Potsdam Station

The ghost of a star

April 10 – 13

They came in the night, as they always did. A half-heard key in the door, a rough hand on the shoulder, a succession of barked orders – ‘get up, get dressed, get a move on.’ Then the back staircase, the Black Maria parked beside the rubbish bins, the short drive up an empty Mokhavaya Street, the archway and gates swallowing him up.

He was bundled in through a side door, walked down a blue-lit corridor and into a yellow-lit reception room, planted on a stool in front of a desk. His personal details were copied from his passport and other papers onto a new form, and he was asked, somewhat bizarrely, whether or not he smoked. When he asked the official across the desk the reason for his arrest he was given nothing more than an if-you-don’t-know-I’m-not-going-to-tell-you smirk.

Registration complete, he was hustled along barely lit corridors and up barely lit stairs to his new quarters. His escort shoved him in, pulled the door shut, and flicked up the metal flap to make sure he was still there. It was a six-by-four-foot cell. The bed took up half the available space, a battered tin bucket sat in the far corner. He was not going to get much exercise.

Nor much sleep if the light bulb hanging from the ceiling was always on, which it doubtless was. He could see other yellow lights through the window, which suggested his cell overlooked the inner courtyard, but what the hell did that matter? The quality of the view was hardly a priority.

He lay down on the bed, wondering if the solo cell boded well or ill. Privacy was nice, but so was someone to talk to. And he would have liked someone other than the authorities to know he was there.

He should be terrified, he thought, but all he could feel was a damning sense of failure.

He had let Effi and Paul down, behaved like an idiot. Making a pain in the arse of himself hadn’t worked in the US or Britain, where the only sanction was refusing his calls. So why in God’s name had he expected it to work here, where swatting away human pests was almost a national sport?

Stupid, stupid.

But this was no time for self-flagellation. If there was any flagellating to do the Soviet authorities would be only too happy to oblige. He needed to calm down, keep his wits about him. ‘Sobriety breeds success’, as one puffed-up schoolmaster had written on one of his essays, the day before Archduke Franz Ferdinand bit the dust.

He wondered whether someone had overheard him at the Shchepkins’ door, and reported him for breaching the ‘general rules governing conversations between foreigners and Soviet citizens?’ He hoped not – Shchepkin’s wife and daughter would also be under arrest if that was the case – but it seemed the logical explanation. Of course, if Shchepkin himself had been carted away on some ludicrous pretext of consorting with foreign agents, then a foreigner trying to contact him would be a dream come true to those who’d done the carting. It would provide them with ‘evidence’ that Shchepkin was in touch with ‘foreign powers’. The irony was, the only real spying Russell had ever done had been for the Soviet Union. His work for the Americans had involved him in nothing more dangerous than lining up potential contacts.

His request to join the Red Army’s triumphal progress could hardly have given them reason to arrest him. They only had to say no, as indeed they had. And if they wanted to punish him for chutzpah, then a swift deportation would surely have been more than sufficient.

So why was he here? He supposed they would tell him eventually, always assuming there was a reason.

In Berlin, Effi woke soon after eight with the sun in her eyes – it was reflecting off an unbroken window on the other side of Bismarck Strasse. She examined the sleeping face of the child beside her for traces of the nightmare which had woken them both a few hours earlier, but there were none. The face was almost serene.

In the thirty-six hours which had passed since her arrival, Rosa had given no additional cause for concern. True, she didn’t talk very much, but she replied when spoken to, and did all that was asked of her. She had objected only once, albeit with an almost desperate intensity, when Effi suggested they get rid of a particular blouse. It wasn’t that the blouse was badly faded and frayed, though that in itself would have been reason enough. The problem was the incompleteness of the fading, and the star-shaped patch which had held its colour beneath the yellow badge.

‘My mother made this blouse,’ Rosa had pleaded. ‘It’s the only thing I have. Please.’

Effi had relented. ‘But we must hide it well. And you must never wear it. Not until the war is over.’

Rosa had accepted the conditions, folded the blouse with the sort of care one reserved for religious relics, and placed it at the bottom of a drawer.

Other items in her suitcase included a chess set and a pack of cards, both homemade. Her mother had taught her many games during their years of hiding, and Rosa had become particularly good at chess, as Effi soon discovered. She could also sew, though not with the same proficiency.

Her real talent was for drawing. Effi had assumed that the beautifully crafted cards and chess ‘pieces’ were the work of Rosa’s mother, but it soon became apparent that they were the child’s. Given a pencil and paper that second afternoon, she produced a drawing of the street outside that astonished the two adults. It wasn’t the rendering of the bomb- gapped buildings opposite which caught their attention, accurate though that was. It was the figure in the foreground: a man walking by with a suitcase, looking back over his shoulder, as if in fear of pursuit. Real or imagined, he was utterly convincing.

In the Lyubyanka, the sun had risen and fallen before they came for Russell again. Breakfast had been a bowl of thin soup with a hunk of stale bread, dinner the same. Yet he didn’t feel hungry. It had been like that in the trenches on the eve of a German attack – the mind was too busy fighting off fear to take note of what the body was saying.

They passed along many corridors, ascended and descended several staircases, as if his escort had orders to disorient him. Eventually they came to their destination – a large, windowless room that smelt of mould. There were seats on either side of a table, one upholstered leather, the other bare metal. Ordered onto the latter, Russell tried to bolster his spirits by compiling a probable list of the books in the prison library. Kafka, of course. The Marquis de Sade and Machiavelli. The Okhrana Book for Boys. What else? Had Savonarola written his memoirs?

The door opened behind him, and he resisted the temptation to turn his head. A tall faired-hair man in an NKVD uniform walked briskly past him, placed a depressingly thick file of papers on the desk, and took the leather chair behind it. He was about thirty-five, with wide nose, full-lipped mouth and blue eyes just a little too close together.

He placed his cap on the side of the desk, positioned the desk-lamp to shine in Russell’s face, and turned it on.

‘Is that necessary?’ Russell asked.

‘I am Colonel Pyotr Ramanichev,’ the man said, ignoring the question and opening the file. He looked at the top page. ‘You are John David Russell, born in London, England, in 1899. You lived in Germany from 1924 to 1941, and became an American citizen in 1939. You lived in the United States for most of 1942, and then returned to England. You describe yourself as a journalist.’

‘I am a journalist.’

‘Perhaps,’ Ramanichev admitted, as if he didn’t much care either way. ‘In 1939 you did other work for us – courier work – in exchange for our help with some fugitives from the Nazi Gestapo. Jews, I believe. You were paid by us, and presumably by the Jews as well.’

‘I was not paid by the Jews, and I was forced to use all the money I received from you – money I received for writing articles – to bribe my way out of a trap that one of your people set.’

‘The traitor Borskaya.’

‘If you say so.’ The glare of the lamp was annoying, but only debilitating if he allowed it to be so.

‘And was the traitor Shchepkin your only other contact?’

‘Why traitor?’ Russell felt compelled to ask. He had long feared for Shchepkin – the man was too honest with himself.

‘He has admitted serving the interests of a foreign power.’

‘When did this happen? Is he dead?’

‘These matters do not concern you. I repeat: was Shchepkin your only other contact?’

‘Yes.’

‘Later that year you suggested that a German railway official named Möhlmann might be willing to provide the Soviet Union with information on military movements.’

‘Yes.’

‘You suggested this to Shchepkin.’

‘Yes.’

