Lehrter Station (12 page)

‘This is my husband Fritz,’ she told them. ‘And this is Effi,’ she told him.

‘I thought it might be,’ he said with a grin.

‘And Herr Russell,’ Ali said, giving him a hug too. They hadn’t seen each other since 1941, when she was still living with her parents. In those days she had worn her dark hair long – now it barely reached her shoulder.

She ushered them into a large and cosy living room. There were two desks with typewriters, books and newspapers everywhere. ‘So everything turned out for the best,’ Ali said, still smiling. ‘You always said it would.’

Effi sighed. ‘I did, didn’t I?’ It sounded like a strange thing to say in November 1945, but she knew what Ali meant.

‘Look,’ Ali said, ‘we have a meeting to go to soon, but can you come for dinner tomorrow? Where are you living? Where have you been all this time?’

She looked terrific, Effi thought. ‘England,’ she said. ‘We only just got back. We’re staying at our friend Thomas’s house in Dahlem. It’s not that far from here. What have you been doing? How did you get this flat?’

‘Oh, the flat’s part of the guilt package. We Jews get priority now. It used to belong to a Nazi official, and he’s either dead or in a camp…’

‘Or in South America,’ Fritz added wryly.

‘Whatever. We burned his books,’ she added with a giggle. ‘He had three copies of
Mein Kampf
, one for here, one in the bedroom, and one beside the toilet.’ She shook her head. ‘They kept us warm for a couple of hours while we worked.’

Russell had noticed the stacks of SPD leaflets. ‘Are you working for the Social Democrats?’

‘Yes, there’s a committee tonight.’

‘Ah, I’d be interested in talking to you both about that. Off the record, of course.’

Ali looked surprised, as if she’d forgotten that he was a journalist. ‘But if you were both safe in England, why have you come back? Life in Berlin is pretty dreadful, and I can’t see it getting any better before the spring.’

‘We’re here to work,’ Effi said. ‘I’m doing a film. Well, probably. If it ever gets started. And you remember Rosa?’

‘Of course. The girl the Swede sent us. I always felt bad about leaving you then.’

‘You shouldn’t have. We survived, and I fell in love with her. She’s in England with my sister. We know her mother’s dead, but I need to find out what happened to her father.’

‘Oh. Well, I can probably help you there. There must be someone I know in every Jewish organisation in Berlin. I’ll give you a list of names and addresses. And you should leave notices wherever you go. And in the papers. They’re even reading messages out on the Russian radio station now. These days Berlin’s like a huge missing persons bureau.’ She grinned at Effi. ‘It’s so good to see you again. When we were living together on Bismarckstrasse, I used to dream about this moment – when the war was over, and there was nothing to fear, and people to love and laugh with.’

‘She talked a lot about you,’ Fritz volunteered. ‘And you too,’ he added, including Russell. ‘You must have known the family.’

‘I did. They really are dead then?’
‘Oh yes,’ Ali said, almost matter-of-factly. ‘I found their names on one of the Auschwitz lists last summer. But I’d known for years, ever since the first stories reached Berlin.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Russell said. ‘They were wonderful people.’

‘Yes, they were. For a long time I was really angry with them. With my father for being so stupidly optimistic, with my mother for indulging him. But then those were the things I loved about them.’ She sighed. ‘And now they’re gone.’ She smiled at Fritz. ‘And we have our lives to live. Three of them soon – I’m four months pregnant.’

‘Oh, that’s wonderful,’ Effi burst out, and the two women embraced again. Both were in tears, Russell noticed. He felt like crying himself.

‘W
e need more clothes,’ Effi said plaintively. ‘I’m wearing almost everything I brought with me.’

A wintry sun was shining in through the window, but the air inside the bedroom was cold enough to show their breath, and leaving the nest of blankets was a deeply uninviting prospect.

