Potsdam Station

We killed them all

April 20 – 21

Paul let himself out of the temporary barracks just before seven, and took a deep breath of fresh air – most of the Hitlerjugend still sleeping inside had probably forgotten what soap and water were for. The sound of aircraft lifted his eyes – high in the sky above Erkner the sun glinted on the silver bellies of Allied bombers. All through the night he had listened to the dull thud of distant explosions, and day it seemed would bring no mercy. To the west, Erkner’s Rathaus was silhouetted against a sky laced with the colour of fire. It was, he realised, Hitler’s birthday.

He walked across to the railway station and down the short street to the town centre, intent on finding someone from his own division, or at least news of its whereabouts. How else was he going to get away from a bunch of deluded children with a collective death-wish?

But he was out of luck. The traffic clogging the main road west was mostly civilian; the only uniforms in motion were black, and they belonged to embarrassed-looking Waffen-SS soldiers clinging to a farm tractor. At the crossroads an unusually cheerful MP had no idea where the 20th might be, but more than enough information about the Russians, whose advance was apparently gathering speed.

‘How far away are they?’ Paul wanted to know.

The man shrugged. ‘Two days? Maybe only one. But we’ll all be pulled back into the city before they get here.’

He made Berlin sound like a real barrier, but Paul had seen French prisoners-of-war hard at work on the so-called ‘obstacle belt’ on his last trip to the city. A few trenches and gun emplacements weren’t going to hold up the Red Army for long, even when manned by soldiers too young to know fear.

Returning to the canteen, he saw Werner across the road, happily chatting to the woman from the day before. ‘Frau Kempka’s husband was in Italy with the same division as my father,’ the boy announced happily, as if that was some consolation for them both being dead.

‘Was he really?’ Paul said. ‘Good morning, Frau Kempka,’ he added. She had a coat on, and a suitcase sat by the front door.

‘I’m going to try and reach Potsdam,’ she said, noticing his glance. ‘My brother lives there, although I expect he’s serving in the Volkssturm now. It seems safer than staying here, don’t you think?’ She looked at Paul, as if confident he would know the answer.

I’m only eighteen, Paul felt like saying. ‘You’re probably right,’ was what he said. Potsdam, about twenty-five kilometres south-west of Berlin, seemed as good a place as any.

‘We’re moving out,’ Werner told him. ‘They told us fifteen minutes ago – you might have been left behind.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘A few kilometres east. There’s a gap between two lakes, and we’re supposed to plug it. Us and a police battalion. And the local Volkssturm.’

Paul groaned inwardly – police battalions were notoriously prone to disappearing without warning, and the Volkssturm would probably just get in the way.

Over the next couple of hours, as they waited for the fuel they’d been promised for their lorries, he saw nothing to make him more optimistic. The members of the police battalion were all armed with rifles, but their eyes looked inward and their faces were pale with fear. The older men of the Volkssturm looked more depressed than frightened, but they were woefully short of weapons. They would only have a rifle each when half of them were dead.

The fuel finally appeared, two barrels on the back of a horse-drawn cart which needed siphoning. It was almost ten when they finally set off, and by then the sky was clouding over. The Hitlerjugend sat clutching their rocket- launchers; apart from a few exceptions like Werner, they seemed eager for battle. Today was the Führer’s birthday, they kept reminding each other, the day on which the wonder weapons would be unleashed. This would be the moment the Soviets were stopped and driven back, and they would be able to tell their children that they had been part of it.

Staring out through the back of the lorry at the huge pall of smoke hanging over Berlin, Paul wondered how anyone could still believe in victory.

Their new position was only about three kilometres away, but forcing their way through the oncoming tide of refugees took almost two hours. Paul saw a mix of emotions in the passing faces – faint hope, pity tinged with resentment, even a hint of the old respect – but the commonest look was of incomprehension. It was the one he had seen in Gerhart’s mother’s eyes, the one that couldn’t fathom how anyone might still believe there was anything to fight for.

At the spot where their road passed under the orbital autobahn a large hoarding carried the increasingly ubiquitous ‘Berlin Remains German!’ slogan, and some joker had added the words ‘for one more week’ in what looked like large slatherings of gun grease.

No defensive positions had been prepared across the isthmus which divided the lakes, and the next two hours were spent digging themselves in. There were just over a hundred of them, Paul reckoned, enough to hold the position for a few hours, assuming the promised artillery support turned up. If it didn’t.. well, Ivan would just plough right on through them.

The two Hitlerjugend in the neighbouring foxhole were still talking about the wonder weapons. Both were certain of their existence, but one seemed less than certain of their imminent arrival. Werner, by contrast, was digging in silence. He was strong for a fourteen-year-old, Paul thought. Another way in which he had grown up too fast.

Russell was woken by the sirens, and for one all-too-brief moment thought himself back in Effi’s flat. It was only nine o’clock, and the bed seemed as damp as it had when he first lay down. Sunshine was pouring in through the window, lighting the Hertha team portrait which Joachim had pinned to his wall. It was the 1938–39 team, Russell realised. The four of them – he, Paul, Thomas and Joachim – had gone to most of the home games that season.

Was Paul dead too? He felt his chest tighten at the thought of it.

He swung himself off the bed and went for a piss. Varennikov was still sleeping, one arm stretched out above his head with palm averted, as if he were warding off an attacker. The sheaf of papers from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute peeked out from under the pillow.

Russell went downstairs in search of food and drink. There was water in the taps and, rather to his surprise, a weak flow of gas from the oven hob. There was a can of ersatz coffee, some sugar, and several tins of Swedish soup – a gift from someone with influence, no doubt. He stared out of the window at the overgrown garden while he waited for the water to boil, then left a saucepan of soup above the derisory flames.

Taking care to keep clear of the windows, he worked his way through the downstairs rooms. The living-and dining-room furniture was wreathed in sheets, Thomas’s office a dustier version of what he remembered. Standing in the front hall, he idly picked up the telephone, and was astonished to hear a working tone.

On impulse, he dialled the Gehrts’ number. It rang, but no one answered.

Next he tried Effi’s old flat. He knew she couldn’t be there, but he loved the idea of hearing the telephone ring in their old living room.

There was no answer.

Who else could he call? Zarah, he decided. If Effi had spent the last forty months in Berlin, he found it hard to believe that she hadn’t made contact with her sister. But what was the Biesingers’ number. Did it end with a six or an eight?