‘And in 1942, after escaping from Germany, you met Shchepkin in Stockholm. Following that meeting, at which Shchepkin was supposed to invite you to the Soviet Union, you chose to visit the United States instead.’

‘Shchepkin did invite me to the Soviet Union,’ Russell retorted. He wasn’t sure whether his own supposed guilt was supposed to rub off on Shchepkin, or the other way round, but it was beginning to look as if their fates were intertwined. ‘And he was very upset when I refused.’

Ramanichev smiled for the first time, albeit fleetingly. ‘So you say. But I’m sure you can see how this looks. In all your dealings with us, over many years, your only contacts have been with proven traitors. Why would such people have dealt with you if your sympathies were really with the Soviet Union?’

Russell resisted the temptation to ask Ramanichev if he had ever read Alice in Wonderland. ‘That’s absurd,’ he said.

The Russian lifted an eyebrow. ‘Absurd? And yet the moment you arrive in Moscow, you are knocking at Shchepkin’s door. You know where he lives, you have an animated conversation with his daughter.’

‘I only knew that he lived near the Novodevichy Cemetery. I knocked on a lot of doors, as I’m sure you know. And I had no idea he had been arrested,’ Russell explained patiently. ‘I was hoping he could help me.’

‘With further plots against the Soviet state?’

‘Of course not. I have already explained my reasons for coming to Moscow. On Saturday, to your colleague Leselidze.’

‘Explain them to me.’

Russell went through it all again: his wish to reach Berlin as soon as possible, in case his wife or son needed help; his realisation that the Red Army would reach the city first, and his request to accompany the leading units as a war correspondent.

Ramanichev was having none of it. ‘You could have arrived with the Americans once the city was secure. But knowing that members of the capitalist press have never been permitted to accompany the Red Army, you spend a full week travelling to Moscow, just on the off chance that we are willing to abandon our policy. And all in the cause of reaching Berlin just a few days earlier.’

‘What other reason could I have?’

‘As far as I can see this elaborate ploy can only have one purpose. You were sent here to convince us that the Americans and the British have no interest in taking Berlin.’

All right, Russell told himself, they’re not just crazy, they do have reasons for distrusting the West. But even so. ‘I believe General Eisenhower sent Comrade Stalin a letter saying exactly that,’ he said.

‘Yes, he did. And knowing that we might find the general’s message hard to believe, the Americans also sent you, with the same message wrapped up in what I believe they call a “human interest story” – the man who can’t wait to see his wife and son again, who has been told that the Soviets are certain to be first in Berlin. Reinforcing an important lie with a second, less consequential-looking falsehood – it’s a classic tactic.’

‘That’s ridiculous…’

‘Ridiculous?’ Ramanichev exclaimed, raising his voice for the first time. ‘Ridiculous that you should work for American intelligence? Wasn’t that who you were working for in Prague in 1939?’

‘Yes, but..’

‘And did you not act as a contact between German military intelligence and the American Embassy in 1940 and 1941?’

‘Yes…’

‘But you expect me to believe that the moment you escaped from Germany – and chose to go to America – you also stopped working for American intelligence?’

‘That’s what happened. It’s the truth. Just like Ike’s letter is the truth, and the reasons I gave you for coming here. The Americans have no plans for taking Berlin.’

Ramanichev shook his head. ‘On the contrary. Over the last two weeks three Allied airborne divisions have been making the necessary preparations.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ was all Russell could say.

‘According to our information, the British 1st, US 101st and US 82nd airborne divisions have orders to seize Oranienburg, Gatow and Tempelhof airfields.’

‘That’ll be a contingency plan,’ Russell argued. ‘They’ll have dropped it by now.’

‘Our information is up-to-date, Mr Russell.’

‘Yes, but from whom? I doubt if anyone’s bothered to tell the airborne troops that they’re not going.’

Ramanichev sighed. ‘Your lies get less and less convincing. I should inform you that under Soviet law any foreigner caught disseminating false information is deemed guilty of espionage. Those convicted are usually executed.’ He carefully closed the file, and looked at his watch. ‘Before we meet again, I would recommend that you consider your position very carefully. In view of your past services to the Soviet Union – no matter how marginal these might have been – that sentence might be commuted. But a full confession will be necessary. We shall want to know exactly what your orders were, who you received them from, and who your contacts are here in Moscow.’

He reached forward and restored the light to its original position, got to his feet, and strode from the room. Russell was escorted back to his cell by the same pair of guards, along the same labyrinthine route. Slumping onto his bed, the clang of the closing door still echoing around the walls, he was ready to admit it. He felt frightened.

It had been dark for more than an hour, and Effi was mentally preparing for the sirens and their evening trip down to the shelter, when the now-familiar knock sounded on the apartment door. Ali had gone to Fritz’s that morning, and Rosa was playing one of the patience games her mother had taught her by the light of a precious candle.

The moment Effi saw Erik Aslund’s face, she knew it was bad news.

‘We’ve heard from Lübeck,’ he said without ado. ‘The men you took to the train – they’ve all been caught. They were already on the ship, believing they’d escaped. And then the Gestapo swarmed aboard.’

‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ Effi protested. ‘If they knew the men were on the train, then why wait until they were on the boat?’

‘We don’t know. Maybe they wanted to put pressure on the Swedish government. Or perhaps they had a tip-off from someone in Lübeck. One of the sailors even – not all my countrymen are against the Nazis. It doesn’t matter now. The point is, they’re in custody, and you told me that one of the Jews had stayed here. Our contact in Lübeck says that they’re being brought to Berlin for questioning, so this place should be safe overnight. But no longer than that. You must leave in the morning. I’ll try and find somewhere, but…’

‘Don’t bother,’ Effi interrupted. She had spent a good many sleepless nights anticipating this turn of events, and knew exactly what she intended to do. ‘We’ll get a train east, to Fürstenwalde or Müncheberg, somewhere like that, and then return as refugees. There are thousands arriving in Berlin, and half of them have lost their papers. I’ll just make up a sob story, and we’ll have new identities. I used to be an actress,’ she added in response to Aslund’s doubtful look. ‘Quite a good one.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ he said, smiling for the first time.

‘How will I get in touch again?’ she asked.

‘You won’t,’ he said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘It can’t be long now, and I think we must all keep our heads down and hope for the best. And meet again in better times.’

She gave him a hug, and let him out the door. As she pushed it shut behind him Effi remembered that she was meeting her sister Zarah on Friday. With any luck they would be back by then.

‘You won’t leave me?’ a small voice asked from across the room.

‘No, of course not,’ Effi said, walking across to embrace her. ‘We’ll go together.’

‘On a train?’

‘Yes.’

‘I used to hear them from our shed, but I’ve never been on one.’

Russell woke to the sound of a scream, but it was not repeated, leaving him unsure whether or not he had dreamed it. He felt as if he had only slept for a couple of hours, and fitfully at that. Each time he had tried to still his mind with thoughts of something pleasant, Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’ had started up inside his head, until he cried out loud in frustration.

Breakfast arrived through the lower flap in the door, a meal as enticing as the one before it, and the one before that. But this time he actually felt hungry, and the soup tasted slightly better than it looked. What was in it was hard to tell, but whatever it was, his stomach was unimpressed, and he was soon getting used to the stench of his own waste.

Several hours went by, and his only visitor was another prisoner, who transferred the contents of his bucket into a larger receptacle. Russell thanked the man, and received a disbelieving look in return. The smell showed no sign of fading.

