Zoo Station

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

The Moscow Option

Russian Revolution 1985

The Red Eagles

Copyright S 2007 by David Downing

in memory of

Martha Pappenheim (1900-2001)

who escaped from Germany in 1939

and went on to help the children

of those who did not

and

Yvonne Pappenheim (1912-2005)

who married Marthas brother Fritz

and spent a lifetime fighting injustice

AUTHORS NOTE

This is a work of fiction, but every attempt has been made to keep within the bounds of historical possibility. References to the Nazis planned murder of the mentally handicapped are mostly drawn from Michael Burleighs exhaustive history Death and Deliverance, and even the more ludicrous of the news stories mentioned in passing are depressingly authentic.

Into the Blue

THERE WERE TWO HOURS left of 1938. In Danzig it had been snowing on and off all day, and a gang of children was enjoying a snowball fight in front of the grain warehouses which lined the old waterfront. John Russell paused to watch them for a few moments, then walked on up the cobbled street toward the blue and yellow lights.

The Sweden Bar was far from crowded, and those few faces that turned his way werent exactly brimming over with festive spirit. In fact, most of them looked like theyd rather be somewhere else.

It was an easy thing to want. The Christmas decorations hadn't been removed, just allowed to drop, and they now formed part of the flooring, along with patches of melting slush, floating cigarette butts, and the odd broken bottle. The bar was famous for the savagery of its international brawls, but on this particular night the various groups of Swedes, Finns, and Letts seemed devoid of the energy needed to get one started. Usually a table or two of German naval ratings could be relied upon to provide the necessary spark, but the only Germans present were a couple of aging prostitutes, and they were getting ready to leave.

Russell took a stool at the bar, bought himself a Goldwasser, and glanced through the month-old copy of the New York Herald Tribune which, for some inexplicable reason, was lying there. One of his own articles was in it, a piece on German attitudes to their pets. It was accompanied by a cute-looking photograph of a Schnauzer.

Seeing him reading, a solitary Swede two stools down asked him, in perfect English, if he spoke that language. Russell admitted that he did.

You are English! the Swede exclaimed, and shifted his considerable bulk to the stool adjoining Russells.

Their conversation went from friendly to sentimental, and sentimental to maudlin, at what seemed like a breakneck pace. Three Goldwassers later, the Swede was telling him that he, Lars, was not the true father of his children. Vibeke had never admitted it, but he knew it to be true.

Russell gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder, and Lars sunk forward, his head making a dull clunk as it hit the polished surface of the bar. Happy New Year, Russell murmured. He shifted the Swedes head slightly to ease the mans breathing, and got up to leave.

Outside, the sky was beginning to clear, the air almost cold enough to sober him up. An organ was playing in the Protestant Seamens Church, nothing hymnal, just a slow lament, as if the organist were saying a personal farewell to the year gone by. It was a quarter to midnight.

Russell walked back across the city, conscious of the moisture seeping in through the holes in his shoes. There were lots of couples on Langer Markt, laughing and squealing as they clutched each other for balance on the slippery sidewalks.

He cut over to Breite Gasse and reached the Holz-Markt just as the bells began pealing in the New Year. The square was full of celebrating people, and an insistent hand pulled him into a circle of revelers dancing and singing in the snow. When the song ended and the circle broke up, the Polish girl on his left reached up and brushed her lips against his, eyes shining with happiness. It was, he thought, a better-than-expected opening to 1939.

HIS HOTELS RECEPTION AREA was deserted, and the sounds of celebration emanating from the kitchen at the back suggested the night staff were enjoying their own private party. Russell gave up the idea of making himself a hot chocolate while his shoes dried in one of the ovens, and took his key. He clambered up the stairs to the third floor, and trundled down the corridor to his room. Closing the door behind him, he became painfully aware that the occupants of the neighboring rooms were still welcoming in the new year, loud singing on one side, floor-shaking sex on the other. He took off his shoes and socks, dried his wet feet with a towel, and sank back onto the vibrating bed.

There was a discreet, barely audible tap on his door.

Cursing, he levered himself off the bed and pulled the door open. A man in a crumpled suit and open shirt stared back at him.

Mr. John Russell, the man said in English, as if he were introducing Russell to himself. The Russian accent was slight, but unmistakable. Could I talk with you for a few minutes?

Its a bit late . . . Russell began. The mans face was vaguely familiar. But why not? he continued, as the singers next door reached for a new and louder chorus. A journalist should never turn down a conversation, he murmured, mostly to himself, as he let the man in. Take the chair, he suggested.

His visitor sat back and crossed one leg over the other, hitching up his trouser as he did so. We have met before, he said. A long time ago. My name is Shchepkin. Yevgeny Grigorovich Shchepkin. We. . . .

Yes, Russell interrupted, as the memory clicked into place. The discussion group on journalism at the Fifth Congress. The summer of twenty-four.

Shchepkin nodded his acknowledgment. I remember your contributions, he said. Full of passion, he added, his eyes circling the room and resting, for a few seconds, on his hosts dilapidated shoes.

Russell perched himself on the edge of the bed. As you saida long time ago. He and Ilse had met at that conference and set in motion their ten year cycle of marriage, parenthood, separation, and divorce. Shchepkins hair had been black and wavy in 1924; now it was a close-cropped gray. They were both a little older than the century, Russell guessed, and Shchepkin was wearing pretty well, considering what hed probably been through the last fifteen years. He had a handsome face of indeterminate nationality, with deep brown eyes above prominent slanting cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and lips just the full side of perfect. He could have passed for a citizen of most European countries, and probably had.

The Russian completed his survey of the room. This is a dreadful hotel, he said.

Russell laughed. Is that what you wanted to talk about?

No. Of course not.

So what are you here for?

Ah. Shchepkin hitched his trouser again. I am here to offer you work.

Russell raised an eyebrow. You? Who exactly do you represent?

The Russian shrugged. My country. The Writers Union. It doesnt matter. You will be working for us. You know who we are.

No, Russell said. I mean, no Im not interested. I

Dont be so hasty, Shchepkin said. Hear me out. We arent asking you to do anything which your German hosts could object to. The Russian allowed himself a smile. Let me tell you exactly what we have in mind. We want a series of articles about positive aspects of the Nazi regime. He paused for a few seconds, waiting in vain for Russell to demand an explanation. You are not German but you live in Berlin, Shchepkin went on. You once had a reputation as a journalist of the left, and though that reputation hasshall we sayfaded, no one could accuse you of being an apologist for the Nazis . . .

But you want me to be just that.

No, no. We want positive aspects, not a positive picture overall. That would not be believable.

Russell was curious in spite of himself. Or because of the Goldwassers. Do you just need my name on these articles? he asked. Or do you want me to write them as well?

Oh, we want you to write them. We like your styleall that irony.

Russell shook his head: Stalin and irony didn't seem like much of a match.

Shchepkin misread the gesture. Look, he said, let me put all my cards on the table.

Russell grinned.

Shchepkin offered a wry smile in return. Well, most of them anyway. Look, we are aware of your situation. You have a German son and a German lady-friend, and you want to stay in Germany if you possibly can. Of course if a war breaks out you will have to leave, or else they will intern you. But until that moment comesand maybe it wontmiracles do happenuntil it does you want to earn your living as a journalist without upsetting your hosts. What better way than this? You write nice things about the Nazisnot too nice, of course; it has to be crediblebut you stress their good side.

Does shit have a good side? Russell wondered out loud.

Come, come, Shchepkin insisted, you know better than that. Unemployment eliminated, a renewed sense of community, healthy children, cruises for workers, cars for the people. . . .

You should work for Joe Goebbels.

Shchepkin gave him a mock-reproachful look.

Okay, Russell said, I take your point. Let me ask you a question. Theres only one reason youd want that sort of article: Youre softening up your own people for some sort of deal with the devil. Right?

Shchepkin flexed his shoulders in an eloquent shrug.

Why?

The Russian grunted. Why deal with the devil? I dont know what the leadership is thinking. But I could make an educated guess and so could you.

Russell could. The western powers are trying to push Hitler east, so Stalin has to push him west? Are we talking about a non-aggression pact, or something more?

Shchepkin looked almost affronted. What more could there be? Any deal with that man can only be temporary. We know what he is.

Russell nodded. It made sense. He closed his eyes, as if it were possible to blank out the approaching calamity. On the other side of the opposite wall, his musical neighbors were intoning one of those Polish river songs which could reduce a statue to tears. Through the wall behind him silence had fallen, but his bed was still quivering like a tuning fork.

Wed also like some information, Shchepkin was saying, almost apologetically. Nothing military, he added quickly, seeing the look on Russells face. No armament statistics or those naval plans that Sherlock Holmes is always being asked to recover. Nothing of that sort. We just want a better idea of what ordinary Germans are thinking. How they are taking the changes in working conditions, how they are likely to react if war comesthat sort of thing. We dont want any secrets, just your opinions. And nothing on paper. You can deliver them in person, on a monthly basis.

Russell looked skeptical.

Shchepkin ploughed on. You will be well paidvery well. In any currency, any bank, any country, that you choose. You can move into a better apartment block. . . .

I like my apartment block.

You can buy things for your son, your girlfriend. You can have your shoes mended.

I dont. . . .

The money is only an extra. You were with us once. . . .

A long long time ago.

Yes, I know. But you cared about your fellow human beings. I heard you talk. That doesnt change. And if we go under there will be nothing left.

A cynic might say theres not much to choose between you.

The cynic would be wrong, Shchepkin replied, exasperated and perhaps a little angry. We have spilled blood, yes. But reluctantly, and in hope of a better future. They enjoy it. Their idea of progress is a European slave-state.

I know.

One more thing. If money and politics dont persuade you, think of this. We will be grateful, and we have influence almost everywhere. And a man like you, in a situation like yours, is going to need influential friends.

No doubt about that.

Shchepkin was on his feet. Think about it, Mr. Russell, he said, drawing an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and placing it on the nightstand. All the details are in herehow many words, delivery dates, fees, and so on. If you decide to do the articles, write to our press attache in Berlin, telling him who you are, and that youve had the idea for them yourself. He will ask you to send him one in the post. The Gestapo will read it, and pass it on. You will then receive your first fee and suggestions for future stories. The last-but-one letters of the opening sentence will spell out the name of a city outside Germany which you can reach fairly easily. Prague, perhaps, or Cracow. You will spend the last weekend of the month in that city, and be sure to make your hotel reservation at least a week in advance. Once you are there, someone will contact you.

Ill think about it, Russell said, mostly to avoid further argument. He wanted to spend his weekends with Paul, and with Effi, his girlfriend, not the Shchepkins of this world.

The Russian nodded and let himself out. As if on cue, the Polish choir lapsed into silence.

RUSSELL WAS WOKEN BY the scream of a locomotive whistle. Or at least, that was his first impression. Lying there awake all he could hear was a gathering swell of high-pitched voices. It sounded like a school playground full of terrified children.

He threw on some clothes and made his way downstairs. It was still dark, the street deserted, the tramlines hidden beneath a virginal sheet of snow. In the train station booking hall across the street a couple of would-be travelers were hunched in their seats, eyes averted, praying that they hadn't strayed into dangerous territory. Russell strode through the unmanned ticket barrier. There were trucks in the goods yard beyond the far platform, and a train stretched out past the station throat. People were gathered under the yellow lights, mostly families by the look of them, because there were lots of children. And there were men in uniform. Brownshirts.

A sudden shrill whistle from the locomotive produced an eerie echo from the milling crowd, as if all the children had shrieked at once.

Russell took the subway steps two at a time, half-expecting to find that the tunnel had been blocked off. It hadn't. On the far side, he emerged into a milling crowd of shouting, screaming people. He had already guessed what was happeningthis was a kindertransport, one of the trains hired to transport the ten thousand Jewish children that Britain had agreed to accept after Kristallnacht. The shriek had risen at the moment the guards started separating the children from their parents, and the two groups were now being shoved apart by snarling brownshirts. Parents were backing away, tears running down their cheeks, as their children were herded onto the train, some waving frantically, some almost reluctantly, as if they feared to recognize the separation.

Further up the platform a violent dispute was underway between an SA Truppfuhrer and a woman with a red cross on her sleeve. Both were screaming at the other, he in German, she in northern-accented English. The woman was beside herself with anger, almost spitting in the brownshirts eye, and it was obviously taking everything he had not to smash his fist into her face. A few feet away one of the mothers was being helped to her feet by another woman. Blood was streaming from her nose.

Russell strode up to the brownshirt and the Englishwoman and flashed his Foreign Ministry press accreditation, which at least gave the man a new outlet for his anger.

What the fuck are you doing here? the Truppfuhrer shouted. He had a depressingly porcine face, and the bulk to go with it.

Trying to help, Russell said calmly. I speak English.

Well then tell this English bitch to get back on the train with the kike brats where she belongs.

Russell turned to the woman, a petite brunette who couldn't have been much more than twenty-five. Hes not worth screaming at, he told her in English. And it wont do you any good. In fact, youll only make matters worse.

I . . . She seemed at a loss for words.

I know, Russell said. You cant believe people could behave like this. But this lot do. All the time.

As if to emphasize the point, the Truppfuhrer started shouting again. When she started shouting back he reached for her arm, and she kicked him in the shin. He backhanded her across the face with what seemed like enormous force, spinning her round and dumping her face-first on the snowy platform. She groaned and shook her head.

Russell put himself between them. Look, he said to the man, this will get you court-martialed if youre not careful. The Fuhrer doesnt want you giving the English this sort of a propaganda victory.

The British woman was groggily raising herself onto all fours. The stormtrooper took one last look at his victim, made a pah! noise of which any pantomime villain would have been proud, and strode away down the platform.

Russell helped her to her feet.

What did you say to him? she asked, gingerly feeling an already-swelling cheek.

I appealed to his better nature.

There must be someone. . . . she began.

There isnt, he assured her. The laws dont apply to Jews, or anyone who acts on their behalf. Just look after the children. They look like they need it.

I dont need you to tell me. . . .

I know you dont. Im just trying. . . .

She was looking past his shoulder. Hes coming back.

The Truppfuhrer had a Sturmfuhrer with him, a smaller man with round glasses and a chubby face. Out of uniformassuming they ever took them offhe put them down as a shopkeeper and minor civil servant. Danzigs finest.

Your papers, the Sturmfuhrer demanded.

Theyre in my hotel room.

What is your name?

John Russell.

You are English?

Im an English journalist. I live in the Reich, and I have full accreditation from the Ministry of Propaganda in Berlin.

We shall check that.

Of course.

And what are you doing here?

I came to see what was happening. As journalists do. I intervened in the argument between your colleague and this Red Cross worker because I thought his behavior was damaging the reputation of the Reich.

The Sturmfuhrer paused for thought, then turned to his subordinate. Im sure my colleague regrets any misunderstanding, he said meaningfully.

The Truppfuhrer looked at the woman. I apologize, he said woodenly.

He apologizes, Russell told her.

Tell him to go to hell, she said.

She accepts your apology, Russell told the two brownshirts.

Good. Now she must get back on the train, and you must come with us.

Russell sighed. You should get on the train, he told her. You wont get anywhere by protesting.

She took a deep breath. All right, she said, as if it was anything but. Thank you, she added, offering her hand.

Russell took it. Tell the press when you get back to civilization, he said, and good luck.

He watched her mount the steps and disappear into the train. The children were all aboard now; most had their faces pressed against the windows, frantically wiping their breath from the glass to get a last clear look at their parents. A few had managed to force back the sliding ventilators and wedge their faces in the narrow gap. Some were shouting, some pleading. Most were crying.

Russell tore his gaze from the windows just in time to see a small girl leap nimbly down from the train and race across the platform. The stormtrooper by the door spun to catch her, but slipped in the slush as he did so, and fell face-first onto the platform. As he struggled to his feet a boy of around ten rushed past him.

The little girls arms were tightly wrapped around her kneeling mothers neck. Esther, we have to get on the train, the boy said angrily, but daughter and mother were both crying too hard to notice him. The fathers anguished appeals to reasonRuth, we have to let her go; Esther, you must go with your brotherfell on equally deaf ears.

The stormtrooper, red-faced with anger, took a fistful of the girls long black hair and yanked. The shock tore her arms from her mothers neck, and he started dragging the girl across the slush-strewn platform to the train. The mother shrieked and went after them. He let go of the girl and crashed his rubber cosh across one side of the mothers face. She sank back, a rivulet of blood running onto her coat collar. As the stormtrooper went to hit the woman again, her husband grabbed for the cosh, but two other brownshirts wrestled him to the ground, and started raining down blows on his head. The boy picked up his whimpering sister and shepherded her back onto the train.

More stormtroopers came racing up, but they needn't have bothered. Like Russell, the watching parents were too stunned to protest, let alone intervene.

I dont want to go, a small voice said behind him.

He turned to find its owner. She was standing on a seatback, face twisted sideways in an open ventilator, brown eyes brimming with tears. She couldn't have been more than five.

Please, can you tell the policemen that I dont want to go? My name is Fraulein Gisela Kluger.

Russell walked across to the train, wondering what on earth he could say. Im afraid you have to make this trip, he said. Your mother and father think youll be safer in England.

But I dont want to, she said, a large tear sliding down either cheek.

I know, but. . . . Another whistle shrilled down the platform; a spasm of steam escaped from the locomotive. Im sorry, he said helplessly.

The train jerked into motion. A momentary panic flitted across her face, followed by a look that Russell would long rememberone that blended accusation, incomprehension, and the sort of grief that no fiveyear-old should have to bear.

As the train pulled away a tiny hand poked out through the window and waved.

Im sorry, Russell murmured.

Another hand grasped his arm. The Truppfuhrers. You, English. Come with us.

He was ushered down the platform in the Sturmfuhrers wake. Most of the mothers and fathers were still focussed on the disappearing train, their eyes clinging to the red taillight, the last flicker of family. They had sent their children away. To save their lives, they had turned them into orphans.

One woman, her eyes closed, was kneeling in the snow, a low keening noise rising up from inside her. The sound stayed with Russell as he was led out of the station. The sound of a heart caving in.

In the goods yard the Truppfuhrer pushed him toward a car. My hotels just across the road, Russell protested.

We will collect your papers, the Sturmfuhrer said.

As they bundled him into a car, it occurred to Russell that Shchepkins envelope was still sitting on his nightstand.

DANZIG WAS WAKING UP as they drove back toward the city center, shopkeepers clearing the nights snow off their patches of sidewalk. Russell kept his eyes on where they were going, hoping to God it wasnt some SA barracks out of humanitys hearing range. As they pulled up outside an official police station on Hunde-Gasse he managed to suppress an audible sigh of relief.

The Truppfuhrer pulled him out of the car and pushed him violently toward the entrance doors. Russell slipped in the snow and fell up the steps, catching a shin on one of the edges. There was no time to check the wound, thoughthe Truppfuhrer was already propelling him forward.

Inside, a uniformed police officer was cradling a steaming cup of coffee. He looked up without much interest, sighed, and reached for the duty book. Name?

Russell told him. Im English, he added.

The man was not impressed. We all have to come from somewhere. Now empty your pockets.

Russell did as he was told. Whos in charge here? he asked. The police or the SA?

The policeman gave him a contemptuous look. Take a guess, he suggested.

Russell felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. I want to speak to the British Consulate, he said.

No need for that, the Truppfuhrer said behind him. Now whats your hotel name and room number? Armed with this information, he went back out through the doors. Russell had a glimpse of gray light in the eastern sky.

He tried pleading with the duty officer, and received a shrug for his pains. A younger policeman was summoned to take him downstairs, where two rows of cells lay on either side of a dimly lit corridor. They had brick walls and tiled floors, black up to waist level, white above. Only a splash of blood was needed to exhaust the Nazi palate.

Russell slumped to the floor in his cell, his back against the far wall. No need to feel frightened, he told himself. They wouldn't do any permanent damage to a foreign journalist.

They would if they thought he was a spy. What had Shchepkin put in the damn envelope? If Russells past experience with the NKVD was anything to go by, there was an institutional reluctance to spell anything out which verged on paranoia. And they wouldn't want to leave him with anything he might conceivably use against them.

All of which was good news.

But what language was the damn letter written in? If it was in Russian, or if rubles were mentioned, that would be enough for goons like the Truppfuhrer.

He told himself to calm down. He had talked himself out of worse situations than this.

His shin was oozing blood, but didn't look too bad. His stomach felt queasy, though whether from hunger or fear was hard to tell. Both, probably.

It felt like more than an hour had passed when he heard feet on the stairs. Booted feet, and several of them.

The sliding on his door window clanged open and clanged shut again. The boots moved on, another clang, but this time a door swung open. A voice protesteda voice Russell thought he recognizedthe Jew whod tried to protect his wife. The voice rose, and was cut off, leaving echoes inside Russells head. What had cut it off? A fist? A knee? A cosh? A door slammed shut.

Silence reigned, a heavy silence which offered no reassurance. Eventually a door scraped open, a remark drew laughter, and the boots were back in the corridor. Russell felt his breath catch as they headed his way, but they clattered on past and up the stairs, leaving him staring at his shaking hands. Pressing his ear to the door he could hear no groans of pain, only the stillness of unconsciousness or death.

Time went by. Hed rushed out of the hotel without his watch, and when a tray of food was eventually shoved through his hatch he wondered if it was lunch or supper. The boots never came back, and with each hour that passed he found himself feeling a little more optimistic. When the door finally opened his stomach lurched, but it was only the policeman whod brought him down.

This way, Herr Russell, the man said, nodding toward the stairs.

They beat people up in the cells, Russell told himself. Upstairs had to be better.

Two corridors and two flights of stairs later, he was ushered through a door labelled KRIMINALINSPEKTOR TESMER. The man himself had greased black hair, blue eyes, thin lips, and a bad case of five oclock shadow. Please sit, he told Russell.

He took one last look at the Englishmans passport, and then passed it across the desk with the journalists accreditation. There was no sign of Shchepkins envelope.

Everything is satisfactory, Tesmer said with a sudden smile. And Im sorry it has taken so long.

Russell reached for his documents. I can go? he asked, trying not to sound too relieved.

Just one question.

Yes? There was no life behind the eyes, Russell thought. This was a man to be careful with.

Why did you come to Danzig, Herr Russell? To write a story about the Jewish children?

No. I had no idea a kindertransport was leaving from here. Im staying at the hotel opposite the station, and the noise woke me up. I just walked across to see what was going on.

Then why did you come?

Why indeed. Because hed felt drawn to the place, the way a good journalist was always drawn to a story that mattered. A city in thrall to thugs and fools, and headed for disaster for precisely that reason. Danzig was Europe writ small. It was a story for everyone.

Almost everyone.

Stamps, he said, suddenly remembering a conversation hed overhead in the Cafe Weitzke. The citys German and Polish post offices were both putting out stamps to commemorate centuries-old victories over each other. I do occasional pieces for philately journals, and the two post offices here are bringing out some interesting new issues. Im hoping to interview the postmasters tomorrow.

Tesmer looked disappointed, like a fisherman realizing that this catch was too small to eat. Enjoy your stay, he said curtly.

ONCE OUTSIDE, RUSSELL DISCOVERED it was almost ten oclock. A bar supplied him with a sandwich and a much-needed drink, and he trudged back to his hotel through mostly empty streets. Shchepkins envelope was still lying where hed left it.

It had been opened, though. Russell took out the single sheet and read it. They wanted four articles of between 1,200 and 1,500 words, delivered at fortnightly intervals, beginning in mid-January. The money was more generous than hed expectedas much as an ordinary Soviet worker earned over a five-year-plan. The thought crossed his mind that a car would transform his Saturdays with Paul.

The letter was in German, the promised fee in Reichsmarks. There was nothing to say where the offer came from or what the articles would be about. God bless the NKVD, Russell murmured to himself.

HE WOKE AROUND TEN. Thick snow was cascading past his window, almost obscuring the station opposite. He used the lobby phone to call the two post offices, and was granted audiences with their postmasters late that afternoon. By the time he emerged from the Cafe Weitzke on Lange-Gasse, replete with scrambled eggs, Kashubian mushrooms, and a mocha, he still had five hours to kill.

It had almost stopped snowing, but the sky was still heavy with cloud. As he stood there wondering what to do, there was a sudden swell of music from the loudspeakers which peppered the city. Hitlers New Year speech to the nation, Russell remembered. Danzig wasnt yet part of Germany, but try telling the Nazis that.

Russell sometimes enjoyed listening to Hitler. The mans sheer effrontery was entertaining, and knowing that millions were being taken in by his ludicrous bloodlust gave the whole experience a deplorably thrilling edge. If the Fuhrer told them that gravity was a Jewish trick then millions of Germans would be practicing levitation before the sun set.

But Russell wasnt in the mood. A couple of hours by the sea, he thought. There wouldn't be any loudspeakers on the beach.

Hitler was just being introduced when a tram with a Brosen destination board burrowed out of the Lange-Gasse Gate. Russell took a seat on the right and watched through the window as the tram skirted the Holz-Markt, swung right into Elisabeth-Wall, and passed his hotel at the bottom of the Stadt-Graben.

It was about six kilometers to Brosen. Russell had taken the same ride back in 1935, during his last visit to Danzig. Hed been doing a series of articles on Germans at play, and it had been the middle of summer. The resort had been awash with holiday-makers, and he had gone for a paddle.

Not today. It was as dark as it had been all morning, and as the tram clanged and squealed its way out of the city the sparks from the overhead wires lit up the housefronts on either side of the street. The loudspeakers were still audible, though. As they passed through the outlying suburbs of Langfuhr and Saspe he heard snatches of the familiar voice, and one short passage in which the Fuhrer offered the German people his fulsome congratulations for their wonderful behavior in 1938. He was probably talking about Kristallnacht.

By the time they reached Brosen the sky had visibly lightened. Russell got off outside the closed casino, where a single loudspeaker was manfully trying to distort the Fuhrers message. Russell listened to the crackle for a few seconds, struck by the notion that he and Hitler were sharing a private moment together. The latter was promising help with the general pacification of the world. Russell wondered how much irony one nation could eat.

He walked down past the boarded-up refreshment stands and pad-locked beach huts to the snow-strewn beach. The previous seasons final water temperature was still legible on the lifeguard hut blackboard, alongside a poster explaining the mysteries of artificial respiration. The men in the poster all wore striped bathing suits and mustaches, like a posse of cartoon Fuhrers.

The sea was gunmetal gray, the sky almost as dark, slate gray with a yellowish tinge. There was no one else in sight.

A couple of kilometers to the east, two beacon lights marked the end of Danzigs channel to the sea, and Russell started walking in that direction. In the distance the lighthouse at the end of the dredged channel flickered into life with each revolution. To the north, a darker line marked the horizon and the outflung arm of the Hela Peninsula. Between the two a smudge of a freighter was inching out across the bay.

The stamp story was made for him, he thought. A story that amused and didn't condemn. A story of stupidity, and rather lovable stupidity at that. He could implant a few ironies just beneath the skin of the text for those who wanted to pick at it, leave enough clues about the real situation for those who already understood it. They would congratulate themselves on reading between the lines, and him for writing between them. And he could sit on his necessary fence for a few more months, until Hitler drove something through it.

