Stattin Station (9 page)

She felt both repelled and intrigued. 'Tell me the story.'

'It's still in the formative stage - you have
GPU
to do first, and this other film won't start shooting until at least February. Yours is one of the two central characters - your husband will be the other, and he hasn't been cast yet. He's an SS Standartenfuhrer. The film begins with the two of you meeting. You are beautiful and full of life, and neither he nor the audience has any idea that you're Jewish. He takes to you immediately, and so do his friends. You seduce him - though it doesn't become clear until later how manipulative you have been - and get pregnant. He almost begs you to marry him, and the child is born. The years go by - the film starts in 1933, by the way - and you're enjoying the high life to the full, in fact rather too much for his taste, but he's still willing to forgive you almost anything. He dotes on his son, or at least wants to - there's something wrong there, but the only reason he can think of is that he's away so much on the Fuhrer's business, preparing for the war in the East. In the meantime you use his absences to conduct affairs with other men. And then, out of the blue, someone from your past turns up, a Jew who demands money for not exposing you. Twice you get the money from your husband, telling him it's for other things, but on the third occasion he refuses, suspecting, wrongly as it turns out, that you're having an affair. The Jew then goes to him, tells him he's married to a Jewess and has a
mischling
son, and demands money for not disgracing him. Your husband gives him the money, and of course realises what's been happening. The whole history of your relationship suddenly makes sense - the distance he feels from his son, your inveterate flirting and love of material things. The writers haven't decided how it ends. You'll have to die, of course. Either the husband will kill you in a fit of rage, or you'll die in a suitably appropriate accident.'

Effi was almost lost for words. 'What happens to the
mischling
child?'

'The writers haven't decided, but they're leaning towards killing him in the same accident.'

Effi raised one hand, fingers splayed. 'I can't do a film like this,' she almost shouted.

He was all sympathy. 'I understand. As I said at the beginning - you don't have to take this part. We do appreciate how risky it would be for you.'

Risky? Oh God, she thought, he was worried that playing the part would damage her career, that the great German public would see her as a Jew, and assume she really was one. What greater sacrifice could anyone make for their art?

She placed a hand over his. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I know I must think of the wider picture. Of my country. Let me have some time to think this through.'

'Of course, my dear,' Marssolek agreed. 'But I do hope you will do it.' Russell finished his article around four. With an hour and a half to wait before the afternoon press conference at Promi, another visit to the bar seemed in order.

It was crowded with correspondents who had made the same calculation, and there was only one available seat - opposite Patrick Sullivan at one of the tables for two. Russell hesitated, but decided what the hell - of all the American nationals who staffed Goebbels' USA Zone, Sullivan was probably the least offensive.

Since long before the war Radio Berlin had been broadcasting Goebbels' messages across the world from its transmitter at Zeesen, some thirty kilometres south of the city. The stars of the 'USA Zone' were the small collection of American nationals who provided their countrymen and women across the Atlantic with a German's-eye view of the world. At present, if Russell remembered correctly, there were six of them, four men and two women. He knew them all by sight, but like all the real American correspondents - and most of the neutrals - he avoided them whenever possible. All but Sullivan were Americans of German ancestry, and their betrayal, if that was indeed what their activities amounted to, seemed at least understandable. But listening, as he occasionally did, to their broadcasts, Russell felt an instinctive revulsion. They made the obvious points - why, for example, should Americans join sides with the oppressive British Empire against a Germany merely seeking its own rightful place in the world? - but that was about all. Their arguments were usually glib, their humour always cheap, their eagerness to jump on Hitler's anti-Semitic bandwagon downright inexcusable.

Sullivan was different. His ancestry was Irish-American, but his support for the Nazis had little or nothing to do with any traditional Irish hatred of the English. His hate figure was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom he saw as the father of the appalling socialist New Deal, and whom he considered an inveterate warmonger. Sullivan saw himself as an ally of those great Americans - men like Henry Ford, J. Edgar Hoover and Charles Lindbergh - who were desperate to keep their country out of the war, particularly now that Germany was doing civilisation's work in the East, subduing the Bolshevik monster.

