Masaryk Station

Mordechai’s advice

After returning the previous evening, Effi had dropped in on Zarah to let her know she was back. She hadn’t stayed long, but as she was leaving her sister had presented Effi with a rare gift-around a hundred grams of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, part of Bill’s winnings from a poker match with some Brits. Now, having taken to Rosa to school, she made herself a cup, and curled up on the sofa to savour every last sip.

The tins containing the film reels were stacked on the mantelpiece, Merzhanov’s among them. ‘Hiding something in plain view,’ Russell called it, and she hoped he wasn’t being too clever. Maybe she was missing the point, but a film tin seemed a good place to look for a film.

Looking at the boxes started her thinking about how they were going to view the one in question. They could take Merzhanov’s film to one of the studios she’d worked at over the years and persuade a technician to let them watch it-minor celebrity status could move such minor mountains-but ensuring privacy would probably prove more difficult. The technician would want to work the projector; would, in fact, be the only one there who knew how. And even if he could be bribed into setting things up and leaving them to it, they could hardly lock themselves inside a screening room without raising all sorts of questions. No, it wouldn’t do. They would have to hang a white sheet on the wall the way Cisar had, and somehow get hold of their own projector.

But from where? Resisting the temptation to make another coffee, Effi sketched out a list of possible sources and started making calls. None of her first respondents had one, but most had suggestions as to where one might be found, and an hour or more into her search she finally struck gold. There was a company in Wedding that hired out projectors-there was, it seemed, a booming trade in private showings of pornographic shorts. The Russians and French were particularly enamoured, her informant told her; the Brits and Americans much more prudish.

After ringing the shop, and hearing that it did have the appropriate equipment for hire, Effi took the U-Bahn to Muller Strasse and walked the short distance to the address she’d been given. The sign above the window was for a butcher, but once inside the premises the only flesh on display was human. Someone had been enlarging stills from pornographic movies. A sales pitch, Effi realised, both legal and enticing-the scraps of cloth being worn in the photos were doubtless removed in the films.

Inside, a youth of around twenty was surrounded by film equipment of various types and vintage. He seemed ill at ease, a state Effi attributed to an unfamiliarity with real women. Knowing she badly needed his help, she set out to reassure him, presenting herself as a potent combination of motherly concern and female hopelessness in the face of machinery. After modestly admitting that she had made some films herself-‘several years ago now,’ she added wistfully-she took one of her audition reels out of her bag. ‘I want to show some films like this to a few friends at home,’ she said innocently. ‘Do you have the right projector? And if you do, could you teach me how to work it?’

He did and he could. They went through the process twice together, Effi coyly stopping the film each time the opening frames appeared on the wall, and trying not to notice how keen he seemed to sniff her hair. Once certain she knew how to work the projector, she paid a week’s hire, and left him to box it up. Outside on Muller Strasse the wait for a cab seemed endless, but when one eventually came the youth carefully placed it on the seat beside her, and raised a hand in nervous farewell.

Back at Carmer Strasse a neighbour helped her carry it in, and when Rosa came home from school, they watched one of the audition reels together. Every now and then the girl would turn her eyes from the screen Effi to the one sat beside her, just to check they were one and the same.

Around six, they walked over to Zarah’s. Lothar and Bill Carnforth was there already, and after dinner the five of them played skat. They had the radio playing low in the background, and they almost missed the transition from soothing music to worrying news: The Allies had announced a currency reform. From midnight on the following Sunday the old Reichsmark would no longer be legal tender. Initially, at least, the change would only apply to the British, French, and American zones, and not to their sectors in Berlin; but Bill was convinced it was only a matter of time.

And so, apparently, were the Soviets. Each time the news was repeated, it came with fresh hints of a Russian response, and at midnight it was finally made official-all rail and road passenger traffic between Berlin and the Western zones had been summarily halted. By this time Rosa was fast asleep, whereas Effi, like hundreds of thousands of other Berliners, was much more awake than she wanted to be, staring blankly at the radio, waiting for someone to say something hopeful.

Russell picked up the news at Rhein-Main on the Saturday morning. He had known something was up from the moment he arrived at the sprawling airbase as both people and planes seemed to be charging around like headless chickens. At one spot on the edge of the tarmac a surreal pile of passenger seats had accumulated, torn out, he later realised, to make more room for supplies.

Did the Western Allies really think they could sustain their Berlin sectors by air? They might be able to fly in enough food, but how would Berliners cook it? How would they heat their homes? The Soviets only had to cut off the fuel supplies to the power stations, and that would be that. And if, as seemed increasingly likely, they really meant business this time, then that was exactly what they would do. How could the Allies fight them? With coal planes?

That morning they seemed reluctant to increase Berlin’s population by even one-Russell needed a phone call from BOB to secure him passage in the belly of a C-47, jammed between sacks of flour and potatoes. And if the physical discomfort was bad, the stress of listening to the two young pilots imagine Soviet fighters behind every approaching cloud was even worse. After listening to that for an hour, Russell was almost wishing that the Russians would shoot them down.

He got back to Carmer Strasse early that afternoon. Effi and Rosa returned from the park a little bit later, and while Rosa was using the toilet he asked Effi if she’d watched the film. ‘No,’ she told him, ‘I was waiting for you.’

He felt strangely reluctant to watch it himself, more because it felt like another burnt bridge than because of its probable content. ‘Let’s both wait for Shchepkin,’ he suggested. ‘Before I left, we arranged a meet for tomorrow-I can bring him straight back here. If Zarah can take Rosa, that is.’

