Lehrter Station

by David Downing

  ‘I wouldn’t argue with that.’

  ‘You know, it seems so strange. Yesterday, today, seeing foreign soldiers in control all over Berlin. They should be, of course they should, but it does feel strange. Imagine how you would feel if Germans were riding up and down Regent Street in their jeeps.’

  ‘With Italian generals running London’s opera. Yes, I know what you mean.’

  She raised herself on an elbow to look him in the face. ‘This is the end of Germany, isn’t it?’

  He was surprised. ‘Depends what you mean by Germany. The people won’t disappear. Or the towns or the farms. But the state will probably be divided.’

  ‘Divided!?’ She didn’t know why, but the thought had never occurred to her. Shrunken, yes, even broken into the old small pieces, but divided?

  ‘It’ll have to be. There’s no halfway house between free enterprise and the Soviet system – a society has to be one or the other. And since I can’t see either Washington or Moscow conceding the whole country to the other, there’ll have to be partition.’

  ‘And Berlin?’

  ‘That’s where it gets interesting. The Soviets will try and force the others out – the city is in the middle of their zone – and who knows how determined the Western allies will prove when the crunch comes.’

  ‘But they all seemed so chummy at Potsdam.’

  ‘If they really were, it won’t last.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘Not the best place to raise a family, eh?’

  She smiled back. ‘Oh I don’t know. It won’t be dull.’

  Russell laughed. ‘It’s never dull where you are.’

  ‘What a nice thing to say. These last few months I’ve been afraid you were getting bored with me.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Well, that’s good. It has been twelve years, you know.’

  ‘We missed out on three of them, and this is the first time we’ve been alone in a proper bedroom for months.’

  ‘True.’ Snuggling closer, she felt his response. ‘We’ll have to be quiet,’ she murmured. ‘We wouldn’t want to wake Frau Niebel.’

  A world without cats or birds

  Russell was awake early, and took the opportunity to visit the Press Camp on Argentinischeallee. After picking up his new credentials and ration card, he registered his address and talked to the few journalists who had so far put in an appearance. All were very young, but most seemed to recognise his name, albeit with expressions which ranged from the awestruck to the downright suspicious. Reading between the lines, he gathered that his work was appreciated, but that his murky personal history – his tangled relationships with the Nazis and Soviets in particular – told against him.

  Would American Intelligence try to re-burnish his reputation now that he was working for them? He would ask Dallin when he saw him.

  Back at their room in Thomas’ house, he found Effi looking every inch the film actress. The dress she’d brought from England had been ironed, and she was wearing heels for the first time in months.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ Russell told her. And she did. When they’d met again in April, she’d been so much thinner and paler than he remembered, but several months of British rations had restored her normal weight and colour. She’d let her hair grow past her shoulders again, but refused to disguise the streaks of grey. Now the sparkle was back in the dark brown eyes, the smile as dazzling as ever.

  ‘I don’t suppose they’ve sent a limousine for me?’ she asked.

  ‘Surprisingly not.’

  ‘Well, at least I’ve got you to carry my bag as far as the Ku’damm.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. May I ask what’s in it?’

  ‘A change of clothes. I don’t think I should turn up at the Jewish Hospital in this outfit. Oh, and I met Esther Rosenfeld…’

  ‘Is she here?’

  ‘She’s gone already. But she’s hoping to see you this evening.’

  ‘Good.’

  Effi took one last look in the mirror. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. ‘And where will we meet? I know it sounds silly, but I’d rather not arrive at the Jewish Hospital on my own.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound silly at all,’ Russell said. In the spring she and Rosa had spent almost a week there under threat of summary execution. ‘I’m going out to Moabit – there’s a DP camp there on Thomas’ list. So let’s meet back at Zoo Station. In the buffet if it’s still there, outside if it isn’t. You choose the time.’

  ‘Two o’clock?’

  ‘Okay. But I’m coming with you as far as the Ku’damm. Maybe we can grab a quick coffee.’

