Stattin Station (29 page)

'But I can't see how they'll be able to keep the two wars separate,' Russell added thoughtfully. He imagined the scene in the Consulate on Unter den Linden. They would be destroying all the papers, preparing themselves for internment. Any lingering chance of help from that quarter was well and truly gone. He wondered whether George Welland would ever get out now.

'What about us?' Effi asked. 'Are we in the paper?'

'No, not yet. This evening perhaps, but I think it'll only be me. I don't think Goebbels will be keen to let on that one of his favourite actresses has gone over to the enemy.'

'But I haven't,' she said instinctively. 'I'm not against Germany. I'm against
them
.'

'I know you are,' Russell admitted. 'But they think they
are
Germany.'

'They're not.'

'I know. Look, I've got to try and see Strohm, and it might as well be today. There's no point in waiting.'

'No,' Effi agreed, hope rising in her eyes.

Seeing that hope, Russell wished he had something to justify it. How could he convince the comrades to help them?

It only took him a few minutes to remember Franz Knieriem.

The sky was clouding over again as he walked down Gartenstrasse, the vast bulk of the Lazarus Hospital rearing up in front of him, the long low buildings of the Stettiner Goods Station lining the other side of the street. Johann's Cafe was sandwiched between a closed cobbler's and a barber's, its steamed-up windows as effective as curtains at concealing the interior. He pushed open the door and walked in.

The cafe was larger inside than he expected, a long narrow room some four metres wide and over twenty long, with tables for four and eight flanking a single aisle that stretched into the gloomy interior. Almost all were occupied by men, most of them in overalls, a few in suits. Three waitresses were taking and delivering orders, flitting to and fro between the tables and a small counter area halfway down, which was obviously connected by dumb waiter to the floor above or below.

Russell walked two-thirds of the way down and then retraced his steps. There was no sign of Strohm, and a table near the entrance seemed his safest bet. He took an empty seat on one of the large tables, smiling back at the curious glances of the five men already sitting there. The food looked less than inviting, but then he hadn't really felt hungry since Kuzorra's revelation. When the waitress - a pinched-face girl of about fourteen - arrived to take his order, he just asked for a bowl of whatever soup was on offer. It was potato and cabbage, but when it came he detected few signs of the latter. He ate slowly, and by the time he was finished the cafe clock read almost twelve-twenty. On his way there he had fretted over whether Strohm would see through his disguise, but with each passing moment it seemed increasingly unlikely that the German-American would show up. The crowd was gradually thinning out, as if this particular shift was drawing to a close.

He ordered a coffee he didn't want and sat with it, hoping against hope. It was twenty-five to one when his prayers were answered, and Strohm walked in with three other men. Russell tried to catch the other man's eye, and thought he'd succeeded, but Strohm simply looked through him. His disguise was obviously effective.

The newcomers occupied a four-seater two tables down, Strohm next to the aisle with his back to the door. Now what? Russell asked himself. Should he just sit there and wait, and hope that Strohm noticed him on the way out? What if he didn't?

No, he had to make the running somehow. Strohm would probably recognise his voice.

He sipped at his coffee as they ordered, received and began eating their meals, then strode past their table to the counter and bought a packet of the cheapest cigarettes. He then walked slowly back down the aisle, apparently intent on opening the packet, actually willing Strohm to look up and notice him.

He didn't.

Russell played his last card, 'accidentally' scattering pfennigs alongside Strohm's table, and then sinking to his knees beside the German-American in order to retrieve them. 'I'm sorry about this,' he said, and thought he could feel the man beside him stiffen. Gathering up his last coin, Russell got to his feet, looked Strohm straight in the eye, and walked back to his table. He knew he'd been recognised. If only for a split second, Strohm's eyes had widened with surprise.

Ten minutes later Strohm left the cafe, making some excuse to his colleagues, and walked off alone up Gartenstrasse. Russell walked faster to catch him up. When he did so, Strohm eyed him with some amusement. 'Is this for a story?' he asked.

'I wish it was. The Gestapo are looking for me,' Russell announced without further preamble. He had spent most of the morning working out exactly what he needed to say in order to enlist Strohm's support.