‘We were all going to see The Wizard of Oz,’ Effi said wistfully. ‘I suppose I’ll have to feel unwell.’

That evening the three of them went in search of a slap-up dinner on Ku’damm. There were many others doing the same, either drawn out by the sense of gathering crisis or simply intent on spending their Reichsmarks while they could. The authorities still held that the currency reform didn’t apply to the city, but few Berliners were confident of things remaining that way, and already some restaurateurs were only accepting payment in dollars. Small rows were breaking out up and down boulevard, with would-be customers insisting that their money was still legal tender, and proprietors just as certain that it wouldn’t be for very much longer.

Russell’s dollars secured them a table in a recently re-opened bistro, long renowned for its pfifferling mushrooms. Though now supplied by an entrepreneurial Red Army unit, they were still delicious. Sitting, eating, chatting-the evening passed more than pleasantly. A last chance to breathe easily, Russell thought, because the minute Beria knew they had the film everything would change, for better or for worse.

Rosa was smiling at him. He could see how happy his daughter was that they were all together again, and for a moment he felt almost overwhelmed by the enormity of the risk they were taking. With evenings like this still possible, how could he say that the old life couldn’t be sustained?

But it couldn’t, he knew it couldn’t. Sooner or later a juggler dropped a ball, and Russell’s arms felt more tired by the week. Life was a risky business, and one needed wisdom about choosing which risks to take. And this opportunity did seem to offer a huge reward-to all of them-at a relatively low risk. In the end, it was a miracle that any one of them had survived the war, let alone all three. Maybe fate had them under its wing, he thought.

The Tiergarten almost looked like its old Sunday self the next morning, at least insofar as the people walking there were concerned. The trees might still be saplings, the open spaces pocked with craters, but hundreds of families were strolling across the re-sown grass, enjoying the warm sunshine.

As he waited for Shchepkin, Russell wondered whether to mention Don Stafford. Did he want to know whether the Russian had arranged Stafford’s death? The answer, of course, was yes, if he hadn’t, and no, if he had. But if Shchepkin had, Russell knew he would never admit it, and so eliciting a denial would serve no purpose. Russell knew he would just have to live with fearing the worst.

The Russian looked worse than he had the previous week. Maybe it was the brightness of the light, but his lips seemed almost purple, his cheeks tinged with grey. He seemed in good enough spirits, though, and eagerly asked about the film.

‘We’ve got it,’ Russell told him.

‘And?’

‘You’re invited to the premiere.’

‘You haven’t looked at it yet. So when?’

‘Now, if you’re not too busy.’

Shchepkin assured him that he wasn’t.

They took a tram from the park entrance to the Zoo Station, and walked on towards Carmer Strasse.

In the flat, Effi had the projector all set up. The first thing that became apparent was the quality of the film-Soviet technology in this field had clearly come on apace. The light was poor, and parts of the room seemed pools of shadow, but the human occupants were clearly recognisable. If the man in the dressing gown wasn’t Beria, then it was his double.

‘Oh my God, it’s Sonja Strehl,’ Effi said, as the one of two women’s faces turned towards the camera. ‘When did you say this was filmed?’ she asked Russell.

‘In February, according to Merzhanov.’

‘But she didn’t die until the end of the March.’

‘No. Do you know the other woman?’ Russell asked.

‘No, but she can’t be more than sixteen.’

‘Does Beria have a reputation for liking them young?’ Russell asked Shchepkin.

‘So it’s said,’ the Russian replied tersely.

The women were undressing, presumably at Beria’s command. There was certainly nothing in their faces that suggested pleasure or excitement. Watching, Russell felt ashamed of the stir in his groin.

Effi wanted to run, or at least to close her eyes, but she forced herself to keep watching. Sonja’s lips were moving, but Beria’s eyes were on the girl, and as he moved forward to grab her by the wrist his penis sprang out of his robe.

Things happened fast after that: Sonja flung aside, the girl’s run to the door, a gun in Beria’s hand. As he circled the kneeling, shaking girl like a cat tormenting a petrified mouse, Effi finally did close her eyes, and when Russell’s ‘oh shit’ forced them open again, the girl was a crumpled heap in the background, and Beria was walking towards Sonja, pushing her across the edge of the bed and taking her from behind. After pulling out, he held her face down with his knee as he carefully emptied the gun, then turned her over and forced it into her grip.

‘Fingerprints,’ Russell murmured.

Using a handkerchief, Beria carefully retrieved the gun, and after retying his dressing gown and smoothing back his hair in front of the mirror, he knocked on the door and was swiftly let out. Once he was gone, Sonja groped her way across the carpet to cradle the dead girl’s head in her arms, shoulders shaking with grief for what felt like several minutes, before the film abruptly cut off.

The three of them exchanged stunned looks. It was all they had hoped for, Effi thought bitterly.

‘Who was she?’ Russell murmured.

‘Someone at the funeral said Sonja had a younger sister,’ Effi remembered. ‘Who couldn’t come because she was in Leningrad. She’s at a the Kirov Ballet school.’

‘Or not,’ Russell said. ‘What’s the betting that was her?’

Effi didn’t want to believe it. ‘But why would Sonja keep silent? She must have been scared out of her wits, but once she decided to kill herself, why not leave a note?’

‘Shame,’ Russell suggested.

‘Shame for what?’ Effi retorted angrily. ‘You saw it all. There was nothing she could have done to save her sister. Or herself.’

‘We know that, but maybe she didn’t.’

