Lehrter Station

by David Downing

  * * *

  When Russell and Effi went out the next morning, the others were all still asleep. They had given up Thomas’s bedroom to Torsten and the children, and colonised the one normally occupied by the Niebels. The mother would doubtless be livid when she found out, but Russell had unearthed a ready-made riposte while shamelessly rummaging through their possessions – a signed photograph of the Reichsmarschal, lovingly wrapped in velvet.

  The Nazis lived on in so many ways, he thought, as he and Effi climbed aboard the unreturned jeep: in the devastation they had invited, in the judenfrei Germany which seemed irreversible; in bastards like Ulrich Mechnig, whom the two of them were about to visit.

  Russell glanced across at Effi, who gave him a joyous smile. In prewar times her presence on such an outing would have crippled him with anxiety, but no longer. She had as much experience of dicing with danger as he had, perhaps even more. The thought crossed his mind that all their involuntary adventures of the last few years might have made them better people, but another thought running behind it suggested that the obverse was also true. Like travel, struggles with survival both broadened and narrowed the mind.

  The address that Horst and his ‘irregulars’ had supplied was a corner house close to the Ringbahn. The street seemed relatively intact, the three boys who came to inspect the jeep almost healthy-looking. Russell promised them a cigarette each to mind the vehicle, and walked up the steps with Effi. The front door was hanging from one twisted hinge; they clambered through the opening and climbed the stairs to Apartment 4.

  ‘I’ll let you do the talking,’ Effi told him.

  ‘Okay,’ Russell said, taking the gun from his pocket and rapping sharply on the door. ‘You just look menacing.’

  They heard footsteps inside, then a male voice demanding to know who it was.

  ‘Housing Office,’ Russell improvised.

  ‘Come back another time.’

  ‘If you make me come back, I’ll have to report you.’

  ‘Oh, what the…’ Two bolts were thrown back, the door swung open, and Mechnig came into view. He was surprised to see Effi’s face, alarmed by the gun in Russell’s hand.

  Russell prodded him back into the apartment, and heard Effi close the door behind them. A girl was sitting on a threadbare couch, a blanket wrapped around her, but otherwise seemingly naked. She looked about fourteen.

  ‘Your daughter?’ Russell asked sarcastically, drawing a short laugh from the girl. ‘Go and get dressed,’ he told her.

  ‘I’ll go with her,’ Effi said, and followed her into the adjoining bedroom. The girl tossed the blanket aside and started putting her clothes on. She was all skin and bones, with bruises across her barely discernible breasts. Once dressed she took a pack of cigarettes from the row on the shelf and gave Effi a questioning look.

  ‘Take them all,’ Effi suggested, and the girl needed no second bidding.

  In the living room Russell had ordered Mechnig onto the couch. ‘Who do you Americans think you are?’ he said sullenly, seemingly confused by Russell’s greatcoat and hat.

  It seemed churlish to disabuse him. ‘What name are you using here?’ Russell asked.

  ‘My name is Meissner, Oskar Meissner, not that it is any of your business.’

  ‘Your name is Ulrich Mechnig. SS Sturmscharführer Mechnig of the Berlin Gestapo. Or did you rise higher than that?’

  Mechnig stared coldly back at him.

  ‘You’re a dead man,’ Russell said mildly.

  ‘You can’t touch me. Not with the friends I’ve got.’

  ‘Fehse and the others? They’re finished. And I can not only touch you, I can shoot you here and now. I doubt anyone would come to investigate, but even if they did, I can’t see them caring that much. The camps are full of scum like you, waiting for their trials. And their hangings.’

  Mechnig opened his mouth to say something, but was distracted by the return of the women.

  ‘I might have known,’ the girl said, looking at him. She had obviously overheard their conversation. ‘And I won’t say anything,’ she promised Russell on her way to the door. ‘What a great companion you must be,’ Russell observed after she’d left. ‘But back to business. I want all you know about Fehse.’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Good question. Let me give you some options. If you won’t talk, we’ll drive you straight into the Russian sector, and hand you over to some NKVD friends of mine, along with your real identity, your false papers, and witness statements from several Jews who remember you all too well. My friend here saw you kill a young boy on a U-Bahn platform and is more than willing to testify against you, should they ever bother with a trial. I think it’s more likely that the Russians will just put you out with the rubbish.