He tried the six. He counted ten rings, and was about to hang up when someone picked up. ‘Yes?’ a tired male voice asked.

It was Jens, Russell realised, Zarah’s Nazi husband. He broke the connection.

Outside, the sound of bombs exploding seemed to be getting nearer. They should move to the cellar.

It was early evening when the rumour spread through the basement rooms of the collection camp, leaving something close to terror in its wake. Effi could feel the rising sense of panic before she knew its cause, that Dobberke had finally received the order to kill them all. Like everyone else, she instinctively turned her eyes to the door, for fear that their killers were about to burst through it.

It was almost dark outside. Would they do it at night or wait for the dawn? Effi had heard of wounded people lying motionless for hours under corpses, waiting for the moment to crawl away. Had they just been lucky, or was there a trick she needed to know?

‘What’s happening, Mama?’ Rosa said, jolting her out of the dark reverie. Over the last few days, the girl had voiced none of those questions that she must be asking herself, but the look in her eyes was too often fearful. And this was the first time she had ever called Effi ‘Mama’.

‘I’m not sure,’ Effi told her. How could you tell a seven year-old that her execution had just been ordered?

The sirens started wailing, welcome for once. Would their jailers all come down to the basement as if nothing had changed? Would Dobberke stand there smoking his cigarettes, sharing an occasional joke with his prisoners?

He did, although he looked more uncertain than usual, at least to Effi. She decided she couldn’t bear to wait. She needed to know if the rumours were true.

The men in the fourth room would know, the ones who’d been locked in the cells until the weekend bombing. ‘You stay with Johanna,’ she told Rosa. ‘I’m going to find out what’s happening. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

She came across Heilborn and Lewinsky in the third room – the old mortuary, as Nina had told her. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked them without preamble.

The rumour was apparently true. A fourteen-year-old Jew named Rudi, who worked as a shoeshine boy for their Gestapo jailers, had overheard one end of a telephone conversation between Dobberke and his superior Sturmbannführer Möller, and then listened in as Dobberke passed on the news to his subordinates. Möller had ordered the ‘liquidation’ of the camp. ‘At once.’

That sounded like good news to Effi – by taking his time Dobberke was already disobeying orders.

There was more. The Hauptsturmführer had agreed to a meeting after the air raid with two representatives of the prisoners. Which suggested a willingness to consider counter-proposals.

‘What are they planning to say?’ Effi asked. She felt more than a little resentful that a few men had taken it upon themselves to speak for everyone, but reluctantly conceded that time might be short for democracy.

‘They’re going to ask him to release everyone,’ Heilborn told her. ‘And to tell him that the gratitude of a thousand Jews might well save his life in the weeks to come.’

Effi made her way back to Rosa, and passed on what she had heard to Johanna and Nina. On the other side of the room Dobberke still looked unusually tense. She prayed he would know a good bargain when he saw one.

An hour or so later she still had no answer. The two prisoners had returned from their meeting with the Hauptsturmführer. They had offered him signed testimonials from each and every one of his thousand Jewish prisoners in exchange for freedom, and he had promised to think about it.

Whatever Dobberke decided, it would happen in the morning. Effi doubted whether many of the collection camp’s inmates would sleep that night. She knew she wouldn’t.

Paul and Werner spent their afternoon waiting in the trench. Given some encouragement, Werner talked about his family – the engineer father that he’d lost, the mother who loved to sing while she cooked, his younger sister Eta and the doll’s house which he and his father had made her. And as he listened, Paul caught mental glimpses of his own childhood. One in particular, of decorating a cake with his mother when he was only four or five, had him fighting back tears.

Twice during the afternoon Soviet fighters flew low over their positions, one offering a desultory burst of machine-gun fire which killed one of the policemen, and soon after four o’clock tank fire was heard in the distance. But as dusk fell it grew no louder, and Paul was daring to believe they would survive the day when a lone T-34 tank emerged from the trees a few hundred metres down the road. Then the world exploded around them, a barrage of incoming shells straddling their positions, sucking earth and limbs skyward. They pressed themselves up against the wall of their foxhole, and tried to remember to breathe.

The shellfire soon abated, which only implied one thing – Ivan was coming through. As if in confirmation, a ‘Christmas tree’ flare burst out above them, sprinkling the blood-red sky with searing lights. Raising his eyes over their parapet, Paul could see a swarm of advancing T-34s, and the bulkier silhouettes of several Stalin tanks. As he looked, a boom sounded behind him, and one of the smaller Russian tanks exploded in flames. Two German Panthers had put in an appearance, and many of the Hitlerjugend were whooping and cheering as if the war had been won.

The Stalins were clearly unimpressed. One moved forward at a frightening pace, tracer rounds ricocheting off its hull in all directions; the other took careful aim. A whoosh and a flash left one of the Panthers ablaze, the other frantically traversing its gun as it scuttled backwards towards the dubious shelter of the trees. Looking to his left, Paul was sure he could see T-34s already level with their position – the police battalion had fled or been overrun. They had to withdraw.

A figure suddenly emerged above them, apparently oblivious to the bullets shredding the air. Orders to fall back, Paul assumed, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. ‘We’re going for them,’ the boy said, a ‘Christmas tree’ lighting his excited face. ‘They won’t be able to see us until we’re right among them,’ he added nonsensically, before hurrying on to the next foxhole.

Paul slumped back into his own. Werner was looking at him, waiting for direction, for encouragement, for permission to die. Well, he was damned if he was going to offer any of those. Why die defending a gap between two small lakes that the enemy could easily bypass? The thought crossed his mind that if his body was found in a pile of Hitlerjugend his father would think he’d learnt nothing. And he would hate that.

The light of the last ‘Christmas tree’ was fading. Glancing back out over the rim, he could see the shadowy figures of Hitlerjugend leaving their trenches and starting towards the oncoming Soviet tanks, each with a panzerfaust slung over his shoulder. Another ‘Christmas tree’ and they would all be mown down.

Paul felt the urge to go with them, and dismissed it as ridiculous. ‘Do you want to see your mother and sister again?’ he asked Werner.

‘Yes, of course…’

‘Then put that down and follow me.’ He levered himself out of the foxhole, and started running, crouched as low as he could manage, towards the nearest trees. Werner, he realised, was close behind him. Reaching the shelter of a large oak, they stopped to look back. The second Panther was also burning, the T-34s roaming this way and that like cowboys rounding up cattle in an American Western. As they watched, one erupted in flames – at least one panzerfaust had found its mark. But the Hitlerjugend had vanished from sight, swallowed by darkness and battle.

They moved on into the trees, keeping the road some fifty metres to their right and moving as fast as the darkness would allow. Behind them, the ‘Christmas trees’ were increasing in frequency, like a firework display reaching for its climax.

They had gone about half a kilometre when three Soviet tanks rumbled past on the road – they would, Paul guessed, soon be sitting astride the autobahn intersection. He led Werner towards the south-west, intent on crossing the autobahn further down, and after jogging on for another half an hour they finally came to the lip of a cutting. But there was no autobahn below, only twin railway tracks. As they reached the bottom of the bank they heard something approaching. A train, Paul supposed, but it didn’t sound like one.

Werner started forward, but Paul pulled him into the shadows. A tank loomed out of the gloom, half on and half off the tracks. Someone was standing up in the hatch, and several other human shapes were draped across the hull, but it was several seconds before Paul could be sure they were Germans.

He thought about trying to attract their attention, but only for a moment. They probably wouldn’t see him, and if they did the chances were good that they’d open fire.

Following them, though, seemed a good idea – if there were any Russians on the line to Erkner, the tank would find them first. He and Werner started walking down the tracks, the sound of the tank fading before them.

After around an hour Paul realised they were coming into Erkner. A few seconds later the tank loomed out of the darkness, still straddling the rails. His first thought was that it had run out of fuel, but it hadn’t been abandoned – a man was still standing up in the turret, smoking a cigarette. Paul risked a shout of ‘kamerad’. The man quickly doused his cigarette, but invited them forward when Paul supplied the names of their units.

The tank had fuel enough, but the commander, fearing that the Russians were already in Erkner, had sent his grenadiers ahead on reconnaissance. If they came back with a good report, then he’d drive straight through the town. If Ivan was already ensconced, then he’d find another way round. In either case, they were a panzergrenadier short, and Paul was welcome to the vacancy. The boy could come along for the ride.

The grenadiers came back a few minutes later – Erkner was still in German hands. Everyone climbed wearily aboard, and the tank moved off, swapping rails for road. They rumbled down the sleeping streets, talked their way through the MP checkpoint on the canal bridge, and headed out onto the Berlin road. Reaching the city’s outer defence line near Friedrichshagen, they discovered that their regiment was ordered to Köpenick, five kilometres further on. They arrived in the hour before dawn to find their supposed assembly area – the western end of the Lange Bridge across the Dahme – occupied by a company of Volkssturm. With no other tanks in sight, and confident that the Russians were at least a day behind them, the case for sleep seemed overwhelming.

Werner, however, was hard to turn off. He had been quiet throughout the journey, and now Paul discovered why. The boy couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d let his comrades down.

Paul understood why Werner felt that way – only a week ago he had felt the same himself. But not any longer. Maybe it was only him, but over that week the rules had seemed to change. ‘They chose their fate,’ he told Werner, hoping the boy wouldn’t notice all the questions he seemed to be begging. ‘Look, there are only a few days left. There’s nothing you and I can do anymore that will help win the war, nothing we can do to prevent it from ending in defeat. Nothing at all. All we can do is to try and survive it. And I want to survive,’ he said, surprising himself with the vehemence of the thought. Had losing Gerhard and Neumaier made him more determined to live?

‘So do I,’ Werner admitted, as if it were a guilty secret.

‘Good,’ Paul told him. ‘So can we get some rest?’

‘Okay.’

Paul closed his eyes and let the sound of the river lull him to sleep.

Russell woke to darkness, and it was several seconds before he remembered where he was. On the other side of the basement Varennikov was gently snoring, and somewhere in the outside world bombs were falling to earth with a series of distant thuds. ‘Welcome to Berlin,’ he murmured to himself.

Waking briefly in the middle of the night, he had found the young scientist reading the papers by torchlight, and was somewhat surprised not to find him still at it. He had let Varennikov sleep until five in the afternoon on the previous day, mostly because he couldn’t decide what their next step should be. When the Russian had finally woken up, he had assumed that they would wait there for the Red Army – ‘we stay, yes? – but Russell was not so sure. And while Varennikov had spent his evening engrossed in the papers, Russell had spent his sifting through options. Without reaching a decision.

Things seemed no clearer this morning. It might make sense to wait for the Soviets – they should be here in four or five days, a week at the outside. And if he handed Varennikov and the papers over in one piece, then Nikoladze might help him find Effi and Paul. But it didn’t seem likely. Even more to the point, he wanted to find Effi before a drunken gang of Russian soldiers did, not several days later.

And if they let the Russian tide wash over them in Dahlem, those areas of central Berlin still in Nazi hands would be forever out of reacx. Effi might be hiding in the outlying suburbs, but he doubted it. That wasn’t the city she knew, and she had always liked being at the centre of things.

So should he leave Varennikov behind? The Russian would probably be okay, provided he kept to the basement and remembered to eat. But Russell was loath to do so: Nikoladze might well decide he’d abandoned his charge – he was, after all, under orders to seek out a second atomic research laboratory and deliver his charges to the railwaymen comrades. The other laboratory could safely be forgotten – without their NKVD enforcers, and with valuable papers already secured, the risks were not worth taking. And he could always stand up the German comrades at the rail yards, given a good enough reason. But the one thing Nikoladze would expect to find, when he eventually set foot in Berlin, was someone protecting his precious scientist with a new mother’s fervour. ‘I left him in a basement on the other side of town’ would not go down too well.

It had to be the Potsdam goods yard – Varennikov could hardly object if Russell insisted on following their original orders. But not until tomorrow. Today he would go to Zarah’s house in Schmargendorf. If Effi had told anyone that she was still in Berlin, it would be her sister, and during the day Zarah’s husband Jens would be at work, always assuming that there was anything left for Nazi bureaucrats to do. He could also visit Paul’s house in Grunewald, which was only a short distance farther away. It didn’t seem likely that Matthias and Ilse were still in Berlin, but it was possible, and they would have some idea where Paul was. In fact, he would go there first.

He went up to the kitchen, poured two cupfuls of water into the kettle, and lit the gas. The flames seemed even smaller than before, but he was in no hurry. Bombs were still falling in the far distance – on the government district, most likely. He wondered whether Hitler was still in residence, and decided he probably was – if the Führer ever let go of his reins, it was hard to imagine any of the disciples having the gumption to pick them up. And someone was keeping the whole futile endeavour going.

Upstairs, he went through Thomas’s clothes – the two of them were much the same size – and picked out the oldest suit he could find. In the bathroom he found a strip of bandaging, in Thomas’s study a bottle of red ink. The latter looked the wrong colour for blood, but it would have to do. A stick and a limp would complete the illusion of someone unfit for battle.

Or at least it might. Russell had the feeling that death was the only excuse the Gestapo would find acceptable, and only then if you had papers to prove it.

He had no papers of any kind, but without Varennikov in tow he could probably talk himself through a random check. If all else failed he still had Gusakovsky’s gun.

It was time to get moving. Back down in the basement he shook Varennikov awake, and told him he was going out for a few hours. He expected dissent, but the Russian just grunted and went back to sleep.

Closing the front door quietly behind him, he walked down the overgrown path to the arched gateway and took a peek at the outside world. There were other people about, but none looking or moving in his direction. He slipped out into the street, and walked slowly north towards the main road. Halfway up, an old man leaning on a gate wished him a cheery good morning, and predicted a nice day. The Allied bombers still dotting the sky were clearly not a factor worth mentioning.

As Russell limped north, cutting through suburban back streets and avoiding the main thoroughfares, the bombing damage seemed ever more serious – Schmargendorf had fared much worse than Dahlem. Houses were missing from every row, streets and gardens cratered. At least half of the trees were burnt or broken, and those that weren’t had been pollarded for fuel. Green shoots were now rising from the stumps – Eliot had been right about April being the cruellest month.

An all-clear sounded in the distance, but crowds no longer rushed from the shelters as they had in the early years. The visible population seemed almost exclusively female, and there was little in the way of purposeful activity. Women of all ages stood outside their doors and gates, alone or in groups, smoking or chatting or both. Their lives were in limbo, he realised. They were waiting for the war to end, waiting for news of a husband or son, waiting to discover what would be left for rebuilding their streets and their lives.

He crossing the wide and mostly empty Hohenzollerndamm. There was a tram further up the street, but it showed no signs of being in service. So far, he had seen a couple of official-looking cars and several bicycles, but no trace of public transport. No electricity, no petrol. The city, it seemed, had ground to a virtual halt.

He walked on into Grunewald, and finally reached the peaceful suburban avenue where Paul had lived with his mother, stepfather and stepsisters. A few trees had been cut down, but only one dwelling, several hundred metres from Matthias Gehrts’ large detached house, had been completely destroyed by a bomb.

Working on the thesis that boldness was best – skulking seemed much more likely to get him reported – he limped straight up the driveway and reached for the iron knocker. He already feared that the house was empty – it had that indefinable air about it – and the lack of response confirmed as much.

He considered peering through the windows, but decided that would look overly suspicious. He walked back to the gate, played out a pantomime of noting something down, and limped off down the road. As he neared the next corner, he noticed that Paul’s old school was standing empty, chains tied across its rusting gates.

A quarter-hour later he reached the road where Effi’s sister lived. Skulking was his only option here, because Jens might answer a knock on the door. They had never liked each other, and it seemed safe to assume that he and Effi becoming fugitives had only made matters worse. For all Russell knew, Jens had been expelled from the Party for having traitorous relatives.

He had bought a Volkischer Beobachter from a still-functioning kiosk on Hubertusbader Strasse – the Nazi paper had shrunk, he gleefully noted, to a single large sheet – and duly positioned himself behind it some fifty metres from the relevant door. It was, he knew, a less than convincing stratagem, but he couldn’t think of a better one. He was, in any case, probably wasting his time. Zarah was probably in the country with Lothar, and he had no intention of approaching Jens.

According to the paper, there was heavy fighting in the vicinity of Müncheberg. Which, in Goebbels-speak, meant that the town had already fallen. The Red Army was almost at Berlin’s door.

An extra issue of rations was announced, supposedly in honour of the Führer’s birthday. And rations for the next two weeks could be collected in advance – someone at least in the Nazi hierarchy seemed reasonably aware of how much time remained.

No one had emerged from the house, which was disappointing but hardly surprising – it would have been something of a coincidence if anyone had appeared during these particular ten minutes. But he could hardly stand there for hours. The temptation simply to walk up and knock grew stronger, and after completing his perusal of Goebbels’ latest bleatings he felt on the verge of succumbing. If Jens answered the door he’d just have to play it by ear.

He was saved by an old man in a milkman’s uniform, who beat him to it, climbing the steps and hammering on the front door with all the insistence of someone intent on settling a long outstanding bill.

There was no answer. The milkman placed a piece of paper against t he door, licked his pencil, and scribbled what looked like a furious message.

Russell started back towards Dahlem. There were more people on the streets now, and most seemed to be smiling. He assumed the extra rations were responsible, but soon learned otherwise. A bald old man with a Hindenburg moustache – he had more hair under his nose than Russell had seen on many heads – insisted on shaking his hand. ‘We made it through,’ he said exultantly.

‘Through what?’ Russell asked.

‘You haven’t heard? That was the last air raid this morning. It was on the radio.’

The BBC, Russell assumed. ‘That is wonderful,’ he agreed, and allowed his hand to be shaken again. Walking on, he could think of only one reason why the Allies would stop their bombing – the Soviets was poised to enter the city.

As if in response to that thought, a rippling wave of explosions erupted away to the east.

There were no planes in the smoke-smeared sky. It could only be Soviet artillery. They were close enough to bombard the city centre.

Things would get worse, he realised. The gaps between air raids allowed time to shop, to collect water, to enjoy a few precious hours of natural light. But the Soviet guns would keep pumping shells around the clock. There would be no respite, no time of safety on the surface. From this point on the residents of Hitler’s rapidly shrinking realm would be spending all their time underground.

There were no shells landing in Dahlem – yet. Reaching Thomas’s gate, he checked the street was empty before hurrying down the path. If anyone was watching from a window, he could only hope that any sense of social responsibility had worn thin. If seeing their city go up in flames didn’t stop people reporting their neighbours, then what would?

Varennikov was awake, standing in the kitchen scratching his bare chest and staring hopelessly at the kettle. There wasn’t enough gas to warm a flea.

‘Someone knocked on the door,’ he told Russell.

‘When?’

‘Oh, fifteen minutes ago.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Here.’

‘You didn’t see who it was?’

‘No. I was afraid they might see me if I moved the curtain.’

‘You were right. Did they only knock once?’

‘No twice. After a half-minute they knocked again.’

‘They?’

Varennikov shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see.’

It might be nothing, Russell thought. But what innocent reason could anyone have for knocking on Thomas’s door? An old friend looking them up? Perhaps. It would be a coincidence, someone appearing so soon after their own arrival. A neighbour would be more likely, and a neighbour would know there was no one supposed to be here. Unless, of course, their arrival – or his own exit that morning – had been noticed.

If a neighbour had seen them, he or she might have come over to check them out, might now be phoning the police to report the presence of burglars. Would the police care? Surely they were too busy saving their own skins to worry about crime?

He walked out into the hall and tried the telephone. It was still working.

If a policeman turned up he supposed he could shoot him. And he supposed that he would, if that seemed the only way to save himself and Varennikov. But he would much rather not, particularly if the policeman was some poor old sod from the Orpo.

It was time to move on, he decided. If they could find sanctuary with the comrades in the Potsdam goods yard, then Nikoladze would be happy, and he would be within walking distance of the bolthole Effi had bought in Wedding almost four years ago. They had stayed there for a week while arranging their escape from Berlin, and she might, conceivably, still be living there. He had nowhere else to look. ‘We have to leave,’ he told Varennikov.

‘Why?’ the Russian asked, alarm in his eyes.

‘I think we may have been seen…’

‘You shouldn’t have gone out.’

‘Maybe, but I did. And if I was seen then someone may report it. The plan was to hide out in the railway yards – remember?’

‘But what if we’re stopped?’ Varennikov wanted to know. ‘They’ll take the papers. They’ll destroy them. The Party needs this information.’

‘I understand that,’ Russell said reassuringly. Rather more seriously, possession of the damn papers would be grounds for summary execution. ‘We can hide them in the house somewhere’ he improvised. ‘Once the Red Army’s in control of the city, we can come back and collect them. Okay?’

‘What if the house is shelled or bombed?’

‘All right. We’ll bury them in the garden. After dark. We’ll just have to hope no one turns up this afternoon.’

Varennikov seemed satisfied. ‘I do have most of the important stuff in my head. And I can memorise more this afternoon. We will go tonight? How far is it?’

‘About ten kilometres, maybe a bit less. And I’ll have to think about when. Early tomorrow morning might be the better bet, because lots of foreign workers will be on their way to work. And if we reach the yards around first light, we’ll have a better chance of finding our contact.’

All of which sounded like sense, Russell told himself later. As long as you ignored the fact that railway yards would be high on any list of artillery targets. Perhaps the Russians would become bored with targeting their fire, and simply lob their shells into the city, like the Western allies with their bombs. In which case he and Varennikov would have much the same chance of survival as anyone else.

And if he reached the centre in one piece, his chances of finding Effi would be that much better.

In the Pathology building on Schulstrasse the dull grey dawn had seemed an ill omen – the last few days had been ful of sunshine. Fear, hunger and sleep deprivation had eroded what little equanimity remained, and the air seemed full of angry mutterings and semi-hysterical whispers. Two women were praying in one corner, rather too loudly for their neighbours, one of whom begged them to shut up.

The arrival of a single uniformed Gestapo officer silenced the entire room. Seemingly oblivious to the reaction he had provoked, the man approached the nearest group of prisoners. Effi watched him ask a question of one man, then search through the papers he was carrying. When he found what he was looking for, he handed the man a pencil, and pointed out where he should write.

As the Gestapo officer worked his way through the first group, word of what he was doing spread through the basement. The papers had two parts: a statement attesting Dobberke’s refusal to liquidate the camp and kill his prisoners, and a list of the latter. Each prisoner was expected to endorse the statement by affixing a signature beside his or her own name.

Reaction varied wildly. Some were almost overcome with relief, while others asserted that it must be a trick. Effi wasn’t sure what to think. When their turn came, she signed for herself and Rosa, and searched the Gestapo officer’s eyes for more than the usual deceit. All she saw was boredom, which seemed like reason for optimism. So did the absence of guards that morning, and the fact that the signatures would be worthless if all the signatories were killed.

As the Gestapo officer moved on into the next room, the sirens sounded outside, and soon they could all hear bombs exploding in the distance. To the south, Effi thought. On what was left of the city centre.

Around half an hour later Dobberke arrived. He had several guards with him, but none were brandishing guns. Commandeering a chair and table, he sat down with a large pile of papers before him, and called forth the nearest prisoner. The guards began forming all the others into a queue.

The piled-up papers were release certificates, and Dobberke was intent on signing each one in the presence of its recipient. It was either the most convoluted and sadistic hoax in history, or they really were being released. Halfway down the queue Effi felt her body go weak with relief, her legs almost folding beneath her. She put an arm round Rosa’s neck and pulled her in. ‘We’re going to be all right,’ she whispered in the girl’s ear.

The all-clear had sounded a few minutes earlier, and several prisoners were now hovering near the unguarded open door, clutching their release certificates and clearly wondering whether they could just walk out. The first one did so, hesitantly, as if he couldn’t quite believe his luck. Others followed, walking faster, as if afraid of missing their chance. There was no gunfire, no sign that anything bad was waiting outside. On the contrary, Effi caught a glimpse of one man through the high windows. He was almost skipping his way down Schulstrasse.

But many, even most, of the released prisoners seemed happy to stay where they were. And Johanna and Nina were among them. ‘We should just wait here for the Russians,’ Johanna suggested. ‘We won’t starve, and we’ll be safer down here than out in the street. And when the Russians arrive we’ll have enough strength in numbers to make them behave.’

Effi conceded that she might be right, but had no intention of staying. She told them she wanted to find her sister, which was true in itself, but far from her only reason. Strength in numbers or not, she felt vulnerable out here in Wedding, far from those parts of the city in which she had always lived, and which she knew like the back of her hand. And now she knew that ‘Willy’ had not given away her address, they could go back home to Bismarck Strasse. Admittedly her new papers went with a flat in Weissensee, but that could hardly matter now.

Their turn at the table arrived. Dobberke greeted her with a crooked smile, then signed the two certificates and wished Effi luck. She didn’t reciprocate.

