Suddenly, he heard the curtain flutter in the window through which he had climbed. A draught. (There must be another window open in this apartment.)
In the door, stood a huge, dark man. He took a rapid swipe. Anwaldt jumped aside, treading on the silk petticoat lying on the floor. His right leg slid back; the entire weight of his body rested on his swollen left foot; it was more than he could take. The left leg gave way under him; Anwaldt bent forward in front of the Turk. The latter clasped his hands and gave a blow from below — to the chin. The policeman collapsed backwards into the enormous bathtub. Before he realized what had happened, he saw the assailant’s face over him and an enormous fist armed with a knuckleduster. The punch in his solar plexus took his breath away. A cough, wheezing, a blurred image, wheezing, wheezing, night, wheezing, night, night.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 10TH, 1934
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
The icy water restored Anwaldt’s consciousness. He was sitting, quite naked, in a windowless cell, tied to a chair. Two men in black, unbuttoned S.S. uniforms were observing him. The shorter of the two twisted his long, intelligent face in a grimace reminiscent of a smile. He reminded Anwaldt of his secondary school maths teacher who used to pull similar faces when one of his pupils could not solve a problem. (I warn you against these people — they are ruthless and capable of forcing anyone into giving up an investigation. If, God forbid, you ever find yourself at the Gestapo, please stubbornly state that you are an agent of the Abwehr uncovering the Polish Intelligence network in Breslau.)
The man from the Gestapo walked around the cell, where the stench of sweat was almost palpable.
“Bad, Anwaldt, isn’t it?” he clearly expected an answer.
“Yes …” the tortured man gasped. His tongue caught the jagged remains of his front tooth.
“Everybody’s bad in this city.” He circled the chair. “Yeees, Anwaldt. So what are you doing here … in this Babylon? What brought you here?”
The man in uniform lit a cigarette and put the flaming match to the prisoner’s crown. Anwaldt flung himself about; the stink of burning hair was suffocating. The second torturer, a sweaty, fat man, threw a wet rag over his head, extinguishing the fire. The relief was short-lived. That same Gestapo man squeezed the prisoner’s nose with one hand while, with the other, he shoved the rag into his mouth.
“What’s your assignment in Breslau, Berliner?” the muffled voice repeated. “Enough, Konrad.”
Freed of the stinking gag, Anwaldt fell into a long fit of coughing. The slim Gestapo man waited patiently for an answer. Not getting one, he looked at his helper.
“Herr Anwaldt doesn’t want to answer, Konrad. He evidently feels safe. He thinks he’s protected. But who’s protecting him?” he spread his hands. “Criminal Director Eberhard Mock, perhaps? But Mock isn’t here. Do you see Mock anywhere, Konrad?”
“No, I don’t, Herr Standartenfuhrer.”
The slim man bowed his head and uttered in a pleading voice:
“I know, I know, Konrad. Your methods are foolproof. No secret remains, no name blotted from memory, when you question your patients. Allow me to cure this patient. May I?”
“Of course, Herr Standartenfuhrer.”
The smiling Konrad left the cell. The Standartenfuhrer opened an old, tattered briefcase and took out a litre bottle and a half-litre jar. He poured the contents of the bottle — some kind of suspension — over Anwaldt’s head. The prisoner tasted something sweet on his tongue.
“It’s water with honey, you know, Anwaldt,” the torturer reached for the jar. “And this? You know what this is? Alright, alright … I’ll satisfy your curiosity.” He shook the jar several times. A low buzzing of insects emanated from it. Anwaldt looked: two hornets were furiously jumping on each other and thrashing against the sides of the jar.
“Oh dear, what awful monsters …” the man from Gestapo lamented. Suddenly, he took a swing and smashed the jar against the wall. Before the disorientated hornets had found their wings in the small cell, the prisoner was alone.
Anwaldt had never imagined that these enormous insects gave off the same sound with their wings as small birds. The hornets first threw themselves at the wire-encased light bulb but, after a moment, changed direction. They made strange convulsive movements in the fusty air and with every shudder fell lower. Soon, they found themselves in the vicinity of Anwaldt’s head where they were drawn by the smell of honey. The prisoner tried to use his imagination to escape the cell. He succeeded. (He was walking along a beach washed by gentle waves, rippled by a fresh breeze. His feet sank into the warm sand. Suddenly, a wind arose, the sand grew white-hot, the waves — instead of licking the beach — roared and lashed out at Anwaldt in raging froth.)
His imagination refused to obey. He felt a slight current of air near his lips which were stuck together by the honey and water. He opened his eyes and saw a hornet which clearly had its eye on his lips. He blew at it with all his strength. The hornet, propelled by the rush of air, settled on the cell wall. Meanwhile, the second insect had started to circle his head. Anwaldt moved abruptly with his chair and flung his head from side to side. The hornet sat on one of his collar bones and dug its sting into his skin. The prisoner pressed it down with his chin and felt a searing pain. A blue, pulsating swelling merged the jaw with the collar bone. The squashed insect contorted its black and yellow body on the floor. The other hornet broke away from the wall and made to attack — stubbornly towards the lips. Anwaldt tilted his head and the insect, instead of landing on the lips, found itself on the edge of an eye socket. The pain and swelling spilt over the entire eye. Anwaldt jerked his head and, together with the chair, tumbled on to the concrete. Darkness flooded the left eye. Then the right.
A bucket of ice-cold water restored his consciousness. The Standartenfuhrer dismissed the helper with his hand. He grabbed the chair by the backrest and, without the least difficulty, returned Anwaldt to a vertical position.
“You’ve got fighting spirit,” he looked at the prisoner’s swollen face with concern. “Two hornets attacked you and you killed them both.”
The policeman’s skin was painfully taut over the hard spheres of swelling. The hornets were still twitching on the rough floor.
“Tell me, Anwaldt, is that enough? Or do you want me to ask those aggressive creatures for help again? Do you know, I’m even more frightened of them than you are. Tell me, Anwaldt, is that enough?”
The prisoner affirmed with a nod. The fat torturer entered the cell and placed a chair in front of the officer. The latter sat astride it, rested his elbows on its back and looked amicably at his victim.
“Who are you working for?”
“The Abwehr.”
“Your mission?”
“To uncover the Polish spy network.”
“Why did they bring you in all the way from Berlin? Isn’t there anybody good enough in Breslau?”
“I don’t know. I received orders.”
Anwaldt heard a stranger’s voice coming from his own vocal cords. Every word was accompanied by pain in his throat and facial muscles stiff between the lumps made by the stings on his eye and jaw.
“Untie me, please,” he whispered.
The Standartenfuhrer observed him without a word. A warmer emotion flickered in his intelligent eye.
“Uncovering Polish Intelligence. And what have Baron von Kopperlingk and Baron von der Malten to do with it?”
“The man I was following was present at Baron von Kopperlingk’s ball. But von der Malten has got nothing to do with the matter.”
“What’s the man’s name?”
Anwaldt was taken in by the torturer’s friendly expression. He filled his lungs with air and whispered:
“I can’t tell you …”
The man in uniform laughed silently for a while then began a strange monologue. He asked questions in a deep voice then answered himself in a trembling falsetto: