Stattin Station

Separate hells

The day's last train to Berlin was scheduled to depart in just over an hour. Fearful of being recognised, Effi left it until the last few minutes to purchase her ticket, but no one on the concourse or in the queue came rushing up to demand another autograph, and the man behind the booking office window didn't even raise his eyes to look at her.

Perhaps the woman in the mirror had only recognised her because at that particular moment her face had been so unguarded.

Had she over-reacted? No, she decided. Not that it mattered any more.

The Berlin train was full but not overcrowded. She walked the length of it, and found the badly-lit compartment she was looking for. There was only one seat left, but that was in a corner, and would allow her to turn her face from her fellow passengers. A soldier's pack sat on the seat opposite her, and its owner was still leaning out of the corridor window, gazing into his sweetheart's eyes. When the young man finally took his seat, his eyes still seemed far away.

She knew how he felt. Would she ever see John again? And if so, in how many years' time?

She closed her eyes, and realised she had a fight on her hands to hold back the tears. An actress who could cry to order should be able to manage the opposite, she told herself. She could do it. She had to do it.

The need slowly receded and as the train rattled across the Pomeranian countryside she feigned sleep and told herself to concentrate on the next few minutes and hours. She left her ticket on her lap, and silently thanked the soldier for urging the inspector not to wake her. It seemed more than possible that she was going to reach Berlin.

But what then? The most important thing was not to get caught until John was safely out of the country. But how long would that take? A week? Ten days? If she was caught before then and forced to talk, she would say he had taken the train to Danzig, in the hope of finding a ship there. She would never mention Riga.

The train pulled into Stettin Station a few minutes after midnight. There were no leather coats waiting at the end of the platform, or at the entrance to the U-Bahn. The underground train was full of home-going Friday night revellers, all beer breath and sweat, and she relished the rush of clear cold air that hit her as she emerged onto Mullerstrasse. After walking briskly through the blacked-out streets to Prinz-Eugen-Strasse, she opened the doors to the darkened building and flat with the keys they'd almost left behind.

After checking that the blackout curtains were still in place, she turned on a single light and stood there for a moment, gazing at the once-abandoned apartment. It had been less than a week.

She walked into the other room, lay down on the cold bed, and wept.

On the Danzig train, the first inspection of papers and tickets took place at one of the old Polish border crossings. It was past midnight, and most of Russell's fellow passengers were asleep. Being woken made many of them irritable, which made the inspectors even more officious. Russell anxiously waited his turn, heart beating at faster than the usual rate, hands distinctly clammy. He explored the false moustache with his fingers, but couldn't really tell if it was still on straight.

The gun, he suddenly realised, was still in his bag. It was no good to him now - the reverse, in fact, if the men in uniforms started searching luggage. But there was no time to get rid of it.

They arrived at his compartment, two bleary-eyed men in old border police uniforms. One man looked at Russell's papers, then briefly at him, before handing the papers back and passing on to his neighbour. He closed his eyes in gratitude, and only opened them again when both inspectors had moved on.

As the sense of relief faded, the feeling of emptiness returned. He kept reminding himself that it was all for the best, that now Effi had a chance of escaping complicity in his crimes - but it didn't help. He knew he had to make his peace with their separation, had to keep himself focused on what he had to do. There was nothing he could do for her, except get himself out of Germany.

He eventually fell asleep, only to wake up terrified that he had smudged his facial make-up on the upholstery. But none of his fellow passengers were giving him strange looks, and a glance in the toilet mirror was enough to show him that Effi's artistry remained intact. It would soon have to come off, though. Look on the bright side, he told himself - after the last few days he was probably no longer in need of artificial ageing.

It was light outside, and they were running close to the Baltic coast, the wide grey sea sliding almost seamlessly into a wide grey sky. Russell recognised the station at Zoppot as they rattled through, and twenty minutes later the train was pulling to a final halt in re-Germanised Danzig. He hurried off the train, but needn't have bothered - the connecting service for Dirschau and points further east was not leaving for another six hours. Unwilling to risk that amount of time in the station, he crossed the street to the Reichshof Hotel, where he had stayed on his last visit. He was almost at the desk when he realised how stupid he was being, but the receptionist proved unfamiliar. He asked to be woken at twelve-thirty, and walked up to his second-floor room.

