Lehrter Station

The face in the cab

Russell stared out at the city below. It was probably Leipzig, which from this height looked deceptively intact. He remembered Goebbels going there and giving one of his pep talks, spouting off amidst suitably Wagnerian ruins. Victory or Siberia! It hadn’t taken a genius to work that one out, even then.

He still felt worried about leaving Effi, despite all her protestations. In the war she’d learned to take care of herself — that was what she’d told him. And he knew it was true, up to a point; these days she took time to consider, rather than jump straight in. But there were a lot of careful people pushing up daisies.

The plane lurched again, and he told himself he’d be better advised worrying about his own safety. The way the DC3 rattled, it was easy to imagine the plane shaking itself to pieces on the ground, let alone in the winds now raging over Germany. The Soviet fighters which had shadowed the early part of the American flight had long since scurried back to base.

Their pilot announced that they were crossing the zonal border, and the turbulence abruptly vanished, as if it had been a Russian trick. Or perhaps the Americans had found a way of calming the winds. They had to be good at something.

He closed his eyes and re-ran his last meeting with Scott Dallin. The American had been furious. A dead chemist, a dead operative, the Soviets already raising merry hell with his superiors. All of which had been bad enough, but what apparently galled him most was the fact that he couldn’t blame Russell. Vinny and George had obviously corroborated his own version of the events, and correctly identified Halsey as the author of his own demise.

‘I think you’ll find he was on something,’ Russell had told Dallin. ‘If you bother to look.’

‘On something,’ Dallin had echoed, as if Russell had chosen the wrong preposition.

‘Drugs. Uppers of some sort. Cocaine would be my guess. You can get it at any nightclub.’

‘We should close them all down.’

Russell had let that pass — if Dallin had his way, he’d have razed what was left of the city. His hero was probably Tamerlane. He had never bothered with occupations.

He smiled at the thought. At least Dallin had raised no objection to his trip. On the contrary, he had seemed only too pleased to have him out of the way.

Russell wondered how the Americans would placate the Soviets. By giving them Halsey’s head on a plate, most likely. Metaphorically speaking. If the boy had parents they were in for a shock. Death and disgrace.

He closed his eyes again, and let the throb of the engines lull him to sleep. He was only expecting a nap, but when he finally woke more Soviet fighters were riding shotgun on either side of the Dakota, patrolling the skies above their Austrian occupation zone.

Half an hour later they were down, and taxiing to a halt outside the Schwechat Airport terminal building. Austria and Vienna, like Germany and Berlin, had been divided into four occupation zones, and Schwechat had fallen inside the capital’s British sector, but civilian planes of all four powers were using the runway and other facilities.

The entry formalities were just that, and Russell’s progress was only halted by the lack of a taxi or bus. On Sundays, it seemed, arriving civilians were expected to walk the eight kilometres to the city centre, and it was more than an hour before he managed to cadge a lift in a British Army jeep.

After a twenty-minute drive along mostly empty roads the driver dropped him off in the Stephansplatz, at the heart of the inner city. Russell had made several trips to Vienna in pre-Anschluss days, but the current city bore little resemblance to the one he remembered. Many of the hotels had been destroyed, and rooms were at a definite premium. It took him an hour to find one that was empty, and half an hour more to find one he could afford. This hotel was on Johannesgasse, and almost in one piece, the staircase climbing past a boarded-over rip in the wall, through which the cold wind literally whistled. His room was fine, apart from the lack of hot water.

Feeling peckish, he went out looking for a cafe. Vienna’s centre looked in better shape than Berlin’s, but not by much. There were the same, precarious-looking, lattice-like facades, the same inner walls with their scorched decorations exposed to the world. Fewer of them, perhaps, but more than Russell had expected. Either the Austrians had been daft enough to put up a real fight or the Russians had just felt like breaking things. Or both.

He eventually found a small bar. The interior reminded him of days gone by, but the same wasn’t true of the coffee. There was no heating, so at least the windows were clear of steam. He sat there for half an hour, watching well-wrapped people trudge past, all looking grim as the weather.

As he walked back down Karntner Strasse towards his hotel a jeep drove by in the opposite direction. It was flying the flags of the occupying powers, and carrying soldiers in all four uniforms. Russell had read about these international patrols in the English papers, and he wondered again how the French and Russians could bear it. A soldier’s life, as he knew from the trenches, was one long stream of banter, and here they were spending their days with no one they could talk to.

Waking alone on Monday morning, Effi had the momentary sensation of being back in the house on Bismarckstrasse, with the war still underway. The sense of relief when she realised it wasn’t caused her to laugh out loud.

The Russians had announced the closure of the Babelsberg studios until Tuesday. The reason given was ‘refurbishment’, but what this amounted to was left unspecified — one joker among the prop boys had put his money on the installation of hidden microphones and cameras. Whatever the reason, Effi had the day off, and a chance to question the authorities about her flat on Carmerstrasse.

She was relieved that Russell had left Berlin. The exodus to Palestine seemed a good story, and few things made him happier than gnawing at one of those. Rather more importantly, it put him — or so she hoped — beyond Geruschke’s reach. Russell might have presented the story of his abduction as a bad, semi-comic movie script, but she could tell how badly it had shaken him. And that had scared her. Losing him was not something she wanted to contemplate.

And then there was Otto 3, who seemed, from the little that Wilhelm Isendahl had told them, like a father who might be worth finding. She might not like the consequences, but she had to put Rosa first.

She was pleased that Hanna and Lotte wanted to come home, even though that meant that she and John would need to move out. The sooner normal life was resumed, the sooner Rosa could come home.

Though of course it would be different for her. Rosa was Jewish — that was why Effi had needed to take her in. But what did that mean for the future? Sometimes the girl’s Jewishness seemed easy to ignore. Rosa had never mentioned, let alone requested, any sort of religious or cultural observance, and she had, on one or two occasions, displayed an unusually virulent atheism for a seven year-old. Though after what she and her family had been through, perhaps nothing should seem surprising.