He had half expected another session with Colonel Ramanichev, and felt absurdly aggrieved at being ignored. Get a grip, he told himself. This could go on for months, or even years. They had no reason for haste – on the contrary, the longer they left him the weaker he would be. He could lie there for ever, turning soup into shit and letting the same stupid song drive him slowly nuts.

Staring at the wall, he resisted the temptation to start scratching off days. Some clichés should be avoided.

He wondered if his sudden disappearance had been noticed. His fellow journalists at the Metropol might be wondering where he had got to, if they hadn’t already been fed some story. Kenyon would eventually realise he was missing, and would certainly question the Soviet authorities. But would the American diplomat be able to push matters any further than that? The politicians in Washington were not going to put their relationship with the Soviets at risk for one difficult journalist, not at this juncture.

He went through what Ramanichev had said on the previous day. He had to admit it – if you examined his story from the Soviet perspective, it did seem a trifle suspicious. Write to Stalin forgoing Berlin, and then send him a journalist who was desperate to reach Hitler’s capital – as neat a way of confirming the original message as could be imagined. Over the previous seven years Russell had met so-called intelligence people from most of the warring countries – British, American, Soviet, German – and they had all delighted in tricks like that. The fact that he was telling the truth was completely beside the point – Ramanichev couldn’t afford to believe him.

So what would happen? Would they put him on trial? Only if he confessed – there was no way they would give him a public platform to protest his innocence. But what could he confess to? Foolish but innocent contacts with Soviet traitors? Shchepkin was probably dead, and Russell realised, rather to his own surprise, that even betraying the Russian’s memory was hard to contemplate.

But the alternatives were worse. If he refused to confess, then the best he could hope for was a long prison sentence, probably in some God-forsaken labour camp within spitting distance of the North Pole. They might do their best to persuade him, which would be seriously unpleasant. Or they might just take him down to the basement and shoot him. His body would turn up in some Moscow alley, another foreign victim of those anti-social elements that Comrade Stalin was always talking about.

When the all-clear sounded Effi and Rosa returned to the flat. Afraid that Ali might walk into a Gestapo trap, Effi hung the end of a light-coloured scarf across the windowsill – their long-agreed signal for such an eventuality. After one last look around, she and Rosa picked up their already-packed suitcases and set off down Bismarck Strasse. There was still no sign of dawn in the eastern sky, but the street was already quite crowded with people eager to reach work ahead of the next raid. They joined the crush working its way down the steps at Knie U-Bahn station, and shared in the collective sigh of relief when it transpired that the trains were running.

The one that arrived a few minutes later was almost full, despite having only come two stops. Effi resigned herself to standing, but a young army major with an arm in a cast gallantly gave up his seat. Rosa clung to a handrail, small suitcase wedged between her legs, eyes scanning her fellow-travellers with enormous interest. They were not much to look at, Effi thought; if hope was being kindled by the seemingly imminent end of the war, it had yet to reach these faces. On the contrary, her fellow- Berliners were hollow-eyed, anxious and depressed-looking, as if fully convinced that the worst was yet to come.

More people got on at Zoo, filling every available space in the carriage. She and Rosa could have taken a main-line train from there, but Effi had reasoned that the longer they stayed underground the better, and the same service could be joined at Alexanderplatz, ten stops further on. The U-Bahn train was smelly and slow – these days every journey seemed to take three times as long – but it felt much safer.

At the Alexanderplatz booking office she purchased two singles to Fürstenwalde. She had thought long and hard about their destination, and this town an hour or so east of Berlin seemed far enough away to give them credence as refugees, yet close enough to spare them several checks en route. Of course, she might have got it completely wrong, and picked a journey that was short on conviction and long on inspections. She knew her papers would stand up to a cursory look, and was fairly confident that Rosa’s would too, but neither would survive a proper investigation. They were, after all, only tissues of credible lies.

The first check came sooner than she expected. At the top of the stairs to the elevated platform one officer in plain clothes – Gestapo most likely, though he wasn’t wearing the trademark leather coat – was sharing a checkpoint with two military policemen. As one of the latter examined their papers, Effi stole an anxious glance at Rosa, and was amazed to see her beaming happily at the probable Gestapo officer. Even more surprisingly, he was smiling back at her. Fifteen years as an actress, Effi thought, and she finally had a protégé.

It was fully light now, or as fully light as Berlin ever got these days. Several fires were burning in the Old Town, and smoke from those already extinguished still hung in the air. A Fürstenwalde train was scheduled to arrive in a few minutes, but after half an hour an announcement on the station loudspeakers admitted that it was only just leaving Zoo. Like many of her fellow would-be travellers Effi kept one eye on the sky, silently praying that their train arrived before the US Air Force.

It finally appeared in the distance, chugging slowly around the long curve from Börse. Like their U-Bahn train, it was already full, but they fought their way aboard and laid claim to a window spot in one of the vestibules. As they cleared the station the sirens began to wail, and the train seemed to falter in its stride, as if uncertain whether to continue. But instead it gathered speed, rumbling through Silesian Station without making its scheduled stop, leaving several shaking fists in its wake.

Once the city had been left behind the train slowed markedly, as if the driver was allowing his locomotive a rest after the rigours of its pell-mell escape. It was now wending its way through the lakes and forests of the Spreewald, but hardly steaming towards safety. They had, as everyone on board knew only too well, merely exchanged the threat of high-level American bombing for the closer attention of prowling Soviet fighters.

The latter had already been active that morning, as one official announced during a long stop at Friedrichshagen, and only a few minutes after resuming its journey the train clanked to a halt once more. Everybody was ordered out, and in the resultant panic several people managed to injure themselves making overeager exits. Effi and Rosa helped one old woman down the steps and into the shelter of the woods which lined each side of the tracks. She was visiting her daughter in Fürstenwalde, and had already decided that this would be ‘the last time.’

They waited for the best part of an hour, but no plane swept down to attack the stationary train, and eventually the driver sounded his whistle to announce the resumption of their journey. Everyone climbed back on board, and the train set off again. A stop at Erkner was mercifully brief, but long enough to allow an inspection team aboard. These men were meticulous, Effi noticed, as they slowly advanced down the corridor, and for a few seconds she entertained the wholly ridiculous idea of jumping from the train. Instead, she gave Rosa a comforting pat on the shoulder and reminded herself that idiots like these had been checking Frau von Freiwald’s papers for years without noticing anything amiss.

They were finally in front of her, two plump, fortyish men in plain clothes with bile for brains. The taller of the two took the papers from Effi, and began to examine them. ‘And why are you going to Fürstenwalde?’ he asked without looking up. He made it sound the most unlikely of destinations.

‘To see my sister. I’m hoping that I can persuade her to return to Berlin with me. This is her daughter, my niece.’

‘What is your mother’s address?’ the shorter man asked Rosa.

‘Nordstrasse 53,’ the girl said promptly. With no time to visit the library, Effi had picked the name out of the ether the previous night. ‘Do you think the Führer is still in Berlin?’ Rosa asked her questioner, improvising rather too freely for Effi’s peace of mind.

The man opened his mouth and then shut it again, apparently reconsidering his answer. ‘The Führer’s whereabouts are not a matter for public discussion,’ he eventually decided.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know,’ Rosa said with a look of surpassing innocence.

‘Well now you do,’ the man said weakly. His colleague was going through their papers for a second time, as if determined to find something amiss. Failing, he almost flung them back at Effi.

‘She’s very young,’ Effi told the shorter man in part-apology. ‘But she means well.’