He had been a small-time Hollywood actor in his twenties and a pulp novelist in his thirties, but despite his lack of journalistic training he had a good eye for a story. He had a regular Saturday spot which he filled with word-pictures of ordinary German life that stressed how well everything was going. The last time Russell had listened to him, Sullivan had been telling Americans how good the food still was in Berlin, and how useful his cigarette ration could be when it came to attracting young frauleins. But Sullivan was far from stupid, and Russell found himself wondering whether he was beginning to have second thoughts about tying his future to the Nazi cause.

Sullivan, as he soon discovered, was more than a little drunk. Though well into middle-age, with thin brown hair greying and receding at the temples, he still conveyed an impression of substance. The pugnacious jaw looked ready for a fight; the restlessly intelligent eyes seemed more than capable of choosing the right opponents. On the last few occasions that they had met, Sullivan had been particularly friendly, and Russell had wondered whether his work for the Abwehr had somehow reached the American's ears. On this occasion too Sullivan's eyes lit up at his approach, and not for the first time Russell found himself wondering about his own post-war reputation. In reality, he had done nothing to help Nazi Germany and several things to impede it, but the number of people who could actually testify to that fact were decidedly thin on the ground. If all of them dropped dead before the war's end he would have some difficult explaining to do.

'How's it going, comrade?' Sullivan asked as he sat down.

'Not so bad. And you?'

'Fine, fine,' he said distractedly, as the waiter loomed over them. 'What can I get you?'

'Whatever beer they have.'

'Okay. And another whisky for me,' he told the waiter. 'Who knows when they'll get another shipment?' he confided to Russell.

'Maybe the war will be over in the New Year,' Russell suggested. 'Moscow before Christmas, a surrender in January?'

Sullivan didn't look convinced. 'Maybe. We can only hope.' He leaned forward. 'Should have been there already, if the truth were known. Those idiots in Rosenberg's department have buggered the whole thing up. If they'd marched in and set up an independent Ukraine straight away... well, it would all have been over weeks ago. Such a wasted opportunity.'

'It's not irretrievable, is it?'

'I don't know, old man. If Roosevelt can buy enough support in Congress to bring us in...'

'If the Japs give him a good excuse he won't need to buy anyone off.' 'That is true, very true. But joining the war will be such a mistake. For America, for Germany, for everyone. The Soviets will be the only winners.'

'I expect Ribbentrop's pestering the Japs.'

'Yes, but to what end? The man's a complete fool - everyone knows that. Everyone but Hitler, apparently.'

Russell wondered how close they were sitting to a minion or a microphone, but didn't suppose it would matter. Goebbels would be delighted with Sullivan's description of his arch-enemy Ribbentrop. 'You think Ribbentrop might be encouraging the Japs to attack the Americans? That would be insane.'

Sullivan laughed. 'Wouldn't it? But I've heard some of his officials argue that such a move would keep the Americans off Germany's back, at least until the Russian campaign has been put to bed. The Americans will be so busy in the Pacific that they'll have to cut right back on their activities in the Atlantic, and on their support for the British and the Russians.'

'You don't buy it?'

Sullivan snorted. 'They haven't got a clue how powerful the American war economy will be. You know, before the war, everyone underestimated Hitler. Now it's the other way round.'

'You don't sound very optimistic.'

'I'm not.'

'So why do you carry on working for them?'

Sullivan smiled. 'A good question,' he almost whispered.

There was no sign of Goebbels at the Ministry of Propaganda, a sure sign that there was no real news. As usual, the overall tone of the press conference was friendlier than at the Foreign Ministry equivalent, but the answers offered to questions were no less vacuous for being politely put. There had been no fresh news from the Moscow Front for several days, Russell realised, which had to mean something. Were the Germans stuck? Had the Russians even managed to push them back? Or were the Germans still advancing? Russell wouldn't put it past Goebbels to store up a few days of small advances and add them all together for dramatic effect.