But still. Could she and John just ignore the girl’s background? Didn’t it help people to know where they came from? The girl’s life had been shaped by the catastrophe that the Nazis had inflicted on her people, and one day she would want to know why. If her father was found, he would raise her as a Jewish daughter.

A second pang of prospective loss was enough to drive Effi from the bed. She threw on some winter clothes and went downstairs in search of breakfast. If they did bring Rosa back, she would have the highest-grade ration card, just like herself and John. The leading actor, the journalistspy, the ‘Victim of Fascism’ — Berlin’s privileged few.

Half an hour later she was boarding a bus at the stop on Kronprinzenallee. Riding northward, she realised that her own doubts were gone — she wanted to stay. The filming was going well, and it felt wonderful, not just to be working again, but to be making a movie that mattered, one that might help her fellow Germans come to terms with what had happened. It felt like atonement of a sort, or the beginnings of such.

And it was good to be around Thomas again, and Ali, and Annaliese.

And John had to be here, at least until he found some way of disentangling himself from the Soviet embrace. Effi remembered him once saying that espionage was like quicksand — the more you struggled, the more you were trapped. But if anyone could wriggle his way free then he could.

The previous evening she had talked to Thomas about the flat on Carmerstrasse, and he had suggested legal help — Berlin might be short of food and housing, but lawyers were springing up like weeds. Effi knew she couldn’t cast a family of refugees out onto the street, but that begged the question of who she would be willing to eject — whoever the current inhabitants were, they wouldn’t have anywhere else to go.

She had hoped Thomas would know how the current system worked, but it seemed to vary from district to district. There had to be tens of thousands of people returning from war or exile, and only a few would be Jews. And, as Thomas had cheerfully reminded her, most of the city’s property deeds had fallen victim to explosions or fire. He had advised her to start at the local town hall and see what they had to say.

She seemed to remember that their local Rathaus had been reduced to its constituent bricks, but, as she’d expected, enough of the front wall remained for a notice board bearing the new address.

The new offices were a ten-minute walk away, in what had once been an elementary school, and probably would be again. There were about twenty people waiting in the old lobby, but none, as she soon discovered, were there to enquire about housing. She was directed down a long corridor, still lined, somewhat surprisingly, with thematic maps of the vanished Reich, to the classroom now occupied by the Housing Office. This comprised an elderly man and woman, stationed at adjoining tables beyond several neat rows of abandoned desks.

The man made a note of her name and the Carmerstrasse address, and began working his way through the twenty or so cardboard boxes which lined the wall behind him, occasionally pausing to stretch his back. After about five minutes he emitted a grunt of surprise, which Effi rightly assumed meant success.

He brought several pieces of paper back to the table, and skimmed through them. ‘This flat was confiscated by the state on February 10th, 1942’, he told her. ‘Ownership was forfeited following the owner’s — your — arraignment for treason.’ He looked over his glasses at Effi with rather more interest than he’d initially shown.

‘Which means what?’ Effi asked him.

He looked confused. ‘Which part don’t you understand?’

‘I understand all of it. Are you telling me that this ruling still holds?’

‘As of this moment, yes.’

‘Decisions of the Nazi courts are still valid?’

‘Most of them, yes. There has to be continuity.’

Effi held on to her temper. ‘Are you telling me the apartment is no longer mine?’

‘No, not necessarily. But I’m afraid you cannot expect to simply resume possession.’

But it’s mine, she felt like shouting.

‘You will have to apply for repossession,’ he said. He was, she realised, actually trying to help.

‘So I’ll need a lawyer.’

He nodded. ‘I would certainly recommend it.’

‘Who’s living there now?’ she asked. ‘And how long have they been there?’ She would feel much better about ejecting a family who’d been gifted the apartment by the local Nazis than she would a group of refugees from the East.

‘The name of the current residents is Puttkammer,’ he read from his papers. ‘A woman and three children. They moved in earlier this year, in March.’

Well at least they weren’t Jews, Effi thought. Not then, and not with a name like that. She asked for advice on how to proceed, and gratefully watched as he wrote out a simple list of steps she needed to take, and where she should go to take them. It sounded straightforward enough, though likely to take every hour God sent. It would all have to wait until filming was over.

She thanked him and made her way back to the street. Schluterstrasse and its cafeteria were only a short walk away, so she headed that way, hoping for lunch with Ellen Grynszpan. The former was available, the latter not, and after eating Effi started for home. But as she passed the remains of the Schmargendorf Rathaus on Hohenzollerndamm, it occurred to her that Zarah’s house might be standing empty.

This time it was a woman she eventually spoke to. Effi explained the situation: that she was there on her sister’s behalf, that Zarah and her son Lothar were in London, and that her brother-in-law was probably dead.

‘Jens Biesinger?’ the woman asked, reaching for a file of papers.

‘Yes,’ Effi agreed, somewhat surprised.

‘What makes you think he’s dead?’

‘The last time Zarah saw him, he told her he had suicide pills for them both. That was in April, just before the Russians entered the city.’

‘And she wanted to live,’ the woman said drily. ‘Apparently he did too.’

‘You mean he’s still alive?’

She was still looking at the file. ‘He is indeed. And would you believe it? — he’s working for us.’

‘Us?’

‘The District Administration. At the Housing Office.’

Effi couldn’t believe it. ‘And where’s that?’

‘On Guntzelstrasse. It’s only a short walk away.’

‘So he’s still the legal owner of the house?’

‘According to this.’

‘Then I suppose I’ll have to go round there,’ Effi decided. She couldn’t honestly say she was eager to see Jens again, but he was Lothar’s father.

She walked back outside, and asked a passing boy for directions. Ten minutes later she was outside a door signed ‘Jens Biesinger, Director’. Of what, it didn’t say.

She knocked and a familiar voice said ‘Come in.’

The expression on Jens’s face passed through astonishment and pleasure before settling on apprehension. ‘Effi!’ he said, scrambling out of his chair and advancing for a familial embrace.

She allowed him one kiss on the cheek before shooing him back to his chair. He was wearing a remarkably shabby suit, a far cry from the Nazi uniform which Zarah had ironed about ten times a day. But he looked in better health than most Berliners, and several kilos fatter than when she’d last seen him four years before.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘I work here.’

