Lehrter Station

by David Downing

  One thing seemed clearer with each passing day – who was in charge of western Berlin. The Americans were deciding not only who could work in the British zone, but who should be arrested in the French. And no one seemed to find this strange, let alone feel impelled to protest, unless the sulking of men like Laval was counted as such. The war had only been over six months, but the British and the French were already irrelevant – there were only two real powers in the city, or in the wider continent. And as luck would have it, he was working for both.

  If the Americans had arranged Kuzorra’s arrest, they could just as easily arrange his release. A meeting with Scott Dallin seemed indicated.

  By the time Russell reached the American HQ on Kronprinzenallee, the drizzle had stopped, and there were hints of sunlight in the western sky. After asking for Colonel Dallin he settled down for a long wait, but was only halfway through the lead story in the Allgemeine Zeitung when a corporal came to collect him.

  Dallin’s office was high at the back, with a distant view of the Grunewald. The Californian had grown a moustache since Russell had last seen him, and the golden-brown hair was long enough to flaunt its waves. The visual effect was Gatsby-ish, but this son of privilege had none of that character’s easy charm. ‘Where have you been?’ was his first irritated question.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for your call,’ Russell replied, taking the unoffered seat in front of the other man’s desk. ‘I left a number and address downstairs.’

  Dallin grasped his nose between two fingers and sighed. ‘I never received them. But…’ He brought both palms down on his desk. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He gave Russell a cold look. ‘You can probably imagine how I felt when London told me they were sending you.’

  ‘Relieved? Ecstatic?’

  Dallin grunted. ‘You haven’t changed. So, please, let’s start from the beginning. Give me one good reason why I should believe the story you told Lindenberg.’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘He’s in London, and he doesn’t know you like I do. You used to be a communist, you flirted with the Nazis. You even worked for us to buy yourself a US passport. Is there any intelligence organisation you haven’t worked for?’

  ‘The Japanese. Look, Colonel, I never, as you put it, flirted with the Nazis – every dealing I ever had with the bastards was a matter of necessity. I did used to be a communist, but so did a lot of other people back then. And there are a lot of honourable men still out there who call themselves communists – most of them were fighting Hitler long before Pearl Harbour. But I left the Party almost twenty years ago, mostly because I didn’t like what was happening in Russia then, and now it’s ten times worse. I’m sure you and I have our differences, but we’re on the same side now.’

  Dallin looked less than convinced. ‘So what made the Soviets think you would work for them?’

  ‘I promised them I would. They had my son in a POW camp, and in return for his release I said I would spy for them. I had no choice if I ever wanted to see him again.’

  Dallin steepled his hands as he considered this. ‘All right,’ he said finally, with almost palpable reluctance.

  They really were desperate, Russell thought. Dallin had been told to enlist him, and was either letting off steam or trying to convince himself that he had nothing to lose. Probably both. The American would give Russell enough rope to either hang himself or tie the Soviets in knots. A win-win situation.

  ‘So have you been in contact with the Russians?’ Dallin asked.

  ‘Yes. I saw Shchepkin the other day. He’s my Soviet contact.’

  ‘How do you spell that,’ Dallin asked, reaching for his fountain pen. Like Russell’s old boss in Heydrich’s Sicherheitsdienst, he favoured green ink.

  He repeated the name. ‘Anyway, the NKVD wants me to check out several high-ranking German comrades. I’ve seen one already. His name’s Gerhard Ströhm – he was a member of the communist underground during the war, and I knew him slightly back in ’41. He was actually born in America, but he’s lived here since he was about thirteen. He’s very disillusioned with the Soviets. And I think he might be recruitable in the long term. I’ve found out he’ll be voted onto the KPD Central Committee next spring, so he’d be an excellent asset.’

  ‘That sounds promising,’ Dallin said, placing his hands behind his head. He seemed pleasantly surprised, but was doing his best not to show it.

  ‘It is,’ Russell agreed. ‘And from what Ströhm told me, there are a quite a few others. The Russians are supporting the German communists who spent the war in Moscow, and they’re not giving the ones who stayed in Germany a look-in. The second group are really ticked off. So there’s quite an opportunity for us.’