Soon after waking, Russell had shivered his way downstairs to brew some tea, and they’d spent the last hour reading through Effi’s new script. It was a ritual they’d shared in pre-war days – making a mockery of the Nazi-inspired storylines had been amusing in itself, and, as Russell later came to realise, a way of rendering Effi’s participation in the whole process more palatable than it might otherwise have been. But those days, as ‘The Man I Shall Kill’ made abundantly clear, were over. This storyline was far too apposite to mock, and no apologies were needed for turning it into a film.

The story itself was simple enough – an army surgeon returns to Berlin after service in the East, and seeks refuge in alcohol from the many terrible things he has seen. His own apartment has been destroyed in the bombing, so he moves into one that hasn’t, little knowing that the female owner – Effi’s character – is on her way home after years of imprisonment in a concentration camp. When she arrives back, he refuses to leave, and they eventually agree to share the space. Their relationship is slowly blossoming into love when he learns that his former CO, the man who ordered their unit to murder over a hundred Polish women and children,
is living nearby. And that far from paying for his crimes, the CO has reinvented himself as a successful businessman. Despite the pleas of the woman, the surgeon decides to kill him.

In this script he succeeded, but an additional note said the final section was being re-written. ‘Which makes sense,’ Russell thought out loud. ‘I’d have you stop him. More drama, and a better political message. The civilised way, not the Nazi way. Bring the bastard to trial. And then kill him.’

‘Maybe,’ Effi said. ‘It would certainly help my part. My character’s really strong, really interesting, for the first two reels, and then she turns into a helpless bystander.’

‘Not your role in life.’

‘Not in films. At least, not when I have any say in the matter. But it could be a good film, don’t you think?

‘It could. And should be. A good sign, I’d say.’

‘Yes.’ Effi reached across to look at her watch. ‘Oh hell. I have to get up – my script meeting starts at ten. What are you doing today?’

‘I’ll probably play the journalist for an hour or so. And then I’m off to the Soviet zone.’

‘Off to see the wizard?’ she asked. They had taken Rosa to
The Wizard of
Oz in London.

‘Shchepkin? No. If I sign in at the Housing Office on Neue Königstrasse I should see him tomorrow. But while I’m in the neighbourhood I might drop in on Thomas at the printing works. And then see if Uwe Kuzorra’s still working at the Alex. I’d like to thank him for saving my life.’

‘Thank him for me,’ Effi said. ‘I think I’d have missed you.’

After they parted, Russell’s first stop-off was at the American Press Camp on Argentinischeallee. Over coffee in the canteen he eavesdropped on several conversations, but the Austrian election results and their significance for Berlin were not among the topics under discussion – the
young journalists seemed focussed on the imminent arrival of a baseball star whom Russell had never heard of. This was depressing, and checking out the mechanics of reporting from Berlin offered little in the way of solace. As far as he could see the current crop of American foreign correspondents were simply appending their by-lines to stories which the occupation authorities had already chosen and virtually written. His old American colleague Jack Slaney would have been appalled.

Filing stories to London was not something the Americans could assist him with. And he didn’t think the British authorities would be that eager to help, not now he’d taken out American citizenship. Dallin would have to sort it out, whenever he could bring himself to see the wretched man. There was no hurry. As Slaney had once told him, stories that thrilled or titillated lasted a matter of hours, but news that really mattered usually lasted years.

He took the U-Bahn from Oskar-Helene-Heim to Wittenbergplatz, and changed there for Alexanderplatz. He had a seat on the first train, and managed to read what little there was of the
Allgemeine Zeitung
. Most of the news was foreign, and he found it hard to imagine that Berliners were overly concerned with events beyond their city. His second train was slow, crowded, and extremely pungent. The long unexplained waits in the tunnels were nightmarish, particularly when accompanied by the not-so-distant sounds of explosions.