Why haven’t you been arrested, she wanted to ask.

‘Lothar, is he alive?’ There was a quiver in his voice, as if he feared the answer. ‘And Zarah, of course.’

‘They’re both in London.’

‘London!?’

‘It’s a long story. We’ve all been living there. John and I only came back last week.’

‘London,’ Jens repeated. ‘I spent months looking for them. I never dreamed… Are they coming back too?’

‘I expect so. Eventually.’

‘How is Lothar? Does he ask about me? And Zarah… why hasn’t she…?’

‘She assumed you were dead. Or in prison. We all did.’

‘Why would I be in prison?’

‘Your past allegiances,’ she suggested.

He looked a trifle shamefaced, but the justification was clearly well-honed. ‘I was in the Party, true, but so were millions of others. I was a civil servant, after all, working for the state, so loyalty was expected. But we civil servants were not responsible for framing policies — we just did what we were told to do.’

Effi shook her head in disbelief, but he didn’t seem to notice.

‘Will you give me their address in London?’

‘No, but I’ll give her yours. And I’m sure she will write to you, for Lothar’s sake. And I know he will.’

‘I’m still at the old house on Taunusstrasse. In the basement, that is — there are families on the other two floors. It is good to see you,’ he said, as if vaguely surprised by the fact.

Effi smiled, and wished she could say the same. She told herself she was being mean. Lothar, at least, would he happy to hear that his father was alive. Not to mention free as a bird.

After finding and drinking a better than expected coffee in a cafe just off the Stephansplatz, Russell set off with his ancient Baedeker in search of the Rothschild Hospital. Beyond Vienna’s inner ring road the war damage was less extensive, and several streets seemed almost pristine. There was an obvious dearth of motor traffic — even the jeeps of the occupying forces seemed thin on the ground — and some vistas seemed more redolent of the Habsburg Empire than 1945.

The pavements outside the Rothschild Hospital were crowded with Jews. They were not, as one told Russell, intent on getting in, but were waiting for friends or relatives who might soon arrive from the east. The hospital itself had suffered some damage, but most of it seemed in use. After queuing at one of several reception desks in the old emergency room he was given directions to the Haganah office.

It was in the basement, at the other end of the long building. The corridors were jammed with people, and the rooms on either side offered a wonderful kaleidoscope of activities, from shoe repair through kindergarten lessons to full medical examinations. By the time Russell reached the Haganah office he felt as if he’d travelled through a small country.

The office was not much larger than a cupboard, but its contents seemed admirably organised. The man squeezed behind the desk introduced himself as Yoshi Mizrachi. He was obviously not surprised by Russell’s appearance, which was something of a relief. He spoke English with a London accent, and opened proceedings by stressing the restrictions on Russell’s reporting — he must not mention real names, of either people or places, if such exposure might compromise the Aliyah Beth.

Russell raised an eyebrow at the last phrase.

‘It is what we call this emigration. Aliyah has no direct English translation, but “moving to a better, or a higher, place” is as close as I can tell you. Beth means second — the first emigration is the one allowed by the British — only a few hundred per year.’

Russell wrote it down. ‘No names,’ he agreed.

Mizrachi passed a folded piece of paper across the desk. ‘This says that you are a journalist sympathetic to our cause, one that our people can trust. In some places you may be asked to produce it.’

Russell assumed the writing was in Hebrew. He wasn’t so sure about the sympathy — Zionism seemed a pretty mixed bag when it came to rights and wrongs — but Mizrachi’s imprimatur could hardly hurt. The journalist inside him bristled a little at having to prove his trustworthiness. ‘Is this necessary?’ he asked mildly.

‘It might be. Forgive my bluntness, Mr Russell, but there are many Jews on this road who would be only too happy if they never saw a goy again, and they will treat you as an enemy. This letter will persuade at least some of them to give you the benefit of the doubt.’

‘That makes sense,’ Russell admitted. He asked Mizrachi what his official position was.

‘I don’t have one. I’m a sheliakh, an emissary. There are many of us in Europe now. In all the countries where Jews are living and travelling.’

‘Was it the Haganah who got it all started? The Aliyah Beth, I mean?’

‘Not in Europe, no. It was young men and women from Poland and Lithuania — partisan fighters, most of them. They began establishing routes before the war was even over. They sent the first people south to Romania and the Black Sea, and then others through Hungary and Yugoslavia. Once the war was over it became possible to move people westwards, into the American zones in Germany and Austria.’

‘How did the Haganah get involved?’

‘We’ve always been involved in bringing Jews to Palestine — we have a special section called Mossad which is responsible for this. When the war ended the British Jewish Brigade was billeted in north-east Italy, outside Tarvisio. The Mossad people visited the camps in Germany and Austria, and talked to the Jewish DPs about Palestine. Those that expressed an interest were told where to go.’

‘So you are running things now?’

‘Yes and no. We provide documents — mostly forged, of course. We arrange routes and transport. We negotiate border crossings, usually with bribes. We’ve created reception areas along the way, with food and shelter for large groups. But we do have a lot of help. The organisations themselves can’t openly support us, but there are many individuals in the US Army, UNRRA, the Red Cross, the Italian police — even the Vatican, believe it or not — who do their best to smooth our way. This place is run by UNRRA, the US Army’s DP division, the city’s Jewish Committee and the DPs themselves. It’s often chaotic, but most of the time we all seem to be on the same page.’

‘So what’s the official position of the occupying powers? The British are obviously hostile, so I don’t suppose the Americans can be openly helpful. And what about the Soviets?’

‘The Russians don’t seem to care. The Americans… well, like you said, they’re stuck in the middle. A few weeks ago they intercepted three of our trains at Linz, and sent them straight back here. We organised demonstrations, got publicity in the American press, and they agreed to organise transit camps if we restricted the flow to 5,000 a month, which is more than it’s ever been. They want to help us.’

‘And the Italian authorities?’

‘Much the same. In fact, we had an almost identical situation with them — a trainload of refugees which the British wanted sent back. They forced the Italian police to put our people back on board, which took them half a day and really ticked them off. Ever since then the Italians have turned a blind eye whenever they could.’