Feeling safer with the door locked behind him, he lay down on the bed and tried to take stock of his situation. It stank, was as far as he got.

He was exhausted, but still found it hard to sleep. He felt as if his eyes had just closed when a hand rapped on the door and a child's voice told him it was time to get up. He had a thorough wash for the first time in days, paid for the room, and walked back to the station in search of food. He hadn't felt hungry for a long time, and still didn't, but the weakness in his legs could no longer be ignored.

The train was delayed for another hour, and he had plenty of time to eat what proved a dreadful meal. The station buffet was crowded, with many uniforms visible, but there was no police presence, and no sign of leather coats. Danzig might now be a part of the German Reich, but it seemed a long way from Berlin.

After washing his meal down with a better-than-expected bottle of beer, he stopped at the kiosk for a newspaper. Handing over the pfennigs, he noticed a month-old film magazine which Effi had brought home several weeks before, and which he knew contained a wonderful picture of her. He bought it, walked out onto the platform, and found the relevant page. 'Effi Koenen, star of Homecoming', smiled out at him.

He gazed at her for several moments before turning to the newspaper. The German front line in the East was in the process of being 'rationalised', and the Army had a new commander-in-chief. Hitler had sacked Field-Marshal Brauchitsch and taken the job for himself. But, according to the official communique, nothing had really changed: since all the successes of the last few years had 'originated entirely from the spiritual initiative and the genius-like strategy of the Fuhrer himself,' he had, 'in practice, always been leading the German Army.'

In the apartment on Prinz-Eugen-Strasse, she woke with a start, wondering for a moment where she was. Then memory kicked in, and she lay there in the darkness for a while, before angrily forcing herself up and into the bathroom. A slight tug of the blackout curtain revealed another grey day.

What was she going to do?

Stay in, she supposed. But not in darkness, not for days on end. That really would drive her mad.

She went into the kitchen, put on the kettle, and did an inventory of the food that they'd left behind. There was enough to last her a week, she thought. Maybe ten days. By then, John should be out of the country.

She would have to keep as quiet as she could, and pray that no one realised she was there. As long as she didn't use any lights, no one would notice that the blackout curtains were half open. If the air raid warning sounded, she would simply ignore it - there was no way she could risk going to the shelter in her unmade-up state.

Once the food was gone, she would need to find some way of getting more. But she could worry about that when the time came.

After reaching Dirschau late in the afternoon, Russell endured another long and anxious wait. The Berlin-Konigsberg express finally arrived around nine. Two inspections and three hours later it reached the old capital of East Prussia, where falling snow was visible in the bright arc lights illuminating the yard. Leaving the train, he could see buildings with lighted windows. There really was a world beyond the blackout.

Riga, it transpired, was still two trains and a day away. The first, which wouldn't be leaving until eight the following morning, would get him to Tilsit, where, according to his old history master, Napoleon and Czar Alexander had met on a floating raft in the River Niemen. The second, a local stopping service, would carry him across the former republics of Lithuania and Latvia, which Hitler and Stalin had doomed between them.

So where to spend the night? Appalling weather conditions further to the east had wreaked havoc on what timetables there were, and filled the station platforms with enough soldiers and civilians to hide the odd fugitive. It seemed safer to stay where he was than wander the unknown streets of Konigsberg, so he found himself a gap in the rows of sprawled-out travellers, and laid himself down on the hard platform with his bag for a pillow. He even managed a few hours' sleep.

When the cold woke him for the last time, light was seeping through the station's glass roof. He went in search of food, and found the buffet well stocked with rolls and coffee. Quality was clearly not an issue, because both were awful.

Back on the platform advertised for the Tilsit service, he saw a train of boxcars slowly approaching the station from the north. As he watched the locomotive steam by, his nose was suddenly assaulted by the stench of human waste. There was a hint of movement in the small openings high on the wagon-sides, and yellow-brown liquid was oozing out from under several doors. The train was leaking urine and excrement.

