Potsdam Station (38 page)

Time to go, he told himself. But which way? It was late in the afternoon, so the smoke-wreathed sun was in the south-west. There was a narrow roadway heading westward, and it soon passed under several elevated tracks, which had to be those heading south out of Potsdam Station. Rounding a corner, he received confirmation in the familiar silhouette of the Lutherkirche. He knew where he was.

He hurried up past the church, conscious once again of the city’s ominous soundtrack. A short distance down Bülow Strasse some women were dissecting a fallen horse, its innards a vivid splash of red in the sea of greys and browns. For the moment no shells were exploding nearby, but that of course could change in an instant, and the women were working at a feverish pace. Walking past on the other side, Russell noticed several of their faces were streaked with white plaster, giving them the appearance of theatrical ghosts. Intent on securing their family’s next few meals, they didn’t seem to notice him, and when a shell landed a hundred metres down the street, none ran for the nearest shelter. When Russell glanced back from the Bülow Strasse station entrance they were all still carving at the bloody carcass.

This U-Bahn line ran underground all the way to Bismarck Strasse, and as far as Russell knew the Russians were still some kilometres away. There was no one to stop him descending to the platforms, and the tunnels, as he soon found out, were already in service as civilian highways. The current was obviously off.

He joined the steady stream of people heading west. Ventilation shafts provided occasional patches of light, but rendered the darkness between them even more intense, and progress was extremely slow. Despite the absence of any direct threat an almost hysterical atmosphere seemed to pervade the tunnels. There was always a child crying somewhere, and every now and then a sudden shriek would echo down the tunnel. It wasn’t much more than three kilometres to Effi’s building on Bismarck Strasse, but it took him the best part of two miserable hours to reach Zoo Station. The sight of several SS officers in conclave at the far end of the westbound platform offered all the incentive he needed to head back above ground.

Reaching the surface, he almost regretted the decision – night had fallen, most of Berlin was ablaze, and the Russians seemed much closer than he’d expected. A surprising number of people were hurrying across the wide expanse beside the Stadtbahn station, and he joined the rush, heading north up Hardenberg Strasse under the blood-coloured sky. Just beyond the railway bridge several figures were swaying on gibbets, reminding him to look out for SS patrols. The bastards might ignore him in his foreign worker uniform, but they could just as easily be looking for scapegoats.

And the uniform, he suddenly realised, was unlikely to win him a welcome at Effi’s apartment building. In the last resort he could tear off the badge, but something smarter would be an improvement. From a corpse, he thought. There were enough of them lying around.

Some sort of fracas was underway at the Knie intersection, so he turned up the smaller Schiller Street, meaning to join Bismarck Strasse a little further down. There was a female corpse outside a bomb-damaged shop, and another close to the junction with Grolman Strasse, but no sign of the dead male he needed. A car with all its windows broken was parked in front of the ruined Schiller Theatre, and Russell had almost gone past it when he noticed the man slumped back in the driving seat, a gun still stuck in his mouth. After quickly scanning the street for witnesses, he pulled the body onto the pavement and into a niche in the rubble. The man looked about the right height, and he’d been kind enough not to get blood on his suit. Russell changed into the jacket and trousers, and congratulated himself on his luck – they fitted almost perfectly. The papers in the jacket pocket included a Nazi Party card with a suspiciously low number, and the bookmark in the man’s diary was inserted beside a map of the Reich in 1942. No wonder he’d shot himself.

Russell hesitated a moment, then tossed the papers and diary away. If they weren’t out of date, they soon would be.

As he reached Bismarck Strasse a welcoming shell landed half the way down to Adolf Hitler Platz. Effi’s latest home was only a few buildings down, one of those an old and elegant Berlin mansions that they’d sometimes thought of buying, should they ever want to raise a family. The blackout regulations were presumably in abeyance, but none of the windows were lit – the residents would all be in the shelter. The front door opened to his push, and he walked upstairs in search of Number 4. That door was locked, and one half-hearted bang with a shoulder showed no sign of forcing it open.

A shell exploded nearby, causing the floor to slightly shift – perhaps the shelter was good idea.

He polished his story on the way down, and sought out the communal basement. Conversations faltered as he stepped inside, but only briefly. He scanned the hundred-odd faces; he was not expecting to see Effi’s, but he wanted to give the impression that he did. Those still staring at him seemed relieved, probably at his lack of a uniform.

When he asked for 185’s block-warden, a stout-looking woman in her forties was pointed out to him. ‘That’s Frau Esser.’

Russell introduced himself as Rainer von Puttkamer, Frau von Frei- wald’s older brother.

Frau Esser looked upset. ‘I’m afraid she left over two weeks ago. And she didn’t tell anyone where she was going.’

‘Oh,’ Russell said, ‘that’s a pity. She was expecting me. At least, she knew that if the Russians reached Beeskow – that’s where our family home has always been – then I would be coming to her. Perhaps she left me a message in the apartment. But of course I don’t have a key. Does the
portierfrau
have one, do you know?’

‘I expect so. She’s over there. Come with me.’

Russell obediently followed. He’d been ready with dramatic tales of a miraculous escape to explain his lack of papers, but it seemed that they wouldn’t be needed – the imminent end of the war had finally made it all seem irrelevant. The
portierfrau
proved more than willing to let him use her key, and remarked on how much he looked like his sister. Perhaps it was true that couples grew to resemble other, Russell thought. He felt rather pleased by the notion, until he remembered that Effi was disguising herself as an older woman.

He was tempted to go up immediately, but an explosion nearby persuaded him otherwise. The camp beds that belonged to Frau von Freiwald and her niece were still waiting for them, a fact which Russell found surprising, but which Frau Esser took obvious pride in – the idea of personal property still meant something in
her
shelter. He introduced himself to his new neighbours, and received fulsome expressions of sympathy for the loss of the family estates. Declining the offer of a game of skat, he lay down and closed his eyes.

