Effi, he decided, had heard enough of his agonising in recent days. 'Are you still feeling okay about that script?' he asked.
'It's wonderful,' she said. 'It's a comedy, and either no one's noticed or no one dares to say so. My only worry is that fifty years from now people will think I was taking it seriously. I was thinking - you know those people who dig deep holes in the ground and bury a box of typical things with the date...'
'Time capsules.'
'That's it. Well, I thought I could bury this script with my comments on it.'
'Why not? Let's just hope there are no Nazis around in fifty years to dig it up, particularly if we're still here and the film's become a classic.' She stuck her tongue out at him.
'I don't think you ever told me the storyline.'
'I did, but you were half asleep at the time.'
'Tell me again.'
'All right. I am Olga...'
'A Russian.'
'A
'Which has been the NKVD for almost ten years.'
'That sounds like the sort of detail the writers would have missed. But stop interrupting.'
'Okay.'
'Whatever they're called, they killed my parents. Or one of them did, and I've joined the organisation with the secret intention of tracking him down. I'm also an amazing violinist, by the way, and as the film begins I'm in Riga to give a recital for the International Women's League. I'm in mid-performance when some old man in the audience starts shouting that the League is financed by Jewish interests in Moscow. His proof is that a top GPU agent named Bokscha is also in Riga. Get it? Jews and Bolsheviks hand in glove!
'It gets less subtle as it goes on,' she went on. 'Needless to say, Bokscha is the man who killed my parents. He falls in love with me of course, and we roam around Europe with him organising sabotage and murders on the Kremlin's behalf and me waiting for the perfect moment to betray him. All his meetings are in the same dark cellar, which has portraits of Lenin and Stalin on the walls. The people he's plotting with are almost always Jews, and they laugh a lot together about how stupid and vulnerable everyone else is. Do you detect a theme here? Oh, and there's a sub-plot about this Latvian couple whom I befriend. They're forced to spy for the Soviets, and eventually end up imprisoned in Rotterdam, purely, as far as I can see, so that they can be set free by our invading army. By this time Bokscha and I are both dead. First I tell Moscow that he's a traitor and get him shot, and then I admit to joining the GPU under false pretences and get myself shot. Clever, eh?
'I see what you mean about a lack of subtlety.'
'It's complete nonsense from beginning to end, and I can hardly wait to start shooting.'
'Monday, yes?' Russell asked, dipping a spoon into the casserole.
'Yes.'
'Any location stuff?'
'All indoors for the first few weeks. Mostly the cellar, in fact.'
Russell laughed. 'This is ready,' he said, taking the casserole off the stove.
They were still eating when the air raid warning sounded, and Effi insisted on clearing her plate before they walked to the local shelter. This was a very different type of district to the one where the Blumenthals lived, and the local warden was as obsequious as theirs had been officious. Most of the adults had pained expressions on their faces, as if they found it hard to believe that such inconvenience was really necessary. Their children were better behaved than their Wedding counterparts, but seemed to laugh a lot less. It was after midnight before the all-clear sounded, freeing them all to grumble their way back up to the street.
On Thursday morning, Russell's tram downtown passed evidence of the previous night's raid, the wreck of a three-storey building like a broken tooth in an otherwise healthy row, roofless and gutted, surrounded by shards of broken glass. A few wisps of smoke were still rising from the ruin, and a sizable crowd was gathered outside, watching as the civil engineers made the neighbouring buildings safe. It was a sign of how little impact the RAF campaign was having, Russell thought, that one bombed house could still attract so much interest.
He had not been inside the American Consulate for several months, and was struck by how empty it seemed. Now that voluntary emigration was forbidden, the long Jewish queues had disappeared, and with Germany and the US fighting an undeclared war in the Atlantic the Consulate's diplomatic business had shrunk to almost nothing. Many diplomats had presumably been sent home.
Russell could smell the coffee as he waited for Joseph Kenyon, but that was the closest he got. The young bespectacled diplomat came down the stairs in his overcoat, and ushered his visitor back out onto the street. 'We keep finding new microphones,' he explained, 'so these days we just use the building for keeping warm. All our business is done outdoors.'
They walked up to the Spree, which at least made a change from the
Tiergarten. The sun was out, but the brisk wind sweeping in from the east more than cancelled it out, and both men were soon rubbing their gloved hands and hugging themselves to retain a little warmth. They followed the river to the left, walking past the Reichstag and around the long bend opposite Lehrter Station. Kenyon seemed hesitant about raising whatever it was he had in mind, so Russell asked him if he had any inside dope about the negotiations with Japan.
'Off the record?'
Russell nodded.
'There are no real negotiations. Tokyo wants more than Washington can give, and vice versa. Sooner or later the balloon will go up, probably sooner. I don't know this for certain, but I imagine Washington is playing for time, because with each month that goes by our re-armament programme makes us a little stronger and the economic embargo makes them a little weaker. They know this as well as we do, of course, and I don't think they'll wait for long. I expect an attack before Christmas.'
'But on whom?'
'That's the big question. If oil's as big a problem for them as we think it is, they have to attack the Dutch East Indies - it's the only source within reach. And if they attack the Dutch they're bound to attack the British - you can't expect to take Sumatra without taking Singapore first. Which raises the big question - could they afford to leave us alone in the Philippines, knowing that we could cut their new oil lifeline any time we chose? I don't think so. They'll have to go for us as well.'
Russell thought about it. Most of what Kenyon had just said seemed like common sense, although he still couldn't quite believe that the Japanese would be foolhardy enough to attack America. But then maybe countries in desperate corners really did behave like men in similar plights - they just lashed out and hoped for the best.
'How well do you know Patrick Sullivan?' Kenyon asked him out of the blue.
'Not well. We're not exactly political allies. I must have spoken to him about half a dozen times since the war began. I actually had a conversation with him last week.'
'He said.' Kenyon pulled a packet of Chesterfields from his pocket. 'You don't, do you?' he asked.
'No.'
Kenyon lit his cigarette with a silver lighter, took a deep drag, and exhaled with obvious pleasure. 'It's Sullivan I want to talk to you about. Off the record, of course.'
'Of course,' Russell echoed, curious as to what was coming.
'The man's had a change of heart. Or at least that's the way he put it.' Kenyon smiled inwardly. 'I guess he's suddenly realised which way the wind is blowing.'
'He's very pessimistic about the war in the East.'
'Exactly. If the Soviets survive this winter and we come in, then Hitler is finished. It might take years, but the end result won't be in doubt.'
'Let's hope,' Russell concurred. They must have walked about one and a half kilometres by this time, and were skirting the northern edge of the Tiergarten. Across the river a leaning pillar of smoke from the Lehrter Station
