The End of the World in Breslau (28 page)

“Her father, you say?” Mock was still sitting on the bed. “What was her name? Tell me!”

“Rosemarie Bombosch.”

At this, Mock fell silent. Mühlhaus was out of breath, searching for some matches. A scratch on sand-paper and the pipe sparked alight. A doctor stood in the doorway and opened his mouth to chide Mühlhaus for smoking, but before he could say anything Mock announced: “Thank you, Doctor, for your care, but I’m leaving. I’m discharging myself!”

“You can’t!” the young doctor raised his voice. “You’ve got to stay here for another few days at least … From a doctor’s point of view, nothing is so urgent that …”

“There are things more urgent than a doctor’s point of view!”

“And what, my gracious man, can be more important than decisions about a patient’s health?” the doctor looked ironically at Mock as he wriggled helplessly in the stiff corset.

“I have to enter a name in a police file,” said Mock. He got up from the bed and, staggering, went over to the window. Looking out he met the eye of Viktor Ziesch who, struck by a sudden attack of contemplation of the world and its inhabitants, had stopped shovelling snow yet again that day.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 19TH, 1927 FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

Heinrich Mühlhaus took down from a shelf a small, square, ancient publication. Weighing it in his hand for a moment, he examined the library ladder at the top of which were two hooks secured to an iron pipe that ran along the bookshelf some three metres above the ground. Mühlhaus took a sudden interest in the number of rungs and started to count them. He
could not finish this task, however, because the upper part of the ladder was almost entirely concealed by the baggy storeman’s overalls worn by his subordinate, Eberhard Mock. Constantly adjusting his outfit, slipping his hand beneath the surgical corset and scratching his neck imprisoned therein, the Criminal Counsellor began in a quiet, croaky voice to give his briefing in the University Library storeroom. Director Hartner sat at librarian Smetana’s desk – the latter had finished work unexpectedly early that day – and watched uneasily as the police officers rolled cigarettes between their fingers, pulled out matches and then, remembering that smoking was forbidden, stashed them nervously in their pockets. He looked at the map of Breslau displayed on the wooden stand and at the three red pins stuck into the heart of the town, encircled by the moat, then looked irritably at Mühlhaus who was leafing intently through a small, ancient publication. He did not feel at ease in this particular position in the storeroom, whose far wall adjoined the church of Maria auf dem Sande. All the librarians and storemen avoided this spot because of a persistent icy draught, and because of the risk of the same books constantly falling from the upper shelves.

“No doubt you are surprised, gentlemen,” Mock began, “that today’s briefing is being held in such an unusual place, and late in the afternoon at that, at a time when you normally finish work. This can only be explained by the high degree of confidentiality attached to the investigation we are conducting. Since I’ve suffered an accident and my throat has been damaged, I’ll speak briefly and, in a moment, hand the voice over to you. I suspect that the murders of Gelfrert, Honnefelder and Geissen, committed by the ‘calendar murderer’, have something to do with the area in which their bodies were found. The link may go far back in time. Hence my research in the library and archives – in which Director Hartner has proved to be of inestimable help. And now, to the point,” Mock sat on the penultimate rung of the ladder and coughed dryly. “You will now,
gentlemen, sum up your assignments in the context of what I’ve just said. Reinert?”

“Together with Kleinfeld and Ehlers, I’m tailing Alexei von Orloff,” Reinert threw a glance at the colleagues he had just mentioned, who were standing nearby. “We don’t quite know why. It’s Difficult for me to sum anything up because I’ve no idea how this assignment fits into the context you have spoken of, sir.”

“I’ll help you,” Mock muttered. “What does von Orloff have to say at his séances?”

“That the end of the world is nigh,” answered Reinert.

“What proof has he got?”

“He claims some predictions are coming true,” said Kleinfeld, “and gives an account of them. I’ve jotted down the examples he quotes from the various sacred books. Admittedly, he cites fragments of the Five Books of Moses in his own translation …”

“And does his ‘proof’ touch on anything that might interest our Murder Commission?” Mock waved his hand as if wanting to chase away Kleinfeld’s words.

Silence descended. The storeroom was in semi-darkness, illuminated only by the weak light of some lamps that burned here and there. The policemen resembled conspirators, or participants in some secret mystery. Mock’s overalls were draped over the rungs of the ladder like the cloak of a priest.