'That's not good,' the other man said, taking a quick glance over his shoulder.

'I'm not being followed,' Russell told him. 'You didn't recognise me yourself when you walked into the cafe,' he added reassuringly.

'True,' Strohm said, with only the faintest hint of a smile. 'So how can I help you?'

'It's a long story, but I'll make it as short as possible. Two years ago - almost three now - I did some articles for the Soviet press at the request of the NKVD. Then, when I asked them for help in getting a Jewish boy out of Germany, they asked me to bring some secret papers out for them. We both kept our sides of the bargain - the boy got out, they got the papers, and everything seemed fine. Until now. The Gestapo have finally gotten hold of the whole story, and my part in it. So I need to get out, with my girlfriend. The comrades promised to get us out if things went wrong in 1939, and I'm hoping they'll help me now. And I'm hoping you'll know who to ask.'

'Of course I can ask, but...'

'I have something to offer in return,' Russell interrupted him. 'Back in June, Hitler told Mussolini that he would have bombers capable of hitting New York by the end of the year. If such bombers exist, they would also be capable of reaching Siberia, and bombing all the arms factories that the Soviets have just moved heaven and earth to relocate there.'

'Do they?' Strohm asked ingenuously.

'I don't know,' Russell said truthfully. 'But I can find out,' he added with more confidence than honesty.

'Ah.'

'I also have an answer to the question that we have been asking ourselves for the last month. They really do mean to wipe out the Jews.' He told Strohm about the Degesch pesticide and the SS ordering huge quantities without the usual indicator.

That stopped Strohm in his tracks. 'You have proof of this?' he asked, as if he still couldn't quite believe it.

'Yes,' Russell said, stretching the truth somewhat - Sullivan's hearsay was hardly proof in the usual sense of the word. 'And when I get out, I can tell the whole damn world what's happening.'

'I'll see what I can do,' Strohm promised him. 'How can I contact you now?'

Russell hesitated at the thought of giving out their new address, but it was a risk he had to take. He gave Strohm the details.

'And what name are you using?'

Russell's mind blanked for a moment. 'Rolf Vollmar,' he said eventually.

They went their separate ways. Now that the efficacy of his disguise had been proven, Russell felt confident enough to lengthen his walk home in search of an early evening paper. He found one on Mullerstrasse. Thumbing through it, he came upon a most unflattering picture of himself, along with the information that he was armed, dangerous and urgently wanted for questioning on matters 'vital to the security of the Reich'. Though American by birth, 'Mister' John Russell had learned to speak German like a native, presumably with espionage in mind.

More disturbingly, a recent studio photo of Effi accompanied his own. She had gone missing in suspicious circumstances, the writer claimed, before dropping a few heavy hints to the effect that she had been kidnapped by the American villain.

As Russell walked back, he found himself wondering how the
portierfrau
at his old digs in Hallesches Tor would be taking the news of his treachery. He could just see Frau Heidegger skulking in her doorway, newspaper in hand, waiting to discuss the story with any passing tenant. Would she believe the worst of him? Probably not. They'd always got on pretty well, and no one with half a brain trusted official stories any more.

Effi was not pleased with the photo - she thought it made her look like a simpering idiot - and the notion that she'd been abducted was laughable. 'No one who knows us would believe that you've carried me off against my will,' she said incredulously. 'And I can't imagine anyone else believing it - it all sounds like one of those white slaver romances they used to make in the twenties.'

'Goebbels' kind of film,' Russell murmured. He was rather pleased by the newspaper story - they were clearly offering Effi a possible alibi, if only to preserve appearances.

Over an early supper he told her how it had gone with Strohm and the comrades. She agreed that they had little to lose by approaching Knieriem, but still felt queasy at the prospect. 'What do you really know about him?' she asked.

