Phantoms of Breslau Read Free

the bread board from which he had first carefully removed all crumbs. Then he spread slices of bread with dripping and arranged them one on top of the other to form a rectangular stack, evening out the edges so that none protruded at the sides. Eberhard Mock wiped the foam from his face, rubbed his cheeks and chin with a shaving stick, pulled on his vest and sat down at the table.
    “How can you knock back so much?” With a pair of scissors, his father snipped the stalks of an onion growing in a flower pot and sprinkled them over the scrambled eggs. He separated the slices of bread he had already stuck together and scattered a tiny amount of chives between each one, and then stuck them back together and wrapped them in greased parchment. “I never got so drunk. But you do almost every day. Remember to bring the paper home – I’ll use it again tomorrow.”
    Mock ate the semi-liquid egg garnished with its thatch of chives with relish, then got to his feet, slid the frying pan into a tub of water by the washbasin, put on his shirt, fastened a square collar to it and knotted his tie. On his head he placed a bowler hat, then he walked to the corner of the room and opened a hatch in the floor. He descended the steps to theformer butcher’s shop and stopped to glance at the row of hooks from which pigs’ carcasses had once hung, at the polished counter, at the gleaming shop window and stone slabs that slanted slightly towards a drain covered with an iron grille. Uncle Eduard had once poured warm animal blood into this grille.
    Mock heard the wheeze of his father’s breathing and violent coughing coming from overhead. He smelled coffee being poured into a thermos. The coffee’s steam had momentarily taken his father’s breath away, he thought, or rather whatever had not already been taken away by the bone-glue fumes. Mock stepped outside, tinkling the brass bell on the doorframe.
    From the window Willibald Mock watched his son as he walked through the back door and into the yard. Bowing to the caretaker, Mrs Bauert, Eberhard Mock glimpsed the friendly smile bestowed on him by the maid of Pastor Gerds – the tenant of a four-roomed apartment at the front of the house – who was standing by the pump. Snorting at a stray cat, he accelerated his step, jumped over a puddle and, unfastening his trousers and swearing at the excessive number of buttons, forced the rusty padlock and entered the privy in the corner of the yard.
    His father closed the window and returned to his chores. He washed the frying pan, plate and milk pan, and wiped the oilcloth that was fastened to the table with drawing pins. He took his medicines and sat in the old rocking chair for a moment in silence. He stepped into his son’s alcove and stared at the tangled sheets on the bed. As he leaned over to fold them, his foot kicked the jug containing what remained of the water. It overturned and water ran into one of his leather slippers.
    “Damn it!” he yelled, shaking his leg; the slipper flew straight into Mock’s face as he closed the hatch in the floor. His father sank onto his son’s bed and quickly unfastened the straps holding up his sock, which he removed and smelled.
    “Don’t get worked up,” smiled Mock. “I don’t use a chamber pot any more, and even if I did I wouldn’t hide it under my bed. It’s only water.”
    “Alright, alright …” muttered his father, pulling his sock back on with difficulty. He was still on his son’s bed. “Why do you need water under your bed? Oh, I know. It’s there ready for your hangover. You’re always knocking it back, knocking it back … If you got married, you’d stop drinking …”
    “Did you know, Father” – Mock handed his father the slipper, sat down at the table and sprinkled a few pinches of blond tobacco onto the oilcloth – “that schnapps actually helps me?”
    “Do what?” his father asked, taken aback by the friendly tone. His reproaches about alcohol and bachelorhood