Marek Krajewski - Phantoms of Breslau

“Do you remember, Erika, that old sailor who told us about how roofing is done in Pomerania?” He felt her nod on his shoulder. “When you left to go out for a walk he told me about another effect of the sea wind …”

“What effect?” Erika took her head off his shoulder and looked at him with interest.

“When the wind howls for a long time it drives people insane. Makes them commit suicide.”

“Then it’s a good thing it’s not howling now,” she said gravely and huddled against him.

The eye of the lighthouse lit up behind them. Its built-in horn monotonously announced a fog which was to descend on the port after the hot autumnal day. Seagulls screeched in warning.

At a seafront cafe they turned down to the beach. Erika was full of energy. She ran across the sand below the cafe terrace and raced towards the ladies’ changing room. For a moment Mock lost sight of her. Carrying a wicker basket filled with bread, wine, fried marinated herring and half a roast chicken, he could barely keep up with her. He panted and gasped, his lungs damaged by nicotine.

Finally he staggered onto the eastern beach. A few strollers were building up an appetite for supper with a brisk walk. Some daredevil in a tight tricot bathing suit was cutting through the gentle waves with his solid knots of muscle. On the footbridge leading to the splendid ladies’ changing room, supported by several metre-long wooden stumps sunk into the beach, Erika stood talking to a young woman. Mock wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and looked carefully at the girl. He recognized her. It was the prostitute who was staying at the Spa House Hotel where, as Mock had already managed to discover, a four-woman team of Corinthian professionals was at work.

“She’s met her match,” he thought, and walked on westwards, ignoring Erika who bade her friend-by-trade goodbye and ran gaily after him. They sat down on a dune. Erika turned her face to the salty sea breeze; Mock turned his mind to an all-consuming fury: “She’s met her match — surely I’m mad to associate with this whore.” Erika paid no heed to the man lying next to her with his hands behind his head, watching the girl step off the footbridge which connected the changing room to the beach. When she found herself past the broken teeth of the groyne, the girl lifted her dress a little and progressed more slowly, digging holes in the sand with her crooked heels. Mock’s fury began to abate. “She wanders around like that all day — I’ve never seen her with a client. A darned dress, twisted heels, a parasol with prongs sticking out, eyes of a heifer, bleary and vacuous. A cheap whore.” All of a sudden he felt sorry for her, twisting her ankles on cobblestones in an empty seaside spa, pursued by the screeching of angry seagulls. He turned to look at Erika. He wanted to put his arms around her in gratitude that she was no cheap, downtrodden whore, grinding down the pavements. He controlled the urge, however, and looked at the long fingers which held on to what once had been his strong biceps.

“Do you know, I come from a seaside village just like this,” Erika said, her eyes closed. “When I was a girl …” She baulked and glanced anxiously at Mock, anticipating an acerbic reaction.

“See to the supper, Erika,” he muttered and closed his eyes. He pictured her laying out the blanket on the white sand and, struggling against the slight wind, spreading over it the clean tablecloth with its embroidered fish. Then she would take the herring, chicken and wine out of the basket. He opened his eyes and saw everything as he had imagined it. He waved a hand invitingly. She snuggled up to him and felt him place a kiss first on one eye, then the other.

“I can anticipate everything you’re going to do and say,” she heard him murmur. “So, tell me about your seaside village.”

Erika smiled and freed herself from Mock’s embrace. She grasped a chicken thigh with the tips of her fingers and not without difficulty pulled it away from the rest of the meat. She gave it to Mock. He thanked her and tore off the crisp, golden skin with his teeth, then dug into the juicy fibres covered with a slippery veneer of fat.

“When I was little, I fell in love with our neighbour.” With the very tips of her fingers Erika lifted a thin slice of herring to her lips. “He was a musician, like my parents. I used to sit on his knee and he’d play Saint-Saens’ The Carnival of the Animals on the piano. Do you know it?”

“Yes,” Mock muttered and sucked in air as he detached the last strips of meat from the bone.

“He would play and I’d guess what animal the piece was supposed to be about. Our neighbour had a greying, evenly trimmed and well-groomed beard. I loved him with all my burning, eight-year-old heart … Don’t worry,” she briefly changed the subject, detecting a glimmer of unease in Mock’s eyes. “He didn’t do anything bad to me. He sometimes kissed me on the cheek and I would pick up the smell of good tobacco from his beard … From time to time he played cards with my parents. I’d sit on my father’s knee this time, staring in bewilderment at the figures on the cards and not understanding anything of the game, but wishing with my whole heart that my father would be the loser … I wanted our neigh-bour, Herr Manfred Nagler, to win … I’ve always liked older men …”

“Glad to hear it.” Mock passed the wine to her and watched as she drank straight from the bottle.

“I studied at the Music Conservatory in Riga, you know?” She was breathing quickly; the wine had momentarily taken her breath away. “Most of all I liked to play The Carnival of the Animals , even though my professor railed against Saint-Saens. He said it was primitive, illustrative music … He was wrong. All music illustrates something, doesn’t it? Debussy, for instance, illustrates a sea warmed by the sun, Dvorak the vigour and power of America, and Chopin the states of a human soul … Do you want some more chicken?”

“Yes, please.” He watched her slender fingers, rested his head on his arm and moved closer to her. The sun dappled the sea before his eyes.

He was torn from his nap by Erika’s voice. She was asking him something insistently.

“You agree, really?” she whispered delightedly. “Well, go on then! Tell me when you were born! Exactly, including the time!”

“What do you want to know that for?” Mock rubbed his eyes and glanced at his watch. He had not slept for more than a quarter of an hour.

“But you nodded, you agreed with everything I said,” Erika said, disappointed. “You were asleep all along — you’ve had it up to here with my babbling …”

“Alright, alright …” Mock lit a cigarette. “I can give you the exact time I was born … What’s it to me? The eighteenth of September, 1883. At about midday …”

“Ah, so it’s your birthday the day after tomorrow. I’ve got to get you a present …” Erika traced the date in the wet sand. “And your place of birth?”

“Waldenburg, Silesia. Are you trying to work out my horoscope?”

“No, not me.” She rested her head on his knee. “My sister … she’s an astrologer. But I told you …”

“Alright, alright …” he muttered.

“Why are you being so kind to me?” She was not looking him in the eye; she was looking lower. At his nose? Lips? “You haven’t called me a whore for a whole week … You’ve been calling me by my name … You even listen when I tell you about my childhood, even though it bores you… Why?”

Mock struggled with himself for a while. He pondered his reply, weighing all its consequences.

“The wind isn’t howling.” He avoided an honest answer. “And there’s no aggression or insanity in me.”