same time!), lacks even the slightest nod towards spiritualism. There are no instructions whatsoever: How is one to set about it? How is one to abstract a man’s soul from him? This past night, I followed Gregorius Blockhus’ instructions and tried to perceive the souls leaving these four bodies at the moment of their deaths. I proceeded according to Blockhus’ writings. I opened up the energy channels in their bodies, did away with the blockages in their joints and arranged them just as he advised. By puncturing them at precise points, I took away their breath. According to Blockhus one cannot help but perceive such concentrated energy. I did not sense this energy. I failed. I do not know whether I understood Augsteiner’s difficult Latin correctly, or Blockhus’ instructions, which smack of superstition. Tomorrow I shall get down to Augsteiner’s work again. Maybe there will be other passages with instructions on how to proceed. Maybe Augsteiner will finally drop his haughty philosopher’s mask and assume the attitude of a classical spiritualist?
BRESLAU, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2ND, 1919
SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
The small yard at Plesserstrasse 24, in the Breslau suburb of Tschansch, was full of the the usual morning bustle. Pastor Gerds’ maid was hanging bedlinen over the balustrade, while the concierge, Mrs Bauert, scrubbed away at the wooden stairs that lead to the locksmith’s workshop at the back of the small building. Konrad Dosche, the retired postman, emerged from the lavatory, and a small ginger mongrel leaped at his feet with unrestrained joy. Streams of sunlight cut through the yard, and as the pump squeaked and tiny particles of dust soared above the linen recently thrashed by the strong hands of the pastor’s maid, an elderly man walked out into the yard. The skin on his face and hands was deeply furrowed, his eyes were bloodshot, and his breathing wheezy. He sat down heavily on a bench and whistled to the ginger dog, which raced up and began to fawn at his feet, all the while glancing at its master. Dosche approached the elderly man and shook his hand.
“And a very good day to you, Mr Mock.” Dosche’s face radiated delight. “How did you sleep?”
“Badly,” Willibald Mock said shortly. “Something stopped me getting to sleep …”
“A bad conscience, no doubt,” Dosche laughed, “gnawing away at you after yesterday’s game of chess …”
“What do I have to do” — Willibald Mock rubbed his eyes edged with crusts of pus — “to make you believe that I didn’t move that bishop when you were in the toilet?”
“Alright, alright,” Dosche reassured his friend, still smiling. “And how is your son? Had enough sleep yet? Got up, has he?”
“He’s just coming.” Relief registered on the old man’s face.
Eberhard Mock marched briskly across the yard. He walked up to his father and kissed him on the cheek. The old man did not detect a strong smell of alcohol and drew a long breath. Eberhard shook Dosche’s hand and an uncomfortable silence descended.
“I’m just on my way to the pharmacy,” Dosche said, to break it. “My dog’s got diarrhoea. Terrible diarrhoea. Can I get you anything?”
“If you’d be so kind, Mr Dosche,” replied the old man, “as to buy us a loaf of bread from Malguth’s on your way. It has to be from Malguth’s”.
“I know, I know, Mr Mock,” Dosche nodded and told his dog: “You stay here, Rot. Mr Mock will look after you. You can crap in the yard but not under the bench!”
Dosche set off in the direction of Rybnikerstrasse. The old man played with Rot. Murmuring, he tickled him lightly on the neck while the dog growled and squirmed, catching the old man’s hand gently in its teeth. Eberhard sat down next to his father and lit his first cigarette of the day. He smiled at the events of the night. He realized he had not got around to asking the girl about any clients in leather underpants. “Never mind,” he thought, “yesterday I was there outside working hours. As of today, the actual investigation starts. I’ll ask her today.”
“It’s so early and you’re already awake, Father.” He blew smoke straight at the sun.
“Old people get up early. They don’t wander around in the night and they sleep in their own beds.”
“I didn’t drink that much yesterday. I’m conducting a very difficult case over the next few weeks. I’ve been seconded to the Murder Commission, and I’m no longer booking whores. You ought to be pleased, Father.”
