Potsdam Station (43 page)

Now that the sun was up, he supposed he should take a look round. Maybe Hannes was here, or even Uncle Thomas. But he stayed where he was, pondering the day before. He couldn’t have spent much more than half an hour with his father, and there was something dreamlike about the whole encounter. But he knew it had happened – he could remember his father saying how much he had missed him.

He could also remember shooting the red-headed Obersturmführer. He had no regrets about that. If he ever found Werner’s mother and sister, he could tell them the killer had paid for his crime.

Russell was pacing the office room that served as his prison. Having spent most of the night agonising about Effi and his son, he was trying to calm himself down. He had to focus on what he could do, and not let his fears and anxieties distract him.

Which was easier thought than achieved. He went over his plan again, talking out loud to keep his concentration. He rehearsed what he intended saying to Nikoladze, in both content and tone. If he’d ever needed to convince another man of something, then this was the occasion.

He would do it, he told himself. The plan would work. Maybe not for him, but at least for the others. And he’d had his three years of freedom, while they’d all been trapped in the nightmare. It was his turn now.

As the morning wore on, he found himself thinking about the future of Germany, and the city that had been his home for most of the last twenty years. Berlin would of course be divided. They would call it a temporary measure, but it couldn’t be, not really. The country as well. Anyone expecting anything else was a fool – there was no middle ground between the Soviet system of state planning and the free market. In each zone of Berlin, each zone of the Reich, one or the other would be imposed by the occupying power. And that would be that for the foreseeable future.

Given his current circumstances, Russell doubted he’d be given the choice where to live. But if he had one, which would he choose? Did he want to live in a corner of Stalin’s empire? Because that’s what it would be. He would probably have given it a try twenty years ago, when the whole Soviet experiment was still a flailing child of hope. But now, looking back over millions of dead, it was clear that the flaws had been there from the start. It was impossible to regret a revolution that championed equality, brotherhood and internationalism, but there had never been any chance of institutionalising those values in a country as backward and traumatised as Russia. Once the German revolution had failed it was all over. Trotsky had been right in that, if in little else – like Varennikov’s atomic bomb, socialism only worked as a chain reaction. Cage it in one country or empire, and the result would be brutal. Moscow was no place for journalists interested in truth or criticism, and a Soviet-dominated Germany would be no different.

Did he want to live in the dollar’s empire? Not a lot, but on balance it had more to offer than Stalin’s. The idea stuck in his throat, though. It had been Europe’s communists who had fought Nazism and fascism, who had given their lives while Americans had sat back and profited. He was already sick of hearing them boasting how they’d come again to Europe’s rescue, forgetting the far bigger sacrifices of the Red Army, not to mention the fact that most Americans had been only too happy sitting on the fence until the Japanese pushed them off it.

There was a lot he disliked about America and its priorities. But he could imagine that country producing a Brecht, and he couldn’t say the same of the Soviet Union. The dollar was indifferent – it didn’t care if you lived or died, and for people with education and means, people like himself, freedom and privilege were there for the taking. The NKVD, by contrast, was caring to a fault. Whatever you did was their business, with all the constraints that that implied. Neither knowledge nor money offered much in the way of protection, and often invited the opposite.

A key turned in the door, interrupting his reverie.

It was the same lieutenant-colonel, wearing a slightly less hostile expression. ‘Colonel Nikoladze should arrive here early tomorrow morning,’ he told Russell. ‘And I’ve been instructed to provide your wife with protection. If you could give me the exact address?’

Russell did so, and explained that Effi was using an alias. ‘And please ask your men to tell her that I’m all right.’

The Russian wrote it all down with the stub of a pencil. ‘You are not a prisoner,’ he told Russell, ‘but you will of course remain here until the Colonel arrives. Consider this room your quarters.’

By noon the Russians were in control of Bismarck Strasse. Street battles could still be heard raging in every direction, but no German forces had been seen since mid morning, whereas Ivan was much in evidence. Soldiers had come to their basement, scared its residents half to death, and left with every available wristwatch, Effi’s included. Other men and vehicles passed by at regular intervals, and a horse-drawn canteen had opened for business some fifty metres down the street.

The shelling, of course, had stopped, and while many lingered in the basements, hoping for the safety of numbers, some ventured outdoors, drawn by curiosity and the promise of sunshine. Others, like Effi and Rosa, returned to their apartments, and Rosa spent most of the afternoon by the window, drawing the conquering army. Or, as Effi realised when she saw the drawings, the army of Rosa’s liberation. The Russians looked so good, smiling and waving from the turrets of their shiny tanks; even their horses looked glad to be there.

There had been no trouble so far, but Effi feared the coming of darkness. In the event, she didn’t have that long to wait – the light was only beginning to fade when the first female screams were heard in the distance. She hesitated a moment, but realised she couldn’t just sit there and wait. She took Rosa to the basement and went out in search of someone to plead with.

She found one Soviet officer, but he didn’t speak a word of German, and her attempts at mime drew only smiles and shrugs of non-comprehension. Walking back towards her building, she felt eyes following her, and realised how big a mistake she had made. Footsteps behind her confirmed as much, and sent a chill down her spine.

She hurried in through the door, shutting it behind her. Upstairs or downstairs? Rosa was in the basement, but the piece of paper on which Russell had written his Soviet commander’s name was up in the flat.

She was still running up the stairs when she heard the front door splinter. She threw herself into the flat and began frantically searching for the paper. It had vanished.

She turned to see them in the doorway. One was short and wiry, with a shock of blond hair and gold front teeth. The other was darker-skinned and burly, with longish black hair and moustache. Boots and caps excepted, both looked as though they’d been outfitted at a rummage sale. And she could smell them from across the room.

