The End of the World in Breslau (10 page)

“So, am I now to study the family trees of people living there? When Aunt Truda met Uncle Jörg?” he asked himself.

A moment later, he launched himself once again at the inkpot and the sheets of paper gleaming with fresh ink. “Why would anyone kill so brutally on a given day? Only on that one particular day? Because that day is important to him. Perhaps he is taking his revenge for something that happened on that day? What could that person be taking revenge for? Something bad that happened to him. What could that person be taking revenge for in such a sadistic way? Something terrible that happened to him.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Wait one moment please!” shouted Mock and began to write. “Where can one learn about truly terrible things?” he scrawled. “In a police file.” The nib snapped. Von Stetten knocked again. Mock muttered furiously when he saw splashes of ink settle on his shirt cuff. The secretary took the mutter to be an invitation for him to enter.

“Your wife is on the phone, sir.” Von Stetten knew this would bring a smile to his chief’s lips, and he was not mistaken.

Mock picked up the telephone and heard Sophie’s sweet voice:

“Good morning, darling,”

“Good morning. Where are you calling from?”

“Home. I wanted to remind you about the charity concert this evening. It starts at eight. I’ll go along earlier with Elisabeth. We still have one Beethoven piece we need to practise. We’re playing right at the beginning.”

“Good. Thank you for reminding me. Have you had lunch yet? What has Marta prepared for today?”

“I ate at Elisabeth’s. We practised all morning. Marta didn’t cook lunch today. You told her this morning you’d have something in town.”

“That’s fine. I forgot.”

“That’s all.” Mock detected hesitation in Sophie’s voice. “You know, I’ve got dreadful stage-fright …”

“Don’t worry. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you.”

“You’re talking so clearly and simply … So assuredly …”

Mock did not reply. Visions of that morning’s rapture appeared before his eyes. He felt thrilled and filled with a sudden wave of happiness.

“I know, I know, darling, I ought to go,” he heard Sophie say.

“Yes, Sophie. Yes, my darling,” he said softly. “I’ve got something urgent to see to. We’ll see each other at the concert.”

Mock replaced the receiver. A second later he picked it up again. He thought he could hear Sophie’s sighs of that morning through the monotonous dialling tone. He shook off the memories, fastened his collar and tightened his tie.

“Von Stetten!” he shouted. “Come here, please!”

The pale-faced secretary entered without a sound. In his hand was a notebook and he stood awaiting his orders.

“Note this down,” Mock said, wrapping his hands behind his neck. “One. For several days – as of today – I am going to have to work in our archives until late. Please write an appropriate form and give it to Kluxen, the building administrator. Scheier the archivist is to bring me the spare key to the archives as soon as possible, so that I can work there day and night. You’ll find a sample of a form among the documents relating to the Lebersweiler case of December 25th. Two. Tomorrow, at eight in the morning, Kleinfeld and Reinert, Mühlhaus’ trusted men, are to be here. They’re to work in the archives alongside me. Please ask for our chief’s permission in the morning. I’m sure he won’t mind, but
pro forma
… Three. Pass two messages on to my servant, Adalbert. The mink stole I ordered earlier is to be collected from Beck’s, and my tailcoat from the launderette on Topfkram. He’s to have them here by seven. Four. Buy
me something to eat and bring it to the archives. I’m going there now. That is all.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 30TH, 1927
A QUARTER TO SEVEN IN THE EVENING

Mock stepped into a cab on Blücherplatz and asked to be taken to the Concert Hall on Gartenstrasse. The cabby was far from delighted by such a short run, and so did not even attempt to amuse his passenger with conversation. Besides, it would have been pointless. Mock, squeezed into a tight tailcoat and irritated by the negligible results of his archival research, was just as averse to holding a conversation as his cicerone. Even the unmistakable onslaught of winter did little to improve his mood. Staring at the roof of the Municipal Theatre as it swelled with snow, he turned the results of his quest over in his mind. There were approximately a thousand files in the police records that related to murders. Mock had looked through close to a hundred of them. The work was tedious and futile. No police archivist had ever anticipated someone wanting to search for toponyms in the card index, and the files were not indexed by town or street. Apart from an index of surnames, which had been put together only recently by archivists appointed for the purpose, there was no aid for anyone exploring the files. So Mock had to read through the records, hoping to come across the address Ring 2 or Taschenstrasse 23–24, and find the date of some crime which may have recurred in a later year. Only once did he hit upon the tenement where Gelfrert had lived. The files reported the case of a paedophile who had raped an eight-year-old girl in a cellar on Cat’s Alley in May. The pervert had lived on the ground floor of Friedrich-Wilhelm-Strasse 21, which meant he had been Gelfrert’s neighbour. Mock had found nothing else.

