Stattin Station (35 page)

Riga Station was the emptiest he had seen on his three-day journey. There was one group of Germans in civilian clothes sharing a joke on the concourse, but most of the other faces had Slavic features, and safely neutral expressions to go with them. The old man who gave Russell directions did so willingly enough, but with a noticeable lack of friendliness. Latvia had been invaded twice in the last two years, and its citizens were probably still having trouble deciding which of the bastards offered them less.

Satekles Street was only a five-minute walk away. No.16 was the Continental Hotel, a three-storey building sandwiched between another, seedier-looking hotel and a seemingly abandoned garage. A heavy front door let him into a large vestibule, where a wide staircase curved upwards over a reception area containing a large oak table, an antique filing cabinet, and the obligatory row of hooks for keys. A grizzled-looking old man looked up from his half-completed crossword with evident irritation.

Russell asked for Felix.

The man got slowly to his feet, visibly wincing at the pain in his knees. 'Wait through there,' he said, gesturing towards a door.

Pushing through, Russell found himself in a smart but empty cafe-bar. He took a corner seat and settled down to wait. Several minutes passed, and he began wondering whether someone in Stettin had been tortured into mentioning Riga. Who would be next through the door - the comrades or the Gestapo? Possible salvation or certain damnation? All he could do was wait and see.

The door eventually swung open to admit a broad-shouldered Slav with thinning brown hair and a broken-toothed smile. 'My name is Felix,' he said in German.

'I have a message from Stettin,' Russell told him.

'Oh yes? I was told there would be two of you.'

'My friend had to go back to Berlin,' Russell said. 'It's a long story.'

Felix took a deep breath, shrugged, and beckoned Russell to follow him. After collecting a key from the rack, he led the way up a flight of stairs and down a long corridor to the room at the end. A bed, a water basin stand and a door-less wardrobe took up most of the space. The single window overlooked the rear yard of the garage, where several vehicles had been left to rust.

'You'll be staying here,' Felix said. 'Now, let me see your papers.'

Russell handed them over for inspection.

'Not bad,' Felix decided after going through them. 'But you need something better, an identity that goes with an official job of some sort. That shouldn't be too difficult, but leave it to me. In the meantime, don't go out. I'll have meals sent up. Nothing fancy of course, but enough to keep you from starving. We're already on the lookout for a suitable ship.'

'Ships are still moving in and out of the harbour then?'

'Yes. But not for much longer. Winter has come early this year.'

When he was gone Russell lay down on the lumpy mattress, fingers entwined behind his head. 'The end of the line,' he murmured to himself. One way or the other, it would soon be over.

By Tuesday evening Effi felt like kicking the walls. After four days alone in the flat she thought she knew what a common prison was like. She couldn't risk listening to the radio, and there were only so many times she could do one jigsaw or read week-old newspapers. If she dozed off during the day she would spend long stretches of the night praying for sleep. Whatever she did, there was far too much time for thinking.

She decided she would make herself a pack of cards, and was still searching for suitable materials when the air raid warning sounded.

It was the first time this had happened since her return, and she felt a momentary pang of fear. She remembered all the times she'd complained about having to go to the shelter, all the times she had tried to persuade John that they shouldn't bother. He had always insisted, as she'd known he would, and on those few occasions when he hadn't been there she'd always gone down on her own. No matter how long the odds were on one's own house being hit, it still seemed foolish to tempt fate.

Well, she had to tempt it now. She could hardly turn up at the shelter looking twenty years younger than she had on her last visit. She would have to just sit there in the armchair, and let John's fellow countrymen do their worst.

Or not. Barely a minute had gone by when there was an urgent knock on the door. 'Frau Vollmar,' a male voice said loudly. It was the block warden.

Did he know she was there? How could he?

There was another knock. She rose to her feet almost involuntarily, and stood there, silently urging him to go away.

She heard the key jiggling in the lock.