  ‘That sounds good.’

  ‘And there’s another friend who could be very useful, but I’ve run into a problem with him. His name’s Uwe Kuzorra,’ Russell went on, watching in vain for any sign that the name was familiar. ‘He used to be a detective in the criminal police, and he owes me a few favours. But the French have arrested him for some reason or other, and they won’t let me visit him. A French friend looked into the matter for me, and he says that we asked for him to be arrested.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘It was an American request.’

  ‘It didn’t come from this department.’

  ‘I didn’t think it did. But could you look into it? He’s not a Nazi. Never was – he actually resigned from the Kripo when the Nazis took over, and set up as a private eye. He only rejoined the police after his wife died, when they were really short of men; he was never in the Gestapo. He could be very useful to us both. He knows Berlin better than anyone I know, and he doesn’t like the Russians.’

  Dallin reached for the phone on his desk. ‘You’d better wait outside,’ he said, almost apologetically. Noting the marked change in attitude, Russell closed the door behind him. The way to a spy chief’s heart was clearly to offer him spies.

  He could hear Dallin’s tone through the door, and there was no mistaking the rising anger. Call seemed to follow call, and the voice grew harder, more insistent. Finally Russell was summoned back in.

  ‘I can’t get a straight answer from anyone,’ Dallin told him. ‘No one admits to knowing your friend, let alone demanding his arrest. In the end, I just cut through the crap and phoned the French. You can visit the man on Saturday. 11 a.m., out at their army camp. You know where that is?’

  ‘Roughly. That’s great, thanks. Just one more thing’, he added, thinking that he might as well push his luck. He explained about Effi, and the problems she was having with other invisible Americans. ‘They promised me in London that she’d be able to work,’ he told Dallin, neglecting to mention that ‘they’ were the Soviets. ‘She’s a heroine of the resistance, for God’s sake – you’d think whoever it is would have some real Nazis to chase. If you could have a word with whoever’s responsible, I’d take it as a personal favour.’

  ‘I can’t promise anything,’ Dallin said, ‘but I’ll look into it.’ He got up to shake hands. There was, Russell thought, almost a smile on the American’s face.

  * * *

  They had arranged to meet Esther Rosenfeld just inside the main entrance to the Elisabeth Hospital. Effi had last seen the complex in 1941, when she’d been one of the famous names invited to cheer up the wounded. The last four years of bombs and shells had rendered it almost unrecognisable. Now parts of buildings were supported by iron and wooden struts, with temporary shelters nestling in between.

  Esther was waiting for them. ‘He’s not so good this evening,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you.’ She led them down a long corridor, across an open space to another building, and up a flight of stairs. Effi suddenly knew where she was – they were passing the office where she and Annaliese Huiskes had often shared a bottle of hospital-brewed alcohol. She wondered what had happened to the blonde nurse. The last time Effi saw her, Annaliese was driving off down Bismarckstrasse in the car they had both ‘borro
wed’, hoping to escape the Russians’ pincers as they closed around Berlin.

  They passed through one ward and entered another. Leon Rosenfeld was in the penultimate bed, lying on his back with a blank expression in his eyes. He seemed smaller than Russell remembered, and much older – he couldn’t be much more than fifty, but he looked about seventy. The marks of the beating he’d received in Silesia were still visible, but only just.

  Esther took his hand, and told him who they were. ‘This is John Russell,’ she said. ‘Remember he stayed at the farm?’

  There was a slight flicker in the eyes, and a look, both hopeful and dumb, that reminded Russell of the dog he’d had as a child.

  ‘And this is his wife Effi,’ Esther was saying. ‘They both helped rescue Miriam.’

  The eyes found Effi, a slight smile creasing the lips. And then the eyes closed, and he winced as if in pain. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

  After sitting in silence for a couple of minutes, it became obvious that Leon had fallen asleep. ‘He’s not so good in the evenings,’ Esther said again. ‘He’s much livelier in the mornings.’