“You’re always knocking it back and mixing with whores.” The old man’s stale morning breath engulfed Mock like a cloud. “You ought to get married. A man ought to have a son to hand him a tankard of beer when he comes home from work.”
Mock placed an arm on his father’s bony shoulder and rested his head against the wall. He imagined this idyllic scene: his future son, Herbert Mock, handing him a tankard of beer and with a smile turning to his mother at the kitchen stove. The woman nods approvingly, praises Herbert: “You’re a good boy, you’ve given your papa some beer”, and stirs the large pot on the hob. She is tall and handsome, her generous breasts pressing tight against her clean apron, her skirt touching the pale, scrubbed floorboards. Mock strokes little Herbert’s hair, then walks up to his wife and holds her by the waist. Red hair frames her delicate face, the apron is a nurse’s apron, an appetizing smell emanates from the pot where syringes are being boiled. Mock lifts the lid and sees a decoction of bones. “Bones for shoe glue,” he hears his father say. Large globules float to the surface — human eyes.
Mock felt his lips burning, then shook his head and spat out the cigarette butt. A trickle of sweat flowed down from beneath his bowler hat. He looked about him. He was still sitting on the bench by the wall. His father was just disappearing through the gate. Mock got to his feet, picked up the cigarette butt — much to the concierge’s satisfaction — and hurried after his father. Willibald Mock had wanted to get home, but feeling tired he had sat down on a bench by the butcher’s shop. He was breathing heavily. Rot lay down beside him and hung his pink tongue out. Mock hurried over to his father, touched him on the hand and said:
“Let’s move out. I’m plagued by nightmares here. Right from the start, ever since we inherited this apartment after Uncle Eduard’s death, I’ve been plagued by phantoms in my dreams, right from the very first night in this foul butcher’s shop … That’s why I drink, do you understand? When I’m dead drunk, I don’t dream …”
“Every drunkard has some sort of excuse …”
“This isn’t some twisted explanation. I didn’t sleep at home last night and I didn’t have any bad dreams, not one. And now, I only just got here, I nodded off for a moment and had another bad dream …
“Chamomile and hot milk. That does the trick,” his father muttered. He began to breathe more easily and returned to his favourite pastime other than chess, that of amicably teasing Rot.
“I’ll buy a dog,” said Mock quietly. “We’ll move to the centre and you’ll be able to take the dog for a walk in the park.”
“And what else!” The old man caught the dog by its front paws and listened with pleasure to his growl. “He’d have diarrhoea like Rot. He’d be bound to soil the house … Anyway, stop talking nonsense. Get yourself to work. Be on time. Somebody’s always having to come to get you, always having to remind you it’s time for work … Look, here they are again.”
Mock turned to see Smolorz climbing out of a droschka. He did not expect to hear good news, and his intuition did not fail him.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 2ND, 1919
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
No noise from the street reached the mortuary on Auenstrasse; the rays of the strong September sun did not penetrate; the smoke and smell of the bonfires burning on the nearby banks of the Oder near Passbrucke did not float in on the air. In Doctor Lasarius’ kingdom reigned a silence that was broken only by the grating of trolleys bringing in more bodies. There was an odour hanging in the air like that of overboiled carrots, but nobody was cooking vegetables here. All that could bring a kitchen to mind was the sharpening of knives.
And so it was now. Doctor Lasarius’ assistant sharpened a knife, approached the corpse lying on the stone table and made an incision from the collar bone down to the pubic hair. The grey skin fell aside to reveal a layer of orange fat. Muhlhaus snorted violently; Smolorz rushed out of the mortuary, and when outside the building opened his mouth wide to take in as much air as he could. Mock stood on the viewing platform intended for medical students and fixed his eyes on the open body, absorbing the information the pathologist was passing on to his assistant.
“Male, aged about sixty-five.” Mock saw the assistant note the information beneath the name “Hermann