Too many metaphors, he told himself. And not nearly enough satisfaction.

He thought about the real Danzig story. Ten years ago hed have written it, and written it well. But not now. Step out of line that far, and the toadies at the Propaganda Ministry would have him deported before he could say Heil Hitler. Hed be saying goodbye to his son, probably for the duration of a war. And probably to Effi as well. Shed told him often enough that shed go to England, or better still America, with him, but he had his doubts whether she meant it, whether shed ever willingly leave her sister, parents, agent, and vast array of friends for life in a new country where no one knew who she was.

He left the path and walked down to the edge of the water, searching for pebbles to skim. He wanted to take Shchepkins offer, he realized. He wasnt sure why, though. He only half-bought the argument that by helping the Soviets hed be hurting the Nazis. If he really wanted to take Hitler on there were more effective ways, but most of them depressingly self-sacrificial. The money would be nice, but the risks would be high. The Nazis still beheaded spies.

He skimmed a flat pebble between two waves. Could he trust Shchepkin? Of course he couldn't. The Soviets might want what they said they wantedno more, no lessbut even if they did, that wouldn't be the end of it. You didn't do a few articles for Stalin, bank the checks, and move on. You were now on a list, one of their people, someone to call up when something else was needed. And once you were on the list, they took refusals badly.

And then there was the attitude of his own country to worry about. He didn't need England now, but the way things were going he soon might, and writing for Stalin would hardly endear him to the Foreign Office. He could end up persona non grata with just about everyone. Why was he even thinking about it?

He knew why. A couple of weeks before Christmas Paul had told him about an exercise that new recruits into the Jungvolk were forced to undergo. They were taken out into the countryside without maps and invited to find their way back home the best they could. It was called a Fahrt ins Blau, a journey into the blue.

The idea had appealed to Paul, as it probably did to most boys of eleven. It appealed to Russell too. If he took this journey into the blue he might, conceivably, find his way home again.

He skimmed his last stone, a large one that took a single bounce and sunk. The sparse daylight was receding. The freighter and the Hela Peninsula had both been sucked into gray, and the beam from the lighthouse was sending shivers of reflection back off the darkening sea. He was in the middle of nowhere, lost in space. With ice for feet.

THE TWO POSTMASTERS WERE both short-sighted men in sober suits with small mustaches. The Polish one could hardly wait for the honor of distributing his new stamps. A minion was sent for samples, and came back with King Jagiello and Queen Hedwig. The Polish queen, the postmaster explained, had spurned a German prince in favour of marrying the Lithuanian Jagiello. Their joint kingdom had forced the Prussians to accept the first Polish Corridor and bi-national status for Danzig. Admittedly this had all happened in the early fif-teenth century butand here the postmaster leaned back in his chair with a self-satisfied smilethe contemporary relevance should be obvious. Even to a German.

The German postmaster had his own sample. His stamp featured a beautiful miniature of stout Danzigers routing the Polish forces of King Stefan Batory in 1577. A German city defended by German arms, he announced smugly. Russell repeated the question he had put to the Polish postmasterwerent these stamps a little provocative? Shouldn't the civil authorities be trying to reduce the tension between their two countries, rather than using their stamps to stoke up old quarrels?

The German postmaster gave the same reply as his Polish opposite number. How, he asked, could anyone take postage stamps that seriously?

RUSSELLS TRAIN LEFT THEHauptbahnhof at ten oclock. After paying for a sleeping berth he could barely afford, he sat in the restaurant car for the better part of two hours, nursing a single gold-flecked schnapps, feeling restless and uncertain. The Polish customs officials checked his visa just before Dirschau and the German authorities examined his passport at Flatow, on the far side of the Polish Corridor. He had no trouble with the latter: If the Danzig SA were submitting a report on his visit they must have still been struggling with their spelling.

He thought about the kindertransport, wondered where it was at that moment. Still chugging west across Germany, most likely. The Englishwomans cheek would be purple by nowhe hoped she would go to the press when she got back and make a real stink. Not that it would do any good. It had taken her five minutes to learn what Nazism was all about, but there was no substitute for first-hand experience. If you told people they didn't believe you. No one, their eyes always said, could be as bad as that.

He walked back down the train to his sleeping compartment. The two lower berths were empty, one of the upper occupied by a gently snoring German youth. Russell sat on the opposite lower berth, pulled back the edge of the curtain, and stared out at the frozen fields of Pomerania.

He lay back and shut his eyes. Gisela Kluger looked back at him.

He would write Shchepkins articles. See where the journey took him. Into the blue. Or into the black.

Ha! Ho! He!

RUSSELLS TRAIN STEAMED ACROSS the bridge over Friedrichstrasse and into the station of the same name just before eight in the morning. An eastbound Stadtbahn train was disgorging its morning load on the other side of the island platform, and he stood behind the stairwell waiting for the crowd to clear. On the other side of the tracks an angry local was shaking a toasted almond machine in the vain hope that his coin would be returned. A railway official intervened and the two men stood there shouting at each other.

Welcome to Berlin, Russell thought.

He took the steps down to the underground concourse, bought a newspaper at the waiting room kiosk, and found himself a seat in the station buffet. The sight of his neighbor, a stout man in an Orpo uniform, cramming his mouth with large slices of blood sausage, did nothing for Russells appetite, and he settled for a buttered roll and four-fruit jam with his large milky coffee.

His newspaper shielded him from the blood sausage eater, but not from Nazi reality. He dutifully read Goebbelss latest speech on the vibrancy of modern German culture, but there was nothing new in it. More anti-Jewish laws had come into force on the first: Driving automobiles, working in retail, and making craft goods had all been added to the verboten list. Russell wondered what was left. Emigration, he supposed. So why make it so hard for the poor bastards to leave?

He skimmed through the rest. More villages judenfrei, more kilometers of autobahn, more indignation about Polish behavior in the Corridor. A new U-boat epic at the cinema, children collecting old tin cans for Winter Relief, a new recipe for the monthly one-pot-stew. A Reich that will last a thousand years. Six down, nine hundred and ninety-four to go.

He thought about taking the U-bahn but decided he needed some exercise. Emerging onto Friedrichstrasse he found the remains of the last snowfall dribbling into the gutters. A ribbon of pale sunlight was inching down the upper walls on the eastern side of the street, but the street itself was still sunk in shadows. Little knots of people were gathered at the doors of about-to-open shops, many of them talking in that loud, insistent manner which non-Berliners found so annoying in the capitals inhabitants.

It was a three kilometer walk to his rooms near Hallesches Tor. He crossed Unter den Linden by the Cafe Bauer, and strode south through the financial district, toward the bridge which carried the elevated U-bahn over Mohrenstrasse. Berlin was not a beautiful city, but the rows of gray stone buildings had a solidity, a dependability, about them.

On one corner of Leipzigerstrasse a frankfurter stall was gushing steam into the air, on another the astrologer whom Effi sometimes consulted was busy erecting his canvas booth. The man claimed hed prepared a chart for Hitler in pre-Fuhrer days, but refused to divulge what was in it. Nothing good, Russell suspected.

Another kilometer and he was turning off Friedrichstrasse, cutting through the side streets to Neuenburgerstrasse and his apartment block. Walking south from Leipzigerstrasse was like walking down a ladder of social class, and the area in which he lived was still hoping for a visit from the twentieth century. Most of the apartment blocks were five storeys high, and each pair boasted a high brick archway leading into a dark well of a courtyard. A bedraggled birch tree stood in his, still clinging to its mantle of snow.

The concierges door was open, light spilling into the dark lobby. Russell knocked, and Frau Heidegger emerged almost instantly, her frown turning to a smile when she saw who it was. Herr Russell! You said you would be back yesterday. We were beginning to worry.

I tried to telephone, he lied. But. . . .

Ah, the Poles, Frau Heidegger said resignedly, as if nothing better could be expected from her neighbors to the east. She wiped her hands on her apron and ushered him in. Come, you must have a coffee.

Accepting was easier than refusing. He took the proffered seat in her living room and gazed about him as she re-heatedfor the last of heavens know how many timesher eternal pot of coffee. Her Advent wreath was still hanging from the light fixture along with its four gutted candles. On the walnut chest of drawers two packs of cards stood beside her precious Peoples Radio. It was Tuesday, Russell realized, the day Frau Heidegger and three of her counterparts from the nearby blocks played skat.

She came back with the coffee and a small pile of post. A postcard from Paul, a probable Christmas card from his mother in the US, a letter from his American agent, and a business letter with a Berlin postmark.

You had two telephone messages, the concierge said, looking down through her pince-nez at a small piece of paper. Your fianceeFrau Heidegger always referred to Effi in that way, despite the fact that no prospective marriage had ever been mentionedsays she will be back extremely late on Thursday night and will meet you at the Cafe Uhlandeck at noon on Friday. Does that sound right?

Yes.

And a Herr Conwayyes?he would like you to call him as soon as possible.

Ill call him after Ive had my coffee, Russell said, taking a first exploratory sip. It was burned, but so strong and sweet that you hardly noticed.

Frau Heidegger was telling him how shed recently caught one of the tenantsthe Sudeten German on the first floor who Russell hardly knewopening a window. This was strictly forbidden when the heating was on, and the tenant had only been forgiven on the grounds that he came from the mountains and could hardly be expected to know any better. He didn't know how lucky he was, Russell thought; his own rooms on the fourth floor sometimes resembled neighboring ovens. During one warm week in December he had regularly set his alarm for 3:00 AM, when the concierge was fairly certain to be asleep and he could throw open his windows for a life-saving blast of cool air.

He took another sip of coffee and wondered whether the war minister would be interested in developing it as a weapon. Thank you, Frau Heidegger, he said, carefully replacing the cup in its saucer and getting to his feet. I already had two cups at the station, he added in excuse.

Its good to have you back, she said, following him to the door. She didn't close it, though. She might miss something.

Russell walked over to the telephone at the foot of the stairs. Its installation a couple of years earlier had given Frau Heidegger cause for prideher block was leading the way on Neuenburgerstrasse. But it had soon turned into something of a mixed blessing. A popular propensity for ringing at all times of the day and night had necessitated the introduction of a curfew, and the phone was now off the hook from ten at night till eight in the morning. It could still be used for outgoing calls during that time, but heaven help anyone who forgot to take it off again.

He unhooked the earpiece and dialed the British embassys number. Doug Conway worked in the commercial department, or so he claimed. Russell had met him at the Blau-Weiss club, where English-speaking expatriates played tennis, talked about how beastly their German hosts were, and lamented the lack of reliable domestic help. Russell hated the place, but time spent there was often good for business. As a journalist he had made a lot of useful contacts; as a part-time English tutor he had been pointed in the direction of several clients. He hoped Doug Conway had found him another.

Im rushed off my feet today, Conway told him. But I can squeeze in an early lunch. Wertheim at 12:30?

Fine, Russell agreed, and started up the four flights of stairs which led to his rooms. At the top he paused for breath before unlocking the door and wondered for the umpteenth time about moving to a block with a lift. His rooms were stuffy and hot, so he left the front door ajar and risked opening a window by a few millimeters.

Stretched out on the threadbare sofa, he went through his mail. Pauls postcard began Dear Dad, but seemed mostly concerned with the Christmas presents hed received from his stepfather. The boy did say he was looking forward to the football game on Saturday, though, and Russell took another look out of the window to convince himself that the weather was warming up and that the game would be played.

The envelope from America was indeed a Christmas card from his mother. It contained one cryptic line: This might be a good year to visit me. She was probably referring to the situation in Europe, although for all Russell knew she might have contracted an incurable disease. She certainly wouldn't tell him if she had.

He opened the business letters. The one from his American agent contained a check for $53.27, payment for an article on Strength Through Joy cruises which a dozen US papers had taken. That was the good news. The Berlin letter was a final, rather abusively written demand for payment on a typewriter repair bill, which would account for more than half the dollar inflow.

Looking round the room at the all-too-familiar furniture and yellowing white walls, at the poster from Effis first film, the tired collage of photographs, and the dusty overloaded bookshelves, he felt a wave of depression wash over him.

THE CITYS LARGEST WERTHEIM department store occupied a site twice the size of the late-lamented Reichstag, and a frontage running to 330 meters. Inside, it boasted 83 lifts, 100,000 light bulbs and 1,000 telephone extensions. Russell knew all this because he had written an article on the store a year or so earlier. More to the point, the restaurant offered good food and service at a very reasonable rate, and it was only a five-minute walk from the British embassy on Wilhelmstrasse.

Doug Conway had already secured a table, and was halfway through a gin and tonic. A tall man of around 35 with sleek blond hair and bright blue eyes, he looked custom-made for Nazi Berlin, but was in fact a fairly decent representative of the human race. State-educated and low-born by embassy standardshis father had been a parks superintendent in Leedshe had arrived in Berlin just as the Nazis seized power. His pretty young wife Mary was probably brighter than he was, and had once confided in Russell that she intended to torch the Blau-Weiss Club before she left Berlin.

Conways taste in food had not traveled far from his roots. He looked pained when Russell ordered the pigs knuckle and sauerkraut, and plumped for the pot roast and mash.

Ive got some teaching work for you if you want it, he told Russell while they waited. Its a Jewish family called Wiesner. The father iswasa doctor. His wife is ill most of the time, though I dont know what withworry, most likely. Their son was taken off to Sachsenhausen after Kristallnacht and hasnt been seen since, though the family have heard that hes still alive. And there are two daughters, Ruth and Marthe, who are both in their teensthirteen and fifteen, or something like that. Its them youd be teaching.

Russell must have looked doubtful.

