Masaryk Station (John Russell) (19 page)

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He was shocked, but knew he shouldn’t be—it wasn’t the first time she’d proved she could look after herself. ‘So what did you think of Shchepkin?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. He seemed so wan and sad, but I don’t imagine he takes many prisoners.’

‘No, probably not.’

‘But the really big news,’ Effi said, sitting up against the headboard and pulling the sheet across her lower body, ‘is Zarah.’

‘She’s going to marry Bill and live in America,’ Russell suggested.

‘How did you guess?’

‘I saw it coming months ago. I’ve just been hoping you wouldn’t be too upset.’

‘Well of course I’m upset! But then I know I mustn’t be, because he’s just what Zarah needs.’

‘He is, isn’t he? You know I’ve got to like your sister, after all those years of just putting up with her.’

‘I think she’s almost grown fond of you,’ Effi said.

He smiled. ‘And how’s Rosa?’

‘You can see for yourself.’ She had decided not to tell Russell about the picture just yet—she wanted to see if he noticed anything different about his adopted daughter over the next couple of days. ‘But what about you? You seemed to like Trieste for the first few weeks, but lately …’

‘There’s nothing wrong with Trieste. It’s the people I deal with.’ He described his work as an interpreter, recounted the fun and games in Belgrade, but spared her the details of Palychko’s demise.

‘But you’re writing, too?’

‘Oh, yes. But the story I’m on is hardly uplifting.’

‘But the fact that you’re writing it may be.’

He grinned. ‘That’s one of the reasons I love you. One of many.’

She slid back down to snuggle up against him. ‘Tell me some of the others.’

They spent the weekend roaming the island, only venturing off it once to visit nearby Tocello and its 7th-century cathedral. Otherwise they punctuated gondola rides and rambles through the narrow streets with long rests in coffee shops and restaurants. Their favourite haunt was a café in the Piazza San Marco, where they could simply sit and soak it all in—the beautiful buildings, the music from café phonographs, the square full of people and pigeons. Rosa sat with her sketchpad whenever they gave her the chance, drawing many a
compliment from passers-by. But the views that had inspired Canaletto didn’t call to her; she drew people against barely realised backgrounds, which could have been anywhere. Or indeed nowhere.

‘So how have you found her?’ Effi asked Russell on their last night.

He considered. ‘More grown-up,’ he decided. ‘I’ve only been away for three months, but she seems to have aged more than that. Not physically. Emotionally, I suppose.’

Effi told him about the drawing and her subsequent conversation with Rosa.

His instinct told him there was nothing to worry about, but he trusted hers more. ‘Have you stopped her seeing those children?’ he asked.

‘How can I? She spent three years hidden away with her mother—I can’t keep her locked up in the flat. And there’s nothing wrong with the children she plays with—I’ve talked to them—they’re just normal kids who don’t have the sort of home life that we took for granted. Zarah thinks they’re actually more resilient.’

‘She might be right,’ Russell said. ‘I never thought your sister was the brightest spark in the universe, but she’s done a great job with Lothar.’

‘She has, hasn’t she? So you don’t think there’s any reason to worry?’

He grunted. ‘There’s always that. But if you hadn’t said anything, well, she seems fine to me. And frankly, given her history, I expected a lot more problems than those we’ve actually had.’

‘You never said that before.’

‘Why tempt fate?’

‘Why indeed? Speaking of which, there’s another secret I’ve been keeping. The day before we left I had a visitor from Hollywood—or to be precise, from a Hollywood company that’s making a film in Berlin. The director wants me in his next movie.’

‘In Berlin?’

‘In Los Angeles.’

‘Wow.’

‘Yes, wow.’

‘Do you want to go?’

‘I don’t know. Yes for the experience. And yes for Rosa—once I was worried about moving her around too much, but she loved coming here, and getting her out of Berlin would, er—’

‘Nip any possible problems in the bud,’ Russell cut in.

‘Exactly.’

