The End of the World in Breslau (38 page)

“Who is that, damn it?”

“Kurt Smolorz.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME, DECEMBER 24TH, 1927 FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

The building at Briegerstrasse 4 was destined for renovation. The stairs were at risk of collapsing, the roof leaked, the sewerage was forever getting blocked, and the neglected chimneys caused soot to surge into the wretched two-room dwellings. Having made up his mind to repair the building, its owner had rehoused its inhabitants at his own expense, and in this way so depleted himself financially that he decided not to begin the work until after New Year. In the meantime he had surrendered the building to the rats, and to local rascals who stripped the windows of glass with unbridled joy.

On that Christmas Eve there were neither rascals nor a caretaker at the property, so Mock had no trouble getting to the dark gate. In one hand he held his Walther, in the other a torch. He did not, however, switch it on,
allowing his eyes to accustom themselves to the darkness. This they did readily and on his left-hand side he made out the cellar entrance. The door squeaked a little. He slowly went down the stairs. Now he had to switch on his torch. The bright shaft of light drew shattered and unhinged storeroom doors from the semi-darkness of the cellar corridor. He entered one of the rooms; his nostrils were assaulted by the smell of rotting potatoes, mouldy preserves and sweat. Human sweat.

Mock swept his torch around and pinpointed the source of the smell: on the ground sat a bound man. The torchlight revealed hands cuffed behind a back, a gag, and beads of sweat on a bald, shaven head covered in bleeding gashes and bruises inflicted by heavy blows.

“It’s Moritz Strzelczyk,” Mock heard Smolorz whisper. “The man who kicked me in the swimming baths. Baron von Hagenstahl’s bodyguard. Now’s my chance for revenge. I caught him unawares.”

“Where’s Sophie?” Mock pointed the light at Strzelczyk and Smolorz in turn. His subordinate proved a lamentable sight: his eyes were barely visible in their swollen sockets, his nose was probably broken, and his clothes were torn and devoid of buttons.

“Let’s go,” Smolorz muttered.

They made their way along the dark corridor towards a flickering glow. They heard a shuffling of feet. A moment later they were standing at the entrance to a side corridor lit up by paraffin lamps. Smolorz was proceeding with a fair amount of noise. Mock held him back and put a finger to his lips.

“They can’t hear much,” Smolorz said. “I was on my way back after I’d called you. Strzelczyk attacked me just here. There was a fight. They didn’t hear anything then. And Strzelczyk was yelling his head off.”

They reached the corridor and peered into it. It was not a typical corridor, more a small cellar hallway closed on three sides by doors to storerooms. On the floor lay scattered rags that probably served as
bedclothes for homeless people, and empty bottles of wine, beer and cheap toiletries. In the centre of the room stood a Christmas tree and a stable with a crib, little sugar lambs strewn around it. Next to the stable was a stool covered with a white napkin, on which lay three half-full syringes and, next to them, a pharmaceutical jar containing what appeared to be the same suspension. Amidst all these objects two figures bobbed up and down. Baron von Hagenstahl was leaning against a wall, and kept collapsing involuntarily into a squatting position; swaying from side to side, he would push himself up slowly, and then a moment later his knees would give way again. Alexei von Orloff was stark naked. He too was leaning against the wall in a similar position to von Hagenstahl, but, unlike the Baron’s, his eyes were not hazy. Behind the Christmas tree squatted Sophie, urinating on the dirt floor. Having completed her bodily function, she emerged and, stretching her lips into an unnatural smile, lay down beneath the tree on a pile of rags. Mock closed his eyes; it seemed that her smile had been directed at him.

“The holy man will be conceived in four days’ time, on Christmas Eve. The day of Christ’s birth is the day of the new saviour’s conception. The birth of the old saviour will empower those who are to beget the new. Christ was conceived of a modest virgin, and God was his father through the intermediary of the Holy Spirit … He came into the world in a place intended for animals, in utter degradation … The new prophet will be begotten in even greater degradation … in sin, of a sinful woman, of a Babylonian harlot …”

Mock opened his eyes. Von Orloff had lain down next to Sophie and had begun to clamber on top of her. From half-open lips a trail of spit trickled down to his protruding beard. Mock appeared in the light cast by the paraffin lamps, a gun in his right hand. The Baron, uneasy, shook his head, grabbed a syringe and made towards him. He did not get very far – a heavy blow from Smolorz threw him against the wall and he collapsed
to his knees. Smolorz set his leg into action. The Baron’s head flew back violently, then returned to its former position, sinking with his body onto the heap of empty bottles a moment later.