Youd be doing me a real favor if you took them on, Conway persisted. Felix Wiesner probably saved Phylliss lifethis was back in 1934there were complications with the birth and we couldn't have had a better doctor. He wasnt just efficient; he went out of his way to be helpful. And now he cant practice, of course. I dont know what he intends to doI dont know what any of them can dobut hes obviously hoping to get his daughters to England or the States, and he probably thinks theyll have a better chance if they speak English. I have no idea what his money situation is, Im afraid. If he cant earn, and theres all the new taxes to pay . . . well. . . . But if he cant pay your normal rate then Ill top up whatever he can afford. Just dont tell him Im doing it.

He might like the idea that somebody cares, Russell said.

I dont know about. . . .

Ill go and see him.

Conway smiled. I hoped youd say that. He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his inside pocket and passed it across the table. Heres his address.

It was in Friedrichshain, hardly a normal stomping ground for high-class Jewish doctors.

He used to live in Lutzow, Conway explained. Now theyre all hunkering down together in the poorest areas. Like medieval ghettos.

The food arrived and they ate in silence for a couple of minutes, before exchanging news of their children and the German schools they were attending. Conway and his wife had also seen Effis musical, and clearly wished they hadn't, though Conway was much too diplomatic to actually say so.

Over coffee Russell asked how the Embassy saw the next few months.

Off the record?

Off the record.

Were on a knife-edge. If our mustachioed chum is happy with what hes got, then fine. The appeasers will say I told you sohe may be a nasty little shit, but he can be managed. But if he goes after moreDanzig or the Corridor or the rest of Czechoslovakiathen Churchill and his pals will be the ones saying, I told you so. And therell be a war.

Doug, how do you persuade the British people that the Czechs werent worth fighting for, but the Poles are? The Czechs have a functioning democracy of sorts. The Poles would be just like this lot if they had any talent for organization.

Conway grimaced. Thatll be up to the politicians. But Ill tell you what Londons really worried about. If Hitler does behave for a few years, and if he keeps building tanks, U-boats and bombers at the current rate, then by Forty-one or Forty-two hell be unstoppable. Thats the real nightmare. As far as were concernedfrom a purely military point of viewthe sooner the better.

THERE WAS NO TELEPHONE at the Wiesners but, as Conway had noted, the doctor didn't have much to go out for. No U-bahn had been built out into the working class wastes of Friedrichshain, so Russell took a 13 tram from the Brandenburg Gate to Spittelmarkt and a 60 from there to Alexanderplatz and up Neue Konigstrasse. The city deteriorated with each passing kilometer, and by the time he reached his destination most of it seemed to be on sale. The sidewalk was lined with makeshift tables, all piled high with belongings that would-be Jewish emigrants were trying to shift. The complete works of Dickens in German were on sale for a few Reichsmarks, a fine-looking violin for only a little more.

The Wiesners block made his own seem middle class. The street was cobbled, the walls plastered with advertisements for auctions and lists of items for sale. On the pavement a group of painfully thin young girls were hopping their way through a game of Heaven and Earth on a chalkmarked grid. In the courtyard of the Wiesners building the far wall still bore the faintest outline of a large hammer and sickle and the much-faded slogan ERST ESSEN, DANN MIETfirst food, then rent.

The Wiesners shared two overcrowded rooms on the second floor. Contrary to Conways expectation, the doctor was out. He was only attending to a neighbor, however, and the older of the two daughters was sent to fetch him, leaving Russell, Frau Wiesner, and her younger daughter to exchange small talk. Frau Wiesner, a small woman with tied-back blond hair and tired gray eyes, looked anything but Jewish, while her younger daughter Ruth bore a striking resemblance to Effi, both physically and, Russell judged, temperamentally. Effi had often been mistaken for a Jew, and various employers had insisted she carry the fragebogen, which testified to her Aryan descent, at all times. She of course liked nothing better than shoving the mistake back in peoples faces.

Dr. Wiesner appeared after a few minutes, looking decidedly harassed. His wife and two daughters abruptly withdrew to the next room and closed the door behind them.

He was about fifty, Russell guessed, and aging fast. He ran a hand through his thinning hair and got straight down to businessas Conway had said, he hoped to get his daughters away to relations in England. He was working on getting them visas and exit permits, and in the meantime he wanted them to learn English. I speak a little, he said in that language, and I will try and help them, but they need a proper teacher.

I have taught around twenty German children, Russell said.

Wiesner grunted. German children, he repeated. Im afraid my children are no longer considered German.

Russell said nothing.

You are wondering why we stayed, Wiesner said. I ask myself the same thing every day and I have many answers, but none of them is worth anything. My wife is not Jewish, he added, so my children are only half-Jewish, or mischlings as the Nazis call them, but I thought perhaps. . . . Well, I was a fool. He reached behind himself and plucked a piece of paper from a shelf-full of music. It was, of all things, a page of Der Sturmer. Listen to this, the doctor said, adjusting his glasses on his nose and holding the page almost at arms length. Even if a Jew slept with an Aryan woman once, the membranes of her vagina would be so impregnated with alien semen that the woman would never again be able to bear pure blooded Aryans. He lowered the paper and looked at Russell. Who could believe such pre-scientific nonsense? It doesnt even make sense on their own illiterate termssurely the master race would have the all-powerful blood, not the people they despise. He saw something in Russells face. Im sorry. I dont know why I am telling you all this. Its just so hard to accept.

I understand, Russell said.

So why do you, an Englishman, stay in Germany? Wiesner asked him.

Russell gave a short account of his situation.

That is difficult, the doctor agreed. But good news for my daughters if you agree to teach them.

How many lessons do you have in mind?

As many as you can manage. And as often.

Three times a week? Monday, Wednesday, Friday? Itll vary a bit. I cant do Friday this week, but I could do Thursday.

Whatever you say. Now for the difficult part. I have some money, but not very much. Andhere I must trust youI have some valuable stamps. I can show you the valuation in the current catalogue and add another ten percent.

It was a nice idea, but Russell couldn't do it. The catalogue value will suit me fine.

IT WAS ALMOST DARK when he emerged from the Wiesners block, and the tram rides home through the evening rush hour seemed endless. By the time he reached Hallesches Tor he was ready for supper, and his favourite beerhouse beneath the elevated U-bahn provided the necessary meatballs and potato pancakes. Over a second beer he decided not to sell any of Wiesners stamps unless he really needed to. He would give them to Paul, whose collection could do with some rarities.

That was assuming his son would accept them. Paul was forever worrying about his fathers financial statean anxiety which Russell occasionally, and without much conviction, tried to blame on his ex-wife Ilse.

He looked at his watch: He didn't have long to ring Paul before his bedtime. A U-bahn rattled into the station above as he emerged from the beerhouse, and a stream of people were soon pouring down the iron staircase, exhaling thick puffs of breath in the cold evening air. It was one of those Berlin days when the weather seemed uncertain what to do, one minute veering toward a western warmth, the next favoring an eastern chill.

Entering his street, he noticed what looked like an empty car parked across from his apartment block. This was unusualvery few people in the area could afford one. He thought about crossing the street to take a look inside but decided he was being paranoid. He hadn't done anything to upset the authorities. Not yet, anyway.

A blast of hot air greeted him as he opened the outside doors of the apartment block. Frau Heideggers skat evening was in full swing, the volume of laughter suggesting a large consignment of empty bottles for the morning collection. Russell dialed the number of the house in Grunewald, put the earpiece to one ear and a finger in the other. As he half-expected, Ilse picked up. They asked each other the usual questions, gave the usual answers, all with the faint awkwardness which they never seemed able to shake. The family had just gotten back from Hanover, and when Paul came on he was full of the wonders of the autobahn and his stepfathers new Horch 830 Bl. As far as Saturday was concerned, his usual school lessons had been replaced by Jungvolk meetings, and these ran until one oclock. Muti says you can pick me up then.

Right. Effi would be pleased, Russell thought. He wouldn't have to leave while she was still fast asleep.

And were still going to the Viktoria match?

Of course. I expect Uncle Thomas and Joachim will come too.

They chatted for another couple of minutes, before Ilses voice in the background decreed that time was up. Russell said good night and, feeling the usual mixture of elation and frustration, started up the stairs.

He was waylaid on the third floor landing by the other resident journalist in the building, a young American named Tyler McKinley. I thought I heard your weary tread, the American said in English. Come in for a minute. I want to ask you something.

It seemed simpler to say yes than no. McKinleys room wasnt particularly warmlike the other residents he knew that skat night was a chance to freshen the airbut it was full of pipe-smoke from the atrocious Balkan mixture he had adopted during a weekend trip to Trieste.

How was Danzig? his host asked, though Russell could see he was bursting with stuff of his own to talk about. There was something lovable about McKinley, but also something profoundly irritating. Russell hoped that this wasnt just because McKinley, with his quasi-religious belief in crusading journalism, reminded him of himself in long-gone days. That was the trouble with the youngtheir stupidities brought back ones own.

Interesting, he answered, though it had been anything but in the way that McKinley meant. He considered telling him about the stamp wars, but could imagine the look of incomprehension and vague derision which that would elicit.

The younger man was already back in Berlin. Im chasing a really interesting story, he said. I dont want to say anything yet, he hastened to add, but . . . do you know anything about the KdF, the Kanzlei des Fuhrers?

Its the great mans private chancellery.

Is it a government office?

No, its a Party office, but an independent one. Theres no connection to Bormanns bunch in Munich.

McKinley looked excited. So who is it connected to?

Russell shrugged. Nobody. It reports directly to Hitler as far as I know.

So if he wanted to do something on the quiet, it would be the ideal instrument.

Uh-huh.

McKinley beamed, as if hed just awarded himself a gold star.

You want to tell me what youre talking about? Russell asked, interested in spite of himself.

Not yet, the American said, but he couldn't resist one more question. Does the name Knauer mean anything to you?

A fullback with Tennis Borussia a few years back?

What? Oh, a soccer player. No, I dont think so. He reached for a lighter to re-start his pipe. But thanks for your help.

Youre welcome, Russell said, and resumed his ascent.

His room was sweltering, but mercifully smoke-free. Guessing that the skat game still had a couple of hours to run, he threw one window wide and gazed out across the rooftops. In the far distance the red light atop the Funkturm winked above the roofscape.

He sat down at the typewriter, inserted a sheet of paper, and reminded himself that the letter he was about to write wasas far as the Soviets were concernedjust a long-winded way of saying yes. His real audience was the Gestapo.

Play the innocent, he thought. The Gestapo would think he was trying to fool the Soviets, and assume he was just being cynical.

He began by asserting the happy coincidence that National Socialism and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had one crucial word in commonsocialism. That should give them both a laugh, he thought. They might seem like enemies, he continued, but clearly they had something important in commonsocialisms determination to serve all the people. What could serve the people better than peace? And what served peace better than mutual understanding? If the Soviet people were offered, in a series of articles, a clearer idea of how much National Socialism had achieved for ordinary German people, then the chances of peace were bound to be enhanced. As an Englishman with a long experience of Germany he was ideally placed to explain it to foreigners. And he had a strong personal reason for desiring peaceif war came, he added pathetically, he and his German-born son might be separated for years and years. Here I am, he murmured to himself, a propaganda tool for the taking. The Gestapo would lap it up.

He copied the address from Shchepkins note onto an envelope, unearthed a stamp from the table drawer, and perched the completed missive on his typewriter. Hearing the sounds of departing concierges floating up from the courtyard he made a dive for the window and pulled it shut.

Bed, he thought. The bathroom on the floor below which he shared with McKinley and two other mena stationery rep from Hamburg and a waiter from the Harz Mountainswas empty for once, though the strong smell of McKinleys pipe smoke suggested a lengthy occupation earlier that evening. There was still light under the Americans door, and Russell could hear the soft clicking of his typewriterthe newer machines were much quieter than his own antique.

Back in bed, he re-read Pauls postcard and resumed reading the detective novel he had forgotten to take to Danzig. Unable to remember who anyone was, he turned out the light and listened to the muffled hum of the traffic on nearby Lindenstrasse. The Fuhrer was probably allowed to sleep with his windows open.

HE SPENT THE NEXT two days looking after business. Wednesday and Thursday morning, he made the long trek out to Friedrichshain for two 90-minute sessions with the Wiesner girls. The elder daughter Marthe was a bit shy at first, but Ruths enthusiasm proved infectious enough to bring her out. The two of them knew very little English, but they were a joy to teach, eager to learn and markedly more intelligent than the spoiled daughters of Grunewald and Wilmersdorf whom Russell had taught in the past.

This was on the Wednesdaythe following day both girls looked as though theyd seen a ghost, and Russell wondered whether theyd had bad news from Sachsenhausen. When he asked if they were all right, he thought Marthe was going to cry, but she took a visible grip on herself and explained that her brother had come home the previous evening.

But thats wonderful. . . . Russell began.

He doesnt seem like Albert, Ruth broke in, looking over her shoulder at the door through to the other rooms. He has no hair, and he doesnt say anything, she whispered.

He will, Marthe told her sister, putting an arm round her. Hes just seen some terrible things, but he hasnt been hurt, not really. Now come on, we have to learn English. For everyones sake.

And they did, faster than any pupils Russell could remember. Neither mother nor brother emerged from the other rooms, and Doctor Wiesner was out on both days. On the Thursday he left Russell a small amount of marks and three stamps in an envelope on top of the latest Stanley Gibbons catalogue from England. Russell didn't bother to check the listings.

