Thomas.
‘Oh, just making life difficult. They don’t understand business. They don’t like business. I think they believe deep down that business is like some fast-growing weed, that if they leave it alone it’ll grow so fast that they’ll never get rid of it.’
‘Couldn’t you relocate to one of the Western zones? There’s certainly no shortage of land for development.’
‘I’ve thought about it. Trouble is, if I set a move in motion the Russians will just confiscate my machinery. And if I could somehow persuade them not to, who knows how welcoming the Americans would be? One of the Soviet officials took me aside today, and warned me again how seriously the Americans would take my hobnobbing with Nazis during the war. And if he was right — if the Americans really are intent on giving me a hard time — then I’m better off staying where I am. At least the Russians let me work.’ He stood up. ‘But enough. I’m hungry, and Effi tells me you two have a dinner date.’
‘God yes,’ Russell said. He’d completely forgotten about Ali’s invitation.
‘And we should be going,’ Effi said, looking at her watch. She ducked out from under Russell’s arm. ‘And you can tell me whose perfume you’re wearing on the way.’
Outside the streets were a lot darker than Russell remembered from pre-war days, but brighter than they had been in the blackout. The sky seemed to be clearing, and the moon’s occasional appearances lent the ruins an aura of ghostly beauty.
He told Effi about his meeting with Irma, and the reason he’d been at the night club. When he let slip that he’d known about Otto since the previous day she gave him an exasperated look. ‘Don’t keep me in the dark,’ she said. ‘I know you mean well, but I’d rather know. All right?’
‘All right.’
‘And how was Irma?’
‘The same as ever. If not more so.’
Effi laughed. ‘We must go and see her perform.’
They reached Hufelandstrasse, and climbed the stairs to Ali’s door. A wonderful aroma was waiting inside, and the dinner that Ali served up a few minutes later offered ample proof of the culinary skills she’d learnt from her mother. And, as she herself was quick to point out, of the extra rations they received as Jews.
Fritz seemed increasingly relaxed with his wife’s friends, and did most of the talking. His thoughts on the pros and cons of the prospective merger between the KPD and SPD were perceptive for a young man, Russell thought, then silently admonished himself for being patronising.
After dinner, Effi and Ali told tales of their time together. Both Russell and Fritz — who had also survived several years in hiding — had heard the stories before, but only from their own partners. Hearing the tales from them both added another dimension, and made them all the more extraordinary. Yet again, Russell was reminded of how easy his war had been compared to theirs. They’d all been living on their wits, but that was where the comparisons ended — each day for years on end these three had woken with the knowledge that any loss of vigilance, any stroke of bad luck, would likely prove fatal. He didn’t know how they’d managed it.
He asked Ali and Fritz if they planned to stay in Berlin. If he’d had their experiences of the city and its citizens he wasn’t at all sure that he would.
‘For the moment,’ Fritz answered him.
‘How about Palestine?’ Russell asked.
‘No,’ Fritz replied curtly. ‘We want to be human beings first, not Jews.’
‘Sometimes we think about America,’ Ali admitted. ‘A completely fresh start and all that. But…’ She shrugged.
‘People say they want to leave it all behind,’ Fritz said. ‘But I don’t think they’ll find it that easy.’
He was probably right, Russell thought. The world was a lot smaller than it used to be.
Before they left Ali handed Effi a list of possible contacts. Some were people they had known during the war, others were Jews that Ali had met in the last six months.
‘Oh to be young again,’ was Russell’s first comment as they started for home down Hufelandstrasse.
‘Would you like to be twenty-one again?’ was Effi’s more serious response.
He thought about it. ‘I’d like that body back — the joints didn’t ache in wet weather. And my youthful innocence… no, maybe not.’
‘Innocence is overrated,’ Effi told him.
It was such an un-Effi-like thing to say that he almost stopped in his tracks.
‘I miss Rosa,’ she added.
It sounded like a non sequitur, but probably wasn’t.
Wednesday morning was as grey as its predecessor. As Russell went through his things prior to leaving the house, he noticed the letter that Paul had given him for the mother and sister of Werner Redlich, the boy soldier his son had met in the final days of the war. Perhaps he would have time to visit them that afternoon. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it.
Or his meeting with Shchepkin, come to that. Riding a tram up the old Herman-Goring-Strasse, Russell thought it a joke when the tram conductor named the next stop ‘Black Market’, but no one seemed to be laughing. As he left the tram, he noticed that others alighting were all carrying suitcases or bags of some sort, and heading in the same direction as himself, into the adjacent Tiergarten.
He followed them in. Away to his left, allotments gave way to stump-studded wastelands and the shell-pitted flak towers. To his right, in the lee of the dog-eared Brandenburg Gate, an area the size of a football pitch played host to a milling crowd. This market had no stalls, only perambulant sellers whispering their wares. Almost all of them were Germans — women, children and a few old men. The buyers by contrast were mostly soldiers, and most of them were Russian.
Rather to his surprise, he felt more sanguine about his new espionage career than he had when the Soviets first came to call. Wondering why, he realised what had changed. While the Nazis had flourished, he’d had no ethical room for manoeuvre. Helping them, or hindering their enemies, were not things he could live with. Or not with any sense of self-worth. But that black-and-white world had vanished with Hitler, and the new one really was in shifting shades of grey. He could make arguments for and against any of the major players; in helping one or the other he had no sense of supporting good against evil, or evil against good. If, in personal terms, Yevgeny Shchepkin was almost a kindred spirit, and Scott Dallin someone from a distant unfriendly planet, he had no illusions about Stalin’s Russia. And though American help was his only way out of the Soviet embrace, that didn’t mean he wanted a world run by money and big business.
His instructions were to stay on the edge of the crowd, and wait for contact to be made. He started around the perimeter, looking out for Shchepkin, and trying to ignore the repeated offers of items for sale. In less than a minute he was obliged to decline nylons, butter, soap powder and an Iron Cross First Class, all at allegedly once- only prices.
He saw Shchepkin before the Russian saw him, which had to be a first — in the past the other man had made a habit of appearing at Russell’s shoulder with almost magical abruptness. He had half-expected to see Nemedin too, and was relieved to see Shchepkin alone. ‘I see they’ve let you out on your own,’ he greeted the Russian.
Shchepkin smiled. He looked better than he had in London, the skin less stretched, the eyes less darkened. He was wearing a worn dark suit, with a patterned black scarf and grey trilby. ‘Let’s find somewhere to sit down,’ he said. ‘My knees are killing me.’
They found an overturned bench which seemed sound, and which still bore traces of the legend denying its use to Jews. Sitting down, Russell felt somewhat exposed, but then he didn’t suppose it mattered if they were seen together. The Russians knew he was working for them, and so did the Americans.
‘I should give you a brief who’s who of the local NKVD,’ Shchepkin began.
‘Why?’
‘Because you should know who you’re dealing with,’ the Russian said with some asperity. The boss here in Berlin is Pavel Shimansky. He’s not a bad man all told, and he’s a survivor — he’s already outlasted Yagoda and Yezhov, and Beria’s made no move against him yet. That may be because Shimansky has friends I don’t know about, or it may be because he lets his deputy — Anatoly Tsvetkov — do what he likes. Tsvetkov is one of Beria’s