“Yes,” Kleinfeld wheezed, with notes of tobacco in his voice. “Von Orloff also mentioned ‘criminal’ proof. Apparently old crimes are being repeated … Crimes committed long ago …”

“How long ago?”

“Ages ago,” Ehlers said, slapping his bald skull as if he had remembered something.

“Are these crimes being repeated in Breslau? What does our guru say?”

“Yes. In Breslau, Berlin, the whole of Europe and the whole world,” Reinert clearly felt unwell in the cold storeroom, where the skeletons of monks lay at rest in crypts under the stone floor. “The guru claims crimes are being repeated everywhere, which means that the end of the world is nigh …”

“Well remembered, Reinert,” Mock spoke ever more quietly. “Murders were committed in Breslau long ago which are now being repeated or renewed, as von Orloff claims. Breslau was very small in ages past and lay within the perimeter of the Old Town moat. And now, gentlemen, look at the map … Gelfrert, Honnefelder and Geissen were killed within the territory delineated by the moat … Now do you understand my hypothesis?”

“Yes,” Mühlhaus replaced the old volume. “Except that we don’t know for certain whether or not the murders of these three people had their prototypes in past ages …”

“That’s mine and Doctor Hartner’s task,” Mock said as he got off the ladder and stroked the stack of books and boxes of index cards on Smetana’s desk. “You’re to keep on von Orloff’s heels, and try to discover whether the guru isn’t trying to hasten the end of the world himself by re-enacting past crimes.”

“Forgive me, Counsellor,” Kleinfeld modestly lowered his eyes. “But that is neither your task nor Doctor Hartner’s … It is von Orloff’s. If he wants to draw people to his sect, he’s the one who has to prove that crimes are being repeated … And he’s already done so in his presentations. People asked him exactly which crimes are being repeated, and he gave examples of murders in various parts of Europe …”

“In Germany too?” asked Mock.

“Yes. In Wiesbaden,” Kleinfeld said.

“And in Breslau?” Mock desperately tried to reject the thoughts of Sophie that her country of birth had invoked.

“He didn’t say anything about Breslau at the lecture I attended.”

“And what about you two, did you hear him say anything about Breslau?” Mock turned to Reinert and Ehlers.

“You can’t remember what he said?” Mühlhaus raised his voice. “So why did you go along then?”

“If you will permit me, sir,” Mock said in a conciliatory spirit. “They’re sure to have noted everything down neatly in their reports, am I right?”

Reinert and Ehlers nodded.

“Then bring me your reports!” There was excitement in Mock’s voice. “In a flash, damn it! On top of that, check when von Orloff first began to be active in Breslau …”

“We know everything already,” Reinert said, looking anxiously around the library dungeon as he buttoned his coat and put on his hat. “We’ve not a minute to lose. We know our assignments …”

“And what’s Meinerer’s assignment?” Mühlhaus looked at Mock with interest.

“I’ve detailed him to special tasks,” Mock replied calmly. “He’s going to help me in a survey of what is stocked in the library.”

Mühlhaus nodded to the three policemen, and they made towards the exit, leaving Mock, Hartner and Meinerer in the dark cellar.

“One moment!” Mock shouted and went after Mühlhaus. “Please answer me one question.” He held his chief back by the sleeve. “Why, after my attempted suicide, did you allow Ehlers, Reinert and Kleinfeld to continue the tasks I’d given them? After all, I allocated those tasks without consulting you … Lunatics commit suicide … Why did you allow them to follow the instructions of a lunatic?”

Mühlhaus looked at Mock and then at his subordinates as they left the library catacombs only too willingly. When he heard their footsteps resonating at the top of the stairs, he leaned towards Mock:

“People who commit suicide aren’t lunatics – they’re usually right,” he said, and left the storeroom.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 19TH, 1927 FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

The palm leaves in Hartner’s study swayed gently in the wafts of cigar smoke. The Director of the library and the police officer, clad in his surgical corset, silently watched the caretaker and Meinerer bring stacks of books from the storeroom and arrange them on the davenport and the Director’s desk.

