The End of the World in Breslau by Marek Krajewski

from the viaduct, among them the Adler. Feverishly, Smolorz began to calculate how he might be able to gain ground on the Mercedes. He counted on the Baron turning right into Sonnenplatz, and decided to drive past Busch Circus to catch up with it somewhere near the Concert Hall on Gartenstrasse. This proved unnecessary, however: the Mercedes stopped at the corner of Gräbschenerstrasse and Zietenstrasse.
The policeman gave the go-ahead. Smolorz moved forward slowly. The Baron got back into his car, slipping a box of cigars into his coat pocket.Smolorz braked and found himself right behind the spare wheel in its sand-coloured cover. At Sonnenplatz, he allowed an old Daimler to squeeze in between himself and the Mercedes. The latter accelerated sharply on Neue-Graupner-Strasse, turned right and drove alongside the Old Town moat. Smolorz divided his attention between the Mercedes and the massive building site of the Police Praesidium under construction on Schweidnitzer Stadtgraben. Just before Wertheim’s department store, Baron von Hagenstahl turned left, and then right at the church of Corpus Christi. Passing the merchants’ club, he stopped outside the baths on Zwingerstrasse. Smolorz braked suddenly and pulled into a driveway. He slammed the car door, ran a hundred metres and, panting heavily, hid behind the hedge of a playground. Through the bare branches he observed the entrance to the large building housing the baths, into which Baron von Hagenstahl had disappeared with Sophie Mock and Elisabeth Pflüger a moment earlier. Smolorz entered the vestibule and looked around. It was empty. The uniformed ticket collector was vigilant and briskly approached him, saying:
“Pool number one has been hired out privately. Until twelve. Pool number two will soon be occupied by pupils from the Realgymnasium. Perhaps you would like a steam bath?”
Smolorz turned and left. It was cold. The paving stones on Zwingerstrasse were damp. A column of schoolboys, walking in pairs, was approaching from the direction of Liebichshöhe, with an upright man who looked like a sports teacher at its rear. The schoolboys marched up to the entrance and went in, disrupting their fine formation. Smolorz approached the teacher and showed him his Breslau Police Praesidium identification card.
“I’m coming in with you,” he said. The teacher showed no surprise.
A few minutes later Smolorz was being crushed in the men’s changing-room belonging to pool number two. Leaving his coat, hat andumbrella, he climbed the stairs, looking out for the ticket collector who was just explaining to a fellow with the neck of an ox where he would find the changing-room for the steam baths. Smolorz hurried along a gallery decorated with little columns and arrived at the double door leading to pool number one. It was locked. He took out a picklock and put it to use. Soon he found himself in the public gallery. Leaning over a little, he surveyed the pool but could not distinguish Sophie Mock or Elisabeth Pflüger among the naked nymphs frolicking in the water. He climbed a few steps and looked around. The gallery ran the length of the pool. On his right-hand side stretched a row of doors leading to changing-rooms, on his left a barrier to prevent people from falling into the water. At the end of the gallery was an exercise studio from which drifted the sound of a piano and a violin. Smolorz was drawn to this room in particular because he had caught a glimpse through the doorway of the naked bodies of the two artistes. To get to the exercise studio without being noticed would require a miracle; if he made his way along the gallery, he would be in full view of those rehearsing in the studio and the swimmers in the pool. He decided to hide in the public gallery and wait for his chief’s wife to appear.
Unfortunately this, too, proved impossible. His way back was blocked by a bald, moustachioed giant, whose hand almost entirely concealed the barrel of a pre-war Luger. Smolorz