Seeing Mock advancing towards him, von Orloff scrambled to his feet and made for the nearest storeroom door. A bullet hit him in the buttock and came out the other side. Smolorz saw a fountain of blood spurt from von Orloff’s groin. Mock fired two more shots but missed his target; the bullets ricocheted off the wall with a hiss. The guru burst into the storeroom and reached into the pocket of a coat hanging there. Mock kicked him with such force that a pain shot up his leg and neck. The tip of his shoe hit von Orloff in his wounded buttock. The old man howled, fell onto the coat and tore it from its hook. Mock leaped at him, held the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. The dry crack of the firing-pin reverberated in the musty air. Von Orloff pulled a small Sauer from his pocket and fired blindly. Mock felt a wetness near his ear and kicked out again. His hob-nailed shoe struck von Orloff in the temple. The battered head rolled on its neck as if it were going to fall off, then twisted violently and one temple hit a huge stone, which was permeated with the stench of pickled cabbage. The leader of the sect churned up the earthen floor with his feet, then stopped moving.

Mock left the small room and made for the exit. He did not even glance at Sophie, who stood frozen and helpless next to the crib. Lighting his way with the torch, he found the staircase and emerged at the gate to the building. Drops of blood flowed from his ear onto the collar and shoulders of his pale fleece coat. He pressed a handkerchief to the wound. A moment later he detected the smell of Bergmann Privat cigarettes, Smolorz’s favourite brand.

“Will you forgive me?” Smolorz said as the smoke from his cigarette mingled with the vapour of his breath. “I lied to you … I had – with her – a … It’s not a photo-collage …”

“Shut up and listen carefully,” Mock said. “Here’s the key to Wirth’s warehouse on Ofenerstrasse. Handcuff her and the Baron, take them there in the Adler and put them in the cell below the counting-room. There’s one man there already. Kick Strzelczyk in the arse and get rid of him somewhere on the way. Then dump the old man’s body on Hollandwiesen. Once you’ve done all that, come and find me. I’ll be walking down Klosterstrasse towards Ofenerstrasse. I could do with a walk.”

Mock set off towards the gap in the fence through which he had entered the property.

“Oh,” he turned towards Smolorz, “I forgive you for lying and running away from me. You still kept following the Baron, and thanks to that we’re here. Anyway, how could I be angry with someone just for screwing a Babylonian harlot?”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME DECEMBER 24TH, 1927 SIX O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

Mock walked slowly along Klosterstrasse. A sledge approached from the opposite direction and passed him, jingling and flashing with the coloured lights of lanterns attached to the coachman’s box. Mock contemplated the people sitting in the sledge. A little girl in a check coat was clutching a package wrapped in white paper and tied with a red ribbon. She had been given a present. Sophie had squatted to urinate on the dirt floor of the cellar. Then she lay on the heap of rags under the Christmas tree, distributing smiles in every direction. Like Christmas presents. Mock had been given a present too.

Clutching his head, he turned left into Margareten Damm just before the Bethanien Hospital. Staggering a little, he scraped his pale coat along the rough brick wall, entered a small yard and leaned against a carpet horse. Christmas Eve windows decorated with boughs of spruce glittered.
Some low stairs led up to a dwelling whose windows were not shuttered. From there drifted the music of a carol:

O du fröhliche, o du selige,

Gnadenbringende Weihnachtszeit!

Welt ging verloren,

Christ ist geboren,

Freue, freue dich, o Christenheit!

