Death in Breslau

knocking at the door; the Maenad next door gathered her clothes which lay scattered on the floor; Anwaldt froze; Mock found his lost thought in the darkness. He heard his own voice resound in his head: “Don’t exaggerate; it’s enough for you to take great care until we catch Erkin. And then the curse won’t be fulfilled … curse won’t be fulfilled … curse won’t be fulfilled …”

He was standing very close to Anwaldt and looking him in the eyes: “Listen, Herbert, Doctor Hartner wrote that their vengeance is invalid if it is not executed in exactly the same circumstances as the crime to be avenged. The Yesidis waited centuries for a son and a daughter to be born to the von der Malten family … But there have already been siblings of mixed sex in the family. Olivier von der Malten’s aunt and his father, Ruppert. Why didn’t the Yesidis kill them, rape her and sew scorpions into their innards? Hartner suspects that revenge could not be taken in a closed convent.” Mock shut his eyes and experienced self-loathing. “I don’t think so. Do you know why? Because their father was no longer alive. Those twins were born after the death of their father who was killed at Sadowa. I know that perfectly well. My university colleague, Olivier von der Malten, told me about his grandfather-hero. So the curse was not fulfilled … But if von der Malten were to die …”

Anwaldt walked up to the table, grabbed the bottle of wine and knocked it back. Mock watched as the wine ran down his chin and dyed his shirt. Anwaldt drank to the last drop. He hid his face in his open hands and hissed out:

“Alright, I’ll do it. I’ll kill the Baron.”

Mock choked on his own self-loathing.

“You can’t. He’s your father.”

Anwaldt’s eyes flashed between his fingers.

“No. You are my father.”

BRESLAU, THURSDAY, JULY 19TH, 1934

FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

The black Adler stopped in front of von der Malten’s manor. A man got out and staggered towards the gate. The sound of the doorbell tore through the silence. The Adler drove off with a screech of tyres. The man at the wheel looked into the rear window and contemplated his own reflection for a while.

“You’re the lowest son-of-a-bitch,” he said to the tired eyes. “You pushed that boy into committing a crime. He has become a tool in your hands. A tool to remove the last witness of your masonic past.”

Baron Olivier von der Malten stood on the threshold of his enormous hall. It looked as if he had not been to bed at all. He wrapped the crimson dressing gown around himself and watched the swaying Anwaldt severely.

“What are you thinking of, young man? That this is a police station, a hostel for drunks?”

Anwaldt smiled and — in order to hide his stammering speech — said as quietly as he could:

“I’ve got some new, important information for you …”

The host entered the hall and indicated for Anwaldt to do the same, after which he dismissed the sleepy servant. The spacious, panel-covered room was hung with portraits of the von der Maltens. Anwaldt did not see sternness and gravity in them but rather cunning and vanity. He looked around — in vain — for a chair. The Baron made as if not to notice.

“What do you want to tell me about this case that’s new? I had lunch with Counsellor Mock today so I am more or less up to date. What could have happened this evening?”

Anwaldt lit a cigarette and, for lack of an ashtray, shook the ash on to the polished floor.

“And so Counsellor Mock told you about the Yesidi’s vengeance. Did he mention that the vengeance had not been wholly fulfilled?”

“Yes. ‘The mistake of an old demented shaman,’ ” he quoted Hartner. “Did you come to see me, drunk as you are, at four o’clock in the morning to ask me about my conversation with Mock?”

Anwaldt scrutinized the Baron and noticed quite a few shortcomings in his dress: the button on his vest, the strings of his long johns slipping out from under the dressing gown. He burst out laughing and stayed in this strange, doubled-up position for a while. He imagined the elderly gentleman sitting on the toilet and panting heavily, when here comes his drunken little son and destroys the sacred peace of the elegant residence. Laughter was still contorting his lips when he let loose words, swollen with anger:

“Dear Papi, we both know that the dervish’s revelations are startingly consistent with family realities. The unofficial ones, of course. The god of the Yesidis has finally grown impatient and taken bastards into account. On the other hand, how is it that in this knightly family no warrior inseminated any captive, no landowner got hold of a comely peasant girl in a haystack? All were temperate and faithful to their marriage vows. Even my dear Papi. After all, he begat me before getting married.”

“I would not joke in your position, Herbert,” the Baron’s tone was inalterably haughty — but his face had shrunk. In one moment he had changed from a proud junker to a fearful old man. His neatly combed hair had slipped to the sides, his lips sunk to reveal the absence of dentures.

“I don’t wish you to call me by my first name,” Anwaldt had stopped smiling. “Why didn’t you tell me everything at the beginning?”

The father and son stood face to face. Delicate streaks of dawn began to creep into the hall. The Baron remembered the June nights of 1902 when he would creep into the servants’ quarters, and the sheets — drenched with sweat — when he left; he remembered the disciplinary whipping which Ruppert von der Malten had personally bestowed on his twenty-year-old son; he remembered Hanne Schlossarczyk’s terrified looks as she left the lordly residence, literally booted out by the servants. He broke the ringing silence with a matter-of-fact answer.

“I found out about the Yesidi’s curse today. And I wanted to tell you about our close relationship were the investigation to come to a dead stop. That would have encouraged you to go on.”

“Close relationship … (Do you have a relative, asked the tutor, even a distant one? Pity, you could have spent Christmas away from the orphanage at least once.) Even now you’re a hypocrite. You can’t call it by its name. It’s not enough for you to have dropped me off in some refuge, paying nine years of fees at a secondary school: an offering for your peace of mind. How much did you pay that merchant from Poznan, Anwald, for his name? How much did you pay my mother to forget? How many marks does corrupting a conscience cost? But it called out in the end. It shouted: summon Anwaldt to Breslau. He’ll be useful. He happens to be a policeman so let him lead the investigation into his sister’s murder. But I’ll tell him about the family ties to mobilize him, right? Conscience is conscience, but practicalism is practicalism. Was it always like that with the von der Maltens?”

“What you call practicalism,” the Baron proudly raised his eyes to the portraits of his ancestors, “I would term family pride. I summoned you to catch your sister’s murderer and avenge her terrible death. As a brother you had the absolute right to do so …”

Anwaldt pulled out his gun, released the safety catch and aimed at the head of the first ancestor in the gallery. He pulled the trigger. The dry crack of the firing-pin resounded. He started to rummage through his pockets feverishly. The Baron caught him lightly by the shoulder, but quickly removed his hand. The policeman looked at him with hazy eyes.

“I can’t stand … German Yesidi …”

The Baron drew himself up as taut as a string. They continued to stand face to face in the misty, orange glow.

“Please behave correctly and hear me out to the end. I told you about our family pride. It results from centuries of tradition, from the history of our ancestors. All that would cease to exist. My death would mean the end of the family, the last, Silesian branch of the von der Maltens would dry up.” He grabbed Anwaldt by the shoulders and spun him round so that the elegant, syphilitic faces gyrated. “But in this way our family will continue to exist in the person of Herbert von der Malten.”

Suddenly, he ran up to the wall and took down a somewhat jagged sword with a golden hilt embossed with mother of pearl. Holding it on outstretched arms, he approached Anwaldt. He looked at him for a moment, holding back his emotions. As a man should. As a knight should.

“Forgive me, son,” he bowed his head. “Gaze at all this around you. You are heir to it. Receive our coat of arms and our sacred family symbol, the sword of our great-grandfather Bolek von der Malten, a knight of the Thirty Year War. Bury it in the murderer’s heart. Avenge your sister.”

Anwaldt received the sword ceremoniously. He stood astride and bowed his head as if he were going to be