‘I’m sure she does,’ he said coldly. He gave them a quick nod, and turned away. His partner scowled at them both before moving on into the next carriage.

‘He stank of onions,’ Rosa whispered.

And so much else, Effi thought to herself.

When they finally reached Fürstenwalde late in the afternoon, Effi was still hopeful of their getting back to Berlin that day. But the news was all bad. A bridge had been bombed a few miles to the east, a locomotive had broken down a similar distance to the west, and nothing much was moving.

The station platforms were already crowded with families in flight from the east, and looking at them convinced Effi that a quick change of clothes was in order for herself and Rosa. Reasoning that an outward show of respectability should help them through checkpoints, they had ventured east in fairly smart outfits, but Effi had also thought to pack some shabbier clothes in their suitcases for this eventuality. Rosa had even remembered something one of her mother’s friends had once said – that tying a piece of string around a suitcase made the owner look more desperate.

Once darkness had fallen, they changed clothes in the still-immaculate station toilets. They flushed as well as they looked, and Effi took the opportunity to dispose of her papers. She had grown rather fond of Erna von Freiwald, and felt slightly bereft at losing her.

Looking suitably distressed, they availed themselves of the free food on offer from the NSV – the National Socialist Welfare Agency – in the forecourt outside. Feeling unusually replete, they returned to a different end of the crowded platform, found a space for themselves, and settled down to wait. Rosa soon fell asleep, but Effi lay there, her head resting uncomfortably on the edge of her suitcase, listening to the conversations going on around her. There were two main themes – the horror of what had gone before, and the fear of what was to come. Rape and murder had apparently been commonplace in those parts of Germany now overrun by the Russians, and if the voices in the dark could be believed, the popular stories of crucifixions and other atrocities were not just the product of Goebbels’ imagination. When it came to the future, it was Berlin and its people that seemed to worry the refugees most. Everyone knew that all Berliners were liars and thieves, and the thought of living in this modern day Gomorrah seemed almost as frightening as what they’d already been through.

Many of the stories were hard to listen to, and Effi was glad that Rosa was sleeping. But she kept her own ears open. These were the experiences that her new fictional identity would remember, and she needed every conviction-enhancing detail she could get.

It was a few minutes after six, and the light of the unrisen sun was leaking into the eastern sky, when Paul let himself out of the Grunewald house, locked the front door and set off without a backward look for the West- kreuz S-Bahn station. He had spent most of the last forty-eight hours indoors, going out only once to eat at a restaurant in nearby Halensee. He had listened to the BBC for a couple of hours each evening, and heard nothing that really surprised him. He had used the daylight hours to tidy and clean, working on the house like a doctor feverishly intent on saving a patient. It had felt absurd – he was not really expecting to see the place again – but also deeply satisfying. One small part of his world was in order.

He was heading for Westkreuz because a clerk at the Halensee station had told him that Stadtbahn trains were still running out to the eastern suburb of Erkner, and that from there he could take a suburban train on to Fürstenwalde. He was leaving at first light in hope of getting across Berlin before the morning air raid, and because he suspected that his sixty-kilometre journey would take most of the day. Whatever fate and the Russians had in store for him, he had no intention of being shot for desertion.

Half an hour later he was part of the crowd waiting on the Westkreuz eastbound platform. He didn’t have long to wait. A train ran in, already full to bursting, and he joined those forcing themselves aboard. The closing doors almost took his head off, leaving him squeezed inside with his arms pinioned to his sides. Once turned around, face up against the glass, he found himself with a panoramic view of what the Western allies had done to Berlin. Street upon gap-toothed street, the demolished Zoo and the scoured Tiergarten, the hollowed-out dome of the Winter Garden. The train sat for a while beneath the skeletal roof of Friedrichstrasse Station, then ventured onwards, almost tiptoeing around the long elevated curve above Dircksen Strasse. Many got off at Alexanderplatz and Silesian Station, but even more seemed to get on. Where were they all going?

In the yards beyond Silesian Station two railway cranes were clearing away debris, and a crowd of prisoners was at work replacing damaged sections of track. Soon they were running under the Ringbahn tracks and into Köpenick, passing several allotments full of old men tending vegetables. Like the farmers a few miles further on, they knew that the war was about to roll over them, but no one was expecting the Russians to feed Berlin. Every potato and carrot would count.

The train terminated at Erkner. Alighting, Paul was almost bowled over by the smell of the soldiers crowding the platform. There was no train east for several hours, so he went in search of food. There was none at the station, and getting into town involved passing through a military police checkpoint. As an officer checked through his papers, Paul surveyed the wall behind him, which was plastered from floor to ceiling with identical posters threatening death for desertion.

Paul walked on into the town, which had clearly been bombed more than once. He eventually found a restaurant with something to offer, though it was only thin soup and stale bread. He ate it with a soldier’s gusto, and made his way back to the station, where the crowd seemed somewhat thinner. His train, when it came, was absurdly full, but once the MPs had cleared the front five carriages of civilians the soldiers were able to get on board, and they were soon steaming out across the orbital autobahn and into open country. There were watchers fore and aft looking out for Russian planes, but none put in an appearance, and in midafternoon they reached Fürstenwalde.

The service was continuing east, and those wanting the Seelow line had to change. As Paul jostled his way through the crowd his train pulled noisily away, revealing an equally packed westbound platform. A woman in a long black dress caught his eye, though he couldn’t have said why. She was talking to a small girl, and perhaps it was the way she inclined her head that made him think of Effi. At that moment, as if aware of his stare, she suddenly looked across at him, and almost broke into a smile.

And then a train slid between them, hiding her from view.

He told himself it couldn’t have been her. He had always assumed that she had left with his father, that the two of them had spent the last three years enjoying life in New York or Hollywood. But even if she’d never left Germany, what would she be doing in Fürstenwalde? And with a girl who was at least seven, and couldn’t be her daughter. And the woman had been too old – Effi couldn’t have aged that much in three and a half years. No, it had to be someone who looked like her. Had to be.

He searched the windows of the stationary train, but the face did not reappear. And when the train pulled out, she was not among the passengers who had failed to get aboard. He shook his head and made his way to the Oderbruch Railway platforms, which stood ominously empty. The line ran much too close to the current Russian positions for comfort, and its northern section had been closed several weeks before. A shuttle service to Seelow had survived, but this, as a harassed railway employee told him, was now only running under cover of darkness. He had six hours to wait.

Paul wandered out of the station, passing the spot where he and Ger- hart had sat the week before. He would have found it difficult then to imagine his friend dead; now he found it hard to imagine him alive. Life seem punctuated by implacable, irreversible events, like a series of doors clanging shut behind him in an endless straight corridor.

He walked on into town, hoping to pick up a lift, but nothing seemed to be going his way. He did find a relatively well-stocked shop, and exchanged his remaining ration coupons for a pound of sugar. Neumaier, who liked four spoonfuls in any hot drink, would be deep in his debt.

As he walked back outside, a water lorry drew up beside him and the driver, a Volkssturm man in his forties or fifties, leant out and asked directions for Seelow. ‘I’ll show you,’ Paul told him as he climbed aboard.

They drove out of Fürstenwalde and up onto the plateau, Paul scanning the sky for hostile aircraft while his taciturn companion watched the road. As they drew nearer to the front the sounds of sporadic gunfire grew louder, and it became apparent that the driver was unused to such proximity. ‘Do you think the offensive has started?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Paul told him. He had been through offensive-opening barrages, and conversation had not been possible. ‘When they do attack it’ll be just before dawn,’ he added reassuringly.

