The End of the World in Breslau (2 page)

“Uncle Eberhard, please come to the table. The hors d’oeuvres are served.”

The dark-haired man kissed the dreamy-eyed young woman on the hand and sat down next to her. Franz and Irmgard sat opposite them. The college boy was planted awkwardly at the head of the table. Rast, hastened by a gesture from Franz, hurried into the kitchen and brought in five stout bottles of beer with
E. HAASE
engraved on their porcelain caps. He opened three and poured beer into the narrow tankards. Then he settled down in the kitchen and, through the closed door, listened to the conversation at the table.

“You shouldn’t have spent so much on this grand dinner. Irmgard is such a good cook – her dishes could be the boast of Schweidnitzer Keller,” – a calm bass voice, the sucking in of beer froth and a sigh of relief.

“We couldn’t let a lady like Sophie eat our Sunday black pudding and sauerkraut. Here we have something that is eaten in higher … society,” – a nervous baritone, stammering at every word. “Thank you for finally agreeing to come and visit us. It is an honour for a simple foreman.”

“I assure you, Franz, I’ve seen ladies lick the grease off bowls,” – a melodious, quiet and almost childish voice. “Although I come from an aristocratic family, I rid myself of class prejudice when I was at the Conservatory …” – a note of impatience. “Besides, I don’t understand this ‘finally’. As far as I know, nobody’s ever invited me here before.”

“Erwin, you’re taking your final school exams this year,” – the bass voice, the crackle of a match, smoke exhaled through nostrils. “What are your plans for the future?”

Rast stirred the bouillon and filled the soup dishes. On a large platter he arranged some asparagus and poured over it some melted butter. He opened the door, carried all this into the room and announced merrily:

“And here is something hot: bouillon with egg yolk and asparagus.”

Eberhard put out his cigarette. His nephew studied the Trebnitzer embroidery of the tablecloth and said slowly and emphatically:

“I want to study German at university.”

“Ah, interesting,” Eberhard poured spoonfuls of the bouillon into his mouth with evident satisfaction. “I remember you wanted to be a policeman not long ago.”

“That was before I discovered Heine’s poetry.”

As Rast reached for the plate of aspic to take it away, Franz Mock grabbed the waiter by the wrist and sliced off a sizeable piece of brawn with his fork.

“I’ve paid for it so I’ll eat it,” Franz Mock’s face grew pale and he made
Rast think of a drunkard who, in one movement, had turned a table upside down in his restaurant. “I know a simple foreman on the railways cannot be a role model for his son … But I’ve told you so many times – be a railway engineer; you’ll earn lots of money, go to Zoppot every year … But you won’t listen to me and insist on studying some Jew … ”

“Papa, I’m a poet,” Erwin cracked his knuckles nervously. “I want to do the thing that I love …”

Irmgard signalled to Rast to leave the room. Rast grabbed the plate with what remained of the aspic, but Franz Mock held his hand back once again.

“‘I love, I love …’” Bits of meat and spittle landed on the Trebnitzer tablecloth. “Are you some sort of queer, or what? Poets are all queers, or dirty Jews. And what sort of poems do you write? They’re all about stars and machines. Why don’t you write a love poem to a woman? I know, I know … That new German tutor of yours … He’s the one who’s trying to turn you into a queer …”

“Franz, stop, or you’ll remember this for a very long time.” Irmgard’s eyes threw daggers first at her husband, then at the waiter. The latter tore the dish with the remainder of brawn from Franz Mock’s hand and hurried into the kitchen. He melted some butter in a huge frying pan and arranged slices of potato on top of it. He stood a pot of mutton in thick sauce on another hob. Silence descended in the dining-room. It was broken by the voice of a spoilt child:

“Ebi, you were interested in Latin literature yourself once. You wanted to be a professor. Does that make you a homosexual?”

Rast carried in a tray with the next course.

“Ladies and gentlemen, mutton in herb sauce, roast potatoes, celery salad and sour cherry compote.” Rast efficiently gathered up the plates, hastened by Irmgard’s angry eyes. He repaired to the kitchen and glued his ear to the door: nothing but the penetrating clatter of knives and forks.

