Death in Breslau (26 page)

“Certainly.”

Banaszak finally blew his pipe through and the library filled with scented smoke.

“Let’s be exact, Herr Anwald. You knew her. Yesterday morning your friend was killed.”

Mieczysław Anwald’s face contorted in pain. There was no verbal reaction. Anwaldt ceased to repeat his mantra and started to ask questions:

“Herr Anwald, is it you who took Hanne Schlossarczyk’s illegitimate child to the Berlin orphanage?”

The merchant did not reply. Banaszak moved uneasily and said in Polish:

“My dear fellow, if you want your family to find out about your romance with a woman of ill repute, if you want to walk out of your establishment led to the police station by two uniformed policemen, then persist in your silence.”

The host looked at the unshaven man with flaming eyes, and answered in German with a Silesian accent:

“Yes. It was me who took the child to the orphanage in Berlin.”

“Why did you do so?”

“Hanna asked me to. She could not part with the child herself.”

“So why did she part with it at all?”

“My dear Assistant,” Banaszak bit his tongue at the last instant so as to not say “my dear Anwaldt”. He was angry at himself for having agreed to Anwaldt’s strange request to introduce him under a fictitious name. “Please forgive me, but this question has nothing to do with the case. Firstly, it should have been addressed to the deceased; secondly, the answer won’t give you what you’re looking for: the son’s address.”

“I’m not, sir, going to come to Poznań again in order to ask something you’ve not allowed me to ask.”

Anwaldt examined the books through the yellow glass and admired the large collection of Greek literature in translation. A verse from
Oedipus the King
roared in his ears:
“Terrible though it is, Sir, while the witness/ Does not the truth confess, hold fast still to your hope.”

“She was young. She still wanted to get married.”

“Which orphanage did you take the child to?”

“I don’t know. Definitely a Catholic one.”

“How’s that, were you in Berlin or not? You went there at random with the child, not knowing where you were going to leave it? How did you know they would take him in anywhere?”

“Two nuns were waiting for the child at the station. It had been decided by the family of the child’s father.”

“What family? Name!”

“I don’t know. Hanna kept it absolutely secret and never told anyone. I expect she was generously rewarded for her silence.”

“Had anything else been decided?”

“Yes. The family paid in advance for the boy to be educated at a secondary school.”

Anwaldt suddenly experienced a painful spasm in his chest. He got up, strolled across the room and decided to put an end to the pain by means of its cause. So he lit another cigarette. But the effect was such that he was gripped by a dry cough. When it had passed, he quoted Sophocles: “Terrible though it is, Sir, while the witness/ Does not the truth confess, hold fast still to your hope.”

“I beg your pardon?” Anwald and Banaszak asked simultaneously, looking at the Breslau policeman as if he were mad. The latter walked up to Mieczysław Anwald’s armchair and whispered:

“What name did they give the child?”

“We christened the boy in Ostrów. The kind-hearted priest took our word that we were married. He only asked to see my passport. The godparents were some chance people who got paid for it.”

“Tell me, dammit, what was the child’s name?!”

“The same as mine: Anwald. We gave him the name Herbert.”

POZNAŃ, THAT SAME JULY 17TH, 1934
TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

Herbert Anwaldt sat comfortably spread out on the plush couch in the saloon carriage. He was reading
Oedipus the King
and not paying the slightest attention to the crowded Poznań platform. Suddenly, the conductor appeared and politely asked what the gentleman would like to eat during his journey. Anwaldt, not taking his eyes off the Greek text, ordered pork knuckle and a bottle of Polish Baczyński vodka. The conductor bowed and left. The Breslau train moved off.

Anwaldt got up and looked at himself in the mirror.

“I’m doing well with my money. But what the heck. Did you know,” he said to his reflection “that my daddy has a lot of money? He’s very
good. He paid for me to go to the best Berlin secondary school specializing in the Classics.”

