Lehrter Station

by David Downing

  ‘Rudolf, but I’ve never heard anyone use it.’

  The club was slowly filling up. Three British soldiers had just come in with four young girls, and a good-natured dispute about exchange rates was underway at the bar. On the stage a musician had removed his shining saxophone from its case, and was busy replacing its reed.

  ‘Do you know Otto Pappenheim?’ Russell asked Irma.

  ‘The accountant?’ I know him well enough to ignore him.’

  Russell laughed. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Oh nothing, I suppose. He’s one of Geruschke’s Jews. He says he likes to help them get back on their feet, which is fair enough. He could be a bit choosier, though. I mean, the Jews have their quota of low-lifes, just like everyone else. And in my experience, being persecuted rarely turns people into saints. Turns them into shits as often as not.’

  ‘You could be right,’ Russell agreed. It was beginning to seem that post-war Berlin – indeed, the whole damn post-war world – was hellbent on meeting his worst expectations.

  * * *

  Back at the house, he found Thomas and Effi sitting on either side of the kitchen table. They both looked less than happy. ‘Has something happened?’ he asked. ‘Is Leon all right?’

  ‘He’s fine,’ Effi said, raising a smile.

  ‘We’ve just had what passes for a normal day in Berlin,’ Thomas said wryly. ‘The Russians have been obstructing me, and the Americans have been obstructing Effi.’

  ‘How so?’

  Effi told him what Kuhnert had told her.

  ‘What’s it do with the Americans?’ Russell wanted to know.

  ‘Who knows? But anyway, Kuhnert thinks he can sort it out. It’s just left a sour taste, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, after all you went through. It must be really upsetting.’

  ‘It is,’ Effi agreed. But not just for those reasons, she thought. Part of her dismay came from recognising the grain of truth in the accusations against her. She had played the storm trooper’s widow. She had played the proud Nazi mother.

  Russell put an arm around her shoulder. ‘And what have the Russians been doing to you?’ he asked Thomas.

  ‘Oh, just making life difficult. They don’t understand business. They don’t like business. I think they believe deep down that business is like some fast-growing weed, that if they leave it alone it’ll grow so fast that they’ll never get rid of it.’

  ‘Couldn’t you relocate to one of the Western zones? There’s certainly no shortage of land for development.’

  ‘I’ve thought about it. Trouble is, if I set a move in motion the Russians will just confiscate my machinery. And if I could somehow persuade them not to, who knows how welcoming the Americans would be? One of the Soviet officials took me aside today, and warned me again how seriously the Americans would take my hobnobbing with Nazis during the war. And if he was right – if the Americans really are intent on giving me a hard time – then I’m better off staying where I am. At least the Russians let me work.’ He stood up. ‘But enough. I’m hungry, and Effi tells me you two have a dinner date.’

  ‘God yes,’ Russell said. He’d completely forgotten about Ali’s invitation.

  ‘And we should be going,’ Effi said, looking at her watch. She ducked out from under Russell’s arm. ‘And you can tell me whose perfume you’re wearing on the way.’

  * * *

  Outside the streets were a lot darker than Russell remembered from pre-war days, but brighter than they had been in the blackout. The sky seemed to be clearing, and the moon’s occasional appearances lent the ruins an aura of ghostly beauty.

  He told Effi about his meeting with Irma, and the reason he’d been at the night club. When he let slip that he’d known about Otto since the previous day she gave him an exasperated look. ‘Don’t keep me in the dark,’ she said. ‘I know you mean well, but I’d rather know. All right?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And how was Irma?’

  ‘The same as ever. If not more so.’

  Effi laughed. ‘We must go and see her perform.’

  They reached Hufelandstrasse, and climbed the stairs to Ali’s door. A wonderful aroma was waiting inside, and the dinner that Ali served up a few minutes later offered ample proof of the culinary skills she’d learnt from her mother. And, as she herself was quick to point out, of the extra rations they received as Jews.

