The End of the World in Breslau (40 page)

A beam of light drifted across the ceiling and wall. For a moment, Anwaldt’s face was lit up in its glow.

“The murder of my Erwin and Inge Gänserich was not committed by Meinerer,” Mock chose his words carefully. “It was the work of a devil, an evil spirit, or whatever you wish to call it.” Mock reached for his cigarette-case and turned it in his fingers. “It wasn’t Meinerer. He never went into Inge’s studio. He’d been lurking outside and claimed to have heard voices … Our forensic pathologist, Doctor Lasarius, undertook a chemical analysis of the poison that killed Erwin. It contained a compound that …”

BRESLAU, MONDAY, JANUARY 16TH, 1928 ONE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

The clock in the tower of the Lutheran church on Kaiserstrasse struck one. Its chime travelled far in the sunny air and penetrated the windowpane of the laboratory at the Institute of Forensic Medicine on Maxstrasse, where Lasarius and Mock were sitting in white gowns.

“It’s opium,” said Lasarius, shaking the test tube. “Once considered a miraculous cure. In the case of your nephew and his lover, it became a lethal poison. They were injected with ten cubic centimetres of opium dissolved in water.”

Doctor Lasarius lowered his pince-nez to the tip of his horizontally furrowed nose – which had earned him the nickname ‘Anteater’ among his students – and patiently acknowledged Mock’s blank expression.

“They choked. That’s how opium and morphine work when they get into the lungs via the blood. But something worries me. The opium in your nephew’s blood is very peculiar.”

Mock gazed at the test tubes, the retorts, Bunsen burners, at this whole ordered world of science where – will wonders never cease? – there was a place for the sensitive young poet, Erwin Mock.

“Excellent!” Mock felt his fury rise. “My nephew’s body was a catalyst that isolated or released your ‘peculiar’ opium! Write a thesis on it, why don’t you, but spare my sister-in-law!”

“The problem, my dear Counsellor,” Lasarius smiled sorrowfully, “lies in the fact that this opium is extremely impure.”

“I don’t understand,” Mock slowly calmed down.

“As you doubtless know, opium is a product from which morphine was derived at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Every gram of opium contains some morphine. The opium in poor Erwin’s body does too, but there’s very little of it. Why? Because it contains a vast number of other substances, which are usually removed during the purification process.
Someone pumped the deceased full of opium that had not been purified. But where did he get it from?”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Mock jiggled his leg incessantly.

“Opium is not very popular on Breslau’s black market, or even in Germany as a whole.” Lasarius tapped the test tube with a fingernail discoloured by acid. “Drug addicts prefer to inject themselves with morphine, which is cheaper and stronger. Your nephew’s murderer must have brought the opium in from far away … But from where? After all, even in China it goes through a purification process … It’s all rather puzzling …”

“Meaning the bastard must have produced it himself,” muttered Mock. “There’s no other way …”

“There is.” Lasarius grew pensive. “This opium could be old. Very old …”

“How old?” Mock asked.

“You know,” Lasarius said, enjoying the sun on his bald skull as it slanted through the window, “I’m not a historian but I seem to remember that sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century, England and France waged so-called opium wars with China. After these wars, the quality of the drug was much improved. It contained about twenty alkaloids, not thirty or forty like the one found in Erwin’s body. This may sound a little far-fetched, but maybe the opium that caused Erwin’s death could have been produced before 1850?”

NEW YORK, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21ST, 1960 A QUARTER PAST FIVE IN THE MORNING

Mock heaved himself up in bed and pointed at the map.

“In that city, on Christmas Eve in 1927,” he shouted, “there was a manifestation of evil. Do you understand, Herbert? I released that evil,
evoked it with my own. The one I wanted to inflict on that unhappy, drugged woman. The Devil appeared in the city of Breslau, and it was I who summoned him there.”

Mock collapsed back onto the pillows, breathing heavily. Gnarled fingers picked at the sheets.

“I confessed it, Herbert,” said Mock. “It wasn’t giving me any peace and I had to tell somebody about it. Somebody who battles with the Devil.” He coughed dryly. “This was at the beginning of the thirties. My confessor had only one piece of advice. That I should forgive all those who had hurt me, on whom I’d wanted to enact my revenge. Meaning Baron von Hagenstahl and Sophie …”

“And what happened – did you forgive them?”

“The Baron – yes, but Sophie disappeared somewhere and I divorced her
per procura
.”

“Listen, Eberhard,” Anwaldt said, slapping his thigh with the newspaper. “I have to …”

“You don’t have to do anything except one thing.” Mock writhed with the pain that cut through his shins eaten away by the tumour. “You have to promise me you’ll find Sophie and give her this letter.” He handed a long, white envelope to Anwaldt. “It’s my forgiveness. I forgive her everything. You promise to find her and give it to her?”

“I do,” Anwaldt replied, staring at the envelope.

Mock pushed himself up to embrace Anwaldt, but abandoned the idea. He remembered that his body now gave out a similar odour to that which had emanated from Hockermann and the Baron all those years ago, in the old Adler on the market square of a town that no longer exists.

“Thank you,” he said with a smile. “Now go and call the priest. I can die …”

Anwaldt shook the sick man’s hand and left the room. He went downstairs and passed Father Cupaiuolo, napping in an armchair. He put on
his hat and left the house. He made his way slowly towards the nearest subway station. At the corner he caught sight of an enormous dustcart crushing rubbish. He pulled the previous day’s
Süddeutsche Zeitung
from his pocket and reread the news of the death of one of Berlin’s most famous theatrical actresses, Sophie von Finckl. Beneath the obituary appeared an interview with the well-known violinist, Elisabeth Körner, a close friend of the deceased. In the interview Mrs Körner revealed Sophie’s secret for the first time: she had been married before to Eberhard Mock, high-ranking officer of the Breslau Police. Anwaldt read through everything one more time and thought about forgiveness. Then he threw the newspaper into the grinding maw of the dustcart and walked down the concrete stairs.

Table of Contents

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