‘But?’

‘You know the but. I miss you, and the idea of taking off for weeks or even months the moment you come back is …’

‘Not good,’ Russell finished for her. He smiled. ‘Maybe the Soviets need a spy in Hollywood. And I’m sure the Americans would like someone on the inside, telling them which actors are secret communists.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘Only a little. Effi, I think you should go. For one film, anyway. It might be good for Rosa—who knows?—but in any case I’m sure she’ll love it. And it’s too good a chance for you to pass up.’

‘I don’t know,’ Effi said again. ‘You know, I actually thought life would get back to normal after the war.’

‘You weren’t the only one.’

‘This film won’t happen before September,’ she added. ‘And I’m not missing Paul’s wedding.’

‘He would be upset.’

Lying awake an hour or so later, it occurred to Russell that one of his oldest dreams had finally had come true—he was sleeping with a Hollywood actress.

It was raining next morning, which suited their mood, because nobody wanted to leave. They got wet in the water taxi, and then had to dry out the Balilla, because no one had thought to put the roof up. But at least the car was there—Russell had woken up fearing that someone had stolen it, and wondering how he would get them both home.

A gorgeous rainbow appeared as they drove out of the city, and by the time they reached Treviso the sun was draped across the mountains ahead. As they approached the Aviano airbase, Rosa leaned forward and suggested that Russell ‘just come home’ with them.

‘I’d love to,’ he told her, ‘but I can’t. I’ll be back soon, though,’ he promised, hoping it was true.

‘And you have to take the car back,’ Rosa remembered.

‘Good thing you reminded me.’

They were an hour ahead of schedule, but the DC-3 was already waiting, the pilots anxious to leave at once.

‘You two look after each other,’ he shouted after Effi and Rosa as they climbed the steps, but he doubted if they heard him over the noise of the engines. They waved once, and disappeared inside, the door slamming shut behind them. Without much more ado, the plane accelerated off down the short runway, rose sharply into the air, and took a long climbing turn towards the mountains. Russell watched it shrink in size and finally disappear, before plunking himself back behind the Balilla’s wheel with a heartfelt groan.

Russell arrived back in Trieste early that evening, returned the car to its reluctant owner, and took a tram along the waterfront to the Piazza dell Unità. Feeling less than ravenous, he eschewed the San Marco for once, and opted for one of the Caffé degli Specchi’s famous toasted sandwiches. The place seemed more full of couples than usual, but after the weekend he was probably just more conscious of being alone.

Outside a huge orange sun was sinking into the sea. He walked back across the darkening Piazza Cavana, where traditional red lights glowed in half a dozen windows, and sun-tanned British soldiers loitered in groups, noisily drinking beer and sizing up the local whores. Travel back two thousand years in a time machine, Russell thought, and only the details—clothing, drinking receptacles, weapons—would be different. The Roman legion back from Judaea had become the East Staffordshires on their way home from Palestine.

Five minutes later, Russell was climbing the stairs to his room. It wasn’t much past eight, but he felt exhausted, and only just summoned the energy to take off his shoes and trousers. The last thing he noticed before sleep overtook him was the moon peeking around his window frame.

It was gone when he woke, the sound of a blast ringing in his ears, a ghostly haze of plaster dust clouding the room.

Silence followed; the silence of the deaf, he realised.

He clambered out of the plaster-strewn bed, reached for his trousers, and pulled them on. The dust was thicker out on the long narrow landing, but was already settling on the threadbare throws which lined the floor. The door to his old room had been blown across the head of the stairs, and through the gap where it had hung he could see a yellow streetlight. The room’s outer wall had all but vanished.

And so, he discovered, had the floor. What was left of the bed had fallen into the room below, and the glinting mess at its centre was presumably Skerlić’s torso. Daylight would find the rest of him glued to the walls, Russell surmised.