  ‘Ah, not so confident,’ Russell noted. The look on Mechnig’s face suggested that the NKVD still lay outside his boss’s sphere of influence. ‘But let’s look on the positive side. If you do tell us all you know, we’ll give you a free ride to Anhalter Station, and buy you a ticket to anywhere you like in the American zone. You can keep your papers and carry on being good old squeaky-clean Oskar Meissner. You can even join the rat-run to South America if you know how. This is your chance to live, Ulrich. Your only chance.’

  Mechnig said nothing for a moment, but Effi could see he was weakening. If there were two things that Russell was good at, they were talking himself out of corners, and other people into them.

  ‘He’ll kill me,’ Mechnig said tonelessly.

  ‘Not if you leave while you can.’

  Mechnig ran a hand through what was left of his hair. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Nothing too dangerous. What’s his first name, for a start?

  ‘Reinhard.’

  ‘Tell me about his business – what he deals in, how he brings the stuff in.’

  ‘That’s easy. Everything. He deals in everything – drugs, booze, cigarettes, girls of course – we even brought in a lorry-load of bananas the other day. Anything you can move for a profit, we move it.’

  It sounded like a company slogan. ‘How is the stuff brought in? And where is it kept?’

  Haulage was mostly by lorry, but Fehse also had men working on the railways. Mechnig listed several distribution centres, including the one out in Spandau where Russell’s reprieve had been granted. ‘We get stuff from everywhere – Denmark and Sweden, the American PX, all across the Reich.’

  Russell felt like reminding him that the Reich was history, but concentrated on looking impressed. He could have guessed everything Mechnig had told them so far, but he didn’t want the other man to know that. ‘So Fehse has friends among the Americans?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Anyone in particular?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Russell had brought four of Horst’s photographs with him – the three still unidentified and the one of the uniformed American. ‘I mean him,’ he said, showing Mechnig the latter.

  ‘His name’s Crosby.’

  ‘I thought it might be. What do he and Fehse do for each other?’

  ‘We do jobs for him, and he keeps the occupation people off our backs.’

  ‘What sort of jobs?’

  ‘People mostly. He tells us which Germans he wants brought out of the Russian sector, and we go and get them.’

  ‘What sort of people?’

  ‘All sorts. Scientists, businessmen, patriots. These days the Americans are serious about fighting the Russians. It’s a pity they didn’t realise who their real enemy was a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Isn’t it just,’ Russell said drily. ‘So Fehse doesn’t have any Russians on his payroll?’

  ‘Only one that I know about. An army man out at Köpenick.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Sokolovsky.’

  A shame it wasn’t Nemedin, Russell thought to himself. One last question occurred to him: ‘So why does Fehse hire so many Jews?’

  Mechnig laughed for the first time. ‘T
he man’s a genius. None of them are really Jews, but he gets all the kudos for helping them. The Americans lap it up. A gangster with a real soft spot – that’s what they think. A German Robin Hood.’ He laughed again.

  ‘Where does the genius live?’

  ‘He has a villa out in Wannsee. It belonged to one of Heydrich’s friends.’

  ‘How apt.’ Russell showed Mechnig the remaining photographs, and took down the names he gave. He had no way of knowing whether the other man was telling the truth, but instinct suggested he was. Mechnig seemed almost relieved that they knew about his past.

  At that moment he was staring at Effi. ‘When I saw you out in Teltow I knew I’d seen you at the club, but I had the feeling then that I’d seen your face before. And then the boss told me you were an actress.’

  ‘I still am,’ she told him shortly. ‘But don’t expect an autograph.’

  He turned back to Russell. ‘So can I pack a suitcase?’

