Marek Krajewski - Phantoms of Breslau

NOON

Mock sat in his office in the Police Praesidium trying to stifle the incessant musical rondo which had been going around in his head for over an hour, ever since he had returned from his gloomy walk through the labyrinth of inner yards between Reuscherstrasse and Antonienstrasse. In the dark side streets, from which not even the sweltering September sun could burn away the musty dampness, pan vendors had set up temporary stalls; grindstones whistled in a hiss of sparks and organ grinders set down their boxes and played picaresque and romantic urban ballads. The yard’s morality play, sung by Bruno the organ grinder’s ten-year-old daughter, did not belong in either of those categories:

In the city of Breslau after the war

No longer safely can you all live.

For a vampire prowls, a terrible brute,

Like a spider, a bloody web does he weave.

Mock looked up at his colleague, Herbert Domagalla, who was clattering on the platen of a Torpedo typewriter, transforming the statements given by the prostitute sitting opposite him into the rhythmic scansion of well-oiled machinery. Mock grabbed a pencil and snapped it in two. A small splinter of wood hit the prostitute on the cheek, and she glared at Mock. He was looking at her too, but he did not see her. Instead he saw himself the day before: an energetic police officer who blackmails his chief, gets carte blanche to do what he likes and then, his head brimming with ideas, follows in the murderer’s footsteps with his loyal helpers from the criminal underworld. After the death of a prostitute covered in rashes, that same police officer turns into a dried-up, moaning little soul who renounces everything he is doing and at night shakes with terror at imaginary ghosts. The following day that weepy and meek anima over-dramatizes his experiences in the presence of a friend from the front.

The vampire kills in our dark city streets.

Our officers strive to track the fiend down.

Led by our brave Commissioner Mock,

A hunt for the vampire runs through the town.

Soon I will tell you why Mock leads this case,

I’ll tell you what gives him this admirable knack

But now, for the moment, I must be still

For a grim shudder runs down my back.

Mock rested his chin on one fist and thumped his desk with the other. The inkwell and chewed bone penholder jumped, the antique sand shaker with Breslau’s coat of arms rocked, the rolled-up newspaper with its headline prisoners of war return rustled. The prostitute glared at Mock again.

“If only you had seen me yesterday,” he said to her and broke off.

“Pardon?” Domagalla and the prostitute said at the same time.

Mock ignored them and continued in his head: “… you’d have seen a moron, fluctuating between contradictory decisions. One minute he abandons Alfred Sorg to the mercy of the murderer, then he locks him up in Wirth’s ‘storeroom’. One minute he wants to attack the perpetrator, the next he practically drowns in tears for fear that somebody he has questioned is going to die. I’ve got the address of the four sailors. Why haven’t I gone there? Because I’m afraid of killing somebody. I’m like Medusa: I kill with my eyes. I drill holes in stomachs and pierce lungs with my eyes alone. So how am I supposed to conduct this investigation, damn it? Not look at people? Not question them? Write letters?” After this last question, an answer occurred to him.

“Use the telephone,” he said, and this time neither Domagalla nor the woman were surprised.

With eyes gouged out whole, and hearts pierced with pins,

This violent vampire’s offering’s grim

O, dear Commissioner, when is it ending,

The vampire’s fearful and terrible hymn?

Only Mock knows the truth, only he understands

In all of the world it is only he,

O, dear Commissioner, when can you stop this?

Why all this killing? Pray tell this to me.

Mock dialled the number of Smolorz’s neighbour, the lawyer Max Grotzschl, and asked him to let the Criminal Sergeant know that he had called. Ten minutes later a polite voice, polished by appearances at tribunals, informed him that a tearful Mrs Ursula Smolorz did not have the slightest idea where her inebriated husband had gone the previous day. Mock thanked Mr Grotzschl and hung up in a fury, almost overturning the telephone. Unlike Mrs Smolorz, he knew perfectly well that for the past two days her husband had been mingling with Breslau’s aristocracy.

The vampire sends notes to Commissioner Mock,

In which he reveals those motives of his.

Read these aloud to the folk of your city

Tell the people of Breslau the horror that is.

Another thought silenced the nagging of the little organ grinder’s daughter in Mock’s head. Smolorz was not the only member of his informal investigative team. There were others he could trust absolutely. He dialled the number of Bimkraut amp; Eberstein, the forwarding agency. After two rings he heard a voice which did not belong to either Bimkraut or Eberstein; nor could it, since both had died long since and their names, carefully copied from gravestones in the old St Bernard’s cemetery, had been used as a front to register a business whose boss was somebody completely different, and whose undertakings had little to do with the forwarding of goods.

“Listen, Wirth,” Mock said, but his eyes followed the prostitute who, with a charming smile, whispered something in Domagalla’s ear as she left. “What? What’s that you said?” Mock continued. “Don’t be vulgar … Sorg and Kohlisch are forcing themselves on Miss Kathe, you say! … Yes, keep her away from them! And now stop bothering me with your nonsense and listen! We’re making a move …” Mock glanced at Domagalla as he left with his charge and immediately issued instructions. In his head, Elfriede the organ grinder’s daughter was singing her last verse:

When will my organ stop grinding so sadly

This terrible story, this tearful song?

How long, Commissioner, must our torment endure?

Please tell us, dear Mock, oh for how long?

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919

TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

Erich Frenzel, the caretaker of a block of houses between Gartenstrasse, Agnesstrasse, Tauentzienstrasse and Schweidnitzerstrasse, was sitting in the yard he administered, straining his uncomplicated brain to its limits over an equally uncomplicated problem: whether to spend Saturday night there, in Bartsch’s Inn, with a tankard and bowl of black pudding, peas and bacon, or in the back rooms of Cafe Orlich, with walnut schnapps and cabbage with crackling. The first possibility was tempting because of the new accordionist in Bartsch’s who came from Swabia, like Frenzel, and played beautiful tunes from the fatherland; the second possibility, on the other hand, appealed to Frenzel’s love of gambling. In a secret room at the back of Cafe Orlich at Gartenstrasse 51, brawny men gathered for arm-wrestling contests across the tables, flexing their muscles and entirely ignoring gamblers like Frenzel as they looked on and cheered. Remembering one strongman who was coming to Breslau from Poland, and his own substantial loss the previous week, he was gradually inclining towards the latter option.

He did not make a final decision, however, because his entire attention was drawn to a huge wagon which had rolled through the gates and into the yard from Agnesstrasse. The wagon was empty. Being short-sighted, Frenzel could not decipher the company name on the tarpaulin, which fluttered freely in the wind and revealed the empty interior. He got to his feet, buttoned up his jacket, adjusted his cap with its broken peak and, feeling like a soldier, clattered loudly across the cobbles in his tall, highly polished boots. He was fuming with rage at the audacious carter who had the cheek to drive into the yard, despite the clear no entry sign hanging above the gate. His presence — which was, after all, forbidden in his yard — could not in any way be justified since there was no business in that block of tenements to which any sort of goods could be delivered. Frenzel snorted in anger as he passed three little girls, two of whom were turning a thick piece of rope while the third skipped over it, performing all kinds of acrobatics. He grew red with fury when he saw a short man jump from the box, stand with his legs apart facing the old linden tree planted by Frenzel’s father, and unfasten his trousers.