Zoo Station

by David Downing

  ‘Thanks,’ Russell said, handing the key over. ‘That’s a weight off my mind.’ He stole a glance at Paul, who looked more confused than anything else.

  ‘How long are you here for?’ Bernstein asked.

  ‘Oh, only till Sunday. I came with my girlfriend’s sister – that was the other reason – she wanted to have her son examined by an English doctor. A long story. But if there’s a war, well, I guess I’ll be back for the duration.’

  ‘Without him?’ Bernstein said, nodding in Paul’s direction.

  ‘Without him.’

  Bernstein made a sympathetic face. ‘Anyway, at least you’ve got a lot of work at the moment. No other ideas you want to talk about?’

  ‘Not at the moment,’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’d better go. Paul?’

  His son closed the book and brought it over. ‘You can keep it,’ Bernstein said. ‘Practise your English on the captions.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Paul said. ‘Very much,’ he added carefully.

  ‘It’s working already.’ He smiled and offered Paul his hand, then did the same to Russell.

  ‘He was a nice man,’ Paul said, as they made their way down the steamy stairwell.

  ‘He is,’ Russell agreed, as they reached the pavement. ‘And he’s Jewish,’ he added, hoping that Paul was not going to wipe the handshake off on his coat.

  He didn’t, but he did look upset.

  ‘They’re wrong about the Jews,’ Russell said firmly. ‘They may be right about many things, but they’re wrong about the Jews.’

  ‘But everyone says…’

  ‘Not everyone. I don’t. Your mother doesn’t. Your Uncle Thomas doesn’t. Effi doesn’t.’

  ‘But the government says…’

  ‘Governments can be wrong. They’re just people. Like you and me. Look what foreign governments did to Germany in 1918. They were wrong. It happens, Paul. They get things wrong.’

  Paul looked torn between anger and tears.

  ‘Look. Let’s not spoil the trip arguing about politics. We’re in London – let’s enjoy it.’ They were walking down Charing Cross Road by this time. ‘I know where we can get a cup of tea and a cake,’ he said, steering Paul off to the left. A few minutes later they were on the edge of Covent Garden market, dodging lorries piled high with crates of fruit and vegetables. Russell led Paul into one of the cafés.

  It was full of men sawing at rashers of bacon and dribbling egg down their chins. Fried grease in its gaseous, liquid and solid forms filled the air, lay congealing on the tables and covered the walls. England, Russell thought. He had a sudden memory of a similar café just outside Victoria Station, where he’d eaten his last meal before service in France. Twenty-one years ago.

  Russell bought two large cups of tea and two aptly-named rock cakes. Paul nibbled at the edges of his, rightfully fearing for his teeth, but liked the tea once he’d added four teaspoons of sugar. ‘The cake is terrible,’ he told his father in German, causing several sets of less-than-friendly eyes to swivel their way.

  ‘Do you know anything about football?’ Russell asked the nearest man in English.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Are there any games on in London tomorrow?’

  ‘Arsenal are playing Chelsea,’ another man volunteered.

  ‘At Highbury?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And the games still kick off at three? I’ve been working abroad for a while,’ he added in explanation.

  ‘So we see,’ the first man said with a leer. ‘Yeah, they still kick off at three.’

  ‘Thanks. Would you like to see a game tomorrow?’ he asked Paul. ‘Arsenal are playing Chelsea.’

  His son’s eyes lit up. ‘Arsenal are the best!’

  ‘Well I’m sure Zarah and Lothar can look after themselves.’

  They finished their teas, abandoned the half-excavated rock cakes, and picked their way through the vegetable market, taking particular care outside the skin-strewn frontage of a banana wholesalers. It was getting dark now, and Russell wasn’t sure where he was. Looking for a street sign they found one for Bow Street.

  ‘Bow Street,’ Paul echoed. ‘This is where Chief Inspector Teal brings the men he’s arrested.’

  Away to their left a blue light was shining. They walked up the street and stood across from the forbidding-looking police station, half-expecting the fictional inspector to emerge through the double doors, busily chewing on a wodge of Wrigley’s as he adjusted his bowler hat.

