He turned to her. ‘Let me sleep on this,’ he said. ‘Think about it overnight,’ he explained, in response to her blank expression.
She nodded. ‘Two p.m. in the Stary Rynek,’ she said, as if she’d had the time and place in reserve.
‘It’s a big square,’ Russell said.
‘I’ll find you.’
Sunday was overcast but dry. Russell had coffee in one of the many Stary Rynek cafés, walked up past the Garbary Station to the Citadel, and found a bench overlooking the city. For several minutes he just sat there enjoying the view: the multiplicity of spires, the Warta River and its receding bridges, the smoke rising from several thousand chimneys. ‘See how much peace the earth can give,’ he murmured to himself. A comforting thought, provided you ignored the source. It was a line from Mayakovsky’s suicide note.
Was his own plan a roundabout way of committing suicide?
Paul and Effi would miss him. In fact, he liked to think they’d both be heartbroken, at least for a while. But he was neither indispensable nor irreplaceable. Paul had other people who loved him, and so did Effi.
All of which would only matter if he got caught. The odds, he thought, were probably on his side. The Soviets would have no compunction about risking him, but their precious naval plans were another matter – they wouldn’t risk those on a no-hope adventure. They had to believe it would work.
But what did he know? There could be ruses within ruses; this could be some ludicrously Machiavellian plot the NKVD had thought up on some drunken weekend and set in motion before they sobered up. Or everyone concerned could be an incompetent. Or just having a bad day.
‘Shit,’ he muttered to himself. He liked the idea of the Soviets having the German fleet dispositions for the Baltic. He liked the idea of doing something, no matter how small, to put a spoke in the bastards’ wheels. And he really wanted the favours he intended asking in return.
But was he fooling himself? Falling for all the usual nonsense, playing boys’ games with real ammunition. When did self-sacrifice become a warped form of selfishness?
There were no answers to any of this, he realized. It was like jumping through an open window with a fuzzy memory of which floor you were on. If it turned out to be the ground floor, you bounced to your feet with an heroic grin. The fifth, and you were jam on the pavement. Or, more likely, a Gestapo courtyard.
A life concerned only with survival was a thin life. He needed to jump. For all sorts of reasons, he needed to jump.
He took a long last look at the view and started back down the slope, imagining the details of his plan as he did so. A restaurant close to the Stary Rynek provided him with a plate of meat turnovers, a large glass of Silesian beer, and ample time to imagine the worst. By two o’clock he was slowly circling the large and well-populated square, and manfully repressing the periodic impulse to simply disappear into one of the adjoining streets.
She appeared at his shoulder halfway through his second circuit, her ankle-length coat unbuttoned to reveal the same skirt and blouse. This time, he thought, there was worry in the eyes.
She managed to leave the question unspoken for about thirty metres, and then asked it with almost angry abruptness – ‘So, will you do this job for us?’
‘With one condition,’ Russell told her. ‘I have a friend, a Jewish friend, in Berlin. The police are looking for him, and he needs to get out of the country. You get him across the border, and I will do the job for you.’
‘And how are we supposed to get him across the border?’ she asked, suspicion in her tone.
‘The same way you always have,’ Russell said. ‘I was in the Party myself once – remember? I knew people in the Pass-Apparat,’ he added, stretching the truth somewhat. ‘Everyone knew about the escape routes into Belgium and Czechoslovakia.’
‘That was many years ago.’
‘Not according to my information,’ Russell bluffed.
She was silent for about fifty metres. ‘There are a few such routes,’ she admitted. ‘But they are not safe. If they were, we would not be asking you to bring out these papers. Maybe one person in three gets caught.’
‘In Berlin it’s more like three out of three.’
She sighed. ‘I can’t give you an answer now.’
‘I understand that. Someone will have to contact me in Berlin to make the arrangements for my friend’s journey, and to give me the details of the job you want me to do. Tell your bosses that the moment my friend calls me from outside the Reich, I will collect your papers from wherever they are and bring them out.’
