Death in Breslau (15 page)

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

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

The girl stopped smiling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 9TH, 1934
ONE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 9TH, 1934
HALF-PAST SEVEN IN THE EVENING

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

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

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

“Does the respected gentleman desire anything?”

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

Ganimede frowned and sung:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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