'He's a forty-three-year-old Berliner with a high-placed job at the Air Ministry. He was a Social Democrat until 1933 and, according to one of his old friends who now lives in America, he always despised the Nazis. He married in the twenties, divorced in the early thirties. His older brother Kurt was sent to Dachau in 1933 after one of the round-ups in Neukolln, and died there a few days later, supposedly in a fight with other inmates. The Americans found nothing to suggest that Franz was hungry for revenge, but he has access to really important information, so they thought he was worth a shot. Particularly since it was my head they were raising above the parapet.'

'If I had to guess,' Effi said, 'I'd say his brother's death scared him into permanent submission.'

'It's not unlikely.'

'So what if he says no?'

'Then I beat a hasty retreat.'

'How big is he?'

'Big, but in the fat sense. I don't think I'll have any trouble getting away from him.'

'He might recognise you.'

'Strohm didn't. And what if he does?'

'He'll have the police swarming all over the place.'

'They'd be lucky to catch me in the blackout. But we shouldn't assume the worst - Knieriem may welcome the chance to betray his bosses. He was a Social Democrat once.'

Effi snorted. 'Wasn't it you who used to say that Mussolini was a communist once?'

'He was.'

'I rest my case.'

She might be right, Russell thought later as he lay there unable to sleep. Perhaps they were being foolish in trusting to Knieriem's former allegiances. And asking for information was not the only way of obtaining it.

Lying there, listening to Effi's breathing and the faint hum of the city outside, a plan began to take shape.

The next three days were spent in waiting. Neither of them was used to spending much of the day at home, let alone a home with so few possibilities for diversion. There was only uninspiring food, the radio, the jigsaw and each other, and by Wednesday the picture of Rugen Island had been completed. Effi insisted that it was her turn to go out for a newspaper, and overrode Russell's argument that she was more likely to be recognised. 'The neighbours know I'm here,' she said, 'and it would be suspicious if I never went out.'

She returned with a
Volkischer Beobachter
which contained fresh pictures of them both, along with news from the family. The well-known industrialist Thomas Schade had expressed his 'astonishment' at the charges facing his former brother-in-law, and earnestly entreated him to give himself up. Russell smiled at that, but not at the mention of his 'equally astonished' son, an exemplary member of the
Hitlerjugend
. Paul really would be shocked, if only at the seriousness of the alleged crime. He didn't like to think what else the boy might be feeling.

Zarah, too, had been interviewed. She was 'sick with worry' for her sister, and refused to believe that Effi had done anything wrong.

Effi, Russell noticed, was fighting off tears. 'We can't afford to waste the make-up,' she said angrily.

That evening the sirens sounded. They had debated the pros and cons of going down to the shelter, and decided that incurring the wrath of the block warden would be more dangerous than testing their disguises. The thought of being bombed didn't come into it - if they lost the bolthole, they were doomed in any case.

In the event, the three hours spent with the rest of the building's inhabitants passed uneventfully. The block warden seemed suspicious of them, but only, they quickly realised, because he was suspicious of everyone. Most people dozed or fussed over their children, and the light was dim enough to hide a circumcision ceremony, let alone their brilliant disguises. Watching the way Effi climbed the stairs after the all-clear sounded, Russell was almost convinced that she had aged twenty years in a couple of days. He was also quite pleased with his own simulation until she put him right. 'You're walking like an eighty-year-old with gout,' she told him once they were back in their room. 'I'll have to give you some lessons.'

The Fuhrer's return to Berlin had been announced the previous day, and on Thursday afternoon he spoke to the Reichstag. The whole nation was obliged to listen: turning their own radio off for a few seconds, they could still hear the voice in the distance, emanating from so many street and factory loudspeakers that it seemed to be seeping out of the earth and sky. The speech lasted for an hour and a half. Hitler began with a long, triumphalist report on how the war was going, though details of the current position were noticeably sparse. He claimed that the German war dead now amounted to 160,000, a figure which astonished and appalled Effi, but which Russell thought was probably an under-estimate. The second half of the speech was a long diatribe against Roosevelt, a man backed by the 'entire satanic insidiousness' of the Jews, a man bent only on destroying Germany on their behalf. It ended, predictably enough, with a list of the provocations that Germany had been forced to endure, and their necessary corollary, a formal declaration of war on the United States.