the materials — except the gramophone record — into the cardboard box, and went to the old store of office supplies which, now equipped with a desk and telephone, served the Official for Special Affairs as an office. He telephoned Doctor Georg Maass and arranged a meeting with him. Then he made his way to Mock’s office with the list of gramophone names and his impressions. On the way, he passed Forstner, who had just left his superior. Anwaldt was surprised to see him there on a Sunday. He had a mind to joke about the heavy police work, but Forstner passed him without a word and ran briskly down the stairs.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 8TH, 1934
HALF-PAST TWO IN THE AFTERNOON
Standartenfuhrer S.S. Erich Kraus kept professional and private matters neatly apart. He dedicated far fewer hours to the latter, of course, but it was time strictly measured out — Sunday, for example, was held to be a day of rest. Following his post-prandial siesta, it was his habit to talk to his four sons between four and five o’clock. The boys would sit at a huge round table and relate to their father the progress they were making in their work, the ideological activities of the Hitlerjugend and the resolutions which they had regularly to make in the Fuhrer’s name. Kraus would pace up and down the room, comment good-naturedly on what he heard, and pretend not to notice the surreptitious glances at their watches and the suppressed yawns.
But he was not permitted the freedom to spend his first Sunday in Breslau in a purely private capacity. The taste of his lunch was spoiled by the sour thought of General-Major Rainer von Hardenburg, the chief of Breslau’s Anwehr. He loathed this stiff, monocled aristocrat with all his might — he, the son of a bricklayer and alcoholic. Kraus swallowed a delicious schnitzel with onions and felt his gastric juices rise. Furious, he got up from the table, threw his napkin down in a rage, walked through to his study and, for the umpteenth time that day, phoned Forstner. Instead of exhaustive information about Anwaldt, he heard half a minute of a long, intermittent ringing tone.
He paced around the table like a rabid beast. Suddenly, he stood still and hit his forehead with an open palm.
Mock had decided that he would leave for Zoppot that evening. He had made that decision after his visit to Winkler. Kraus’ phone call tore him from his afternoon nap. The man from the Gestapo quietly reminded Mock of his dependence on the secret police and demanded a written report on Anwaldt’s work for the Abwehr. Mock calmly refused. He said that he was due some rest and was leaving for Zoppot that evening.
“And what about your girlfriend?”
“Oh, those girlfriends … Here one minute, gone the next. You know what they’re like …”
“I do
BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 8TH, 1934
THREE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
Hans Hoffmann had been a secret agent for the police since time immemorial. He had served the Emperor, the Republic police, and now the Gestapo. He put his considerable professional success down to his warm-hearted appearance: a slender figure, small moustache, carefully combed, thin hair, honey-coloured, kind, laughing eyes. Who would have thought that this sympathetic, elderly gentleman was one of the most valued of secret agents?
Anwaldt and Maass, who paid no attention to the neat old man sitting on the neighbouring bench, certainly did not suspect. Maass in particular was unconcerned about the presence of other strollers and pontificated loudly, somewhat irritating Anwaldt not only by his squeaky voice but, above all, by the drastic contents of his confessions which were mostly focussed on a woman’s body and the rapture it entailed.
“Just look, Herbert — indeed, I may call you that, may I not?” Maass went so far as to smack his lips when he saw a young and shapely blonde strolling with an older woman. “How wonderfully that thin dress clings to the girl’s thighs. She’s probably not wearing a petticoat …”
Anwaldt started to be amused by this satyr’s airs. He took Maass by the arm and they began to walk along Liebichshohe. Above them rose a tower, crowned with a statue of the winged Roman goddess of victory. Spurting fountains refreshed the air to a certain extent. The crowd milled around on the pseudo-baroque terraces. The little old man ambled just behind them, smoking a cigarette in an amber cigarette holder.
“My dear man,” Anwaldt, too, allowed himself a degree of familiarity. “Is it true that women become pushy in summer?”
“How do you know?”
“From Hezjod. I’d like to verify a twenty-seven-century-old belief with a specialist. The poet claims that in summer they are
Maass paid no attention to Anwaldt’s sarcastic tone. He was interested in knowing where the Police Assistant had learned his Greek.
“My secondary school teacher of Classical languages was good, that’s all,” Anwaldt said.
After this brief
“Secondary school, you say … Did you know, my dear Herbert, that the schoolgirls of today are pretty well acquainted with the facts of life? I spent a blissful afternoon with one in Konigsberg recently. Have you read the Kama Sutra? Have you heard anything about swallowing the mango fruit? Imagine that this seemingly innocent girl was able to force my steed into obedience when it was just on the point of tearing out of control. I didn’t give her private tuition in Sanskrit for nothing …”
This mention of a lascivious schoolgirl irritated Anwaldt a great deal. He removed his jacket and unbuttoned his collar. He thought intensively about frothy tankards of beer; about the slight buzz after the first, the dizziness after the second, the tremor of the tongue after the third, the clarity of mind after the fourth, the euphoria after the fifth … He looked at the small man with curly, dark hair and a sparse beard and interrupted his pontification none too politely:
“Doctor Maass, please listen to this record. They’ll lend you a gramophone from the police laboratory. Should you have any problems with the translation, please contact me. Professor Andreae and one Hermann Winkler are at your disposition. The texts have probably been recorded in the Hebrew language.”
“I don’t know if it’s of any interest to you,” Maass, offended, looked at Anwaldt, “but the third edition of Hebrew grammar — of which I am author — has just been published. I manage quite well in this language and have no need of impostors such as Andreae. Winkler, on the other hand, I do not know and do not wish to know.”
He turned away abruptly and hid the record under his jacket: “I bid you goodbye. Please come to me tomorrow for the translation of these texts. I think I should manage it,” he added in a wounded tone.
Anwaldt did not pay any attention to Maass’ acerbity. He was feverishly trying to remember something the latter had said and which he had been wanting to ask for several minutes now. Nervously, he chased away the visions of frothy tankards and tried not to hear the shouts of children running about on the pathways. The leaves of the splendid plane trees formed a dome beneath which clung a suspension of dust, thick from the heat. Anwaldt felt a stream of sweat run down between his shoulder blades. He glanced at Maass, who was plainly waiting for an apology, and croaked through his dry throat:
“Doctor Maass, why did you call Professor Andreae an impostor?”
Maass had obviously forgotten about the offence because he became markedly revitalized:
“Would you believe that this moron discovered several new Coptic inscriptions? He worked them out, and then — on the basis of them — modified Coptic grammar. This would have been a wonderful discovery if it wasn’t for the fact that these ‘discoveries’ had been laboriously composed by himself. He had simply needed a subject for
