are to research Gelfrert’s past. Where he was born, his religion and so on. Then question those acquaintances of his who live in Breslau. I want a report the day after tomorrow at noon sharp.”

  “And what am I to do?” Meinerer asked. Mock thought for a moment. Meinerer was ambitious and vindictive. Once, he had confided to Ehlers over a schnapps that he did not understand why Mock favoured a dunder-head like Smolorz. Meinerer had not realized that to criticize good-natured Smolorz was an offence difficult to wipe out in Mock’s eyes. From that moment onwards, Meinerer had encountered numerous obstacles on his career path.

  “You, Meinerer, I want to assign you an entirely different task. I suspect my nephew has fallen in with some bad company. You’re to follow him for two weeks, every day. Erwin Mock, nineteen years old, lives at Nicolaistrasse 20, attends Matthiasgymnasium.” Pretending not to see the disappointment on Meinerer’s face, Mock climbed out of the car. “I’ll go on foot – there’s something important I have to do.”

  He strode briskly in the direction of Grengel’s Inn.

  “Counsellor sir, Counsellor, please wait,” he heard Meinerer’s voice behind him. He turned to wait for his subordinate with an indifferent expression.

  “That assistant of yours, Smolorz, he’s a bit taciturn,” Meinerer was triumphant. “He didn’t tell you there was a universal calendar hanging
on the wall, the kind you tear the pages out of. Do you know which page had been torn out last?”

  “12th September?” Meinerer nodded as Mock looked at him with approval. “The one the murderer attached to the victim’s waistcoat with a pin? Do you have the calendar with you?”

  “Here it is.” Meinerer brightened and handed Mock yet another brown envelope.

  “Good work,” Mock said, and slipped it into his coat pocket. “I’ll take care of it; I’ll check whether the page on the waistcoat comes from this very calendar.”

  Then he looked at his silent subordinate with amusement and quite unexpectedly patted him on the shoulder.

  “Go and follow Erwin, Meinerer. My nephew is more important to me than all the walled- and unwalled-in corpses in this city.”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 28TH, 1927

  ONE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

  The agreeable bulldog kept leaving his place behind the bar to refill the stove. He smiled pleasantly as he did so, nodding in agreement to everything Mock said. Accepting his interlocutor’s anti-American and anti-Soviet views, he did not utter a single word throughout.

  Mock downed his third beer of the day and decided to move on to something stronger. Not in the habit of drinking alone, he ordered two glasses of juniper schnapps and pushed one towards the barman, the only other person in the room. The barman grasped the glass in his dirty fingers and emptied it in one go.

  Into the tavern stepped a short travelling salesman bearing a box of goods.

  “Kind gentlemen, Solingen knives cut everything – even nails and hooks,” he began his sales pitch.

  “This is a tavern. Either order something or clear out,” snarled the bulldog, proving he could speak after all.

  The salesman reached into his pocket and, not finding a single pfennig, began to retreat.

  “Hey!” Mock came to life. “I’m standing this gentleman a drink. Another juniper schnapps for us, if you please.”

  The salesman took off his coat, stood his box on the ground and sat down next to Mock. The barman did his duty. A moment later, only the wet marks left by two glasses remained on the faux-marble countertop.

  “They really are excellent knives,” the salesman returned to his original theme. “You can cut an onion with them quickly and efficiently, or bread, sausages, or” – here the little fellow winked at Mock – “shred your mother-in-law!”

  Nobody laughed, not even the joker himself. Mock paid for another round of schnapps and leaned over to his companion.

  “I’m not buying anything from you. But tell me how your business is going, how people treat you and so on. I’m a writer – I’m interested in all sorts of stories,” Mock was telling the truth, for he frequently wrote character profiles of people with whom he came in contact. Many a Breslauer would have been prepared to pay a fine sum for the information contained in these “lives of famous men”.

  “I’ll tell you a story – about how these knives cut iron.” The salesman was genuinely rapturous.

  “But nobody’s going to be cutting iron with them,” yelled the barman angrily. “Who needs knives like that? These scoundrels come in here, trying to force on me something I don’t need. You’re lucky this gentleman’s bought you a drink or I’d kick you out.”

  The travelling salesman looked dejected. Mock stood up, put on his coat and approached the barman.

  “And I say you might find these knives useful,” he said.

  The salesman now blushed with satisfaction.

  “And what for, may I ask?” the barman said, bewildered.

  “You can use them to commit hara-kiri.” Seeing the barman did not appear to understand, Mock added, “Or dig the dirt from under your fingernails.”

  The agreeable bulldog stopped being agreeable.

  The weather was even less agreeable. A strong wind tore at the droschkas on Wachtplatz, slashing them with sleet. Mock held on to his hat, jumped into a droschka and asked to be taken to Rehdigerplatz 2. The cabby licked his pencil and slowly wrote down the address in his greasy notebook. He pressed his antiquated top hat onto his head and shouted at the horse. Mock felt the moment had come when alcohol is at its most cajoling and deceptive: one bursts with euphoria and yet at the same time feels sober, thinks clearly, and does not stammer and or sway. Knock back another, prompts a demon. Mock noticed a rose on a short stem in the corner of the droschka. He reached for it and froze: a tea rose, somewhat withered. He looked around for a card with “Never again, Eberhard” neatly written on it, but found nothing. He clapped the cabby on the shoulder in a friendly gesture.