They were both grinning at her, the small one with relish, the other with something more like hatred. ‘Hello,’ the blond one said, as if he was surprised to see her. He muttered something in Russian to his partner and started across the room towards her. The other man was looking round the room, presumably for portable loot.

‘No,’ Effi said, backing away. ‘I’m too old,’ she insisted, running a hand through her hair to show the grey. ‘Like your mother, your grandmother.’

The big Russian said something, stopping the other in his tracks. He had one of Rosa’s new drawings in his hand, and was beaming at it.

‘We’re friends,’ Effi insisted, but the blond soldier refused to be distracted. Lunging forward he caught her by the arm and pulled her towards him. Placing a hand on top of her head, he pushed her down to her knees, then swung her onto her back. With a knee planted either side of her waist, and one hand holding her down at the throat, he started to tear at her clothing.

With a scream of fury Rosa hurtled into the room and flung herself at Effi’s attacker. ‘That’s my mother,’ she yelled, wrapping a small arm round his head. ‘That’s my mother!’

He grunted and swept her away, then ripped open Effi’s blouse. She was finding it hard to breathe.

Rosa was still screaming, but the other man had lifted her up and was holding her at arm’s length. I have to submit, Effi thought, or God knows what they’ll do to her. She let herself go limp, and felt the pressure ease on her throat.

He smiled in triumph, and started undoing his trousers.

The other Russian shouted something. There was a curse from the one on top of her, and what sounded like a command from his partner. Her assailant had been halted for the moment, but was still arguing, and Effi could see the frustration bulging in his trousers. One word was being repeated over and over, and she realised what it was –
Yevr’ey
– the Russian for Jews. The burly soldier was pointing at Rosa’s blouse, and the faded star it bore. ‘Yevr’ey!’ he said again.

Her assailant was reluctant to abandon his conquest, but his partner wore him down. ‘Many’, ‘women’ and ‘Berlin’ were words that Effi thought she recognised, and which made some sort of sense. Eventually her assailant sighed loudly, grinned at her, and pulled the blouse back across her breasts. ‘Okay,’ he said, as he clambered back to his feet. ‘
Nyet Yevr’ey
.’

‘We tell others. You safe,’ the darker man told her in passable German. ‘I also Jew,’ he added in explanation.

They left, taking one of Rosa’s pictures as a souvenir. Effi lay there on the floor, remembering how to breathe. Rosa lay down beside her and put her head on Effi’s shoulder. ‘I can tell you now,’ she said. ‘Rosa is my real name. Rosa Pappenheim.’

Ten minutes later two smartly uniformed Russians arrived at their door. They had been sent by the new city administration to protect Frau von Freiwald. ‘Mr John Russell,’ they assured her, was ‘alive and well.’

Soon after eight in the morning Russell was escorted up several flights of stairs to a huge office on the top floor. Four large desks and many more cabinets lined the inner walls, yet still left space for two long leather settees, which faced each other across a low table and a dark crimson carpet. Yevgeny Shchepkin and Colonel Nikoladze were seated at either end of one settee; behind them, through two of the city’s last unbroken windows, Russell could see smoke rising from the distant Reichstag.

Neither man got up. Nikoladze offered Russell a curt smile as he waved him onto the other settee, Shchepkin something warmer, and perhaps a little mischievous. His old acquaintance looked awful, Russell thought, but better than he had in Moscow. And he was pleased to see him. Shchepkin was not essential to Russell’s plan, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that their fates were in some way connected. That was not why Nikoladze had brought him, of course – the NKVD would still be thinking that Shchepkin was someone whom Russell might trust, and who therefore might come in handy.

Russell realised that he might be kidding himself, but he felt his hand strengthened by Shchepkin’s presence. And weak as the hand was, that could only be good.

Nikoladze was not a man to waste time on pleasantries. ‘So the others are dead?’ was his opening line.

‘They are,’ Russell admitted.

‘Yet you are alive,’ the Russian noted, as if that should be counted against him.

‘As you see.’ Russell sneaked a glance at Shchepkin, who was staring into space.

‘Give us your report.’

Russell began with the botched landing west of Berlin, avoiding any reference to Varennikov’s momentary panic – there was no point in putting Irina’s pension at risk. He explained how it had upset their timetable, and resulted in their arriving at the Institute twenty-four hours later than scheduled. He described the successful break-in, and Varennikov’s excited reaction to some of the papers.

‘He did find something!’ Nikoladze exclaimed, leaning forward in his seat. ‘Where are these papers?’

‘We’ll get to that. Let me tell the story.’

Nikoladze gave him a look, but waved him on.

‘That was when it all fell apart,’ Russell continued. He explained how Kazankin and Gusakovsky had died, then began to blend fact and fiction. ‘We spent the whole day hiding in a bombed-out house, and the following night we walked all the way to the Potsdam goods yard. The comrades hid us in an abandoned underground station – we were there for almost a week. And then, four days ago, a rail-mounted gun fell through the ceiling. I wasn’t there, but Comrade Varennikov was killed. Since then…’

Neither Russell’s subsequent adventures nor his physicist’s fate were of any interest to Nikoladze. ‘And the papers?’ he asked. ‘Where are they now?’

‘They’re safe. Varennikov and I buried them, in case we were stopped and searched.’

‘
Where
did you bury them?’ Nikoladze insisted, his voice rising slightly.

Russell took a deep breath. ‘Colonel, I don’t want to be difficult, but there’s a problem here.’

‘What sort of problem?

‘One of survival. My own, that is. Because I’ve been wondering what my life will be worth once I tell you where they are.’

Nikoladze was speechless for a long moment. Shchepkin, Russell noticed, was suppressing a smile.

‘You will tell me where the papers are,’ Nikoladze told him coldly. If the threat was palpable, there was also more than a hint of fear in the Georgian’s eyes. He could not afford to fail.