Stattin Station

'Why break the habits of a lifetime?'

'Why indeed?'

'I'll see you then.'

'Goodnight, John.'

Saturday morning they slept in, then walked down to the Ku'damm for a late breakfast. The sun was shining, and pre-war numbers of well-wrapped Berliners were sitting at outside tables, sipping their ersatz coffee and smiling at each other. Everyone seemed in good spirits - it was wonderful what two clear nights without an air raid could do.

'And the forecast for tonight is cloudy,' Russell read aloud from his half of the newspaper. 'There is a God.'

'There's also Goebbels,' Effi murmured. 'He has a whole trainload of women's fur coats ready for shipment to the front.'

'The troops'll look very fetching,' Russell observed.

She laughed and looked at her watch. 'I have to go,' she said, but made no move to do so. 'I do love Zarah, but... I assumed you'd be spending the day with Paul.'

'Not a good assumption these days. The Hitlerjugend has first call.'

She picked up her cup, realised it was empty, and put it down again. This, Russell thought, is how she always ends up being late. 'I've got to go too,' he said encouragingly, and she reluctantly got to her feet.

They parted at the tram stops outside the Universum, she heading west towards Grunewald, he travelling east towards the old city and what would probably prove a long and futile afternoon attending to business. His first stop was the table of foreign newspapers at the Press Club, his second the Adlon bar, where his fellow-American journalists seemed to be waiting, drinks in hand, for someone to shout 'Last orders' on their Berlin sojourn. It felt to Russell as if everyone was holding his breath, or at least waiting for some sign that the wind had decided which way to blow. Who was winning outside Moscow? Who was winning in North Africa? Where and when would the Japanese strike? The war seemed at a tipping point, yet refused to tip.

He was back home in time to hear the six o'clock news from the BBC, but an encouraging tone was all that London had to offer. Effi's key was just turning in the lock when the telephone rang. It was Strohm.

'That film you asked about,' the familiar voice began. 'It's showing at the Metropole at five o'clock tomorrow afternoon.'

'I'll meet you there,' Russell told him. The Hertha game would be over by four - he'd just have to put Paul on the U-Bahn.

'The railwayman?' Effi asked.

Russell nodded and reached for his newspaper. 'It's on for tomorrow evening,' he said, scanning the cinema listings. The film at the Metropole was indeed opening at five. Strohm was thorough. 'How was Zarah?' he asked.

Effi made a face. 'She's all right. Jens is still trying to atone. How long that will last is anyone's guess. She needs to help him, but I'm not sure she knows how. I'm not sure I do.' She sighed. 'But enough. Let's have some fun. Can we leave the war behind for a few hours?'

'We can try.'

They did. A better than usual meal at one of their pre-war favourite restaurants was a good start, and only slightly spoiled by a tall, thin and very insistent SS officer, who leaned over their table like a black heron and gushed his way through an account of Effi's career that would have embarrassed her old agent. As a piece de resistance he took off one black leather glove, revealing an index finger encased in plaster which Effi was required to sign.

'I dread to think how he got that injury,' Russell remarked once the man had gone.

They thought about taking in a show, but the only entertainments on offer were those revues that so shocked provincial visitors to the capital. The newspapers had been full of indignant letters for months, but nothing had been done - their enormous popularity with soldiers on leave obviously overrode the old Nazi puritanism.

Effi found nothing thrilling in 'flashing sequins and bouncing breasts'. She wanted to dance.

That was harder to arrange than it had been, but they eventually located a joint behind Alexanderplatz Station which one of Russell's colleagues had recommended. The music in the expansive cellar was hardly audible from the street, which was just as well since the band was playing unmistakably forbidden material, albeit interspersing it with syncopated versions of German folk tunes and Deutschland Uber Alles. The air was thick with cheap cigarette smoke, the cocktails all variations on the same mixture of industrial alcohol and grenadine, but they had a wonderful couple of hours, alternating dances with watching others enjoy themselves. They even tried something called 'jitterbugging', which Effi did a hundred times better than him.

When they stumbled back out around midnight a light shower of sleet was falling, and it took all their semi- drunken enthusiasm to steer a straight course through very dark streets to Alexanderplatz Station. The train home seemed full of other revellers, all beaming at each other and ignoring the myriad leaflets which someone had scattered around the carriage. 'A Christmas without honour' was the headline, and Russell felt no need to read the rest.

At around a quarter to two on the following afternoon he and his son shouldered their way through the packed western terrace at the Plumpe to reach their habitual spot, halfway up and opposite the edge of the penalty area. Paul was in plain clothes for once, but his commitment to the Hitlerjugend was evidenced by yet another vividly bruised cheek, the alleged result of a collision with a tree while 'terrain-gaming.' Russell didn't believe the explanation, but his son seemed in a good mood, and he didn't want to spoil it by playing the nosy and over-protective father.

Instead they talked football. Hertha were playing SV Jena, and the latter's recent record suggested a difficult ninety minutes for the home team. But, as Paul jubilantly pointed out, Jena had recently seen three of their first- choice defenders drafted into the army, so the teams were probably well matched.

The home team emerged to rousing cheers and the usual chants of 'Ha! Ho! He! Hertha BSC!' The stadium was almost full, the crowd well wrapped and, as many a wafting breath amply demonstrated, fortified with alcohol against the cold. Mittened hands lifted loosely-packed cigarettes to chapped lips, sucked in smoke and exhaled with obvious satisfaction.

A Hertha player drafted in the previous year had just been reported killed in action, and the team were all wearing black armbands in his memory. They should probably make them part of the normal strip, Russell thought sourly.

The Jena team followed Hertha out onto the frosty pitch, several players craning their necks to examine the heavens. The sleet had stopped overnight, but a dark and ominously-coloured sky seemed heavy with more.

The game began. Paul was standing to his father's left, and when play was at that end of the pitch, Russell found himself taking surreptitious glances at his son. The boy was only a few inches shorter than he was, and seemed noticeably older each time Russell saw him. Ilse had always said that he looked like his father, but Russell couldn't see it - they had the same coloured eyes, but that was about it.

The game seemed faster than usual, as if the players were all working overtime at keeping warm. Lacking permission to hare up and down the pitch, the two goalkeepers were both walking brisk circles inside their penalty areas, occasionally stopping to run on the spot. But all the frenetic activity failed to produce a decent chance, let alone a goal, in the first forty-five minutes.

Halfway through the second period it began to snow. This seemed to galvanise both teams, who shared four goals between them in an exhilarating last ten minutes, Hertha scoring a second equaliser with only seconds remaining. 'A fair result,' Russell murmured, as the players trudged off the now white pitch.

'I suppose so,' Paul admitted. He was still staring at the players, as if willing them to return and settle the matter. 'But what good is a fair result?' he muttered to himself.

Maybe his son did take after him, Russell thought.

They headed slowly for the nearest exit, eventually emerging onto Bellermanstrasse. 'Can we come to the next game?' Paul asked.

'If I'm still here,' Russell said without thinking.