They collected their suitcases, and waited for Nina and Johanna to collect their certificates before saying their goodbyes. Effi thought of suggesting a post-war meeting, but the habitual caution of the last few years weighed more heavily. Rosa was less encumbered, and insisted on setting a time and place. The Zoo Cafeteria at 11 a.m. on August 1st was solemnly agreed.

They turned for a final wave, Effi still a little nervous as they walked past the empty guardroom and out through the iron archway. Further down Schulstrasse other former detainees could be seen heading south towards the city centre under the slate grey sky.

A light rain was falling, but had stopped by the time they reached Wedding Station. Effi’s suitcase had never been searched, and she still had the small, refugee-like wad of Reichsmarks that she had taken to Fürstenwalde. But she could not spend the money on transportation – only those with red passes were now permitted to travel on the U-Bahn, the old woman in the booking office told her apologetically. And the same was apparently true for trams, not that any seemed to be running. She and Rosa would have to walk.

The shortest way to the Bismarck Strasse flat ran north of the Tiergarten through Moabit, a part of the city that Effi didn’t really know. She opted for simplicity; they would head straight for the city centre and then west along the southern rim of the park. It would add a couple of kilometres to the walk, but remove any chance of their getting lost.

They started down Reinickendorfer Strasse, heading for the junction with Chaussee Strasse. There were more people on the street now, and a large queue spilling out of the old market hall. There was a vibrant buzz of conversation and no shortage of smiles on the women’s faces, which both surprised and heartened Effi. Had something good happened? Had Hitler finally thrown in the towel? She thought about crossing the street to ask, but decided not to bother – peace, when it came, would hardly need announcing.

There were similar queues on Chaussee Strasse, and signs that the war was close by. Around twenty Hitlerjugend rode past them on bicycles, heading north with rocket-launchers strapped to their handlebars. The leading pair of boys were chatting gaily with each other, and might have been on a pre-war exercise, but most of their followers looked sick with fear. A little farther on, outside the barracks which book-ended the fortress-like Wedding police HQ, a company of Volkssturm was forming up. They all wore the relevant armbands, but their uniforms were anything but, a mish-mash of colours, styles and suitable sizes. A battalion of scarecrows, Effi thought, in more ways than one. The Russians would roll right over them.

Rosa walked alongside her, showing no sign of tiredness, eyes devouring the sights. This was probably only her fourth or fifth trip outside in years, Effi thought. No wonder she was curious.

Several women walking in the opposite direction gave them a passing glance, and one gave Rosa a big smile, but that was all the attention they received. Effi began to relax and accept the reality of their release. They really did look like ordinary Berliners; no one was going to point a finger at them and scream out ‘Jews!’ or ‘Traitors!’.

But there was no point in pushing their luck. As they approached the junction with Invaliden Strasse, Effi saw that a barricade was being erected on the road ahead, and instinctively altered course to avoid it. She might have Dobberke’s release certificates in her pocket, but their validity was another matter. By this time the man might be under arrest for disobeying his murderous orders.

Invaliden Strasse was almost empty, and so was Luisen Strasse. A number of fires were burning in the half demolished Charité Hospital complex, and several buildings on the other side of the street were smouldering. Organ music was coming from somewhere, suitably funereal against a background crackle of flames. They passed several corpses, some apparently untouched, others charred and riven.

The carnage continued beyond Karl Strasse. A headless woman lay twisted in the street a few metres short of the S-Bahn bridge, but Effi could see no sign of the head. There was a bicycle though, which the woman must have been riding. It was a man’s machine, with a crossbar which Rosa might perch on, and a frame at the back for carrying their luggage. Effi stood it up and spun the wheels. It seemed fine.

Turning in search of Rosa, she saw the girl staring down at the headless corpse, making drawing motions with her right hand. It was how she distanced herself, Effi realised. Drawing the world kept it at bay.

‘Rosa,’ she said, breaking the spell. ‘Come here.’

The girl did as she was told, her eyes brightening at the sight of the bicycle.

‘We’re going to see if we can both get on this,’ Effi told her. Two suitcases were impossible, so she forced as much as she could into one, and tied it shut with a rope of torn clothing. She lifted herself onto the seat, helped the girl onto the crossbar, and set the wheels rolling. The first few metres seemed a trifle perilous, but soon they were gathering speed and approaching the Marschall Bridge.

In 1941 they had all watched Udet’s funeral procession from the side of this bridge, Paul angry at his father for being English, Russell angry with his son for making him give the Nazi salute. Now the bridge itself was half gone, with only one lane open and men at work below, probably wiring the rest for destruction. She expected to be stopped, but the guards on the bridge just waved them through, one throwing Rosa a kiss.

She pedalled on down towards Unter den Linden, turning right past the walled-up Adlon as a queue of men bearing laden stretchers filed in through the makeshift entrance. The Zoo Bunker flak towers loomed in the distance; the whole Tiergarten seemed, from Pariserplatz, like a military camp. She continued on down Hermann Göring Strasse, intent on following the road that formed the southern boundary of the park, and was just approaching the turning when she heard it – a whistling sound that rapidly gathered pitch and volume as it turned into a scream. A split-second later the earth in the adjacent park erupted, showering them both with fragments of soil and grass.

As Effi applied the brakes another screech ended with flames leaping out of a nearby government building. These weren’t bombs, she realised. They were artillery shells. The Russians had brought their guns within range.

Another one landed in the road behind her, drawing a squeak of alarm from Rosa. Yet another exploded in the Tiergarten, spinning an already bomb-damaged tree up into the air. The shells were arriving every few seconds, and in a seemingly random pattern. They had to find shelter, and quickly.

The large bunker under Potsdam Station seemed the nearest. Effi resumed pedalling, pushing her weary legs faster and faster, weaving her way through rubble as the world exploded around her. Potsdamer Platz hardly seemed to draw any nearer, and she found herself wondering if she would even feel a blast that blew her off the bicycle. Would someone find her headless body by the side of the road?

As she reached the top of the square two shells smashed into buildings on the western side, sending out gouts of flame. A car was on fire in the middle, people screaming on the pavements away to her left, but she rode straight on, swerving between still-moving victims and heading straight for the steps that led down to the shelter. Reaching it, they both leapt off, and Effi frantically untied their suitcase. She was reluctant to leave the bicycle, but knew how crowded the shelter would be. Letting it drop, she grabbed the suitcase and hustled Rosa down the steps.