“My dear,” – a calm voice – “Surely you would know that better than anyone.”

“Uncle Ebi, what is wrong with studying literature?” – the uneasy tenor rising occasionally to a falsetto – “Explain to my father that there’s nothing wrong with it. You of all people know how many sublime moments poetry can give us, what ecstasies it imparts … You studied Horace yourself and you wrote an article about him in Latin … Our Latin scholar, Rector Piechotta, values those comments of yours a great deal …”

“I think,” – the hiss of gas from a bottle being opened accompanied the hoarse voice, strained by the dozens of cigarettes smoked the previous day – “that education and the career one pursues do not always go hand in hand, as you can see in my case …”

“Stop, Ebi, and speak like a normal human being,” – a suppressed burp. “You left behind all that nonsense and chose to work as a policeman. Get to the point: what is best for the boy – poet or railway engineer?”

“Go on, tell us,” the child indulged herself. “We’re all waiting for a solution to this interesting dilemma.”

“Engineer.” A mouthful was gulped down loudly.

Rast sprang away as Erwin all but demolished the door as he fled the room. The boy thrust a cap onto his head, wrenched on his somewhat too tight coat and ran into the street.

“Here is the dessert, ladies and gentlemen: Silesian poppy cake.” Rast served cake and coffee. As he removed the untouched chops from in front of Sophie’s bust, he noticed that her hand holding the cigarette-case was shaking. He looked at her and understood that this would not be the end to this unpleasant dinner.

“It is interesting, I have known my husband for two years and today is the first time I do not recognize him.” A faint flush appeared on Sophie’s cheeks. “Where is that plebeian strength of yours, Eberhard, which makes criminals flee from you and once enthralled me so? Today it ran out when
you should have defended that sensitive boy. When we’re at home you sneer at technocrats, at people whose horizons are limited to financial gain, but when we’re here you put a railwayman above a poet? It is a pity your refined brother cannot see you reading Horace, or witness how moved you are by
The Sorrows of Young Werther
. Criminal Counsellor Mock falls asleep in his armchair, in the safe halo of his lamp, and onto his round belly, bloated with beer and pork knuckle, slips a school edition of Horace’s
Odes
; a school edition with a little dictionary because this eminent Latin stylist can no longer remember his vocabulary.”

“Shut your trap,” Eberhard Mock said quietly.

“You pig!” Sophie suddenly got up from the table.

Mock watched with melancholy as his wife ran from the room, then listened to the clatter of her shoes on the stairs. He lit a cigarette and smiled at Franz.

“What is the name of Erwin’s teacher? We’ll check, maybe he really is a queer?”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 27TH, 1927
MIDNIGHT

Mock staggered out of the Savoy restaurant on Tauentzienplatz. The bellboy ran out after him and handed him his hat, which Mock did not put on, instead allowing the wet flakes of snow to settle on his sweat-dampened hair. Beneath the windows of Sänger’s restaurant swayed a lone drunk, interrupting his involuntary movements only to whistle for passing cabs. The bellboy’s whistles were evidently more persuasive because in a moment an old and patched droschka stopped beside Mock. The drunkard lurched towards it but Mock was closer. He threw a fiftypfennig piece to the boy and collapsed into the seat, almost squashing a delicate human being.

“Forgive me, sir, but you got in so quickly I didn’t have time to inform you that I already have a passenger. I’m cabby Bombosch, and this is my daughter, Rosemarie. This is my last run and we’re on our way home.” The cabby jovially twisted his bristling whiskers. “She is so tiny that the gentleman will not find himself too cramped. She is still so young …”

Mock observed the triangular face of his travelling companion. Enormous naïve eyes, a toque with a veil, and a coat. The girl might have been eighteen; she had slender hands, blue from the cold, and re-soled shoes with holes in them. All this Mock took in by the light of the street lamps located around the Museum of Silesian Antiquities.

Rosemarie watched the vast edifice of the museum slip past on the right-hand side of the street. Mock counted out loud the bars and restaurants on Sonnenplatz, Gräbschenerstrasse and Rehdigerstrasse, and announced the results of his findings to Rosemarie with genuine pleasure.

