“Where is your mother?”
“She died four years ago.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
“No.”
“Your father suffered the attack after I asked him your age. Is that a coincidence?”
“Actually I’ve already answered you. I’m everything to my father. If a man shows any interest in me, Father starts to get worried. And if he forgets to take his medication, he suffers an attack.”
Lea raised her head and, for the first time, looked Mock in the eyes. Despite himself, he began the mating dance: precisely measured moves, lingering looks, deep timbre of voice.
“I think Father provokes these attacks on purpose.” The girl would not have been able to explain why she confided in this man in particular. (Perhaps it was his ample belly.)
But the Counsellor misunderstood this small token of trust. Questions were already pressing on his lips — about a possible boyfriend, invitations to lunch or dinner — when he noticed a dark stain spread over Friedlander’s trousers.
“This often happens during or after an attack.” Lea quickly slipped an oilcloth under her father’s thighs and buttocks. Her beige dress stretched over her hips, her slender calves were a fascinating overture to other parts. Mock glanced once more at the sleeping dealer and remembered why he had come.
“When will your father be conscious again? I’d like to ask him some questions.”
“In an hour.”
“Maybe you can help me. The caretaker told me that you work in your father’s shop. Can one buy a scorpion there?”
“Father brought in several scorpions some time ago through a Greek company in Berlin.”
“What does that mean, some time ago?”
“Three, perhaps four years ago.”
“Who ordered them?”
“I don’t remember. We’d have to check the invoices.”
“Do you remember the name of the company?”
“No … I know it’s in Berlin.”
Mock followed her into the counting-room. As Lea was going through hefty, navy-blue files, he posed one more question:
“Has there been another policeman here apart from me in the last few days?”
“Caretaker Kempsky did say that there was somebody from the police here yesterday. We weren’t home in the morning. I had taken Father for his check-up at the Jewish Hospital on Menzelstrasse.”
“What’s the name of your father’s doctor?”
“Doctor Hermann Weinsberg. Ah, here’s the invoice. Three scorpions were imported for Baron von Kopperlingk in September 1930 by the Berlin company Kekridis and Sons. May I ask you,” — she looked imploringly at Mock — “to come back in an hour? Then Father will be himself again …”
Mock was understanding to beautiful women. He got up and put on his hat.
“Thank you, Fraulein Friedlander. I am sorry that we had to meet in such sad circumstances although no circumstances are inappropriate when one meets such a beautiful young lady.”
Mock’s courtly goodbye did not impress Lea in the least. She sat down heavily on the divan. Minutes passed, the clock ticked loudly. She heard a murmur coming from the next room where her father was lying and went in with a false smile.
“Oh, you’ve woken up so quickly, Papa. That’s very good. Can I go to Regina Weiss?”
Isidor Friedlander looked at his daughter anxiously: “Please don’t go … Don’t leave me alone …”
Lea was thinking about her sick father, about Regina Weiss with whom she was supposed to be going to the “Deli” cinema to see Clark Gable’s new film, about all the men who had undressed her with their eyes, about Doctor Weinsberg who was hopelessly in love with her, and about the squeaking of the guinea pigs in the dark, damp shop.
Someone hammered loudly on the door. Friedlander, covering the stain on his trousers with the flaps of his gabardine, went into the other room. He was shaking and stumbling. Lea put her arm around him.
“Don’t be frightened, Father. It must be caretaker Kempsky.”
Isidor Friedlander looked at her uneasily: “Kempsky is an utter brute, but he never hammers on the door like that.”
He was right. It was not the caretaker.
BRESLAU, MONDAY, MAY 15TH, 1933
NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
Eberhard Mock was as angry on Monday morning as he was on Saturday. He cursed his foolishness and weakness for sensuous Jewish women. If he had acted by the book, he would have called someone from the Police Praesidium, brought Friedlander in to Neue Graupnerstrasse on remand and questioned him there. But he had not. He had politely agreed to Lea Friedlander’s request for an hour’s delay and instead of behaving like a proper policeman, had browsed through the newspapers in the Green Pole Inn on Reuschenstrasse 64 for an hour, drank beer and ate the speciality of the house — army bread with spicy, hashed meat. When he had returned an hour later, he had found the door prised open, a terrible mess and no sign of the tenants. The caretaker was nowhere to be seen.
Mock lit what was his twelfth cigarette of the day. He read, yet again, the results of the autopsy and Koblischke’s report. He learned no more than he had witnessed with his own eyes. He cursed his absent- mindedness. He had overlooked the old Criminal Sergeant’s important information: underwear belonging to the Baron’s daughter had been missing from the scene of the crime. Mock sprang to his feet and burst into the detectives’ room. Only Smolorz was there.
“Kurt!” he shouted. “Please check the alibis of all known fetishists.”
The telephone rang: “Good morning,” Piontek’s stentorian voice resounded. “I’d like to repay your hospitality and invite you to lunch at Fischer’s bar. At two. I’ve some new, interesting information on the Marietta von der Malten case.”
“Fine.” Mock replaced the receiver, adding no word of courtesy.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME MAY 15TH, 1933
TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
Fischer’s was crowded — as it usually was at lunchtime. The clientele was chiefly made up of policemen and uniformed Nazis who took pleasure in frequenting their idol Heines’ favourite restaurant. Piontek sat sprawled at a table in the small room. The sun, its rays refracted in the aquarium under the window, caressed his bald skull with reflections of light. Between fingers as chubby as sausages rested a smoking cigarette. He was watching a miniature tuna in the aquarium and making strange noises while moving his lips exactly like the fish. Having a splendid time, he tapped on the aquarium glass.
At the sight of Mock, who had arrived five minutes earlier, he was disconcerted. He pulled himself together, rose and greeted Mock effusively. The Counsellor manifested less joy at the encounter. Piontek opened a silver cigarette case with the engraving: “To a dear Husband and Daddy on his fiftieth birthday from his wife and daughters.” The musical box played, the cigarettes in blue paper gave off a sweet scent. An elderly waiter took their order and removed himself without a sound.
“I shan’t conceal, Counsellor,” Piontek broke the tense silence, “that all of us at the Gestapo were happy that somebody like yourself would like to work with us. Nobody knows more about the more or the less important personalities of this city than Eberhard Mock. No secret archive can be the equal of that which you have in your head.”
“Ah, you overestimate me, Hauptsturmfuhrer …” Mock cut him off. The waiter put down the plates of eel in dill sauce, sprinkled with glazed onions.
“I’m not suggesting you go over to the Gestapo.” Piontek was not put off by Mock’s indifference. “What I know about you makes me think that you would not accept such a proposal.”