She’d been in this bunker once before, when an early air raid had caught her between trams in the square above. There had been a lot of rooms, some the size of school assembly halls, with electric lighting, pine chairs and tables, and a reasonable number of clean, working toilets. People had sat around having picnics, and made jokes about the feebleness of the British bombing.

That was then. Now furniture and lights were gone, the population had risen ten-fold, and no one was making jokes. Effi led Rosa deeper into the labyrinth, hoping for a space to sit down in. They passed a couple of blocked toilets, and several corners used for the same purpose. The smell was appalling.

All the rooms were full of people. Most were women, but there were some old men and a fair number of small children. They sat or lay in mostly silent misery, their suitcases beside them, often attached to their wrists with string.

The corridors and stairways were also heavily populated, except for those that connected the underground hospital to the outside world. These had to be kept clear for the stretcher-bearers. Two Hitlerjugend patrolled them, moving on anyone who tried to settle.

Eventually they found a place, a niche off the cleared corridor where residence was apparently permitted. The previous tenants, their nearest neighbours told them, had just been taken away. The baby had died of hunger, and the mother had tried to stab herself with a shard of broken glass. She’d been taken to the hospital.

Effi leant back against the wall, and enfolded Rosa in her arms. ‘At least we’re safe,’ she whispered.

‘I’m all right,’ Rosa said, then repeated the phrase, just to be sure.

‘Good,’ Effi murmured, and gave the girl a squeeze. They’d be here for a while, she told herself. She wouldn’t take Rosa back outside until the shelling had stopped, and why would it stop before the fighting was over? The Russians seemed unlikely to run out of ammunition, and she couldn’t see the Wehrmacht pushing them back out of range.

When Paul awoke the daylight was almost gone, and a tall figure was leaning over him, gently shaking his shoulder.

‘Hello, Paul,’ the man said.

He recognised the voice before the face. ‘Uncle Thomas!’ he exclaimed, throwing off the greatcoat and scrambling to his feet. They looked at each other, burst out laughing, and embraced.

‘Come, let’s sit down,’ Thomas said, indicating one of the cast-iron seats that lined the river promenade. ‘I’m much too tired to stand up.’ He took off his helmet, unbuttoned his coat, and lowered himself wearily onto the seat.

He looked a lot older than Paul remembered. They had last met three years ago, when his uncle had tried to defend his father, and he had refused to listen. How old was Thomas now – fifty, fifty-one? His hair, cut back almost to nothing, had gone completely grey, and the lines on his face had multiplied and deepened. But the deep brown eyes still harboured mischief – Uncle Thomas had always found something to laugh at, even in times like these.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked Paul.

‘God knows,’ Paul replied. My unit was overrun on the Seelow Heights. The usual story – too little ammo and too much Ivan. I’ve been backpedalling ever since. Looking for my unit.’

‘Still in the 20th?’

‘What’s left of it.’

‘And who’s that?’ Thomas asked, twisting in his seat to look at the sleeping Werner.

‘His name’s Werner Redlich. I picked him up… no, he picked me up – a couple of days ago. The other boys in his unit all wanted to die for the Führer, but Werner wasn’t so sure.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Fourteen.’

‘He looks younger.’

In sleep he did, Paul thought. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked his uncle.

‘Defending Berlin,’ Thomas said wryly. ‘I was called up last autumn. They spent several months training us to fight a street battle, then sent us out here to defend a river.’ He shrugged. ‘The earthworks are good enough, but there’s nothing to put in them. No artillery, no tanks, just a bunch of old men with rifles they might have used in the First War. And a few disposable rocket launchers. It would be a farce if it wasn’t a tragedy.’ He smiled. ‘But at least I’m getting some exercise.’

‘How are the family?’

‘Hanna and Lotte are with Hanna’s parents in the country. They should be behind American lines by now.’

‘And Joachim?’

‘He was killed last summer, in Romania.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

‘Yes. I should have found a way to let you know at the time. But, well, I wasn’t thinking too clearly for a while, and then there was the factory to deal with, and then the call-up…’

They sat in silence for a few moments, both staring out across the darkening river.

‘What’s happening at the factory?’ Paul asked eventually. The last he’d heard, the Schade Printing Works was one of the few businesses in Berlin still employing Jews. Thomas had fought a long rearguard action against their deportation, insisting that their expertise was irreplaceable if he was to fulfil his government contracts.

‘It’s still running,’ Thomas said, ‘but most of the workers are Russian POWs. The Jews are gone.’ He grimaced. ‘People always told me it would end badly, and it did.’

‘How?’

‘Oh, the Gestapo just kept coming back. I don’t know whether you knew it at the time, but I was cultivating some pretty disgusting people before your father left. I hoped they would provide me – and the Jews – with some protection. It might even have worked, but the two with the most clout both died in the bombing – and on the same day! A third man was arrested for plotting against the Führer – I couldn’t believe it, the man seemed such a shit! And the rest… well, they just refused to stick their miserable necks out. One did give me a day’s warning, which helped a great deal. There were about forty Jews still working for me then, and I was able to warn them. Half took the chance to go underground, and didn’t turn up for work the next morning. The rest were carted off to God knows where. I assume they were killed.’

Paul said nothing for a moment, remembering a lecture his father had once given him in London about Jews being people too. ‘I saw the remains of a camp,’ he said slowly. ‘In Poland, a place called Majdanek. The SS had flattened all the buildings, and a local woman told us they’d dug up thousands of bodies and burned them. If they did, they did a good job. There was nothing left.’

Thomas sighed.

‘We killed them all, didn’t we?’ Paul said quietly. ‘All those we could get our hands on.’

Thomas turned to face him. ‘Did you kill any?’

‘No, of course not…’

‘Then why the “we”?’

‘Because.. because I’m wearing a German uniform? I don’t really know.’

‘The victors will want to. Did the Germans do this, or just the Nazis? – that’s what they’ll be asking. And I don’t think they’ll find a simple answer.’

‘We voted for him. We knew he hated the Jews.’

‘Berlin never voted for him. But yes, a lot of Germans did, and we all knew he hated the Jews. But we didn’t know he meant to murder them all. I doubt even he knew it then.’

Paul managed a wry smile. ‘It’s good to see you, Uncle Thomas.’

‘And you.’

‘I thought I saw Effi a couple of weeks ago. There was a woman standing on the opposite platform at Fürstenwalde Station – she had a young girl with her. And there was something about the woman. I only caught a glimpse of her before a train came between us, but I could have sworn it was Effi. Of course it wasn’t. I expect she’s living the high life in Hollywood.’