  ‘Just like old times,’ Effi said, echoing Thomas from the previous day.

  The roads between Dahlem and the West End were clear, but no trams seemed to be running. Another would-be passenger explained that several stretches of track had been torn up and taken by the Russians in June, and that buses were the only option until the Americans got around to re-laying them. One crowded double-decker eventually arrived, and thirty-five uncomfortable minutes later they found themselves in their old stamping ground at the eastern end of the Ku’damm. Several cafés were open for business, their clientele sitting in coats and mufflers at the outside tables, watching the steam from their coffees coalesce with their own exhalations. It was indeed like old times, but for the facing view, of ruins seen through ruins.

  A succession of British jeeps raced by, tiny Union Jacks flapping on their bonnets, soldiers with cigarettes dangling carelessly from their lips at the wheel. When one cast a butt out onto the asphalt, half a dozen children miraculously emerged to contest its possession.

  The two of them sipped at the dreadful coffee and ran through Thomas’ list of places to check. It seemed lengthy, but Effi thought a couple of weeks should suffice if they all took a hand. ‘And we might get lucky long before that,’ she added hopefully.

  ‘We might,’ Russell agreed. ‘Whatever lucky might be. I’m still not sure about this. Do we want to find Rosa’s father?’

  Effi looked at him. ‘Yes and no,’ she admitted, ‘but we have to try. You could say that the news will be bad either way – if he’s dead then Rosa’s an orphan, and if he isn’t then we’ll probably lose her. But I’ve decided to look on the bright side – if he’s dead, we get to keep her, and if he isn’t, then she won’t be an orphan.’

  Russell smiled. It didn’t seem worth pointing out the flaw in her logic – Rosa might win either way, but only one outcome would give Effi what she wanted. And there was always the chance of worse – if it turned out that Otto had deserted his family to save his own skin, they would still have to give the bastard his daughter back. Sometimes, Russell thought, it paid to leave stones unturned.

  Not that he or Effi had ever knowingly done such a thing.

  * * *

  Effi walked the short distance to 45 Schlüterstrasse. It was not her first visit – in pre-war days, when the elegant six-storey building had hosted Goebbels’ Reichskulturkammer, she had attended several publicity parties there. The little runt had drooled all over her on one occasion, and one of his lackeys had telephoned her several times a day for almost a week. The calls had only stopped when Russell answered one, and had them both in stitches with his outraged father act.

  Better not to mention such things, she thought, as she pushed her way in through the heavy double doors. In the space where the reception desk had been, an old man in a porter’s uniform was sitting on a upright chair.

  ‘Certification?’ he suggested, as he got to his feet. ‘You’ll…’

  ‘I’ve come to see Lothar Kuhnert,’ she interrupted him. ‘If he’s here today. He’s expecting me at some point, but if…’

  ‘He’s here. Third floor, room 17.’ He led her to the apparently functional lift, and pulled back the gate.

  The lift lurched into motion, but only rose to the first floor, where a young man with floppy blond hair and round-rimmed glasses joined her. She noticed the jolt of recognition in his eyes, and the barely-veiled hostility which
followed. All those years with an agent she didn’t really need, she thought, and now that she might actually need one… A few carefully placed stories in the press extolling her virtues as a heroine of the resistance would surely do the trick. Or maybe not – disloyalty was always frowned on, even if the object was beyond redemption. And the German public would probably still find her screen portrayals more memorable than her real life. The wonder of movies!

  As she walked down the third floor corridor, sounds of conversation and laughter behind several closed doors gave her a frisson of pleasure. Something was happening here, some antidote to the deadness outside.

  She knocked on the door of Room 17, and received a gruff summons to enter. Inside, a man in his late fifties or early sixties rose from a dustylooking sofa with a smile and outstretched hand. He still had all his hair, but it was almost white, and the face below was deeply lined. ‘Fräulein Koenen, welcome back to Berlin.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  He moved a pile of papers from an armchair, and made room for them on an already overcrowded desk. ‘Please…’ he said.

