metres away might somehow help to protect her.
He dragged himself away, and started up the wide Wilhelmstrasse. The government buildings on the eastern side - the Finance, Propaganda and Justice ministries - were all bathed in sunlight, the Fuhrer's digs on the western side cloaked, rather more suitably, in shadow. At the corner of Unter den Linden he almost sleep-walked into the Adlon Hotel, but decided at the last moment that an encounter with his foreign press corps colleagues was more than he could handle on this particular evening. He felt like a real drink, but decided on coffee at Schmidt's - if ever he needed a clear head it was now.
The cafe was almost empty, caught in the gap between its workday clientele and the evening crowd. After taking his choice of the window-seats Russell, more out of habit than desire, reached across for the newspaper that someone had left on the adjoining table. Hitler had opened an art exhibition in Munich, accompanied by the Gauleiter of Danzig and Comrade Astakhov, the Soviet charge d'affaires. This interesting combination had watched a procession of floats, most of which were described in mind-numbing detail. Sudetenland was a silver eagle, Bohemia a pair of lions guarding the gateway to the East, as represented by a couple of Byzantine minarets. The Fuhrer had gone to see
Who could blame her?
Russell tossed the newspaper back. He didn't feel ready for re-immersion into Nazi Germany's bizarre pantomime.
At least the coffee was good. The only decent cup he'd had in America was in the Italian pavilion at the World's Fair.
Zarah, he reminded himself. The telephone in the back corridor was not being used, and he stood beside it for a few seconds before dialling, wondering what he was going to say. Not the truth, anyway. She picked up after the first ring, and sounded as if she'd been crying.
'I've seen her,' he said. 'She's fine. They've told me to come back on Wednesday, and they'll probably release her then.'
'Why? I don't understand. If they're going to release her, why not now?'
'Bureaucracy, I think. She has to receive a formal warning from some official or other. They didn't give me any details.'
'But she will be released on Wednesday?'
'That's what I was told,' he said. There was no point in her spending the next two days in a state of high anxiety. If the Sicherheitsdienst was playing sick games with them, she'd find out soon enough.
'Thank you, John,' she said. 'They won't let me see her, I suppose.'
'I don't think so. They won't let me see her again until then. I think it's probably better to just wait.'
'Yes, I can see that. But she's all right.'
'She's fine. A little frightened, but fine.'
'Thank you.'
'I'll ring you on Wednesday. Effi will ring you.'
'Thank you.'
He jiggled the cut-off switch and dialled Ilse's number. 'Paul's in the bath,' his ex-wife told him.
'I've seen Effi and she's all right. Can you tell him that?'
'Of course. But...'
'I think they're going to let her go on Wednesday.'
'That's good. You must be relieved. More than relieved.'
'You could say that.'
'Paul seems to have had a wonderful time.'
'He did, didn't he? I hope he doesn't find the transition too difficult. It's a bit like coming up from the ocean floor - you need to take your time.'
'Mmm. I'll watch for signs. What about this weekend? Are you...'
'He'll want to catch up with all of you, won't he? I'd like to see him, but maybe just a couple of hours?'
'That sounds good, but I'll ask him.'
'Thanks, Ilse.'
'I hope it all goes well.'
'Me too.'
He went back to the rest of his coffee, ordered a schnapps to go with it. He supposed he should eat, but didn't feel hungry. What would Heydrich's organization want from him? More to the point, would it be something in his power to give? The Sicherheitsdienst - the SD, as it was popularly known - had started life as the Nazi Party's intelligence apparatus, and now served the Nazi state in the same role. It thrived on betrayals, but the only person Russell could betray was himself. No, that wasn't strictly true. There was the sailor in Kiel who had given him the Baltic fleet dispositions, not to mention the man's prostitute girlfriend. But if the SD knew anything about Kiel, he wouldn't be drinking schnapps in a cafe on the Unter den Linden.
So what did they want him for? As an informant, perhaps. A snitch in the expatriate community. And among the German press corps. He had a lot of friends and acquaintances who still wrote - with well-concealed disgust in most cases - for the Nazi press. Effi might be asked to report on her fellow thespians.
Or maybe they were more interested in his communist contacts. They certainly knew about his communist past, and after the business in March they probably had a highly exaggerated notion of his current involvement. They might want to use him as bait, luring comrades up to the surface.
The latter seemed more likely on reflection, but who knew what the bastards were thinking?
He paid the bill and stood out on the pavement once more. Where to go - his rooms in Hallesches Tor or Effi's flat, where he'd been spending the majority of his nights? Her flat, he decided. Check that everything was all right, make sure the Gestapo had remembered to flush.
When it came down to it, he just wanted to feel close to her.
He walked through to Friedrichstrasse and took a westbound Stadtbahn train. There was a leaflet on the only empty seat. He picked it up, sat down, and looked at it. 'Do you want another war?' the headline asked him. The text below advised resistance.
Looking up, he noticed that several of his fellow-passengers were staring at him. Wondering, he supposed, what he was going to do with the treasonous missive now that he'd read it. He thought about crumpling the leafl et up and dropping it, but felt a sudden, unreasoning loyalty to whoever had taken the enormous risk of writing, producing and distributing it. Two minutes later, as his train drew into Zoo Station, he placed the leaflet back on the seat where he'd found it and got off. The attractive young woman sitting opposite gave him what might have been an encouraging smile.
He collected his suitcases from the left luggage and walked the half-kilometre to Effi's flat on Carmerstrasse. Everything looked much as he'd last seen it - if the Gestapo had conducted a search then they'd tidied up after themselves. So they hadn't conducted a search. Russell sniffed the air for a trace of Effi's perfume but all he could smell was her absence. He leaned against the jamb of the bedroom door, picturing her in the cell. He told him-self that they wouldn't hurt her, that they knew the threat was enough, but a sliver of panic still tightened his chest.
He stood there, eyes closed, for a minute or more, and then urged himself back into motion. His car should be here, he realized. He locked up and carried his cases back down. The Hanomag was sitting in the rear courtyard, looking none the worse for a month of Effi's erratic driving. It started first time.
Twenty minutes later he was easing it into his own courtyard on Neuenburger Strasse. He felt less than ready to face Frau Heidegger and the inevitable deluge of welcome home questions, but the only way to his room led past her ever-open door. Which, much to his surprise, was closed. He stood there staring at it, and suddenly realized. The third week of July - the annual holiday with her brother's family in Stettin. Her sour-faced sister would be filling in, and she had never shown the slightest interest in what was happening elsewhere in the building. Frau Heidegger was fond of claiming that the life of a portierfrau was a true vocation, but her sister, it seemed, had not heard the call.
He lugged the suitcases up to his fourth floor rooms, and dumped them on his bed unopened. The air seemed hot and stale, but throwing the windows wide made little difference - night was falling much faster than the temperature, and the breeze had vanished. There were two bottles of beer in the cupboard above the sink, and