‘Perhaps,’ Thomas said. ‘There was always a lot more to Effi than most people realised. Your father has been lucky with women,’ he mused, ‘first my sister, and then her. I expect you miss them both,’ he added.

‘I do,’ Paul said, and felt suddenly ashamed. Uncle Thomas had lost his son and his sister, and his nephew had refused to talk to him for three years. ‘The last time I saw you, I behaved like a child’ he admitted.

‘You were a child,’ Thomas said drily.

Paul laughed. ‘I know, but…’

‘Have you forgiven your father yet? In your own mind, I mean?’

‘That’s a good question. I don’t know.’

Thomas nodded, as if that was the answer he’d expected. ‘We may never see each other again – who knows? – so will you listen to what I wanted to tell you that day?’

‘All right.’

‘Your father abandoned you – there’s no denying it. But he had to. If he’d stayed, you’d have had a dead father instead of a missing one.’

‘That might have been easier,’ Paul said without thinking.

Thomas took it in his stride. ‘Yes, for you it might have been. No one would deny that it was hard on you.’

‘On all of us,’ Paul said.

‘Yes, but particularly on you. And then you lost your mother. But Paul, it’s time you stopped feeling sorry for yourself. You had a father and a mother who loved you – a father, I’ll warrant, who still does – and that’s more than a lot of people get in this world. Your father didn’t abandon you because he didn’t care about you; he didn’t leave you because of who he was or who you were. It was the war that divided you; it was politics, circumstance, all that stuff that makes us do the things we do. It had nothing to do with the heart or the soul.’

In the back of Paul’s mind a child’s voice was still intoning ‘but he left me’. ‘I do still love him,’ he said out loud, suddenly aware that he was fighting back tears.

‘Of course you do,’ Thomas said simply. ‘Shit, I think I’m wanted,’ he added, looking over Paul’s shoulder. His Volkssturm company seemed to be gathering at the end of the bridge. ‘There’s always another hole to dig,’ he remarked in the old familiar tone as he got rather slowly to his feet. ‘It’s been wonderful seeing you,’ he told Paul.

‘And you,’ Paul said, throwing his arms around his uncle. ‘And you take care of yourself.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Thomas said, disentangling himself. There was a hint of moisture in his eyes too. ‘Don’t worry, I have no intention of throwing my life away in a lost cause, particularly this one. I’ve got Hanna and Lotte to think about. I shall surrender the first chance I get.’

‘Choose your moment. And your Russian, if you can.’

Thomas gave him an approving look. ‘I shall remember that,’ he said. He smiled once more, then turned, one hand briefly raised in farewell, and walked away down the promenade.

After almost twelve hours in the shelter Effi was beginning to wonder whether she’d exaggerated the dangers of the outside world. Perhaps the shelling stopped at night, or at least grew less intense. Perhaps they could try to get home in the hour before dawn.

Or perhaps she was being foolish: hunger and lack of sleep were unlikely to be improving her judgement. But how could they survive here, without even water?

‘Effi?’ a voice asked, sounding both surprised and pleased.

Startled, she raised her eyes to a familiar face. ‘Call me Dagmar,’ she whispered. The woman might denounce her, but there seemed no reason she should do so by accident. Effi had met Annaliese Huiskes almost four years ago. She had been a staff nurse at the Elisabeth Hospital, and Effi had been one of the film stars who had volunteered to visit the hospital’s swelling population of wounded soldiers. Over the weeks of their acquaintance the two women had discovered a shared taste for hospital-flavoured pure alcohol and a shared disgust for the war.

‘Dagmar?’ Annaliese said, amusement in her voice. ‘Is it really you, Dagmar?’

Effi smiled back. ‘It is.’ It was, she realised, an enormous relief to be who she really was.

‘How did you end up here?’ Annaliese asked, squeezing herself into the niche as a stretcher party went past. There was just enough space for her to sit down.

‘A long story,’ Effi told her. ‘But we were just outside when the shelling started. This is Rosa, by the way,’ she added, as the sleeping girl shifted her body.

‘Your daughter?’

‘No. Just someone I’m looking after. She’s an orphan.’ Annaliese looked much the same as she had four years earlier – small, blonde and worn-out. But there was something heartening about her, something that hadn’t been there in 1941. She was wearing a wedding ring, Effi noticed.

‘I hope you’re going to stay here,’ Annaliese said.

‘I don’t know. We were on our way home, and this place… If we leave before dawn…’

‘Don’t. The shelling hasn’t stopped since it got dark. And it’s not like the bombing, where you get some warning. You’d just be gambling with your lives. And even if you get home… Effi – sorry, Dagmar – you have to think about the Russians now. Have you heard the stories? Well, they’re all true. We’ve had hundreds of women who’ve been raped, and not just raped – they’ve been attacked by so many men, and so violently, that many are beyond help. They’re just bleeding to death. So stay, see the war out here. It can’t be many days now. The Russians are in Weissensee already.’

‘I understand what you’re telling me…’

‘Have you ever done any nursing?’ Annaliese interjected.

‘Only in movies.’

‘Well, how you would like to learn? We’re ridiculously short-handed, and what you see makes you want to weep, but there’s food and water and we do some good.’

‘What about Rosa?’

‘She can come too. I forgot to say – you’ll also get somewhere to sleep. You’ll have to share, but it’ll be better than this.’

‘Sounds wonderful,’ Effi said.

‘Okay,’ Annaliese said, levering herself back to her feet, ‘I’ll tell them you’re an old friend, and willing to help. I’ll be back soon.’

She disappeared up the corridor, leaving Effi wondering about Zarah. If her sister was still out in Schmargendorf, then the Russians would probably get to her before she could. And if Zarah was in a government bunker with Jens, there was no way that Effi could find her. There was nothing more she could do.

Annaliese was true to her word, returning a few minutes later. Effi woke Rosa and introduced her friend, who led them through rooms full of wounded men, and down some stairs to a small room with bare brick walls and two pairs of bunk beds. A single candle was burning in the middle of the floor.

‘That bottom one’s yours,’ Annaliese told here. ‘You start in the morning with me. Now I’ll get you a little water.’

Rosa sat down on the bed and smiled up at Effi. The smell of shit was weaker here, the smell of blood much stronger. An appropriate spot to see out a war.