Now, as he travelled across the snow-covered town, Mock was prey to violent emotions. He was annoyed at his own inquisitiveness, which had fixed his attentions on past crimes and misfortunes; he had studied them with such commitment that he kept forgetting about the Gelfrert– Honnefelder case. He cursed himself for the thousandth time that day for having started off from some pseudo-philosophical, deterministic assumptions, basing his entire case on the singular analysis of what is incidental and what necessary. He was furious at himself for conducting an investigation in which the object of his search was not clearly defined. In addition, the sentence of fifteen years’ imprisonment handed down to the paedophile by the Prussian judicial system gave him no peace. There was one more reason for his irritation: not one drop of alcohol had passed his lips that day.

In this state of mind, it is not surprising that he gave not a pfennig above his fare to the taciturn cabby when they stopped on Gartenstrasse opposite the Concert Hall. Above the entrance hung a huge sign, charity advent concert. Bearing the box with Sophie’s present under his arm, Mock entered the enormous vestibule of the magnificent building designed recently by Hans Poelzig. He left his outer garments and the present in the cloakroom, then made towards the double doors where a spruced-up ticket collector was arguing with somebody.

“You haven’t got a personal invitation!” shouted the ticket collector. “Please leave!”

“So you don’t want my money?” Mock recognized Smolorz’s voice. “Isn’t it just as good as everyone else’s? Maybe I should leave it with you so you can go for a beer? Maybe you don’t like the fact that I’m not wearing a tailcoat?”

Mock hurried over to Smolorz and took him by the arm.

“This gentleman does not trust you.” Mock, unexpectedly amused by the situation, threw a derisive look at the ticket collector. “And quite right
too. Judging by your mug you were given schnapps at school, not cod-liver oil.”

Mock drew Smolorz aside, paying no heed to the astounded attendants.

“So, what’s new?” he asked.

“Everything’s alright. The morning at Miss Pflüger’s. Then at home, at your place. Both of them. They rehearsed all the time,” mumbled Smolorz.

“Thank you, Smolorz,” Mock said, looking benevolently at his subordinate. “Less than two weeks to go. Put up with it. Then, as a reward for your good work, you get a week’s unofficial leave. Just before Christmas. You’re done for the day.”

Smolorz tipped his hat and, dragging his feet, made towards the exit which shimmered with snow-white, starched shirt-fronts, sequins, Chinese fans and coloured feathers. Mock pulled out his invitation and stood in the queue behind a thin lady wielding a lorgnette in one hand and a long cigarette-holder with a smoking cigarette in the other. The ticket collectors did not demand to see her invitation, but instead lowered their chins to their chests as a mark of their respect.

“Oh, whom do I see?” exclaimed the lady. “Is that really you, Marquis? Oh, what an honour!” The affected lady turned to the people behind her in order to share her wonderful discovery with them. Her attention was riveted by Mock.

“It’s unimaginable, my dear sir,” the lady said, mistakenly holding the cigarette-holder to her eye instead of the lorgnette. “The ticket collector at today’s concert is the Marquis Georges de Leschamps-Brieux himself!”

Clearly miffed that her information had made such little impression on the Counsellor, she floated towards the foyer, blowing smoke like a steam-engine while Georges, who had been accused of drinking schnapps at school, glanced contemptuously at Mock’s invitation.

“And did that troublemaker who tried to get in without an invitation hand his contribution over to you, Your Excellency, Criminal Counsellor?” Georges slowly read the titles on the invitation.

