Lehrter Station (41 page)

T
here were two hours left of 1938. In Danzig it had been snowing on and off all day, and a gang of children were enjoying a snowball fight in front of the grain warehouses which lined the old waterfront. John Russell paused to watch them for a few moments, then walked on up the cobbled street towards the blue and yellow lights.

The Sweden Bar was far from crowded, and those few faces that turned his way weren’t exactly brimming over with festive spirit. In fact, most of them looked like they’d rather be somewhere else.

It was an easy thing to want. The Christmas decorations hadn’t been removed, just allowed to drop, and now formed part of the flooring, along with patches of melting slush, floating cigarette ends and the odd broken bottle. The Bar was famous for the savagery of its international brawls, but on this particular night the various groups of Swedes, Finns and Letts seemed devoid of the energy needed to get one started. Usually a table or two of German naval ratings could be relied upon to provide the necessary spark, but the only Germans present were a couple of ageing prostitutes, and they were getting ready to leave.

Russell took a stool at the bar, bought himself a
Goldwasser
and glanced through the month-old copy of the
New York Herald Tribune
which, for some inexplicable reason, was lying there. One of his own articles was in it, a piece on German attitudes to their pets. It was accompanied by a cute-looking photograph of a Schnauser.

Seeing him reading, a solitary Swede two stools down asked him, in perfect English, if he spoke that language. Russell admitted that he did.

‘You are English!’ the Swede exclaimed, and shifted his considerable bulk to the stool adjoining Russell’s.

Their conversation went from friendly to sentimental, and sentimental to maudlin, at what seemed like breakneck pace. Three
Goldwassers
later, the Swede was telling him that he, Lars, was not the true father of his children. Vibeke had never admitted it, but he knew it to be true.

Russell gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder, and Lars sunk forward, his head making a dull clunk as it made contact with the polished surface of the bar. ‘Happy New Year,’ Russell murmured. He shifted the Swede’s head slightly to ease his breathing, and got up to leave.

Outside, the sky was beginning to clear, the air almost cold enough to sober him up. An organ was playing in the Protestant Seaman’s church, nothing hymnal, just a slow lament, as if the organist was saying a personal farewell to the year gone by. It was a quarter to midnight.

Russell walked back across the city, conscious of the moisture seeping in through the holes in his shoes. The Langermarkt was full of couples, laughing and squealing as they clutched each other for balance on the slippery sidewalks.

He cut over the Breite Gasse and reached the Holzmarkt just as the bells began pealing in the New Year. The square was full of celebrating people, and an insistent hand pulled him into a circle of revellers dancing and singing in the snow. When the song ended and the circle broke up, the Polish girl on his left reached up and brushed her lips against his, eyes shining with happiness. It was, he thought, a better than expected opening to 1939.

His hotel’s reception area was deserted, and the sounds of celebration emanating from the kitchen at the back suggested the night staff were enjoying their own private party. Russell thought about making himself a hot chocolate and drying his shoes in one of the ovens, but decided against. He took his key, clambered up the stairs to the third
floor, and trundled down the corridor to his room. Closing the door behind him, he became painfully aware that the occupants of the neighbouring rooms were still welcoming in the new year, a singsong on one side, floor-shaking sex on the other. He took off his sodden shoes and socks, dried his wet feet with a towel and sank back onto the vibrating bed.

There was a discreet, barely audible tap on his door.

Cursing, he levered himself off the bed and prised the door open. A man in a crumpled suit and open shirt stared back at him.

‘Mr John Russell,’ the man said in English, as if he was introducing Russell to himself. The Russian accent was slight, but unmistakable. ‘Could I talk with you for a few minutes?’

‘It’s a bit late…’ Russell began. The man’s face was vaguely familiar. ‘But why not?’ he continued, as the singers next door reached for a new and louder chorus. ‘A journalist should never turn down a conversation,’ he murmured, mostly to himself, as he let the man in. ‘Take the chair,’ he suggested.

His visitor sat back and crossed one leg over the other, hitching up his trouser leg as he did so. ‘We have met before,’ he said. ‘A long time ago. My name is Shchepkin. Yevgeny Grigorovich Shchepkin. We…’

‘Yes,’ Russell interrupted, as the memory clicked into place. ‘The discussion group on journalism at the fifth Congress. The summer of ’24.’

Shchepkin nodded his acknowledgement. ‘I remember your contributions,’ he said. ‘Full of passion,’ he added, his eyes circling the room and resting, for a few seconds, on his host’s dilapidated shoes.

Russell perched himself on the edge of the bed. ‘As you said – a long time ago.’ He and Ilse had met at that conference, and set in motion their ten-year cycle of marriage, parenthood, separation and divorce. Shchepkin’s hair had been black and wavy in 1924; now it was a close-cropped grey. They were both a little older than the century, Russell guessed, and Shchepkin was wearing pretty well, considering what he’d probably been through the last fifteen years. He had a handsome face of indeterminate nationality, with deep brown
eyes above prominent slanting cheekbones, an aquiline nose and lips just the full side of perfect. He could have passed for a citizen of most European countries, and probably had.

The Russian completed his survey of the room. ‘This is a dreadful hotel,’ he said.

Russell laughed. ‘Is that what you wanted to talk about?’

‘No. Of course not.’

‘So what are you here for?’

‘Ah.’ Shchepkin hitched his trouser leg again. ‘I am here to offer you work.’

Russell raised an eyebrow. ‘You? Who exactly do you represent?’

The Russian shrugged. ‘My country. The Writers’ Union. It doesn’t matter. You will be working for us. You know who we are.’

