Mock heard von Gallasen question Hoyer and thought: “The lad wants to ask at least one question. He likes interrogating people. One day it’ll bore him.”
“They called her names.”
“Such as?” asked the novice detective. Mock paused on the stairs to hear the answer.
“Eczema,” laughed Hoyer.
3. IX.1919
Recently my thoughts have been focussing on an anticipation of events. This evening as I passed a shop selling clocks, I caught sight of a painting advertising a timepiece on a strap which you fasten around your wrist. These watches are still a novelty, and one often sees them advertised in the windows of department stores. The black strap in the painting encircled a man’s suntanned wrist. It immediately reminded me of a woman’s leg sheathed in a stocking. The black watch strap reminded me of a suspender. A short while later I went into a restaurant and ordered dinner. The waiter discreetly placed the business card of a brothel on my table. On it was a drawing of a young woman wearing a tight dress and displaying legs in stockings with suspenders. I ate my supper and approached the tenements into which the prostitute I was tailing the day before yesterday had disappeared. I waited. She emerged at about midnight and winked meaningfully at me. A moment later we were in a droschka, and a quarter of an hour after that at the place where we bring offerings to the souls of our ancestors. She undressed, and for a generous sum allowed me to tie her up. She did not protest even when I gagged her. She had terrible eczema on her neck. This constituted the fulfilment of anticipation. After all, yesterday I offered up to science Director W., aged sixty, who had identical eczema. And his was on the neck too!
After a while I began my lecture. She listened, and suddenly she began to reek of fear. I moved away from her and continued my subtle interpretation of two passages from Augsteiner. I’ll summarize what I told her here:
Incarnations of the soul, writes Augsteiner, appear in a space that is hostile to them. The soul, which in itself is good because it is identical to the concept of man, because he himself is eo ipso the effluence of the element of the soul, which ex definitione cannot be evil because ex definitione it is opposed to that which pertains to substance, ergo bodily, ergobad; and so the soul becomes incarnate where the bad element finds expression, in order to balance out the attributes of evil which dwell within it. In this way, the emanation of the soul brings about a natural harmony, namely deity. And now for a partial, empirical confirmation of Augsteiner’s theses. The soul of that vile Director W., aged sixty, appeared in the place where he became a victim of torment — in this very house, on the ground floor. And it is this soul which indicated where Director W. had hidden the letter to his wife, deceitful yet protesting his innocence. This does not tally with Augsteiner’s views because the soul remained deceitful — just as it had done in this man during his lifetime, so the soul continued to do evil because it convinced the wife that her husband was no shameless adulterer, but an angel. But the soul destroys the evil in the otherwise correct suspicions of Director W.’s wife, allowing her to be steeped in blissful ignorance. Blissful ignorance is the absence of evil, ergo — is good.
Using the prostitute as an example, I wanted to check whether the soul is more intelligent than I who direct it, or whether — according to Augsteiner — the elementum spirituale can become independent of its conjurer. And here is the experiment I carried out. Once I had induced a sense of horror and dread in the woman, I broke her arms and legs one at a time, and each time I said that her suffering was due to Eberhard Mock who lives in Klein Tschansch, at Plesserstrasse 24. I didn’t gouge out her eyes because I wanted to see the fear in them, and the desire for revenge. Besides I had another reason not to do so: I wanted her soul to remember me well. To whom would it come? To me, who tortured her, or to the man who is the main cause of her death? I’m interested to know whether I have power over her soul, and whether I can direct it to the house of the man who is our greatest evil. If manifestations of spiritual energy occur at this address, it will be proof that I have power over the elementum spirituale. I will be the creator of a new theory of materialization. A theory which, we must add, is true because it has been proven.
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!” …
“I’m not eating.” Mock pushed the plate of soup aside. “Don’t cook anything for me, Father. I’ve told you so many times.”
He went to his alcove, opened the wardrobe and laid out a clean shirt and long johns on the bed.
“Pushing his plate away like that, the little rat.” The wheezing in his father’s lungs turned to rasping. “And you, old man, you wash up, you do everything for him …”
Mock dressed carefully and raised the hatch; his heels rang out against the steps. He went outside and stood in the sunlight. He no longer felt like a visit to the Red Tavern. He sat down on a bench beneath an acacia and lit a cigarette. He heard Rot barking and his father’s footsteps on the stairs; a moment later Willibald Mock appeared in the small porch to which his brother Eduard’s clients had once swarmed on slaughter days. In his hand was a tin plate heaped with steaming potatoes.
“Maybe you’ll eat this?” he asked.
Eberhard Mock stood up and walked away. He turned and looked at his father standing in the porch. Short. Helpless. Mashed potatoes steaming in his hands.
BRESLAU, SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1919
THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
The red-headed nurse stroked Mock’s hand. Her skin was so fair and smooth he thought the tear now falling from her lashes would slide down her cheek in one hundredth of a second. The nurse removed her bonnet and let down her hair. The thick copper locks fell with a gentle rustle onto the starched collar of her housecoat. She leaned over Mock. He caught the scent of her breath. Gently, he touched the fabric stretched across her large breasts. The girl stepped back abruptly, knocking over the bedside table. Mock had expected a sharp, metallic sound, but it was dull and somewhat muffled. All of a sudden the sound exploded, as if someone were thumping their fist against a wooden door. Mock sat up in bed and pulled aside the curtain. A penetrating cold shudder ran through him. “Must be hunger,” he thought. “I didn’t have anything to eat yesterday.” It was pitch black. He lit a candle and looked around the room. His father was snoring quietly, and Dosche’s dog was looking at him attentively, his eyes glowing amicably in the dark. Mock reached under his pillow where he kept his Mauser, a wartime habit, and stood in the middle of the room. He could have sworn that the noise which had woken him had come from the hatch leading down to the old butcher’s shop. He lay flat on the floor, opened the hatch a little and peeped through the smallest gap by the hinges. He knew any intruder would attack where the gap was widest. He yanked open the hatch and jumped back. Nobody attacked. With shivers still running down his spine, Mock held the candle to the opening. He could not see further than the first few steps. He glanced at the dog; it was resting its head peacefully on its outstretched front paws, blinking sleepily. The animal’s behaviour vouched there was no danger. Mock went down the stairs, holding the candle high.
The butcher’s shop was empty. He directed the light to the grille on the drain, and finding nothing went out on to the porch. The September night was fair but cool. He made sure the door to the shop was locked securely and went back upstairs. He yawned, stood the lighted candle on the table and got into bed without drawing the curtain. Images drifted before his eyes: a discussion in the street, scraps of conversation, a lame horse pulling a droschka, a porter pulling the shafts of a two-wheeled cart. Something falls from the cart and lands with a loud noise on the cobbles.