Wednesday afternoon, he had typed out the stamp wars article and stuck two copies in the red air mail box by the Hotel Bristol entrance on Unter den Linden. Thursday morning, a telegram arrived from his London agent pointing out the need for exclusive photographs with his piece on Hitlers new Chancellery, and that afternoon Russell dragged himself out to a photographic studio in the wilds of Neukolln, only to discover that the photographer in question, a Silesian named Zembski whom hed used in the past, had just lost his official accreditation after starting a brawl at one of Goerings hunting parties. Zembski weighed over 200 pounds, and could hardly be smuggled into the Fuhrers new insult to architecture, but he did prove willing to rent out one of his better cameras. After a short instruction course Russell carried the Leica back to Hallesches Tor.

Frau Heidegger was waiting for himor anyonein the lobby. Her husband had been killed in the last warYou might have been the one who shot him, she frequently told Russelland his brother had just been round to see her, full of useful information about the next one. She had assumed it would take place at some distance from her door, but this illusion had been cruelly shattered. Cities will be bombed flat, her brother-in-law had told her, flat as ironing boards.

Russell told her that, yes, English or French or Russian bombers could now reach Berlin, but that most of them would be shot down if they tried, because air defenses were improving all the time. She didn't look convinced, but then neither was he. How many Europeans, he wondered, had any idea what kind of war they were headed for?

FRIDAY MORNING WAS SUNNY and cold. After a late breakfast of rolls and coffee at a local cafe, Russell walked west along the Landwehrkanal. He wasnt due to meet Effi for a couple of hours, so he took his time, stopping to read his morning paper on a bench near the double-decker bridges which carried the U-bahn and Reichsbahn lines over the torpid brown water. Coal-laden barges chugged by, leaving thin trails of oil in their wake.

He walked on for another kilometer or so, leaving the canal where it passed under Potsdamerstrasse. Almost exactly twenty years earlier, the bodies of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht had been fished out of waters close to this spot. The empty site on the other side of the road had been home to a synagogue until the previous November. Rosa, of course, had been everything the Nazis despiseda Jew, a communist, a woman who refused to stay home and rear children. Russell was surprised that no official celebration had been decreed for the anniversary of her death.

Cutting through side streets, he eventually reached the domed Ubahn station at Nollerndorfplatz, and started walking up Kleiststrasse toward the distant spires of the Kaiser Memorial church. As the Ubahn tracks beside him slid slowly underground, the shops grew progressively larger and richer, the awnings of the pavement cafes more decorative. Despite the cold, most of the outside seats were occupied; men and women sat in their overcoats, or tightly wrapped in large blankets, chewing their cream cakes and sipping at their steaming coffees.

Both sidewalks and road were crowded now. Shoppers streamed in and out of the KaDeWe department store on Wittenbergplatz, cars and trams ran bumper to bumper on the narrower Tauenzienstrasse, jostling each other round the neo-Gothic Memorial Church, with its distressingly secular mosaics celebrating the highly dubious glories of past German emperors. Walking past it, and thinking about his conversation with Frau Heidegger, Russell had a sudden mental picture of jagged spires looming out of a broken roof, a future Berlin pre-figured in his memories of northern France.

He started up the busy Kurfurstendamm, or the Kudamm, as everyone called it. The Cafe Uhlandeck, where he was supposed to meet Effi, was a ten minute stroll away, and he still had half an hour to spare. An African parrot in a pet shop caught his attention: It was the sort of birthday present Effi would love, but he doubted her ability to look after it properly. For one thing she was away too often. For another, she was Effi.

A woman in a fur coat emerged from the shop with two pedigree schnauzers in tow. Both had enamel swastikas fastened to their collars, and Russell wondered whether they had pictures of the Fuhrer pinned up inside their kennels. Would that be considered a sign of respect, or the lack of such? Political etiquette in the Third Reich was something of a minefield.

He passed the aryanized Grunfeld factory, and the site of another destroyed synagogue. A photographic album of such sites would be a best-seller in Nazi Germany: Judenfrei: The Photographic Record. Page after page of burned synagogues, followed by then and now pictures of aryanized firms. A forward by the Fuhrer, which would probably turn out to be longer than the book. The lucky author would probably get invites to Goerings hunting weekends and Streichers whipping orgies.

Russell stopped and watched a tram cross the intersection, bell clanging. Why was he feeling so angry this morning? Was it the kindertransport and the Wiesner girls? Or just six years of accumulated disgust? Whatever it was, it served no purpose.

Reaching the Cafe Uhlandeck he sat at one of the outside tables and stared back down the Kudamm in search of Effis familiar silhouette. He had met her a few days before Christmas 1933, while researching a piece on Leni Riefenstahl for a Hollywood gossip magazine. At a studio party someone had pointed out a slim, black-haired woman in her late twenties, told Russell that her name was Effi Koenen, and that she had appeared alongside Riefenstahl when the latter was still acting in films, rather than directing them.

Effis part in that film, as she was only too happy to inform him, had consisted of five lines, two smiles, one pout, and a dignified exit. She had thought Riefenstahl a good actress, but had hated Triumph of the Will for its humorlessness. Russell had asked her out to dinner, and rather to his astonishment she had accepted. They had got on like a house on firein the restaurant, on the half-drunken walk home to her flat, in her large soft bed. Five years later, they still did.

The flat was a couple of blocks north of the Kudamm, a three room affair which her wealthy parents had bought in the early 1920s from a victim of the Great Inflation, and given to her as a twenty-fifth birthday present. Her acting career had been reasonably successfula film here, a play there, a musical if nothing else was on offerwithout making her rich or particularly famous. She was occasionally recognized on the street when Russell was with her, and almost always for the part she had played in a 1934 film, the wife of a stormtrooper beaten to death by communists. That had been a seventeen lines, one smile, one scream, dignified-at-funeral part.

She was currently appearing in Barbarossa, a musical biography of the twelfth-century Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I. As one of his generals wives, she sang part of the joyous send-off when they left for the Crusades, and part of the lament for those who failed to come home. Like most of the cast, she wasnt much of a singer, but no one had bothered to include musical ability, a decent script, or memorable songs in the production. It was, as one of the early Berlin reviews put it, a hymn to national consciousness.

Much to Effis disgust it had pulled in large audiences, both in Berlin during the weeks leading up to Christmas and across the Reich during the holiday season itself. A second season in Berlin was beginning that night and Effi expected the seats to be full again: All those who couldn't believe how bad it was the first time will be coming back to make sure.

Russell hadn't seen her for almost a fortnight, which seemed a long time. They generally spent as much of the weekend together as theirmostly herwork allowed, along with at least one night in midweek and an unpredictable number of lunches and afternoons. She was fond of saying that her three-year marriage to a now-famous actor had left her with a love of living alone, and had never suggested that Russell move in with her. He told himself and everyone else that he was happy, more than happy, with their days and nights together, and happy to spend the other days and nights without her. And most of the time he believed it. Just occasionally he found himself thinking that love was indivisible, and that loving someone was resenting each hour apart. He did love Effi, from her long raven hair to her small brown toes. He loved everything about her, he thought, looking at his watch, except for her complete inability to arrive anywhere on time.

It was 12:25 when she finally appeared. She was wearing the black overcoat which almost reached her ankles, a new crimson scarf wrapped around her neck, chin, and mouth, and the Russian fur hat she had bought in Moscow ten years before, yet even trussed up like a mummy she turned the heads of male passersby. Ive got a cold, was the first thing she said once theyd embraced. I need soup.

Russell suggested that they go inside, but she refused. Fresh airs the best thing for colds, she insisted.

He got them both bowls of soup and watched her demolish hers. We got in at four in the morning, she said between spoonfuls, and weve got to be in early this evening to discuss some changes the musical director has in mind.

A new score? Russell asked.

If only. Itll be nothing. He just has to justify the fact that hes still being paid. She started tearing up a roll and dropping it in the soup. Youll pick me up after the show?

Of course. Ill come and watch the last half hour if theyll let me in. Its the same man on the door?

I dont know. But Ill make sure they know youre coming. She spooned a chunk of sodden bread into her mouth. This is good. I feel better already. How have you been? Hows Paul?

Havent seen him yet. But he sounds all right.

Danzig?

Suitably gloomy, he said. He told her about the stamp wars, which made her laugh, and the Soviet request for articles, which drew a raised eyebrow. Its just work, he said. There didn't seem any point in mentioning the oral reports, or in spoiling their reunion with an account of the kindertransport and his day in jail.

She used the last of his roll to soak up the last of her soup. I feel much better, she said again. And Ive still got three hours before I have to be at the theater. She reached out a slender hand for his. Shall we go back to the flat?

LATER THAT EVENING, RUSSELL arrived backstage in time to hear the lament for the fallen heroes. It seemed more Wagnerian than ever, and he realized that the musical director had decided to apply the Third Reichs guiding principlenever speak when you can shout. The military widows now had an entire choir of breast-swelling Valkyries to augment their lamentations. The front rows of the audience looked suitably stunned.

After the show, Russell talked football with the stage-door-keeper while he waited for Effi. She emerged after half an hour or so, still snuffling but full of post-performance energy. It was clear and cold outside, the sidewalks crowded with people. They walked arm in arm past the entrance to the aquarium, and along the southern side of the zoo toward the glowing glasshouse which straddled the elevated lines at Zoo Station. The station buffet was doing a roaring trade, but they managed to find a couple of stools and order a nightcap. This was the last place in Berlin where Jews could still buy a coffee, but there were no obvious Jewish faces in evidence. The city by night was an Aryan preserve.

As they left the buffet an international express steamed out across Hardenbergstrasse, rumbling the girders of the bridge and pumping bursts of white smoke toward the stars. Russell found himself wishing, if only for a moment, that he and Effi were two of the silhouettes in the necklace of illuminated windows, headed for another life in Amsterdam or Paris or New Yorkanywhere, in fact, beyond Hitlers rancid realm.

It was almost one when they got back to the flat. Their lovemaking that afternoon had been almost frenzied, but now they took it slowly, luxuriously, taking each other to the brink again and again before finally, joyously, tumbling over it together. Wrapped in each others arms, Effi went to sleep almost immediately, but Russells brain refused to let him be. He had not been angry with the Nazis that morning, he realized. He had been angry with himself. Angry at his own helplessness. Angry that all he could manage was fantasies of escape.

It suddenly occurred to him that his imaginary book of photographs might make a real impact abroad. Especially in America, where the Jewish organizations had some political clout. He could get pictures of old Jewish businesses from press libraries and shoot the rest himself with Zembskis camera. Getting it out would be a problem, but hed worry about thatand ensuring his own anonymitywhen the time came. And if anyone noticed him taking pictures of burned-out synagogues he could say he was compiling the record of anti-Semitic triumphs he had originally envisaged. He smiled to himself in the dark.

THE NEXT MORNING THEY walked to their usual cafe in the Tiergarten for milky coffee and rolls. The winter sun was already riding high in the southeastern sky, and as they strolled back along the northern bank of the Landwehrkanal it seemed as if most of Berlin had had the same idea. Effi had arranged to meet her older sister Zarah for lunch, something she often did when Russell was seeing his son. He had never particularly liked Zarah, who had none of Effis fitful ability to look beyond herself, and had married an ambitious Nazi civil servant. Soon after Russell met Effi, she had asked his help in arranging an abortion for Zarah in England, which he had done. Zarah had traveled to London, decided at the last moment she couldn't go through with it, and had eventually given birth to a boy. Much to everyones surprise, she had doted on the child from day one. Much to Russells annoyance, she blamed him for the fact that she had nearly had an abortion.

After he and Effi parted, Russell caught a 76 tram outside the zoo for Grunewald, and watched the houses grow bigger as it worked its way through Halensee and into Berlins prosperous southwestern suburbs. Pauls school was a five-minute walk from the tram terminus, and just down the road from the large tree-shrouded villa which his stepfather Matthias Gehrts had inherited from his father. Both school and villa backed onto one of the small lakes which dotted the area, and sitting on a low wall besides the school gates, Russell had occasional glimpses of sailboats between buildings. A couple of women arrived on foot to pick up their sons, but his fellow dads all arrived in cars, and stood around discussing the reliability of their mechanics.

The Jungvolk appeared soon after one, buttoning their overcoats over their uniforms as they walked to the gate. Paul half-ran to greet him, a big smile on his face.

So where shall we go today? Russell asked.

The Funkturm.

Again? They had visited Berlins radio tower at least half a dozen times in 1938.

I like it there.

Okay. Lets get a tram then. Do you want me to carry that? he asked, indicating the large book his son was holding.

Well take turns, Paul decided.

What is it? Russell asked.

Its the yearbook, Paul said, holding it out.

The Hitler Youth Yearbook, Russell realized, as he skimmed through the pages. There were 500 of them. So what did you do today?

The same as usual to begin with. Roll-call and gymnastics and then the history lessonthat was all about Germania and the Romans and how most history people get it wrong about them. They think the Romans were civilized and the Germans were barbarians, but in fact it was the other way roundthe Romans got mixed up with other races and got soft and lazy and forgot how to fight but the Germans stayed German and that made them strong. They reached the tram stop just as a tram squealed to a halt. And after the history lesson, Paul went on, once they were in their seats, we did some work on the map wallremember?were doing a whole wall of maps of Germany from the beginning to now. Its beginning to look really good. He looked out the window. Theres a shop down here that sells model soldiers, and theyve got the new set of dead soldiers. Someone at school brought them in. Theyre really real.

They would be, Russell thought. Death and toys, the German specialties.

If theyd come out before Christmas, Id have them now, Paul said wistfully.

They reached Halensee Station and climbed down the steps to the Ringbahn platform. And then we had a talk from this old man, Paul said, as they watched an electric train pull away from the opposite platform and accelerate down the cutting. Quite old, anyway. He was much more than forty. He came to talk about the last war and what it was like. He said there werent many aeroplanes or tanks, and there was lots of hand-to-hand fighting. Is that true?