  Fritz seemed increasingly relaxed with his wife’s friends, and did most of the talking. His thoughts on the pros and cons of the prospective merger between the KPD and SPD were perceptive for a young man, Russell thought, then silently admonished himself for being patronising.

  After dinner, Effi and Ali told tales of their time together. Both Russell and Fritz – who had also survived several years in hiding – had heard the stories before, but only from their own partners. Hearing the tales from them both added another dimension, and made them all the more extraordinary. Yet again, Russell was reminded of how easy his war had been compared to theirs. They’d all been living on their wits, but that was where the comparisons ended – each day for years on end these three had woken with the knowledge that any loss of vigilance, any stroke of bad luck, would likely prove fatal. He didn’t know how they’d managed it.

  He asked Ali and Fritz if they planned to stay in Berlin. If he’d had their experiences of the city and its citizens he wasn’t at all sure that he would.

  ‘For the moment,’ Fritz answered him.

  ‘How about Palestine?’ Russell asked.

  ‘No,’ Fritz replied curtly. ‘We want to be human beings first, not Jews.’

  ‘Sometimes we think about America,’ Ali admitted. ‘A completely fresh start and all that. But…’ She shrugged.

  ‘People say they want to leave it all behind,’ Fritz said. ‘But I don’t think they’ll find it that easy.’

  He was probably right, Russell thought. The world was a lot smaller than it used to be.

  Before they left Ali handed Effi a list of possible contacts. Some were people they had known during the war, others were Jews that Ali had met in the last six months.

  ‘Oh to be young again,’ was Russell’s first comment as they started for home down Hufelandstrasse.

  ‘Would you like to be twenty-one again?’ was Effi’s more serious response.

  He thought about it. ‘I’d like that body back – the joints didn’t ache in wet weather. And my youthful innocence… no, maybe not.’

  ‘Innocence is overrated,’ Effi told him.

  It was such an un–Effi-like thing to say that he almost stopped in his tracks.

  ‘I miss Rosa,’ she added.

  It sounded like a non sequitur, but probably wasn’t.

  * * *

  Wednesday morning was as grey as its predecessor. As Russell went through his things prior to leaving the house, he noticed the letter that Paul had given him for the mother and sister of Werner Redlich, the boy soldier his son had met in the final days of the war. Perhaps he would have time to visit them that afternoon. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it.

  Or his meeting with Shchepkin, come to that. Riding a tram up the old Herman-Göring-Strasse, Russell thought it a joke when the tram conductor named the next stop ‘Black Market’, but no one seemed to be laughing. As he left the tram, he noticed that others alighting were all carrying suitcases or bags of some sort, and heading in the same direction as himself, into the adjacent Tiergarten.

  He followed them in. Away to his left, allotments gave way to stump-studded wastelands and the shell-pitted flak towers. To his right, in the lee of the dog-eared Brandenburg Gate, an area the size of a football pitch played host to a milling crowd. This market had no stalls, only perambulant sellers whispering their wares. Almost all of them were Germans – women, children and a few old men. The buyers by contrast were mostly soldiers, and most of them were Russian.

  Rather to his surprise, he felt more sanguine about his new espionage career than
he had when the Soviets first came to call. Wondering why, he realised what had changed. While the Nazis had flourished, he’d had no ethical room for manoeuvre. Helping them, or hindering their enemies, were not things he could live with. Or not with any sense of self-worth. But that black-and-white world had vanished with Hitler, and the new one really was in shifting shades of grey. He could make arguments for and against any of the major players; in helping one or the other he had no sense of supporting good against evil, or evil against good. If, in personal terms, Yevgeny Shchepkin was almost a kindred spirit, and Scott Dallin someone from a distant unfriendly planet, he had no illusions about Stalin’s Russia. And though American help was his only way out of the Soviet embrace, that didn’t mean he wanted a world run by money and big business.

  His instructions were to stay on the edge of the crowd, and wait for contact to be made. He started around the perimeter, looking out for Shchepkin, and trying to ignore the repeated offers of items for sale. In less than a minute he was obliged to decline nylons, butter, soap powder and an Iron Cross First Class, all at allegedly once-only prices.