‘Beria came back to Berlin at the end of March,’ Shchepkin said. ‘My guess is she couldn’t face the prospect of another meeting.’

Effi was still not satisfied. ‘That would explain why she killed herself when she did, but not why she didn’t leave a note.’

‘She wanted to save her children,’ Shchepkin said simply.

Effi stared at him. She was, Russell thought, suddenly seeing the Russian for who and what he was.

‘I know,’ Shchepkin told her. He looked like death, Russell thought.

Effi just sighed.

‘We can’t bring Sonja or her sister back,’ Russell said. ‘And they may never get justice if we use this film to blackmail Beria. But the living have to take precedence, even when it’s only ourselves.’

Effi smiled at that. ‘I suppose so.’

‘So how are we going to approach your boss?’ Russell asked the Russian.

‘I’ll take it to him. But first we need copies-two, I think, one for me and one for you. Do you know where we could have them made?’

‘I could ask people I know in the industry,’ Effi said, ‘but if someone gives me a name I’ll have no way of knowing how trustworthy the person is.’

Russell shook his head. ‘A professional job is out of the question. Copying something like this must be illegal, for a start. If we knew what equipment we needed, maybe we could borrow it. Even buy it, as a last resort.’

Effi had a realisation. ‘The people I got the projector from make most of their money from hiring out sex films. They’d need copies of their best earners, and they can’t be getting them from the studios. Not openly, anyway.’

‘You think they’re making their own?’

‘Or know someone with the right equipment who doesn’t ask questions. I’ll visit Muller Strasse in the morning.’

‘We both will,’ Russell decided. He turned to Shchepkin. ‘And once we have them, you’ll what? Knock on the bastard’s door?’

‘Why not? He doesn’t live in the Kremlin. He has a mansion on Kachalova Street, out near the Zoo.’

‘How appropriate.’

‘I shall tell him we have the original, and what we want in exchange for keeping it hidden-that he will allow my wife and daughter join me here in Berlin, promise to keep silent about your work for the Soviet Union, and guarantee that no retributive action be taken against member of your family. I’ll need a list,’ Shchepkin added.

Russell wasn’t sure about that, as giving Beria a list of who he cared about felt like asking for trouble. But then again … ‘The man’s not going to like being threatened,’ was all he said.

‘Of course not,’ Shchepkin agreed. ‘But he won’t let that get in his way. He needs what we’re offering; he doesn’t need what we want in return. Why should he refuse?’

Spite, Russell thought, but Shchepkin knew the man better than he did. ‘In the long run? Can we trust him? Come to that, will he trust us?’

‘Trust doesn’t come into it. He has nothing to gain by coming after us, and everything to lose. And why would we release the film as long as he leaves us alone?’

‘You’re assuming everyone will act reasonably.’

‘Well, you and I will. And Beria may be a psychopath, but he’s not irrational.’

‘Is that good news or bad?’

‘For us, good,’ Shchepkin said, getting to his feet. ‘You must call me on the usual number the moment you have copies.’

‘And then you’ll head off to Moscow?’

‘Not directly. Provided you agree, I shall take the original somewhere else first. I think I know how to put it beyond even Beria’s reach.’

‘Do we need to know where?’

‘On the contrary. And I won’t want to know where you’ve hidden the other copy. To be brutally frank, our lives may depend on Beria being unable to discover both hiding places from either one of us.’ He didn’t use the word, but the prospect of torture hung in the air.

‘Makes sense,’ Russell agreed.

As Shchepkin turned to leave, Effi had a last question for him. ‘After what we’ve just seen, doesn’t the prospect of knocking on that man’s door and making him extremely angry frighten you?’

The Russian thought about it. ‘Yes and no,’ he said eventually. ‘But I’ve already had that conversation with John. I think he’ll grind his teeth and accept our terms. If I’m wrong, and I’m dragged off to a cell, he’ll also come after you. It won’t stop the film seeing the light of day, of course, but I’m sure he’d want to take you down with him.’

That evening, Rosa wanted to see another of Effi’s audition films. As they watched it in the darkened room, Russell kept seeing the naked women entwined on the carpet, the one who was dead and the one who wasn’t, but might as well have been.

The shop on Muller Strasse was closed when they reached it the following morning, so the two of them set up a vigil in a cafe window across the street. Almost an hour went by, and they were beginning to give up hope, when the youth who had served Effi on her previous visit ambled into view on the opposite pavement, and inserted his key in the oversized padlock.

As they walked across the wide thoroughfare, Russell agreed that Effi should do the talking. And, if necessary, the charming.

The youth smiled when he saw her, and then made a valiant effort to hide his disappointment when he realised she wasn’t alone. ‘Is the projector outside?’ he asked.

‘No, I still have it at home. It’s fine. Look,’ Effi said, ‘you were very helpful the other day, and I was wondering … Well, given your line of business, I imagine you need more than one copy of your films?’

‘Yes,’ he said cautiously.

‘You see, my film-I’d like to make some copies of it. For directors I know. You understand?’

‘Yes, yes. I could do that for you.’

‘Do you make the copies yourself? You don’t use a professional setup?’

‘Nothing so grand. And yes, I make them myself. We … I … simply set up a camera alongside the projector, and film the film so to speak. On a white wall, of course.’

‘And that makes good copies?’ Russell asked with a disarming smile.

‘Good enough,’ the youth said. ‘They’re not quite as sharp, but you don’t lose much.’

‘Where do you do it?’ Effi asked.

‘In the basement.’

