Silesian Station (2008) jr-2

by David Downing

  'But they didn't. They just told me to get some shoes on and come with them. Once I was ready they told me not to speak until we reached their car.' She grimaced. 'And now we know why. They didn't want the neighbours to know.'

  She looked down at her feet and then up again. 'They told me nothing. They took me to a room in the basement where an old hag watched me change into that grey outfit, and then they took me to the cell. I had a bucket of water to wash with. No soap. I had another bucket to pee in. They emptied that twice a day. I was never questioned, never told why I was there.

  'It doesn't sound bad, does it? I wasn't hurt. I didn't go hungry or thirsty. The thing was - they would come for other people at all times of the day and night. You'd hear the bootsteps, the bolts pulling back, the door swinging open, the shouts. Some people would start talking really quickly, some would sob. A few screamed. And then they'd disappear. An hour or so later the boots would be back, the door would slam. But you couldn't hear the prisoner anymore. You could just imagine whoever it was being shoved back into the cell, barely conscious. And every time the boots come back you think it's for you, and you're so, so, so relieved that it's someone else whimpering out there.

  'And I thought - if I get out of here I can't forget this. And I haven't. I'm sitting here looking at this beautiful countryside and I'm thinking about those people in those cells who are dreading the sound of those boots. And that's just one building. There are all the concentration camps - more than twenty of them, someone told me.'

  'I know,' Russell said. He had never seen her like this.

  'We have to fight these people,' she said, turning to face him.

  He felt shocked, and knew he shouldn't.

  'I have to fight them,' she corrected herself. 'I don't really know how, but I can't go on living here and doing nothing.'

  'You were right the first time,' Russell said, taking her hand. 'We're in this together.'

  She squeezed his hand. 'So how do we start?'

  With a leap in the dark, Russell thought. Or, given what they knew of the possible consequences, a leap in the light. 'A good question,' he said. 'There are some things I need to tell you,' he added, almost apologetically.

  'I thought there must be.'

  He smiled. 'First off, I'm sort of working for American intelligence.'

  'Sort of?'

  'They think I'm working for them, and I am, but it wasn't completely voluntary. I think I might have volunteered anyway, but they made it pretty clear that I'd only get the American passport if I agreed.'

  'What...what do they want you to do?'

  'They've given me a list of people. Most in Germany, but a few in Poland. Anti-Nazi people.'

  'How did they hear about them?'

  'From others who emigrated. I'm supposed to check them out, make contact if it seems advisable, find out where their loyalties lie. It's all rather vague, because they don't really know what they're doing. Basically, they've just woken up to the fact that a European war is coming, and that they have no ears and eyes anywhere on the continent.'

  Effi looked thoughtful. 'I'm not doubting your journalistic abilities, my darling, but is this why you were given your new job?'

  'The thought did occur to me, but I don't think so.' He shrugged. 'In practical terms, it doesn't make much difference one way or the other.'

  'I see what you mean. So you're going to start checking these people out.'

  'Slowly. And very carefully.'

  'Good. All right. So that's what the Americans wanted for the passport. What did the SD want for me?'

  'Not much. Yet. They may have big plans for the future, but the first thing they wanted me to do was re-enlist with the Soviets. The Sicherheitsdienst think they can use me as a conduit for false intelligence.'

  'You've seen the Soviets already?'

  'On Thursday. I told them I've been forced to work for the Germans and that the information I'll be giving them is a bunch of hooey. The ironic thing is - I was going to make contact with them anyway.'

  'After last time?'

  'Needs must. Effi, I'm all for fighting the good fight, but I'd really like us to survive these bastards. If the worst happens, and one or both of us ends up on the run from the Gestapo, the only people who could get us out of Germany are the comrades. They've had organized escape routes across the French and Belgian and Czech borders since the late 20s - it was them who got Albert Wiesner out. So I did a deal with myself - I'd work for the Americans, but only once I had our escape hatch arranged.'

  'And the Soviets have agreed?'

  'Not yet, but I think they will.'

  'But what can you offer them?'

