“Smell your gun,” Ruhtgard repeated in a bored tone. “And now let’s do an experiment.” He stood up, approached the open hatch and slammed it shut. Mock’s father sighed in his sleep and then opened his eyes.
“What the hell is going on!” For a man who had just woken up he had a powerful voice. “What are you doing, Eberhard? Thumping around at night? Are you pissed again or what? What a bastard …” The bed creaked as Mock’s father expressed his disdain for the night’s din with a resounding fart. Mock felt nauseated at the thought of having to lie next to him.
“Sorry,” Ruhtgard could not help laughing. “You’ve been undeservedly rebuked. But you can see for yourself, the shot would have woken him …”
“I’m getting out of here.” Mock started getting dressed.
“Listen, Ebbo.” The doctor reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a cigarette case and notebook. “There are no ghosts …” Mock froze, all ears. “They only exist in your head … After we talked this morning, I asked my assistant at the hospital to research what are known as paranormal phenomena. This what he found.” Ruhtgard lit a cigarette and opened his notebook. “I didn’t want to tell you before … I wanted to keep it as a strong argument to the very end …”
“Go on then.”
“Ghosts exist in the disturbed cerebral cortex, the so-called visual cortex of the right hemisphere of the brain. Problems in this part of the cerebral cortex influence vision. They appear as phantoms, hallucinations… The aural cortex, on the other hand, is responsible for sound. If I were to open up your head and touch this cortex you’d hear voices, or music perhaps … One composer would tilt his head and note down the music he then heard. If, in addition to this, there are disturbances in the right cerebral lobe, you have real pandemonium. Because this lobe is responsible for distinguishing between the objective and the subjective. Where it has been damaged, ‘people,’ as somebody once said, ‘take their thoughts to be real people and things’. Most likely your brain is slightly damaged, Ebbo. But it can be righted … I can help you … I’ll call on the best specialist in the field, Professor Bumke from the university …”
“I’m not convinced by your scientific explanations,” Mock said thoughtfully. “Because how does your neurology explain that I experience this anxiety, these nightmares, only in this house and nowhere else … Damn it!” He raised his voice. “I’ve got to leave this place …”
“Well then go! Move to another apartment with your father. A better apartment, one with a bathroom!”
“Father won’t agree to it. He only wants to live here, and he wants to die here too. He told me once …”
“Well then you leave for a while!” Ruhtgard extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray, stood up from the table and rested his hands on the bulky mass of Mock’s shoulders. “Listen to me! Get away from here for two or three weeks. Take a holiday and get away. Take a break from everything — corpses and ghosts … You’ll build up your strength, catch up on sleep … Go to the seaside. Nothing calms like the sound of shifting sand and the monotonous murmur of the sea. I’ll go with you, if you like. We could go to Konigsberg and eat flounder. I’ll put you under hypnosis. You can trust me. We’ll get to the root of all your problems …”
Mock buttoned up his shirt in silence. As he slipped in a cufflink he pricked himself. He hissed and glanced at Ruhtgard with animosity, as if he were to blame.
“Come on, get dressed and let’s get going …”
“Where on earth?” There was resentment in Ruhtgard’s voice.
“Get dressed, please, and let’s go … to your hospital …”
“What for?”
Mock smiled to himself.
“For the housecoat and nurse’s hat …”
“I beg your pardon?” The doctor barely controlled himself.
Mock smiled again.
“I’ve met her at last …”
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1919
TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
Mock stood outside the door of apartment 20 and tapped out the rhythm to the “Schlesierlied” for the second time.
“Who’s there?” came the voice of a sleepy child.
“Eberhard Mock.”
The door opened a little. Erika was wearing a long and rather too large nightdress. She let the door swing open and went back into the room. Mock closed the door behind him and sniffed. He could no longer detect that unpleasant odour. The kitchen table was now covered with a cloth on which stood upturned plates and glasses, their rims leaving wet rings on the material. The floor was still wet. He entered the room and placed a large package on the chair. Erika sat on the bed and stared at him fearfully. Mock was sure neither of his emotions nor his words.
“Did my man bring you the bedlinen?” he asked, to break the silence.
“He did.”
“Who washed the dishes?”
“Kurt.” Fear gradually disappeared from Erika’s eyes. “He did it very comprehensively. He doesn’t like dirt …”
“So you’re on first-name terms?” He reacted irritably, unable to bring to mind anything to substantiate Smolorz’s preference for excessive tidiness. “Just how well have you got to know each other?”
“So-so.” The trace of a smile appeared on Erika’s lips. “I just like the sound of the name Kurt. Why are you so annoyed? I’m only a whore. What was it you called me? ‘A crafty whore.’ Why shouldn’t I get to know sweet little Kurty very well indeed?”
“Where is he?” Mock ignored the question.
“About an hour after you left,” Erika said more seriously, “a large man came round. He was huge. He didn’t say anything, just wrote something on a piece of paper. Kurt read it and rushed out with him. He told me not to open the door to anyone.”
Silence descended. The headlamps and shadows of passing cars drifted across the ceiling. Coloured illumination from the neon sign of Gramophon-Spezial-Haus on the opposite side of the street seeped through the net curtain. Erika sat shrouded in red and green speckles of light and studied Mock without the hint of a smile.
“Why don’t you come and sit next to me, sir?” she asked in a low, serious voice.
Mock sat down and watched with astonishment as his hand glided across her white arm. Never before had he seen such white skin, never before had his diaphragm deprived him of air for so long, never until now had he felt such pain in his thighs. Fiat coitus et pereat mundus.† With great disbelief he felt his chapped lips part to allow her tiny tongue to enter; he could not believe that his gnarled fingers were pulling up her nightdress.
“Why don’t you take me, sir?” she asked just as seriously. She moved up the clean bedclothes and opened herself before him.
Mock sighed, got to his feet and went to the chair. He unwrapped the rustling package and hung a nurse’s hat and starched housecoat over the back of the chair.
“Put this on,” he said hoarsely.
“With pleasure.” Erika leaped out of bed and freed herself from the nightdress. As she raised her arms, flickers of neon blazed across her prominent breasts. She tied her hair into a loose bun and put on the hat. Mock unfastened his trousers. At that moment Smolorz, Wirth and Zupitza stepped into the apartment. Erika quickly jumped into bed as Mock kicked the door shut. He approached the bed and pulled the eider-down off the girl. A moment later somebody’s knuckles were tapping out the rhythm of the “Schlesierlied”. Mock sighed, walked over to the window and gazed for a while at the street lamp which illuminated the hairdresser’s salon. He approached the girl and stroked her hair. She clung on to his hand with both of hers. He bent and kissed her on the lips.
“Wait a moment,” he muttered, and went into the hall.
Smolorz was at the door, about to knock again. Wirth and Zupitza were sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by wet dishes.
“Why are you rapping out our signal, Smolorz?” Mock scarcely managed to suppress the irritation in his voice. “I saw you come in. And now hop it, all of you! From now on I’m going to keep an eye on the girl myself.”