Marek Krajewski - Death in Breslau

Not only did the battered guard not maintain a vertical position, but he lay flat out on the ground, his good hand on his stomach. Anwaldt felt sorry for the man, who had been abused simply because he had been scrupulously performing his duty. He looked up and shouted back:

“Criminal Assistant Herbert Anwaldt.”

Madame le Goef was angry but not to such a degree as to lose control:

“You’re lying. You threaten to call Forstner. He not boss of C.I.D.”

“Firstly, please do not be too familiar with me,” he smiled, listening to this peculiar German. “Secondly, my chief is Criminal Director Eberhard Mock, but I cannot telephone him. He’s away on holiday.”

“Please, sir. Come in.” Madame knew that Anwaldt was not lying. The previous day, Mock had cancelled his weekly game of chess because of the trip. Besides, she was mortally afraid of Mock and would have opened up even to a burglar if he had entered with Mock’s name on his lips.

Anwaldt did not look at the set faces of the guards he passed. He entered the hall and admitted to himself that this sanctuary of Aphrodite was, in its interior decor, second to none in Berlin. He could say the same of the owner’s study. He sat down casually, in the open window. The shoes of the guard being dragged back by his colleagues scraped along the driveway. Anwaldt removed his jacket, cleared his throat and rubbed the bruise on his neck.

“A black Mercedes drove up to your salon shortly before I arrived and a girl wearing a school uniform got out. I want to see her.”

Madame picked up the telephone and uttered a few words (probably in Hungarian).

“She’ll be here presently. She’s having her bath now.”

“Presently” turned out to be a very short moment. Anwaldt had no time to treat his eyes to the splendid reproduction of Goya’s Naked Maya before Erna’s double was standing in the door. The school uniform had been replaced by pink tulle.

“Erna …” He covered this slip of the tongue with a sarcastic tone. “Sorry, Elsa … Which school do you go to?”

“I work here,” she squeaked.

“Ah, here,” he aped her. “So cui bono †are you learning Latin?”

The girl remained silent, having modestly lowered her eyes. Anwaldt turned all of a sudden to the owner of the brothel:

“What are you still doing here? Please leave.”

Madame did so without a word, winking meaningfully to the girl. Anwaldt sat down behind the desk and listened for a while to the sounds of summer in the garden.

“What are you doing with Maass?”

“Shall I show you?” (Erna had looked at him like that when he had stepped into Klaus Schmetterling’s bachelor apartment. They had had their eye on this inconspicuous apartment in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg for a long time. They knew that the banker, Schmetterling, had a taste for underage girls. The raid was a success.)

“No. You don’t have to show me,” he said in a weary tone. “Who hired you? Who’s the bearded chauffeur’s employer?”

The girl stopped smiling.

“I don’t know. This bearded guy came along and said some sucker likes schoolgirls. What’s it to me? He paid a lot. He drives me there and back. Oh, he’s supposed to be taking me to some big party today. I think it’s going to be at his boss’. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

Anwaldt had questioned numerous prostitutes in the past and was sure that the girl was telling the truth.

“Sit down!” he showed her a chair. “You’re going to be carrying out assignments for me now. This evening, at the reception, you’re to make sure that all the windows — especially the ones to the balcony — are at least ajar. Understand? Then I’ll have another assignment for you. My name’s Herbert Anwaldt. As of today, you work for me or you end up in the gutter! I’ll throw you to the mercy of the worst pimps in town!”

He was aware that he did not have to say this. (Every whore’s greatest fear is a policeman.) He heard the grating of his own vocal cords.

“Bring me something cold to drink! Lemonade would be best!”

Once she had left, he leaned his head out of the window. Unfortunately, the heat could not burn away his memories. (“You know her, don’t you, Anwaldt?” He kicked the door to the room furiously. Banker Schmetterling shielded his eyes from the glare of the flashes as he tried to pull the eiderdown over his head.)

“Here’s your lemonade,” the girl smiled flirtatiously at the handsome policeman. “Do you have any special tasks for me? I’ll willingly do them …” (Schmetterling’s body was immobilized. United in a love embrace. The fat body shook, the supple one writhed. Indissoluble coitus joined the fat banker to Anwaldt’s fiancee, beautiful as a dream — Erna Stange.)

The policeman got up and approached the smiling Erna Stange. The green eyes covered over with a thin film of tears as he slapped her with full force. Descending the stairs, he heard her muffled sobs. In his head murmured Samuel Coleridge’s maxim: “When a man takes his thoughts to be people and objects, he is a madman. That precisely is the definition of a madman.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 9TH, 1934

ONE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

Anwaldt sat in his office in the Police Praesidium, savouring the coolness which reigned there and waiting for a telephone call from the Criminal Sergeant, Kurt Smolorz, the only man, according to Mock, that he could trust. The small window just below the ceiling faced north, and looked out on one of the five interior yards of the police building. He laid his head on the table. The deep sleep lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour. It was interrupted by Smolorz, who appeared in person.

“Here are the dinner jacket and mask,” the red-haired, portly man smiled amicably. “And now for some important news: the black Mercedes with the number plate you gave us belongs to Baron Wilhelm von Kopperlingk.”

“Thank you. Mock didn’t overestimate you. But where on earth did you get hold of that?” he pointed to the black, velvet mask.

In reply, Smolorz put a finger to his lips and retreated from the room. Anwaldt lit a cigar and leaned back in his chair. Wrapping his hands behind his neck, he stretched his whole body several times. Everything was coming together into a uniform whole. Baron von Kopperlingk had fulfilled Maass’ sweetest dream when he had sent him the beautiful schoolgirl. “How did he know about it?” he noted on a piece of paper. (Not important. Maass does nothing to hide his predilections. He was loud enough expressing them in the park yesterday.) “What for?” the nib squeaked on the paper once more. (So as to control Maass and, indirectly, my investigation.) “Why?” the successive question appeared on the squared paper. He set his memory to work and summoned a few lines from Mock’s letter before his eyes: “… the late Hauptsturmfuhrer S.A. Walter Piontek eagerly made use of the track suggested by Baron Wilhelm von Kopperlingk (who, by the by, has many friends in the Gestapo) … If somebody finds the true murderers, then the entire propaganda will be turned into a laughing stock by the English and French newspapers. I warn you against these people — they are ruthless and capable of forcing anyone into giving up an investigation.”

Anwaldt felt a wave of pride surge though him. He pulled the mask over his face.

“If the Gestapo gets to know the reason for my investigation, it’ll certainly put an end to it — for fear of being ridiculed by France and England,” he muttered, walking up to the small mirror on the wall. “Yet I think there are some people within the Gestapo who will want to put a stop to it for an entirely different reason.”