Phantoms of Breslau (28 page)

RÜGENWALDERMÜNDE, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26TH, 1919
NOON

Erika and Mock sat in silence on the covered terrace of a café on the eastern side of the canal, staring out at the stormy sea through small, rectangular windowpanes lashed with fine rain. Both were preoccupied, Erika with her coffee and apple strudel, Mock with his cigar and balloon of cognac. The silence which had come over them heralded imminent chaos, foreshadowed changes, relentlessly signalled the end.

“We’ve been here for more than two weeks,” Mock began, and fell silent again.

“I’d say we’ve been here for almost three weeks.” Erika smoothed her napkin on the marble table.

“This cognac would be a lot of alcohol for you.” Mock swirled his glass and watched as the amber liquid ran down its inner sides. “There’s still quite a bit left, but for me it’s no more than a gulp. I’ll knock it back and it’ll be gone.”

“Yes. In that we differ,” Erika said, and she closed her eyes. Two
streams of tears trickled from beneath her long lashes down towards the corners of her lips.

Mock riveted his eyes to the windowpanes streaming with rain and listened to the howling of the gale above the sound of the waves. Another gale tore at his chest and forced words into his head that he did not want to utter. He looked about him and shuddered. On the terrace besides them was the prostitute with the broken parasol, whom he knew by sight. She was gazing at the streaming window, grating a spoon in her cup. And now there appeared one other person: the hotel bell-boy. He swiftly ran up to the table occupied by Mock and Erika.

“Registered delivery for Frau Erika Mock,” he said, clicking his heels loudly.

Erika accepted the letter, the boy some coins and Mock a few moments of respite. The girl tore open the envelope with a fruit knife and began to read. A faint smile appeared on her lips.

“What is it?” Mock could not resist asking.

“Listen to this.” She put the letter on the table and weighted down an unruly corner of the page with the ashtray. “‘The man born on September 18th, 1883, in Waldenburg is a typical Virgo, full of inhibitions and unconscious longings. Sad events experienced not long ago – perhaps an unfortunate love affair? – weigh heavily on his mind.’” Erika glanced at Mock with interest. “Tell me, Eberhard, what was this unfortunate love affair … You never talk about yourself. You don’t want to confide in a crafty whore … But now, after three wonderful weeks together … Tell me something about yourself …”

“There was no unfortunate love affair.” Clumsily Mock held Erika’s chin in one hand and with his thumb roughly wiped away her tears. “It was the war. I was called up in 1916. I fought on the Eastern front at Dünaburg. I was injured on leave in Königsberg. I fell out of a first-floor window. I was drunk and I can’t remember anything. Do you understand,
girl?” Mock could not tear his fingers away from her cheeks. “I wasn’t hit by Russian shrapnel – I fell out of a window. It’s ridiculous and embarrassing. Then I went back to Dünaburg and lived through some hard times there … Who compiled this horoscope?”

“My sister sent it to me from Riga. And what, does it fit?”

“From what you’ve read so far it’s so general it has to fit. Every human being has a complicated personality and many strange longings. Keep reading!”

“‘In his youth somebody disappointed him badly. Robbed him of his dreams …’” Erika continued. “What did you dream of when you were young, Ebi?”

“A career in academia. I even wrote a few papers in Latin.” Mock recalled his student years, when five of them had lived in a leaking garret. “But nobody disappointed me in any way. I gave up my studies quite early on. I took a job with the police because I didn’t want to live in poverty in some small dark room, with one of my colleagues spitting blood on his translations of the works of Theognis of Megara, and another fishing out bacon rind from behind the stove, where he had chucked it a few weeks earlier, then dusting it off, cooking it over a candle and cutting it into tiny pieces to fill his stomach …”

“‘He is characterized by irritating punctiliousness and an exaggerated love of detail. When in charge he will point out to his subordinates their untidy clothing as readily as, for example, neglecting to water the flowers …’”

“Rubbish,” Mock interrupted her. “I don’t have a single flower in my office or at home.”

