The End of the World in Breslau (9 page)

“Then you don’t have to have any scruples.” Sophie was getting a headache from her friend’s reasoning. She felt a mounting anger. “I don’t know what you mean. Are you picking holes because today I am happy while you’re constantly unhappy and have nobody to make you feel good and safe? Besides, as far as I remember, Smolorz was asking about you and your lovers, not me. So I can’t be angry with Eberhard for spying on me because I cannot be certain that he is.”

“You’re wrong if you think Eberhard isn’t having you followed,”
Elisabeth shouted. “He met that man Smolorz in a restaurant yesterday evening. The Baron told me so.”

“And so what if he did,” Sophie said derisively. “Smolorz is his subordinate. He can meet him whenever he likes.”

“You don’t understand anything! Listen to me carefully: Moritz paid a certain woman in that restaurant to eavesdrop. She didn’t hear much, but she did remember one thing. Do you know what that side-kick kept repeating? Do you want to know?”

“Yes,” Sophie said, growing worried. “I do.”

“That man said the words ‘your wife’ several times,” Elisabeth almost choked she was so upset. “Do you understand? They were talking about you. Smolorz was following you and he was reporting on what he discovered yesterday.”

Sophie also choked and put the receiver down on the table. The early morning was just as beautiful as it had been a moment earlier: Argos slept as peacefully as before, the sun had not stopped shining for a second, only Sophie no longer felt the benefits of her amorous awakening, the taste of the crispy roll or the redemptive effects of her hot bath. She raised the receiver to her ear.

“Are you meeting the Baron today?” she asked calmly.

“Yes. Moritz is coming for me in half an hour.” Elisabeth, too, had calmed down. “We’re going swimming.”

“I like swimming,” whispered Sophie.

†
“Once I kissed you”.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 30TH, 1927
A QUARTER TO TEN IN THE MORNING

The arthritic old woman was losing all hope of selling her
spécialités de la maison
. Quite unnecessarily, for from a black Adler parked by the curb emerged a hand with two fingers outstretched. The old woman beamed
and handed two doughnuts to Kurt Smolorz. The Criminal Sergeant paid, then unscrewed his thermos and poured himself a little coffee which was good enough to kill the yeasty aftertaste of the under-baked doughnuts.

Smolorz chewed more slowly when he saw a sandy Mercedes draw up outside Mock’s tenement and Elisabeth Pflüger leap out. He admired the graceful sway of her hips as she disappeared through the entrance, miraculously avoiding a collision with the doorframe. A moment later the two friends – one happy, the other sad and pensive – filled the interior of the Mercedes with the scent of their perfume. At the wheel, Baron von Hagenstahl raised Sophie’s hand to his lips and fired the engine. Without the slightest regret, Smolorz deposited his half-eaten doughnut on the passenger seat as the Baron rapidly pulled away into the traffic of Rehdigerstrasse. Smolorz stayed a while, unable to join the flow. Finally he spied a small gap, roared the engine’s cylinders and almost ran into a terrified horse which then launched itself, together with its shaft, onto the pavement. Smolorz, laughing as the furious coachman directed a lash of his whip at the Adler’s roof, accelerated again, turned right into Gräbschenerstrasse and drove under the railway viaduct. Beyond the droschkas and delivery wagons, he caught a glimpse of the rear of the sandy Mercedes as it passed the crossroads with Hohenzollernstrasse. The traffic policeman stopped a line of vehicles coming from the viaduct, among them the Adler. Feverishly, Smolorz began to calculate how he might be able to gain ground on the Mercedes. He counted on the Baron turning right into Sonnenplatz, and decided to drive past Busch Circus to catch up with it somewhere near the Concert Hall on Gartenstrasse. This proved unnecessary, however: the Mercedes stopped at the corner of Gräbschenerstrasse and Zietenstrasse.