‘Are there lots of different routes?’

‘Usually one or two. They change — one gets closed and another opens up.’

‘Does everyone end up in Italy?’

‘No, some go to France. We had a boat leave Marseilles not long ago.’

Russell leant back in the chair. ‘Why do they want to go to Palestine, rather than America?’

Mizrachi smiled. ‘You’ll have to ask them that.’

‘But how do you feel about the ones who want to go to America? Or the ones who want to stay in Germany? Do you think of them as traitors?’

‘Traitors, no.’ He shrugged. ‘The ones who want to stay in Europe… it’s their choice, but I don’t believe it’s a tenable one, not in the long run. Have you heard what’s happening in Poland?’

‘What, lately?’

‘A lot of Polish Jews thought they’d go home after the war, but they soon discovered what a bad idea that was. There have been anti-Jewish riots in Cracow, Nowy Sacz, Sosnowice… there was one a few weeks ago in Lublin. The murderers may be different, but Polish Jews are still being killed.’

Russell just shook his head — sometimes there seemed no hope for humanity. ‘So, what are the arrangements?’ he asked after a moment.

‘I’m waiting to hear when the next party is crossing the border. If it’s soon, you should take the train to Villach — it’s the quickest way. If they’re waiting for another group from here, then you can travel with that, by the usual route.’

‘Which is what?’

‘The train to St Valentin, then across the Ems River by boat — the river’s the border between the Russian and American zones. Then south to Villach and the Italian frontier. That takes two or three days.’

‘Okay,’ Russell agreed reluctantly. He told Mizrachi the name of his hotel, and the Haganah man promised to be in touch the moment he heard anything. ‘There is one other thing,’ Russell added. ‘I’m looking for two people, a man and a woman. For personal reasons. And I know a man with the right name was travelling this way from Silesia. Is there anyone here keeping records of the people who pass through?’

Mizrachi smiled. ‘Indeed there is. And he’s very proud of them. Let me take you to him.’

They walked back through the basement, and up to the reception area, where a door behind the desks led through to several offices. In the last of these a middle-aged man in a yarmulke was bent over a ledger. ‘This is Mordechai Landau,’ Mizrachi said. He explained what Russell wanted, and left the two of them to it.

Once apprised of the names, Landau began searching the filing cabinets that lined two walls. ‘The records are all alphabetised,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘We have Jews from sixteen countries here,’ he added proudly. ‘8,661 of them since July.’

An indictment in itself, Russell thought.

‘Ah, I have an Otto Pappenheim. And you’ve just missed him — he left for the American zone a week ago.’

‘Do you know when he arrived here?’

‘A week before that,’ Landau said triumphantly.

The date fitted, Russell thought. This had to be Isendahl’s Otto. A week ahead of him.

‘You don’t have any more details?’

‘See for yourself,’ Landau said, handing him the paper.

He skimmed through it, and found nothing to rule the man in or out.

‘But no Miriam,’ Landau reluctantly concluded. ‘Four Rosenfelds, but no Miriam.’

Not for the first time, Russell wondered if she’d changed her name. If she had, they’d never find her.

He thanked Landau and walked back out to the crowded pavement. Above the broken skyline to the south the sun was trying to break through, but it seemed, if anything, colder than before. He put up the collar of his coat, tied the scarf a little higher round his throat, and started back towards the city centre at a hopefully warming pace. It wasn’t yet noon, but he already felt hungry, and when an open restaurant presented itself on Wahringerstrasse he took the opportunity to grab some lunch. The proprietor seemed pleased to see his dollars, and he was pleased to see the food, which seemed better than anything Berlin had to offer.

It seemed the Austrians were getting off lightly, which Russell found less than fair. He remembered the scenes after the Anschluss, the Viennese Jews forced to clean unflushed toilets by their laughing tormentors. And those had been the lucky ones. No one had filmed the Jewish pensioners’ involuntary high-speed ride on the city’s scenic railway — an experience that had given several of them fatal heart attacks.

The Austrians were hardly innocents.

But then who were?

He decided he would walk to the Danube. He had always liked big rivers, ever since seeing the Thames as a boy. And the Spree’s lack of real width had always seemed a major shortcoming. Though it would make the bombed-out bridges cheaper to replace.

Once a convenient tram had carried him back to the Stephansplatz, he walked north to the Danube Canal, whose crossings seemed mostly intact. He was now moving into the Russian sector, but there were no signs to tell him so, and no obvious military presence on the streets. Praterstrasse offered the straightest route to the river, and he headed on up past the entrance to Prater Park, where the famous Ferris wheel was in the early stages of post-war reconstruction. Russell had written about it once, in an article on European funfairs that some American magazine had commissioned, and he could even remember some of its history. It had been built to celebrate the Habsburg Emperor Franz-Josef’s Golden Jubilee in 1897, and the following year one of his subjects had summed up Franz-Josef’s reign in spectacular fashion — hanging by her teeth from a gondola to protest against the treatment of the Empire’s poor. Twenty years later another woman had gone full circle while seated on a horse, the latter standing, no doubt nervously, on a gondola roof. That stunt had been staged for an early silent film, and Hollywood had been back on several further occasions. Everyone loved the Vienna Wheel.

Ten minutes later, he was gazing out across the wide Danube. There was nothing blue about it, and no sign of the once busy traffic — the wharves away to his left stood empty and apparently abandoned. The dark, heavy current rolled remorselessly past, like a conveyor belt with nothing on it. Over on the northern shore the hulk of a burnt-out Panzer had its gun barrel dipped in the water, and looked like an animal taking a drink.

Russell stood there for several minutes, stray thoughts hopping in and out of his mind, then turned abruptly on his heels and started back towards the city centre.

Once in his hotel room, he spent a couple of hours sorting through notes and ideas, then closed his eyes for a nap. Awoken by coughing heatpipes, he was thrilled to find the water running hot, and was only slightly deflated by the absence of soap. A long soak in a full bath might be a luxury in much of post-war Europe, but it still felt like a human necessity. Feeling suitably restored, he sallied out in search of alcohol and food.