The bedroom, she thought. She stepped quickly through the open door, relieved that she was wearing only socks on her feet, and realised that there was only one place to hide. Feeling more than a little ridiculous, she let herself down onto her back and squeezed herself under the bed.

She could hear footfalls in the adjoining room, and see flickers of light dancing across the carpet by the half-open door. He was using a torch, she realised. She thanked God she hadn't closed the blackout curtains, which would have allowed him to turn on the lights.

Had she left any obvious proof of her presence? Would he feel the warmth of the chair she'd been sitting in? Surely he couldn't stay much longer - it must be almost ten minutes since the sirens sounded.

He pushed the bedroom door open, and the moving beam of his flashlight seemed all around her.

Not under the bed, she silently pleaded.

He walked back out. A few seconds later she heard him walk into the kitchen. Was the kettle still warm from her last cup of tea?

More footsteps, then silence. Was he by the door? She heard the click as he opened it, and the twist of the key as he re-locked it from outside. She lay there, eyes closed, heart still thumping in her chest, suppressing an absurd desire to laugh.

There was no point in moving, she told herself. The bed might cushion her against a falling ceiling.

This theory was left untested - if any bombs fell that night, they fell a long way from Prinz-Eugen-Strasse. When the all-clear sounded she crawled out from her hiding-place and sat on the bed, wondering if he would come back that evening.

He might. Better to bolt the door, she decided, and went to do so. If he tried to use his key again, he would know that she was there, but she could always make up some excuse for not opening the door at this time of night. Tomorrow would be another matter. And the day after that. He was bound to return sooner or later, and bound to discover that she was back. And once he had, then a face-to-face meeting became almost inevitable.

There was nothing else for it - she had to get more make-up. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and the theatrical suppliers would probably close for several days. She couldn't afford to wait.

That same evening, Russell was lying on his bed when Felix arrived with new papers. The old ones were still valid, but now complemented by others attesting to his position as a high-ranking bureaucrat in Goering's organisation for the economic exploitation of the East, the
Wirtschaftsfuhrungsstab Ost
. 'You'll only have to use these if the Gestapo raid the hotel, and as far as we know, there's no reason why they should. If they do, you should tell them that you're in Riga to organise supplies for the planned concentration camp at Kaiserwald - ordering the timber for the barracks, the wire for the perimeter, that sort of thing. But you fell ill on the train, and you're recuperating here. Hence the meals in your room, and the fact that you don't go out. That's what the other guests have been told, by the way. Those that asked, that is. Once the word gets round that you work for Goering, everyone will give you a wide berth. People are very nervous at the moment.'

'I heard gunfire last night,' Russell said, as he examined the documents. 'From the ghetto,' Felix explained. 'They've crammed all the Jews into a few hundred square metres, and already killed thousands of them, but they're still not satisfied. Some of the bastards go in at night, as if they're out on a hunting party. Anyone who gets in their way, they just shoot them.' 'Have any trains full of Jews come from the Reich?'

'Three, I think. One shipment was just taken out to Rumbula and shot. The others were led to the ghetto and given the houses of those locals who were shot earlier. There doesn't seem any rhyme or reason to it.'

'What's Rumbula?'

'The Rumbula Forest. It's about five kilometres from the city. Near enough for a forced march, and nice sandy soil for digging. They must have shot over twenty thousand in the last few weeks. One child who escaped said that the earth was still moving from all the people who'd been buried alive.'

Russell shook his head, closed his eyes and gripped the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. 'Is there any resistance?' he asked eventually.

'From the Jews? No. They have nothing to fight with. And we're not in much better shape. Our organisation is still intact, and we're strong in the docks, but we have no weapons, and no allies to speak of.' Felix managed a rueful smile. 'When the NKVD left in June they killed almost everyone that they'd locked up over the previous year. That helped us, of course, because many of those people could have betrayed us to the Nazis. But it also caused a rift - to put it mildly - between us and the nationalists. There won't be a united front here for a very long time.'

'I see.'

'I used to be a docker,' Felix volunteered. 'But once you pass fifty the work gets difficult, particularly in winter. And my parents left me this hotel.'