The carriage stopped outside a splendid tenement on Rehdigerplatz, where Mock and his wife Sophie occupied a five-room apartment on the second floor. Mock scrambled out of the droschka and threw the driver the first crumpled banknote he pulled from his coat pocket.

“Use the change to buy your daughter some shoes and gloves,” he hiccoughed loudly and, without hearing the cabby’s joyous thanks, stretched his shoulders wide, lowered his head and made as if to charge at the tenement door.

Fortunately for Mock’s head, the caretaker of the tenement was not asleep and managed to open the door in time. Mock hugged him effusively and, in no particular hurry, began his arduous expedition up the stairs, tumbling against the Scylla of the banister and the Charybdis of the wall, threatened by a Cerberus who, wailing and barking, was thrashing about in the vestibule of Hades behind some closed door. Mock, detained neither by the siren song of the servant who tried to take his coat
and hat, nor by the wild delight of his old dog, Argos, reached the Ithaca of his bedroom where the faithful Penelope was waiting for him in her muslin dressing gown and high-heeled slippers.

Mock smiled at the pensive Sophie whose head was leaning against the backrest of the chaise-longue adjacent to their turned-down bed. Sophie stretched herself a little and the muslin of her dressing gown clung to her generous breasts. Mock took this to mean only one thing and feverishly began to undress. As he struggled with the cord of his long johns, Sophie sighed:

“Where were you?”

“In a tavern.”

“With whom?”

“I met two friends, the same as yesterday – Ebners and Domagalla.”

Sophie stood up and slipped beneath the eiderdown. Mock, somewhat surprised, did the same and snuggled close to his wife’s back. He squeezed his hand under her arm with difficulty and greedily spread his fingers over one soft breast.

“I know you want to apologize to me. I know that perfectly well. Carry on being proud and hard and don’t say a word. I forgive your behaviour at Franz’s. I forgive your coming back late. You wanted a drink, you were annoyed,” she said in a monotonous voice, staring into the mirror of the dressing table opposite the bed. “You say you were with friends. I know you’re not lying. You certainly haven’t been with a woman.” She propped herself up on one elbow and looked into the eyes of her reflection. “You wouldn’t manage it with a woman in the state you’re in. You’ve had no fire in you lately. You’re simply feeble in bed.”

“I can do it right now. I can hold you down. You’ll be begging me to stop,” Mock’s cheeks were burning; with one hand he tore at the muslin of the dressing gown, with the other, at the cotton of his long johns. “Today is the day our child will finally be conceived.”

Sophie turned to her husband and, touching his lips with hers, spoke with the voice of a sleepy child:

“I waited for you yesterday – you were with friends. I waited for you today – again you were with friends, and now you want to fuck?”

Mock adored it when she was vulgar. He ripped his long johns in his excitement. Sophie leaned against the wall. From beneath her nightdress appeared two narrow pink feet. Mock began to stroke and kiss them. Sophie slipped her fingers into her husband’s thick hair and pulled his head back.

“You want to fuck?” she repeated the question.

Mock closed his eyes and nodded. Sophie drew her legs towards her and planted both feet on her husband’s ribcage. She straightened them abruptly and pushed him off the bed.

“Fuck with your friends,” he heard his wife whisper as he fell onto the rough carpet.

BRESLAU, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH, 1927
TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Mock woke up at the desk in his study. His right hand was covered with clots of blood. In the lamplight stood a bottle of Rhein Spätburgunder and a half-filled glass. He scrutinized his hand. Stuck to the dry, brownish clumps of blood were a few fair hairs. Mock went to the kitchen, holding up his torn long johns. He washed his hands meticulously in the cast-iron washbasin. Then he poured some water into an enamel mug and drank, listening to the sounds coming from the courtyard: a metallic creaking of springs. He looked out of the window. Cabby Bombosch had put a nose-bag over his horse’s head and was stroking its nape. The carriage shook and bounced on its suspension. Rosemarie was earning the money for a new coat.