There would be an American Press Club, he realised — it was just a question of finding it. The hotel desk clerk thought it was on Josefstadterstrasse, which was only a five-minute walk away. Once there, a convenient passer-by directed him, with rather an envious look, towards a nearby side-street. The Press Club was open, well-lit and warm. As an added bonus, his old friend Jack Slaney was propping up one end of the bar, one hand wrapped round a half-empty stein.

Slaney had come to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics, and stayed on as the resident correspondent of the Chicago Post for almost five years. He had sailed pretty close to Goebbels’ wind on several occasions, and had finally been asked to leave in the early summer of 1941, allegedly for calling Barbarossa an overgrown version of the Charge of the Light Brigade. He and Russell had spent many a happy hour trying to out-cynicise each other in the Adlon Bar, contests which Slaney had usually won. Russell hadn’t seen him since the summer, when the American had spent a few days in London en route to the Potsdam Conference.

‘So what are you doing here?’ Russell asked, sliding himself onto the neighbouring bar stool and signalling for two more drinks.

‘The bar or the country?’

‘The continent.’

Slaney considered. ‘A valedictory tour, I suspect. A sort of “now that they’re gone, was it all worth it?” What brings you to Vienna?’

Russell told him about the illegal Jewish exodus to Palestine, and how he’d been asked to tell the story.

Slaney nodded his appreciation. ‘If I wasn’t leaving tomorrow, I might follow along at a respectable distance. Not that I have the knees for mountain-climbing anymore.’

‘Neither do I. I’m assuming trucks — it must be too late in the year for walking.’

The beers arrived, and tasted as they should.

‘Your government won’t be too pleased at your dallying with the enemy,’ Slaney observed.

‘The British Government? No, I don’t suppose it will.’ This should have occurred to him, with half his family living in London at His Majesty’s discretion.

‘I can see their point of view,’ Slaney went on. ‘About the Jews and Palestine, I mean. It was bad enough before the war, when the Jews were a small minority. If they let in every Jew that wants to go they’ll have all the Arabs gunning for them.’

‘I can’t see that worrying anyone else.’

‘No, it won’t — the Jews will win the propaganda war. They have the two things that matter — lots of money and the biggest sob story in history. They’ll get their homeland all right. Though I doubt it’ll be the paradise they’re hoping for.’

‘After the last few years I expect they’ll settle for somewhere safe.’

Slaney snorted his disbelief. ‘In the middle of an Arab sea?’

Russell sighed. ‘Point taken.’

‘They’ve been giving out chunks of Germany to all and sundry — why not give the Jews a piece, make the criminal pay for the crime?’

‘Because “Next year in Dusseldorf ” doesn’t have the same ring to it?’

It was Slaney’s turn to sigh. ‘I guess.’

‘So, “now that they’re gone, was it all worth it?” Was it?’

Slaney took a first sip from the new stein and wiped his lips on the back of his hand. ‘I really don’t know. A year ago I had no doubts. And sometimes I still get that feeling — like the other day, when I was reading that testimony from Nuremberg about camp commandants using Jewish heads as paperweights. You think to yourself, we just had to get rid of those bastards, whatever it took.’

‘And yet,’ Russell prompted.

‘Yeah. And yet. What we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what you limeys did to Dresden. And God only knows what good old Uncle Joe has been getting up to — the Poles are already accusing him of wiping out their entire officer corps.’

‘The same Poles who are now persecuting their returning Jews.’

‘Exactly. You end up asking yourself — how much better off are we? Enough to justify fifty million dead?’

Russell grunted his agreement. ‘And you missed out the French,’ he added. ‘Last week one of their journalists told me that they murdered around ten thousand Arabs in Algeria. Last spring, a little place called Setif.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘You wouldn’t have — nothing appeared in the French papers. You know, there’s one thing that really upsets me. Every last idiot in thrall to violence, every last government hoping for some glory that rubs off — they’ll be trotting out the Nazi precedent for another hundred years. And even if the war against the bastards actually was worth fighting, I can’t help thinking they were the exception that proved the rule.’

‘The rule being?’

‘That wars sow only death and grief. I thought we’d learned that in 1918, but apparently not.’

Slaney grimaced. ‘You know, until I ran into you, I didn’t think I could feel any more depressed.’

Having arranged to meet Annaliese for some sort of supper on Tuesday evening, Effi asked the Russian bus driver to drop her off at the Dahlem-Dorf U-Bahn station. The train that arrived reeked to high heaven, but was mercifully almost empty. Exhausted, she sat with her eyes closed, drifting in and out of sleep, and almost missed her change at Wittenbergplatz.

It was dark when she finally emerged, and some desultory flakes of snow were visible in the dim glow of the few working streetlights. When she reached the Elisabeth there were twenty minutes remaining of Annaliese’s shift, so she took the opportunity to look in on the Rosenfelds. Esther had reported an improvement in her husband’s condition since the latest news of Miriam and the baby, and Effi was delighted to find him sitting up in bed. He still looked dreadfully weak, but his breathing seemed more regular and the flatness had gone from his eyes. He even looked interested when she told him the story behind Russell’s trip to Vienna.

Annaliese looked even tireder than Effi felt, but still insisted on their going out to eat. A new place had opened on nearby Lutzowstrasse, and several of the nurses had been astonished by the variety of food on offer.

Word had spread, and they had to queue for a table, but the aromas wafting past them seemed well worth the wait. ‘Chicken!’ Annaliese almost cried out when they finally got to see the menu. ‘Fish!’ Effi replied in equal amazement. ‘My treat,’ she added, pulling out her leading-actor-grade ration coupons. Looking around, she became suddenly aware of the clash between decor and clientele — a cafe used to serving workers was playing host to Berlin’s new rich. ‘Someone’s making a lot of money,’ she noted.

‘Grosschieber bastards,’ Annaliese observed almost cheerfully.

The meal cost the best part of a week’s coupons, but was worth it. There was even wine — nothing wonderful of course, but better than either of them expected. As they sat there nursing the last few drops, Annaliese leaned forward in her chair. ‘I’ve got something to ask you,’ she said softly. ‘I feel guilty about asking, so please, please, don’t feel guilty about saying no.’

