Marek Krajewski's novels
THE BRESLAU PENTALOGY
DEATH IN BRESLAU
Wrocław, in other words Breslau, the 1930s. A city inhabited by various levels of society. Within this kaleidoscope there is also room for the aristocracy – who are rich, which may be everything. A certain baron has a daughter, and she is killed. The brutalised lady is Marietta von der Malten, who has been raped; her belly has been slit open, and some arachnids have been put inside it, to be precise scorpions. The alleged guilty party has Semitic features and from time to time he cringes. The Nazi propaganda rubs its hands together. The alleged truth may however prove false. To help solve the riddle of the murder, criminal investigator Eberhard Mock is brought in, newly appointed Kriminaldirektor. The case gets more complicated when it turns out that someone unlikely to be is in fact distantly related to the Baron, and that he has been using his aristocratic advantages for certain bedroom activities. A second murder is committed, above which a certain hybrid spirit hovers, whispering: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. An enigmatic tangle? Very much so, but this is just the beginning. At the beginning, which should be carefully kept in mind, a death occurred. Death in Breslau.
END OF THE WORLD IN BRESLAU
At a cobbler’s workshop in the back rooms of a city-centre tenement called “The Gryphons” there is a horrible smell, the focal point of which is near the wall. Once upon a time, so the story goes, plasterers who were not satisfied with their pay used to brick up a hen’s egg inside a wall, to get their own back on the ignoble owner of the place for his ungenerous pocket. Hence the suspicion that this is the source of the rotten smell pervading the location in question. However, there turns out to be a corpse planted in the wall. The peculiar origin of the stench puts criminal investigator Eberhard Mock to the test. He has to find the planter. Serving as a clue, there is a page torn from a calendar pinned to the body.
But things aren’t going well in Mock’s life. He walks at his usual unsteady pace, whether coming out of the Savoy or the Bishop’s Cellar – he tanks up wherever possible. Nor are things too good in his love life – his marriage to the far younger, 24-year-old Sophie isn’t working. Mock abuses his masculine strength and overrates the forbearance of his partner in life who, unsatisfied in several senses of the word, with every passing minute drifts further off into the depths of an ecstatic, morphine-induced abyss. The sensitivity resulting from actually having a heart concealed in the left side of his rib cage almost carries the thick-skinned policeman into the embrace of Charon.
But back to the point: the trail of the murderer leads to a Satanic sect and its leader, a white-bearded guru called Alexei von Orloff, who prophesies the imminent end of the world in Breslau and in general. However, some more murders introduce a lot of confusion and force Mock to look into the city’s remote past, as present-day occurrences turn out to overlap in date and place with events from centuries ago.
The end of the world, like the end of Mock too, are closer than ever before or after.
PHANTOMS OF BRESLAU
We go even further back in time, to 1919. With the start of the new school year a group of pupils who haven’t gone to their lessons but are wandering the flood plains of the River Oder, discover the mutilated corpses of four young men – with broken limbs and gouged-out eyes – decked in sailor’s caps and small leather bags in places where the sun does not usually penetrate. This awful package has been carefully placed in a peculiar pose, and there is a note attached, with a quote from the Bible, addressed to Eberhard Mock. Its content suggests that this is the punishment awaiting the policeman for his sins, under the auspices of the mythological goddesses of vengeance – the Erinyes.
The case is further complicated by the fact that Mock, then still a crime assistant, is himself an extra danger to the environment, as the motives driving the criminal turn out to have a personal foundation. And so everyone allied with the young, 36-year-old policeman is at risk of sharing the fate of the young men from “the case of the four sailors”.
Pursued by ghosts from the past, Eberhard Mock, who to make matters worse does not really know what this is all about, or to what, according to his adversary’s instructions, he is supposed to admit, has not only to confront a psychopath playing games with him for mysterious reasons, but also cope with advancing alcoholism, the gluttony that comes with it, and a tricky, increasingly complicated relationship with his father, with whom he shares a hovel in one of the Breslau tenements. As well as the Chandleresque theme of a murdering avenger on the banks of the River Oder, the non-stop orgies held on land and water in the post-First-World-War capital of Lower Silesia undoubtedly add value to the book.
FORTRESS BRESLAU
It is 1945, the war is ending, the siege of Breslau – transformed into the fortress of the title – by Soviet troops is on, and the apocalypse is in full swing. Aged 62 by now, Mock only appears in public in a mask covering his burned face; he is a little more subdued, does not abuse himself as much as before, and seems to have grown more serious with age. He also has the opportunity to leave, to escape from the city, and his second wife Karen is urging him to do so. But his conscience will not let him abandon an unsolved case involving the murder of a young woman. The crime has to be punished, and justice must be delivered in this case too. This is to be his last task as a police officer.
Full of exploding bombs, Breslau is gloomier than ever. Quite literally peering into its own depths, in the face of catastrophe it is an even more miserable place. Because of the ongoing military action, the streets are strewn with dead bodies, so it is even bloodier too. It is a depressing scene with no illusions, which have disappeared along with the last German patrols. Chaos is rife, leading to muggings and rapes, substance abuse is happening to an even more radical extent than ever before, as are self-abuse and the abuse of others, because beyond this point nothing will be left...