He stretched out on the couch and covered his face with the open book. He drew in with pleasure the faint odour of printer’s ink. He closed his eyes so as to bring to mind more readily the blurred future, an image persistently knocking at the threshold of consciousness, stubbornly jumping like a photograph in a peep-show which does not want to slip into the correct frame. It was one of those moments when the humming in his ears and dizziness announced an epiphany, a prophetic dream, a flash of clairvoyance, a shaman’s transformation. He opened his eyes and looked around the delicatessen with interest. He felt a stinging pain. The wounds left by the bee-stings were pulsating. The portly shopkeeper in a dirty apron laughed as he handed him some onion peelings. The smile did not leave his face. You pig, shouted Anwaldt, my daddy’s going to kill you. The shopkeeper threw himself across the counter at the boy hiding behind his tutor, who had just entered the shop.
(Sir, please look at the tower I’ve built with the bricks. Yes, you’ve built a lovely tower, Herbert, the tutor patted him on the shoulder. Again. And again.)
“Here you are, sir, your vodka and pork knuckle.” Anwaldt threw the book aside, sat up and uncorked the bottle. He shuddered: a child was shouting. Little Klaus in Waschteich Park, like an upside down, poisoned cockroach, was thrashing his legs against the ground. “He’s not my daddy!” The wheels rumbled rhythmically. They deafened Klaus’ cries. Anwaldt tipped the bottle. The burning liquid had an almost immediate effect on his empty stomach, clarified his mind, calmed his nerves. The policeman dug his teeth into the trembling pink meat with relish. A few moments later, only a thick bone lay on his plate. He stretched out comfortably on the couch. The alcohol conjured up an image in his mind of a dark green forest and the crooked figures of Soutine’s exiled children. Not all are exiled, he explained to himself. That little Pole from the train to Rawicz, for
example, will never be expelled anywhere by anyone. You’re a Pole, too. Your mother was Polish. He sat up and drank two glasses of vodka in a row. The bottle was empty.
(Scorching desert sand is settling on the stone floor. Into the ruined tomb peers a hairy goat. Hoof marks in the sand. Wind blows sand into zigzag gaps in the wall. From the ceiling fall small, restless scorpions. They surround him and raise their poisonous abdomens. Eberhard Mock tramples them methodically. I’ll die just like my sister died. Sophocles: “Unfortunate one, may you not know who you are.”)

†
‘Schlossarczyk’ is the German form of the Polish surname ‘Slusarczyk’.

XIV

BRESLAU, THAT SAME TUESDAY, JULY 17TH, 1934
SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

Eberhard Mock sat shirtless in his apartment on Rehdigerplatz, resting after a heavy and nerve-racking day. He spread out the chessboard, positioned out the pieces and tried to immerse himself in Überbrand’s
Chess Traps
. He was analysing a particular master hand. As usual, he put himself in the defence’s position and, to his satisfaction, found a solution which led to stalemate. He looked at the chessboard again and instead of the white king, which was not being pinned down in check but which nevertheless could not move, he saw himself, Criminal Director Eberhard Mock. He stood retreating, under fire from the black knight, who bore the face of Olivier von der Malten, and the black queen, who resembled the Chief of Gestapo, Erich Kraus. The white bishop, looking like Smolorz, stood useless in one corner of the board, and the white queen, Anwaldt, was curled up somewhere on his desk far from the chessboard. Mock did not answer the telephone which rang persistently for the fourth time already that evening. He expected he would hear the Baron’s cold voice summoning him to give a report. What was he to tell von der Malten? That Anwaldt had disappeared who knew where? That the owner of the tenement and his new tenant had entered Maass’ apartment and found
Smolorz there? Yes, he could of course say that he had identified the murderer. But where was that murderer? In Breslau? In Germany? Or maybe the mountains of Kurdistan? The telephone rang persistently. Mock counted the rings. Twelve. He got up and crossed the room. The telephone stopped ringing. At that moment, he threw himself at the receiver. He remembered von Hardenburg’s principle regarding telephones: wait until the twelfth ringing tone. He went to the kitchen and took a piece of dried sausage. Today was the servant’s day off. He tore a fair piece of sausage with his teeth, then ate a spoonful of hot horseradish. As he chewed, his eyes watered abundantly – the horseradish was hot – and he thought about the young Berliner who, humiliated and maltreated in the Gestapo cells, had surrendered under his torturers’ threats and left this over-heated and evil city. The telephone rang again. (Where can Anwaldt be?) A second ringing of the telephone. (I’ll sort that cursed Forstner out yet!) Third. (A nerve-racking day, but nothing really happened.) Fourth. (That’s exactly why). Fifth. (It’s a pity about Anwaldt; it would be good to have someone like him among my men.) Sixth. (Too bad, he too had found himself in a “vice”.) Seventh. (I’ve got to get a whore for myself. That’ll calm me.) Eighth. (I can’t pick it up with my mouth full.) Ninth. (Yes, I’ll call Madame.) Tenth. (Maybe it’s von Hardenburg?) The telephone rang for the eleventh time. Mock dashed into the hall and picked the receiver up after the twelfth bell. His ear heard a drunk babbling. He brusquely interrupted the stream of incomprehensible justifications.