  Back on the Strand they found the Stanley Gibbons stamp shop was still open, and Paul spent a happy twenty minutes deciding which packets of cheap assorted he most wanted. Russell looked in the catalogue for the ones Wiesner had given him in payment and was surprised to find how valuable they were. He wondered how many pounds-worth were nestling behind the stickers in their safety deposit box.

  Zarah was more talkative at dinner than he ever remembered, and seemed newly determined to encourage the idea of his marrying her sister. She and Lothar accompanied them on their after-dinner walk this time, and Lothar, like Paul, seemed enthralled by the huge glittering river and its never-ending procession of barges and other boats. Russell and Zarah agreed their plans for Saturday: shopping in the morning, football for him and Paul in the afternoon, dinner with Jens’ embassy friend for her and Lothar in the evening. When they said goodnight outside her and Lothar’s room, she thanked him warmly for his help. They’d almost become friends, Russell thought. Effi would be amazed.

  Paul was yawning, but Russell felt far too restless for sleep. ‘Bedtime for you,’ he told his son. ‘I’m going back downstairs for a drink. I won’t be long.’

  ‘You’re just going downstairs?’

  ‘Yes. No stamp-smuggling tonight. Just a drink.’

  Paul grinned. ‘All right.’

  For a Friday night, the cocktail lounge seemed unusually empty. Russell bought a pint of bitter, parked himself on a stool at the end of the bar, and played with a beer mat. The taste of the English beer made him feel nostalgic. He had thought about taking Paul out to Guildford, to show him the house where he’d spent most of his own boyhood, but there wouldn’t be time. The next trip perhaps, if there was one.

  He pictured the house, the large garden, the steeply-sloping street he’d walked to school each day. He couldn’t say he’d had a happy childhood, but it hadn’t been particularly unhappy either. He hadn’t really appreciated it at the time, but his mother had never really settled in England, despite almost thirty years of trying. His father’s inability or unwillingness to recognise that fact had undermined everything else. There had been a lot of silence in that house. He should write to her, he thought.

  A quick trip to reception provided him with a few sheets of beautifully-embossed Savoy writing paper, and he ordered another pint. But after telling her where he was and why, and sketching out the plot of Effi’s new film, he could think of nothing else to say. She hadn’t seen Paul since he was four, and it would need a book to explain his son and their relationship.

  He comforted himself with the knowledge that her letters to him were equally inadequate. On those rare occasions when, as adults, they’d been together, they had both enjoyed the experience – he was sure of that – but even then they’d hardly said anything to each other. His mother wasn’t much of a talker or a thinker, which was why she had never liked Ilse. She and Effi, on the other hand, would probably become bosom friends. They were both do-ers.

  A shadow crossed the paper as a man slid onto the stool next to his. He had short dark, brilliantined hair, a sharpish face with a small moustache and skin that looked unusually pink. He looked about twenty, but was probably older.

  ‘John Russell?’ he asked.

  Oh God, Russell thought. Here we go again. ‘I think you’re mistaking me for someone else,’ he said. ‘I’m Douglas Fairbanks Jr.’

  ‘Very good,’ the man said admiringly. ‘Can I get you another drink?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Well
, I think I’ll have one,’ he said, raising a finger to the distant barman.

  ‘Are you old enough?’ Russell asked.

  His new companion looked hurt. ‘Look, there’s no need to be offensive. I’m just…’ He paused to order a Manhattan. ‘Look, I think you know Trelawney-Smythe in Berlin.’

  ‘We’ve met.’

  ‘Well, he passed your name onto us, and…’

  ‘Who might you be?’

  ‘War Office. A department of the War Office. My name’s Simpson. Arnold Simpson.’

  ‘Right,’ Russell said.

  Simpson took an appreciative sip of his Manhattan. ‘We checked up on you – we have to do that, you understand – and it looks as if Trelawney-Smythe was right. You are a perfect fit. You speak German like a native, you have family and friends there, you even have Nazi connections. You’re ideally placed to work for us.’

  Russell smiled. ‘You may be right about means and opportunity, but where’s the motive? Why would I want to work for you?’