  'Depends what they ask for. I could argue that I'm already doing them one service by telling them the German information is false.'

  'Won't they want more than that?'

  Russell shrugged. 'Who knows? It's all getting a bit surreal. Did you ever read Alice in Wonderland?'

  'When I was a child. Zarah used to have nightmares about the Queen of Hearts.'

  'No wonder she married Jens.'

  Effi laughed. 'Poor Zarah.' She held out her empty mug. 'Is there any more wine?'

  He poured them both a generous measure, and they sat for a while in silence, sipping from the mugs and staring out at the landscape.

  'John,' she said eventually, 'I want to help you however I can, but that's not all I want to do. You and I, well, we move in different worlds, don't we? The people I know...I have to do what I can in my world. I'm going to start talking to people - carefully, of course. There are thousands of people - millions for all I know - who think the Nazis are a cruel joke. I'm going...I don't know, you'll probably think I'm an idiot, but I've asked Lili Rohde to teach me more about make-up. I've told her it's because I'm getting older, and there aren't many parts for older women and I need to think about my future, but that's not the real reason. Make-up - disguise, really - seems like something that might come in useful in lots of ways.' She looked at him warily, as if expecting ridicule.

  'It could,' he agreed.

  Reassured, she went on. 'And I've been thinking about something else. We don't want to keep secrets from each other, but I think we may have to keep some. I was thinking that we could talk about what we were doing without using the right names. That way...'

  'I understand,' Russell said. He had expected one of two reactions from Effi - either one of her trademark rants or a rueful decision to play it safe. He had not expected a simple statement of intent, let alone a cool appraisal of risk. He had underestimated her, and fear had been the reason. This new Effi was living proof that things had changed, and he was scared. For both of them.

  'I was never interested in politics,' she said, 'and I'm still not really. You have to be for something in politics, you have to have some idea of a different world which is better than the one you've got. I just know what I'm against. Killing children because they're handicapped in some way. Locking up any-one who publicly disagrees with them. Torturing them. And all this violence against the Jews. It's just wrong. All of it.' She turned to him, angry tears welling in her eyes. 'I'm right, aren't I?'

  'I'm afraid you are.'

  Rehearsals

  The studio car picked Effi up at five-thirty on Monday morning, establishing the pattern for the next two weeks. Whenever she had this sort of schedule Russell spent the weekday nights at Neuenburger Strasse, but on this occasion they agreed to spend Wednesday night - and the air raid rehearsal - together. Being bombed would be so much more interesting in each other's company.

  That Monday morning, Russell left the flat soon after eight and headed across town to the Cafe Kranzler. The German newspapers seemed bemused by 'Hudson's Howler', unsure whether it represented a genuine offer, indignant at the very idea that the Reich could be bribed into acquiescence. As a story, Russell decided, it had run its course.

  He spent most of the next two hours in one of the Adlon telephone booths, calling up a variety of German contacts in a vain trawl
for fresh news. Suitably frustrated, he strode down the Wilhelmstrasse for the eleven o'clock press briefing at the Foreign Ministry. Ribbentrop's spokesman had a sneer or two prepared for the British, but, as usual, soon found himself on the defensive. An English correspondent asked about Pastor Schneider, the Rhineland clergy-man who'd been in custody for twenty-seven months, and whose death from a 'heart attack' in Buchenwald concentration camp had just been announced. Had the authorities reached a decision on which law he had broken?

  'An internal German matter,' the spokesman blustered. He held up his hands, as if to show they were clean.

  Briefings like that could sap the will to live, Russell thought, as he drove home to Neuenburger Strasse. Frau Heidegger's door was open, the woman herself lying in wait with her deadly coffee. Russell took his usual chair and the usual trepidatory sip, and was pleasantly surprised. 'My sister washed the pot out,' the concierge told him indignantly, 'and the coffee doesn't taste the same.'

  'It's a little weaker,' Russell agreed, forbearing to add that it would still jolt a dead camel to life.