The driver let him off in the woods between Diedersdorf and Seelow, and Paul, watching the lone lorry motor off down the sun-dappled avenue of trees, had a sudden inexplicable urge to cry. He resisted it, feeling angry with himself. What did he have to be upset about? He was alive.

Ten minutes later he was back at the clearing. Neumaier and Hannes were still kicking their ball to and fro, which momentarily angered him. But football hadn’t killed his friend.

Sergeant Utermann was at his usual post, sitting on the fallen tree trunk outside their dugout. The soldier perched beside him looked young from a distance and younger close up – his uniform was way too big for him, and when he stood to salute the trousers bunched up around his ankles. More depressing still, he had the look of someone pleased to be there.

‘This is Haaf,’ Utermann told Paul.

Half a soldier, Paul thought, remembering his English. Well it wasn’t the boy’s fault. He offered a hand.

‘Haaf heard some good news at battalion,’ Utermann went on, as Neumaier and Hannes came over to join them. ‘The British and Americans are about to make peace. With any luck they’ll soon be fighting the Russians alongside us.’

‘And there are 500 new tanks on the way,’ the boy added with barely suppressed excitement. ‘And special divisions with new weapons.’

‘Is that all?’ Hannes asked drily, causing the boy to blush.

‘It’s what I heard,’ he insisted.

‘It could be true,’ Utermann said, backing him up. ‘Someone at battalion told me that everything’s being held back for the Führer’s birthday.’

‘Which is next Friday,’ Haaf added. ‘He’ll be fifty-six.’

‘I wouldn’t put any bets on him reaching fifty-seven,’ Paul heard himself say. It was, he realised, exactly the sort of thing his father would have said.

In Russell’s Lyubyanka cell two more meals implied the passing of another day. He had been expecting his anxiety levels to rise, but actually felt calmer. A sudden realisation that the war might end without his knowing induced only a mild panic, which soon dissipated. He felt distanced from his own plight, almost philosophical.

It seemed somehow appropriate that he should end up in a Soviet prison. The final stop of a long and almost predictable journey. From the Flanders trenches to the Lyubyanka; from one murderous balls-up to another. A true twentieth-century Odyssey. Or should that be Iliad – he could never remember which was which.

How would he explain it all to Paul, assuming he ever got the chance? Where would he start?

He remembered that evening in Langemarke, the Belgian village behind the lines where he first heard news of the Bolshevik Revolution. He had carried the excitement back to his unit, and seen haggard faces break into smiles. Few of his fellow-soldiers were socialists, let alone Bolsheviks, but the war had given anyone with half a brain a pretty fair idea of how things really worked, and most needed little convincing that their world was ripe for radical change. The Bolshevik Revolution seemed like the first decisive breach in the wall, a great strike against privilege and exploitation, a wonderful harbinger of equality and brotherhood.

The desire for some sort of revolution had been intense, and support for the only one on offer was bound to reflect that fact. Despite the many indications, over succeeding years, that life was considerably less than perfect in the new socialist paradise, many found it hard to give up on the Soviet Union, and even those that did seemed burdened with a lingering affection. Russell had left the Party in the twenties, but had still given Stalin the benefit of the doubt for many more years than he should have. And now he had run the full gamut, from fraternal foreign comrade to enemy of the state. How many thousands – millions, even – had traversed the same path? For him, the straw that broke the camel’s back had been Stalin’s return of exiled German communists to the Nazis. But there’d been plenty of others to choose from.

And yet. There were still thousands of communists out there – millions even – who thought they were fighting for a better world. They had taken the fight to the Nazis and fascists before anyone else, and they still led most of the resistance armies, from France through Yugoslavia and all the way to China. Communists like Gerhard Ströhm in Berlin, and the Ottings in Stettin – they had fought the good fight. They had saved Russell’s life in the process, and probably paid with their own.

He supposed the same could be said of Christians and Christianity. Russell had been an atheist as long as he could remember, and generally despised all religion, but there was no denying the integrity and bravery of those individual Christians who had stood up to the Nazis, and who were now either dead or languishing in concentration camps. Perhaps both Christianity and communism only worked in opposition, as inspirational ideologies for the have-nots of any particular time and place. Once the proponents of those ideologies became established in power, moral corrosion always set in.

It was not an original thought, but he was very tired. He could think up a new universal theory tomorrow, or perhaps the day after. There seemed no shortage of time.

It was him, Effi thought; she was certain it was. She tried to force her way through to the windows on the other side, but made little headway. The train was packed with real refugees, bearing all the belongings that they’d managed to rescue from the ruins of their former lives, and they weren’t about to surrender another square foot.

‘What are you doing?’ Rosa shouted after her, the obvious anxiety stopping Effi in her tracks.

‘I thought I saw someone I knew,’ Effi told her, once they were together in the corridor.

‘Who?’ Rosa asked excitedly. ‘No, don’t tell me,’ she quickly added, having obviously realised than the ‘someone’ might well be out of place in their new fictional existences.

‘He was the son of an old friend,’ Effi told her. ‘I haven’t seen him for two years,’ she added. And then only for a few seconds in the Tiergarten. He’d been a flakhelfer then, but now he was wearing an army uniform. He looked about a foot taller. And he was heading east, into the disaster which everyone knew awaited the army.

Both before and during the war – right up until his illicit exit in December 1941 – John had often talked about taking Paul and her away from Germany, but they had always known that the boy would refuse to go. His father might be English, but his mother, stepfather, stepsisters, friends – his life – were German.

And this was where his generation of German boys had ended up.

She felt like weeping, but that was nothing new.

At least she and Rosa were on a train, with a chance of reaching Berlin before the Russians. And after almost twenty-four hours in Fürstenwalde that was something to be thankful for.

After around an hour the train jerked back into motion, and was soon moving at a surprisingly respectable speed. This remained so until they reached Köpenick, where it slowed to a crawl before eventually stopping completely. There was a fine view of the sunset through the window, but no explanation given for the delay. By the time they got going again darkness had fallen, and the refugees were spared an early sighting of their capital in ruins.

It could hardly have made them more anxious. There was near-silence among the refugees as the train rattled in towards Silesian Station, even the children hushed by their parents’ obvious concern. There was no rush for the doors when the train came to a halt, which suited Effi very well. She knew where the NSV desk was, and hoped to be first in the queue. In the event, she settled for fourth, and while those in first place began filling in forms, she took a look around the familiar concourse. Before the war, this was where their old enemy Drehsen had met his victims, and she had dangled herself in front of him as a means of discovering where he had taken the others. It seemed a long time ago. She remembered sitting in the car with Russell on Dragoner Strasse, eager to confront the bastard in his lair. He had made her wait, and she had admitted that patience was not one of her virtues. Well, that had at least changed. If the Nazis had taught her anything, it was patience.

They had reached second place in the queue when all the lights went out. There were gasps and shrieks from the waiting refugees, which a subsequent announcement through the loudspeakers only partly allayed. When the sirens began, somewhat belatedly, to wail out their warning, several people burst into hysterical laughter.

Red Cross workers bearing flashlights soon brought some order to the proceedings, leading everyone down to the shelter under the station. The lighting was dim, the smell dreadful, but the ceiling seemed, to Ef- fi’s practised eye, reassuringly substantial. She and Rosa laid claim to an empty corner and watched their fellow refugees get used to city life. One family had lost a suitcase, and the father was soon telling anyone who’d listen that they’d been right about Berliners – they really were all thieves.