‘No,’ Russell said. ‘I mean, no I’m not interested. I…’

‘Don’t be so hasty,’ Shchepkin said. ‘Hear me out. We aren’t asking you to do anything which your German hosts could object to.’ The Russian allowed himself a smile. ‘Let me tell you exactly what we have in mind. We want a series of articles about positive aspects of the Nazi regime.’ He paused for a few seconds, waiting in vain for Russell to demand an explanation. ‘You are not German but you live in Berlin,’ he went on. ‘You once had a reputation as a journalist of the left, and though that reputation has, shall we say, faded, no one could accuse you of being an apologist for the Nazis…’

‘But you want me to be just that.’

‘No, no. We want positive aspects, not a positive picture overall. That would not be believable.’

Russell was curious in spite of himself. Or because of the
Goldwassers
. ‘Do you just need my name on these articles?’ he asked. ‘Or do you want me to write them as well?’

‘Oh, we want you to write them. We like your style – all that irony.’

Russell shook his head – Stalin and irony didn’t seem like much of a match.

Shchepkin misread the gesture. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘let me put all my cards on the table.’

Russell grinned.

Shchepkin offered a wry smile in return. ‘Well, most of them anyway. Look, we are aware of your situation. You have a German son and a German lady-friend, and you want to stay in Germany if you possibly can. Of course if a war breaks out you will have to leave, or else they will intern you. But until that moment comes – and maybe it won’t – miracles do happen – until it does you want to earn your living as a journalist without upsetting your hosts. What better way than this? You write nice things about the Nazis – not too nice, of course, the articles have to be credible… but you stress their good side.’

‘Does shit have a good side?’ Russell wondered out loud.

‘Come, come,’ Shchepkin insisted, ‘you know better than that. Unemployment eliminated, a renewed sense of community, healthy children, cruises for workers, cars for the people…’

‘You should work for Joe Goebbels.’

Shchepkin gave him a mock-reproachful look.

‘Okay,’ Russell said, ‘I take your point. Let me ask you a question. There’s only one reason you’d want that sort of article – you’re softening up your own people for some sort of deal with the devil. Right?’

Shchepkin flexed his shoulders in an eloquent shrug.

‘Why?’

The Russian grunted. ‘Why deal with the devil? I don’t know what the leadership is thinking. But I could make an educated guess, and so could you.’

Russell could. ‘The western powers are trying to push Hitler east, so Stalin has to push him west? Are we talking about a non-aggression pact, or something more?’

Shchepkin looked almost affronted. ‘What more could there be? Any deal with that man can only be temporary. We know what he is.’

Russell nodded. It made sense. He closed his eyes, as if it were possible to blank out the approaching calamity. On the other side of the opposite wall, his musical neighbours were intoning one of those Polish river songs which could reduce a statue to tears. Through the wall
behind him silence had fallen, but his bed was still quivering like a tuning fork.

‘We’d also like some information,’ Shchepkin was saying, almost apologetically. ‘Nothing military,’ he added quickly, seeing the look on Russell’s face. ‘No armament statistics or those naval plans that Sherlock Holmes is always being asked to recover. Nothing of that sort. We just want a better idea of what ordinary Germans are thinking. How they are taking the changes in working conditions, how they are likely to react if war comes – that sort of thing. We don’t want any secrets, just your opinions. And nothing on paper. You can deliver them in person, on a monthly basis.’

Russell looked sceptical.

Shchepkin ploughed on. ‘You will be well paid – very well. In any currency, any bank, any country, that you choose. You can move into a better rooming house…’

‘I like my rooming house.’

‘You can buy things for your son, your girlfriend. You can have your shoes mended.’

‘I don’t…’

‘The money is only an extra. You were with us once…’

‘A long long time ago.’

‘Yes, I know. But you cared about your fellow human beings. I heard you talk. That doesn’t change. And if we go under there will be nothing left.’

‘A cynic might say there’s not much to choose between you.’

‘The cynic would be wrong,’ Shchepkin replied, exasperated and perhaps a little angry. ‘We have spilt blood, yes. But reluctantly, and in faith of a better future.
They
enjoy it. Their idea of progress is a European slave-state.’

‘I know.’

‘One more thing. If money and politics don’t persuade you, think of this. We will be grateful, and we have influence almost everywhere. And a man like you, in a situation like yours, is going to need influential friends.’

‘No doubt about that.’

Shchepkin was on his feet. ‘Think about it, Mr Russell,’ he said, drawing an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and placing it on the nightstand. ‘All the details are in here – how many words, delivery dates, fees, and so on. If you decide to do the articles, write to our press attaché in Berlin, telling him who you are, and that you’ve had the idea for them yourself. He will ask you to send him one in the post. The Gestapo will read it, and pass it on. You will then receive your first fee and suggestions for future stories. The last-but-one letters of the opening sentence will spell out the name of a city outside Germany which you can reach fairly easily. Prague, perhaps, or Cracow. You will spend the last weekend of the month in that city. And be sure to make your hotel reservation at least a week in advance. Once you are there, someone will contact you.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Russell said, mostly to avoid further argument. He wanted to spend his weekends with his son Paul and his girlfriend Effi, not the Shchepkins of this world.

The Russian nodded and let himself out. As if on cue, the Polish choir lapsed into silence.

David Downing is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction. His first novel in the ‘Station’ series,
Zoo Station
, was published by Old Street in 2007, followed by
Silesian Station
in 2008,
Stettin Station
in 2009 and
Potsdam Station
in 2010.
Lehrter Station
is the fifth in the series, and the first to be set in the postwar period. David lives in Surrey with his wife and two cats.

Zoo Station

Silesian Station

Stettin Station

Potsdam Station