  Like most Germans, her knowledge of America was gleaned solely from the movies, and Frau Heidegger's questions about Russell's trip were framed accordingly. She was disappointed that he hadn't seen the West, thrilled that he and Paul had visited the skyscraper made famous by King Kong. A distant cousin had once thought of emigrating to America, she told him, but the thought of giant apes running wild had put her off. The woman hadn't been very bright, Frau Heidegger admitted. But then no one from the East Prussian side of the family was.

  Her own week in Stettin had been wonderful. Her brother had arranged a sailing trip, and they'd gone so far out that they could hardly see the land. Returning to Berlin was the usual tale of woe, however. It always took her two weeks to undo what her sister had done in one.

  'There's one thing I should know,' she said, having reminded herself of her duties. 'Will you be here on Wednesday night for the air raid rehearsal? I'm asking because Beiersdorfer will want to write it all down.' Beiersdorfer was the block warden, in name at least. He was as frightened of Frau Heidegger as the rest of them.

  'No, I'll be at Effi's,' Russell said.

  'Ah, I saw her picture in the paper,' Frau Heidegger said, leaping up and riffling through the pages of that day's Beobachter. 'Here,' she said, passing it over. Christina Bergner was talking to Goebbels in the Universum foyer, a smiling Effi just behind them.

  'It's a good picture,' he said.

  'Did she talk to the Minister?'

  'Just a few words. He complimented her on her acting.'

  'That is good. She must have been pleased.'

  'Yes, she was.' Russell took a final sip, gently pushed the cup away, and asked if any messages had been left for him.

  There were two. Uwe Kuzorra had called - 'He has information for you, but he has no telephone, so you must call on him whenever it's convenient.' The second message was from a Frau Grostein. 'She said you know her. She would like you to call her on this number' - Frau Heidegger passed over a small square of paper. 'As soon as possible,' she said, 'but that was on Saturday, soon after I got back. The woman sounded... not upset, exactly. Excited perhaps?'

  Russell shrugged his ignorance. 'I hardly know her. She's a friend of a friend. I'll call her now.' He got to his feet. 'Thanks for the coffee. It's good to have you back.'

  She beamed.

  He walked across the ground floor hallway to the block's only telephone and dialled the number.

  'Frau Grostein,' a confident voice announced.

  'John Russell. I've just got your message.'

  'Mr Russell. I need to talk to you, but not on the telephone. Can we meet?'

  'I suppose so.'

  'Today?'

  'All right.'

  'It's ten past twelve now. How about two o'clock in the Rosengarten? By the Viktoria statue.'

  'Fine. I'll see you there.' The line clicked off, and Russell replaced the ear-piece. A mistake? he wondered. These days his life seemed like one of those downhill ski runs he and Effi had seen at the Winter Olympics in '36. The contestants had plummeted down the mountainside at ever-increasing speeds, needing split-second changes of direction just to keep within bounds. Most had ended up in exploding flurries of snow, limbs and skis splayed at seemingly impossible angles.

  Russell parked close to the Wagner monument on Tiergartenstrasse and walked up through the trees to the lake. Just past the statue of Albert Lortzing - the Germans did love their composers - a bridge led him over the stream and into the colonnaded Rosengarten. He caught sight of Sarah Grostein, crouching down to smell the dark red roses that surrounded the Empress Viktoria's marble plinth.

  He walked towards her, glancing around as he did so. There were a few office workers, nannies with children, a pensioner or two. No one seemed interested in her or him. No one's head was hidden behind a raised newspaper. Paranoia, he told himself sternly. It beats the axe, a second inner voice retorted.

  She stood up, looked round and saw him. She offered her hand and half-whispered, 'Thank you for coming.'

  He just nodded.

  'I thought we could walk,' she suggested. 'Towards the goldfish pond?'

  She was older than he'd thought - around his own age, probably. Still attractive, though. Tall, big for a woman, but well-proportioned. Her clothes looked extremely expensive, her hair like someone had spent a lot of time on it. There was something feline about the contours of her face, something sad in the large brown eyes. 'Wherever you like,' he said.