Yes, and all East Prussians have the brains of sheep, Effi thought to herself. It had been a long day.

The settling-in process was just about complete when the all-clear sounded, and this time the queue was almost halfway across the concourse by the time they reached it. A helpful Red Cross worker pointed them in the direction of a canteen, and while they were eating their bowls of dubious stew a couple of well-mannered Hitlerjugend came over to ask if they needed help.

Effi seized the opportunity. ‘My handbag’s been stolen,’ she said, clearly close to tears. ‘I don’t care about the handbag, but my papers were in it.’

‘Don’t worry,’ the elder of the two youths told her, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder. ‘You just need to report the loss. Once you’ve finished your dinner I can show you where.’

He was as good as his word, escorting them both to the relevant station office. A form was provided, which Effi filled out and signed with her new name – Dagmar Fahrian. The official presented her with a carbon copy, which he said she would need for obtaining replacements. The people at the NSV desk would explain it all.

But not today. The sirens began wailing again, and everyone hurried back underground. By the time the all-clear sounded two hours later, the NSV desk had closed and all public transport had ceased for the night. There was nothing for it but to sleep in the shelter.

Russell reckoned it was around ten in the morning when they next came for him, a surprisingly civilised hour by NKVD standards. And their route to the interrogation room seemed more direct, which also might bode well.

He reminded himself that hope was dangerous.

This time there were two of them, Colonel Ramanichev in his usual place, another uniformed officer sitting slightly to one side. He was probably in his early forties, stockier than his companion, with swept-back black hair, sallow skin and a Stalin moustache. He looked Georgian or Armenian, and was wearing a variant of the NKVD uniform which Russell didn’t recognise.

Russell sat down. There was a bad smell in the room, and he had no difficulty in identifying the source. It was himself.

Ramanichev, who had obviously noticed it too, got up to open a window. As he sat back down a distant peal of laughter was audible. The world was still out there.

‘Has the war ended yet?’ Russell asked pleasantly.

Ramanichev gave him a look. ‘No,’ he said after a moment, ‘it has not.’

‘Pity.’

Ramanichev glanced briefly at his fellow-officer, as if seeking permission to proceed. ‘When I questioned you three days ago,’ he began, ‘you stated with absolute certainty that the American Army had abandoned its plans to advance on Berlin.’

‘Correct,’ Russell agreed, with a lot more confidence than he felt. What had bloody Eisenhower done now?

‘The American 9th Army reached the Elbe River the day before yesterday, and yesterday they crossed it. At Schönebeck, near Magdeburg. You know where that is?’

‘Of course.’

‘They are only a hundred kilometres from Berlin.’

‘Are they still advancing?’

‘No,’ Ramanichev conceded reluctantly, ‘not as yet.’

Russell shrugged. ‘You know how it works. Front-line generals like to put pressure on their bosses. Whoever’s in charge of the 9th Army – his orders were probably to stop at the river, but he’ll have found some good reason to send a few men across, and if there’s any resistance they’ll have to be reinforced. If there isn’t, he’ll have shown the top brass that the road to Berlin is open. He’ll want to push on, but they won’t let him.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because that’s what was decided. Those airborne divisions you claimed were making preparations – are they still?’

‘That is unclear.’

‘So they’re not. I’m telling you the truth. Eisenhower is going to let the Red Army take Berlin. And the casualties that go with it. ’

‘You’d stake your life on that.’

‘I think I probably have.’

Ramanichev smiled his agreement. ‘My colleague has some questions for you.’

‘What do you know about the German programme to create an atomic explosive?’ the other man asked without preamble. He had a slightly rasping voice, and several gold teeth which glinted when he opened his mouth.

The sudden change of subject caught Russell out. ‘Only that it didn’t amount to much,’ he said without thinking. ‘Nothing’ would have been a much better answer.

‘Explain,’ the man said peremptorily.

‘I have no inside knowledge of the subject…’

‘That is hard to believe. This must be a matter of great importance to American intelligence.’

Russell sighed. ‘As I’ve told the comrade here, I no longer have any connection to American intelligence. As a journalist, I did hear certain stories.’

‘Such as?’

Russel paused, wondering what to say. He had tried to keep abreast of atomic developments over the last few years – had even tried to understand the scientific and engineering problems involved – but there seemed no point in admitting as much in a Lyubyanka interrogation room. ‘I know one of the journalists who covered the Strasbourg story last December,’ he said. ‘When the French stumbled across that laboratory. He wasn’t given any access to the scientific details, but it was no secret that the American scientists who went over the place were all profoundly relieved. Whatever it was they found, it convinced them that the Germans were a million miles away from building an atomic bomb. But that’s all I know.’

‘You said stories, in the plural.’

‘I was exaggerating. I don’t know anything else about the German programme. Any fool could tell you that the Americans will be trying for an atomic bomb, but only the scientists will know how far they’ve got. And maybe the president, if they’ve bothered to tell him.’

Ramanichev smiled at that, but his companion just seemed disappointed. Five minutes later Russell was back in his cell, wondering what had just transpired.

Effi and Rosa were first in line when the Welfare Agency staff arrived at their Silesian Station desk that morning. Rosa had been working on a sketch of the concourse for about half an hour, and the two welfare workers spent so long admiring it that Effi’s patience was sorely tested. Wherever they were going, they needed to get there before the morning raid.

Once fully engaged, however, their young woman helper proved both kind and efficient. She took down every false detail she was given, and asked where Effi wanted to go.

‘We plan to stay here in Berlin,’ Effi said, realising as she did so that she’d never considered doing anything else.

‘Are you sure?’ the woman asked. ‘The bombing is very bad, and most refugees choose not to stay here. They go further west, to a small town, or into the countryside.’

Effi wavered, but only for a second. It would be safer for Rosa, and probably for herself, but no. She couldn’t leave without letting Zarah know she was all right, or God only knew what risks her sister would take to find her. Even leaving the house was a risk these days. And then there was Ali, who would also be worried. And she knew Berlin. Anywhere else she would feel like a fish out of water. ‘I must stay here,’ she replied. ‘We have relatives here, distant cousins of my late husband’s. I’m afraid I don’t have their address any longer – it was in my bag. But they live in Friedrichshain. Their name is Schmidt.’

‘There are a lot of Schmidts in Friedrichshain…’

‘I know, it’s a common name. But if you could find us a room in that area, then maybe I can find them. We visited them before the war, and I think I would recognise their street if I saw it.’

‘That may not be as easy as you think,’ the woman told her. ‘The bombing has been quite fierce, you know.’ She opened a large ledger, and sought out the relevant page. ‘Of course you may be lucky,’ she added, as she ran her finger down a margin. ‘And Friedrichshain is one of our best areas for empty properties.’

Which is why I chose it, Effi thought. A lot of Jews had lived in Friedrichshain.

‘We have a room on Olivaer Strasse,’ the woman said. ‘It belonged to an old woman who died. There may be relations with a claim to it, but for the moment… well, it is a long way out, but in present circumstances that’s almost a bonus – you’ll have less chance of being bombed. She took a map from a drawer and spread it in front of Effi. ‘Olivaer Strasse is somewhere in here,’ she said, circling the area between Friedrichshain Park and the stockyards.

Rosa found it almost immediately.

‘That looks perfect,’ Effi said.

The woman added the address to the papers she’d already made out, checked through each one, and stamped them both. ‘You must take these to the local NSV office, and they will issue a residence permit,’ she said as she handed them over. ‘And you must keep drawing,’ she told Rosa.