‘Ah. The reason I ask is that I don’t want any strangers to see what’s on the film, and so would it be possible for you to set up the equipment in the way that you said, show us how to operate it, and then leave us to make the copies ourselves?’

‘That’s not …’

‘We’d pay you well,’ Russell interjected.

‘How well?’

After five minutes of haggling they agreed a price. ‘I should have let you go in alone,’ Russell admitted once they’d left. ‘He knows how to deal with men.’

That evening they returned with the film, and followed the youth down a flight of stone steps to a whitewashed basement. The equipment was already set up. ‘It’s simple,’ their tutor explained, after pocketing the wad of dollars. ‘You just switch them both on, here and here. Adjust the focus with this if you need to, but you probably won’t. How long is it?’ he asked, as he threaded the film on to the sprockets.

‘Only twenty minutes or so,’ Effi told him.

‘Well after you’ve made the first copy, have a look at it. If there’s a problem, I’ll be upstairs. If not, make the second.’

They did as he told them. Neither wanted to see the film again, but occasional glances were enough to assure them that it was running to speed. Once the first copy had been made, Effi transferred it to the projector, and played the first couple of minutes. It wasn’t as crisp as the original, but in Russell’s opinion was good enough.

The second copy took them another half an hour, and when they finally emerged on to the pavement darkness was falling. As they waited on the U-Bahn platform Effi asked him where they would hide theirs.

‘I haven’t a clue,’ he told her. ‘Anywhere but Hanna’s vegetable patch, I suppose.’ That was where he’d buried the atomic research papers in 1945.

‘I suppose that would be the first place the Russians would look.’

After they emerged from the Zoo Station entrance, Russell stopped at a public telephone and rang the number in the Soviet sector which he used to contact Shchepkin. After the usual coded exchange, he hung up secure in the knowledge that a meeting was arranged for noon the next day.

‘So we’ve lit the fuse,’ Effi said, as they walked underneath the railway bridge on Hardenberg Strasse.

‘I guess we have.’ Thinking over Shchepkin’s warning, that a vengeful Beria might very well come after them, he decided that their one gun mightn’t be enough.

At noon the next day Russell waited for Shchepkin at the eastern end of the Tiergarten. It was the Russian’s favourite meeting place-like most of his compatriots he seemed to enjoy staring at the ruined Reichstag-but Russell found the whole setting profoundly depressing. He remembered the park when it was a lovely place for stroll, and the parliament wasn’t packed with Nazis.

Sitting on their usual bench, he wondered how Shchepkin would cover his tracks when he took the original film ‘beyond Beria’s reach’. Did the Russian have easy access to some office out in Karlshorst where the MGB manufactured false papers? Shchepkin’s position in that organisation was a complete mystery to Russell. He knew the Russian had been imprisoned for several months-maybe more-towards the end of the war, but he had never really found out why. All Shchepkin had said to him was that he’d ended up on the wrong side in some inter-party dispute, and been rehabilitated, at least in part, because of his suitability as Russell’s control. But he obviously had other duties to perform, and other agents to supervise, so presumably someone in the Kremlin must like him.

Trusting Shchepkin was rather like stepping out into a river of unknown depth. And yet he did.

The list the Russian had asked for-of those whose untimely death would trigger the film’s release-was in Russell’s inside pocket. It hadn’t been easy to compile. Some names were obvious-Effi and Rosa, Zarah and Lothar, Thomas, Hanna and Lotte-but others were not. He hesitated before dragging Paul and Marisa into things, but the MGB knew he had a son, and would have no trouble finding him. At Effi’s insistence he included Bill Carnforth, although God only knew what the American would think if he knew his name had ended up on Beria’s desk. He wondered what Zarah had told her fiance about his own past dealings with the Soviets. Not much, he suspected-her fears for Effi would keep her silent.

And there Russell had drawn the line. If Beria was still desperate to inflict punishment, he would have to settle for friends or very distant relations, and he would have to find them himself.

Shchepkin was walking towards him, white hair glinting in the sunlight. There was nothing distinctive about his appearance, Russell thought, nothing to indicate his nationality or line of work. He looked as much like a French businessman or German professor as he did a Soviet agent.

After taking possession of the reels in their brown paper parcel, Shchepkin seemed reluctant to leave.

‘So what’s the latest from Karlshorst?’ Russell asked.

‘You know about Sokolovsky’s letter.’

‘I think everyone in Berlin does.’

‘Well, today our man at the Control Council will be willing to discuss a compromise. And this afternoon, our man at the City Council will announce the introduction of a new Soviet currency for all of Berlin.’

‘Keep them guessing, eh?’

‘Something like that.’

‘It won’t work. The Allies will just extend their currency to Berlin.’

‘Probably. And then the shutters will fall.’

‘And after that?’

Shchepkin shrugged. ‘By then, you and I may be past caring.’ He got wearily to his feet. ‘I won’t reach Moscow before Friday, so you have a few more carefree days. After that, watch out.’

‘We will.’

‘Have you hidden yours away?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Do it, but not too deep. It won’t be there long.’

‘Why not?’

Shchepkin smiled. ‘I’ll tell you that when I get back. Early next week, I hope.’

‘Good luck.’

The Russian nodded, and strolled off towards the Brandenburg Gate, leaving Russell to walk back across the park. He hadn’t yet hidden their copy of the film because he couldn’t decide where to hide it. There was no place of concealment in their small flat which would escape a thorough search, and leaving it in a station left-luggage locker would simply transfer the problem. In the old days he would have sent the ticket to himself at a poste restante, but with Berlin’s immediate future so uncertain-and the Soviets already wreaking havoc with the postal services-that course also seemed much too risky.