'Russian prisoners,' a voice said beside him. It was a German army captain. There was disapproval in his tone, and in the slight shake of his head, but he said no more. The train cleared the station, but the smell hung in the air, as if reluctant to disperse.

The officer disappeared up the platform, leaving Russell with no expectation of seeing him again; but half an hour later, just as his train was leaving, the man walked into his otherwise empty compartment. He seemed eager to talk, and Russell, after inventing some relatives as his reason for visiting Riga, was happy to let him do so. The captain had been involved in the Russian campaign since its inception, and was on his way back to the front after a week of compassionate leave.

How were things going, Russell asked him, in as a neutral a tone as possible.

Things were difficult, his companion admitted. Really difficult. But the men had been magnificent. People back home had no idea what it was like, but then how could they?

And the Russians? Russell asked.

'They're not like the French,' was the officer's answer.

Russell tried, ever so gently, to draw out his companion on the future course of the war, but all he got in response were pious expressions of hope. Once the winter was over, then things would become clearer. Once the winter was over, changes would have to be made. Once the winter was over, they would do what had to be done.

The possibility of defeat was there in the man's eyes, in his voice and his evident agitation, but it couldn't be admitted. Not yet.

The officer ended the discussion by saying he needed some sleep, leaving Russell to stare out at the snow-dusted East Prussian fields. Riga, he suddenly remembered, was icebound for at least part of the winter. Surely they hadn't sent him several hundred kilometres in search of a non-existent ship?

When the train reached Tilsit in mid-afternoon he discovered that there was only one daily connection to the old Latvian capital, and it left at seven in the morning. He would have to endure another night on a station platform.

There were worse places to spend one. Stuck on a far-off rim of Hitler's bloated Reich, Tilsit and its station seemed sleepy enough for any fugitive. There was only one limp swastika spoiling the sky, and the uniforms on display all belonged to the Reichsbahn. The only evidence of war was the traffic passing through - supply trains moving in both directions, a hospital train and rakes of empty flatcars travelling west, a troop train full of anxious faces heading for the front.

One particular transport caught Russell's attention. A long line of box cars drawn by an old and wheezing locomotive arrived just before dawn, and spent the next two hours stabled in a siding across from the station. SS guards strode up and down beside it, but a prolonged burst of banging was the only sound that reached across the tracks. Someone hammering on the inside of a door, Russell guessed. When the train clanked into motion, the fist fell silent.

His own much smaller train headed out in the same direction an hour or so later, and was soon rumbling over a long bridge above the Niemen. Another twenty minutes and it reached the frontier of the Reich, where the passengers underwent a surprisingly cursory inspection before travelling on into the newly-established Reichkommissariat Ostland. That afternoon, officials manning a checkpoint at the defunct border between Lithuania and Latvia proved considerably more zealous. Russell spent several fraught minutes in the queue, before realising that only the locals were being subjected to the sort of scrutiny that always accompanied one of Hitler's live appearances; Germans like Werner Sasowski were being waved through with a friendly smile. It was like being a white man in Africa.

The train re-started, and was soon threading its way through a large and seemingly uninhabited forest. It finally emerged on the outskirts of Riga. There was snow on the ground here, but only a couple of inches, and the sky was partly clear. As the train slowed on its approach to the station, Russell became aware of suitcases left beyond the adjoining tracks, some neatly stacked, some simply lying in the fallen snow. There were hundreds of them. A thousand, he guessed, remembering Strohm's report of the SS prescription for an ideal transport.

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.

Effi stared at the photographs covering a large part of the wall behind the counter, each one signed by the star in question. After the war she'd come back with her own.

The woman was checking the items through. 'I think that's everything,' the woman said, completing her check. She looked up at Effi and her face seemed to change.

Here it comes, Effi thought.

'Have you ever met the Fuhrer?' the woman asked.

'Only once,' Effi admitted. 'He was charm itself.'