  “Hey, coachman, it’s nice here in your droschka. You’ve even got flowers.”

  The cabby shouted something back which was drowned by the wind and the noise of a tram sliding along the busy road near Freiburg Station. To the cabby’s surprise, Mock climbed up next to him.

  “Do you always decorate your carriage with flowers?” he slurred, pretending to be more drunk than he was. “I like it. I’d pay well for a journey like this.”

  “I had two lady customers today with a basket of roses. One must have fallen out,” the cabby said politely.

  “Stop this carriage,” Mock thrust his identity card under the surprised coachman’s nose. The droschka turned to the right, blocking the entrance to the inner yard of the station buildings on Siebenhufenerstrasse. “From where to where did you take these women?” Mock had sobered up completely and began his questioning.

  “To Kleinburg. Where from? The same place as we’re going now – Rehdigerplatz.”

  “Do you have the exact address of the place in Kleinburg?”

  “Yes. I have to square up with my boss.” The cabby took out his grubby notebook and, licking his fingers, struggled with the pages as they flapped about in the wind. “Yes, Eichenallee in Kleinburg.”

  “What did the women look like?”

  Mock was quickly noting down the address in his book.

  “One was dark-haired, the other blonde. They were wearing veils. Fine women.”

  BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 28TH, 1927

  SIX O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  Mock was woken by joyful, childlike cries. He switched on his bedside lamp, rubbed his eyes, smoothed down his hair and gazed around the bedroom as if in search of the children who had disturbed the unsettled sleep that followed his starchy, greasy and viscous lunch. He looked through the window into the darkness: the first snow was falling, and children had come out to play in the yard of the Jewish Communal School. Hearing Sophie’s voice, he took off his quilted smoking-jacket and trousers of thick, grey wool, and dressed again in his suit, tie and leather shoes bright with polish. He looked in the mirror and examined his face and his eyes, underpinned with two-tiered balconies, and reached for the jug of unsweetened mint tea, which Adalbert had advised him that day was the best antidote to over-indulgence. He patted some eau-de-cologne onto his somewhat wilted cheeks and, jug in hand, walked into the hall where he met Marta bearing the coffee service. He followed the servant into the parlour. Sophie was sitting at the table in an azure dress. Contrary to the prevailing fashion, her white-blonde hair reached down to her shoulders and was so thick it could barely be contained by the blue hairband. Her green eyes – fractionally too small – lent her face a resolute and somewhat ironic expression. “A whore’s eyes,” Mock had thought when, introduced to her at a carnival ball at the Regierungsbezirk Schlesien a couple of years earlier, he had forced himself with difficulty to raise his eyes higher than her full breasts. Now Sophie’s eyes were those of a tormented, tired and disillusioned woman. The bruise around one of them was a shade darker than the pale arches of her blue eye-shadow. Mock stood in the doorway, trying not to look her in the face. He contemplated the innate elegance of her movements: as she coyly tipped the milk jug and admired the milk breaking up the black of the coffee; as she carefully raised the fragile cup to her lips; as she turned the knob of the radio a little impatiently in search of her beloved Beethoven. Mock
sat at the table and gazed at Sophie.

  “Never again,” he said emphatically. “Forgive me.”

  “Never again what?” Sophie slowly ran her index finger up and down the handle of the milk jug. “Never again what? Alcohol? Violence? Attempted rape? Pretending in front of your brother that you are a real man who keeps his woman at heel?”

  “Yes. Never again – any of it.” In order to avoid looking at Sophie, Mock stared at a painting, a present he had given her for her twenty-fourth birthday. It depicted a subtle landscape by Eugene Spiro and bore the artist’s dedication: “Many happy returns to melancholic Sophie”.

  “You’re forty-four. Do you think you’re able to change?” There was not a trace of melancholy in Sophie’s eyes.

  “We will never change if we carry on being alone, just the two of us.” Mock was pleased Sophie was speaking to him at all. He poured himself some mint tea and took a sandalwood box out of the sideboard. The metallic sound of cigar clippers and the grating of a match. Mock tried to chase away the very last mists of his hangover with the tea and the aroma of a Przedecki cigar. “We’ll both change when there are three of us, when you finally have a baby.”

  “I’ve been longing for a baby ever since we got married.” Sophie ran her finger over the spout of the milk jug. Then she got up and, with a faint sigh, huddled next to the stove. Mock went to her and fell to his knees. He pressed his head against her belly and whispered: “You give yourself to me every night, and you will conceive. You’ll see, every night.” Sophie did not return his embrace. Mock felt her belly undulating. He got to his feet and gazed into her eyes, which in laughter had become even smaller than usual.