“Where are you, Anwaldt?”

“At the station.”

“Wait for me on platform one. I’ll come and collect you right away. Repeat – which platform?”

“Plaaaatform … One.”

*   *   *

Mock did not find Anwaldt on platform one or on any other platform. Guided by his intuition, he went to Bahnschutz Police Station. Anwaldt was lying in a cell, asleep and snoring loudly. Mock showed the astounded duty constable his identification and politely asked for help. The constable eagerly barked some instructions to his men. They grasped the drunkard under the arms and carried him out to the Adler. Mock thanked the obliging constable and his colleagues, started the engine and a quarter of an hour later was back at Rehdigerplatz. All the benches on the square were occupied. People, resting after the day’s heat, watched with amazement as a stocky man with a sizeable belly, panting loudly, dragged an inert creature from the back seat of his car.

“He’s sozzled,” laughed a passing teenager.

Mock removed the drunken man’s jacket, soiled with vomit, rolled it up and threw it into the front of the car. Next, he threw the man’s left arm over his own sweaty neck, with his right he took him by the waist and, under the eyes of the mocking rabble, hauled him through the doorway. The caretaker, as if out of spite, was nowhere to be seen. “Anyone could walk through the door and that idiot’s probably drinking beer at Kohl’s,” he muttered furiously. He advanced step by step. His cheek rubbed against Anwaldt’s dirty, sweaty shirt. He shuddered every now and then as a sour cloud of breath swept over him, stopped on the half-landings and swore like a trooper, careless of the neighbours. One of them, the lawyer Doctor Fritz Patschkowsky, taking his dog for a walk, stood stock still, amazed, and the large Pomeranian practically tore itself from its leash. Mock glanced at the man with some hostility and did not respond to the haughty “good evening”. At last he reached his door and stood Anwaldt next to it. With one hand, he held him up; with the other, he struggled with the lock. A minute later, he was in the apartment. Anwaldt lay on the floor in the hall. Mock, sitting at the mahogany dressing-table, was breathing heavily. He closed the door and calmly smoked a cigarette.
Next, he grasped Anwaldt by his shirt collar and tugged him to the games room. He took him under the arms, put him on to the gently sloping chaise longue, and searched his pockets. Nothing.
(Some pick-pocket has already robbed him.)
He loosened the tie, unbuttoned the shirt and removed the shoes. Anwaldt’s clothes were in a dismal condition, stained by grease and ash. On the thin cheeks, a two-day stubble fell like a shadow. Mock observed his subordinate for a while, then went out to the kitchen and ran his eyes thoughtfully over the green jars standing on the top shelf in the larder. Each of them had a parchment cap held in place by a pale rubber band. Finally, he found a jar containing dried mint. He poured two handfuls of the herb into a jug and then, with some difficulty, lit a fire under the stove. He fiddled with the stove lids for a long time until he found the right one and stood a shining, polished kettle on it. From the bathroom, he brought a tin basin and stood it next to Anwaldt’s bedding just in case, then returned to the kitchen. He lifted the steaming kettle and filled the jug containing the leaves with boiling water. Not knowing how to extinguish the fire, he drowned it with tap water. Then he took a cool bath and changed into a dressing gown. He sat at his desk, lit a fat Turkish cigar – one of the ones he kept for special occasions – and looked at the chessboard. Stalemate continued to paralyse the king-Eberhard Mock. He was still threatened by the knight-von der Malten and the queen-Kraus. But here, at the chessboard, appeared the white queen-Anwaldt – recovered from somewhere – and came to the king’s aid.

BRESLAU, WEDNESDAY, JULY 18TH, 1934
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Anwaldt opened his swollen eyes and immediately saw the jug and glass standing on the little table. With shaking hands, he filled it with strained mint tea and raised it to his lips.

“Shall I give you a knife to separate those lips?” Mock was tying his tie, spreading a spicy scent of quality eau de cologne and smiling kindheartedly. “Do you know, I’m not even furious with you. Because how can you be furious with someone who’s just miraculously been found? Click, Anwaldt was here and Anwaldt’s gone. Click, and Anwaldt’s here again.” Mock stopped smiling. “Nod if you had a good reason to disappear from my sight.”