'Whose ships are still coming to Riga?' Russell asked.

'The Swedes are the only neutrals who can get here.'

'What do they bring? What's left to trade?'

'Lots of things. Coming in, it's mostly luxury items. If you walked the streets you might think the rich had fled, but they haven't. They're just hunkered down in their mansions, waiting the war out, and they still want their nice soap, their proper coffee, their good cigars. They're not going to get them from Germany, are they?'

'I suppose not.'

'Going out, it's mostly processed foods.'

Remembering Jens's account of chronic shortages, Russell found that surprising. But only for a moment - the Germans needed something to exchange for all that iron ore and all those ball bearings.

After Felix was gone, Russell's mind kept returning to the mental picture of a shifting forest floor, and the last terrifying moments of those who were doing the shifting. His horror grew no less, but there was some compensation in the sheer power of the image, and the way it might be used to arouse the conscience of the outside world. He got out his paper and pencil and began writing it out, hammering another journalistic nail in what he fervently hoped would be the Nazis' coffin. If he ever reached Sweden, he wanted the story ready for printing.

Work also took his mind off other things, like a son betrayed and a love left behind.

Russell had used the one in Potsdam Station, but Effi's recent experience with station toilets was hardly encouraging, so she chose the Wertheim's on Leipziger Strasse for her transformation. She knew exactly where the ladies' room was, and the department store was only a few minutes' walk from the theatrical suppliers she intended to visit. Her one big fear was a chance encounter with her shopping-mad sister, but Effi could hardly imagine Zarah spending Christmas Eve afternoon with anyone but Lothar.

A week ago that thought would have reduced her to tears. So she must be getting stronger.

First she had to get to Wertheim's. She would have to leave Prinz-Eugen-Strasse in daylight, without make-up, and with every chance of running into someone on the stairs. It was crazy, but there was no way round it, and she would just have to do what she could. A little dust and household grime to give a wrinkled look around the eyes, a piece of sticking plaster across her upper lip to disguise the shape of her mouth. A hat pulled down to her eyes, a scarf pulled up across the lower lip, a pair of reading glasses. It was a pity it wasn't snowing, but it was cold enough to justify a lot of covering up.

The journey went well. She met no one on the stairs, no one on the street or in the U-Bahn to Leipziger Strasse. The walk to Wertheim's took only a few minutes, the long climb to the secluded toilets on the top floor rather longer - the lifts were all out of order. Ensconced in a cubicle, she unpacked the
Reichfrauenschaft
uniform. The blue-black jacket and skirt went on over the correct white blouse that she was already wearing, and she placed the matching fedora on her rigorously pulled-back hair at a slightly jaunty angle. She wondered about the sticking plaster, and finally decided that it detracted from the uniform's authority.

She was now a member of the National Socialist Women's Organisation National Leadership. Hardly someone to be trifled with.

Walking to the theatrical suppliers, it suddenly occurred to her that it might have been bombed, or closed down for some other reason. Had she gone to all this trouble, put herself at all this risk, for nothing?

There were lights in the shop window. She was just ten metres away from the door when an actress she knew almost pranced out onto the pavement and turned towards her. The woman gave Effi a single glance, and quickly averted her eyes from the stern expression and its accompanying uniform.

Effi let herself into the shop. There were two women behind the counter, both around forty. They looked like the keenest of filmgoers, but she didn't recognise them from her previous visits. One disappeared into a back room as the other offered a cautious smile of greeting. The uniform was earning its keep.

'I have a list of powders and creams,' Effi began, handing the sheet of paper over. 'There's quite a lot, I'm afraid. It hasn't been officially announced yet, but the Berlin
Bund Deutscher Madel
are putting on a special production of
Tristan und Isolde
in the new year. It's possible that the Fuhrer will attend. If his military duties permit, of course.'

'Of course,' the woman echoed. She began filling the order, plucking boxes and tubes from various drawers and cabinets.