‘Very well,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘You had better choose a point of contact in Berlin.’
‘The buffet at Zoo Station. I shall be there every morning this week. Between nine and ten.’
She nodded approvingly. ‘And a mark of identification. A book works well.’
‘Storms of Steel? No, half the customers could be reading that. Something English.’ He mentally pictured his bookshelves at Neuenburgerstrasse. ‘Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit.’
‘A good choice,’ she agreed, though whether for literary or other reasons she didn’t say. ‘Your contact will say that he’s been meaning to read it, and will ask you if it’s any good.’
‘He?’ Russell asked.
‘Or she,’ she conceded.
Nine o’clock on Monday morning found him in the Zoo Station buffet, his dog-eared copy of Martin Chuzzlewit prominently displayed on the counter beside his cup of mocha. He wasn’t expecting the Soviets to respond that quickly, and he wasn’t disappointed – ten o’clock came and went with no sign of any contact. He collected the car from outside the Zoo and drove across town to the Wiesners. There was no obvious police presence outside, which probably meant that they’d recruited some local busybody for their observation chores. A curtain twitched as he walked up the outside steps, but that could have been coincidence.
The sense of raw pain had gone from the Wiesners’ flat – replaced by a grim busyness, a determination to do whatever needed doing. There was grief to spare, the faces seemed to say – no need to spend it all at once.
And there was good news, Frau Wiesner told him. They had old friends in England, she said, in Manchester. The Doctor had written to them several weeks ago, and a reply had finally arrived, offering a temporary home for the girls. They had tickets to travel a week from Thursday.
‘I may have more good news,’ Russell told her. ‘I have friends who may be willing to smuggle Albert across the border.’
Mother and daughters all stared at him in amazement. ‘What friends?’ Frau Wiesner asked.
‘The comrades,’ he said simply. The comrades they had both abandoned, he thought.
‘But I had no idea you were…’
‘Like you, I left a long time ago. And I can’t go into details about the arrangements. But if I can fix things, can you get in touch with Albert at short notice?’
‘Yes.’ The hope in her eyes was painful to see.
‘And will he trust me, do you think?
She smiled at that. ‘Yes, he likes you.’
‘And if we can get him out, there is nothing to keep you here?’
‘The lack of a visa. Nothing else.’
‘I’m still working on that.’
He tried to write that afternoon, but the words refused to matter. As evening fell he took himself off to the Alhambra and sat through an overblown Hollywood musical, murmuring sour asides to himself in the dark. The film had been made on the sort of budget which would feed a small country, but was mercifully devoid of consciousness-raising pretensions. The consciousness-lowering effect was presumably accidental.
As he emerged the Ku’damm was gearing up for the night, thick with human and motorised traffic. He walked slowly westwards with no real destination in mind, looking in windows, studying faces, wondering if the Soviets would agree to his terms. People queued outside the theatres and cinemas, streamed in and out of the restaurants, most of them laughing or
happily talking, living the moment as best they could. A police car careened up the centre of the wide road, its siren parting the traffic like waves, but the visible signs of a police state were thin on the ground. In fact, Russell thought, it was the absence of violence which told the real story. The blood and the broken glass, the groups of men on corners, clutching their razors and itching for a brawl – they were all gone. The only violent law-breakers left on the streets of Berlin were the authorities.
He walked back down the opposite pavement, picked up the car and drove home.
Tuesday offered more of the same: waiting in vain at the buffet counter, working with words like a juggler in mittens. Frau Heidegger seemed irritating rather than quirky, Paul almost provokingly gung-ho in his description of the previous Saturday’s Jungvolk outing. Even the weather was bad: a cold rain fell throughout the day and into the evening, creating lake-size puddles in many of the streets. The Hanomag, as Russell discovered on his way to collect Effi, had a less than waterproof floor.
At least her film was finished. ‘I have seen the error of my ways, and a good wife is all I want to be!’ she exclaimed as they left the studio. ‘But only,’ she added as they reached the car, ‘after I’ve slept for at least a week. In the meantime you may wait on me hand and foot.’