O du fröhliche, o du selige …

Mock stood on the steps and observed the singers. Two whiskered men raised their tankards of beer above their heads and swayed from side to side, setting in motion all those gathered around the table. Their stout wives were laughing, revealing the gaps in their teeth. A grandmother took the last of the chocolates from the Advent calendar. The children were either singing with their parents or running around the table at such speed that they almost knocked over the Christmas tree. The fair head and beaming face of a four-year-old boy peered out from under the table. In his hand he held a man’s shoe. These people were happy and singing because it was their right. They had finished their work. Mock did not have that right. He never finished work. Even now, when he had delivered the city of a serial killer. The evidence he had against Hockermann would be ridiculed by any lawyer. “A school professor writing a history of the town has an index card from the archives amongst his files. He stole it because he needed it for his research. That does not mean he murdered Pinzhoffer. He visited an old aunt in Wiesbaden to wish her a happy Christmas. That does not mean he murdered Knüfer. Even if he is not your typical school professor, even if he can easily manage twenty pull-ups on a tee-bar in a deserted warehouse when he is frozen and handcuffed.”
Hockermann would be set free, and Mock would lose his job for sadistically torturing a prisoner.

He went back down the stairs and left the yard where carols rang out in the safe glow of Christmas trees. Out on the street he felt nauseous; pressing his palms against a wall he deposited a steaming pile of honey cake on the powdery snow. He wiped his mouth and walked on. He passed by the Bethanien Hospital and Websky’s villa. “I wonder what that lunatic professor feels like now, locked up in a cell with a degenerate and a Babylonian harlot? Did he really wring Knüfer’s neck and drown Pinzhoffer in a bucket of water?” Mock slapped himself gently on the cheek. “Of course, the final proof will be this evening. The crime won’t take place because the murderer is locked up in Wirth’s cell below the counting-room, and therefore can’t commit it. He can do no wrong today, and tomorrow or the day after he’ll confess to everything. Today, all they’ll die of in this town is overindulgence and old age.”

Slipping, he walked slowly. Suddenly he saw a flat stretch of packed snow. He gathered speed like a child, spread his arms and skidded with the momentum. At the end of the skid, the sole of his left shoe caught on a small ridge and lost contact with the smooth surface for an instant. That was enough. Mock lost his balance and wheeled his arms violently. A moment later he felt his surgical corset crack, and was dazed by a stabbing pain in his neck. He lay on the ground, waiting patiently for the pain to subside, and gazed up at the starry sky. “And maybe the new prophet’s star is somewhere up there among those stars? And what if someone commits murder on Antonienstrasse? What if two lovers are caught
in flagrante
by a jealous husband, and are poisoned?” He tried to stand, but only managed to get onto all fours. “I’ve got to be there. On Antonienstrasse. With all those people. Watch every door, check identification and question everyone who goes through the gate.” With great Difficulty he got to his feet, panting heavily, and lifted his head towards
the festive windows. “The only person I could go to is Kleinfeld, the Jew; all the others are at home with their families. Celebrating. Why should I drag them away from their wives and children? To freeze to death standing about in some tenement for no good reason? The murderer is locked up in Wirth’s cellar, after all. And I’ll go to Antonienstrasse with Smolorz. That’ll do. The town is safe.”

A couple staggered out of an entranceway above which hung a sign: B. BREWING FAHRRADSCHLOSSEREI. The hugely fat man was leaning his entire weight on the shoulder of a slim woman. As they passed Mock, the woman gave him a happy look. Her companion noticed this, pushed her aside and thundered incoherently:

“You whore you, why are you looking at this prick? You’ve had as many pricks up your arse as there are rivets in Kaiserbrücke, and still you want more!” He took a swing but missed the horrified woman, who had run a few steps ahead. “You shit!” he yelled, hurrying after his companion.

“What’s got into you, Friedrich?” said the trembling woman, stopping every now and then, but whenever Friedrich drew near, waving his fists, she would dodge away again. “I didn’t even look at him.”

Friedrich slipped and flopped heavily onto his backside; there was a loud crack. The man lay in the snow and howled. The flaps of his overcoat fell away to reveal his left leg and a lump that arched above the knee. The woman disappeared. Mock quickened his step and left Friedrich howling there alone with an open fracture to his thigh.

“If that drunk knew the end of the world was going to take place in Breslau, and that the last crime would be the murder of an unfaithful wife and her lover, he could end his madness once and for all. He could bring his wife to Antonienstrasse 27, put a fictitious or real lover with her and stab both of them with a poisoned dagger. Even if she were innocent, out of her mind with drugs, like Sophie. Like Sophie …”