BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919
HALF PAST ONE IN THE AFTERNOON
The cocaine had already ceased to have an effect on Kurt Smolorz’s nervous system. The jester, who a moment earlier had been in fits of laughter at being imprisoned in a toilet, was now trying to think of a way to get himself out. First he resolved to let anyone entering the toilets know of his predicament. Minutes passed, then a quarter of an hour, half an hour, but all the policemen who needed to answer a call of nature stubbornly avoided using the toilets on the ground floor. Smolorz closed the toilet seat and cursed the two people responsible for his pitiful state: Mock, and the person who had designed the toilets. By making the distance between the floor and the bottom of the cubicle door only ten centimetres, and by installing a partition made up of eight small panes of glass between the top of the door and ceiling, the latter had immobilized Smolorz for longer.
Smolorz looked at his watch and realized he had been sitting in his prison for over an hour. This meant that Mock had not informed the caretakers about the door being stuck, which in turn meant that he had decided to punish his subordinate. The thought made blood rush to his head. At that moment his wife, Ursula, was no doubt dishing out lunch to the two little Smolorzes, not knowing whether their father was alive or whether he was lying in some dark side street, or on his deathbed in a hospital … He could have gone home in the early hours of the morning, slipped beneath the warm duvet and cuddled up to his wife’s back. Instead he had snorted white powder up his nose. Cocaine had robbed him of all feelings for his family and changed him into a laughing fool, who wallowed in the Baroness von Bockenheim und Bielau’s silk sheets. He remembered the tension his chief was living under, bringing death to innocent victims; and then he remembered his own nocturnal antics and felt disgusted at himself.
He took off his jacket, wrapped it around his hand and stood on the toilet seat. With a mighty blow he knocked out two panes. The sound of glass shattering on the floor was horrendous. Smolorz waited for someone to come into the toilet and listened hopefully to the sounds coming from the courtyard and corridor. Nothing. He thought of his chief’s attitude to life. He knew the gist well. If he persuaded himself that nobody would hear him, a swarm of people would appear immediately. Smolorz took another swing at the piece of wood that separated the now-shattered panes. After the fifth blow the wood split with a crack and a moment later Smolorz’s heels were grinding into the glass scattered across the floor. He ran out of the toilets and up the stairs to the offices of the Vice Commission. He opened the door with a key. Mock was not there. The only person was Domagalla, barely visible amidst stacks of files and binders. He looked up hopefully.
“Help me, will you, Smolorz,” he said. “We’ve got to identify that whore by her tattoo. A sun on her arse with the words: ‘You’ll get hot with me.’ We’ve got to go through all the files.”
Smolorz glanced at Mock’s desk. On it was a brown envelope.
“How long has this letter been here?” he asked.
“Bender just brought it up,” Domagalla said.
Smolorz reached for the envelope.
“But it’s not for you!” Domagalla was outraged.
Smolorz opened the envelope, telling himself: “It’s bound to be from the murderer. That Johanna with the eczema is bound to have been murdered.”
“Do you know the meaning of ‘Confidential’?” Domagalla insisted.
“‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. I’m dying because of you, Mock. Mock, admit your mistake, admit you have come to believe. Unless you want to see more little children crying. Johanna Voigten,’” read Smolorz quietly.
The term “defensive optimism” came to mind, and at that moment he stopped believing in Eberhard Mock’s psychological theories.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919
THREE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
At Mock’s command, Wirth stopped the Horch near the Red Tavern on Karl-Marx-Strasse.
“You can go back to your business.” Mock climbed out of the car. “The investigation’s over.”
He wandered slowly along the dusty pavement. The September sun warmed his neck and shoulders. He removed his bowler hat and slung his jacket over his arm. His feet slid around in their hard shoes. He sniffed and realized that he smelled, a discovery which made him change his plans and bypass the Red Tavern in a wide arc. He dragged his feet and stared at the tall tenements to his left. Beyond them stretched allotment gardens. A boy on a bicycle rode out of the gate holding a bucket of apples with one hand. “That’s the end of the investigation, the end of sleepless nights, the end of alcohol. Nobody else is going to die because of me.” Workers were leaving Kelling’s dyeworks after the first shift. They shook hands with each other and dispersed into smaller groups. “I’ll change my job, go away from here.” Pastor Gerds greeted him as he emerged from the evangelical school. Dust, sweltering heat, gossamer, and Johanna lying in the ventilation pit. “I wonder if the rats scurrying along the pit walls in search of food kept on windowsills have had a go at her yet.”
He was glad to leave Karl-Marx-Strasse behind and made towards Plesserstrasse, an empty, cobbled street lined with acacias. His was the first building on the left. He went up the stairs to Uncle Eduard’s old butcher’s shop, then on up to his room on the first floor. Nobody was at home. On the kitchen table stood the leftovers of lunch: cucumber soup and potatoes seasoned with crackling. He opened the window and heard Dosche’s dog growling. Mock’s father was sitting on a bench in the shade and playing with Rot, teasing him with his walking stick. Mock waved to him and tried to smile. The elderly man got to his feet and came towards the house, looking furious. Mock carried the washbasin into his alcove and filled it with cold water from the bucket. He hung his clothes on the bedstead, threw his underwear and socks under the bed and stood naked over the basin, listening to the sounds coming from below: the creaking of the stairs, the crash of the hatch, the wheezing of paternal lungs.
“You’re pissed again!” he heard his father say.
He soaped his neck and armpits, mumbled something in reply and sat down in the basin, feeling his testicles contract with cold. Rot burst in from behind the curtain and stood up on his hind legs, wagging his tail. Mock stroked him on the head with wet hands and returned to his ablutions.
“What is this, damn it? What’s this supposed to mean?” his father shouted, clattering the lids on the stove. “Where were you last night?”
Mock washed his feet and rinsed off the soap with water from the jug. The floor was soaked. He wrapped an old dressing gown around himself and emerged from the alcove. His father’s grey hair stuck out alarmingly in all directions, and behind his pince-nez his eyes flashed with anger. Mock took no notice. He fetched a rag from under the stove, wiped the water off the floor, then lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. The damp patches on the wall formed the features of a face. Mock strained his imagination, but the face did not appear familiar. “After today, I ought to be seeing Johanna’s face everywhere,” he thought. He felt pangs of guilt that it was not so.
“Come and get some soup!” called his father.
Mock sat at the table and reached for a spoon. The first mouthful flowed down to a stomach of stone. The second stopped somewhere on the way. Mock set down the spoon.
“I’ll eat in a minute.”
“In a minute it’ll be cold. Am I supposed to heat it up for you again? Do you think I’m your cook or something?”
Little Ebi is sitting in the kitchen eating dumplings. “Eat up or they’ll get cold” says his father, lighting his pipe. Ebi washes them down with soured milk and feels the doughy balls expand. They fill his gullet and mouth, the grey dough swells, sticks to his palate, he cannot breathe. “Daddy, I can’t have any more.” “You’re not leaving the table until you’ve eaten. The dumplings are delicious, you little brat, and we haven’t got any pigs! Everything’s got to be eaten! Look at Franz, he’s polishing it off!” …