Burial was the obvious alternative, but where could he bury the damn thing? There was only an overlooked courtyard at Carmer Strasse, and, as Russell had said to Effi the previous evening, he could hardly return to the scene of his earlier excavations in Thomas’s garden. Which only left the Grunewald. That evening, he thought. A long walk through the trees.

Carrying a spade was clearly not on, so he spent most of the afternoon trawling the local shops in vain for a digging implement he could carry under his jacket. In the end he settled for one of their serving spoons, on the dubious grounds that it was better than nothing.

After dinner with Effi and Rosa, he caught a 76 tram on Ku’damm, rode it to the end of the line, and then walked down Konigs Allee to the old Hundekehle restaurant, where he and Paul had often shared a Saturday ice cream. Beyond it, the forest stretched several miles to the west, and several more to the north and the south. A haystack for his needle.

There were an annoying number of people on the paths, out enjoying the evening sunshine. And as he discovered a few minutes later, there was a surprisingly large band of optimists casting their flies out into the Grunewald See. He turned off into the trees on his right, and soon found the clearing where they’d often picnicked more than ten years before. While the children had played their games, he, Ilsa, Thomas and Hanna had sat and drunk wine and ridiculed the Nazis. Who had had the last laugh? he wondered.

There was no one there now, only dappled grass and branches swaying in the breeze. Russell walked around the edge of the clearing, looking for a suitable place. It couldn’t be too obvious, but he had to be able to find it again.

One tree with spreading overground roots seemed to be a good bet, and for several minutes he sat with his back to the trunk, listening and watching for the sounds of humans nearby. On such a lovely summer evening it was hard to believe that the city beyond the forest was under virtual siege.

When he was certain as he could be that no loving couple was likely to rise out of the nearby long grass, he went to work with his spoon, carefully scooping the earth out from between two roots. The soil was looser than he expected, and it didn’t take him long to excavate a foot-deep well for the tin. After laying it flat on the bottom, he re-filled the hole, and did what he could to disguise the fact that one had been dug. The sun had sunk behind the trees, and it was hard to see his handiwork, but he was fairly confident that no one would find the tin by accident.

For all that, he felt reluctant to leave. He couldn’t shake the thought that he might have been watched, that someone had seen him bury something, and was only waiting out there in the dark for the chance to dig it up. He knew it was crazy, but there it was. And as he sat there, Russell remembered Mordechai Kohn, the death camp escapee he had interviewed a year or so after the war. Mordechai’s survival tip was to imagine how things might pan out, like a novelist unfolding a plot in his mind, and then take what steps seemed appropriate to help himself and hinder his enemy. ‘A simple example,’ he told Russell, ‘you imagine people coming to arrest you. What will you do when they knock on your door? Well, the first thing you do is head for a back window. And if it’s already open, that will save you precious seconds. So you go and open the window now, before they knock on your door.’

Sitting against the tree in the rapidly-darkening forest, Russell tried to follow the young Jew’s advice. He imagined what might happen, and what he could do about it. One thing came to mind.

It became apparent next morning that their days of waiting were also likely to decide the fate of the city. The morning papers bore out Shchepkin’s predictions of the previous day, and later that morning an RIAS news reporter announced that General Clay had rejected ‘in toto Soviet claims to the city of Berlin’. This was followed up midafternoon by the much-anticipated news that the Western currency reform would be extended to include Berlin. Details would be broadcast at eight that evening.

Like most of the city’s inhabitants, Russell, Effi, and Rosa tuned in to hear them. From midnight on Friday, the old Reichsmarks could be exchanged for new Deutschmarks, on a one-to-one basis for the first sixty, and at a rapidly declining rate thereafter.

‘The shops will be packed for the next two days,’ Effi said.

‘Those that are open.’

The three of them went down to Ku’damm to see what was happening, and found the pavements jammed with people trying to spend their Reichsmarks on goods or extravagant dining. But most of the shops had shut early, and several restaurants had already altered their menus, offering only food that would spoil, and hoarding the rest until the change had been made.

‘Have we got any bills to pay?’ Russell asked Effi on the way home. ‘Because now’s the time to pay them.’

Next morning they woke to a steady drizzle, and the news that the Soviets had closed the road and railways between the Western Zones and Berlin. Some people, though, were already fighting back. KPD demonstrators had been thwarted the previous evening when they’d to break up a City Assembly meeting, and the latter had then decided by a large majority to allow competition between the new Western currency and its Soviet counterpart.

Another hour, and RIAS was reporting sporadic power failures in all three Western sectors of the city. Asked to explain these interruptions in the electricity supply, a Soviet spokesmen claimed serious ‘technical difficulties’ were affecting one of the generating stations in their sector.

Soon after that, Thomas phoned. There was going to be a mass meeting at the Hertha stadium that afternoon-Russell was welcome to a lift if he wanted to come. He did. An hour or so later, when Thomas arrived at the door, the American garrison commander Frank Howley was spitting defiance on the wireless. After promising Berliners that the American people wouldn’t let them starve, he warned the Soviets not to trespass in his sector. ‘We are ready for you-and if the day comes, believe me, many a comrade will go across the golden Volga.’

‘The Chinese curse,’ Thomas said, as they both walked down to the car, ‘to live in interesting times.’