The policeman gave the go-ahead. Smolorz moved forward slowly. The Baron got back into his car, slipping a box of cigars into his coat pocket.
Smolorz braked and found himself right behind the spare wheel in its sand-coloured cover. At Sonnenplatz, he allowed an old Daimler to squeeze in between himself and the Mercedes. The latter accelerated sharply on Neue-Graupner-Strasse, turned right and drove alongside the Old Town moat. Smolorz divided his attention between the Mercedes and the massive building site of the Police Praesidium under construction on Schweidnitzer Stadtgraben. Just before Wertheim’s department store, Baron von Hagenstahl turned left, and then right at the church of Corpus Christi. Passing the merchants’ club, he stopped outside the baths on Zwingerstrasse. Smolorz braked suddenly and pulled into a driveway. He slammed the car door, ran a hundred metres and, panting heavily, hid behind the hedge of a playground. Through the bare branches he observed the entrance to the large building housing the baths, into which Baron von Hagenstahl had disappeared with Sophie Mock and Elisabeth Pflüger a moment earlier. Smolorz entered the vestibule and looked around. It was empty. The uniformed ticket collector was vigilant and briskly approached him, saying:

“Pool number one has been hired out privately. Until twelve. Pool number two will soon be occupied by pupils from the Realgymnasium. Perhaps you would like a steam bath?”

Smolorz turned and left. It was cold. The paving stones on Zwingerstrasse were damp. A column of schoolboys, walking in pairs, was approaching from the direction of Liebichshöhe, with an upright man who looked like a sports teacher at its rear. The schoolboys marched up to the entrance and went in, disrupting their fine formation. Smolorz approached the teacher and showed him his Breslau Police Praesidium identification card.

“I’m coming in with you,” he said. The teacher showed no surprise.

A few minutes later Smolorz was being crushed in the men’s changing-room belonging to pool number two. Leaving his coat, hat and
umbrella, he climbed the stairs, looking out for the ticket collector who was just explaining to a fellow with the neck of an ox where he would find the changing-room for the steam baths. Smolorz hurried along a gallery decorated with little columns and arrived at the double door leading to pool number one. It was locked. He took out a picklock and put it to use. Soon he found himself in the public gallery. Leaning over a little, he surveyed the pool but could not distinguish Sophie Mock or Elisabeth Pflüger among the naked nymphs frolicking in the water. He climbed a few steps and looked around. The gallery ran the length of the pool. On his right-hand side stretched a row of doors leading to changing-rooms, on his left a barrier to prevent people from falling into the water. At the end of the gallery was an exercise studio from which drifted the sound of a piano and a violin. Smolorz was drawn to this room in particular because he had caught a glimpse through the doorway of the naked bodies of the two artistes. To get to the exercise studio without being noticed would require a miracle; if he made his way along the gallery, he would be in full view of those rehearsing in the studio and the swimmers in the pool. He decided to hide in the public gallery and wait for his chief’s wife to appear.

Unfortunately this, too, proved impossible. His way back was blocked by a bald, moustachioed giant, whose hand almost entirely concealed the barrel of a pre-war Luger. Smolorz cursed his own stupidity. He had given no thought as to why the Baron had been driving the car himself, and where his chauffeur had disappeared to.

“I’m from the police,” the Sergeant said very slowly. “I’m now going to take my identification out of my pocket.”

“You’re not going to take anything out, my friend,” the giant smiled gently. “Go straight to that exercise studio. Only be careful not to fall into the pool. You could easily drown. Especially if you’re weighed down with lead.”

Smolorz did not move. He was sure the bald man would not risk a shoot-out.

“I’m from the police,” he repeated. “My boss knows I’m here.”

The giant made a sudden move. Smolorz saw a huge hand spread out on his waistcoat and felt a strong shove. He fell onto the cold tiles of the gallery. The assailant kicked, and Smolorz felt himself slide across the floor tiles towards the exercise studio. He tried to get up, to grab the barrier or the changing-room door, but after another kick in the crotch he could not. Both hands were clasped around his abused testicles. The giant was still swinging his legs at him. Smolorz rolled like a bowling ball along the track marked out by the barrier and the changing-room wall. When he had been kicked as far as the studio, he admitted he had been right: the bald man had not risked a shoot-out in a place where shots could ricochet.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME NOVEMBER 30TH, 1927
NOON

Mock left by the side door of the Breslau Construction Archives on Rossmarkt and stretched so hard his joints creaked. He stood on the pavement of the narrow street and stared in irritation at the deep puddles slashed by sharp sheets of rain.