There was some. Depends what he meant by lots.

I think he meant it was happening all the time. Paul looked up at Russell. I didn't believe a lot of the things he said. I mean, he said that the best thing a soldier could do was to die for his country. And one of the boys in the back asked him if he was sorry that he hadn't died, and the man didn't reply. The boy was told to report to the leaders room after the talk, and he looked pretty sick when he came out.

Did they give him a whacking?

No, I think they just shouted at him. He wasnt trying to be cleverhes just a bit stupid.

Their train pulled in, and Paul spent the single stop ride staring out of the window at the skeletal Funkturm rising out of the tangle of railways. Finished in 1926, it looked like a smaller version of the Eiffel Tower, which probably galled the Nazis to no end. The elevators going up, Paul said, and they watched it climb toward the viewing platform 126 meters above the ground.

Fifteen minutes later they were waiting at the bottom for their own ride. One lift carried them to the restaurant level, 55 meters up, another to the circular walkway with its panoramic view of the city. The viewing platform was crowded, children lining up to use the coin-operated binoculars. Russell and his son worked their way slowly round, gazing out beyond the borders of the city at the forests and lakes to the southwest, the plains to the north and east. The Olympic Stadium loomed close by to the west, and Berlins two other high buildingsthe office tower of the Borsig locomotive works and the futuristic Shellhausboth seemed closer than usual in the clear air. As tradition demanded, once Paul got his hands on the binoculars he turned them toward the northern suburb of Gesundbrunnen, where Herthas flag was fluttering above the roof of the Plumpes solitary grandstand. Ha! Ho! He! Hertha BSC! he chanted underneath his breath.

In the restaurant below they both ordered macaroni, ham, and cheesewashed down, in Pauls case, with a bottle of Coca Cola.

Would you like to see New York? Russell asked, following a thread of thought that had begun on the viewing platform.

Oh yes, Paul said. It must be fantastic. The Empire State Building is more than three times as high as this, and it has a viewing platform right near the top.

We could stay with your grandmother.

When?

A few years yet. When you finish school, maybe.

Pauls face fell. Therell be a war before then.

Who says so?

Paul looked at him with disbelief. Everybody does.

Sometimes everybodys wrong.

Yes, but. . . . He blew into his straw, making the Coke bubble and fizz. Dad, he began, and stopped.

What?

When you were in the war, did you want to die for England?

No, I didn't. Russell was suddenly conscious of the people at the tables nearby. This was not a conversation to have in public.

Did you want to fight at all?

Lets go back up top, Russell suggested.

Okay, Paul agreed, but only after hed given Russell one of those looks which suggested he should try harder at being a normal father.

They took the elevator once more, and found an empty stretch of rail on the less-popular side, looking away from the city. Down to their left an S-bahn train was pulling out of the Olympic Stadium station.

I didn't want to fight, Russell began, after pausing to marshal his thoughts. I didn't volunteerI was conscripted. I could have refused, and probably gone to prison instead, but I wasnt certain enough about my feelings to do that. I thought maybe I was just afraid, and that I was hiding behind my opinions. But once I got to the trenches it was different. There were a few idiots who still believed in death and glory, but most of us knew that wed been conned. All the governments were telling their soldiers that they had God and right on their side, and that dying for their country was the least they could do, but . . . well, think about itwhat does it mean, dying for your country? What exactly is your country? The buildings and the grass and the trees? The people? The way of life? People say you should love your country and be proud of it, and there are usually things to love and be proud of. But there are usually things to dislike as well, and every country has things to be ashamed of. So what does dying for your country achieve? Nothing, as far as I could see. Living for your country, you get the chance to make it better. He looked at his son, whose expression was almost fierce.

Our leader says that people who dont want to fight are cowards.

I expect some of them are. But . . . you remember the Boer War in South Africa, between the English and the Boers? Well, the Indian nationalist leader Gandhi, he was a leader of the Indians in South Africa then, and he refused to fight. Instead he organized medical teams which helped the wounded on the battlefield. He and his people were always in the thick of the action, and lots of them were killed. They wouldn't fight, but they were about as far from cowards as you can get.

Paul looked thoughtful.

But I wouldn't say anything like that at a Jungvolk meeting, Russell went on, suddenly conscious of the yearbook he was carrying. Youd just get yourself in trouble. Think about things, and decide what you think is right, but keep it to yourself, or the family at least. These are dangerous times were living in, and a lot of people are frightened of people who dont think like they do. And frightened people tend to lash out.

But if you know somethings wrong, isnt it cowardly to just keep quiet?

This was what Russell was afraid of. How could you protect children from the general idiocy without putting them at risk? It can be, he said carefully. But theres not much point picking a fight if you know youre bound to lose. Better to wait until you have some chance of winning. The important thing is not to lose sight of what is right and what is wrong. You may not be able to do anything about it at the time, but nothing lasts forever. Youll get a chance eventually.

Paul gave him a grown-up look, as if he knew full well that Russell was talking as much about himself as his son.

WITH TIME TO BURN, Russell took the long tram ride back down Kudamm, spent a couple of hours over dinner in a bar, and then went in search of a movie to watch. The new U-boat drama was showing at the Alhambra, a Zara Leander weepie at the Ufa Palast, and an American Western at the Universum. He chose the latter and reached his seat just as the weekly newsreel was getting started. A rather beautiful piece on Christmas markets in the Rhineland was followed by lots of thunderous marching and a German volleyball triumph in Romania. Suitably uplifted, the audience noisily enjoyed the Western, which almost made up in spectacle what it lacked in every other department.

Effis audience had gone home by the time he reached the theater on Nurnbergstrasse, and he only had to wait a few minutes for her to emerge from the dressing rooms. She had forgotten to eat anything between the matinee and evening shows, and was starving. They walked to a new bar on the Kudamm which one of the new Valkyries had told her served the most incredible omelettes.

They were indeed incredible, but the male clientele, most of whom seemed to be in uniform, left a lot to be desired. Four SS men took a neighboring table soon after their food arrived, and grew increasingly vocal with each round of schnapps. Russell could almost feel their need for a target take shape.

Effi was telling him about Zarahs latest neurosisher sister was increasingly worried that her infant son was a slow learnerwhen the first comments were directed at their table. One of the SS men had noticed Effis Jewish looks and loudly remarked on the fact to his companions. He was only about twenty, Russell thought, and when he succeeded in catching the young mans eye, he had the brief satisfaction of seeing a hint of shame in the way the man quickly looked away.

By this time Effi was rifling through her purse. Finding what she was looking for, and ignoring him, she stood up, advanced on the SS table, and held the fragebogen up to them, rather in the manner of a school-teacher lecturing a bunch of particularly obtuse children. See this, you morons, she said, loud enough for the whole bar to hear. Aryan descent, all the way back to Luthers time. Satisfied?

The manager was already at her shoulder. Fraulein, please. . . . he began.

I want these drunken pigs thrown out, she told him.

The oldest of the SS men was also on his feet. I would advise you to be careful, fraulein, he said. You may not be a Jew, but that doesnt give you the right to insult members of the Fuhrers bodyguard.

Effi ignored him. Are you going to throw these pigs out? she asked the manager.

He looked mortified. I. . . .

Very well. You wont get any more business from me. Or any of my friends. I hope, she concluded with one last contemptuous glance at the SS, that you can make a living selling swill to these pigs.

She headed for the door, as Russell, half-amused and half-fearful, counted out a few marks for their meal and listened to the SS men argue about whether to arrest her. When one of them took a step toward the door he blocked the way. You did call her a Jew, he said mildly, looking straight at the oldest man. Surely you can understand how upsetting that might be. She meant no disrespect.

The man gave him a slight bow of the head. She would do well to control her anger a little better, he said coldly.

She would, Russell agreed. Have a good evening, he added, and turned toward the door.

Outside he found Effi shaking with laughter, though whether from humor or hysteria he wasnt quite sure. He put an arm around her shoulder and waited for the shaking to stop. Lets go home.

Lets, she agreed.

They crossed the busy avenue and headed up one of the side streets.

Sometimes I wish I was a Jew, she said. If the Nazis hate them that much, they must be real human beings.

Russell grunted his acquiescence. I heard a joke the other day, he said. Hitler goes rowing on the Wannsee, but hes not very good at it, and manages to overturn the boat. A boy in a passing boat manages to haul him out and save him from drowning. Hitler, as you can imagine, is overcome with gratitude and promises the boy whatever he wants. The boy thinks for a moment, and asks for a state funeral. Hitler says, Youre a bit young for that, arent you? The boy says, Oh, mein Fuhrer, when I tell my dad Ive saved you from drowning hes going to kill me!

Effi started laughing again, and he did too. For what seemed like minutes they stood on the sidewalk, embracing and shaking with mirth.

NEXT AFTERNOON THOMAS AND JOACHIM were waiting in the usual place, sitting on a low wall with cartons of half-consumed frankfurters and kartoffelsalad between them. Russell bought the same for himself and Paul.

Once inside the Plumpe they headed for their usual spot, opposite the edge of the penalty area, halfway up the terrace on the western side. As their two sons read each others magazines, Russell and Thomas sat themselves down on the concrete step and chatted. Hows business? Russell asked.

Its good, Thomas said, unbuttoning his overcoat. Hed been running the family paper business since his and Ilses father had died a few years earlier. Its getting harder to find experienced staff, but other than that. . . . He shrugged. Theres no lack of orders. How about you?

Not too bad. Ive got the opening of the new Chancellery tomorrow, and there should be a decent piece in thatthe Americans like that sort of thing.

Well thats good. How about Danzig? Did you get anything there?

Not really. Russell explained about the stamp wars.

Thomas rolled his eyes in frustration. Like children, he muttered. Speaking of which, Joachims been called up for his arbeitsdienst.

When?

The beginning of March.

Russell looked up at Joachim, engrossed in his magazine. Ah, he said, glad that Paul was still six years away from the year of drilling, draining swamps, and digging roads which the Nazis imposed on all seventeen-year-old boys. How does he feel about it?

Oh, he cant wait, Thomas said, glancing affectionately up at his son. I suppose it cant do him any harm. Unlike whatll probably follow.

Russell knew what he meant. When theyd first become friends over ten years ago, he and Thomas had talked a lot about their experiences in the war. Both had friends whod survived the war in body, yet never recovered their peace of mind. And both knew that they themselves had been changed in ways that they would never fully understand. And that they had been the lucky ones.

Happy days, Russell murmured, and then laughed. We had a run-in with the SS last night, he said, and told Thomas the story.

He wasnt as amused as Russell expected. Shell go too far one of these days. The fragebogens just a piece of paper, after all. One day theyll take her in, tear it up, and the next thing you know her parents will be getting a bill for her burial. He shook his head. Being right doesnt count anymore.

I know, Russell said. She knows. But she does it so well.

A chorus of catcalls erupted around them: Viktoria Berlin were on their way out. As the two men got to their feet, Hertha emerged to a more affectionate welcome. Casting his eyes over the towering grandstand and the high crowded terraces behind each goal, Russell felt the usual surge of excitement. Glancing to his left, he saw that Pauls eyes mirrored his own.

The first half was all Hertha, but Viktoria scored the only goal on a breakaway just before the interval. Joachim seethed with indignation, while Paul yo-yoed between hope and anxiety. Thomas smoked two cigarettes.

The second half followed the same pattern, and there were only ten minutes left when Herthas inside-left was tripped in the penalty area. He took the penalty himself. The ball hit both posts before going in, leaving the crowd in hysterics. A minute from time, with evening falling and the light abruptly fading, Herthas center-forward raced onto a long bouncing ball and volleyed it home from almost thirty yards. The Viktoria goalkeeper hadn't moved. As the stadium exploded with joy he just stood there, making angry gestures at his teammates, the referee, the rest of the world.

Paul was ecstatic. Eyes shining, he joined in the chant now echoing round the arena: Ha! Ho! He! Hertha BSC! Ha! Ho! He! Hertha BSC!

For an eleven-year-old, Russell thought fondly, this was as good as it got.

IT WAS DARK BY the time he dropped Paul off. He took a 76 back into town, ate supper at a beer restaurant just off the Potsdamerplatz, and walked the last kilometer home. Reaching his street, he noticed what looked like the same empty car parked across from his apartment block. He was on his way to investigate it when he heard the scream.

It was no ordinary scream. It was loud and lingering, and it somehow managed to encompass surprise, terror, and appalling pain. For a brief instant, Russell was back in the trenches, listening to someone whod just lost a limb to a shell.

It came from further down the street.

He hesitated, but only long enough for his brain to register that hesitation as an essential corollary of living in Nazi Germany. All too often, screams meant officialdom, and experience suggested that officialdom was best avoided at such moments.

Still, investigating one seemed a legitimate practice, even in Nazi Germany. Not all crimes were committed by the state or its supporters. Russell walked resolutely on past the courtyard which his block shared with its neighbor, telling himself that valor was the better part of discretion.

The source of the disturbance was the further of the two blocks off the next courtyard. A couple of men were hovering in the entrance, obviously uncertain what to do. They eyed Russell nervously, and looked at each other when he asked them what was going on. Both were in their forties, and an obvious facial similarity suggested brothers.

In the courtyard beyond, an open-backed truck was parked with its engine running, and a single man in an SA uniform was walking toward them.

Keep moving, he told them, without any real conviction. His breath stank of beer.

But we live here, one of the two men said.

Just wait there, then, the stormtrooper said, looking up at the illuminated windows on the third floor. You might get some free entertainment, he added over his shoulder as he walked back toward the truck.

Seconds later, another bloodcurdling scream reverberated round the courtyard.