Alexanderplatz was a relief, even with the giant poster of Stalin and his usual murderous smirk. The Red Army was much in evidence, and the sight of officers and men enjoying each other’s company made Russell more conscious of the British and American obsession with hierarchy. As if to correct the impression, a Soviet general drove slowly by in an immaculate Horch 930V, looking this way and that to make sure he was being noticed. The woman beside him looked equally pleased with herself, and was probably his wife. Unlike their British and American counterparts Soviet officers were allowed to bring their spouses with them.

The Alex was still standing, its turrets and roof somewhat the worse for wear, rather in the manner of a prize-fighter proudly exhibiting a badly
bruised crown and torn ears. But first he needed to visit the designated Housing Office, which was a couple of hundred metres up Neue Königstrasse. He walked up past a troop of women shifting rubble, and a trio of young men in ragged uniforms. Two of the men were on crutches, having each lost a leg. The third was leaning on a blind man’s cane.

There was a long queue inside the Housing Office, but it moved faster than Russell expected, and a German official was soon examining the papers that the Soviet embassy in London had given him. The man gave him an almost sympathetic glance, as if he knew what Russell’s presence portended. ‘You will be hearing from us in due course,’ he said eventually, for want of anything more convincing.

Back on the pavement outside, Russell watched as another pathetic clutch of returning POWs straggled by in the middle of the road. As a Soviet jeep approached from the opposite direction, it seemed to take all their energy to step out of its path, and one man proved too slow. Clipped by the front wing of the vehicle, he tumbled to the ground. The Red Army driver shouted abuse over his shoulder and kept going, leaving the man to slowly pick himself up. His comrades plodded on, offering no help.

Russell made his way back to the Alex, and went in through the old No.1 doors on Dircksenstrasse. There was less frenzied activity than he remembered, the faces younger but no less hard. Which was hardly surprising – in Soviet eyes, the German police force would have been irredeemably tarnished by its close association with the Nazi state. Most of the old guard would be gone, replaced by those young or politically reliable enough to satisfy the new masters. The Soviets had their own police HQ in the south-eastern outskirts, but their presence here was no less real for being invisible.

The desk sergeant was one of the few older faces, but denied any knowledge of Kriminalinspecktor Uwe Kuzorra. He suggested a personnel office on the other side of the inner courtyard, but no one there could be of any help. All the police files had disappeared, one young man told Russell. He seemed pleased by the loss, implying that it offered a welcome break with the past.

For the criminals too, Russell thought but didn’t say.

He went in search of Kuzorra’s old office, where he’d first heard the news that the Gestapo were after him. No one challenged his presence
en route
, but when he reached what seemed the right corridor, all of the likely offices lay empty. There were secretaries in two rooms further along, but neither recalled the detective’s name.

Russell traced his way back to the outside world. Kuzorra might have retired soon after their last meeting in 1941. He – and the possibility was chilling – might have been arrested, even executed, for his part in helping Russell escape. Then again, he was more likely to have been killed by a bomb or a shell, like a hundred thousand other Berliners. But whatever his fate, it seemed strange that no one remembered him in the place where he’d spent his working life.

Russell wondered what to do. His main reason for seeking out Kuzorra was to thank him, but he had also nursed a vague hope that the detective would still be working, and in a position to offer him some help. The old Kuzorra could have provided a rundown of what made the new Berlin tick, and what stories were crying out for investigation. He would also have known how best to mount a search for missing Jews.

Maybe he’d retired at the end of the war – he had to be nearly seventy. If so, and if his building had survived, he would probably still be living on Demminer Strasse, which was only a short ride away on the U-Bahn. Or had been in better times. Descending the steps at Alexanderplatz station, he discovered that an unexploded bomb had been found in the tunnels, and the service north suspended.

Back on the surface, he thought about taking a bus, but the first one that came was so tightly packed that only two of the waiting crowd could get on. He supposed he could walk, but what was the point when tomorrow would do just as well?