To Russell’s surprise, the Plumpe stadium was packed to capacity, something it had never quite managed in all his and Paul’s years of watching Hertha. It had been a day of ominous portents, but the mood among the crowd was unmistakably upbeat. Hardship might be in prospect, but so was real change, and after the past five years that was a deal that most Berliners were more than willing to make. As Ernst Reuter, the main speaker, explained: It was about systems, not money-while the latter could conceivably be integrated, the former could not. The choice was between a Soviet Berlin and a divided Berlin-there was no third option.

Russell knew he was right, but still felt saddened at the thought of his home being sundered in two.

For Thomas, though, the glass was half-full. ‘Bastards have been running our Berlin for fifteen years. Better to get half of it back than none.’

Gerhard Strohm couldn’t remember a morning when he’d felt less inclined to go to work. He had arrived home the previous evening to a long tirade from Annaliese about conditions at the hospital; the electricity supply cuts, which everyone was quite rightly blaming on the Soviets, had necessitated a reduction in surgery hours. What sort of people, she raged, used the sick as a weapon to blackmail their enemies?

Strohm had had no answer for her then, and walking to work had none for himself. He still found it hard to believe that the Soviets intended starving the city into submission, still hoped that it was all a big bluff in extremely bad taste. As if to remind him of what was at stake, yet another American C-47 roared in across the rooftops a few streets behind him on its approach to Tempelhof. If it was a bluff, it looked as if the Allies were preparing to call it.

He didn’t think the morning could get any worse, but he was wrong. A note calling him upstairs was waiting on his desk, and Strohm knew he was in trouble when Marohn mentioned ‘the business’ at Rummelsburg. ‘You did well there,’ his boss told him. ‘So now that a similar problem has arisen again, well, the people upstairs are hoping you can repeat the trick.’

Strohm didn’t like the suggestion that he’d ‘tricked’ the workers at the railway repair shops-and, by implication, had ‘tricked’ Utermann into taking his own life-but he let it go. Worse seemed likely to follow, and Marohn was only the messenger, and so Strohm simply nodded his acquiescence, and waited for the explanation.

The ‘similar problem’ had arisen in Aue, a small town in Saxony. Railways workers there were refusing to load ore from Wismut’s uranium mines, and the Soviet authorities were hoping that their German comrades could straighten the situation out. If not, they would have to take ‘administrative measures’.

‘Why are the workers refusing?’ Strohm asked.

‘You’ll have to ask Manfred Pieck-he’s the local union leader.’

‘No relation to Wilhelm, I assume.’ Wilhelm Pieck was second only to Ulbricht in the KPD hierarchy.

‘No, but he is a Party veteran. Joined in 1926. He ran the underground in Chemnitz during the war.’

Another Utermann, Strohm thought, his heart sinking at the prospect.

‘I’ve arranged a car for you,’ Marohn was saying, as if that might make the job palatable. ‘With a chauffeur, of course.’

‘I can drive myself,’ Strohm retorted. ‘But why don’t I just take a train? If I arrive like visiting royalty no one’ll listen to me.’

‘The Soviets will, and that’s the point. They’ll only treat you as an equal if you look like one.’

Strohm knew when he was beaten. ‘All right. But I will drive myself.’

Which was easier said than done, of course. He had learned to drive at university almost twenty years earlier, but had hardly been behind a steering wheel since. People said you never forgot, but his first few miles in the shiny Horch 851 were a painful lesson in remembering. The watching faces on the pavement, he noticed, seemed universally contemptuous, though whether of his driving or his privileged status he couldn’t be sure.

According to Marohn, the autobahn would ‘whisk’ him all the way to Chemnitz, but his boss obviously hadn’t been down it recently. There were pot holes everywhere, and huge cracks in the concrete hosting columns of swaying weeds. On the bright side, it was virtually empty, and after a while Strohm began to enjoy himself, slaloming south across the crumbling surface. He loved trains, and the chance they gave you to sit by the window and watch the world go by; but there was something just as liberating about sitting alone in a car, controlling your own direction and speed. An illusion of independence perhaps, but an intoxicating one nonetheless.

Soon after six P.M. Strohm reached Chemnitz, where Marohn had suggested he spend the night. He found the local Party office easily enough, and was given a room reserved for official guests in the nearby hotel. The owner was too sycophantic for words, but both dinner and room were more than adequate. After eating he went upstairs, and read until his eyelids began to droop. As he drifted into sleep, he wondered what the next day would bring, what challenge to his conscience awaited him in Aue.

Russell woke with a start on Saturday morning, not knowing where he was. He’d been walking down a snow-covered street, with shadows lurking in every doorway, but here was Effi making gentle snuffling noises in her sleep.

Shchepkin should be in Moscow, he thought. He would probably be seeing Beria that day. Russell didn’t need to imagine the rage on the Georgian’s face when he heard what Shchepkin had to tell him-he’d seen it in the film.

From now until Tuesday, these were the dangerous days. Shchepkin would tell Beria that if he wasn’t back in Berlin by then, Russell would make his copy available to the Americans. And as Shchepkin had said, the sensible thing for Beria to do was accept the deal on offer, and for him to get used to the idea that at least one other recording of him committing murder was hidden out of reach. But would Beria be able to do this? Or would he hold on to Shchepkin, and gamble on scooping Russell up by Tuesday? In that case Beria would assume that once everyone was safely ensconced in the Lyubyanka, eliciting the location of the films would not present too great a problem. And in this he was certainly right.

Russell slipped out of bed, walked across to the window, and lifted the edge of the curtain. Since he wasn’t expecting to see anything, the car standing by the opposite kerb a little way down the street came as something of a shock. Especially as there didn’t appear to be anyone in it.

