Felix took a deep breath, shrugged, and beckoned Russell to follow him. After collecting a key from the rack, he led the way up a flight of stairs and down a long corridor to the room at the end. A bed, a water basin stand and a door-less wardrobe took up most of the space. The single window overlooked the rear yard of the garage, where several vehicles had been left to rust.
'You'll be staying here,' Felix said. 'Now, let me see your papers.'
Russell handed them over for inspection.
'Not bad,' Felix decided after going through them. 'But you need something better, an identity that goes with an official job of some sort. That shouldn't be too difficult, but leave it to me. In the meantime, don't go out. I'll have meals sent up. Nothing fancy of course, but enough to keep you from starving. We're already on the lookout for a suitable ship.'
'Ships are still moving in and out of the harbour then?'
'Yes. But not for much longer. Winter has come early this year.'
When he was gone Russell lay down on the lumpy mattress, fingers entwined behind his head. 'The end of the line,' he murmured to himself. One way or the other, it would soon be over.
By Tuesday evening Effi felt like kicking the walls. After four days alone in the flat she thought she knew what a common prison was like. She couldn't risk listening to the radio, and there were only so many times she could do one jigsaw or read week-old newspapers. If she dozed off during the day she would spend long stretches of the night praying for sleep. Whatever she did, there was far too much time for thinking.
She decided she would make herself a pack of cards, and was still searching for suitable materials when the air raid warning sounded.
It was the first time this had happened since her return, and she felt a momentary pang of fear. She remembered all the times she'd complained about having to go to the shelter, all the times she had tried to persuade John that they shouldn't bother. He had always insisted, as she'd known he would, and on those few occasions when he hadn't been there she'd always gone down on her own. No matter how long the odds were on one's own house being hit, it still seemed foolish to tempt fate.
Well, she had to tempt it now. She could hardly turn up at the shelter looking twenty years younger than she had on her last visit. She would have to just sit there in the armchair, and let John's fellow countrymen do their worst.
Or not. Barely a minute had gone by when there was an urgent knock on the door. 'Frau Vollmar,' a male voice said loudly. It was the block warden.
Did he know she was there? How could he?
There was another knock. She rose to her feet almost involuntarily, and stood there, silently urging him to go away.
She heard the key jiggling in the lock.
The bedroom, she thought. She stepped quickly through the open door, relieved that she was wearing only socks on her feet, and realised that there was only one place to hide. Feeling more than a little ridiculous, she let herself down onto her back and squeezed herself under the bed.
She could hear footfalls in the adjoining room, and see flickers of light dancing across the carpet by the half- open door. He was using a torch, she realised. She thanked God she hadn't closed the blackout curtains, which would have allowed him to turn on the lights.
Had she left any obvious proof of her presence? Would he feel the warmth of the chair she'd been sitting in? Surely he couldn't stay much longer - it must be almost ten minutes since the sirens sounded.
He pushed the bedroom door open, and the moving beam of his flashlight seemed all around her.
Not under the bed, she silently pleaded.
He walked back out. A few seconds later she heard him walk into the kitchen. Was the kettle still warm from her last cup of tea?
More footsteps, then silence. Was he by the door? She heard the click as he opened it, and the twist of the key as he re-locked it from outside. She lay there, eyes closed, heart still thumping in her chest, suppressing an absurd desire to laugh.
There was no point in moving, she told herself. The bed might cushion her against a falling ceiling.
This theory was left untested - if any bombs fell that night, they fell a long way from Prinz-Eugen-Strasse. When the all-clear sounded she crawled out from her hiding-place and sat on the bed, wondering if he would come back that evening.
He might. Better to bolt the door, she decided, and went to do so. If he tried to use his key again, he would know that she was there, but she could always make up some excuse for not opening the door at this time of night. Tomorrow would be another matter. And the day after that. He was bound to return sooner or later, and bound to discover that she was back. And once he had, then a face-to-face meeting became almost inevitable.
There was nothing else for it - she had to get more make-up. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and the theatrical suppliers would probably close for several days. She couldn't afford to wait.
That same evening, Russell was lying on his bed when Felix arrived with new papers. The old ones were still valid, but now complemented by others attesting to his position as a high-ranking bureaucrat in Goering's organisation for the economic exploitation of the East, the
'I heard gunfire last night,' Russell said, as he examined the documents. 'From the ghetto,' Felix explained. 'They've crammed all the Jews into a few hundred square metres, and already killed thousands of them, but they're still not satisfied. Some of the bastards go in at night, as if they're out on a hunting party. Anyone who gets in their way, they just shoot them.' 'Have any trains full of Jews come from the Reich?'
'Three, I think. One shipment was just taken out to Rumbula and shot. The others were led to the ghetto and given the houses of those locals who were shot earlier. There doesn't seem any rhyme or reason to it.'
'What's Rumbula?'
'The Rumbula Forest. It's about five kilometres from the city. Near enough for a forced march, and nice sandy soil for digging. They must have shot over twenty thousand in the last few weeks. One child who escaped said that the earth was still moving from all the people who'd been buried alive.'
Russell shook his head, closed his eyes and gripped the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. 'Is there any resistance?' he asked eventually.
'From the Jews? No. They have nothing to fight with. And we're not in much better shape. Our organisation is still intact, and we're strong in the docks, but we have no weapons, and no allies to speak of.' Felix managed a rueful smile. 'When the NKVD left in June they killed almost everyone that they'd locked up over the previous year. That helped us, of course, because many of those people could have betrayed us to the Nazis. But it also caused a rift - to put it mildly - between us and the nationalists. There won't be a united front here for a very long time.'
'I see.'
'I used to be a docker,' Felix volunteered. 'But once you pass fifty the work gets difficult, particularly in winter. And my parents left me this hotel.'
'Whose ships are still coming to Riga?' Russell asked.
'The Swedes are the only neutrals who can get here.'
'What do they bring? What's left to trade?'
'Lots of things. Coming in, it's mostly luxury items. If you walked the streets you might think the rich had fled, but they haven't. They're just hunkered down in their mansions, waiting the war out, and they still want their nice soap, their proper coffee, their good cigars. They're not going to get them from Germany, are they?'
'I suppose not.'
'Going out, it's mostly processed foods.'
Remembering Jens's account of chronic shortages, Russell found that surprising. But only for a moment - the Germans needed something to exchange for all that iron ore and all those ball bearings.
After Felix was gone, Russell's mind kept returning to the mental picture of a shifting forest floor, and the last