  She sat down and smiled at him. She didn’t think she’d ever met him, but there was something familiar about his face.

  ‘We did meet once,’ he said. ‘In this building, in the summer of 1934. August the 6th – I remember the date because that was the day that I quit. I was the original producer for Storm over Berlin, but they didn’t like what I had in mind, and I refused to make the changes they asked for. Someone else took over, of course, but, well…’

  It had been Effi’s third film, and her biggest part to date. Her portrayal of the wife of a storm trooper beaten to death by communists had done wonders for her career; when fans approached her in succeeding years it was almost always that role which they remembered.

  She looked at Kuhnert, wondering if the producer was expecting some sort of mea culpa.

  He wasn’t. ‘I’m aware of your work during the war, your resistance work, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, how?’

  ‘I’m a Party member,’ he said, as if that explained it.

  If the Soviets were behind the movie, she supposed it did. ‘Is this…’ She hesitated, uncertain how to phrase the question. ‘This film – are the Russians sponsoring it? Or the KPD?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ he insisted. ‘There are comrades involved – beside myself, I mean – but this is a commercial project. My own company is financing it. And we are based in the British sector. All the outside filming will be done here, only the interiors at Babelsberg.’

  ‘The studios are still standing?’

  ‘They were hardly damaged. Although most of the equipment was stolen.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘Ah, who knows?’ He waved a hand in the air as if to dismiss the matter, which told Effi that the Russians must have been responsible.

  ‘Who else is involved?’ she asked him. ‘Who’s directing?’

  ‘We’re still hoping that Ernst Dufring will be available.’

  ‘Only hoping?’

  ‘He wants to do it – he really likes the script. And he says he’s keen to work with you. A week ago everything seemed fine, but the British authorities asked him in for a second interview – since we’re based in their sector we need their permission to hire anyone – and now they’re looking into whatever he told them. We don’t know why they called him back – the Americans may have asked them to, or another German may have denounced him. We should know in a few days, and if the news is bad, we’ll just have to go with someone else.’

  ‘But there is a finished script?’

  ‘Oh yes. And it’s good. Have you heard of Ute Faeder?’

  ‘Yes, a long time ago. She had a good reputation.’ Another who had dropped from sight soon after the Nazi takeover.

  ‘And most of the casting has been done,’ Kuhnert went on. He reeled off a list of names, and all those that Effi recognised were good actors.

  ‘Do we have a title yet?’ she asked. She knew it was silly, but her films had never felt real until they had a proper title.

  ‘Nothing definite. “The Man I Shall Kill” is the current favourite.’

  ‘Mmm. And no date for shooting yet?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. It’s frustrating for everyone,’ he went on, correctly interpreting her expression. ‘So many of us have been waiting for this moment, here and in exile, waiting for the chance to start again, to reclaim German cinema, to make it what it was, a world leader. But the obstacles are still enormous. The war’s been over for six months, and not a single film has gone into production.’

  ‘Why?’

  Kuhnert shrugged. ‘No one knows for sure. The Americans are the main problem, and the cynical among us think that Hollywood fears the competition. There’s certainly plenty of their product on show here. But the Americans authorities say it’s all about cleaning up the German industry, that after Goebbels and Promi they have to be sure that anyone with the slightest smudge on their record is banned from working in it.’

  ‘That sounds a bit unrealistic.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? And that’s why most people agree with the cynics. Either way, there’s nothing we can do but press ahead, jump through all the hoops they put in front of us, and make sure we’re ready when the time ever comes. And we’re going ahead with some informal rehearsals, starting tomorrow. I’ve got a script for you somewhere.’ He rummaged around in one of the desk drawers and brought out a string-bound manuscript. ‘You’re Lilli, of course.’

  ‘Will the rehearsals be here?’

