Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski

Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud. He was reading the paragraph about slips of the tongue and slowly falling into much-desired sleep when it came to him that he had called Anwaldt “my son” that day. It was a slip of the tongue which, in Mock’s speech, was highly unusual. He considered himself to be a very reserved man and, under Freud’s influence, he believed it was precisely slips of the tongue which disclosed our hidden needs and desires. His greatest dream was to father a son. He had divorced his first wife after four years of marriage when she had betrayed him with a servant because she could no longertolerate his increasingly brutal accusations of barrenness. Later, he had had many lovers. If one of them had only become pregnant, he would have married her without any hesitation whatsoever. Unfortunately, the succession of lovers all left the gloomy neurotic, found someone else and created more or less happy herds. They all had children. Mock, then forty, still did not believe in his infertility and continued to search for a mother for his son. Finally he found a former medical student whose family had disowned her because of her illegitimate child. The girl was expelled from university and became the mistress of a certain rich fence. Mock was questioning her regarding a case in which the fence was involved. A few days later, Inga Martens moved into an apartment on Zwingerstrasse which Mock had rented for her, and the fence – after the policeman had caught him in a “vice” – very willingly moved to Liegnitz and forgot about his lover. Mock was happy. He would come to Inga every morning for breakfast after intensive sessions at the swimming pool next door to her house. After three months, his happiness reached it zenith: Inga was pregnant. Mock made the decision to marry a second time; he had come to believe the old Latin saying – “ amor omnia vincit ”. After a few months, Inga moved out of Zwingerstrasse and gave birth to the second child of her lecturer, Doctor Karl Meissner who, in the meantime, had got a divorce and married her. Mock, for his part, had lost his faith in love. He stopped living an illusion and married a rich, childless Danish woman, his second and last wife.
    The Director’s reminiscences were interrupted by the phone ringing. He was glad to hear Anwaldt’s voice.
    “I’m taking advantage of your kind permission and calling. I have a problem with Weinsberg. He’s called Winkler now and is pretending not to know anything about Friedländer. He did not want to talk and almost set his dogs on me. Do you have ‘something’ on him?”
    Mock considered for a full minute.
    “I think so, but I can’t talk about it over the phone. Please come here in an hour. Rehdigerplatz 1, apartment 6.”
    He replaced the receiver and dialled Forstner’s number. He asked him two questions and listened to the exhaustive replies. A moment later, the telephone began to ring again. Erich Kraus’ voice combined within itself two contrary intonations: the Chief of the Gestapo was at once asking and ordering.
    “Mock, who is this Anwaldt, and what’s he doing here?”
    Eberhard could not abide this arrogant tone. Walter Piontek had always humbly asked for information even though he knew that Mock could not refuse him, whereas Kraus brutally demanded it. Although he had worked in Breslau for only a week, the latter was already sincerely loathed by many for this lack of tact. “A parvenu from Frankenstein and a fanatic,” – whispered Breslau’s aristocrats, both those of blood and those of spirit.
    “Well, have you fallen asleep over there?”
    “Anwaldt is an Abwehr agent,” Mock had been prepared for questions about his new assistant. He knew that giving the true answer would be very dangerous for the Berliner. This reply also protected Anwaldt since the Head of Breslau’s Abwehr, the Silesian aristocrat, Rainer von Hardenburg, detested Kraus. “He’s uncovering Polish