  Ten minutes later they were on their way, with Effi at the wheel and the others seated behind her. Russell didn’t expect Mechnig to make a break for it – the promised train would carry him further and faster than his feet ever could – but he kept his hand on the gun, just in case the man had a brainstorm. When they reached Anhalter Station, he took Mechnig through to the ticket office. Frankfurt was the first available destination in the American Zone, which seemed to suit him well enough. Once Russell had purchased the ticket, Mechnig scowled his lack of gratitude, and promptly stalked away.

  Behind the wheel of the jeep, Effi seemed excited. ‘None of them are really Jews,’ she repeated, as Russell climbed in beside her.

  ‘So he’s not a philanthropist after all.’

  ‘No, you idiot. None of them. Including the first Otto.’

  Russell gave her an admiring look. He’d been too busy intimidating Mechnig to notice.

  ‘So why did he choose that name?’ Effi asked.

  Russell checked the petrol gauge. ‘Let’s go and ask him.’

  They drove across the desolate Tiergarten to the house on Solinger Strasse. Russell’s persistent hammering evoked no response, from either the phony Otto or any of his neighbours. ‘He’s probably at the Honey Trap,’ Russell decided. ‘And I think our welcome there may be less than effusive. We’ll have to wait.’

  ‘I’m working tomorrow and Friday,’ Effi lamented.

  ‘Then we’ll wake him up on Saturday.’

  He drove them to the Press Club in Dahlem, and returned the jeep to its owners.

  While Effi made use of the pampered press corps’ hot showers, he used one of the telephones to track down the number of a paper now printing in Frankfurt. ‘There’s a man on the train from Berlin,’ he told the desk he eventually reached, ‘the one that’s supposed to arrive just after nine this evening. His papers say he’s Oskar Meissner but his real name is Ulrich Mechnig. He was a Gestapo Sturmscharführer, and he has a lot of blood on his hands.’

  ‘Who are you? How do you know about this?’

  ‘I’m a journalist just like you,’ Russell told him. ‘And naturally I can’t divulge my sources.’ He hung up the phone, and stood there for a moment examining his conscience.

  It was fine. What he’d done was hardly cricket, but who would invite the Nazis to Lord’s?

  * * *

  That evening, they listened to Torsten recount Miriam’s story. The children were sleeping; Esther, though she stayed with them in the dimly lit kitchen, had heard it all that morning.

  After her rescue Miriam had, at Isendahl’s instigation, been taken in by a Marthe and Franz Wilden. This Christian couple, who had no children of their own, had lavished the mute, traumatised and pregnant girl with care and attention. Frau Wilden, who had served as a nurse in the First War, had eventually helped deliver the baby, and her husband had paid a small fortune for the necessary documentation.

  As Russell had guessed, the young Leon had been fathered by one of the SS rapists in the house on Eisenacher Strasse. But her son’s birth had been Miriam’s re-birth – according to Torsten she often said that having the child was like waking up again. And that, once a mother, she had become determined to survive the war.

  It never mattered that Leon was the product of rape, or that the rapist was a killer of her people – she loved the child without reservation. She considered going home to Silesia but the risks seemed too high – her false papers were for a Berliner, and people would certainly recognise her in Wartha. She sent letters to her parents, but never received a reply – by this time, of course, the farm was in ruins, Leon and Esther long since gone. The lack of response upset her, but it still seemed wiser to stay where she was.

  Then, in the autumn of 1942, the Wilden house had been bombed. She and Leon were in the cellar, but the Wildens were both killed, and her papers were destroyed in the subsequent fire. Risking everything, convinced that even a blind man could see she was Jewish, she went to apply for new ones, at the office which dealt with such eventualities. And the man she saw had flirted with her, ruffled Leon’s hair, and provided the papers and home she needed without so much as a second thought. That afternoon she and the boy moved into a room of their own in Wedding, stunned by how easy the process had been.

  As her confidence grew, the bombing got worse, and she eventually decided that the risks of staying outweighed those of going home. She realised that Wartha was still out of bounds, but Breslau would do until the war was over, and someone might have news of her parents. Something happened on the train – something she would never talk about – but they both arrived safely, and were allocated a room by the city authorities which a Jewish family had long since abandoned. She visited the Petersdorff store more in hope than expectation – Torsten was well past the age of call-up – but there he was.

