“Who imported them for you?”
“This same Friedlander.”
“Why haven’t you got them any more?”
“They died of homesickness for the Negev desert.”
Mock suddenly rubbed his eyes in amazement. He had just noticed a porcelain pissoir secured to the wall with a gleaming metal ice-pick in the shape of a sharpened, narrow pyramid lying in it.
“Don’t worry, Counsellor. That piece is only an ornament in the spirit of Duchamp; nobody uses it. Nor the ice-pick.” The Baron smoothed the velvet collar of his smoking-jacket.
Mock sat down heavily on the cushions and, without looking at his host, asked:
“What made you take up Oriental Studies?”
“Melancholy, probably …”
“And what did you do, Baron, between eleven and one o’clock on the night before yesterday, on Friday, May 12th?” The second question was asked in the same tone.
“Am I a suspect?” Baron von Kopperlingk half-closed his eyes and got up from the cushions.
“Please answer the question!”
“Counsellor, be so good as to contact my lawyer, Doctor Lachmann.” The Baron put the python back in its terrarium and stretched two long fingers which held a white visiting card towards Mock. “I’ll answer all your questions in his presence.”
“I assure you, Baron, I’m going to ask you that question irrespective of whether you’re in the company of Doctor Lachmann or Chancellor von Hindenburg. If you have an alibi, we will save Doctor Lachmann the trouble.”
The Baron mused for perhaps fifteen seconds: “I do have an alibi. I was at home. My servant, Hans, will confirm it.”
“Forgive me, please, but that is no alibi. I do not trust your servant, nor any servant for that matter.”
“And your assistant?”
Before he realized, the Counsellor automatically wanted to reply “not him either”. He glanced at Forstner’s burning cheeks and shook his head: “I don’t understand. What connection do you have with my assistant?”
“Oh, we’ve known each other a long time …”
“Interesting … But today, by some strange coincidence, you have been hiding your acquaintanceship. I even introduced you. Why did you not want to disclose your friendship?”
“It’s not a friendship. We simply know each other …”
Mock turned to Forstner and looked at him expectantly. Forstner’s gaze was fixed intently on the carpet pattern.
“What are you trying to convince me of, Baron?” Mock was triumphant on seeing the embarrassment of both men. “That an ordinary acquaintance allows Forstner to be here with you from eleven to one at night? Ah, no doubt you’re going to tell me that you were ‘playing cards’ or ‘looking at albums’ …”
“No, Forstner was here, at a reception …”
“But it must have been a singular reception, eh, Forstner? Why, it looks as if you’re both embarassed by this acquaintance … But maybe something shameful took place at this reception?”
Mock stopped tormenting Forstner. He now knew what, until then, he had only suspected. He congratulated himself for asking the Baron about an alibi. He had no grounds for doing so at all. Marietta von der Malten and Francoise Debroux had been raped and Baron Wilhelm von Kopperlingk was a declared homosexual.
Hans with the beautiful eyes was already closing the door behind them when Mock remembered something. Announced a second time by the butler, he met once more the somewhat vexed countenance of the Baron.
“Do you buy the paintings yourself or do the servants do it for you?”
“I rely on my chauffeur’s tastes in that respect.”
“What does he look like?”
“A well-built, bearded man with a comically receding chin.”
Mock was clearly satisfied with this answer.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME MAY 14TH, 1933
NOON
Forstner did not want a lift to the university archives. He claimed he would willingly walk down the embankment along the Oder. Mock did not try to persuade him and, quietly singing an operatic couplet to himself, drove across Emperor Bridge, past the municipal gym and the park where Heinrich Goppert, the founder of the Botanical Gardens, stood on a plinth, left the Dominican Church on his right and the Main Post Office on his left and drove into beautiful Albrechtstrasse which started at the huge mass of the Hatzfeld Palace. He reached Ring and turned left into Schweidnitzer Strasse. He passed Dresdner Bank, Speier’s shop where he bought his shoes, Woolworth’s office block, into Karlstrasse, glanced out of the corner of his eye at the People’s Theatre, past Duno’s Haberdasheries and into Graupnerstrasse. An almost summer heat hung over the city, so he was not surprised by the sight of a long queue standing in front of a shop selling Italian ice-cream. After a dozen or so yards, he turned into Wallstrasse and drove up to a rather neglected tenement marked number 27. Friedlander’s Pet Shop was closed on Sundays. An inquisitive caretaker soon appeared and explained to Mock that Friedlander’s apartment was next door to the shop.
The door was opened by a slim, dark-haired girl, Lea Friedlander, it turned out, Isidor’s daughter. She made a great impression on the Counsellor. Without even looking at his identification, she asked him into a modestly furnished apartment.
“Father will come shortly. Please wait,” she stammered, clearly embarrassed by the way Mock was looking at her. Mock did not have time to avert his eyes from her curvaceous hips and breasts before Isidor Friedlander, a short, stout man, came in. He sat down in the chair opposite Mock, crossed one leg over the other and hit his knee several times with the back of his hand, causing the limb to jerk involuntarily. Mock observed him for a while, then started a series of rapid questions:
“Surname?”
“Friedlander.”
“First name?”
“Isidor.”
“Age.”
“Sixty.”
“Place of birth?”
“Goldberg.”
“Education?”
“I finished Yeshivo in Lublin.”
“What languages do you know?”
“Apart from German and Hebrew, a little Yiddish and a little Polish.”
“How old is your daughter?”
Friedlander suddenly interrupted the experiment with his knee and looked at Mock with eyes that had practically no pupils. He panted heavily, rose and, in a bound and flash, leapt at the Counsellor who had not had time to get up. The latter suddenly found himself on the floor, crushed under Friedlander’s weight. He tried to pull the gun from his pocket, but his right hand was immobilized by his opponent’s shoulder. Suddenly the pressure eased — a coarse beard prickled Mock in the neck, Friedlander’s body stiffened and convulsed rhythmically.
Lea pulled her father off Mock. “Help me. We have got to lay him down on the bed.”
“Please move away. I’ll put him there myself.”
The Counsellor felt like a teenager wanting to show off his strength. With the greatest of difficulty, he dragged the ninety kilograms on to the sofa. Lea, in the meantime, had prepared a mixture and was pouring it carefully into her father’s mouth. Friedlander choked, but he swallowed the liquid. After a while, there was a steady, intermittent snoring.
“I’m twenty,” Lea still avoided Mock’s eyes, “and my father suffers from epilepsy. He forgot to take his medication today. The dose I gave him will enable him to function normally for two days.”
Mock shook down his clothes.