“Yes, because I’m a teetotaller,” retorted Mock, and walked past the displeased Marquis.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 30TH, 1927
NINE O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

The charity concert was drawing to a close. Sophie, delighted by the ovations, the absence of alcohol on her husband’s breath and the admiration expressed by the cream of Breslau society during the interval, slipped a glove down one arm and allowed Eberhard’s dry, strong fingers to stroke the smooth skin of her hand.

Mock closed his eyes and recollected Sophie’s performance, her unaffected calm at the piano, her restrained elegance with no show of exaltation or wild tossings of her head. He admired not so much his wife’s playing as the outline of her body set off by the tight black dress. He was enchanted by Sophie’s profile: the proud swell of her bun, the gentle concave of her neck, the fragility of her shoulders, the twin roundness of her buttocks. He was bursting with masculine pride. During the interval, he looked down his nose at the other men and walked round and round his wife as if to say: “Don’t come near – I’m marking my territory.”

The last chords of Debussy’s
L’après-midi d’un faune
were played out. Applause thundered. Mock, instead of looking at the bowing musicians, admired the grace with which Sophie brought her hands together to clap, raising them high above her head. He whispered a few words in her ear and left the auditorium. He hastened to the cloakroom, collected his wife’s fur coat and toque along with his coat and hat, and laid them on the counter. He opened the box with the mink stole and slipped it inside the
sleeve of Sophie’s perfumed coat. Then he put on his coat and waited, with Sophie’s slung over his arm. A moment later she appeared at his side. She thrust out her substantial breasts and slid her arms into the sleeves of the coat he held out to her.

“That’s not my fur,” she said in fright, removing the stole from her sleeve. “Ebi, the attendant has made a mistake. He’s given you somebody else’s fur. I didn’t have a stole.”

“It is your fur,” Mock said with the expression of a schoolboy who has just tipped drawing-pins onto the chair of a teacher he dislikes. “And your stole.”

“Thank you, my love.” Sophie held out her hand to be kissed.

Mock put an arm round her waist and led her out of the Concert Hall. He looked about and caught sight of the parked Adler. Slamming the door behind Sophie, he settled himself in the driver’s seat. Sophie stroked the stole with the tips of her fingers. Mock embraced his wife, kissing her passionately. She returned the kiss, then moved away and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

“It’s wonderful what you said to Leschamps-Brieux,” she cried with amusement. “And what’s more, you hit the nail on the head. He really does drink a lot … That’s all Breslau is going to be talking about now … Nothing but your
bon mot
… ‘Georges drank schnapps at nursery school instead of cod-liver oil …’ People were already laughing about it in the foyer.”

Mock, losing his self-control, squeezed Sophie so tight that he could feel her dainty ear through the soft stole.

“Come on, let’s do it in the car,” he whispered.

“Are you crazy? It’s too cold,” she panted softly in his ear. “Let’s go home. I’ll make it special for you.”

With difficulty the car pulled away from its wet and sticky bed of snow. Mock drove very slowly along Höfchenstrasse, trailing behind a
mighty cart from which a man in a greatcoat was pouring sand onto the road. Mock did not overtake until just before the crossroads with Moritzstrasse, and then gliding along Augustastrasse, where the snow was packed down by horses’ hooves, he arrived safely at Rehdigerplatz.

It had stopped snowing. Mock jumped out of the car and opened the passenger door. His wife timidly plunged her slippered foot into the glistening, cold powder, and then quickly withdrew it into the car.

“I’ll bring you some shoes, my darling.” Mock ran up the steps of the tenement, but instead of going in he turned and went back to the car. He opened the door and squatted. Sliding one arm under Sophie’s knees, he wrapped the other round her back. Sophie laughed, embracing him around the neck. Mock took a deep breath and lifted his wife. He tottered under her weight and stood catching his balance a while with his legs astride. Then he carried Sophie to the entrance and stood her on the step beside the sign that read beware of the dog. He shut the car doors and returned to drown himself for a moment in the soft fur, pressing Sophie’s delicate body against cream-coloured tiles as her strong thighs wound themselves around his hips and the smooth stole around his neck.