He unfurled his umbrella and jumped through the traffic on Schlossstrasse, soiling his newly polished winter shoes with mud. He cursed the vain hope for snow and winter, and glanced at his watch. Hunger had reminded him that it was lunchtime, which irritated him even more. He insulted the whole world out loud as he walked on along the eastern facade of Blücherplatz towards Ring, moving with the fast flow of passers-by who were holding on to their hats or being tossed about among the stalls, catching the wind in the sails of their umbrellas. When he stepped onto Schmiedebrücke the wind became less trying. Mock
turned into Ursulinenstrasse and went through the doors of the Police Praesidium.

Panting heavily, he climbed the wide stairs to the third floor where two offices were located behind a glass partition wall: Mühlhaus’ and his own. The pale-faced trainee secretary, Ernst von Stetten, jumped up in deference at the sight of Mock.

“Has there been anything?” he asked, hanging up his sodden garments in the outer office.

“Ehlers left the photographs for you, Counsellor. Apart from that, there’s nothing new,” replied von Stetten as he slotted Mock’s umbrella into the brass-rimmed aperture of a dark, wooden stand.

“Nothing new, nothing new,” mimicked Mock once he had gone into his office. “Nothing new in the investigation either. I haven’t moved an inch in the Gelfrert–Honnefelder case.”

Mock lit a cigar and summed up his morning working through dusty old construction documents: diagrams of sanitary installations; unrealized plans for lifts to carry people and coal; dry explications by architects and engineers. In three hours he had not found anything that would prove useful in furthering his investigation. The worst thing in all this was that Mock did not really know what he was looking for.

“What are you going to tell Mühlhaus,” he said to himself, annoyed, “when he asks what you did today?”

To that question the answer was simple: he had looked through every document concerning the scenes of both crimes; he had acquainted himself with the plans of all the floors, including cellars and attics; he had learned what had previously been on the sites of the two tenements, how the foundations were layered one on top of the other, and who had sold the land and building sites, and to whom. Mühlhaus might ask a far worse question: why? He would then hear a complicated, philosophical exposition on the three elements: person-time-place. The victims are incidental,
the time is not. And so only the place remains to be investigated. It cannot be incidental. “Something has to link both places,” is the answer Mühlhaus would hear. “But even though I’ve been through the Construction Archives I still don’t know what it is.” It was easy for Mock to imagine Mühlhaus’ sarcastic laugh. Just then he remembered that the Criminal Director was at a conference with Police President Kleibömer, and it was highly unlikely he would be back that day to ask this difficult question.

The Criminal Counsellor breathed a sigh of relief and, with the iron handle which ran along the frame, opened the small window. He then removed his jacket, loosened his stiff collar, sat down at his desk and began to type non-existent words on his new Olympia, random combinations of letters. Mock thought best to the accompaniment of a regular tapping of keys. On the paper appeared five-letter words. Five taps – a space. Five taps – a space. Ernst von Stetten knew that for as long as the typewriter played out that particular rhythm, Mock was not available to anyone save his beautiful wife, Sophie, and old Mühlhaus.

It lasted a long time. The secretary chased away a few clients, lied to a few more, and politely apologized to others. Just as the University church struck two, von Stetten heard a sheet of paper being rolled out from the platen of the exhausted typewriter. Then there was silence.

“The old man has been thinking and he’s come up with something,” he concluded.

His conclusion was correct. Mock sat among scattered pages covered in even lines of type, dipped his nib in a large inkpot and wrote on the back of one of the pages in small black letters: “You investigated the murder sites from the point of view of construction. That was a mistake. What explanation could there possibly be in plans and designs? What is important is the history of the building, not the history of the pipes, bricks, cellars, cement, repairs and renovations. What is important is
the history of the people who live there, and of those who lived there in the past.”