Fifteen minutes later she was back in the Wertheim's cubicle. After changing back into her normal clothes, she sat on the toilet seat and applied some of the new make-up with the aid of her compact mirror. Satisfied, she let herself out and headed for the U-Bahn, remembering just in time to age her walk. The train was crowded and smelly, but one young soldier insisted on giving her his seat, and when she finally closed the apartment door behind her she felt a quiet surge of triumph.

On Christmas evening, Felix came to tell Russell that a Swedish ship was due in port in less than forty-eight hours. Two days later, the small patch of sky outside his window was beginning to darken when the hotel owner entered with a thin young man named Rainis.

When Russell saw the bicycle, he realised that he'd been half-expecting another ride in the back of a van. 'I haven't been on one of these for twenty years,' he muttered, mostly to himself. With his bag tied on the back, he climbed gingerly into the saddle. A quick shake of Felix's hand, and he was off, wobbling down the street in Rainis' wake.

The two-kilometre journey to the docks took them around the eastern edge of the city centre, and Russell was left with an impression of towers and spires faintly silhouetted against a rapidly darkening sky. There was virtually no traffic, and a Mercedes 260 parked by the side of the road turned out to be empty. By the time they reached the docks all natural light had disappeared, but Riga, unlike Stettin, was still making full use of the artificial variety. Open warehouse doors were squares of bright yellow light, the cranes beyond them lit from below.

There were other cyclists about, and several lorries parked with their lights on. Rainis led Russell away from the lights, the two of them bumping across cobblestone setts and between buildings to reach a dark section of the quayside. Further down the basin a freighter was tied up, the name Norma emblazoned on its stern. The sea air was freezing cold.

'That's your boat,' Rainis whispered.

Russell could see at least two uniforms near the bottom of the gangplank.

'That's all they guard,' the young Latvian said, reading his mind. 'You'll be using the port side.'

Leaning the bicycles against a convenient wall, they walked on down the quayside, keeping close to the buildings until the Norma was several hundred metres behind them. After one long look back and a check of his watch, Rainis struck out across the wide quay, reaching the edge at the point where a flight of concrete steps led down to the water, and a tethered rowing boat lay gently bobbing in the tide. The young Latvian sitting in the bow looked anxious, but managed a smile of welcome as Russell clambered aboard. He quickly engaged the oars. Rainis, it seemed, was not coming.

Russell waved his thanks, wedged the bag between his knees, and suddenly remembered that he'd left the gun under his pillow back at the hotel. One for the Resistance.

His oarsman was taking the long way round, rowing out beyond the reach of the quayside lights until the Norma provided its own shadow. This should have been Stettin, Russell thought, with Effi there beside him.

There were no signs of activity on the seaward side of the freighter, which boded well. The apparent lack of a ladder, or any other means of getting himself aboard, was less auspicious; but the oarsman, seeing his confusion, first used two hands to mime a climbing motion, then one to indicate something dropping from the sky. A few moments later the rope ladder landed a few feet away from them, and a short whistle sounded above.

With one hand on the rope and one holding his bag, Russell struggled up the side of the ship, conscious of every scuff and bang which accompanied his laborious progress. He was almost at the top when a strong hand reached down to help him over the railing. As he regained his feet, a grinning young man put a finger to his lips, then pointed off to the right.

Russell nodded his understanding, and followed the man. Judging by the noise, the rear hold was still being loaded, but work had finished on the yellow-lit foredeck, with only the hatches to fasten. Emerging from the shadow of the superstructure, the Swede settled into a crouching walk reminiscent of Groucho Marx, and Russell duly followed him to the edge of the open hold. The Swede pointed his finger once more, this time at an iron ladder leading down. Russell nodded, and swung himself onto the top rung.

The man whispered one word - 'Midnight' - and disappeared from view.

Russell climbed down into the darkened hold, stopping when one foot encountered something solid and allowing his eyes time to adjust. A room full of dark rectangles suggested several layers of packing cases, a theory soon confirmed by touch. He worked himself into a corner, where he hoped he could not be seen by someone looking in. Once the hatches were down he would climb back on top of the cases to lessen the risk of being crushed.

How long, he wondered, would the voyage take? He should have asked Rainis.

