Death in Breslau (17 page)

The man from the Gestapo walked around the cell, where the stench of sweat was almost palpable.

“Bad, Anwaldt, isn’t it?” he clearly expected an answer.

“Yes …” the tortured man gasped. His tongue caught the jagged remains of his front tooth.

“Everybody’s bad in this city.” He circled the chair. “Yeees, Anwaldt.
So what are you doing here … in this Babylon? What brought you here?”

The man in uniform lit a cigarette and put the flaming match to the prisoner’s crown. Anwaldt flung himself about; the stink of burning hair was suffocating. The second torturer, a sweaty, fat man, threw a wet rag over his head, extinguishing the fire. The relief was short-lived. That same Gestapo man squeezed the prisoner’s nose with one hand while, with the other, he shoved the rag into his mouth.

“What’s your assignment in Breslau, Berliner?” the muffled voice repeated. “Enough, Konrad.”

Freed of the stinking gag, Anwaldt fell into a long fit of coughing. The slim Gestapo man waited patiently for an answer. Not getting one, he looked at his helper.

“Herr Anwaldt doesn’t want to answer, Konrad. He evidently feels safe. He thinks he’s protected. But who’s protecting him?” he spread his hands. “Criminal Director Eberhard Mock, perhaps? But Mock isn’t here. Do you see Mock anywhere, Konrad?”

“No, I don’t, Herr Standartenführer.”

The slim man bowed his head and uttered in a pleading voice:

“I know, I know, Konrad. Your methods are foolproof. No secret remains, no name blotted from memory, when you question your patients. Allow me to cure this patient. May I?”

“Of course, Herr Standartenführer.”

The smiling Konrad left the cell. The Standartenführer opened an old, tattered briefcase and took out a litre bottle and a half-litre jar. He poured the contents of the bottle – some kind of suspension – over Anwaldt’s head. The prisoner tasted something sweet on his tongue.

“It’s water with honey, you know, Anwaldt,” the torturer reached for the jar. “And this? You know what this is? Alright, alright … I’ll satisfy your curiosity.” He shook the jar several times. A low buzzing of insects
emanated from it. Anwaldt looked: two hornets were furiously jumping on each other and thrashing against the sides of the jar.

“Oh dear, what awful monsters …” the man from Gestapo lamented. Suddenly, he took a swing and smashed the jar against the wall. Before the disorientated hornets had found their wings in the small cell, the prisoner was alone.

Anwaldt had never imagined that these enormous insects gave off the same sound with their wings as small birds. The hornets first threw themselves at the wire-encased light bulb but, after a moment, changed direction. They made strange convulsive movements in the fusty air and with every shudder fell lower. Soon, they found themselves in the vicinity of Anwaldt’s head where they were drawn by the smell of honey. The prisoner tried to use his imagination to escape the cell. He succeeded.
(He was walking along a beach washed by gentle waves, rippled by a fresh breeze. His feet sank into the warm sand. Suddenly, a wind arose, the sand grew white-hot, the waves – instead of licking the beach – roared and lashed out at Anwaldt in raging froth.)

His imagination refused to obey. He felt a slight current of air near his lips which were stuck together by the honey and water. He opened his eyes and saw a hornet which clearly had its eye on his lips. He blew at it with all his strength. The hornet, propelled by the rush of air, settled on the cell wall. Meanwhile, the second insect had started to circle his head. Anwaldt moved abruptly with his chair and flung his head from side to side. The hornet sat on one of his collar bones and dug its sting into his skin. The prisoner pressed it down with his chin and felt a searing pain. A blue, pulsating swelling merged the jaw with the collar bone. The squashed insect contorted its black and yellow body on the floor. The other hornet broke away from the wall and made to attack – stubbornly towards the lips. Anwaldt tilted his head and the insect, instead of landing on the lips, found itself on the edge of an eye socket. The pain and
swelling spilt over the entire eye. Anwaldt jerked his head and, together with the chair, tumbled on to the concrete. Darkness flooded the left eye. Then the right.

A bucket of ice-cold water restored his consciousness. The Standartenführer dismissed the helper with his hand. He grabbed the chair by the backrest and, without the least difficulty, returned Anwaldt to a vertical position.

“You’ve got fighting spirit,” he looked at the prisoner’s swollen face with concern. “Two hornets attacked you and you killed them both.”

The policeman’s skin was painfully taut over the hard spheres of swelling. The hornets were still twitching on the rough floor.