‘All right,’ Effi agreed, wondering what was coming. ‘I learned to say no in the war,’ she added, then laughed. ‘That doesn’t sound right, does it?’

‘No. But here it is. The works committee that runs the hospital has negotiated a deal with a certain supplier for a bulk load of medicines. But the doctor who arranged it has come down with pneumonia, and now he needs the drugs as much as the patients do. No one was willing to take his place — they’re all too spooked by what happened to his friend, the one who went looking for insulin.’ Annaliese sighed. ‘So, like an idiot, I volunteered.’

‘Aren’t you spooked?’

‘Well, yes and no. I mean I know these are not nice people, but the deal has been agreed. The other time was different — that doctor was trying to find a legal source of insulin.’

‘Threatening their business.’

‘Exactly. This deal is their business. Anyway, I was wondering if you’d come along for the ride. Like old times.’

Effi smiled. The memory of their night drive across Berlin the previous April was one of her fondest. Not least because it had ended with her finding Russell half-asleep in her armchair — the first time they’d seen each other for more than three years. ‘Where would we be going?’ she asked. ‘And when?’

‘Tomorrow evening. The meeting’s scheduled for nine o’clock, out in Teltow. We bring the money, they bring the medicines. Will you come?’

‘How could I resist?’ She wouldn’t get much sleep that night, but her character was supposed to look wasted — she would save the make-up people some work. And, if she was being honest with herself, the prospect excited her. Her work in the war had occasionally been terrifying, but it had thrilled her in ways that acting never could. She had assumed that life was over, but maybe it wasn’t. She dreaded to think what John would say, but there it was. As long as she remembered to think before she leapt.

One thought occurred straight away. ‘How will we get there?’

‘A jeep. The British gave four to the hospital.’

Effi grimaced — after Russell’s experience in a jeep she would have preferred something a little more bullet-proof. Then again, they would be doing all their driving in the American sector, and would happily stop if so requested. ‘What if they try and rob us?’ she asked Annaliese.

‘Why should they? The Grosschieber want regular customers, and the men we meet won’t dare cross their bosses.’

That sounded like sense. ‘Where does the money come from?’ she asked out of curiosity.

Annaliese shrugged. ‘The committee gets money from the Occupation authorities and our local administration, and quite a few of us have dipped into our own pockets — doctors, nurses, families of patients who need the medicines.’

‘Do the Allies know what their money’s being spent on?’

‘Of course. They pretend not to, but that’s just a joke. They could bring us supplies from the outside, destroy the black market in medicines overnight if they really wanted to.’

‘Why don’t they?’

‘Remember what you said about that camp I was in? It’s the same two things. They still think we need to be punished, and more than a few of them are making small fortunes selling official supplies on the black market.’

‘I suppose that’s it,’ Effi agreed. There were free tables now; it was getting late, and she had another six o’clock start. ‘I must get home,’ she told Annaliese, ‘but I’ll see you tomorrow. Same time at the hospital?’

‘Okay. And thank you,’ she added, giving Effi a hug. ‘You know, I’ve almost forgotten what a normal life looks like.’

That said, it couldn’t hurt to take precautions. The gun that the dead American had given to Russell was still in the bedside table, and taking it with her would provide some insurance.

Russell’s train left the Sudbahnhof at ten past eight on Wednesday morning, and was soon rattling out through the Viennese suburbs. There had been no message waiting for him when he returned, somewhat the worse for wear, from his evening with Slaney, and none when he woke up, feeling very little better, on the following day. He had spent Tuesday morning vainly checking Vienna’s DP camps and Red Cross offices for any trace of Otto or Miriam, the afternoon sauntering around the city, wondering how long he’d be stuck there. It might be a great story, but he wouldn’t be back before Christmas at this rate, and no matter how often he reminded himself that Effi was well capable of looking after herself, the anxiety persisted. The trip in the Mercedes boot was still fresh in his mind.

Then a message had finally arrived, asking him to come to the Rothschild. There was a group crossing the border on Thursday or Friday, Mizrachi told him when he reached the hospital. If Russell took the morning train, he should reach Villach in plenty of time.

So here he was, staring out across the sun-washed Austrian countryside, the sky only smudged by the smoke from their engine. The landscape grew more mountainous by the minute, and after almost two hours they reached the small town of Semmering, which lay astride the Russo-British zonal border. There was no through service, and those passengers heading further east had to walk three kilometres to the British-sponsored train. There were plenty of soldiers in evidence from both armies, but none seemed keen to spoil their day with work, and only a few travellers’ papers were subject to a cursory examination.

The new train puffed its way down the Murz valley, as the outflung eastern arm of the Alps grew larger in the window. It was almost 250 kilometres from Semmering to Villach, and the scenery was mostly magnificent — the train leaping across torrents and delving through dark forests, skirting pellucid lakes and offering glimpses of distant snow-covered peaks shining in the afternoon sunlight. The towns they stopped in looked untouched by war, but Russell knew that wasn’t the case — each would be mourning its quota of men lost on Hitler’s battlefields.

Darkness was falling when the train pulled in to Villach. He had bought bread and sausage at one of the stops, but that seemed a long time ago, and an unofficial refugee camp seemed an unlikely place to find a decent dinner. Villach, it turned out, was not that much better, but he did find a reasonable bowl of soup in one of the bars near the station. Suitably fortified, he laid claim to the only apparent taxi and quoted the address that Mizrachi had written. It was only a street and number, but the driver wasn’t fooled. ‘Where the Jews are,’ he said, with only the slightest hint of distaste.

So much for secret camps, Russell thought.

In the event, it wasn’t so much a camp as a mansion, a large and rambling house with several outbuildings, set quite a way back from the road leading south, right on the edge of town.

On first impression it felt like a school — the house seemed full of children. ‘They’re mostly orphans,’ his Haganah host explained a few minutes later. His name was Mosher Lidovsky, and like Mizrachi he spoke perfect English. Before perishing in the death camps, a large number of Polish Jews had entrusted their children to Catholic friends, and since the war ended the Haganah had been systematically reclaiming them, and moving them out of Poland. As he looked round the faces, Russell noticed a shortage of smiles.

