of her body tucked into his. 'We'll work it out,' he whispered, though he had no idea how. He remembered the poster in the torchlight, the jeering threats in the darkness. 'We will,' he murmured, more to himself than to her. She managed a grunt of agreement and slid away into sleep.
A Leap in the Light
Thursday began well. The sun was already streaming through the curtains when they woke, and long sleepy love-making seemed to dissolve any lingering distance between them. They shared a bath, took turns drying each other, and found themselves back on the rumpled bed. A second immersion in the tub exhausted the supply of dry towels.
They drove down to the Ku'damm for breakfast and sat outside with large cups of milky coffee, watching fellow Berliners on their way to work. 'You'll need a dress suit,' Effi said. 'For the premiere,' she added in explanation.
'I'll hire one. And that reminds me - I've got presents for you at home.'
Her eyes lit up. 'You'll bring them over?'
'I will.'
Effi looked at her watch. 'I told Zarah I'd see her this morning.'
'Then we'd better get going,' Russell said, signalling the waiter.
During the drive out to Grunewald he told her about Miriam, and his hiring of Kuzorra on Thomas's behalf. She listened but said nothing, just stared out of the window at the shops lining the Ku'damm. When Russell realized she was crying he pulled over and took her in his arms.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'It sounds like a story with such a sad ending.'
Outside Zarah's house she kissed him a loving goodbye, and he watched the front door close behind the two sisters before moving off. Russell had woken in the middle of the night, full of fear that Effi would leave him, that she wouldn't risk her life on his ability to satisfy the SD. Here now, in the bright light of a summer morning, the notion seemed risible, but traces of the fear still lingered.
He drove back into town, stopping for petrol at the garage halfway up Ku'damm. According to Jack Slaney, the special permits required by travellers to the Czech Protectorate were only available from the Ministry of Economics building on Wilhelmstrasse, and needed further ratification from the Gestapo. A long morning's work, Russell guessed.
The Ministry office concerned did not open for business until ten-thirty. Russell read the
'I'm a journalist,' Russell said, passing over his Ministry of Propaganda press credentials. 'I want to see how the Czechs are enjoying their liberation.'
The bureaucrat suppressed a smile. 'You're entitled to a permit of course, but I should warn you that the Gestapo are unlikely to ratify it. The border is tightly closed,' he added, with unnecessary relish. 'When do you wish to go?'
'Monday week,' Russell told him. 'The 31st.'
The man took one printed green card from the small stack on his desk, filled in the dates by hand, and signed it. 'You must take this to the Alex. Room 512.'
Russell drove across town, parked his car in the street beside the Stadtbahn station, and walked across Alexanderplatz. The bell-towered slab of a building which housed most of Berlin's Kripo detectives and several Gestapo departments was situated on the far side, the relevant entrance on Dircksen Strasse.
Room 512 was on the fifth floor. The Gestapo duty officer hardly glanced at the green card. 'Come back in a week,' he said dismissively.
Russell smiled at him. 'If there should be a problem, please contact Hauptsturmfuhrer Ritschel at Prinz Albrecht-Strasse or Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth of the Sicherheitsdienst at 102 Wilhelmstrasse. I'm sure one of them will be able to help.'
'Ah,' the man said. 'Let me write those names down.'
Russell retraced his path to the outside world, pausing only to wash his hands at one of the green washbasins which dotted the corridors. A ritual cleansing perhaps.
The heat was still rising but a few clouds had gathered, almost apologetically, in the western sky. Resisting the temptation to eat an early lunch at Gerhardt's he drove across town, left the Hanomag in the Adlon parking lot, and walked the short distance back along Unter den Linden to No.7, where the former palace of Princess Amelia, Frederick the Great's youngest and reputedly favourite sister, now housed the Soviet Embassy.
Russell rang the bell and glanced around, half-expecting a posse of men in leather coats propping up linden trees, all reading their newspapers upside down. There were none. The door was opened by a thin-lipped Slav in a grey suit. He was holding the last few millimetres of a cigarette between thumb and forefinger.
'Visa?' Russell said in Russian.
'Come,' the man said, looking beyond him for an unlikely queue. He took Russell's press identification and passport, gestured towards the open door of a waiting room, and strode off towards the rear of the building, his shoes rapping on the marble floor.
There was an obvious couple in the waiting room, Jews by the look of them, in their mid to late thirties. Russell wished them good morning and sat down in what proved a surprisingly comfortable chair.
'You are here for a visa?' the man asked.
'Yes,' Russell said, surprised by the directness of the question. 'I'm a journalist,' he added, 'an American journalist.'
'You are not German?'
'No, but I've lived here for many years.'
Silence followed, as if the two Jews were trying to work out why anyone foreign would choose to live in Germany. They were middle-class Jews, Russell noticed. The young man's clothes showed signs of serious wear and repair, but they would have been expensive when he bought them.
'Do you know anything about the situation in Shanghai?' the woman asked him suddenly.
'Not really. A lot of German Jews have emigrated there over the last six months. I believe the Gestapo chartered several ships.'
'They did. My cousins went on one, but we have heard nothing since.'
'That doesn't mean anything,' her husband interjected. 'You know what the post is like here - imagine what's it like in an occupied country like China.' He turned to Russell. 'We are here for transit visas,' he explained.
'I still think...' his wife began, but saw no point in completing the thought out loud. 'But what are they all doing in Shanghai?' she asked her husband. 'What will we do?'
'Survive,' he said tersely.
'So you say. We could survive in Palestine.'
Her husband made a disparaging noise. 'Palestine is just a big farm. Shanghai is a city. And if we don't like it we can go on to Australia or America.'
'With what?'
'We shall earn. We always have. Until Hitler came along and said we couldn't.'
'That's all very...' She stopped as footsteps sounded in the hall.
The grey suit appeared in the doorway, a newly-lit cigarette in one hand. 'Joseph and Anna Handler? This way.'
Russell was left to examine his surroundings. The Embassy seemed remarkably silent, as if most of the staff were off on holiday. Or off on a purge. The waiting room contained framed portraits of both Lenin and Stalin, gazing severely at each other from opposite walls. He thought through what he intended to say one more time, and hoped he wasn't guilty of over-confidence. He had got away with playing both ends against the middle in March, but he knew he'd been lucky as well as clever. The penalties for failure would be even worse this time, because Effi would also have to pay them. He might be shot as a spy, might escape with deportation. She would go to Ravensbruck.
The smoker returned about fifteen minutes later, and led Russell down a corridor to an office overlooking the