Later, he was still working up to telling her about his weekend in Posen when he realised she’d fallen asleep. Which was all for the best, he decided. There’d be time enough for explanations if and when the Soviets said yes. As he looked down at her sleeping face, the familiar lips ever-so-slightly curled in a sleeper’s smile, the whole business seemed utterly absurd.
• • •
Contact was made on Thursday. The buffet clock was reaching towards ten when a man loomed over Russell’s shoulder and almost whispered the pre-arranged sentence. ‘Let’s walk,’ he added, before Russell had time to declaim on the virtues or otherwise of Martin Chuzzlewit.
The man made for the door with what seemed unnecessary haste, leaving Russell floundering in his wake. He seemed very young, Russell thought, but he looked anonymous enough: average height and build, tidy hair and a typical German face. His suit was wearing at the elbows, his shoes at the heels.
At the station exit he turned towards the nearest Tiergarten entrance, pausing for a nervous look back as they reached it. Russell glanced back himself – the street was empty. Ahead of them, a few solitary walkers were visible among the leafless trees.
‘It’s not a bad day,’ the young man said, looking up at the mostly grey sky. ‘We will walk to Bellevue Station, like friends enjoying a morning stroll in the park.’
They set off through the trees.
‘I am Gert,’ the young man said. ‘And it is agreed. We will take your friend across the Czech border, and you will bring the papers to us in Prague.’ He fell silent, as a steady stream of walkers passed them in the opposite direction – a middle-aged couple and their poodles, a younger couple arm in arm, an older man with a muzzled Doberman – and paused to offer Russell a cigarette on the Lichtenstein Bridge across the Landwehrkanal. The young man’s hand, Russell noticed reluctantly, was shaking slightly.
The paths around the Neuersee were mostly deserted, just a couple of women with small children happily feeding the ducks. ‘You must memorise the arrangements,’ Gert said, with the air of someone reading from a script. ‘Your friend must be in the station buffet at Görlitz at five o’clock on Monday afternoon. He must wear workingmen’s clothes, with a blue scarf around his neck. He must not have a suitcase or bag of any kind. When a man asks him if he knows where the left luggage is he should say, “Yes, but it’s easier to show you than explain,” and walk out with that man. Understood?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then repeat what I’ve just told you.’
Russell did so.
‘Good. Now for your part. Your contact is in Kiel. Or in Gaarden, to be precise. You must be in the Germania Bar – it’s on the tram route to Wellingdorf, just outside the main entrance to the Deutsche Werke shipyards – at 8 p.m. on Friday the 10th. With your Martin Chuzzlewit.’
‘I made it clear to the comrade in Posen that I wouldn’t collect your papers until I knew my friend was safe.’
Gert gave an exasperated sigh. ‘He will be in Czechoslovakia by Tuesday morning, Prague by the afternoon. You should hear from him that day. Either that, or some of our people have been captured or killed with him. And if that happens, we hope you will honour their memory by honouring the bargain.’
Russell gave him a look. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.’
‘Of course. Now, you will bring the papers back to Berlin, and then take them on to Prague as quickly as possible…’
‘I have to be in Berlin on that Sunday,’ Russell said.
‘It would better if you travelled before that. The border guards tend to be less vigilant on a Saturday night.’
‘Sorry, it’ll have to be Monday,’ Russell said. The Sunday was Paul’s birthday.
Gert controlled himself with a visible effort. ‘Very well,’ he agreed, as if he’d made a huge concession.
‘And how do you suggest I carry them?’
This was clearly in the script. ‘We do not know how many papers there are. If it is a matter of a few sheets, they can be sewn into a lining, of your coat or your jacket. If there are a lot, then that will not be possible. If they search you and your luggage, they will probably find them. The best thing is not to be searched.’
‘And how do I manage that?’