  Simpson looked taken aback. ‘How about patriotism?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m as patriotic as the next businessman,’ Russell said wryly.

  ‘Ah. Very good. But seriously.’

  ‘I was being serious.’

  Simpson took a larger sip of the Manhattan. ‘Mr Russell, we know your political history. We know you’ve been badgering the Berlin Embassy about a Jewish family. Whatever you write for the Soviets, we know you don’t like the Nazis. And there’s a war coming, for God’s sake. Don’t you want to do your bit to defeat them?’

  ‘Mr Simpson, can’t you people take no for an answer?’

  Now the young man looked affronted. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But…’

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Simpson.’

  They spent the first part of Saturday morning following Zarah in and out of clothes stores on Bond Street, the second scouring Hamleys for the stimulating toys which Dr McAllister had recommended. They found nothing which Zarah considered suitable in either. ‘German toys are much better,’ she announced with a satisfied air on the Regent Street pavement, and Paul agreed with her. There had been no dead soldiers, and those still breathing had been markedly inferior to the ones back home.

  They parted at midday, Russell and Paul cutting through the streets beyond Oxford Street to the trolleybus terminus at Howland Street. The 627 took them up the Hampstead, Camden and Seven Sisters Roads to Finsbury Park, where the pubs were already overflowing with men en route to the match. It was a cold afternoon, the would-be spectators exhaling clouds of breath and clapping their gloved hands together as they threaded their way down the back streets to the ground. A rosette seller offered red and white for Arsenal, blue and white for Chelsea, and Paul wanted both. ‘Covering the field, eh?’ the man asked with a grin. He had a red and white scarf wrapped around his head, and a flat cap rammed on top of it.

  The match itself was a disappointment – another point in Germany’s column as far as Paul was concerned. It was hard to argue with him – if this was the best football in the world, then the world of football was in trouble. There was none of the magic England had shown in Berlin nine months earlier. In fact, both teams seemed markedly less endowed with basic skills than poor old Hertha.

  What Paul did find fascinating was the crowd. He had no way of appreciating the wit, but he revelled in the sheer volume of noise, and the swirling currents of emotion which rose and fell all around him. ‘It’s so…’ he began, as they crunched their way out across the carpet of roasted peanut shells, but an end to the sentence eluded him.

  At the Arsenal station they shared a seemingly endless tunnel to the platform with several thousand others, and their Piccadilly Line train was full to bursting until it reached King’s Cross. After the relative spaciousness of the U-bahn, the train itself seemed ancient, airless and claustrophobic – another point in the German column.

  They walked back to the Strand through Covent Garden Market, and ate another delicious dinner in the Savoy restaurant. Paul was quiet, as if busy absorbing his impressions of the last two days. He seemed, Russell thought, more German somehow. But that, he supposed, was only to be expected in England. He hadn’t anticipated it though.

  On the way to breakfast next morning he stopped off at reception to consult the hotel’s ABC Railway Guide, and after they’d eaten he told Paul there was something he wanted to show him. They took a bus up Kingsway and Southampton Row to Euston, and walked through the giant archway to the platforms. The object of their visit was already sitting in Platform 12 – the blue and silver Coronation Scot. They bought platform tickets and walked up to where a dozen youngsters were paying court to the gleaming, hissing, streamlined ‘Princess Alice’.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Paul said, and Russell felt a ridiculous surge of pride in his native country. Paul was right. The German streamliners reeked of speed and power, but this train had a grace they lacked. One mark at least for England.

  Back at the Savoy they packed, took a last look at the Thames, and joined Zarah and Lothar in the lobby. The car was on time, the Sunday roads empty, and they arrived at Croydon airfield almost two hours early. While Paul stood transfixed by the planes outside the window, Russell scanned the News of the World for a clue to British concerns. He discovered that a vicar had been assaulted by a young woman in a village street, and that now was the time to protect your crocuses from sparrows. A half-page ad for constipation relief featured a wonderful photograph – somehow, the man really did look constipated. And much to Russell’s relief, the game they’d seen the previous afternoon got a highly critical write-up – so at least it wasn’t the norm.