Were they already in the house, coming up the stairs?

He walked quickly through to the other room, checked that the bolts were drawn on the apartment door, and put his ear to the wood. If there was anyone out there, they were very quiet.

He went back to take another look at the car, only to find it was gone. A false alarm, he thought, but as someone wise once said, a false alarm was only a real one waiting to happen.

He woke Effi. ‘You know we talked about going away for the weekend? Well, I think we should.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’

‘Nothing yet. But it’s the safe thing to do.’

‘Okay, but where?’

‘You remember that hotel on Havelsee we stayed at, back when we were young?’

‘The one we never left. The bed we never left.’

‘That one.’

‘I can’t imagine it’s still there.’

‘The bed or the hotel?’

‘The hotel.’

‘It is. I called them yesterday, and they said they had some rooms. As long as we paid in dollars.’

‘Okay, so when do we leave?’

‘The sooner the better.’

Effi went in to wake Rosa, and found her getting dressed. ‘Sweetheart, we’re all going away for the weekend.’

Rosa’s face lit up. ‘Where to?’

‘The Havelsee. There’s a hotel we know. So pack up your drawing stuff and a book to read.’

She went back to Russell. ‘We have to tell Zarah. And Thomas.’

‘Tell them what?’

‘I don’t know. Something. If Beria’s people do come looking for us, the first places they’ll try when they draw a blank here are Zarah’s and Thomas’s. We have to give them some kind of warning.’

‘You’re right,’ Russell agreed reluctantly. ‘But don’t scare the life out of Zarah, or we’ll never get away.’

‘So what do I tell her? It’s okay to worry, but not too much?’

Russell grinned. ‘Just tell her that’s there probably nothing to worry about, but to keep her eyes open, just in case. And tell her not to let any strangers into the flat.’

They made the calls. Zarah, as predicted, was upset, and angry at Effi for making her so. Thomas was his usual stoic self: ‘If I understand you right, you’re not going to tell me where you’re going, and you don’t want me to tell anyone else.’

Fifteen minutes later they were carrying their bags down the stairs. If they’d forgotten something crucial, at least it wasn’t the gun that Russell had bought in Wedding the previous day, as that was in his pocket.

The street outside was blissfully empty, the walk to the station free of alarms, false or otherwise. But Rosa knew there was something up. ‘This feels like an adventure,’ she said as they climbed the stairs to the platform.

Aue was an hour’s drive southwest from Chemnitz, but Strohm had only been going ten minutes when the first checkpoint appeared. There were no signs to say so, but he was clearly passing into territory the Soviets considered their own. After his credentials had been examined with almost painful thoroughness, he was given explicit instructions on where to report in Aue, and strongly warned against leaving his present road for any reason at all. As he drove on through the pleasant Saxon hills, the Erzegebirge looming on the southern horizon, Strohm wondered what terrible secrets might lurk down the various turnings.

Aue sat in the mouth of a valley, a much smaller town than Chemnitz, but with more sense of bustle. At the Soviet Military Administration office on the town’s main street, the MGB officer that Marohn had mentioned-a Major Abakumov-was waiting for him. The Russian greeted him politely enough, but he was clearly impatient.

‘So what exactly is the problem?’ Strohm asked.

‘You do not know?!’

‘Not the details, no,’ Strohm said calmly.

‘The problem is that your railwaymen have been making difficulties. And they are now threatening a strike!’

‘Why?’

‘They say that working with uranium is too dangerous, that some men have developed serious illnesses because of their proximity to the ore.’

‘Are they right?’

Abakumov shrugged. ‘Such work is not pleasant, of course it isn’t. But needs must. The Soviet Union needs this uranium, for reasons that I’m sure you know. And we won’t tolerate this sabotage.’

‘What would you like me to do?’

‘Put a stop to it. How do you do it is your concern, but feel free to tell the comrades that if they won’t listen to you, they’ll have to listen to me. If we have to arrest every last one of them, and draft in replacements, then we will.’

They were, Strohm realised, determined to get the uranium.

‘The chief troublemaker is a man named Pieck,’ Abakumov was saying. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Only by reputation. He was a resistance leader in this area.’

Abakumov wasn’t impressed. ‘That war is over. It’s time he realised that another struggle-one every bit as crucial-is now underway. We have one hundred-thousand workers in this area, all busy taking uranium from the ground, and we won’t have their efforts brought to nothing by a few cowardly railwaymen.’

Strohm ignored the insult. ‘If you tell me where to find Pieck, I’ll go and talk to him now.’

‘Down by the station. The union offices are in the yard.’

Strohm considered leaving his car outside the Russian HQ-if it didn’t impress them, it would certainly alienate Pieck-but what was the point in pretending? He was the Man from Berlin, come to scold them back into line.

Manfred Pieck was alone in his office. He was a man of around Strohm’s own age, with a shock of dark brown hair and watchful grey eyes behind small spectacles. He listened patiently to Strohm’s explanation of his presence, merely sighing with obvious frustration at a couple of points. ‘I saw you drive up,’ he said eventually. ‘If you’ll take us both out, I can show you what’s going on.’

‘All right.’

Once they were in the car, Pieck ran a hand along the leather dashboard. ‘Very nice,’ he said.

‘My boss in Berlin thought it might impress the Russians.’

‘You should have come in a tank.’