“It’s not about flowers,” Erika explained. “It’s about you finding fault with your subordinates for the smallest of things … Besides, there’s a wonderful
à propos
here … ‘The example of flowers is inadequate. As a thoroughly practical person he will hold that potatoes should rather be
grown in flower pots because at least they would prove useful. He is a man with the heart of a dove, clasping to his breast every lost and frightened creature, a man who could become involved in charity or missionary work. His warm heart experiences a great love once every seven years. And here is a warning to the ladies of his heart …’”

Mock was no longer listening because the sea wind had started to howl in his head once more. “What a crafty whore!” he thought. “She’s written the horoscope herself. She wants Mock, the dove, to take care of her and clasp her troubled heart to his breast. This man, with his magnanimous and warm heart, is supposed to pick up a piece of rubbish from the gutter that has been thrashed about by the wind, dry it with his kisses and wrap it in an eiderdown of love! Best if we married, we’d have four sweet children – they would inherit her good looks – and I would walk the streets of Breslau with a heavy head, seeing my ‘brother-in-law’ in each man I met. There I am at a ball and someone introduces her to some creep: ‘This is Criminal Councillor Mock’s wife.’ ‘Surely we know each other from somewhere?’ There we are at the races in Hartlieb, and the gambler sitting next to me slips the furled tip of his tongue out at my wife …”

The wind gave a savage howl and Mock thumped his open palm on the table. The plates jumped; the prostitute sitting a few tables away squinted over her cup.

“Don’t read any more of that nonsense,” he said quietly. “Let’s have a goodbye party. A threesome.”

“And who is the other man to be?” Erika folded Mock’s horoscope in four and adjusted her hat.

“Not man, woman,” Mock hissed. “Your friend sitting over there.”

“Please, no. I can’t do that,” she said softly and began to cry.

Mock lit another cigar and gazed at the prostitute. She looked up from her cup and smiled at him timidly.

“I haven’t shared you with anyone over these three weeks.” Erika soon
pulled herself together, took out a lace handkerchief and wiped her dainty nose. “And I want it to stay that way.”

“Two weeks,” Mock corrected her. “If you don’t want to, then go and pack your bags.” He pulled his wallet from his pocket. “Here’s some money for your ticket. I’ll pay you for everything. How much do you charge?”

“I love you,” Erika said calmly, then got up and approached the girl sitting nearby. They spoke for a moment and she returned to Mock.

“We’ll wait for you in the ladies’ changing room. That’s her chamber of ill repute.” She turned, put her arm around the girl’s waist and they went down to the beach. The wind howled and tugged at the stem of her parasol. A moment later they were on the footbridge leading to the changing room. The prostitute opened the door to the first cabin and they disappeared inside.

Mock paid the waiter and he too went out to the beach. The wind and fine rain had scared off the strollers, setting Mock’s bourgeois conscience at rest. He stood still for a while looking about, then furtively ran across the beach, up the steps above the groynes and, sprayed with sea froth, cleared the footbridge and entered the cabin. The two women sat naked on the bench, shivering with cold. As soon as they saw the man they began to caress and embrace each other. Goose pimples appeared on their thighs and arms. Erika kissed the other girl without taking her eyes off Mock. The cold wind rushed in through gaps in the floorboards. The seagulls rent the air with their screeching, and still Erika looked at him. The prostitute beckoned him to join them, and Mock felt everything but sexual arousal. He reached into his trousers and pulled out a hundred-mark note. He handed it to the prostitute.

“This is for you. Get dressed and leave us alone for a moment,” he said quietly.

“Thank you, kind sir,” she said with a strong Pomeranian accent and
pulled on her underwear, then adjusted the folds of her dress. A moment later they were alone.

“Why did you send her away, Ebi?” Erika was still sitting there naked, her dress wrapped around her. “Now that our month is coming to an end, tell me … Our honeymoon and the past month … Tell me why you sent her away … Say that you don’t want to share me with anyone during these happy days in Rügenwaldermünde. Lie and tell me you love me …”

Mock opened his mouth to tell her the truth, and at that very moment there was a loud knocking on the changing-room door. He sighed with relief and opened it. There stood the hotel bell-boy. A little way off stood the prostitute in her crooked shoes, hunched from the cold.

“A telegram for the good gentleman,” said the boy, peeking inquisitively into the depths of the cabin.

Mock gave him some more coins and loudly slammed the door in his face. He sat down next to Erika, opened the telegram and read:

YOUR FATHER HAD ACCIDENT STOP FELL DOWNSTAIRS AT HOME
STOP SERIOUS CONDITION STOP IN HOSPITAL STOP AM WAITING BY
MAX GRöTZSCHL’S TELEPHONE STOP SMOLORZ.