‘You probably won’t have to. They only search about one in ten, and foreigners very rarely. As long as you don’t draw attention to yourself, everything should be fine. Now, once you reach Prague, you must check in to the Grand Hotel on Wenceslas Square. You will be contacted there. Is that clear? Now please repeat the details of your treff in Kiel.’
Russell repeated them. ‘What if no one approaches me on that day?’ he asked.
‘Then you return to Berlin. Any other questions?’ Gert’s hands seemed to be writhing in his coat pockets.
He had none, or none that could be answered. At Bellevue Station they went their separate ways, Gert bounding up the stairs to the eastbound Stadtbahn platform, Russell ambling along the bank of the Spree to the kiosk beneath the Bellevue Schloss. He bought a cup of hot chocolate, took it to a riverside table, and watched a long train rumbling across the bridge to his left. ‘Everything should be fine,’ he told himself in Gert’s Bavarian accent. It was the ‘should’ which worried him.
His next stop was the British Embassy. Rather than return for the car, he walked down the river to Kurfürstenplatz, and then along Zellen Allee to the Brandenburg Gate and the western end of Unter den Linden. The queue outside the Embassy seemed longer than ever, the atmosphere inside the usual mix of irritation and self-righteousness. He asked to see Unsworth, and was shown up to his office. Once there, he admitted it was Trelawney-Smythe that he really wanted to see. ‘But I didn’t want to announce that in reception,’ he explained to Unsworth. ‘I wouldn’t put it past the Nazis to include an informer or two among the Jews.’
Unsworth looked slightly shocked at the thought, but agreed to escort Russell to the MI6 man’s door. Trelawney-Smythe looked startled to see him, and somewhat put out. ‘I know why you’re here, and the answer is no. We cannot make exceptions.’
Russell sat himself down. ‘I take it this room’s secure,’ he said.
‘We went over the whole building with a fine toothcomb a few months ago,’ Trelawney-Smythe said proudly.
Russell looked up, half expecting to see a microphone hanging from the ceiling. ‘How interested would the Admiralty be in the German Navy’s Baltic Fleet dispositions?’ he asked.
To his credit, Trelawney-Smythe didn’t jump out of his seat. Instead, he reached for his pipe. ‘Very, I should imagine. After all, if a ship’s in the Baltic it won’t be in the North Sea.’
‘That’s the conclusion I came to,’ Russell said. He smi
led at the other man. ‘Don’t ask me how, but at some point in the next two weeks I should have my hands on those dispositions. Not to keep, mind you, and not for long. But long enough to copy them out.’
Trelawney-Smythe lit his pipe, puffing vigorously out of the corner of his mouth.
A technique learned in spy school, Russell thought.
‘You would be doing a tremendous service to your country,’ the other man said in an almost torpid tone.
‘But not only for my country. There’s a price.’
‘Ah.’ Trelawney-Smythe’s eyes narrowed. ‘You want money,’ he said, with the air of a disappointed vicar.
‘I want you to make an exception, and come up with a visa for Eva Wiesner. And while you’re at it, I’d like an American passport.’
That surprised the MI6 man. ‘How on earth do you expect us to get you one of those?’
‘I’m sure you’ll have no trouble if you set your mind to it. I do have an American mother, you know, so it’s hardly a huge stretch.’
‘Why do you want one?’
‘I’d have thought that was obvious. If there’s a war in Europe, anyone with a British passport will be sent home. With an American passport I can stay.’
Trelawney-Smythe puffed at his pipe, digesting the idea, and Russell watched the slight widening of the eyes as he appreciated the possibilities – MI6 would have a man in Germany once the war started!
Not that Russell had any intention of doing anything more for them, but they weren’t to know that.
‘In the next two weeks, you said.’
‘Yes. But I want the visa for Eva Wiesner by Monday. That should give her time to arrange her exit visa, and she can travel with her daughters on Thursday. There’s no hurry about the passport,’ he added. ‘So long as I have it before a war breaks out.’
‘You must like this family,’ Trelawney-Smythe said, sounding almost human.
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