The problems besetting public transport reminded him he’d once owned a car. Like most private vehicles, it had been forced off the road by war regulations and the acute fuel shortage. Russell had left the Hanomag at the garage where he’d bought it, from Miroslav Zembski’s
cousin Hunder. And if it hadn’t fallen victim to high explosives, the car might still be waiting for him. Ordinary Berliners were still forbidden to drive, and petrol was almost impossible to come by, but he was officially an American, and one of his spymasters might like the idea of motorising their favourite agent. It had to be worth a shot.

This flight of fancy sustained him throughout the S-Bahn ride to Lehrter Station, and down several streets of ruined workshops and small factories. But then came disappointment – Hunder Zembski’s yard had not survived its proximity to the nearby railway sheds. The gates were still standing but little else, and the packed lot he remembered from 1941 resembled a wreckers’ yard.

Clambering gingerly across a skein of twisted metal, he headed for where he’d parked the Hanomag, but that corner of the yard had obviously taken a direct hit, and all he could find was a jumble of pulverised brick and metal shards. If the car had not been moved beforehand, it never would be now.

He made his way back to Lehrter Station. A train was noisily pulling in, and he used a gap in the fence to get a better view. The locomotive was pulling cattle cars rather than coaches, and the waiting platform was lined with soldiers, nurses and men with armbands who Russell assumed were refugee agency officials. When the doors were opened people burst violently out, as if they’d been held in under pressure. The shoulders of one arrival visibly sagged as he took in the jagged skyline that lay beyond the roofless station. Could this be Berlin?

Around the station a sprawling refugee camp had grown up. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people living in burnt-out offices, overturned wagons and any niche that a sheet of corrugated iron could roof over. As he looked back at the train, the first of many stretchers was lifted down from the cattle cars. Each bore a human load, but none showed signs of life.

Russell remembered the nights in 1941, when he and Gerhard Ströhm had watched trains like these leaving Berlin with their cargo of Jews for ‘resettlement’. The cattle cars looked the same, but this time the cargo
was German. These families had been driven from the old Junker heartlands in the east by the victorious Russians and Poles. They had paid the bill for Hitler with their loved ones and their homes.

His reporter’s instinct told him two things – that this was a huge story, and one that the victors would rather not read. Ninety-nine per cent of these refugees would be innocent of any serious crime, but as far as the world was concerned, being German was guilt enough, and any such suffering thoroughly deserved.

For Effi, entering Ernst Dufring’s house in Schmargendorf was like stepping into a time machine. The hall was plastered with framed movie posters from the golden age of German cinema, the huge living room a shrine to Bauhaus interior design. Even the other actors seemed wellfed, with none of the yellow-grey pallor that characterised most Berliner faces. Only the shell-shattered spire of the church across the street offered proof of the war just fought and lost.

Effi had wondered what sort of reception she would receive, but everyone seemed pleased to have her on board. And more than happy in general, as if they’d just won top prize in a national sweepstake. In a way they had, she supposed. The people in this room were pioneers, the first movie-makers of the new Germany.

The writer Ute Faeder, a tall blonde in her forties with a wry sense of humour, explained some changes she had made in the script, and Dufring then listed the scenes they would run through that morning. He looked much older than Effi remembered, but there was no doubting his enthusiasm for making this particular movie. ‘I know you’ve only just received the script,’ he told Effi, ‘but do your best.’

Her confidence increased as the morning passed, but nailing this character was going to be hard. She wasn’t sure why her character let the man stay on in her flat; she only knew that Lilli’s own experiences in the camp had made it impossible for her to evict him. But what experiences, and how could Effi access them? Her week in a cell at
the Gestapo’s Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse HQ had certainly been frightening, but she hadn’t gone hungry, hadn’t been physically abused. Lilli, by contrast, had endured years of the worst that the Nazis could offer. How could Effi make sense of her psyche? She needed to talk to people with such experiences, she thought. If she was going to play this role with any conviction, she needed to hear their stories.