  ‘Then next time we’ll come in the morning,’ Effi promised, getting to her feet. ‘Are you coming back with us?’

  ‘No, I’ll stay a while longer. Thank you for coming.’

  The two of them walked back through the wards. At the end of the second Effi noticed a vaguely familiar face. ‘Were you working here in 1941?’ she asked the nurse in question, an unusually plump woman with short brown hair.

  ‘I feel like I’ve been here since the First War,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘I had a friend who worked here – Annaliese Huiskes. I wondered…’

  ‘She’s still here. She came back, that is. About two months ago, I think. I saw her earlier – she’s on duty this evening.’

  It took them five minutes to find the relevant ward, where another joyous reunion took place. Russell smiled at the patients’ gawping faces as the two women did a jig in the aisle.

  Annaliese was wearing a sister’s uniform now. ‘I see you found him,’ she said, eyeing Russell over Effi’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m not so easy to shake off,’ Russell said, giving her a kiss on each cheek.

  Annaliese just stared at them, a big grin on her face. Her blonde hair was longer than Effi remembered, and tied back with a red ribbon. ‘Go wait in the office,’ Annaliese said, ‘I’ll be along in a minute.’

  She was back in two. ‘No booze, I’m afraid,’ she told Effi. ‘I’m being good.’

  They sat and talked for almost an hour. Effi told Annaliese all about England and Rosa, and the nurse told her what had happened after their nocturnal parting in April. Annaliese had reached her late husband’s parents in Spandau, and they had hidden her in their cellar for several weeks while the Russians raped the neighbourhood’s women. She had then set out across country, hoping for better from the Western Allies, but had ended up in an American camp at Rheinberg. ‘It was more terrible than you could imagine, but I’ll tell you about that another time. I have to do my rounds in a few minutes, and I’d like to show John something before you go.’

  ‘Me?’ Russell asked, surprised.

  ‘You’re still a journalist, aren’t you?’

  ‘I sometimes think so.’

  ‘Yes he is,’ Effi said, cuffing him round the head.

  After finding a nurse to cover for her, Annaliese led them through two large wards to a third, where all the beds were occupied by thin-faced children. Two immediately asked for water, which Annaliese went to fetch. Around twenty pairs of eyes stared dully at Russell and Effi.

  ‘They’re all diabetic,’ the returning Annaliese explained, ‘and we don’t have enough insulin.’

  ‘Why not?’ Russell asked, though the answer wasn’t hard to guess.

  ‘The only suppliers are Grosschieber – the big-time black marketeers – and they make sure that supplies are tight. When they do release some, they invite all the hospitals to bid on them, to maximise the price. They do the same with penicillin, and the VD drugs, Pyrimal and Salvarsan. The staff dip into their own pockets, but it’s not enough. There was a twelve-year-old in that bed there’ – she pointed to the one lying empty – ‘but she died this afternoon. When she arrived ten days ago there was nothing wrong with her that an insulin injection wouldn’t fix.’

  ‘Where did it come from before?’ Russell asked.

  ‘There were two labs in Berlin, but both were bombed out. We did get some from Leipzig for a while, but the supply dried up – we don’t know why. One doctor went down there on his day off with some money we’d collected, but he never came back. And no, he wasn’t the sort to steal it.’ She looked at Russell. ‘This would be a story worth telling, don’t you think?’

  ‘It would,’ he agreed.

  It would, he thought, as they walk back through the wards. Trouble was, he’d had the same thought looking at Leon. And watching the dazed refugees tumbling out of their train at Lehrter Station. The victims were different, but there was only one story, and it wasn’t the one he wanted to write. He had spent enough time with sadness and evil, and to what useful end? Any fool could shout ‘never again’, but he might as well change his name to Canute. It would happen again. Somewhere, sometime in the not too distant future. Most people were incapable of looking beyond themselves selves and those they loved – the camp on the other side of the hill was never their business. There was nothing new or surprising about children dying for someone else’s greed. As the seventeen-year-old Albert Wiesner had told him six years earlier, the only mystery in this world was kindness.