After wiring off his article he headed for the tram stop on Leipziger Strasse. The rain had finally stopped, but clouds still wreathed the city and the blackout was intense. The first tram was full to bursting, the second even fuller, and Russell decided that walking would be less stressful. In any case, he needed time to think, something he always did better in motion.

Sullivan's hint that he might turn on his masters had been interesting. Would those masters just wish him well - 'Here's your final pay cheque, see you after the war' - or would they get nasty? Russell suspected the latter, and Sullivan was bright enough not to expect any help from the US Consulate. Even if the Nazis surprised themselves and everyone else, he could hardly expect prodigal son treatment from the administration in Washington that he'd been paid to vilify. Refusal would be risky.

It usually was. Russell had hoped that Knieriem moving or dying would save him, at least temporarily, from saying no to Dallin, but some people were born selfish. He certainly had no intention of saying yes. Since his tete-a-tete with Giminich and his Gestapo stooge that morning, the idea of visiting anyone with the slightest connection to the German war effort was the last thing on his mind. The Americans would just have to whistle for their bomber intelligence. If the choice was between saying no to them and yes to a concentration camp, not much thought was required.

The Americans might even take no for an answer, which was more than he could say for the Germans. Giminich hadn't yet asked him for anything, but Russell had little doubt that he would. It was beginning to look as if an early American entry into the war, and an indefinite period of fraught internment, was the best of several poor futures staring him in the face. In that event the peculiar mix of national and political loyalties which had made him attractive to so many intelligence services would no longer be relevant - he would just be one more enemy alien, and proud of it.

But how many years would it be before he saw Effi and Paul again? If he ever did. People died in wars, civilians included. And if the British could drive Berliners to their shelters on a regular basis, imagine what the Yanks could do.

Effi was waiting for him, intent on eating out. 'We should celebrate your escape from the Gestapo's clutches,' she said, regretting her levity the moment she saw his expression. 'I'm sorry; was it bad?'

'No, not really.' He saw no reason to bring up Welland. 'Just another reminder of how thin the ice is. Where do you want to eat?'

'Let's try the Chinese. They're better at drowning out the taste of chemicals.'

'You're right. Let's go.'

As they walked down Uhlandstrasse he gave her a brief account of his interrogation that morning. She listened in silence, struck as usual by his knack for ordering information. 'They'll be back, won't they?' she said when he had finished.

'I'd be amazed if they weren't.'

On the Ku'damm a surprising number of people were out enjoying the newly clear sky, their phosphorescent badges reflecting in the still-wet pavements. Away to the west the yellow glow of a rising moon was silhouetting the stark lines of the Memorial Church.

The Chinese restaurant was fuller than usual, but a table was quickly found for such old and regular customers. There was nothing to drink but tea, and for once that seemed enough. Looking round, remembering the many times they had eaten there, with each other, with relatives and friends, Russell felt his spirits rising. In eight years together they had shared so much personal history - enough, surely, to carry them through the separation that the war was about to impose.

'Guess what part I got offered today?' Effi asked him.

'Magda Goebbels?'

'A manipulative Jewess married to an SS Captain.'

'Does he know she's Jewish?'

'Oh no.'

'Did you accept it?'

'Not yet. My first instinct was to brain the producer with the script. Or something heavier. But you, my darling, have taught me that every now and then - once in a very blue moon - it actually pays to think before opening one's mouth.'

'Is that what I've been teaching you?'

'Amongst other bad habits. And it seemed to me that this might be one of those times. Because the first thing that occurred to me was that if I didn't do the wretched film then someone else would, someone who wouldn't have my interest in sabotaging the whole disgusting project.'

Russell was unconvinced. 'Can a storyline like that be sabotaged? I mean, I know you could give this woman different layers of feeling and motivation, but in films like that doesn't the message come through in what happens, rather than in what the people are feeling?'