What in Gods name . . . ? Russell began. Who lives up there? he asked the two men.

Two actors, the older of the two replied.

Warmer bruder, the other added, hot brothers, the current slang for homosexuals. Theyve been brazen as hell. Someone must have denounced them. He didn't sound too upset about it.

No other lights were showing in either block, but Russell could almost feel the silent audience watching from behind the tiers of darkened windows. He thought about calling the police, but knew there was no point.

One of the illuminated windows was suddenly flung open, and a man appeared silhouetted against the opening, looking out and down. A crying, whimpering sound was now audible, and just as the man disappeared another scream split the night, even more piercing than the last. There was a flurry of movement inside the lighted room, and suddenly a naked body was flying out through the window, dropping, screaming, hitting the floor of the courtyard with a sickening, silencing thud. The body twitched once and lay still, as desperate, sobbing pleas of no, please, no leaked out of the open window. Another flurry, another naked body, this one twisting in flight like an Olympic diver whod mistaken concrete for water. There was no twitch this time, no last-second adjustment to death.

The two lay a couple of feet apart, in the thin pool of light thrown by the blocks entrance lamp. One man was face down, the other face up, with only a glistening mess where his genitals had been.

With a shock, Russell recognized the mans face. Hed seen himtalked to him evenat one of Effis theatrical gatherings. He had no memory of the mans name, but hed been nice enough. With a passion for Hollywood movies, Russell remembered. Katherine Hepburn in particular.

Shows over, the SA man was saying loudly. You saw it. They must have cut each others pricks off before they jumped. He laughed. You can go in now, he added.

Russells two companions looked like they were in shock. One started to say something, but no sound emerged, and the other just gave him a gentle push on the shoulder. They walked toward their door, giving a wide birth to the two corpses.

And you? the SA man shouted at Russell.

I was just passing, he said automatically.

Then keep moving, the SA man ordered.

Russell obediently turned and walked away, his eyes still full of the mutilated bodies. The bile in his stomach wouldn't stay down. Supporting himself against a lamppost he retched his supper into the gutter, then leaned against a wall, brain swirling with the usual useless rage. Another crime that would never be punished, another story that begged to be told.

And would he risk losing his son to tell it? No, he wouldn't.

And was he ashamed of his silence? Yes, he was.

He levered himself off the wall and walked slowly on toward his own courtyard and block. As he reached the entrance he remembered the empty car. It was gone.

Inside, Frau Heidegger seemed, as usual, to be waiting for him. What was all that noise about? she asked, then noticed his face. Herr Russell, you look like youve seen a ghost!

The SA came for a couple of homosexuals in the next block, he said. There seemed no point in giving her the gory details.

Oh, she said, shaking her head in involuntary denial. I know the men you mean. They . . . well . . . its not our business, is it? She ducked back inside her door and re-emerged with an unstamped envelope. This came for you. A plainclothes policeman delivered it this morning.

He opened it. The Gestapo wished to see him. Within three days.

They just want a chat, he reassured her. Something to do with my accreditation, I expect.

Ah, she said, sounding less than completely convinced.

Russell shared her misgivings. As he climbed the stairs, he told himself there was nothing to worry about. Theyd read his letter to the Soviets, and just wanted to clarify his intentions. If it was anything else, they wouldn't be delivering invitations and letting him pick the daytheyd be throwing him out of the window.

A frisson of fear shot across his chest, and his legs felt strangely unsteady. Suddenly the photographic book seemed like a very bad idea.

Ha ho bloody he, he muttered to himself.

The Knauer Boy

THE GESTAPOS INVITATION TO dance was still on Russells desk when he got up the following morning. One Sturmbannfuhrer Kleist was expecting to see John Russell in Room 48, 102 Wilhelmstrasse, within the next 72 hours. No explanation was offered.

It wasnt actually the Gestapo102 Wilhelmstrasse was the head-quarters of the Party intelligence organization, the Sicherheitsdienst. Though both were run by Reinhard Heydrich with a cheery disregard for legal niceties, the SD had a reputation for more sophisticated thuggerysame pain, cleaner floors.

He read the letter through again, looking for a more sinister message between the lines, and decided there was none. Shchepkin had said theyd want to talk to him, and they did. It was as simple as that. A friendly warning was waiting in Room 48, and nothing more. Sturmbannfuhrer Kleist would turn out to be a Hertha supporter, and they would chat about what had gone wrong this season.

Still, Russell thought as he shaved, there was no reason to hurry down there. He couldn't afford to miss the new Chancellery opening at noon, and there was no telling how long the various ceremonies would take. Tomorrow would do. Or even Wednesday.

Back in his room, he picked up the Leica and took a few imaginary photos. It had no flash, but Zembski had said the lens was good enough for indoor shooting as long as he held the camera steady. And he could always ask the Fuhrer for the loan of a shoulder.

Cheered by this thoughtfeeling, in fact, unreasonably buoyant for someone with an appointment at 102 Wilhelmstrassehe headed downstairs and out into the gray January morning. As if in response to his mood, a tram glided to a halt at the stop on Friedrichstrasse just as he reached it. Ten minutes later he was ensconced in a Cafe Kranzler window seat, enjoying a first sip of his breakfast coffee as he examined the morning papers.

Foreign Minister Ribbentrop had been talking to the visiting Polish leader, Colonel Becknow there were two men who deserved each other. The new battle cruiser Scharnhorst had been commissioned at Wilhelmshaven, complete with nine eleven-inch guns, two catapults, and three planes. The new captains main claim to fame was his shelling of a Spanish seaside town in 1937, while commanding the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer. On the home front, Pastor Martin Niemollers brother Wilhelm had delivered a sermon attacking government policy toward the churches. He had read a list from the pulpit of all those churchmenincluding his brothercurrently enjoying the states hospitality. The newspaper was not sure whether this constituted a crime: It has recently been established in certain cases, the editor wrote, that to read the names of persons in custody may itself be an offense.

On a more positive note, the French were demonstrating their usual sound sense of priorities. Parisian cinemas had been closed for a week in protest against a new tax on receipts, but a compromise had now been agreed: The taxes would remain in force, but would not be collected.

Russell smiled and looked out of the window, just in time to see two young women walk by, their faces shining with pleasure over some shared secret. The sun was struggling to emerge. Hitler had probably ordered it for noon; a few shafts of light would show off the medieval perfection of his new castle. Russell wondered how far Speer and his mentor had gone. Would it be the usual Greco-Roman monstrosity, or something more ambitious? A Parthenon decked out in runes, perhaps.

Another coffee brought the time to 11:45. He walked to the top of Wilhelmstrasse, and headed down past the Hotel Adlon and serried government buildings to the new Chancellery. After showing his journalists pass and invitation to a security guard, Russell took a photo of the crowd already gathering behind the cordon. The security guard glared at him, but did nothing else.

Russell joined the knot of privileged journalists and photographers already gathered around the entrance, almost all of whom he recognized. Somewhat to his surprise, Tyler McKinley was among them. My editor was keen, the young American said resentfully, as if nothing else could have persuaded him to bless Hitlers new building with his presence. Russell gave him an oh yeah? look and walked over to Jack Slaney, one of the longer-serving American correspondents. Russell had been in Slaneys office when the latters invitation had arrived, complete with an unsolicitedand presumably accidentalextra. Slaney had been good enough to pass it on: He had been a freelance himself in the dim distant past, and knew what this sort of exclusive could be worth.

A one-man band, he muttered, looking at Russells camera.

I prefer to think of myself as a Renaissance man, Russell told him, just as the doors swung open.

The fifty or so journalists surged into the lobby, where a shiny-looking toady from the Propaganda Ministry was waiting for them. There would be a short tour of the new building, he announced, during which photographs could be taken. The ceremonial opening would take place in the Great Hall at precisely 1:00 PM, and would be followed by a workers lunch for the thousands of people who had worked on the project.

There might be some meat, then, one American journalist muttered.

The toady led them back outside, and around the corner into Vosstrasse. Huge square columns framed the double-gated main entrance, which led into a large court of honor. Russell hung back to take a couple of photos before following his colleagues up a flight of steps to the reception hall. From there, bronze eagles clutching swastikas guarded fifteen-foot doors to a bigger hall clad in gray and gold tiles. The Fuhrer was unavailable, so Russell used Slaneys shoulder to steady the Leica.

More steps led to a circular chamber, another door into a gallery lined with crimson marble pillars. This, their guide told them, was, at 146 meters, twice as long as the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. And my mother told me size didn't matter, one journalist lamented in English. I expect your father had a whopper, another said, provoking an outburst of laughter. The ministry toady stamped his foot on the marble floor, and then took a quick look down to make sure he hadn't damaged it.

The next hall was big enough to build aircraft in. Several hundred people were already waiting for the official opening, but the space still seemed relatively empty, as if mere people were incapable of filling it. Though released by their ministry minder, the group of journalists stuck together in one corner, chatting among themselves as they waited for Hitlers entrance.

We used to have arms races, Slaney observed. Now we have hall races. Hitler had this built because he was so impressed by the size of Mussolinis office. And the moment Benito sees this hell have to have one in Rome thats even bigger. And theyll both keep outbidding each other until the world runs out of marble.

I have a feeling theyre building arms too, Dick Normanton said wryly, his Yorkshire accent sounding almost surreal in this setting. He was one of the veteran English correspondents, much pampered by the Propaganda Ministry. This was hardly his fault: Normanton had an acute understanding of where Nazi Germany was headed, and often said as much in his reporting. Unfortunately for him, his London proprietor admired Hitler, and made sure that his editor edited accordingly.

If youre interested in a horror show, he told Russell, try the University on Wednesday. Streichers inaugurating a new Chair of Anti-Jewish Propaganda and giving a speech. There should be some good Mad Hatter material.

Sounds suitably gruesome, Russell agreed.

What does? McKinley asked, joining them.

Normanton explained reluctantly: McKinley was not noted for his love of irony.

Why would anyone want to listen to Streicher? the American asked after Normanton had drifted away. Its not as if hes going to say anything interesting, is it?

I guess not, Russell agreed diplomatically, and changed the subject. What do you make of the building? he asked.

McKinley sighed. Its gross. In every meaning of the word, he added, looking round.

Russell found this hard to disagree with; the new Chancellery was indeed gross. But it was also impressive, in a disturbing sort of way. It might be a monument to Hitlers lack of aesthetic imagination, but it was also proof of intention. This was not the sort of building you could ignore. It meant business.

It was Russells turn to sigh. How was your weekend? he asked McKinley.

Oh, fine. I caught up on some work, saw a movie. And I went dancing at one of those halls off the Alexanderplatz. With one of the secretaries at the Embassy. He smiled in reminiscence, and looked about sixteen years old. And I saw a couple of people for that story I told you about, he added quickly, as if hed caught himself slacking.

You didn't actually tell me anything about it.

Ah. I will. In time. In fact I may need your help with. . . .

He was drowned out by an eruption of applause. Right arms shot toward the ceiling, as if some celestial puppeteer had suddenly flicked a finger. His Nibs had arrived.

Russell dutifully lined up the Leica and squeezed off a couple of shots. The Fuhrer was not in uniform and looked, as usual, like an unlikely candidate for leadership of a master race. One arm was stuck at half-mast to acknowledge the welcome, the mouth set in a selfsatisfied smirk. The eyes slowly worked their way around the room, placid as a lizards. This man will kill us all, Russell thought.

A builders mate in the traditional top hat of the German artisan his name, the toady had told them, was Max Hoffmanpresented Hitler with the keys to his new home. Flashbulbs popped; hands clapped. The Fuhrer volunteered a few words. He was, he said, the same person he had always been, and wished to be nothing more. Which means hes learned absolutely nothing, Slaney whispered in Russells ear.

And that was that. Moving like a formation dancing team, Hitler and his ring of bodyguards began mingling with the guests in the privileged section of the hall, the ring working like a choosy Venus flytrap, admitting chosen ones to the Presence and spitting them out again. Much to the interest of the watching journalists, the Soviet Ambassador was given by far the longest audience.

Fancy a drink? Slaney asked Russell. Two of the other Americans, Bill Peyton and Hal Manning, were standing behind him. Were headed over to that bar on Behrenstrasse.

Suits me, Russell agreed. He looked around for McKinley, but the youngster had disappeared.

The sun was still shining, but the temperature had dropped. The bar was dark, warm, and blessed with several empty tables. A huge bears head loomed over the one they chose, half-hidden in the dense layer of smoke which hung from the ceiling. Slaney went off to buy the first round.

Its hard to believe that Hitler got started in places like this, Manning said, lighting a cigarette and offering them round. He was a tall, thin man in his late forties with greying hair and thick black eyebrows in a cadaverous face. Like Slaney he was a veteran foreign correspondent, having worked his way up through Asian capitals and more obscure European postings to the eminence of 1939 Berlin. Peyton was youngersomewhere in his mid-thirties, Russell guessedwith clipped blond hair and a boyish face. He worked full-time for a national weekly and sold stuff to the business monthlies on the side.

Russell found Peyton irritatingly sure of himself, but he had soft spots for both Manning and Slaney. If Americans remained ignorant about Nazi Germany, it wouldn't be their fault.

So how do we tell this one, boys? Slaney asked once the beers had been passed round. Just another grand building? Or megalomania run riot?

New Lair For Monster, Manning suggested.

I like it, Slaney said, wiping froth off his nose. Adolf was getting chummy with Astakhov, wasnt he?

Manning agreed. And Astakhov was lapping it up. I think Stalins given up on the Brits and the French.

Russell remembered what Shchepkin had said on the subject. You can hardly blame him after Munich, he said mildly.

