A Message To You, Rudy

Sontag, Dezember 6, 1927. Hans-Joachim and Erich, still two small-time crooks, have joined forces at the Café Friedrich on a dreary Sunday afternoon to plan petty crime, and, more importantly, discuss some of the tumultuous events that had happened around Nollendorfplatz recently.

"It was early this Friday when an unlikely group of people stepped into Anton's workshop. There was this unnaturally tall man sporting a moustache and a bowler hat, a very strict-looking middle-aged woman in remarkably high heels, and a kid dressed as an adult. They were asking for trucks that had been in accidents, and of course everyone, and Anton in particular, knew about the bus that had been abandoned in the neighborhood, and subsequently dumped in the Landwehr Canal." Erich nodded and looked into hos almost empty beer glass. 

"You know that they went to see Inspector Hubert Bosch later that same day, right?"

"Yes, of course, and Bosch did not have any reason to protect that bastard Rudy Becker, who still owes me money. Bosch apparently sent them right here, to the café. Sarah, you know the odd-day waitress, spoke to them and gave them the address to Madame Lola, Rudy's on-and-off girlfriend. The weird threesome decided to pay Madame Lola a visit."

"Oh, I would have loved to see that up close!" Hans-Joachim and Erich toasted each other before ordering another round.

 

Berlin Police interrogation of Greta Aschenbrenner, also known as Madame Lola.

20:en Dezember, 1927

"Right, so you were waiting for a friend, not a client. Is that correct?"

"A friend. A dear friend, as a matter of fact."

"Ok, so these two individuals, a tall man and a strictly dressed lady, forced themselves into the apartment?"

"Yes, breaking and entering, and violently as well!"

"And what about Rudy Becker? What is your relation to him?"

"A friend, nothing else."

"Since when is friend spelled p-i-m-p? That will give you time in the Big House."

"Rudy...er, Herr Becker is NOT my pimp! I am a self-employed woman!"

"Who sees lots of friends..."

"I have a rich social life. So what?"

"Listen, we all know that shots were fired, and apparently you were trying to protect Rudy Becker. Is it not so that the two assailants were trying to catch Rudy Becker, and that you tried to stop them? That you produced a handgun and fired two rounds?"

"It was this woman, who... who tried to roll over my living room table, destroying it in the process, but jumping up from wreckage wielding a whip! I had to defend myself! But she cracked her whip over my head before having it twirl around my wrist, pulling me straight into the living room as a young boy attacked me from behind after bouncing over my bed. I was at their mercy!"

Madame Lola's bedroom,

And I believe that a particularly tall man smashed your living room window before chasing after Rudy Becker? That he took a contemporary statue of a diver to clear out the window before chasing after Becker? Do you know anything about the three suspects taking an automobile trip together with Rudy Becker before leaving him on the night train to Bavaria? Answer me, dammit! I need to know this, because Rudy Becker is dead! Dead, poisoned at a restaurant outside München, and these three are prime suspects!

So it seemed as if Mackie had been poisoned by some strange narcotic substance in her tea, and that somebody, perhaps Werner Haupt, the looker from the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, had used this opportunity to access the restricted section of the library in the Neues Museum, and, according to a note on Mackie's desk, the dreaded Pnakotic manuscripts. It also seemed, according from what the Intrepid Investigators had found out while asking questions around Nollendorfplatz, that Werner Haupt might have been friendly with the notorious Doctor Koslowski, who had been expelled from the Berlin School of Medicine for brutal and unethical practices. It was said that he had hired a former abattoir somewhere around the Nollendorfplatz.

Back at the Neues Museum library, special librarian Heinrich Miller had taken Felix Jeremiah, Frau Claire Bonhofer, and Franz Alter to see the Pnakotic Manuscripts. It did indeed seem as if Werner Haupt had copied certain pages dealing with creating bizarre organisms, perhaps even early lore on molecules, currents and cell modification. This required further attention, and since the Pnakotic Manuscripts were written in medieval, but still English, Jeremiah, Alter and Bonhofer decided to achieve a deeper understanding of the strange and ungodly manuscripts. This would be a long couple of weeks, but it would give Mackie the chance to recover and to once and for all figure out how the grave robbings, the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, the Neues Museum, Proletkult, and all other entities were connected!

The Pnakotic Manuscripts had all been bound, and re-bound, into five separate volumes, the last binding dating from the first part of the 19th century. These are, however, simply partial copies of a greater work that is now lost. The manuscripts have been translated by an unknown translator into 15th century English from its precursor volume, The Pnakotica, which probably written in Classic Greek and based on an Egyptian text (a copy of The Pnakotica was supposedly taken to Rome just before the Fall of Constantinople in 1453). There might be as many as five copies in exiestence, with one copy being stored in the New York Public Library, and another in the Miskatonic University Library.

The volumes trace - and to an extent legitimize - certain Pharaonic dynasties to pre-human crinoids that seeded life on Earth. Two of the volumes deal with mythic pre-human civilizations, two, with some of the more obscure aspects of Egyptian history, including the debated Pharaoh Kih-Osk, while the third volume is thought to explain how to actually create life. Some researchers claim that this process is simply a joke or a parody, while others have suggested that some form of weird servitor race may be created.

Pages from the Pnakotic Manuscripts.

Hoppla, wir leben! Directed by Piscator in 1927,

Neues Schauspielhaus, Nollendorfplatz. Between 1927 and 1931, it was the scene of Erwin Piscator’s productions. Piscator was an avant-garde and political theater, which used such modern techniques as film-projections, multiple or simultaneous setting and motorized bridges. John Heartfield, George Grosz and Bertolt Brecht took part in these productions.

Lassen uns feirern wie es ist 1927!

(Meanwhile, a remarkably fit Jules Pollack is joining Howard Lake and his adorable teacher Adele Christo. They are having a great time at the Berlin Christmas Market.)