  ‘No, at Dufring’s house in Schmargendorf. Tomorrow’s starts at ten. I’ll write down the address for you,’ he added, reaching for a pen. ‘If you’re desperate for other work in the meantime, the Russians are hiring German actors to dub their own films out at Babelsberg. And there are quite a few theatre companies putting on plays. I could ask around for you.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m not desperate. And I have some lost relatives to look for, which will probably take a while.’

  ‘Okay. Here’s the contract,’ he said, passing it over. ‘I know the money’s terrible, but it’ll be worthless in a few weeks anyway. The ration card is what matters, and yours is the highest grade. You won’t go hungry.’

  Effi skimmed her way through the two-sheet contract. Neuefilm, the name of Kuhnert’s production company, rang no bells, but that was hardly surprising. The money was indeed derisory by her past standards, but, as he’d said, the ration card was what mattered. That and the chance to work again.

  She borrowed his pen to sign it.

  Kuhnert seemed pleased. He reached for a small pile of cards on his desk, riffled through them, and handed her a ration card. Her name and ‘Actor: leading roles’ had been typed in the appropriate spaces. He also passed across two sheets of paper. ‘Here’s Dufring’s address, and this is your certification from the Spruchkammer.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘It’s the committee which examines each artist’s political background, before granting permission to work. It’s based in this building.’

  ‘Who set it up?’

  Kuhnert shrugged. ‘Its own members, initially. But the Russians accepted them, and so did the Western allies when they arrived. No one wants the Nazis back.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Effi agreed.

  ‘But you will need clearance from the British. I’m assuming that you never joined the National Socialist Party.’

  ‘God no, but I was a member of the Reichskulturkammer.’

  ‘All working actors were – that shouldn’t be a problem.’

  ‘All right. So where do I go for British clearance?’

  ‘Oh, upstairs. One floor up. They’re at the back of the building. Just show them the Spruchkammer certificate.’ He offered his hand again, and gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Until tomorrow.’

  She decided she rather liked him, and wondered how he’d spent the last ten years. A question for another day.

  Up in the British
office waiting room, she found herself fourth in the queue, behind three much younger women seeking the conquerors’ permission to work in the arts. None seemed to recognise her, and all were dealt with quickly, a consequence, she assumed, of the obvious fact that all qualified for the amnesty granted anyone born after 1918.

  She unfortunately did not.

  The fair-haired English major who interviewed her was either tired, bored or badly hung over – perhaps all three. He did, however, speak perfect German. He gave the Spruchkammer certificate a cursory glance, took down her name and personal details, and then asked for a list of her film and stage credits. Having completed this, he reached for what looked like a prescribed set of questions. ‘Were you ever a member of the National Socialist Party?’ he began, finally making eye contact. ‘No.’

  ‘Were you a member of the Reichskulturkammer?’

  ‘Yes, everyone was.’

  ‘Not everyone. Some of your colleagues went into exile. Others stopped working.’

  There was no satisfactory answer to that, or none that would sound so after all that had happened in the last twelve years.

  He laid an accusatory finger on her list of credits. ‘And these,’ he went on in the same self-righteous tone, ‘were all Nazi productions.’

  He couldn’t be that naive, she thought. ‘They were produced by different companies, all of them licensed by Promi.’

  ‘The Nazi Propaganda Ministry.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So they were Nazi productions. And to all intents and purposes, Nazi propaganda?’

  ‘Some were pro-Nazi, some had nothing to do with politics.’

  ‘And how many were anti-Nazi? Or spoke out against the persecution of the Jews?’

  ‘None.’ She felt like asking him how many pre-war British or American films had taken their governments to task, but decided against it.

  He looked at the list again, and shook his head. ‘There’s nothing after 1941,’ he noticed.

  ‘My… my boyfriend is an English journalist. He got in trouble with the Gestapo – it was just before the Americans came into the war – anyway, he had to flee the country. I was going to leave with him, but in the end I didn’t. He escaped to Sweden, and I stayed in Berlin, in hiding, for the rest of the war.’