As they walked away Effi breathed a huge sigh of relief. With any luck at all, they would sit out the last few days in the suburbs.

But first they had to reach this haven, and that, as soon became obvious, was easier imagined than done. There was no U-Bahn out to Friedrichshain, so their trip would be on the surface, and an air raid was almost guaranteed for later that morning. Travelling by tram would require at least one change, and with the service in its current state of repair might take most of the day. It would be safer to walk the four or five kilometres, but it wasn’t a part of Berlin that Effi knew at all well. She nipped back to the NSV desk, and tried to memorise the names of the streets they needed to take.

Rosa had stayed with their luggage in the middle of the concourse, and was now talking to their Hitlerjugend friends from the previous night, who had doubtless noticed her standing alone, and sallied forth to offer their protection. By the time Effi reached the threesome, Rosa had explained their circumstances, and the taller of the two had offered to escort them to their new home. She felt like refusing, but knew she was being foolish. The young man seemed nice enough, and he was no more to blame for the uniform than Paul had been. There had been a time, she remembered, when Paul had loved his shirt and shorts and ceremonial dagger. ‘That would be very kind of you,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you’re allowed to leave the station?’

He returned five minutes later with the necessary permission, and soon they were out in the open air. A blanket of grey cloud hung low above the city, threatening rain. They started walking up Frucht Strasse towards Küstriner Platz, the young man carrying Effi’s suitcase, she carrying Rosa’s. The buildings of the Eastern Goods Station were missing most of their roofs and some of their walls, but trains were still being loaded by squads of foreign prisoners. Küstriner Platz had suffered serious damage, with several buildings reduced to rubble, the square itself combed with craters.

On the far side, Frucht Strasse continued north towards Frankfurter Allee. As they walked the young man told them his name was Franz, and that his father had died at Stalingrad. They wouldn’t let him fight just yet, but when the Russians reached Berlin he planned to have his revenge. When Effi asked after his mother the boy shook his head. ‘She has a boyfriend now,’ he told them. ‘She doesn’t need me anymore.’

Approaching the elementary school on the corner of Frankfurter Allee they saw people lined up on the pavement, and a few moments later the roar of approaching vehicles provided a reason why. It was a military column heading out of the city, presumably bound for the not-so-distant Oder. It was mostly composed of trucks, all of which gave the impression of having been to Moscow and back. Two, Effi noticed, had French registration plates, so perhaps they’d gone with Napoleon.

There were also several horse-drawn guns and three well-worn tanks. Black-uniformed officers stood ramrod straight in each turret hatch, reminding Effi of Roman chariot riders. The tanks looked almost as ancient, but had probably come from the Spandau repair shops.

Turning her head to follow the procession, Effi suddenly caught sight of two men in leather coats. One chose that moment to glance in her direction, but seemed sufficiently reassured by her Hitlerjugend escort to resume his perusal of the passing column.

The noise was quite deafening, and the first sign of trouble was the sudden disappearance – like a Jack-in-a-box in reverse, she later remembered thinking – of one of the tank commanders. The hatch slammed shut and the tank accelerated, its treads whipping up a storm of brick dust. She was still wondering why when the first bomb exploded on the far side of the school, throwing earth and brick across Frankfurter Allee and up into the sky, and she was still looking round for Rosa when the second lanced down through the school roof and blew her off her feet.

If she passed out, it was only for a split second – the rest of the stick was exploding behind her, the school roof still crashing back to earth. There was pain and blood above her left ear, but otherwise she seemed uninjured. Raising her head, she could see people struggling to their feet.

But not Rosa. The girl was lying flat on her back a few metres away. Her eyes seemed to be closed.

‘Please no,’ Effi heard herself beg as she half crawled, half scrambled her way across the glass-strewn pavement. The girl’s suitcase had been blown open, her meagre possessions scattered across the stone.

She could see no blood. ‘Rosa! Rosa!’ she entreated

The eyes opened, took Effi in. The mouth tried hard to smile. ‘Am I all right?’ she asked.

‘I think you are,’ Effi told her, putting an arm around the girl’s neck and gently pulling her into a sitting position. Over Rosa’s shoulder she saw that Franz was collecting the clothes, and carefully folding each item before putting it into the suitcase. And that now he was reaching for the tell-tale blouse.

‘Franz,’ she said, but he had already seen the faded star. Ignoring Effi, he simply stared at it for several seconds, and then went on with his folding.

But by then it was too late. One of the leather coats had seen it – or perhaps only Franz’s reaction. He pushed the boy aside, knelt down beside the suitcase, and unfolded the blouse once more. ‘Ha!’ he said, and held it up for his partner to see.

The partner’s eyes swivelled to take in Effi and Rosa. ‘Jews!’ he said, with the triumphant surprise of someone who had just happened upon a pair of living dinosaurs. ‘You’re under arrest,’ he added superfluously.

Effi looked at the two of them. There was no kindness in their faces, and not much in the way of intelligence: nothing, in short, to which she might appeal as one human being to another. She helped Rosa to her feet, swaying slightly as she did so. Her head wound was beginning to throb.

‘Don’t leave me,’ Rosa said numbly.

‘I won’t.’

Franz had closed the girl’s suitcase. He gave it to her, and then looked up at Effi, offering a silent apology with his eyes.

‘Thank you for your help,’ she told him, picking up her own suitcase.

‘This way,’ one of her captors insisted, and gave her a gratuitous shove. She stumbled down onto her knees, and her head started whirling around. A hand grabbed her upper arm, and she could hear Rosa screaming: ‘Leave her alone! Leave her alone!’

‘I’m all right,’ she managed to say. ‘Help me up,’ she told the man, and much to her surprise, he did. A crowd of women was watching them, and Effi found herself wondering how many of them had seen her in the movies.

They were ushered across the wide street, and up the opposite sidewalk, the two leather coats striding along behind them. They seemed in ridiculously high spirits, and Effi could almost feel them preening themselves when a ready-made audience of women erupted from the Memeler U-Bahn station. Effi had not heard the all-clear, but the air raid was obviously over. Come to think of it, she hadn’t heard a warning either. Even the sirens were admitting defeat.

The nearest police station was a hundred metres further up the road. The front desk was untended, but voices could be heard below – the local Orpo officers were either still waiting for the all-clear or wholly engrossed in a game of cards. One Gestapo man headed for the stairs while the other stood watch over their prize. Lowering herself onto a bench, Effi still felt a little woozy, but after a minute or so something seemed to shift. Her wound continued to throb, but she no longer felt like passing out.

The other Gestapo man reappeared with a suitably chastened sergeant, and soon the former was describing their capture on the telephone. His voice grew less jaunty as the call progressed, and Effi deduced that their future was no longer in his hands. He confirmed as much when he came out. ‘Dobberke’s people will collect them later,’ he told his partner. Catching Effi’s eye, he hesitated for a moment, as if there was something he wanted to say, then continued out through the doorway. His partner followed without so much as a glance in their direction.

‘Are they going to kill us?’ Rosa asked in a whisper.

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Effi said, although she really had no idea. ‘The war’s almost over,’ she added, as if that was bound to make a difference. The girl looked less frightened than she should, and Effi had the strange feeling that their arrest had almost come as a relief.

‘I’m sorry about my blouse,’ Rosa said after a few moments. ‘I should have let you burn it.’

‘No,’ Effi said. ‘I’m glad you kept it. This isn’t your fault. It’s just bad luck. But don’t worry, I think we’ll be all right.’

