knew that the boy was also seeing Manhattan. 'You were right about the hot dogs,' he told him. 'I had one at Gerhardt's the other day. They are the best.'
They walked round to the other side. The Havelsee shone piercing blue in the afternoon sunshine, and Russell was just thinking how peaceful Berlin looked from 125 metres up when the swelling whine of police sirens punctured the illusion. Paul raced back to the east-facing windows to see what was happening. 'They're down here!' he shouted.
Russell was walking across to join him when a voice over the loudspeaker announced that the tower was being evacuated. 'Move to the lifts in an orderly manner,' the voice instructed. 'There is no cause for alarm.'
Russell felt a sliver of panic. 'Are there any fire engines?' he asked his son, joining him at the window.
'No, just police.' A lorry drew up as they watched, and a troop of uniformed Ordnungspolizei climbed out. There was no sign of smoke.
'Let's get to the lift.'
There were only three others on the viewing platform, a couple and their young daughter. The man looked worried, and grew more so when a lift took several minutes to arrive. 'It's all right,' he kept telling his wife and daughter, who seemed much less concerned than he did.
The lift dropped smoothly down to the restaurant level, fifty metres above the ground. More people were waiting here, enough to make a real squeeze for the final descent. As they poured in, Russell could see more Orpo uniforms in the restaurant itself. Several children were crying, one wailing that she hadn't finished her Coca Cola. 'It's some Jew on the roof,' a man said angrily.
They reached ground level. More vehicles had arrived - half the Berlin police force seemed to be there - and the ground around the tower was littered with leaflets. A rhythmic banging sound came from above.
'Keep moving,' an Orpo officer insisted, and Russell realized they were being shepherded towards the nearby S-bahn station. 'My car's over there,' he told the man, pointing the Hanomag out. It was the only one left in the parking lot.
'All right. But leave that where it is,' the officer added, as Russell bent to pick up a leaflet. He shifted his gun slightly to reinforce the order.
'Whatever you say,' Russell agreed, putting a protective arm around Paul's shoulder and pulling him away.
'There's someone up there,' Paul said quietly. Looking up, Russell could see the lone figure on the restaurant roof. They were too far away to see the face, but there was an impression of smart clothes, as if the man had dressed up for the occasion.
The banging suddenly stopped, and several more figures appeared on the roof. As they moved towards their quarry he simply stepped off the edge, falling soundlessly to the concrete below.
Russell cradled Paul in his arms.
'Fuck off out of here!' the Orpo officer shouted.
They walked on to the car, got in, and drove out of the parking lot. Russell headed west, crossing the S-bahn at Heerstrasse and turning south into the forest. A kilometre in he pulled the car up and turned to his son, wondering what to say.
Much to Russell's surprise, Paul pulled a crumpled leaflet from his pocket. They read it together.
The headline was 'A LIFE WORTH NOTHING?'; the text beneath explained why the man had jumped. His Jewish wife had been working as a nurse at Wedding's Augusta Hospital for almost twenty years when she was forced out by the Nazis. Earlier this year she had been hit by a tram on Invalidenstrasse, taken to the same hospital, and refused treatment. In the hour it took to reach a Jewish-run clinic in Friedrichshain she had bled to death.
'Do you think it's true?' Paul asked, his voice quavering slightly.
'I can't see any reason for the man to lie,' Russell said.
'But why?' There were tears in his eyes now.
'Why are people cruel? I don't know. I like to think it's because they don't know any better.' Russell looked at his watch - he was supposed to have Paul home in a few minutes. He put a hand on his son's shoulder. 'That was a terrible thing to see. But the man did what he wanted to do. And at least he's not in pain anymore.'
'Perhaps he's with his wife again,' Paul said hesitantly, as if he was trying the idea out.
'Let's hope so.'
'Well, if there's a God I think He must treat everyone the same, don't you?'
Russell couldn't help but smile - his son never ceased to amaze him. 'I think it's time I took you back,' he said, putting the car in gear.
Ten minutes later they were turning into Paul's street. 'Will you tell Mama?' the boy asked.
'If you want me to.'
'Yes, please,' Paul said.
The moment they were inside, he rushed off up the stairs.
Russell explained what they'd seen to Ilse.
'Oh God,' she said, looking up the stairs. 'Is he all right?'
Russell shrugged. 'I don't know. It was a shock.'
'And he's always loved going to the Funkturm.' Ilse glanced upward again. 'I'd better make sure he's all right.'
Back in his car, Russell felt a wholly unreasonable anger. Why couldn't the man have jumped off some other high building - the Shellhaus or the Borsig Locomotive Works? Why did he have to spoil the one place Russell shared with his son?
Returning to Effi's flat, Russell was greeted by the rare smell of cooking. 'I thought we could stay in this evening, and you could test me on the script,' she called out from the kitchen. 'It's only macaroni and ham.' She seemed in good spirits - almost too good. He decided against telling her about his and Paul's afternoon.
The food was better than he expected, and so was the evening. Effi's mastery of the atrocious script proved near-perfect, so they set about improving it. There was a lot of unintentional comedy in the original, and the storyline seemed made for farce. Their new version featured a squad of storm troopers who mistakenly beat themselves up in an air raid rehearsal black-out, and ended with the two war-bound brothers fighting over a grenade and blowing each other up in the process. At one point Effi was laughing so much that tears were running down her cheeks.
Russell found himself wondering whether Hitler ever gave himself up to a giggling fit.
'Where are we going for our talk tomorrow?' Effi asked as they got ready for bed.
'I don't know. How about the Harz Mountains?' Russell had begun to think that she'd abandoned the idea, and felt mixed emotions at finding she had not. He didn't know how she would react to the things he had to tell her.
'That's a long way,' she said.
'A couple of hours in the car. If we leave early we can be there by eleven.'
'All right,' she said. 'The mountains it is.'
They got up late, and Russell rang the house in Grunewald while Effi was in the bath. Paul seemed fine, according to Ilse: no nightmares, and he was out in the garden with his football. She was keeping an eye on him, though.
The drive to the mountains took almost three hours, and it was past noon when Russell and Effi reached the summer resort of Ilfeld. It was another hot day, and hikers were queuing to fill their water-bottles at the inn's out- door tap. While Effi stood in line Russell researched their options. The most popular ascent was that of the Burgberg, which boasted a picturesque ruined castle, but already seemed crowded with groups of Hitlerjugend and Bund Deutscher Madel. Of the other four suggested climbs, the Eichenberg seemed the least strenuous and least frequented.
They encountered two descending pairs of elderly hikers in the first ten minutes, then had the hill to themselves. The path wound upwards through the pines, offering increasingly dramatic vistas of the plain below. It was around one-thirty when they reached an ideal spot for lunch - a hillside clearing with a single picnic table overlooking the valley below. Effi unwrapped their chicken rolls, while Russell opened the bottle of Mosel and poured a couple of inches into each of the tin mugs. 'To us,' he said, clunking his mug against hers. 'To us,' she agreed.