  He saw Shchepkin before the Russian saw him, which had to be a first – in the past the other man had made a habit of appearing at Russell’s shoulder with almost magical abruptness. He had half-expected to see Nemedin too, and was relieved to see Shchepkin alone. ‘I see they’ve let you out on your own,’ he greeted the Russian.

  Shchepkin smiled. He looked better than he had in London, the skin less stretched, the eyes less darkened. He was wearing a worn dark suit, with a patterned black scarf and grey trilby. ‘Let’s find somewhere to sit down,’ he said. ‘My knees are killing me.’

  They found an overturned bench which seemed sound, and which still bore traces of the legend denying its use to Jews. Sitting down, Russell felt somewhat exposed, but then he didn’t suppose it mattered if they were seen together. The Russians knew he was working for them, and so did the Americans.

  ‘I should give you a brief who’s who of the local NKVD,’ Shchepkin began.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you should know who you’re dealing with,’ the Russian said with some asperity. The boss here in Berlin is Pavel Shimansky. He’s not a bad man all told, and he’s a survivor – he’s already outlasted Yagoda and Yezhov, and Beria’s made no move against him yet. That may be because Shimansky has friends I don’t know about, or it may be because he lets his deputy – Anatoly Tsvetkov – do what he likes. Tsvetkov is one of Beria’s Georgians, and he is a nasty piece of work. Nemedin is his deputy, and you’ve met him.’

  ‘How is Comrade Nemedin?’

  ‘He’s hopeful. And very watchful. My room has been searched twice since I got here.’

  ‘Did they find anything?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Shchepkin said, as if his professionalism had been brought into question.

  ‘Where are you living?’

  ‘Out in Köpenick. There’s a hotel by the river which we’ve taken over.’

  ‘I know it. We went boating there before the war. But I don’t suppose your people do that.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. But let’s get to business.’ Shchepkin placed a folded newspaper on the bench between them. ‘The list of the men we need vetting is inside. They’re all Party members. And there’s a couple more that Fräulein Koenen is working with. We’d like her opinion on them.’

  Russell bristled. ‘That wasn’t part of the deal.’

  ‘No, but ask her anyway. She only has to deal in generalities. We just want a sense of where their loyalties lie.’

  ‘She’ll refuse.’

  ‘Perhaps. If she does, then we may have to think again. But I presume you’ve explained the situation to her – your situation, I mean.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then she may surprise you. In my experience women are more hard-headed about such things than men.’

  He might be right, Russell thought, as an emaciated dog sniffed round his shoes. ‘I’ll ask her.’

  The dog gave them both a reproachful look, and trotted off across the allotments.

  ‘Good. Now, your list. There are five comrades on it. Two of them you know – Gerhard Ströhm and Stefan Leissner…’

  ‘He survived?’ Leissner was the Reichsbahn official who’d given him and the young Soviet scientist Varennikov a hiding-place back in April. After the latter’s death Russell had come upon Leissner lying just outside his bombed office with his right leg almost severed. He’d loosened and re-tightened the unconscious man’s tourniquet, but there’d been no time to do anything more.

  ‘Leissner? He lost a leg, but he’s alive. And he has an important job – he’s virtually running the railways in our zone.’

  ‘He didn’t strike me as the disloyal type.’

  ‘Maybe not. But he’s certainly being tested – orders keep arriving from Moscow to tear up his tracks and ship them east as reparations.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yes. Two of the others should provide no problem, but Manfred Haferkamp – have you met him?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘He was a Party convenor in the Hamburg docks. In 1933 he escaped to Finland, and eventually turned up in Moscow. He taught at the International School for several years, but was arrested during the Yezhovshchina and sent to a labour camp in the North. In 1940 he was one of the German comrades that Stalin handed over to Hitler as part of the Pact. He managed to survive almost five years in Buchenwald, and after his release he chose to live here in Berlin rather than return to Hamburg. We don’t know why.’

  ‘Has anyone asked him?’

  ‘He claims this is where Germany’s future will be decided.’

  ‘Hard to argue with that.’