  After leaving the Rosengarten she chose one of the less-used pathways. 'Have you said anything to anyone about...seeing me where you did?'

  'I should think half of Berlin saw you.'

  'You know what I mean. After meeting me at the Wiesners. It must have surprised you.'

  'Seeing a Jewish woman on an SS General's arm? It certainly made me curious.'

  'So did you tell anyone?'

  'Only my girlfriend.'

  'Will she tell anyone?'

  'No. When I told her she just suggested that half the people in Berlin were living double lives. And I didn't mention your name.'

  'I'm surprised you remembered it.' She fell silent as a couple walked past in the opposite direction. 'I'm not Jewish by the way,' she said once the pair had gone by. She let out a short brittle laugh. 'Now that all Jewish females have Sarah as their second name it's assumed that anyone called Sarah is Jewish, but there are thousands of non-Jewish women named Sarah. Or were. I expect most of them have changed their names by now.'

  'So how...?

  'My husband was a Jew,' she said. 'Richard Grostein. A wonderful man. He died in Sachsenhausen five years ago. He was one of those Social Democrats who wouldn't shut up when the Nazis came to power. He was an old friend of Felix Wiesner's and I was an old comrade of Eva's - that's how we met.'

  'I see,' Russell said, and thought he did. 'You don't need to tell me anything more. Your secrets are safe with me. Even safer if I don't know what half of them are.'

  She smiled at that. 'It's not that simple, I'm afraid.' She gave him an appraising look. 'You don't seem to hide how you feel about the Nazis,' she said. 'Of course that must be easier for a foreigner, and you may not take it any further. I have the feeling you do, though. Or maybe that you will at some time in the future. If you do, you'll probably reach that place that I've reached, where you suddenly find that your own decisions have become matters of life and death. Your own life and death.'

  Russell nodded. Six months earlier, agonising over what to do with a false passport, he had experienced exactly that thought.

  'I've decided to trust you,' she said. 'With my life,' she added lightly. 'I'm guessing you must be a good man because of what you did for the Wiesners, but I don't really know anything about you. Eva told me that you arranged Albert's escape with the comrades, so I'm assuming - hoping - that you're still in touch with them.'

  Say no, Russell thought, but he couldn't. 'I could be,' he
temporised.

  'We...I need to make contact. Our group has had no contact for four years, and we have no idea who it's safe to approach and who it isn't. We just need an address or a telephone number.'

  Russell thought about it. She was - to repeat her own phrase - asking him to trust her with his life. He assumed she was a good person because she too had been a friend of the Wiesners, but he didn't really know anything about her either. Except that he'd seen her on an SS Gruppenfuhrer's arm.

  Her story rang true. The KPD had certainly been decimated by the Nazis in 1933. Half of its leaders had ended up in concentration camps and half had fled into exile, leaving several million rudderless members to fend for them-selves. Many of those arrested had been persuaded - mostly by fear of torture - into betraying comrades still at liberty. Many had actually joined the Nazis, some from self-interest, others as a clandestine opposition. The problem was knowing which was which.

  'We have valuable information,' she insisted. 'My Gruppenfuhrer works in the Reichsfuhrer's office.'

  Russell was impressed. 'I'll see what I can do. It may take a few weeks though.'

  'After four years, a few weeks won't matter.'

  Russell was thinking about Effi's mutual secrets. He knew he wouldn't tell her about this meeting, and the knowledge saddened him.

  Another thought occurred to him. 'Do you know a Freya and Wilhelm Isendahl? She was Freya Hahnemann until recently. She's not Jewish but he is.'

  'Why are you asking?'

  'Because I'm looking for her. I met her parents in New York a few weeks ago and they wanted me to check that she was all right. When I questioned the landlady at their old address I got the impression they were involved in political activity, and I don't want to put them in any danger.'

  'I knew a young man of that name, back in '32-'33. Not personally, but by reputation - he was one of the youth wing's rising stars. I'm surprised he's still alive. You know what we used to call our Party activists in 1933?'