Marek Krajewski - Phantoms of Breslau

Mock sat on the counter and opened the first-aid box. He moistened a piece of cotton wool with hydrogen peroxide and by the feeble light of the candle dabbed at the three small wounds on his thigh and buttock. Then he approached the drainage grille. He levered it up with his fingernail and moved it aside to reveal a square hole. Mock knew the remedy for everything — for evil spirits and the cold. It was hidden beneath the grille. He felt the familiar shape of the flat bottle in his hand and pulled it out without using the candle, which was burning down on the counter. This was a task he could accomplish even in the dark. He heard a rustling in the hole. A rat? He held the candlestick aloft. A crumpled piece of paper lay embedded in the depths. A squared sheet, torn from a maths exercise book. He held it up to the flame and began to read. There were things in this world for which Mock did not have a remedy.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1919

FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Mock sat next to Smolorz in a covered two-person gig manufactured years ago for the police at Hermann Lewin’s carriage factory, and blessed the skill of the builders who had laid the cobblestones on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse. Thanks to their good work he no longer had to hold his stomach and curse his gluttony as he had for an hour, from the moment he had found Julius Wohsedt’s letter in the drain of Eduard Mock’s former shop and rushed out into the street, half-naked, to catch a droschka. The four large shots of schnapps he had drunk in the night had been offset by a mountain of fat-ridden food, and should not have seethed and surged in Mock’s body as he was well trained in battling with alcohol. And yet they had made themselves felt as the droschka sped along the bumpy streets of Klein Tschansch, turned abruptly, braked and finally came to a standstill when the old hack slipped on a cobble and broke a shaft in the fall. Despite suffering digestive agonies, Mock finally made it to the XV District police station at Ofenerstrasse 30 and telephoned the lawyer Max Grotzschl who, inveighing against night-time calls, had descended several floors to pass the information on to his neighbour, Kurt Smolorz. Mock had then borrowed a police bicycle and transported his leaden stomach to the Police Praesidium on Schuhbrucke. There in the yard, coachman Kurt Smolorz was waiting for him on the box of a fast, two-person gig.

During those two nocturnal hours, Mock did not have the opportunity to re-read the letter he had found in the sewers of his house. His hands had been occupied either with his quivering stomach or with the handle-bars of the bicycle. Now, with Smolorz driving skilfully along cobbles damp with warm rain, Mock could read the peculiar text once more.

“To Eleonore Wohsedt, Schenkendorfstrasse 3. The swine is wearing an executioner’s hood.” Mock held the note up to his eyes and read the scribbles with some difficulty. The task was not made any easier by the streaks of light and shadow gliding across the page as the carriage passed the street lamps surrounding Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz. “I wouldn’t be able to recognize him. He tortured me, forced me to admit that I’m an adulterer. It isn’t true Eleonore, my dear wife. I was forced to write the letter you’re going to get from him. I do not have, nor ever have had a mistress. I love only you. Julius Wohsedt.”

They were approaching the crossroads at Kurassierstrasse. Broad avenues ran on either side, and between them a pavement planted with maples and plane trees. This sort of road planning had been hatched by the militarized brains of German architects, who had designed the green belt with cavalry officers in mind. Just one such powerfully built soldier in cuirassier’s uniform was now riding across the street that had been dedicated to his unit. Clearly angry, he allowed the speeding gig to pass, throwing Mock a hostile look. Mock did not notice, however, being too busy observing a group of drunks who had poured out of a taproom hidden in the yard behind Kelling’s dye-works. A few men were watching two women as they fought and whacked each other with their handbags. Mock asked Smolorz to pull up. The women stopped fighting and looked at the police officers, ironically and provocatively. Through the layer of powder on the face of one of them, prickles of morning stubble were beginning to appear. Mock waved them away and told Smolorz to move on and pull up after turning right into Schenkendorfstrasse. Smolorz tied the reins to a lamp post and rang the bell. Unnecessarily. Nobody was asleep in the huge house where all lights were ablaze. Mrs Eleonora Wohsedt would certainly not be asleep. Wrapped in a checked blanket, she stood with two servants at the entrance door and stared helplessly at the police officers coming up the stairs. The butlers were ready to fend off the attack, their eyes betraying the friendliness of a cobra. Mrs Wohsedt was shaking. In the woollen blanket, and without her false teeth, she looked like a street vendor who might stamp her feet to chase away the cold. The September morning was cool and crystal-clear.

“Criminal police.” Mock held his identification under Mrs Wohsedt’s nose, and for a few moments fixed his eyes on the butlers as their faces softened. “Criminal Assistant Mock and Sergeant Smolorz.”

“That’s what I thought. I knew you’d come. I’ve been standing like this for two days waiting for him,” said Mrs Wohsedt, starting to cry. The tears fell silently and profusely. Her huge, soft body shook as she wept. Sniffing, she brushed aside the tears, rubbing them into her temples. A thought struck Mock which was so hideous and absurd that even he was disgusted by it. Swiftly he pushed it aside.

“Why didn’t you report your husband’s disappearance if he vanished two days ago? Where could he have gone?” The hideous thought would not leave Mock in peace.

“Sometimes he doesn’t come home. He takes our little bitch out for a walk in the evenings and goes down to the shipyards. He works in his office through the night and only comes home for dinner the next day. The day before yesterday he took the dog for a walk” — her alto voice lowered to a whisper — “at about six o’clock in the evening. And he didn’t come back for dinner …”

“What breed is the dog?” Smolorz asked.

“A boxer.” Mrs Wohsedt wiped away the last of her tears.

Mock imagined the scene: a little girl playing with two boxer bitches, while on an iron bed behind a partition two people covered in eczema are cavorting, Wohsedt’s fat, triple chin resting between Johanna’s shapely breasts.

“Is this your husband’s writing?” Mock showed her the piece of paper he had found in the drain, now protected by two sheets of transparent tracing paper. “Read it, but please handle it only through the tracing paper.”

Mrs Wohsedt put on her glasses and began to read, moving her sunken lips. Her face lit up:

“Yes, it’s his writing,” she said quietly, and then suddenly she shouted with joy: “I trusted him! I trusted him and he didn’t let me down! So what he wrote in that other letter isn’t true …”

“What other letter?” Mock asked.

“The one I got today,” Mrs Wohsedt said, turning in circles. “It’s not true, it’s not true …”

“Calm down, please.” Mock grabbed her by the shoulders and glared at the butlers who were ready to pounce.

“This one, this one.” She pulled out an envelope from under her blanket, tore herself away from Mock’s grasp and carried on spinning in a joyful dance. Mock noticed flaking skin on her neck.

“You’ve got a pair of gloves, Smolorz,” Mock said as he lit his first cigarette of the day. “Take the letter from Mrs Wohsedt and read it out loud.”

“‘My dear wife,’” Smolorz obeyed. “‘I keep a mistress. She lives on Reuscherstrasse …’”