PLAGUE IN BRESLAU
A jump back in time takes us to the 1920s, and thus returns us to Breslau between the wars. To a city that, unusually, is having a heat wave, as in the very first novel. Mock is sweating, and with good reason, because someone has concocted an elaborate plan and is trying to frame him for the murder of two prostitutes whom “no one knows as well as he does”, and who have been strangled with his trouser belt, which is covered in his fingerprints to boot. As if that weren’t bad enough, the victims’ teeth have been ripped out with pliers, and left on the velvet bedding along with a very much alive disabled person who is covered in the filth of their extracted entrails... In Plague we are dealing with a familiar theme that quite often features in this genre – a secret society, called “The Misanthropes”, which one can only join after meeting a certain basic condition: after committing a crime with the sanction of the law, and then having evaded justice.
Again, as if that weren’t bad enough, Mock ends up in prison, where he has to pit himself against a new challenge – being harassed by professional thugs who, worse yet, are in the pay of the least likely person, someone who has been engaged in something completely different until now.
The mystery of the Misanthropes is one of the final episodes involving Mock; in this book our hero draws on his experiences from the four earlier titles, producing a perfect whole, as refined as the cherry on the cake – and how could it be otherwise?
The adventures of Eberhard Mock can be read in the following languages:
English:
Death in Breslau (Śmierć w Breslau), trans. Danuta Stok, MacLehose Press/Quercus 2008
Czech:
Smrt v Breslau (Śmierć w Breslau), trans. Michał Przybylski, MOBA, 2008
Danish:
Døden i Breslau (Śmierć w Breslau), trans. Hanne Lone Tønnesen, Kopenhaga: Tiderne Skifter, 2009
French:
Les fantômes de Breslau (Widma w mieście Breslau), trans. Margot Carlier, Paris: Éditions Gallimard 2008
La peste à Breslau (Dżuma w mieście Breslau), trans. Margot Carlier, Maryla Laurent, Gallimard, 2009
Spanish:
Fin del mundo en Breslau (Koniec świata w mieście Breslau), trans. Fernando Otero Macías, Madrid: Alamut, 2008
Muerte en Breslau (Śmierć w Breslau w Hiszpanii), trans. Fernando Otero Macías, Madrid: Alamut, 2008
Dutch:
Spoken in Breslau (Widma w mieście Breslau), trans. Karol Lesman, Amsterdam: Van Gennep 2007
Kalendermoorden in Breslau (Koniec świata w Breslau), trans. Rita Depestel, Greet Pauwelijn, Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 2008
De kalender-moordenaar (Koniec świata w Breslau), trans. Rita Depestel, Greet Pauwelijn, Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 2009
Lithuanian:
Pasaulio pabaigo Breslau (Koniec świata w Breslau), trans. Vidas, Alma Litera 2006
German:
Tod in Breslau (Śmierć w Breslau), trans. Doreen Daume, btb Verlag, 2002
Der Kalenderblattmörder (Koniec świata w Breslau), trans. Paulina Schulz, DTV 2006
Gespenster in Breslau (Widma w mieście Breslau), trans. Paulina Schulz, DTV 2007
Festung Breslau (Festung Breslau), trans. Paulina Schulz, DTV 2008
Pest in Breslau (Dżuma w Breslau), trans. Paulina Schulz, DTV 2009
Russian:
Призраки Бреслау (Widma w mieście Breslau), trans. Sergei Sokolov, Phantom Press 2007
Slovak:
Smrť v Breslau (Śmierć w Breslau), trans. Tomáš Horváth, SLOVART, 2007
Koniec sweta v Breslau (Koniec świata w mieście Breslau), trans. Tomáš Horváth, SLOVART, 2008
Swedish:
Vålnader i Breslau (Widma w mieście Breslau), trans. Lisa Mendoza Åsberg, Stockholm: Weyler, 2009
Ukrainian:
Кінець світу в Бреслау (Koniec świata w Breslau), trans. Bożena Antoniak, Kiev, Fakt, 2007
Смерть у Бреслау (Śmierć w Breslau), trans. Bożena Antoniak, Kiev, Nora-Druk, 2009
Голова Мінотавра (Głowa Minotaura), trans. Bożena Antoniak, Lviv: Piramida, 2009
Italian:
Morte a Breslavia (Śmierć w Breslau), trans. Valentina Parisi, Einaudi 2007
La fine del mondo a Breslavia (Koniec świata w Breslau), trans. Valentina Parisi, Einaudi 2008
There will be further translations.
THE ERINYES
I
LWÓW
About the Erinyes
Having made occasional appearances before now, in Marek Krajewski’s latest book the vengeful goddesses who personify anger, revenge and hatred, act as patrons for the doings of Lwów’s guardian of justice, Commissioner Edward Popielski.