“Tell me, Anwaldt, is that enough? Or do you want me to ask those aggressive creatures for help again? Do you know, I’m even more frightened of them than you are. Tell me, Anwaldt, is that enough?”

The prisoner affirmed with a nod. The fat torturer entered the cell and placed a chair in front of the officer. The latter sat astride it, rested his elbows on its back and looked amicably at his victim.

“Who are you working for?”

“The Abwehr.”

“Your mission?”

“To uncover the Polish spy network.”

“Why did they bring you in all the way from Berlin? Isn’t there anybody good enough in Breslau?”

“I don’t know. I received orders.”

Anwaldt heard a stranger’s voice coming from his own vocal cords. Every word was accompanied by pain in his throat and facial muscles stiff between the lumps made by the stings on his eye and jaw.

“Untie me, please,” he whispered.

The Standartenführer observed him without a word. A warmer emotion flickered in his intelligent eye.

“Uncovering Polish Intelligence. And what have Baron von Köpperlingk and Baron von der Malten to do with it?”

“The man I was following was present at Baron von Köpperlingk’s ball. But von der Malten has got nothing to do with the matter.”

“What’s the man’s name?”

Anwaldt was taken in by the torturer’s friendly expression. He filled his lungs with air and whispered:

“I can’t tell you …”

The man in uniform laughed silently for a while then began a strange monologue. He asked questions in a deep voice then answered himself in a trembling falsetto:

“Who beat you up at the Baron’s ball? Some swine, officer. Are you afraid of the swine? Yes, officer. But you’re not afraid of hornets? Oh, I am, officer. How come? After all, you did kill two! Without even using your hands! Oh, I see, Anwaldt, two’s not enough for you … You can have more …”

The man from Gestapo finished his bass-falsetto medley and deliberately stamped his cigarette into the swelling on Anwaldt’s collar bone.

A stranger’s voice practically tore apart Anwaldt’s swollen throat. He lay on the floor, yelling. One minute. Two. The Standartenführer called: “Konrad!” A bucket of cold water silenced the prisoner. The torturer lit a new cigarette and blew on its tip. Anwaldt stared at the glow in horror.

“Name of the suspect?”

“Paweł Krystek.”

The Gestapo man got up and left. After five minutes, he entered the cell in the company of the Turk whom Anwaldt knew.

“You’re lying, you fool. There was nobody by that name at the Baron’s, was there?” he turned to the Turk who, having put on his glasses, was going through a wad of black and silver invitations. He shook his head as
he did so, confirming, in his oriental manner, the words of the Gestapo man, who was greedily inhaling the last of his cigarette.

“You’ve wasted my time and are making a mockery of my methods. You’ve hurt my feelings. You’ve annoyed me,” he sighed and sniffed a couple of times. “Please take care of him. Maybe you’ll be more effective.”

The Turk got two bottles of honey diluted in a small amount of water from the briefcase and slowly – both at the same time – poured them on the prisoner’s head, shoulders and stomach, particularly abundantly covering the lower abdomen and genitalia. Anwaldt started to yell. Gibberish emerged from his larynx, but the Turk understood: “I’ll talk!” The Turk took a jar from the briefcase and shoved it under the prisoner’s eyes. Some dozen hornets were stinging each other and contorting their thick abdomens.

“I’ll talk!”

The Turk held the jar in his outstretched hand. Over the concrete floor.

“I’ll talk!”

The Turk dropped the jar.

“I’ll talk!”

The jar neared the floor. Urine spattered all around. The jar landed on the stone floor. Anwaldt had lost control over his bladder. He was losing consciousness. The jar did not shatter. It only hit the concrete with a dull thud.

The Turk moved away from the unconscious prisoner with revulsion as fat Konrad appeared. He untied Anwaldt from the chair and grabbed him under the arms. His legs dragged through the puddle. The Standartenführer barked:

“Wash that piss off him and take him to Oswitzer Wald.” He closed the door behind Konrad and looked at the Turk. “Why do you look so surprised, Erkin?”

“But you had his back up against the wall, Standartenführer Kraus. He was all ready to sing.”