“Thank you, Meinerer,” Mock broke the silence. “You’re free to go for today. But the same task awaits you tomorrow …”

“Couldn’t we have met here?” Meinerer placed a large box with copies of index cards on the davenport with a thud. “Aren’t the conditions here good enough for a briefing? Did we have to go down to that cellar? And why am I the only one lugging all this? What am I, some sort of caretaker?”

Mock gazed at his subordinate for a long time. Pain pierced his neck and bored its way down between his shoulder blades. He could not swallow or move his head; all he could do was continue to stare into Meinerer’s small eyes and, after the latter had left, telephone Herbert Domagalla and suggest a new employee for the Vice Department, “the young and ambitious Gustav Meinerer”.

“We had to meet there,” whispered Mock, then thought he was being a little too understanding with Meinerer. Immediately he changed his tone. “And now shut up and go home … Since you don’t know any Latin, your help reading
Antiquitates Silesiacae
won’t be of much use to me. That’s all. Adieu!”

“Incidentally,” Hartner got up, crossed his hands behind his back and
closed the door behind Meinerer, who left without a word of farewell, “I wanted to ask you the same question, my dear Counsellor. Why did we meet in the storeroom?”

“There’s nobody in the storeroom apart from ghosts.” Mock slotted his cigar between his gums and his cheek. “And if they listened to our conversation and heard about our confidential investigation, they would-n’t pose a threat. They’re not the ones who murdered or left calendar pages at the crime scenes … Human beings did that – historians, scholars who know how to find out about events and facts from the past, who can also read old books and chronicles. There are a great many of them in this very institution of which you are director. Both scholars and staff … All of them could be suspects, which is why it’s best that no-one knows about our briefing …”

Mock was exhausted by this long statement. He panted loudly and touched his flayed chin with a finger. He felt prickles of beard growth breaking through the skin.

“Surely you’re not saying,” Hartner tried to conceal his indignation, “that one of my men could …”

“We’ve known each other for too long, Director,” Mock said quietly. “You don’t have to pretend to me that you’re full of righteous indignation. Besides, I’ve had enough of this discussion … Let’s get to work … We have to make a list of all the murders committed in old Breslau because this von Orloff or some other believer in the end of the world might replicate them, and innocent people will die …”

“If there are any innocent people in this town,” remarked Hartner dryly, and began to daydream of cold chicken in mayonnaise. He sank into an armchair, adjusted his pince-nez and buried himself in
Antiquitates Silesiacae
by Barthesius. On his desk lay a notebook and a well-sharpened pencil. Mock sat down at the davenport and began to read
The Criminal World of Ancient Breslau
by Hagen, starting with the
subject index. Next to the word “crimes” were references to a fair number of pages. The first of these was page 112, where a quarrel was described between several thugs who could not come to an agreement as to how to share their loot, and ended their dispute with a bloodbath in the Green Stag inn on Reuscherstrasse. Mock continued his meanderings through the stinking world of old Breslau: he came across tanners who drowned a travelling salesman in the Weisse Ohle when they were drunk; desecrators of graves defecating among tombstones; soldiers of the Austrian garrison, diseased with syphilis, who duelled feverishly in Oswitzer Wald; Jewish plunderers who robbed their fellow Jews at a fair; Polish peasants who landed up in the dark cells of the Town Hall, known as “bird cages”, for disturbing the peace at night. All these seemed like innocent games to Mock, the pranks of jesters, the pageants of clowns. Nothing bore a resemblance to the film-covered eyes of the walled-in musician, the torn tendons of the quartered locksmith, the blue, swollen head of the senator hanging by his leg or the cleanly severed Adam’s apple of the young prostitute. Mock rubbed his eyes and returned to the index. Discouraged, he ran his eyes over the various subject entries and thought about his apartment, which he had not been to for two weeks. He decided to note that there was nothing in Hagen’s monograph that could add anything new to the case. Out of philological habit, he decided to write down the exact bibliographic address of the book. He reached towards Hartner’s desk and took the first card to hand from a considerable pile. It was a blank order slip from the Municipal Library which had found itself among the boxes of index cards. One glance at it was enough for Mock to smell the stale odour of cherry liqueur that had permeated Gelfrert’s room. The smell had permeated everything then, even the thin piece of paper that Ehlers had held in his tweezers as they sat in the car sharing their first impressions of their visit to Gelfrert’s lodgings.
“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 …”