  And there she was. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw her,’ Torsten said. ‘I fell in love with her all over again. Or I would have, if I hadn’t always loved her.’

  He smiled at the memory. ‘She came to stay with me, and, well’ – he glanced across at Esther – ‘soon we were living as husband and wife. No one troubled us, and we troubled no one. Little Esther was born, and it felt as though we had a complete family. The war was getting closer of course, but we never dreamt things would get as bad as they did. We were so happy. Until the day she died we were happy.’ He raised his eyes. ‘And she lives on in the children.’

  ‘Yes,’ Esther said quietly. ‘Yes, she does.’

  * * *

  After the Soviet bus collected Effi next morning, Russell spent the predawn hours working at Thomas’s desk. By the time he set out for the Press Club it was fully light, but the canteen seemed emptier than usual, and most of the German staff looked bored to death. After satisfying his new addiction to pancakes and syrup, and downing two cups of the passable coffee, he retraced his steps as far as the American headquarters on Kronprinzenallee.

  During their time together on Christmas Eve, Wilhelm Isendahl had given him the name of a sympathetic American in the Denazification section of the Public Safety division. According to Isendahl, David Franks was a New York Jew with a mission, and that was to nail as many Nazis to the wall as higher authority would allow.

  His office was at the other end of the old Luftwaffe building, a good three hundred metres from Dallin’s. Which was just as well – next week was quite soon enough for the resumption of his career as an American agent. Shchepkin had not said how much Russell should tell the Americans about Friday’s scheme to torpedo Nemedin, and it seemed simpler to get that behind him before meeting Dallin.

  Sometimes he thought he should write it all down as he went along. Like a paper trail in a maze.

  David Franks, at least, conformed to expectations – he looked and acted like other New York Jews of Russell’s acquaintance – dark and bespectacled, with a restless intelligence just on the cusp of neurotic. His office might well have been the fullest in Berlin, in terms of both paper and future prospects. Towers of completed Frageb
ogen rose from the floor like Franks’ hometown skyscrapers.

  Isendahl had already rung to introduce him, which saved a lot of explanation. It turned out the Nazi records he needed – the ones discovered in September and subsequently brought to Berlin – were held at a villa on the edge of the Grunewald. Franks commuted between the two, checking the Fragebogen against the official files, and as luck would have it he was on his way there. ‘Wilhelm didn’t give me any names, only the general idea,’ he told Russell as they walked down to the jeep. ‘But I’m happy to take all the help I can get. There are enough of our people who don’t give a damn.’

  ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘Two reasons. One, they’ve decided that fighting the Russians has top priority, and any enemy of theirs is a friend of ours. Two, anti-Semitism’s not just a German disease.’

  They drove down Argentinische Allee, passing the Onkel Toms Hütte U-Bahn station before turning west towards the forest. The villa was in Wasserkäfersteigstrasse, a cul-de-sac ending in trees. A shiny new barbedwire fence surrounded the complex, and two sentries guarded the gate.

  ‘Someone cares,’ Russell murmured.

  ‘So they should. The stuff in here will determine Germany’s future.’ He turned to Russell. ‘Actually, they’re pretty lax. They know me, so they probably won’t even ask to see your papers, but if they do, I’ll tell them you’re helping me with some local knowledge. Okay?’

  In the event, they were just waved through. Down in the over-stuffed vault, Franks collected the relevant file cards, and Russell transcribed any additional details that they contained. All the names they had gathered from their Jewish witnesses were there save one. There was no card for a Fehse, Reinhard or otherwise.

  ‘Why would it be missing?’ Russell asked.

  ‘No reason. If it’s not here, there isn’t one.’

  ‘Maybe someone just walked in and took it.’

  ‘I doubt it. They may not always check papers at the gate, but they would if the face was unfamiliar.’

  That, Russell thought, begged all sorts of questions.

  * * *

  He spent the afternoon writing, and was watching the street for the Soviet bus when Scott Dallin turned in through the gate. ‘Let’s walk,’ were the American’s first words. He was seething with anger.