will get him. If he stays here, I’ll invite him for another talk. In the first and second instance, it’s enough for him to see an ordinary bee and he’ll start singing. Erkin, as of today, to that man you and I are demons who will never leave his side …”
BRESLAU, WEDNESDAY, JULY 11TH, 1934
THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
A damp shroud of dew fell over the world. It pearled on the grasses, trees and the naked body of a man. On touching the burning skin, it immediately evaporated. The policeman woke up. For the first time in many days, he experienced a cool shudder. He just about managed to get up and, dragging his swollen leg, bumped against the trees and emerged on a gravel alley. He was making his way towards a dark building whose angular shadow contrasted with the brightening sky when the glare of headlights lashed him. By the building stood a car, its lights painfully carved Anwaldt’s nakedness out of the darkness. He heard the cry “Stop!”, a woman’s muffled laughter, the sound of gravel crunching under the shoes of approaching men. He touched his aching neck, a coarse eiderdown rubbed against his wounded body. He opened his eyes in the soothing glow of a bedside lamp. The wise eyes of Doctor Abraham Lanzmann, Baron von der Malten’s personal physician, were observing him from behind thick lenses.
“Where am I?” the faint effort of a smile appeared on his lips. It amused him to think that this was the first time his loss of memory was not due to alcohol.
“You’re in your apartment,” Doctor Lanzmann was short of sleep and serious. “You were brought in by some policemen who were patrolling the so-called Swedish Bastion in Oswitzer Wald. A lot of girls gather there in the summer. And where they are, there’s always something shady going on. But to the point. You were barely conscious. You persistently repeated your name, Mock’s name, the Baron’s and your address. The policemen did not want to leave what they suspected was their drunk colleague and brought you home. From here, they phoned the Baron. I’ve got to leave you now. The Baron has asked me to pass this sum on to you,” his fingers caressed an envelope lying on the table. “Here’s some ointment for your swellings and cuts. You’ll find instructions about what the medication is for and how to take it on each bottle and phial. I managed to find quite a bit in my first-aid cabinet at home — considering the unusual time of day. Goodbye. I’ll come back at about midday, when you’ve had some sleep.”
Doctor Lanzmann’s eyelids closed over his wise eyes, Anwaldt’s over his swollen ones. He could not fall asleep. The walls, reflecting the day’s heat, bothered him. With a few moves, he rolled off the bed on to the dirty carpet. Crawling on all fours, he reached the sill, pulled the heavy curtains apart and opened the window. He fell on his knees and slowly reached the bed. He lay on the eiderdown and mopped himself with a linen shawl, avoiding the swellings — volcanoes of pain. As soon as he opened his eyes, swarms of hornets flew in. When he closed the windows against them, the walls of the tenement stifled him with a burning breath, and cockroaches crawled out from the holes — some looking like scorpions. In a word, he could not fall asleep with the window closed and could not sleep with open eyes.
BRESLAU, THURSDAY, JULY 12TH, 1934
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
It was a little cooler in the morning. He fell asleep for two hours. When he woke, he saw four people sitting at his bedside. The Baron was talking quietly to Doctor Lanzmann. Seeing that the sick man was awake, he nodded to two orderlies standing by the wall. The two men grasped the policeman under the arms, carried him to the kitchen and put him in a huge tub of luke-warm water. One washed Anwaldt’s sore body, the other removed his dark stubble with a razor. After a while, Anwaldt was lying in bed again, on a clean, starched sheet and exposing his wounded limbs to the effects of Doctor Lanzmann’s ointments and balsams. The Baron patiently waited with his questions until the medic had finished. Anwaldt talked for about half an hour, stopping and stumbling. He had no control over his loose syntax. The Baron listened with seeming indifference. At one moment, the policeman broke off in mid-word and fell asleep. He dreamt of snow-capped peaks, icy expanses, freezing gusts of the Arctic: the wind blew and dried his skin; where was the wind coming from? the wind? He opened his eyes and in the dark setting sun saw a boy fanning him with a folded newspaper.
“Who are you?” he could barely move his bandaged jaw.
“Helmut Steiner, the Baron’s kitchen boy. I’m to look after you until Doctor Lanzmann comes in tomorrow to examine you.”
“What’s the time?”
“Seven in the evening.”
Anwaldt tried to walk around the room. He could barely put his weight on the swollen heel. He made out his beige suit on the chair, cleaned and pressed. He quickly pulled on his underpants and looked around for some cigarettes.
“Go to the restaurant on the corner and bring me some pork knuckle and cabbage, and beer. Buy some cigarettes, too.” He realized with rage that his cigarette case and watch had been stolen at the Gestapo. While the boy was absent, he washed himself at the kitchen sink and, exhausted, sat down at the table, trying not to catch sight of himself in the mirror. Shortly, a steaming plate stood in front of him, the quivering fat of pork knuckle bathing in a portion of young cabbage. He devoured everything in a matter of minutes. When he looked at the round-bellied bottle of Kipke beer — droplets of water streaming down its cool neck, a white, porcelain hat secured by a nickel-plated clasp in its mouth — he remembered his resolution of total abstinence. He burst out in derisive laughter and poured half a bottle of beer down his throat. He lit a cigarette and inhaled greedily.
“I told you to buy pork knuckle and beer, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Did I clearly say ‘beer’?”
“Yes.”
“Just imagine, I said that automatically. And did you know that when we speak automatically, it’s not us speaking but someone else speaking through us. So that when I told you to buy some beer it wasn’t me telling you but someone else. Do you understand?”
“Who, for example?” the baffled boy grew interested.
“God!” roared Anwaldt with laughter then laughed until pain almost drilled his head asunder. He fastened on to the bottle neck and, after a moment, put it aside, empty. He dressed awkwardly. He barely squeezed his hat on to his bandaged head. Hopping on one leg, he mastered the spiral staircase and found himself on a street inundated by the setting sun.
VII
ZOPPOT, FRIDAY, JULY 13TH, 1934
HALF-PAST ONE IN THE AFTERNOON
Eberhard Mock strolled along Zoppot pier, rejecting the thought of the approaching lunch with distaste. He was not hungry because he had drunk several tankards of beer between meals, interspersed with bites of hot frankfurter sausages. On top of that, for the sake of lunch, he had to relinquish watching the girls stroll by the casino, their lazy bodies provocatively taut under the slippery silk of dresses and swim suits. Mock shook his head and tried once more to chase away a nagging thought which stubbornly drew him towards that distant city suffocating in the hollow of stagnant air, towards those tight, crowded quarters of tenements and dark wells of yards, towards monumental buildings enclosed in the classicistic white of sandstone or neo-Gothic red of bricks, towards islands weighed down by churches and wrapped in the embrace of the dirty green snake of the Oder, towards residences and palaces concealed by greenery, where the “gentleman” betrays the “lady” with reciprocity and the servants merge with the panelling of the walls. The persistent thought drew Mock to the city where someone throws scorpions into the bellies of girls as beautiful as a dream and dispirited men with dirty pasts lead investigations which will always end in defeat. He knew what to call his thoughts: the qualms of conscience.
Filled with beer, sausages and heavy thoughts, Mock entered the Spa House where he was renting a so- called junker’s apartment with his wife. He was greeted in the restaurant by the beseeching eyes of his wife,
