Phantoms of Breslau by Marek Krajewski Read Free Book Online Page B

boxer at his family home inWaldenburg. The dog would lie on its side and little Ebi would snuggle his head into its short fur. In the winter, the dog was happiest lying beneath the stove. Dog-catcher Femersche also lived in Waldenburg. The dogs he disliked most were Alsatians and boxers.
    “I don’t give a damn what your mongrel is called!” Mock roared and pulled out his wallet. “I don’t give a damn about your bastard child!” He took out wads of banknotes and threw them into the girl’s lap. “I’m interested in one thing only: that you get rid of that fungus! There’s enough money for you to live off for a month. The doctor won’t take anything from you, he’s a friend of mine: Doctor Cornelius Rühtgard, Landsbergstrasse 8. You’re to come and see me in a month, when you’re cured! If you don’t, I’ll track you down and destroy you! You don’t believe me? Ask your friends! Do you know who I am?”
    “I do, honourable sir. You paid me a visit when I was working in the Prinz Blücher cabaret, Reuscherstrasse 11/12.”
    “Ah, that’s interesting …” Mock tried to remember the circumstances. “Was I a client of yours? And what? How did I behave? What did I say?”
    “You were …” she hesitated, “after some alcohol …”
    “And what did I say?” Mock felt increasingly tense. Often, after nights of heavy drinking, he would hide his head in the sand like an ostrich. To his companions in these nocturnal escapades he would say: “Don’t remind me of it. Don’t talk about it. Not a word. Not a single word.” But now he wanted to know. May it fall on him like a sentence.
    “You told me, honourable sir … that I look like your beloved … nurse… Except that she was ginger …”
    “One says ‘red-headed’ or ‘flame-haired’. And what else?”
    “That of all dogs, honourable sir, boxers are your favourite …”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1919
FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
    Cabby Warschkow stopped once more at the wharf of the Wollheim shipyard, alongside the Wodan which had been launched that day. The guests were just boarding the ship, where the rest of the festivities were to take place. Blood-like stains of wine remained on the tablecloths alongside yellowy spillages of beer. Chewed duck and goose bones were being swept into a bowl to form a crumpled skeleton, a funeral pyre of poultry. Mashed potatoes and beetroot – which only moments earlier had encircled ducks’ breasts, but now looked more like tubercular spittle – were being scraped off plates with a spoon. The September sun casting its benevolent light on this culinary battlefield revealed nothing, but did add radiance. The last of the revellers, unwilling to part with their bratwurst , were stepping onto the ship which was to sail up the Oder. Just as they were about to raise the gangway, one final passenger appeared: Eberhard Mock. Nobody asked for his invitation, nor was anyone surprised by his somewhat staggering gait.
    Dancing couples occupied the upper deck as the orchestra played a foxtrot that was very much in vogue. Women wearing low-cut dresses, many decorated with strips of fabric slung low across their hips, leaned on the shoulders of their partners, moving swiftly with the dance. Elderly ladies stared through opera glasses; elderly gentlemen smoked, played skat or did both; younger men crowded around the gleaming bar and poured liquids of various colours down their fathomless throats from glasses, some of which – so Mock thought – had the coarse charm of cut prism, others the questionable refinement of a cone. Mock ordered a cognac and, without taking a sip, looked out at the iron spans of Posenerbrücke. Against its backdrop he caught sight of the man he had come to see – the river port director, Julius Wohsedt. Under what Mock was convinced was a fungal arm, he sheltered his wife and the ship’sgodmother, the short and exceptionally corpulent Mrs Eleonore Wohsedt. Her husband was flushed