  ‘No, but it tells us nothing of how he envisages that future.’

  ‘With or without a Russian hand on every German shoulder? With his history, he’s hardly likely to have a framed portrait of the Great Leader on his bedroom wall.’

  ‘Probably not, though stranger things have happened. But we’re expecting you to find out.’

  Russell made a face.

  ‘And you must do a thorough job,’ Shchepkin insisted. ‘I know you. You’re already sympathising with this man, and wondering how you’ll be able to satisfy both Nemedin and your own conscience. Perhaps by reporting enough to demonstrate doubts, but not enough to get the man shot. And yes, that may be possible. But be careful. Nemedin is a clever bastard, and he enjoys catching people out. He and Tsvetkov need this information, but sometimes I get the feeling that Nemedin would get more satisfaction out of skewering us.

  ‘What’s he got against me?’

  ‘Everything. You’re an ex-communist with a bourgeois lifestyle and a film star wife. None of which you seem to be ashamed of.’

  ‘I was on my best behaviour.’

  ‘Then God help us. Look, he’s dangerous. To both of us. Don’t underestimate him.’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ve got the message.’ And he had. His earlier thoughts on pain-free espionage already seemed dated. He couldn’t imagine betraying someone as decent as Ströhm, but who knew what the price of refusal might be. And who might have to pay it. Effi’s film and Thomas’s business would certainly be among the casualties.

  Shchepkin was asking him whether he’d seen the Americans.

  ‘I left a message for their man – Dallin, do you know him?’

  ‘Of him. He’s not one of their brightest.’

  ‘No. Anyway, I left my address with them on Sunday, and he still hasn’t got back to me.’

  Shchepkin shook his head. ‘Amateurs,’ he muttered disapprovingly.

  ‘I suppose I should remind him I’m here, Russell said. ‘When do we meet again?’

  ‘Fridays, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘One day’s as good as another.’

  ‘What about your work as a journalist? It’s important that you establish a good cover.’

  ‘I’m doing a story on the Jews. The
survivors. How they’re finding each other, how they’re being treated, where they want to live.’

  Shchepkin nodded. ‘That sounds safe enough. And Fräulein Koenen’s film?’

  ‘The Americans are being obstructive. But maybe Dallin can help out with that.’

  ‘I expect so. Now that the war’s over, the intelligence agencies are more or less running things.’

  ‘So we’ve fallen on our feet,’ Russell said wryly.

  Shchepkin managed a thin smile. ‘Ah, the British sense of humour.’

  * * *

  Effi was a quarter of an hour late for the morning’s script rehearsal. An expired tram on Hohenzollerndamm was the cause, but she apologised profusely, worried that her new co-workers would be inwardly accusing her of the big star affectations she had always despised. She thought of repeating what her mother, with quite uncharacteristic humour, had once said – that she’d arrived late as a baby, and had been repeating the experience ever since – but the moment didn’t seem right.

  Everyone seemed more subdued than the day before, but it wasn’t until after the session was over, and the director took her into his study, that she found out why. ‘The Americans have asked for further checks on three more members of the cast,’ Dufring told her. ‘They’re taking this much further than we expected,’ he added, leaving Effi wondering who exactly he meant by ‘we’. ‘And I think you need to start compiling a dossier of affidavits from those you helped in the war.’

  ‘Really?’ Effi exclaimed. Gathering testaments to her own political virtue was not an appealing prospect.

  ‘Really,’ Dufring insisted. ‘And you’ll have to fill out one of these,’ he added, lifting a sheaf of papers from the desk.

  Effi looked through the document with increasing dismay. There were pages and pages of questions. One hundred and thirty-one of them. ‘Who did you vote for in 1932?’ she read aloud. ‘How am I supposed to remember that? I probably didn’t bother.’

  ‘I know,’ Dufring said. ‘It’s absurd. But do your best.’

  ‘They’ve called it a Fragebogen,’ Effi noticed. ‘Don’t they know that’s what the Nazis called their form proving aryan descent?’

  Dufring smiled. ‘Probably not.’