‘Naturally some of the children grew attached to their new parents,’ Lidovsky answered the unvoiced question. ‘But they are Jews. There is no place in Poland for them. Not now.’

Russell changed the subject. ‘Is the group still leaving tomorrow or Friday?’

‘At midnight tomorrow. The British patrol the road by day, which is unfortunate — it is harder at night with so many children. But it is only twenty-five miles.’

‘Aren’t we driving all the way?’

‘Most of it. We have to walk round one checkpoint, which takes a couple of hours. We’ll be there before dawn. Now, I have things to do. If you have any more questions, ask me tomorrow. You’ll sleep in the men’s dormitory — anyone will show you where it is — and there’s soup in the kitchen.’

‘Fine,’ Russell said. ‘Go.’

‘You can talk to anyone you like, but no real names, okay?’

‘Okay.’

Lidovsky hurried away, leaving Russell wondering how to spend the evening. He had all the following day to interview the travellers, but this would probably be his last opportunity to meet their would-be interceptors. He found the dormitory, parked his bag on an empty cot, and walked back into Villach.

A bar on the Hauptplatz provided what he wanted — a group of slightly drunken British soldiers. He bought them a round with his US dollars, told them he was a journalist writing a series of articles on how the top brass treated the common soldier, and settled back to hear their complaints.

The war was over and they wanted to go home. The Germans and Austrians were on their knees — anyone could see that. So why not leave them there?

The Jews? They were a bloody nuisance. You couldn’t really blame the poor buggers, but the soldiers had better things to do than chase them all over Europe.

‘It was like that at the concentration camp,’ one man with a Yorkshire accent said. ‘We liberated the camp, but we couldn’t let the Jews just leave. We had to keep them there to help them — there was nowhere else. Now they’re haring all over the place, and we have to round them up again. It’s a pain in the arse.’

‘What do you do when you catch them?’ Russell asked.

‘Just take them back where they came from.’

‘And a few days later they’re off again,’ a Welsh boy complained.

‘It’s a fucking waste of time,’ the Yorkshireman concluded, to general murmurs of agreement.

Effi was ten minutes late reaching the hospital, and Annaliese’s face seemed to sag with relief when she saw her. ‘I thought you’d changed your mind,’ she said, as they walked back down to the entrance. Their jeep was parked in the old ambulance bay, amidst the makeshift collection of horse-drawn carts now used to bring in emergency patients. Effi was pleased to see the canvas roof — since the cloud disappeared that afternoon the temperature had dropped precipitously.

Annaliese rammed the canvas holdall under Effi’s seat and plonked herself in the other. She was also wearing a long coat, hat and boots — they looked, Effi thought, like two flappers from the Twenties. ‘How much money is there?’ she asked Annaliese.

‘Three thousand US dollars.’

‘My God, that’s a fortune.’

‘Yes.’ Annaliese produced one of her schoolgirl grins. ‘Shall we just head for the border?’

They pulled out onto Potsdamer Strasse and headed south.

‘Where exactly are we going?’ Effi asked at the first opportunity, when a stopping tram blocked the single lane.

‘Just off Goerzallee,’ Annaliese told her. ‘When it turns sharply right we just keep going for a few hundred metres down a dead-end street. It’s about twelve kilometres altogether,’ she added. ‘Half an hour there, half an hour back.’

They motored on through Schoneberg, Potsdamer Strasse turning into Hauptstrasse, Hauptstrasse into Rheinstrasse. A single lane had been cleared in each direction, and more stationary trams were all that slowed their progress. Annaliese kept the jeep moving at a steady thirty — anything faster and the cold wind would have been unbearable.

The further south they got, the higher the proportion of surviving buildings, the lower the ridges of rubble. But the lights grew no brighter — the suburbs were dim as the centre, as if the city had only one battery, and that was nearing exhaustion. Almost all the people they saw were congregated around a few bars and places of entertainment — American soldiers and German girls enjoying varying degrees of drunkenness and physical togetherness. The girls’ mothers and grandparents were seemingly sequestered in their homes, eking out their meagre rations and trying to stay warm on a few bits of wood, while their daughters bought in extra food and fuel with what had once been considered their virtue.

In Steglitz centre they turned left onto the Hindenburgdamm. A drunken melee was underway beneath the railway bridge, but a quarter-moon hung above the straight and empty road ahead. If it hadn’t been so cold, it might have been an evening to treasure. Effi pulled the coat tighter around her, and narrowed the gap between hat and collar.

The street lights became sparser, and when the Hindenburgdamm segued into Goerzallee they disappeared altogether. Annaliese slowed the jeep down and followed the headlights into the suburban murk. A few minutes later they came to the sought-after junction, Goerzallee heading off to the right, a smaller road running straight on. Annaliese pulled the jeep to a halt and they both peered forward, down what seemed a factory-lined cul-de-sac.

‘It doesn’t look very inviting,’ Annaliese said, almost indignantly.

‘No,’ Effi agreed. ‘How long have we got?’

‘Almost ten minutes. I think I’ll drive in and turn round. I’d rather be facing out than in.’

She drove the jeep slowly down between the factory facades, finally emerging in a wide open cobbled space at the head of a long canal basin. A bomb-broken line of factories extended along the northern bank, dimly lit by the sinking quarter-moon. The wind-rippled water lapped against the exposed belly of a half-sunken barge.

Annaliese turned the jeep and brought it to a halt. She left the headlights on for a few seconds, the twin beams vainly searching the road ahead, then thought better of the idea. Staring out along the darkened road Effi had a mental image of cars lined up at the end of the AVUS Speedway, waiting for the starting gun.

Which reminded her of the one in her pocket. She gingerly took it out, and saw the surprise on Annaliese’s face. ‘Just in case,’ she said, placing it down between her feet.

‘Maybe we really should rob them,’ Annaliese suggested.

‘They’d know where to find us.’

‘True.’

Two headlights were approaching in the distance, but they eventually swung away.

‘How’s your love life?’ Effi asked Annaliese.