When he woke a few hours later, the only people still awake were an old couple reading a book by the glow of a Hindenburg light. The outside world seemed quiet, and after testing the silence for several moments he wended his way through the gently snoring bodies to the stairs. The sky above the courtyard was a fiery red, but the absence of shellfire persisted.

There was no electricity in the apartment, but once he’d pulled up the blackout blinds there was enough fire-reflected light to see by. Nothing reminded him of Effi though, until he came upon the blouse she’d been wearing that night in the Stettin Station buffet, when she’d calmly announced that she wasn’t going with him. He lay down on the bed, and succumbed to the urge to sniff the pillow. He was hoping for the familiar scent of her hair, but all he could smell was damp.

Elsewhere in the flat he found clothes belonging to a child and another, bigger woman. But there was nothing to tell him anything more – no writing, no letters, only a collection of pencil drawings. He doubted they were Effi’s – he couldn’t remember her ever drawing anything. The other woman’s probably – they seemed too good for a child. He leafed through them – they were like a visual diary of the city’s fall.

In the Potsdam Station shelter it was almost midnight, and Effi had only just finished another long stint in the hospital. Now that the fighting was only a few kilometres away the medical staff were even busier, and the proportion of wounded soldiers to civilians was growing ever-higher. The presence of so many field grey uniforms had unfortunately attracted the attention of those in black, many of whom were now patrolling the corridors in search of possible deserters.

She had sent Rosa to bed an hour ago, and was on the way to join her when a young man on a corridor trolley caught her eye. He was wearing only undershorts, and his pale legs and trunk contrasted markedly with the dark stains of dried blood that covered his arms, neck and face.

It was Paul.

His eyes were closed but he was breathing well enough. The grim expression on his face gave her pause, but only for the briefest of moments. She had known him since he was eight years old. He would never betray her.

She touched him lightly on the shoulder, and his eyes jerked open. ‘Paul,’ she said softly. ‘Remember me? Dagmar?’

He took in the familiar face, the nurse’s uniform, and realised he was smiling. ‘I saw you at Fürstenwalde Station,’ he said.

‘I saw you too. Aren’t you cold? Where are your clothes?’

‘A bit. My uniform’s underneath the trolley. I had to take it off – it’s covered in blood and brains.’

‘Why, what happened to you?’

‘A shell. I was on Grossbeeren Strasse. I’ve no idea how I got here.’ He could see the expression on Werner’s face. ‘A friend had just been killed…’ he began, but let the sentence die.

She saw the pain pass across his eyes. ‘I’ll get you a blanket,’ she told him. ‘I’ll only be a moment.’

While she was gone he levered himself into a sitting position. He felt strange, but that was hardly surprising. Everything else seemed in working order. He vaguely remembered a doctor. He’d also been covered in blood.

Effi came back with a blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders.

‘How did you end up here?’ he asked her.

‘A long story.’

‘It must be,’ he said with a wryness that reminded her of his father.

‘One for later,’ she warned him, as one of the doctors went past.

‘You know that Dad escaped?’ he whispered.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know where he is now?’

‘No,’ Effi admitted. ‘But I expect he’ll arrive with the first Americans, whenever that is.’

‘Why didn’t you go with him?’ Paul asked, without really meaning to.

It felt like the question had asked itself.

‘That’s another long story.’

‘Okay,’ he agreed. He could hardly believe she was standing there in front of him. ‘I saw Uncle Thomas a few days ago,’ he told her.

Her face lit up, only to darken as Paul outlined the circumstances.

‘He was planning to survive,’ he concluded, as if that alone might save his uncle. He suddenly realised that a young girl had joined them, the one he’d seen with Effi on the Fürstenwalde platform.

‘You’re supposed to be asleep,’ Effi scolded her, without any noticeable effect. It was hard to imagine Effi as an effective chastiser of children.

‘You must be Paul,’ the girl said in a very grown-up voice.

‘I am. And who are you?’

‘I’m Rosa at the moment. Rosa Borinski. My aunt has told me all about you. She’s been taking care of me since my mother died.’

‘That’s right,’ Effi agreed. ‘Look, I’ll leave you two together while I do what I can with Paul’s uniform. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Rosa said, looking suddenly shy.

‘So what did Effi – Dagmar – tell you about me?’ Paul asked her.

‘Oh, that you like football. And models of ships. And that it was difficult for you having an English father.’

It had been, Paul thought. For a while it had coloured everything. And now it seemed utterly irrelevant.

‘And that you lost your mother like I did.’

‘It’s all true,’ Paul admitted. His mother’s death seemed a long time ago.

A shadow loomed over them, two men in black uniforms with belts so stiff that they squeaked. Their insignia said they were Untersturmführers, the SS equivalent of lieutenants.

‘Name?’ one of them asked. He had a thick blubbery face with the sort of pop-out eyes that gave the master race a bad name. His companion, by contrast, was a trifle on the weaselish side. Both had one hand on their holsters, as if mimicking each other.

‘Gehrts, Paul.’

‘Papers.’

‘They’re in my uniform. It’s just been taken to be cleaned.’

‘Are you actually injured?’ the second man asked.

‘I was knocked out by shell-blast. The doctor said I have mild concus-sion,’ he added, suddenly remembering as much.

‘Do you have a chit?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Paul admitted.

‘The doctor’s been too busy,’ Effi said, coming up behind the two SS.

‘But I can vouch for this patient.’ She handed Paul his uniform. It still wore the stains of a messy death, but at least the fragments had been brushed away.

‘What is your unit?’ the first man asked.

‘20th Artillery Regiment, 20th Panzergrenadier Division.’