Marek Krajewski - Phantoms of Breslau

The sparrow flew away and Mock noticed with some surprise and satisfaction that his thoughts were not only mere associations, not only a stream of chaotic images, but were acquiring the form of a small treatise, dictated in perfect, elaborate sentences. The more inebriated he became, the more sober were his thoughts. He forgot about the spectre with lymphatic fluid pouring from his ears, quickly pulled out a notebook and began to write feverishly: “The dead men have two characteristics that have been deliberately emphasized by the murderer. These are the only characteristics we have that can lead us to identify the victims. They were sailors, and their genitals were adorned with leather thongs. Wohsedt will take care of the first aspect; I will deal with the second. Wohsedt is dealing with sailors, and I with lechers. To whom would genitalia be displayed in such a dissolute manner?”

Here Mock interrupted himself and recalled a certain illegal brothel in the centre of Ring, which he and Smolorz had come to know about via an informer. The stool pigeon had been trying to destroy the competition and at the same time distract the police from his own establishment, which was fronted by a kind of photographic studio. Mock and Smolorz swept both places off the face of the metropolis. In both they had discovered an assortment of outfits and straps, and no shortage of leather underwear consisting of nothing but a belt and suspensoria.

“It matters not to whom one displays one’s genitalia,” Mock wrote. “More important is where this is done. The answer is: in brothels. Another question springs to mind: what might the victims have had to do with brothels? There are two possible answers: they could either have worked in one, or they could have made use of the pleasures on offer. Unfortunately, utrum possible est . If they were clients at some brothel and wanted to enhance their arousal by wearing suspensoria, then our investigation should begin with an interrogation of all the prostitutes in Breslau.”

Mock was surprised to note how paper and a pencil appeared to ennoble his morals. If he had been relating his train of thought to someone in speech, he would have said “whores in Breslau”.

“If, on the other hand, they worked in a brothel to arouse guests of the female sex (after all, Lasarius had ascertained that they were not homosexuals), we have but to delve into the memory of Breslau’s brothel specialist and ask him: where would a four-man crew serve to enthral female clients?”

And here Breslau’s most accomplished bawdy-house specialist fell into hopeless reflection which yet another cigarette failed to enlighten. It could only be an illegal brothel, kept strictly secret and intended solely for trusted members. It dawned on Mock that, in fifteen years of working for the police Vice Department, or in his numerous official and unofficial wanderings through the temples of the goddess Ishtar, he had never come across a club where women were not employees, or where men were anything other than clients, or guards there to keep an eye on the clients.

“And on top of all that, these sailor’s hats!” Mock muttered to himself, forgetting that he was venturing into territory allocated to Wohsedt. “It would have to be an exclusive and secret brothel for society ladies! A Chinaman in one room, a sailor in another, and a soldier in a third!”

The waiter serving Mock a third glass of schnapps listened to this monologue with surprise and interest, as did the two women of a certain age who were drinking cocoa liqueur at the next table. Mock looked at them intently and set his imagination to work — one of them approaches and asks him: “Kind sir, I would like a sailor … where can I find one?” He glanced again at the ladies nearby and realized how inauthentic such a hypothetical scene sounded. In fact the inauthenticity was so acute that he tasted its bitterness in his mouth. He decided to rinse it out with rowanberry schnapps.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1919

A QUARTER TO MIDNIGHT

Mock sat at a table in the dance hall of the Hungarian King Hotel and, holding a square bottle of gin to his eye, observed three couples dancing on an area marked out with coloured lights. The surrounding tables were occupied by a few lone men, all of whom were leaning on the railings encircling the floor, puffing out clouds of smoke, occasionally drinking from their glasses and watching the movements of the dancers. Beyond the tables and up a few steps were alcoves, some with cherry-coloured velvet curtains drawn across them, some with the curtains pulled back. The open alcoves shone with emptiness, and those that were closed resounded with women’s high-pitched laughter. Whenever the head waiter discreetly struck his little hammer against one of the iron curtain rods, Mock pricked up his ears and strained his eyes. The waiter would then draw the curtains aside, and the ladies would adjust their hair and run slender fingers over their velvety nostrils. There were not many men in the alcoves. Mock smelled sweat and face powder, as well as the scent of perfume. The haughtiness with which they addressed the waiters made it apparent that the ladies belonged to high society. Their laughter, on the other hand, was quite plebeian, and greatly aroused the plebeian in Mock.

The orchestra played a shimmy in the rhythm of a funeral march and it was obvious that the musicians would have liked most of all to return to their former occupation, namely that of immersing their moustaches into enormous tankards of beer. The dance hostesses displayed a typical Monday-morning willingness to work as they turned with studied elegance in the arms of three merry dancers, while their eyes — which Mock could see quite clearly through the magnifying lens of the gin bottle — betrayed reluctance and indifference.

This observation made Mock think of women of ill repute, who — like dance hostesses tired out after a working Sunday — also concealed smooth apathy in their eyes. Eyes that would usually come to life three times in a session: once when the girl approached her client, once when she feigned pleasure and once when she took his money. In the first two situations, she was generally a poor actress; in the last, an efficient calculator. He remembered his reasoning: the dead men were clients, not employees of a brothel. The thought had been prompted when he had imagined one of the ladies sitting next to him in Michael’s restaurant asking for a sailor-stud, and the image had not rung true. Sensing this inauthenticity at the time, he had resolved to take the difficult and long road which he was going to describe at the briefing the following day in Muhlhaus’ office. He was going to question all the prostitutes in town, starting now. He poured his first glass of gin and conceded that he was going to stop at the one. He did not want to fall asleep. There was no way he wanted to fall asleep. Dreams were not his allies, either in this investigation or in life.

Mock the rationalist intended to begin his questioning at this very venue. He would fire the prostitutes with questions concerning clients who had a penchant for leather underwear. If, however, someone had asked him why he had begun his explorations at the Hungarian King on Bischofstrasse, he would not have known what to say. Had he been sober, his answer would have been: “Because the lighting is good and the venue is made up of three ascending circles — the dance floor, the tables and the alcoves — so it has the best view. I need to start in a place like this before I bury myself in the dark corners of those forbidden dives near Blucherplatz.” Had he been drunk, he would have retorted: “Because the prettiest whores are here, and I want them — all at the same time.” Mock the rationalist did not want to permit the thought that something might be controlling him; he did not want to admit, with his petty bourgeois conscience, that his trousers concealed a ruthless and capricious demon. Right then it reminded him of its existence.