Marek Krajewski: Death in Breslau

The old policeman, who was always sent to the most macabre crimes, came up to Mock carrying a paraffin lamp.

“Criminal Sergeant Emil Koblischke reporting,” he introduced himself unnecessarily; as usual, the Counsellor knew his subordinates well. Koblischke hid his cigarette in his cupped hand and looked gravely at Mock.

“Where you and I, sir, are both to be found, things must be bad.” With his eyes, he indicated a saloon carriage with the sign “BERLIN-BRESLAU”. “And things in there are very bad indeed.”

All three carefully stepped over the body of the prostrate rail worker in the carriage corridor. A bloated face, frozen in a mask of pain. There was no sign of blood. Koblischke grasped the corpse by the collar and sat it up; the head flopped to one side and, as the policeman pulled down the collar, Mock and Forstner leaned forward to get a better view.

“Bring that lamp nearer, Emil. I can’t see a thing,” Mock said.

Koblischke stood the lamp closer and turned the corpse over on to its front. He freed one arm from the uniform and shirt, then tugged hard and exposed the dead man’s back and shoulders. He moved the paraffin lamp even closer. The policemen could see several red marks with blue swellings on the nape and shoulder blade. Between the shoulder blades lay three dead, flattened scorpions.

“Three insects like that can kill a man?” For the first time Forstner betrayed his ignorance.

“They’re not insects, Forstner, they are arachnids.” Mock did not even moderate his contempt. “Apart from which, the post-mortem is still to come.”

While the policemen could be in some doubt with regard to the rail worker, the cause of death of the two women in the saloon car was only too obvious.

Mock frequently caught himself reacting to tragic news with perverse thoughts, and to a shocking sight with amusement. When his mother had died in Waldenburg, the first thought that had come to him was about orderliness: what was to be done with the old, massive divan which couldn’t be lugged out either through the window or the door? At the sight of the thin, pale shins of a demented beggar cruelly beating a puppy near the old Police Praesidium on 49 Schuhbrucke, he had been seized by foolish laughter. So too now, when Forstner slipped on the puddle of blood which covered the floor of the saloon car, Mock burst out laughing. Koblischke did not expect such a reaction from the Counsellor. He, himself, had seen a great deal in his time, but the spectacle in the saloon car set him shaking for a second time. Forstner left the carriage, Mock began his inspection.

Seventeen-year-old Marietta von der Malten was on the floor, naked from the waist down. Her loose, thick, ash-blonde hair was saturated with blood, like a sponge. Her face was contorted as if by a sudden attack of paralysis. Garlands of intestines lay scattered at the sides of her slashed body. The torn stomach revealed remnants of undigested food. Mock caught sight of something in the abdominal cavity. Overcoming his revulsion, he leaned over the girl’s body. The stench was unbearable. Mock swallowed. In the blood and mucus moved a small, vigorous scorpion.

Forstner vomited violently in the toilet. Koblischke jumped comically as something crunched under his shoe.

“ Scheisse , there’s more of them here,” he shouted.

They examined the corners of the saloon car with care and killed three more scorpions. “Good thing none of them stung us.” Koblischke was breathing heavily. “Otherwise we’d be prostrate like that one in the corridor.”

When they had made sure that there were no more sinister creatures in the carriage, they approached the second victim, Mlle Francoise Debroux, governess to the Baron’s daughter. The woman, about forty years old, was lying flung over the back of a couch. Torn stockings, varicose veins on her shins, a modest dress with a white collar, yanked up to her armpits, sparse hair freed from its spinster’s bun. Her teeth biting into her swollen tongue. A curtain cord was pulled tight around her neck. Mock inspected the corpse with revulsion and, to his relief, did not see another scorpion.

“That’s the strangest thing,” Koblischke indicated the wall, lined with striped, navy-blue fabric. Writing could be seen between the carriage windows. Two lines of strange signs. The Criminal Counsellor brought his face closer to them. Again he swallowed hard.

“Yes, yes …” Koblischke understood him instantly. “Written in blood …”

Mock told the obliging Forstner that he did not wish to be driven home. He walked slowly, his coat unbuttoned. He felt the burden of his fifty years. After half an hour, he found himself among familiar houses. In the doorway of one of the tenements on Opitzstrasse, he came to a standstill and looked at his watch. Four o’clock. At this time, he would normally be coming back from his Friday “chess”. Yet never had any of the exquisite sessions wearied him so much as today’s experience.

Lying next to his wife, he listened to the ticking of the clock. Before falling asleep, he remembered a scene from his youth. He was staying as a twenty-year-old student on the estate of his distant family near Trebnitz and flirting with the wife of the manor steward. In the end, after many unsuccessful attempts, he had arranged a tryst with her. He was sitting on the river bank under an old oak tree, certain that the day had come when he was finally going to have his fill of her voluptuous body. Smoking a cigarette, he listened to an argument between a few country girls who were playing on the other side of the river. The cruel creatures, their voices raised, were chasing away a lame girl and calling her a cripple. The child was standing by the water and looking in Mock’s direction. In her outstretched arm, she held an old doll, her darned dress rippled in the breeze, her newly polished shoes were splattered with clay. Mock realized that she reminded him of a bird with a broken wing. As he watched the girl, he all of a sudden began to cry.

Nor could he stifle his tears now. His wife muttered something in her sleep. Mock opened the window and turned his burning face to the rain. Marietta von der Malten had been lame too and he had known her since she was a child.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME MAY 13TH, 1933

EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

On Saturdays, Mock would arrive at the Police Praesidium at ten in the morning. The porters, couriers and detectives would glance meaningfully at each other as, faintly smiling and heavy with sleep, the Counsellor would reply to their greetings, leaving behind him a waft of expensive eau de cologne from Welzel. But this Saturday he did not remind anyone of that self-satisfied policeman, their mild and understanding superior. He came into the building as early as eight, slamming the door behind him. He snapped open his umbrella several times, spraying droplets of rain all around. Without replying either to the porter’s or to the sleepy courier’s “Good morning, sir”, he took the stairs at the double, caught the tip of his shoe and all but fell. Porter Handke could not believe his ears — for the first time in his experience, he heard a ripe curse from Mock’s lips.

“Oh, the Counsellor’s ill-disposed today,” he smiled to Bender, the courier.

Mock, meantime, had entered his office, sat behind his desk, and lit a cigar. His unseeing eyes fixed on a glazed brick wall. Although aware that he was still wearing his coat and hat, he did not move. After some minutes, a knock echoed on the door and Forstner came in.

“Everybody’s to be here in an hour.”

“They are here already.”

The Counsellor looked at his assistant with cool kindliness for the first time.

“Forstner, please arrange for me to talk to Professor Andreae from the university over the telephone. And please phone Baron Olivier von der Malten’s residence and ask what time the Baron would be willing to see me. Briefing here in five minutes.”