“You’re too hot-headed, Erkin.” Kraus observed the hornets thrashing around in the jar of thick Jena glass. “Did you take a good look at him? He’s got to have a rest now. I know men like him. He’ll start singing such nonsense that it’ll take us a week to check it out. And I can’t keep him here that long. Mock is still very strong and is on very good terms with the Abwehr. Apart from that, Anwaldt’s mine. If he decides to leave, my people in Berlin will get him. If he stays here, I’ll invite him for another talk. In the first and second instance, it’s enough for him to see an ordinary bee and he’ll start singing. Erkin, as of today, to that man you and I are demons who will never leave his side …”

BRESLAU, WEDNESDAY, JULY 11TH, 1934
THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

A damp shroud of dew fell over the world. It pearled on the grasses, trees and the naked body of a man. On touching the burning skin, it immediately evaporated. The policeman woke up. For the first time in many days, he experienced a cool shudder. He just about managed to get up and, dragging his swollen leg, bumped against the trees and emerged on a gravel alley. He was making his way towards a dark building whose angular shadow contrasted with the brightening sky when the glare of headlights lashed him. By the building stood a car, its lights painfully carved Anwaldt’s nakedness out of the darkness. He heard the cry “Stop!”, a woman’s muffled laughter, the sound of gravel crunching under the shoes of approaching men. He touched his aching neck, a coarse eiderdown rubbed against his wounded body. He opened his eyes in the soothing glow of a bedside lamp. The wise eyes of Doctor Abraham Lanzmann, Baron von der Malten’s personal physician, were observing him from behind thick lenses.

“Where am I?” the faint effort of a smile appeared on his lips. It amused him to think that this was the first time his loss of memory was not due to alcohol.

“You’re in your apartment,” Doctor Lanzmann was short of sleep and serious. “You were brought in by some policemen who were patrolling the so-called Swedish Bastion in Oswitzer Wald. A lot of girls gather there in the summer. And where they are, there’s always something shady going on. But to the point. You were barely conscious. You persistently repeated your name, Mock’s name, the Baron’s and your address. The policemen did not want to leave what they suspected was their drunk colleague and brought you home. From here, they phoned the Baron. I’ve got to leave you now. The Baron has asked me to pass this sum on to you,” his fingers caressed an envelope lying on the table. “Here’s some ointment for your swellings and cuts. You’ll find instructions about what the medication is for and how to take it on each bottle and phial. I managed to find quite a bit in my first-aid cabinet at home – considering the unusual time of day. Goodbye. I’ll come back at about midday, when you’ve had some sleep.”

Doctor Lanzmann’s eyelids closed over his wise eyes, Anwaldt’s over his swollen ones. He could not fall asleep. The walls, reflecting the day’s heat, bothered him. With a few moves, he rolled off the bed on to the dirty carpet. Crawling on all fours, he reached the sill, pulled the heavy curtains apart and opened the window. He fell on his knees and slowly reached the bed. He lay on the eiderdown and mopped himself with a linen shawl, avoiding the swellings – volcanoes of pain. As soon as he opened his eyes, swarms of hornets flew in. When he closed the windows against them, the walls of the tenement stifled him with a burning breath, and cockroaches crawled out from the holes – some looking like scorpions. In a word, he could not fall asleep with the window closed and could not sleep with open eyes.

BRESLAU, THURSDAY, JULY 12TH, 1934
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

It was a little cooler in the morning. He fell asleep for two hours. When he woke, he saw four people sitting at his bedside. The Baron was talking quietly to Doctor Lanzmann. Seeing that the sick man was awake, he nodded to two orderlies standing by the wall. The two men grasped the policeman under the arms, carried him to the kitchen and put him in a huge tub of luke-warm water. One washed Anwaldt’s sore body, the other removed his dark stubble with a razor. After a while, Anwaldt was lying in bed again, on a clean, starched sheet and exposing his wounded limbs to the effects of Doctor Lanzmann’s ointments and balsams. The Baron patiently waited with his questions until the medic had finished. Anwaldt talked for about half an hour, stopping and stumbling. He had no control over his loose syntax. The Baron listened with seeming indifference. At one moment, the policeman broke off in mid-word and fell asleep. He dreamt of snow-capped peaks, icy expanses, freezing gusts of the Arctic: the wind blew and dried his skin; where was the wind coming from? the wind? He opened his eyes and in the dark setting sun saw a boy fanning him with a folded newspaper.

“Who are you?” he could barely move his bandaged jaw.

“Helmut Steiner, the Baron’s kitchen boy. I’m to look after you until Doctor Lanzmann comes in tomorrow to examine you.”