He dimly heard shouting; his ears were beginning to recover. People were trying to get into the room below but something was blocking the door. And now he heard a thin mewling sound coming from directly below him. There was at least one person under the fallen floor.

He hurried downstairs to join those carting debris out into the street, and watched as three of Marko’s daughters were carried out. It was the girls he’d taken for the ride only four days before. Two were still breathing, their faces covered in cuts and bruises. Sasa’s face, by contrast, was completely untouched, but a falling beam had stove in her chest, and crushed the life from her body.

An ambulance bell was tolling in the distance.

‘He said he was a professor,’ Marko was half-shouting, half-crying. ‘But who blows up professors? He lied to me, he must have done.’

Russell doubted it. The Croats had assumed he was still in his old room, had waited until he returned from Venice, and then detonated their bomb. They hadn’t meant to kill any Serbs, but they hadn’t much cared if they did.

He had got Sasa killed. He and all the others like him, playing their ridiculous games.

Bearers of light

A
fter taking Rosa to school on Tuesday morning, Effi walked home intent on sorting out her professional life. The first task was to finish reading the Hollywood script, and this took her the rest of the morning.

It had what she considered the usual Hollywood weaknesses—a tendency to sentimentalise, and the habit of assuming that only regular outbreaks of violence would keep the audience interested. But overall she liked it, and a director as good as Gregory Sinfield would doubtless make it better. If she wanted a reason to turn them down, she would have to look elsewhere.

Nothing had come from RIAS, so she called Alfred Henninger on the telephone. He was most apologetic, but had no news. ‘I’m sure the series will go ahead,’ he said. ‘It’s just a matter of when.’

Which wasn’t very helpful. With three hours to spare before Rosa’s return, she walked down to Zoo Station and took a tram to the Elisabeth, hoping that Annaliese would have a few moments to spare. As it turned out, it was her friend’s half-day off, and Effi only just caught her leaving for home.

Gerhard had left for Rugen Island and some sort of Party conference, and Annaliese was happy to share a walk along the Landwehrkanal and into the slowly reviving Tiergarten. After one botched effort, the British had finally succeeded in blowing up the huge flak towers that had sullied the landscape for almost seven years, and the
park’s trees, decimated by bombings and the desperate need for firewood, were springing back to life. It seemed to Effi as if the city’s lungs were beginning to breathe again.

She asked Annaliese if she any ‘political news’, their code for the rumours and gossip that Ströhm brought home from work.

‘None,’ she said. ‘Either the Russians are biding their time or they’ve decided the Americans won’t be scared into leaving.’

‘Which does Gerhard think?’

‘That they can’t make their minds up. He doesn’t believe they have a plan. He thinks they just react to whatever their enemies do. So as long as no one provokes them, they’ll be reasonable.’

‘Why should the Americans provoke them?’

Annaliese shrugged. ‘God only knows. I just wish they’d all go home.’

Russell played the innocent over the next twenty-four hours, as the local police, under the none-too-subtle supervision of the Allied authorities, carried out their investigation. Two visits from Dempsey kept him informed of their progress in concocting a politically acceptable narrative. The bomb had apparently been planted by ‘remnants of the Ustashe’, as part of an ongoing cycle of revenge attacks that went back at least to the war and probably a thousand years further. If Skerlić hadn’t been a philosopher in this life, Russell thought sourly, he would surely be one in the next.

‘He must have been a spy,’ the hosteller kept saying, loading the three-letter word with enough contempt to sink one of the cruisers out in the harbour. One of the surviving daughters had lost an eye, the other had two badly broken legs, but they would both live. The building, on closer inspection, was less badly damaged than might have been expected. Russell’s old room needed reconstruction, but
those around it hadn’t been that badly damaged. None of the guests had had to leave.

On Wednesday afternoon, a car came to take Russell up to the villa, where Youklis and Dempsey were both waiting on the pine-scented terrace. ‘It was Croat
Križari
,’ Youklis told him. ‘And they were definitely after you. Would you like to tell us why?’