  It was the same aeroplane and crew that had brought them over. This time though, the clouds were lower, the flight rockier, the view more restricted. Jens, waiting for them at Tempelhof, hugged Zarah and Lothar as if they’d been away for weeks and thanked Russell profusely. He also offered to take Paul home, but Russell demurred, unwilling to sacrifice half an hour of his son’s company.

  As it was, Paul sat mostly in silence, as they drove west, gazing out of the window at his home city. ‘It seems… well, strange,’ he said, as they turned into his road. ‘After being there, the idea of a war against England seems… it seems silly.’

  ‘It is,’ Russell agreed. But coming nevertheless. And, in one way, the sooner the better. Say it lasted four years, like the last one. Assuming they stuck to the current call-up at eighteen, Paul would be drafted in March 1945. For the war to be over by then, it had to get started early in 1941.

  No need to worry, Russell told himself. Hitler wouldn’t be able to wait that long.

  Blue scarf

  After spending the night with Effi he drove her out to the studio for an early start. She was pleased but not surprised by Dr McAllister’s diagnosis – ‘I said there was nothing wrong with him!’ – but despondent about Mother. The director was a mechanic; her co-stars all thought, wrongly, that they were God’s gift to acting; the on-set adviser from the Propaganda Ministry kept trying to clarify the film’s ‘social role’ by inserting lines that even a baboon would have trouble misunderstanding. ‘I suppose I should be grateful,’ she said, as they drove in through the studio gates. ‘I’ll probably go down in history as one of Germany’s great comédiennes.’

  Russell drove back to Zoo Station, where he bought breakfast and a paper. Nothing unusual seemed to have happened during his time in England. The widening of the Kiel Canal had been decreed – it obviously wasn’t big enough for the Bismarck. Hitler had opened the International Motor Show just down the road, and unveiled a model of the new People’s Car. For 950 marks – about 50 British pounds – the average German would get a small five-seater, with deliveries to begin in about fifteen months’ time. Having been in at this birth, the Führer had proceeded to the funeral of some obscure Carinthian Gauleiter – the man had probably held his hand when the bullets started flying in 1923. He’d certainly been given all the Nazi trimmings – swastikas everywhere, bl
ack banners with runic emblems, lines of flaming pylons to light his way across the Hesperus.

  Back at Neuenburgerstrasse, Frau Heidegger was waiting to ply him with coffee. She was elated by his impression of British unreadiness for war, which she thought, rather perceptively, both lessened the chance of war and increased the chance of German success if there was one. Before retiring upstairs to work, Russell phoned Unsworth at the British Embassy. He was told that Conway had been in touch, and that representations were being made in the appropriate quarters. Russell thought about visiting the Wiesners but decided against. He had nothing really to tell them, and instinctively felt that it was safer to limit his visits to the scheduled lessons.

  He spent most of the next forty-eight hours working in his room, writing the fourth Pravda article, which he hoped to deliver in Posen that weekend, and sketching out a piece on artists and entertainers for the ‘Ordinary Germans’ series. His only trip out was to the Greiner Works in Wedding, one of the Reich’s major production centres for military vehicles. Expecting suspicion and probable refusals, he went straight to the Labour Front office, and was almost laughably surprised by the warm welcome he received. Yes, of course the German worker was torn between his love of peace and his desire to arm the Fatherland against its foes. What human being would not be? And of course Herr Russell could talk to the workers about their feelings. The rest of the world should be given every chance to understand both the German hunger for peace and the nation’s determination to defend its rights and its people.

  After this, talking to several groups of workers in the canteen proved something of an anti-climax. Most were understandably reticent, and those prepared to speak their minds had nothing surprising to say. It was a job, that was all. As usual, the pay was bad, the hours too long, management more of a hindrance than a help. The Labour Front at least listened, if only to ward off potential trouble. Open discussions were infinitely preferable to either non-cooperation – slow working, mostly – or the sort of covert resistance that could lead to sabotage. Reading between the lines and facial expressions of the men he spoke to, Russell decided that the level of non-cooperation was probably significant without seriously affecting production levels or quality, and that the amount of real resistance was negligible. And when war came, he guessed, both would decrease.