‘What love life?’

A luminescent beam filled the intersection, and then two more headlights appeared, turning towards them. Soon they could hear the rumble of a lorry engine above the purr of their idling jeep.

Annaliese flicked their lights off and on again. The lorry slowed to a halt some twenty metres in front of them. If the driver wanted to block their escape he had failed — the street was too wide, and there was still enough space for the jeep to squeeze past.

There were two men in the cab, the driver already opening his door, the other man shielding his eyes with a raised hand.

‘Turn your lights off,’ the driver shouted as his feet hit the ground. His German was perfect, but the accent suggested another origin. Polish, Effi thought. He didn’t sound Russian.

‘After you,’ Annaliese shouted back with her customary combativeness.

He hesitated for a second, then reached an arm back into the cab to douse the lorry’s headlights. The other man instantly raised his hands to shield his face, and it crossed Effi’s mind that he feared recognition.

Darkness ensued when Annaliese turned off the jeep’s headlights, but only for a second — the lorry driver was now waving a torch in their direction. ‘Women!’ he exclaimed, as if he couldn’t believe it.

Annaliese clicked on her own torch, and shone it straight back at him. In the cab the hands shot up again, but not quite fast enough. The face was familiar, Effi thought.

‘We’re nurses,’ Annaliese told the driver, in a tone that suggested it should have been obvious. Still shining the torch straight at him, she got out of the jeep. ‘Shall we point these at the ground?’

He followed her lead. ‘Doctors scared of the dark, are they?’ He was young, not much more than twenty.

‘Something like that. Where are the medicines?’

‘Where’s the money?’

Annaliese pulled the bag out from under her seat and set it down on the bonnet.

He started forward.

‘The medicines first,’ Annaliese insisted, laying a protective arm across the bag.

He hesitated for a moment, and Effi reached down a hand for the gun. The butt was cold to the touch, and she had the strange sense of time standing still. Could she shoot him?

She probably could.

She didn’t have to. He laughed, turned and walked to the rear of his lorry. They heard the door latch clank open, and a few moments later he was on his way back with two large cardboard boxes piled up in his arms.

‘Put them in the back,’ Annaliese told him, stepping back a few paces to keep a safe distance. Effi, still grasping the gun, kept one eye on the driver, one on the shadowy figure in the cab.

He placed them on one of the back seats.

‘How many are there?’ Annaliese asked.

‘Six. Another four.’

‘Does that sound right?’ Effi asked softly as he went for more.

‘More or less.’ Annaliese was opening the uppermost box with a fearsome-looking pocket knife, then shining her torch at the contents. ‘It looks all right,’ she muttered.

The driver returned with two more, and placed them on the other seat. ‘You don’t need to check them,’ he said indignantly, as if his integrity as a black marketeer had been called into question.

He collected the last two boxes, and wedged them between the others. He ran his torch up Annaliese, starting with the boots and ending with the blonde curls peeking out from under her hat. ‘Maybe next time we can combine business with pleasure.’

‘In your dreams,’ Annaliese told him contemptuously.

Effi’s grip tightened on the gun, but the man just laughed. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, sweeping up the bag and turning away.

Annaliese got in, handed Effi the torch, and turned the headlights back on. As Effi had expected, the man in the cab was ready, his face well covered. But would he lower his guard once the headlights had swung past? As Annaliese aimed the laden jeep through the gap between lorry and factory wall, Effi aimed the torch at the lorry’s cab and took her masking hand from the beam. She was treated to a close-up of a furious face, and a clear recollection of where she’d seen it before.

‘It was towards the end of 1943,’ she told Thomas. They were alone in the kitchen, the rest of the house having long gone to bed. The Russian bus would be picking her up in about five hours, but after all the evening’s excitement she felt far too restless to sleep. ‘I collected a Jewish boy from a house in Neukolln — Erik had told me the boy was fourteen, but if so he was big for his age. He was going to stay with us at Bismarckstrasse for a few days while Erik arranged his exit from Berlin. I was carrying the forged papers of an imaginary nephew in case we were stopped on the U-Bahn. I used those papers whenever I had a young man to move.

‘Anyway, the boy was nervous. More than nervous — he seemed almost hysterical, in a quiet sort of way. He’d been living in a room not much bigger than a cupboard for almost a year, and he’d lost all his family and friends, so I wasn’t surprised to find him in bad shape. But I didn’t realise how bad until it was too late.’

‘What was his name?’ Thomas asked.

‘Mannie,’ she said after a moment’s reflection. ‘I don’t think I was ever told the family name.’

‘Go on.’

‘On the walk to the U-Bahn station he kept looking round to see if anyone was following us, and I had to tell him he was making us both conspicuous. That seemed to calm him down, and once we reached the station he managed to sit and wait without drawing attention to himself. He insisted on sitting several seats away from me once we boarded the train, so I wouldn’t be implicated if anyone recognised him. He had this horror of running into one of his old non-Jewish schoolmates, and being denounced.

‘So we travelled a few seats apart, me reading a paper, him staring rigidly into space. And after we changed at Stadtmitte he kept the same distance on the second train, still looking like a frightened rabbit.

‘The Gestapo got on at Potsdamer Platz. Four of them, two through each end door. All in their stupid leather coats. I turned to give the boy a reassuring look — it was only a routine check, and our papers were as good as they got — but it was too late. He was already halfway through the doors.

‘And once he was out he had nowhere to go. He just jerked his head this way and that as the four of them closed in.’ Effi shook her own head in sympathy. ‘And then he just threw himself at one of them. Like I said, he was a big boy. The man went down with the boy half on top of him, and a gun skidded across the platform.

‘The boy looked at it. We could all see him — the train was still standing there with its doors open. He looked at the gun. He didn’t even reach out a hand, but you could see him thinking about it.

‘And then one of the Gestapo shot him. Not just once, but four times, and the boy just slumped down on his side. One of them knelt down beside him and went through his pockets, and I was sitting there thanking God that I’d kept his papers with my own. The other three just stood around making small-talk.

‘The one who did the shooting was smiling as he reloaded his gun. He was the man I saw tonight.’