An hour or so later the hatches were fastened, and the darkness became complete. Even an overcast, blacked-out Berlin had offered more in the way of visibility.

Another anxious hour followed, before the sudden rumbling of the ship's engines had him almost trembling with relief. A few more minutes and they were underway. Russell felt the change as they left the docks for the river, and wondered if he would feel another as they left the river for the bay.

He was lying across two crates, eyes closed, when he became aware of a slight shift in the light. A faint square had appeared in the ceiling above him, a square that was swiftly filled by movement. Someone was descending into the hold.

Whoever it was reached the bottom and switched on a torch. Russell shielded his eyes against the blinding light.

'Sorry,' a voice said, first in Swedish and then in English. 'But safe now. You come out. I take you to captain. You understand?'

'I do,' Russell said.

'I say I find you. Stowaway, yes. Captain a good man. But I lose job if he know I help you. I am Olle,' he said, extending a hand.

The captain's English was even better. He listened to Russell's fictional account of how he had stowed aboard with a slightly amused expression, and warned him that he would be handed over to the appropriate authorities when they reached Stockholm. They would be out in the open Baltic all the next day, he added, and Russell could make himself useful by joining the standing watch. An extra set of eyes might just save them all from a Russian torpedo. 'Now you can take him for some food,' he told Olle. 'He looks like he needs it.'

The galley chef had long since gone to his bunk, but Olle found some meatballs and potatoes to warm up. They tasted better than anything Russell had eaten since the summer. Neutrality obviously had its advantages.

A deep and dreamless sleep was interrupted by the call of duty, and a short hot breakfast was followed by two long shifts scanning the cold, rolling and almost empty Baltic. The only ships he saw were far away - German destroyers most likely, heading across the freighter's stern towards the Gulf of Leningrad.

That evening he played cards with several of the crew. No one asked him any questions, and the war was only mentioned in passing. All the talk was of girlfriends and wives, food and football, the sexiest bars in Helsinki.

He thought about that the following morning, as the lights of a country at peace brightened on the Swedish shoreline. He might be safe, but his escape had cost more than he could ever repay. Hans and Margarete Otting, the two comrades in the Kaiser Bar - they would be in concentration camps by now, if they hadn't already been executed. Strohm might have evaded the Gestapo swoops in Berlin, but Russell doubted whether Ernst or Andreas would long survive the unravelling of the network in Stettin.

He had left the war behind, but those who had helped him, and those whom he loved, were all still trapped in its writhing coils.

The British came on New Year's Eve, and Frau Eva Vollmar spent three hours in the shelter with her neighbours. The block warden ticked off her name on his list, but said nothing of his visit to her apartment.

The first morning of 1942 was cold but sunny, and Effi decided she had to get out. The walk to Humboldthain Park took about half an hour, and she sat on a bench watching the birds, wishing she had brought them some breadcrumbs. Another huge flak tower was under construction on the northern edge of the park, the air full of the sounds of hammering, but even that failed to dampen her spirits.

She wasn't sure what had brought on her optimistic mood - perhaps there were only a certain number of days which the heart could spend immured in fear and loss. That and the fact that two other truths had become evident since her trip to the theatrical suppliers. For one thing, she was unlikely to starve in the near future; there were still items of food that one could buy without ration tickets, which she could add to her dwindling supplies. The second realisation - that women over forty were essentially invisible - was depressing in itself, but highly fortuitous in her current circumstances. The chances of anyone recognising her were slim.

Making herself up for years on end was a daunting prospect, but far from impossible. And things were bound to change. Once the hue and cry had died down - perhaps in a couple of months - she would find a way of contacting Zarah, who would gladly hand over every ration ticket in her possession, and help in any other way that was humanly possible. If that seemed too dangerous, she might come up with some variation on Ali Blumenthal's bombed-out office ploy to find herself a new identity, and the ration entitlement that went with it.

Sitting there on the park bench, watching the sun rise into the Berlin sky, she could imagine the producer's introduction to the script. A woman on the run. Alone and frightened and far from home. But determined to see her lover again, and resourceful enough to survive against all the odds.

It was a difficult part to play, and she meant to play it well.