EDWARD POPIELSKI
Edward Popielski – also known as Eduardo, is a policeman for special assignments based in Lwów. Born on 4 October 1886, he is almost exactly the same age as his Breslau counterpart Mock, who later becomes a friend, despite a tricky start. Popielski makes his first appearance in connection with the brutal murders of some virgins who have been raped, strangled and mutilated by having one cheek bitten off (though no one knows in what order) by the Minotaur – a case that has broad repercussions along the road from Breslau to Kattowitz to Lemberg (as Lwów was then called). Popielski is an elegant dresser – before tying his cravat he wonders if its spotted pattern goes well with the rest of his attire, his shiny waxed collar and his beige suit with light-blue pinstripes. He rubs cream into his freshly shaven cheeks, and sprinkles his bald patch with cologne scented with musk and resin, which has associations for him from long ago. Sometimes his scent betrays him. His breath on the other hand usually resembles a different bouquet: it smells of tobacco and alcohol. He lives with his spinster cousin Leokadia, and he has a daughter called Rita, who is entering adulthood. He soon becomes a grandfather too, to little Jerzyk. He sends the child’s father, his son-in-law, into the depths of the Poltva River, the right place for him. He becomes an avenger. He is also an epileptic, which proves to have significance for the initiation, development and tension of the actions in which he takes part, as does the reader along with him. He spreads terror in the Lwów drinking dens and stirs if not respect, then at least fear among the local crooks and low-lifes. In his habits, customs and ways of behaving he is not so different from Mock. He quite often suffers and goes astray, then recovers, only to fall to the very bottom again. Still at the height of his physical powers, he makes not entirely aimless journeys to Krakow – where he stays at the Hotel Polonia by the station – occupying a seat in some rather exciting saloon cars on the way.
Like anyone else, he dies, in 1973 in Wrocław, where his grave is located.
From Breslau to Lemberg by saloon car
Why Lwów?, Marek Krajewski was asked when The Minotaur’s Head came out, the first of his novels to take a determined step beyond the boundaries of Breslau. And the answer is because the city is close to his heart. His mother was from the eastern borderlands, his grandfather worked in Lwów as a waiter, and he has childhood memories of his uncle telling incredible stories featuring that city as their central character. A trip to the book fair in 2007, further visits at the invitation of senior people and new stories heard this time from erudite natives of Lwów, all convinced the writer that Lwów (sometimes featuring under its Austrian name of Lemberg) was the right choice. The city’s complex, tempestuous and fascinating history – similar to that of Wrocław/Breslau – and the fact that it managed to escape destruction during the war, allow for a reconstruction of the topography, places, folklore, local colour, and even language. Krajewski makes good use of the dialect typical of the city.
In the inter-war, still Polish city of Lwów there are plenty of facilities of all kinds – the ladies are not necessarily ladies, knowing and using the local dialect come in handy, and if you need to relax in slightly more intimate surroundings, in a trice you can always be off to friendly Krakow by saloon car. Better not fall foul of the local low-lifes, especially one that bears the name of Popielski.
The Erinyes invite you to Lwów
The linchpin of Marek Krajewski’s new novel is a meeting that although specious, is also relevant to the plot, between a well preserved old lady and a very elderly gent who “stinks like a corpse” – as he himself puts it – on the Breslau Marketplace. This scene takes place in modern times, on a warm summer morning in 2008. The gentleman tells the lady a story in which he features as the hero.
And so we shift to Lwów on the eve of the Second World War. “Dawn was breaking over the Old Marketplace in Lwów. A pink glow was forcing its way between the shabby huts where old women had started to set out their pots of beetroot soup and pierogi, settling on the jars of milk that a Jewish tradesman was lugging on a two-wheel cart from Esther Fisch’s dairy, and bouncing off the peaks of the caps worn by the low-lifes standing in gateways, unable to decide whether to go and sleep or wait for the pub on the corner to open, where they could quench their burning post-alcohol thirst with a pint of beer.” That is how it starts. Then what? At once we get a sense of déjà vu, as the events described seem somehow familiar.
In fact, it is exactly the same day, the very same courtyard, the same grisly sight, and the same hideous murder we witnessed in the previous book, The Minotaur’s Head. The broken, crushed, crippled body of three-year-old Henio Pytka is found by chance in a courtyard privy. This time further events will develop around this murder. Solving the riddle of this despicable offence can only be tackled by one man – Edward Popielski.
It will soon transpire that the child’s death and its perpetrator are far closer to Commissioner Popielski than might have seemed possible, and that is because the degenerate who committed this act deserving the intervention of the Erinyes themselves, is targeting the youngest and most innocent citizens of Lwów. And besides the victim, Henio Pytka, these include Popelski’s own eighteen-month-old grandson, Jerzyk.
So the hunt for the evildoer begins. Across the cobblestones of Lwów, picking up false leads and letting them fool him, the Commissioner conducts an inquiry that leads to at least one misfortune along the way, the emotional breakdown of some and then others, and finally an error pregnant with consequences of the most incredible kind. As ever, the culprit will be found, caught and punished, but in this case it will be an exceptionally Pyrrhic victory. The price that will have to be paid for it will be far higher than that of a cup of coffee at the smartest café on Hetman’s Embankment. Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera – the Erinyes, present Popielski and his family with a very expensive bill. There’s a corpse-like smell in the air.