Pieck directed him through the town, and on to a small road which wound up a wooded hillside. After about ten minutes they suddenly emerged above another valley, and Pieck asked him to stop. At the bottom of the slope a small town straddled a fast-running stream, and in the fields further down hundreds of tents had been pitched on either side of a single railway line. ‘There’s a mine a little way up the valley,’ Pieck told him. ‘You can’t see it from here, but that’s where the miners live,’ he added, pointing at the tents. ‘Men and women.’

‘Are they locals?’

‘Not many of them. There were some volunteers to begin with, but that supply soon dried up. Most are prisoners of one sort or another-POWs brought back from Russia, youths from all over the Zone whom the Russians claim were Nazi werewolves. I tell you, with all the ones they’ve captured, it’s a miracle the Nazis lost.’

‘Did any of these people have any mining experience?’

‘Hardly a one. With predictable results. This year, in the Aue district, we’ve had more than two thousand deaths.’

‘Two thousand!’

‘I think that’s why they call Aue the “Gate of Tears”,’ Pieck said drily. ‘But accidents are only part of it. The working conditions are appalling-there’s not enough food, no sanitation, and that’s before you get to the problem of radiation. These people spend half their days either knee-deep in radioactive sludge or breathing in the dust. Do you know what radiation does to the body?’

‘I’m not a scientist.’

‘Neither am I, but I’ve talked to people at Chemnitz University. And I’ve seen the results with my own eyes-the skin lesions, the infections, all sorts of symptoms which can’t be explained any other way. The doctors around here are out of their depth, and they know it. The local hospitals are all full up, but the Soviets won’t let them move any patients on to other districts.’

Strohm thought for a moment. ‘All of which is terrible,’ he said eventually. ‘But none of these people are your responsibility.’

Pieck gave him a look. ‘Strictly speaking, that’s true. So let’s drive on down, and I’ll show you what my men are doing.’

Just above the town the railway line ended in a pair of sidings. Between these, there was a narrow gauge line which came down from the mine. One trainload had just arrived, and a large crowd of railwaymen were shovelling ore from one group of wagons to the other in a dense cloud of yellowish dust. They all had cloth masks tied across their faces, but they might just as well have hung charms around their necks.

‘They’re working,’ Strohm said stupidly.

‘For the moment. There were a few walk-outs at different sites last week, but we got everyone back, and then called meetings. The vote for a strike was almost unanimous.’

‘When?’

‘Monday.’

‘And what do you expect the Russians to do?’

‘Arrest the leaders. At the very least. Beyond that …’ Pieck shrugged. ‘You get to a point where that doesn’t matter.’

Strohm knew the script, knew what he was supposed to say. But if he hadn’t yet reached Pieck’s point, he knew it wasn’t that far away. Those were workers filling their lungs with poison, at the strident behest of the one and only workers’ state, his and Pieck’s guiding star for all their adult lives. Workers that they were supposed to represent. Pieck was doing exactly that, and so who the hell was he speaking for?

‘I understand,’ was all Strohm said. ‘I’ve been sent to tell you that the bigger picture’s all that matters, that the Russians will get their uranium one way or another, that all in all you might as well save your strength for battles you can win. Okay? If you’d like a well-honed excuse to change your mind and take the easy way out, there’s no shortage. There never is. And as a gesture of the people’s appreciation the leadership will probably give you a fucking car.’

Pieck looked at him, a smile creasing his mouth. ‘They gave it to you?’

‘God no, this is just a loan. But if you call off the strike …’

‘Not a chance.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. I never liked cars.’

They parted almost friends, but Strohm’s sense of well-being was fleeting. After dropping in on Abakumov, and ingenuously reporting that he’d done all he could, he continued on towards Chemnitz. It was early evening by the time he arrived, but the thought of driving home to Annaliese seemed infinitely preferable to hours spent shuffling doubts in a hotel room.

It wasn’t much better alone with his thoughts on the empty autobahn. Somewhere between Dresden and Lubben Strohm became aware of tears streaming down his cheeks, and pulled the car on to the hard shoulder. The last time he’d cried like this he’d been twelve years old, and both his parents had just died in a Californian road accident. And that was the clue, he realised. That was the last time he’d felt such a crushing sense of loss.

Out at Wannsee the weather was poor, and Russell, Effi and Rosa spent most of Saturday cooped up in the hotel. Between venturing out for meals and one shower-drenched walk along the lakeshore, they read and listened to the wireless. The post-Goebbels range of music was something to be welcomed, although the lack of news reports was surprising; someone had apparently decided that Berliners already had a surfeit, and so had sent all the journalists home for the weekend. Effi utilised an hour of big band music to teach Rosa some basic dance steps, and with Hollywood in mind Russell gave the two of them a lesson in American English. ‘You’re so cute,’ they told each other, before collapsing in a fit of giggles.

The sun came out on Sunday morning, and they took to the water in a rented boat. Every few minutes an American plane would roar above their heads as it headed into Tempelhof, while a few miles to the north British planes were flying in and out of their airbase at Gatow. When Rosa asked why, Russell did his best to explain the situation, and saw its essential craziness reflected in her expression. He sometimes thought they should be more open with her about their own problems, but how did you tell an eleven-year-old that Daddy’s Russian friend might at that very moment be enduring torture at the hands of his Moscow employers?

That evening they were eating outside when another sharp and violent shower erupted, beating a thunderous tattoo on the roof of the covered terrace and drawing a pulsating curtain of rain across the world beyond. Sitting there, Effi felt like she was a taking part in a scene from a film, and that if only the director would shout ‘cut’, someone would then switch the rain machine off.