Lea’s head fell forward. She rested her elbows on her thighs as if she were falling into a sleep.
“What do you need this for? Who are you?” Anwaldt guessed rather than heard the questions.
“My name’s Herbert Anwaldt and I’m a private detective. I’m leading the investigation into Marietta von der Malten’s death. I know that your father was forced into confessing his guilt. I also know Weinsberg’s alias Winkler’s nonsense …”
He broke off. His parched throat was refusing to obey. He walked up to a sink mounted in the corner of the studio and took a moment to drink water straight from the tap. Then he sat in the armchair again. The water he had just drunk evaporated through his skin. He wiped a wave of sweat with the surface of his hand and asked the first question:
“Someone framed your father. Maybe the murderer himself. Tell me, who could have wanted to make your father the murderer?”
Lea brushed the hair languidly away from her forehead. She said nothing.
“Mock, most certainly,” he answered himself. “Thanks to finding the ‘murderer’, he got a promotion. But it really is difficult to suspect the Director of such naivety. Or maybe those who murdered the Baron’s daughter are the ones who pointed us to him? Baron von Kopperlingk? No, that’s impossible for natural reasons. No homosexual is capable of raping two women within a quarter of an hour. Besides, he spoke the truth when he told us about your shop as a place where scorpions could be bought, so all this does not look like being construed in advance. To put it briefly, your father was slipped under Mock’s nose by someone who knew that the Baron had once bought scorpions from you and also knew about your father’s mental illness. That someone found the perfect scapegoat in your father. Who could have known about the scorpions and your father’s madness? Think! Did anybody apart from Mock come to see you and ask your father about an alibi? A private detective like myself, perhaps?”
Lea Friedlander turned to lie on her side and rested her head on her bent arm. A cigarette smoked in the corner of her mouth.
“If I tell you, you’ll die,” she laughed quietly. “Funny. I can deal out death sentences.”
She fell back and closed her eyes, the cigarette slipped out of the painted lips and rolled across the bed. Anwaldt threw it into the porcelain bowl. He was on the point of getting up from the divan when Lea threw her arms around his neck. Like it or not, he lay down next to her. Both lay on their stomachs, close to each other, Anwaldt’s cheek touching her smooth shoulder. Lea put the man’s arm on her back and whispered in his ear:
“You’ll die. But now you’re my client. So do your bit. Time is running out …”
For Lea Friedlander, time had indeed run out. Anwaldt turned the inert girl and pulled her eyelids open. The eyes slipped away into the cranial vault. For a moment, he struggled with the desire that was overcoming him. He gained control of himself, however, removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt to the waist. Cooling himself a little in this way, he went into the hall and then into the only other room he had not yet inspected: a drawing-room full of furniture under black covers. A pleasant coolness prevailed — the windows gave on to the yard. A door led to the kitchen. No sign of the servant girl. Everywhere were piles of dirty dishes, beer and lemonade bottles.
Anwaldt compared his imagination to a revolving stage. Often the scene he was reading would appear in front of his eyes with intense reality. In this way, while he had been reading Gustav Nachtigal’s memoirs recently, he had felt the scorching desert sands under his feet and the stench of camels and Tibbu guides assaulted his nostrils. As soon as he tore his eyes away from the book, the curtain would fall, the imagined sets evaporate. When he returned to the book, the appropriate scenery would return, the Sahara sun would burn.
Now, too, he saw what he was reading about: the park and the sun penetrating through the leaves. The sun was refracted in the lace of dresses worn by young mothers, next to whom ran little girls. The girls looked their mothers in the eyes and snuggled their heads under their arms. Beside them strolled a beautiful girl with an overweight father who minced beside her and soundlessly cursed the men greedily observing his daughter. Anwaldt made himself more comfortable. His eyes rested on a painting hanging on the wall; then he returned to the pages of the diary.
Now he saw a dark yard. A little girl had fallen from the outdoor clothes horse and was calling: “Mummy!” The father came up and hugged her, his lips smelling of familiar tobacco. The father’s handkerchief smudged the tears on her cheeks.
He heard a noise in the kitchen. He looked out. A large, black cat was majestically strolling along the sill. Anwaldt, reassured, returned to his reading.
The set he was now visiting was a little blurred. Thick greenery filled the picture with vivid patches. A forest. The leaves of trees hung over the heads of two little beings holding each other by the hand and walking tentatively along a path. Sick beings, crooked, distorted, choked by the dark greenery of the forest, the damp moss, the touch of coarse grasses. This was not his imagination — Anwaldt was staring into the painting which hung above the bed. He read the plate attached to it: “Chaim Soutine. Exiled children”.
He rested his burning cheek on the headrest and glanced at his watch. It was almost seven. He dragged himself up with difficulty and went to the atelier.
Lea Friedlander had pulled herself out of her drugged sleep and was lying on the divan with her legs spread wide.
“Have you paid?” she sent him a forced smile.
He took a twenty-mark note from his wallet. The girl stretched herself so that her joints cracked. She moved her head a few times and quietly squeaked.
“Please don’t go yet …” she looked at him pleadingly, black shadows blossomed under her eyes. “I don’t feel well …”
Anwaldt buttoned up his shirt, fastened his tie and put on his jacket. He fanned himself for a while with his hat.
“Do you remember what we spoke about, the questions I asked you? Who are you warning me against?”
“Please don’t torture me! Please come the day after tomorrow, at the same time …” She pulled her knees up to her chin in the helpless gesture of a little girl. She was trying to control the trembling which shook her.
“And if I don’t learn anything the day after tomorrow? How am I to know you won’t fill yourself with some filth?”
“You don’t have a way out …” Suddenly Lea threw herself forward and clung to him with her whole body. “The day after tomorrow … The day after tomorrow … I beg you …”
BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 8TH, 1934
A QUARTER-PAST SEVEN IN THE EVENING
Mock’s chauffeur, Heinz Staub, braked gently and parked the Adler on the approach to Main Station. He turned and looked questioningly at his boss.
“Wait a moment, please, Heinz. We’re not getting out yet.” Mock took an envelope from his wallet. He spread out a letter, covered in tiny, uneven writing. He read carefully yet again:
Dear Herr Anwaldt!
I would like you to be quite clear at the start of your investigation about the course which my own took. I state that I never believed Friedlander to be guilty. Nor did the Gestapo believe it. Yet both I and the Gestapo greatly needed Friedlander to be the murderer. Accusation of the Jew helped me in my career, the Gestapo used it in their propaganda. It is the Gestapo who turned Friedlander into a scapegoat. I would, however, like to argue with