  Effi was asking Annaliese when they could meet again.

  ‘I get Saturday afternoon and Sunday off. I usually go out to see Gerd’s parents on Saturday, but if the weather’s nice on Sunday we could go for a walk in the Grunewald.’

  They agreed to rendezvous at Thomas’s house.

  ‘And think about that story,’ Annaliese told Russell. ‘Anyone here will talk to you.’

  ‘I will,’ Russell told her.

  Effi said nothing until they were back outside. ‘You didn’t sound very enthusiastic.’

  ‘I’m not. It’s terrible, of course it is. But it won’t be news to anyone in Berlin, or anywhere in Germany.’

  ‘What about England and America?’

  ‘No editor would buy it. He’ll know his readers, and they won’t care about Germans killing Germans.’

  * * *

  ‘How long do you think we’ve been back?’ Russell asked as he shaved the next morning.

  Effi was still cocooned in their blankets. ‘Oh I don’t know. It feels like weeks.’

  ‘This time last week we were on our way to Victoria,’ he told her.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ She sat up against the headboard. ‘Your friend Shchepkin – do you think he’d check out the Shanghai Otto for us?’

  ‘He might, if I ask him nicely.’

  ‘The Soviets must keep records of people who travel across their country. And we’d know for certain that he went.’

  ‘True. I’ll ask him when I see him, but that won’t be till next Friday.’

  ‘Oh… So what about Shanghai? If he did go, how can we find out if he’s still there?’

  Russell rinsed his face in the bowl. ‘I’ll ask Dallin. The Americans must have a consulate there.’

  ‘Your spymaster friends are coming in handy.’

  Russell shook his head. ‘Don’t joke about it.’

  ‘All right. So where are you off to this morning?’

  ‘The Soviet sector. I’ll try and see a couple of the men on Shchepkin’s list.’

  ‘What do you say to them? I’m running a survey for Stalin?’ Russell laughed. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘No, seriously.’

  ‘I’ll tell them I’m writing an article on reconstruction, and talking to those most responsible. Off the record, of course – no names or direct quotes. If they say yes – and most people do
love talking about themselves and what they’re doing – then I’ll ask how they’re getting on, what problems they’re having, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Problems like the Russians taking half their zone back to Russia?’

  ‘A failure to mention that could be construed as loyalty. And vice versa, of course. You get the idea. I make up the details as I go along.’ He checked his jacket pockets for pen, paper and cigarette currency. ‘Are you going out?’

  ‘Yes, Kuhnert left a message – there’s a rehearsal at eleven. And this afternoon I thought I’d go over to Lehrter Station, and see if I can find Lucie. She was going to look out the arrival lists.’

  ‘I could meet you there,’ Russell said. The arrival he’d witnessed at the station was still fresh in his mind.

  ‘Where?’ Effi asked. ‘It’s probably a sea of rubble.’

  ‘No, it’s mostly cleared. The clock’s still there – we can meet under that. Say four o’clock?’

  * * *

  A couple of broken-down trams and another unexploded bomb in the tunnels stretched Russell’s journey to almost four times its pre-war duration, but both intended interviewees proved willing to see him without a prior appointment. Kurt Junghaus, a harassed-looking man with prematurely grey hair and a chubby face that ill-suited his skinny figure, worked for the recently-established Propaganda and Censorship Department at the KPD’s new Wallstrasse headquarters. The job itself suggested a high degree of trust, and Russell found no reason to doubt him, at least in the short term. If disillusion ever came it would be complete, but this was a man who wanted to believe, and Russell had no qualms about stressing his loyalty.

  Uli Trenkel worked in a new Soviet-sponsored planning office further down the street, a long stone’s throw from the Spree. The glasses perched halfway down his sharp nose gave him the air of an intellectual, but the rough-skinned hands told a different story – this man had probably worked in one of Berlin’s war industries. He seemed much more relaxed when it came to technical issues than he did with politics, and where the latter was concerned Russell guessed he would follow the path of least resistance. He wouldn’t be any trouble to the Soviets or their KPD friends.