‘We deserve to be,’ Rosa said. ‘That’s what my mother used to say – we deserve to be safe.’

‘We certainly do,’ Effi agreed, laughing in spite of herself.

The sergeant’s face appeared in the hatch, with a look that suggested she’d lost her mind.

It was two hours before ‘Dobberke’s people’ arrived, two hours in which every policeman on the premises found time to give them the once-over. Only one man looked actually pleased to see them there, whereas several sighed with either sympathy or exasperation. Most gave them mystified stares, as if they found it hard to believe that Jews were still walking their streets. The uniformed Gestapo who came to collect them were obviously more used to dealing with fugitive aliens, and shoved them through the doors of the Black Maria with hardly a second glance.

There was a small barred window in the back, but Effi already knew where they were going. She had heard of Dobberke: one of the Jews she had sheltered at the Bismarck Strasse flat in 1943 had escaped from the collection camp on Grosse Hamburger Strasse, which Dobberke then ran. All Jews captured in Berlin had been taken and held there, until their numbers were sufficient to justify a transport. A year later another fugitive had told her that the Grosse Hamburger Strasse camp had been closed, and its functions transferred to the old Jewish Hospital out in Wedding. And that Dobberke was now in charge out there. The greifer – those Jews who scoured Berlin’s streets and cafés for U-boats on the Gestapo’s behalf – were also based at the hospital.

In most situations, Russell had once told her, there were some things beyond an individual’s control and some things that weren’t, and what mattered was realising which was which. He’d been talking about some politician – she couldn’t even remember which one – but the principle held true for all sorts of things, from acting in movies to surviving the Nazis. Or, in this particular case, a Jewish collection camp. So which things in this situation were still in her control?

Her identity, above all. Who was she claiming to be? They had assumed she was a Jew, and she hadn’t denied it, mostly for fear that she and Rosa would be sent to different fates. But now…

What did she want? To live, of course, but not at the cost of abandoning the girl.

Were they still killing Berlin’s Jews? They couldn’t send them east anymore, so were they kil ing them here? Was there a gas chamber out at the Jewish Hospital? It was hard to imagine such a thing in the heart of Berlin. Even the Nazis had shrunk from that – it was why they had bothered to move the Jews east before killing them. But maybe now they had nothing to lose.

If she wasn’t a Jew, then who was she? Not the film actress Effi Koenen, who was still wanted for treason – a definite death sentence there. And not Erna von Freiwald, who was probably now being hunted in connection with the Lübeck-bound fugitives. Helping the Jews might not see her executed, but helping those involved in the plot to kill Hitler probably would. So Dagmar Fahrian, the woman whose papers she now carried? Dagmar had to be a better bet, particularly if Fürstenwalde soon fell to the Russians. Perhaps Dagmar’s sister had married a Jew before the Nuremberg Laws came into force, and then given birth to a mischling daughter after that became illegal. Perhaps the sister had died, and the Jewish husband had sent the child to Dagmar for safe keeping, before disappearing himself.

As a story, it had a lot to commend it. She and Rosa would be kept together, and both would have a better chance of survival – Effi as a misguided aryan, Rosa as a mischling. As the van zigzagged its way up the rubble-strewn Müller Strasse she gave Rosa a whispered account of their new mutual history.

The girl listened intently, only frowning slightly at the end. ‘But we will get our real history back one day?’ she half asked, half insisted.

‘We certainly will,’ Effi promised her. She wondered what Rosa would make of the fact that her new protector had once been a film star. Through the rear window she could see the S-Bahn bridge by Wedding Station. They were almost there.

A few minutes later the van pulled to a halt. The back door was flung open, and one of the uniforms gestured them out. Stepping down onto the street, Effi saw that they had stopped beside a tall iron archway. A plaque announced the address as Schulstrasse 78, and the building behind it as a Pathology Department.

Beyond the arch there was a two-storey gatekeeper’s lodge, and this, they soon discovered, was used for administration. A woman took their papers, timed their arrival, and told the bloodstained Effi that she would be taken to the hospital for medical treatment. When Effi asked that Rosa be allowed to accompany her, the woman sighed in exasperation, but made no objection. A young orderly escorted them down a long underground corridor and up several flights of stairs to the medical facility, where a nurse with a Jewish star found Effi a trolley to lie on, and then disappeared in search of a doctor. The man who turned up ten minutes later looked like a Der Stürmer stereotype of a Jew, but lacked the star to prove it. He examined Effi’s head wound with none-too-gentle fingers, pronounced it superficial, and marched off, shouting over his shoulder that the nurse should apply a bandage.

She stuck her tongue out at his retreating figure.

‘Are all the staff here Jewish?’ Effi asked.

‘Staff, patients and detainees,’ the nurse told her, rolling the bandage around Effi’s head. ‘In varying degrees, of course. Most of the people on the second floor are half-Jews or quarter-Jews who were married to aryans. Or just had influential friends. The Jews scheduled for transport are in the old Pathology building.’

‘But the transports have stopped, haven’t they?’

‘Weeks ago.’

‘So what’s going to happen now?’

‘That’s what we all want to know,’ the nurse admitted with a shrug. She examined her handiwork. ‘There, that’ll do.’

The orderly took them back down the long tunnel, up the stairs and across the courtyard to the Pathology building. There was a guardroom just inside the entrance, and steps leading down to a large, semi-basement room. It was the first of four such spaces, and each seemed home to between twenty and thirty detainees. Most were women over thirty, but there was a smattering of younger women with children, and several men past middle age. As Effi and Rosa wandered through the rooms a few eyes looked up in curiosity, and a couple of the older women even managed a wan smile of greeting, but most of the faces held only fear and mistrust.

The first room seemed the emptiest. Having picked out a space for themselves, they examined the outside world through one of the high barred windows, Rosa perched precariously on her upturned suitcase. A barbed wire fence ran across their line of sight, bisecting the area of cratered lawns and broken trees that lay between them and the ivy-covered buildings of the main hospital. An almost idyllic setting, Effi thought. Once upon a time.

She was helping Rosa down when the sirens began to wail, and soon feet started tramping down the steps. The room began to fill up – these basements, Effi realised, were air-raid shelters for prisoners and guards alike. There were several men in Gestapo uniform, and one small bow-legged man in a black civilian suit who seemed to be in charge. Dobberke, she thought, as his black German shepherd cocked a leg against a metal table leg.

‘We’re all in the same boat now,’ a satisfied voice said behind Effi, confirming her previous thought. One of the sleeping women had woken up, and was now grinning at the coterie of Gestapo in the far corner. ‘I’m Johanna,’ she said, as the first bombs exploded in the distance. She looked about fifty, but could have been younger – her face was gaunt, her body painfully thin.

‘Dagmar and Rosa.’

‘Have you just been caught?’

‘This morning. And you?’

‘A few weeks ago. I flushed the toilet without thinking, and one of the neighbours heard.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Three years of effort down the toilet. Literally.’

‘Are there no young people here?’ Effi asked.

‘They’re in the cells. Through there,’ she gestured with a hand. ‘Mostly men, but a few young women too – anyone they think might make a run for it.’

‘And the greifer, aren’t they here too?’

Johanna’s face darkened. ‘They’re not usually here during the day, and there are several I haven’t seen for a while. Either Dobberke has given them a head start, or they’ve just taken one for themselves. Whatever happens to us, they have no future.’

‘And what will happen to us?’ Effi wondered out loud.

Johanna shook her head. ‘Only God knows.’