True, but you can hardly blame Chamberlain and Daladier for not trusting Stalin, Peyton said.

Bastards all, Slaney summed up. I see Chamberlains on his way to see the Ducehe pronounced it Dootchin Rome. On some train called the Silver Bullet.

Russell laughed. Its the Golden Arrow.

Whatever. A week with Mussolini. I hope he likes parades.

Whats he going for? Peyton asked.

God knows. Youd think that by now someone in London would have noticed that the Duce is a man of moods. If hes feeling good hell promise the world, set their Limey minds at rest. If he isnt, hell try and scare the pants off em. Whichever he does, hell be doing the opposite before the weeks out.

Pity his German chum isnt a bit more mercurial, Manning offered. Once he gets his teeth into something, it stays bitten.

Or swallowed, in the Jews case, Russell added. Why the hell isnt Roosevelt doing more to help the Jews here?

Hes building up the Air Corps, Peyton said. There was another announcement over the weekend.

Yes, but that wont help the Jews.

He cant, Slaney said. Too much domestic opposition.

Russell wasnt convinced. The British are doing something. Nothing like enough, I know. But something.

Two reasons, Manning said. One, and most importantthey just dont get it back in Washington. Or out in the boonies. When Americans think about German Jews having a hard time, the first thing they think about is what American Jews have to put up withrestricted golf clubs, stuff like that. When they realize that Hitler doesnt play golf, they still find it hard to imagine anything worse than the way we treat our negroes. Sure, the negroes are condemned to segregation and poverty, but lynchings are pretty rare these days, and the vast majority get a life thats just about livable. Americans assume its the same for the German Jews.

What about the concentration camps? Russell asked.

They just think of them as German prisons. A bit harsh, maybe, but lots of Americans think our prisons should be harsher. He shrugged and took a gulp of beer.

The second reason? Russell prompted.

Oh, thats easy. A lot of Americans just dont like Jews. They think theyre getting their comeuppance. If they had any idea just how harsh that comeuppance some of them might, might, have second thoughts, but they dont.

I guess thats down to us.

Us and our editors, Slaney said. Weve told the story often enough. People just dont want to hear it. And if you keep on and on about it they just turn off.

Europes far away, Manning said.

And getting farther, Slaney added. Jesus, lets think about something pleasant for a change. He turned to Russell. John, Im organizing a poker night for next Tuesday. How about it?

THE FOURSOME EMERGED INTO the daylight soon after 3:00, and went their separate waysPeyton to his mistress, Slaney and Manning to write their copy for the morning editions. Russell, walking south down Wilhelmstrasse, made the impulsive decision to drop in on Sturmbannfuhrer Kleist while he was still in the neighborhood. A small voice in his head protested that the Sicherheitsdienst was best encountered stone-cold sober, but it was promptly drowned out by a louder one insisting that there was nothing to be afraid of. The meeting was just a formality. So why not get it over with?

The fresh-faced blond receptionist seemed pleased enough to see him, gesturing him through to an anteroom with the sort of friendly smile that could soften up any man. Sunk into one of the leather chairs, Russell found himself staring at the latest product of the Propaganda Ministrys poster artists: Hitler complete with visionary stare and catchy sloganEIN VOLK, EIN REICH, EIN FUHRER. On the opposite wall a more colorful poster showed apple-cheeked youth frolicking in the Alps. That was the thing about these people, he thought: They never surprised you.

The minutes dragged by; the later pints of beer pressed ever-harder for release. He went back out to the receptionist, who pointed him in the direction of a toilet with the same sunny smile. The toilet was spotless and smelled as if it had just been hosed down with Alpine flowers. One of the cubicles was occupied, and Russell imagined Heydrich sitting with his breeches round his ankles, reading something Jewish.

Back in the ante-room he found company. A man in his sixties, smartly dressed. They exchanged nods, but nothing more. The man shifted nervously in his seat, causing the leather to squeak. Hitler stared at them both.

After about twenty minutes the sound of clicking heels seeped into the silence, and another young blonde appeared in the doorway. Herr John Russell? she enquired. Follow me, please.

They went down one long corridor, up some steps, down another corridor. All Russell could hear was the rhythmic click of the blondes shoes. No sounds escaped through the numerous doors they passed, no talk, no laughter, no typewriters. There was no sense that the building was empty, though, more a feeling of intense concentration, as if everyone was thinking fit to burst. Which, Russell realized, was absurd. Maybe the SD had a half-term break, like British schools.

Through the window on a second flight of stairs he caught a glimpse of a large lawn and the huge swastika flying over Hitlers new home. At the end of the next corridor the heels swung right through an open doorway.

Room 48 was not so much a room as a suite. The secretary led him through her high-ceilinged anteroom, opened the inner door, and ushered him in.

STURMBANNFUHRER GOTTFRIED KLEISTas the nameboard on the desk announcedlooked up, gestured him to the leather-bound seat on the near side of his leather-bound desk, and carried on writing. He was a stout man in denial, his black uniform just a little too tight for what it had to contain. He had a florid face, thinning hair and rather prominent red lips. He did have blue eyes, though, and his handwriting was exquisite. Russell watched the fountain pen scrape across the page, forming elegant whorls and loops from the dark green ink.

After what seemed like several minutes, Kleist carefully replaced the pen in its holder, almost daintily blotted his work and, after one last admiring look, moved it to the right hand side of his desk. From the left he picked up a folder, opened it, and raised his eyes to Russells. John Russell, he said. It wasnt a question.

You asked to see me, Russell said, with as much bonhomie as he could muster.

The Sturmbannfuhrer ran a hand through his hair, straightening a few rebellious wisps with his fingers. You are an English national.

With resident status in the Reich.

Yes, yes. I know. And a current journalistic accreditation.

Yes.

Could I see it please?

Russell removed it from his inside jacket pocket and passed it over.

Kleist noticed the invitation card. Ah, the opening, he said. A success, I assume. Were you impressed?

Very much so. The building is a credit to the Fuhrer.

Kleist looked sharply at Russell, as if doubtful of his sincerity.

So much modern architecture seems insubstantial, Russell added.

Indeed, Kleist agreed, handing back the press pass. Apparently satisfied, he sat back in his seat, both hands grasping the edge of his desk. Now, it has come to our attention that the Soviet newspaper Pravda has commissioned you to write a series of articles about the Fatherland. He paused for a moment, as if daring Russell to ask how it had come to their attention. This was at your suggestion, I believe.

It was.

Why did you suggest these articles, Mr. Russell?

Russell shrugged. Several reasons. All freelance journalists are always looking to place stories with whoever will buy them. And it occurred to me that the Soviets might be interested in a fresh look at National Socialist Germany, one that concentrates on what the two societies have in common, rather than what divides them. What I

Kleist stopped him with a raised hand. Why did you think this would interest the Soviets?

Russell took his time. Soviet propaganda has generally been very hostile toward the Reich, he began. And by taking this course, they have backed themselves into a corner. Theres no doubt that Germany is the rising power in Europe, and the Sovietslike everyone elsewill sooner or later have to deal with that reality. But as things stand at the moment, their own people would not understand a more ... a more accommodating attitude toward the Reich. The articles I propose would prepare the ground, so to speak. They would help in restoring the Soviet governments freedom of movement, allow them to act in concert with the Reich if and when the two states interests coincide.

Kleist looked thoughtful.

And I see such articles as a contribution to peace, Russell went on, hoping he wasnt over-egging the pudding. I fought in the last war, and I have no desire to see another. If nations and governments understand each other, theres less chance well all blunder into one.

Kleist smiled. I dont think theres much chance of the Fuhrer blundering into anything, he said. But I take your point. And we have no objection to your articles, subject to certain conditions. These are sensitive subjectsIm sure youd agree. And while you are English, you are also living in the Reich under our protection. Your views would not be seen as official views, but they would be seen as views we are prepared to tolerate. You understand me? Whatever you write could be construed as having our blessing.

Russell felt anxious for the first time. Yes. . . . he said hesitantly.

So, you see, it follows that we cannot permit you to write anything that we violently disagree with. Your articles will have to be pre-submitted for our approval. I am sure, he added, that this will only be a formality.

Russell thought quickly. Should he at least recognize the implied dismissal of his journalistic integrity, or just play the cynic? He opted for the practical approach. This is unusual, but I see your point, he said. And I have no objection, provided that your office can approveor disapprovethe articles quickly. The first one is due in a couple of weeks, and at fortnightly intervals after thatso, a couple of days. . . .

That will not be a problem. Nothing gathers dust here.

Kleist looked pleased, and Russell had the sudden realization that the SD were as eager to see these articles as Shchepkin and his people. He decided to go for broke. Sturmbannfuhrer, could I make a request? In order to write these articles I shall need to travel a great deal around the Reich, and talk to a lot of people. I shall be asking them questions which they may find suspicious, coming, as they will, from a foreigner. A letter from this office confirming my credentials, and stating that I have permission to ask such questions, would be very useful. It would save a lot of time talking to local officials, and might help me avoid all sorts of time-consuming difficulties.

Kleist looked momentarily off-balancethis was not in his scriptbut he soon recovered. He scratched his cheek and rearranged his hair again before answering. That seems a reasonable request, he said, but Ill have to consult with my superiors before issuing such a letter. He looked down at his pen, as if imagining the pleasure of writing it out.

Is there anything else? Russell asked.

Just one thing. Your business with the Sovietsyou are conducting it by post, I presume?

So far, Russell agreed, hoping to God that Kleist knew nothing of his meeting with Shchepkin. Though of course I may have to use the phone or the wire service at some point.

Mm. Let me be frank with you, Mr. Russell. If, in the course of your dealings with the Soviets, you learn anything of their intentions, their capabilities, we would expect you to pass such information on.

Youre asking me to spy for you?

No, not as such. Mr. Russell, youve lived in Germany for many years. . . .

Almost fourteen.

Exactly. Your son is a German boy, a proud member of the Hitler Youth, I believe.

He is.

So presumably you feel a certain loyalty to the Reich.

I feel affection, and gratitude. I am not a great believer in loyalty to countries or governments.

Ah, you were a communist once, I believe.

Yes, but so was Mussolini. A lot of people were in the early Nineteen-twenties. Like Mussolini, I got over it. My loyalty or lack of it. . . . Sturmbannfuhrer, what would you think of a German who, after a decade spent in England, proclaimed his loyalty to the English King? I suspect you would consider him a traitor to the Fatherland.

I. . . .

I have a German son, Russell ploughed on. I have an American mother, and I had an English father. I was brought up in England. Insofar as I am able, I am loyal to all three countries.

But not to the Soviets?

No.

So if a Soviet contact told you of a threat to the Reich, you would not keep it to yourself.

I would not.

Very well. Then I think our business is concluded. Kleist stood up and offered his hand across the desk. If you get the articles to me, either by hand or post, I will guarantee to return them within twenty-four hours. Will that suffice?

It will.

Then good day to you. Fraulein Lange will see you back to the entrance.

She did. Russell followed the clicking heels once more, picked up his coat from the smiling receptionist, and found himself out on the Wilhelmstrasse pavement. It was dark. In more ways than one.

TUESDAY WAS CLEAR AND COLD. Walking down to the U-bahn at Hallesches Tor, Russell was more conscious of the icy wind from the east than any theoretical warmth from the sun. At the studio in Neukolln he waited while Zembski shouted at someone through the phone, and then persuaded the Silesian to develop his film that day. Back at the U-bahn station he bought the Tageblatt and Allgemeine Zeitung at a kiosk and skimmed through their accounts of the Chancellery opening as he waited for a train. As far as he could tell, hed seen all there was to see.

The only other items of interest were the imminent departure of Reichsbank President Schacht, the Danzig stamp rowwhich had finally reached the German nationalsand the unsurprising news that US government spokesmen were less than impressed by the Nazis latest idea of sending all the Jews to either Manchuria or Alaska.

Back at Neuenburgerstrasse Russell settled down to work. If you had a green light from the SD, he noted cynically, it probably paid to get moving. First off, he needed a list of topics for Pravda. What was so great about Nazi Germany if you didn't like flags and blood in the gutter? Full employment, for one. A national sense of well-being. Workers benefits, up to a point. Cheap organized leisure activitiessport, culture, travel. All these came at a cost, and only, needless to say, to Aryans, but there was something there. As an English advertising man had once told him, there had to be something in the product that was worth having.

What else? Health care was pretty good for the curable. And transportthe rocket trains, the autobahns and the peoples car, the new flying-boats and aeroplanes. The Nazis loved modernity when it speeded things up or made them simpler, hated it when it complicated things, or made it harder for them to live in their medieval mind-set. Einstein being Jewish was most convenient.

He could write something perceptive about Nazi Germany if he had the mind to, Russell thought. Unfortunately. . . .

He could write these articles in his sleep. Or almost. The Soviets liked lots of statisticssomething they shared with the Nazisand that would involve a little work. But not much. Shchepkins oral reports on the other hand. . . .

Hed been trying not to think about them. Kleists question about other contacts had also been intended as a warninghe was sure of that. And the Soviets expected him to meet one of their agents outside Germany once a month. Which would no doubt make things safer for the agent, but how was he supposed to explain this new and oddly regular penchant for foreign travel? Could he refuse this part of the Soviet job? He suspected not. He wasnt sure how the Soviets would make any hard feelings felt, but he was sure theyd manage it somehow.

Nor did he feel that happy about wandering round Germany asking questions, even if Kleist did come up with some sort of protective letter. He supposed he could invent any number of imaginary responseshow, after all, could the Soviets check up on him? Then again, who knew what was left of the communist network in Germany? And in any case, part of him liked the idea of finding out what ordinary Germans were feeling in Year Six of Hitlers thousand.