so much pressure at work.'
'I know.' Effi could see Jens at the dinner table, the slight tremble of his lips as he described what was happening in Russia. She took her sister's hand and squeezed it, wondering what she would do if John ever hit her. She would show him the door, simple as that. But Zarah would never do that to Jens. Where could she go? Back to their parents with Lothar? 'You must tell Jens that if he ever hits you again, you and Lothar will be gone,' she said.
'But I couldn't leave him...'
'He doesn't know that. However bad it is at work, he has no right to take it out on you.' Though you could be doing more to help him, Effi thought but didn't say. Jens had crossed a line, and for today at least her sister should feel herself blameless.
They talked for an hour or more, going over and over the same ground, Effi's frustration kept in check by the obvious comfort this was giving her sister. On the pavement prior to parting, Zarah revealed how terrified Jens was that Effi would never speak to him again.
'Don't disabuse him,' Effi told her. 'Not for a while.'
Russell had stayed home to write up the story. He had his doubts as to whether a report of Sullivan's death would ever see the light of day, but where Nazi government circles were concerned there was always a reasonable chance that the left hand was in utter ignorance of the right hand's activities. And, if no one whispered a few cautionary words in Goebbels' ear before Russell's copy deadline, then the story might slip through.
Soon after one o'clock he arrived at the Press Club on Leipziger Platz, and after handing the article over to the censors climbed the stairs to the dining room. Sullivan's fate was one topic of conversation among the foreign correspondents, but not the most prominent: that honour belonged to the German Army's unexpected ejection from recently-conquered Rostov. This news had been aired by the BBC on the previous evening, and grudgingly confirmed by Braun von Stumm at the Foreign Ministry press conference only an hour or so ago.
This was important news. Rostov was the first city the German Army had been forced to surrender in over two years of war. Rostov was the gateway to all that oil which the Wehrmacht so desperately needed - a gateway now apparently closed. His
His good mood ebbed away as he waited for Effi at the tram stop on Budapester Strasse. He had decided to pass on Strohm's terrible news, but found himself hoping that the Blumenthals had already heard it from other sources. Effi had argued for complete disclosure from the start, and was utterly unimpressed by his argument that the news might unleash a violent reaction from the Jewish community, one which would seal its fate more swiftly and surely than might otherwise have been the case. 'They deserve to know,' she had said with her usual trenchancy. 'You know they do.'
He did. Maybe not knowing was something he craved for himself.
Her tram arrived, and ten minutes later they were alighting close to the old synagogue on Oranienburgerstrasse. Once inside the Blumenthals' crowded apartment it immediately became apparent that the terrible news had preceded them. The welcome was warm as ever, but the eyes of mother and daughter held an underlying bleakness which was new. 'Someone came round from the Jewish community office,' Leonore explained, 'and asked if we could pass the news on. They would have called a meeting, but meetings are forbidden.'
The whole story had been reported: the unfinished camp at Riga, the 'improvised' response at Kovno. All the Blumenthals' friends were hoping that the latter was an aberration - Martin Blumenthal was even hoping that the guilty parties would be punished - but a majority also feared the worst. Knowing what Jens had told him and Effi over a candlelit dinner in Grunewald, Russell was afraid they were right, and that the survival of Berlin's remaining Jews was dependent on the continuing inefficiency of the Reichsbahn. But he refrained from saying so.
'If I'm on the next list, I'm not going,' Ali said abruptly.
The announcement obviously surprised her parents. 'You won't be on the list,' was her father's reaction. 'Why would they send a good worker like you? Herr Schade will see to it, you'll see.'
'What would you do?' her mother said.
'Go underground. More of us are doing it every day. You take off the star and you become invisible again. That's why they insist on us wearing them.'
'But how would you live?' her mother wanted to know.
'I'll manage somehow. I'll have a better chance here in a city I know than I would on a train to the East.'
'This is foolish talk,' her father said heatedly. 'We're not going on a train to the East. You and I, we both have important jobs, and your mother must be here to look after the house. Why would they send away workers they need? It's the old they are sending, God spare them.'
Ali walked over and put an arm around her father's neck. 'I hope you are right, Papa.'
He smiled at her, and looked out of the window. 'A beautiful day for a walk in the park,' he said wistfully. 'Maybe in Lodz there are still parks where Jews are allowed to walk,' he added quietly, almost as if he was talking to himself.
'They are
Travelling home together, Effi and Russell sat mostly in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Effi was thinking about Zarah's troubles, how insignificant they seemed when compared to those of the Blumenthals, and how irrelevant such contrasts always were. Russell watched the familiar streets go by, streets which would soon no longer be familiar. His evacuation train would not be heading east into lands wracked by famine and war, but north or south to Denmark or Switzerland, havens of relative peace and prosperity. He thanked providence for not making him a German Jew, and wondered what had happened to his sense of shame.
The knock on their door came soon after dark, and as he went to answer it Russell realised that his unconscious had registered the arrival of a car a minute or so earlier. The visitors would be official.
The first face he saw - both boyish and bookish - belonged to a tall young man in an SS Obersturmfuhrer's uniform. The second, half hidden behind the first man's shoulder, belonged to Uwe Kuzorra. 'Herr John Russell,' the Obersturmfuhrer stated rather than asked.
The man had lost an arm, Russell realised. 'That's me,' he said, without unblocking the doorway.
'We need to ask you some questions. Inside, if you please.'
Russell stepped back to allow them in, and pushed the door shut. Effi had retreated to the bedroom doorway, and the Obersturmfuhrer was staring at her with obvious recognition.
'I'll leave you to it,' she said with a smile, and closed the door behind her.
Russell offered the two men seats, his mind racing. They must have discovered that he had an appointment to meet Sullivan on the previous day. What could he safely tell them? Certainly not that Sullivan had secret information to hand over - Russell had no desire to face an espionage charge.
Kuzorra lowered himself onto the sofa with obvious pleasure. The detective would have had a long and busy day, and he was well into his sixties by now.
The Obersturmfuhrer remained on his feet, tapping his right thigh with his hand.
'You know who I am,' Kuzorra told Russell. 'This is my assistant, Obersturmfuhrer Schwering.'
The younger man reluctantly accepted Russell's offer of a handshake. 'I noticed you this morning,' Kuzorra went on. 'I was rather surprised to find that you were still in Berlin.'
'I live here,' Russell said with a shrug. Saying as little as he could seemed a good guiding principle where this conversation was concerned.
'We have discovered that our victim arranged a meeting with you,' the Obersturmfuhrer said accusingly. 'Stettin Station at twelve o'clock, I believe.'
'Who told you that?' Russell asked pleasantly.
'That is neither...' Schwering began.
'His wife,' Kuzorra cut his subordinate off. 'His widow,' he corrected himself.
'It's true that I had arranged to meet him,' Russell admitted. 'But I was late. If he ever turned up, he was gone by the time I got there.'
The Obersturmfuhrer looked unconvinced, but let that go for the moment. 'So what was this meeting for?'
'He said he had some information for me. As I'm sure you know, most journalists get their information from a