20.IX.1919

Everyone arrived punctually. In fact, punctuality is one of our brother-hood’s principles, which stems from our respect for the passage of time, for the unchanging laws of nature.
Deus sive natura
,
^†
wrote Spinoza and he was absolutely –
par excellence
! – right. But to the point.

From the erudite performance of some of our brothers (and this erudition was gleaned from Roscher’s mythological lexicon) we learned a great deal about the ancient avengers the Erinyes, black-skinned and wrapped in black clothing. These goddesses of vengeance, as we learned from Brother Eckhard of Prague, hid in morning mists or glided in dark, stormy clouds, and their hair and cloaks were charged with electricity because, as Plutarch writes, “fire flickered in their cloaks and viperous knots of hair”. These “bitches of Styx” rendered people mad with their ominous barking, infected germinating grains with their poisonous breath, lashed those who transgressed the laws of nature with their whip. (How well this fits in with our doctrine of Natura Magna Mater!) And how can one most keenly violate the laws of Nature? By killing her who gives life, by matricide, concluded Brother Eckhard. These natural ethics became the basis of the popular ancient notion of the Erinyes as goddesses of vengeance.

A heated discussion broke out after Brother Eckhart’s lecture. The first question concerned the universality of the Erinyes. Brother Hermann of Marburg asked whether the Erinyes are independent beings or whether they are allocated to one murdered person in particular? After all, argued Brother Hermann, Homer writes that following the suicide of Jocasta, mother of Oedipus, Oedipus was tormented not by Erinyes “in general” or “Erinyes as such”, but by his mother’s particular Erinyes. In Aeschylus we read that Orestes was tormented first by the Erinyes of his father, who had been hacked to death by his mother, and only later, after Orestes had taken vengeance for the death of his father in the same way on his mother, Clytemnestra, the murderess of her husband, only then did the Erinyes of Clytemnestra appear. The first, Agamemnon’s Erinyes, forced his son Orestes to avenge his father’s death, the second, Clytemnestra’s Erinyes, tormented the matricide. So the Erinyes, as Brother Hermann argues, belong to a particular, given soul: they are not independent or universal beings. Brother Hermann’s reasoning was convincing, and nobody disagreed with him.

I took the voice and agreed that after offering up the father of our bitter enemy in sacrifice, we will unleash specific Erinyes, those appropriate to the old man’s soul. I also said that the appearance of Jocasta’s Erinyes, those which tormented Oedipus, clearly demonstrates that the haunted person does not have to have killed with his own hands (after all, Jocasta committed suicide!) but he has to be the one to blame (and Oedipus is certainly to blame!). This is the basic principle of the Erinyes’ materializing!

I received applause and those assembled raised the other issue which had come up after the lecture given by Brother Eckhard of Prague. Namely, can the Erinyes take vengeance for patricide, or only for matricide? The Master argued the legitimacy of the former view, quoting the appropriate passages from Homer and Aeschylus. It was clear from these that the Erinyes of Laius, killed by his son Oedipus, haunt the murderer, proving that patricide, too, is a violation of nature’s laws. After the Master’s declaration, everything became clear: it would be right to offer the father of our sworn enemy in sacrifice. This father must be convinced, however, that he is dying because of his son. I told the assembly that we would make this known to him before his death, just as we made it known to that scabby harlot.

After that it was Johann of Munich who took the voice. He went back to the issue which had initially brought us together, and which we were supposed to be clarifying with the help of ancient literature, namely, since there were three Erinyes – Allecto, Megaera and Tisiphone – then is it necessary to make three offerings, each corresponding to the “essential” characteristics of a given Erinyes? The majority responded in the negative. First of all, reasoned Brother Johann, the triple and individualized Erinyes appear only in Euripides, and are therefore already removed in time from the primeval notion, from the most primitive (and therefore the most authentic!) beliefs; secondly, in later literature (mainly Roman!), they become confused and take each other’s places. For example, to one author
Megaera is the personification of “relentless jealousy”, to another it is Tisiphone. It is evident from this that our second and possibly third sacrifices would be sacrifices offered in the dark, without any firm grounds – in other words, unnecessary sacrifices. The last word belonged to the Master. He supported Johann of Munich’s view and gave me instructions to offer in sacrifice only the father of our sworn enemy.