Phantoms of Breslau

spectres if you like.” Ruhtgard’s chin was still resting on his hands, while the stout railwayman who had urinated from a viaduct onto a high-voltage cable a few days earlier turned in the eddies below.

“Then why did you try to prove to me that ghosts are only subjective?”

“I was playing devil’s advocate, to strengthen your belief … To make you confess to your mistake with utter conviction … So that you’d say: it must have been real ectoplasm after all!”

“Why did you gouge out their eyes and stick needles into their lungs?”

“Are you really so stupid, or are you just pretending?” Ruhtgard’s pupils dilated and contracted like a shutter in a camera. “Strain your drunken brain a little! ‘If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out.’ It’s from St Matthew.^† And listen to St John, that great visionary, who wrote: ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’”^‡

“And the needles in their lungs?”

“I was taking away their breath, taking their spirit!”

Mock thought back to his university lectures in comparative literature and could hear Professor Rossbach’s voice: “Marcus Terentius Varro was right in saying that the Latin animus (spirit) is related to the Greek anemos (wind),” the professor had explained. “A living person breathes and from his lips, ergo, comes wind, but a corpse does not breathe. In a living person there is a spirit; a dead man has no spirit. Hence the simple — we could almost say ‘commonsensical’ — identification of spirit with breath. It is the same in the Slavic languages, where dusza (spirit) is etymologically related to zdech (died), and oddech (breath). It is the same even in the Hebrew language. There, ruach means both spirit and wind, although — and here I must castigate myself — the concept of ‘breath’ is rendered by an entirely different word, namely nefesh. So you see, gentlemen, the study of etymology is one way of learning about spiritual culture, a culture, let us add, that is common to both Indo-Germans and Semites.” Professor Rossbach’s voice fell silent in Mock’s head. In its place he heard his own father’s nagging: “Chamomile and hot milk”.

“Where’s my father?” Mock said, then nodded to Smolorz who allowed the cadaver of a thin man covered in contusions through the sluice. The two bodies danced in the stream of water and formaldehyde. Mock swung the hosepipe. The rubber slapped against Ruhtgard’s body. The doctor fell into the pool again. The surface of the water was now half a metre below the pool’s edge.

“Remember, Mock?” — Ruhtgard resurfaced by the sluice gate and tried to shout above the roar of the water — “You always dreamed about the corpses of those who died because of you. Those were your Erinyes. Don’t fall asleep now, or the Erinyes of your father and my daughter will fly to you. Now you’ll never fall asleep. As long as you stay awake, they’ll still be alive. Beware of sleep, Mock, choose benevolent insomnia …” Once more he scrambled over the edge of the pool and hoisted himself up on outstretched arms. “Blessed are the meek!” he yelled. “I’m not going to tell you where your father is. I may die, but my brothers are here in Breslau. When your denial has been printed, they’ll set the prisoners free. Remember — don’t sleep. Your sleep is their death. Now look what I learned at the seance …”

Ruhtgard slipped his tongue between his teeth and pulled his hands away from the pool’s edge. His legs, arms and torso slid into the churning water as his chin hit the tiles. Ruhtgard’s severed tongue danced like a living creature at Mock’s feet as the doctor choked.

The following day, Doctor Lasarius stated that it was impossible to diagnose unequivocally whether Ruhtgard had choked on his own blood, or on a mixture of water and formaldehyde.

BRESLAU, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2ND, 1919

TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Heymann’s Coffee House was open for business. Among its regular customers — chiefly employees of the German Fisheries Company who had nipped out for a coffee and strudel with whipped cream before it became too busy — sat two men raising steaming cups to their lips. One of them smoked one cigarette after another, while the other, his teeth clenched around the ivory mouthpiece of a pipe, expelled small columns of smoke from the corners of his lips. The dark-haired man took a few folded sheets of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed them to the bearded man, who puffed out squat mushrooms of smoke as he read. His companion brought a small phial to his nose. The pungent odour of urine drifted over the table. Several customers screwed up their noses in obvious disgust. The older man was red with agitation and high blood pressure.

“Now I know where this absurd declaration to the press comes from, Mock. I also know” — Muhlhaus gripped Mock’s face — “much more than that. Yes, much, much more … You don’t have to publish it any more…”

From his briefcase Muhlhaus pulled two pieces of paper headed “Post-mortem Report” and handed them to Mock. Mock tried to focus on Lasarius’ wobbly writing. “‘Male, aged about seventy-five; height: one metre sixty centimetres; weight: sixty-two kilograms. Clear fracture in two places of lower left limb. Female, aged about twenty, height: one metre fifty-nine centimetres; weight: fifty-eight kilograms. Both found in the cellar at Paulinenstrasse 18. Cause of death: dehydration.’”

Mock shook his head and rested his elbows on the table. He was staring at the headings on both pieces of paper where Lasarius had written in a spidery hand “Alfred Salomon and Catarina Beyer.”

“It’s not them,” whispered Mock. “They’re the wrong names …”

Muhlhaus put his arm around Mock’s neck and rested his head on his shoulder.

“Sleep, Mock,” he said. “And don’t have any dreams, no more dreams …”