Georgians, and he is a nasty piece of work. Nemedin is his deputy, and you’ve met him.’
‘How is Comrade Nemedin?’
‘He’s hopeful. And very watchful. My room has been searched twice since I got here.’
‘Did they find anything?’
‘Of course not,’ Shchepkin said, as if his professionalism had been brought into question.
‘Where are you living?’
‘Out in Kopenick. There’s a hotel by the river which we’ve taken over.’
‘I know it. We went boating there before the war. But I don’t suppose your people do that.’
‘You’d be surprised. But let’s get to business.’ Shchepkin placed a folded newspaper on the bench between them. ‘The list of the men we need vetting is inside. They’re all Party members. And there’s a couple more that Fraulein Koenen is working with. We’d like her opinion on them.’
Russell bristled. ‘That wasn’t part of the deal.’
‘No, but ask her anyway. She only has to deal in generalities. We just want a sense of where their loyalties lie.’
‘She’ll refuse.’
‘Perhaps. If she does, then we may have to think again. But I presume you’ve explained the situation to her — your situation, I mean.’
‘Of course.’
‘Then she may surprise you. In my experience women are more hard-headed about such things than men.’
He might be right, Russell thought, as an emaciated dog sniffed round his shoes. ‘I’ll ask her.’
The dog gave them both a reproachful look, and trotted off across the allotments.
‘Good. Now, your list. There are five comrades on it. Two of them you know — Gerhard Strohm and Stefan Leissner…’
‘He survived?’ Leissner was the Reichsbahn official who’d given him and the young Soviet scientist Varennikov a hiding-place back in April. After the latter’s death Russell had come upon Leissner lying just outside his bombed office with his right leg almost severed. He’d loosened and re-tightened the unconscious man’s tourniquet, but there’d been no time to do anything more.
‘Leissner? He lost a leg, but he’s alive. And he has an important job — he’s virtually running the railways in our zone.’
‘He didn’t strike me as the disloyal type.’
‘Maybe not. But he’s certainly being tested — orders keep arriving from Moscow to tear up his tracks and ship them east as reparations.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes. Two of the others should provide no problem, but Manfred Haferkamp — have you met him?’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘He was a Party convenor in the Hamburg docks. In 1933 he escaped to Finland, and eventually turned up in Moscow. He taught at the International School for several years, but was arrested during the Yezhovshchina and sent to a labour camp in the North. In 1940 he was one of the German comrades that Stalin handed over to Hitler as part of the Pact. He managed to survive almost five years in Buchenwald, and after his release he chose to live here in Berlin rather than return to Hamburg. We don’t know why.’
‘Has anyone asked him?’
‘He claims this is where Germany’s future will be decided.’
‘Hard to argue with that.’
‘No, but it tells us nothing of how he envisages that future.’
‘With or without a Russian hand on every German shoulder? With his history, he’s hardly likely to have a framed portrait of the Great Leader on his bedroom wall.’
‘Probably not, though stranger things have happened. But we’re expecting you to find out.’
Russell made a face.
‘And you must do a thorough job,’ Shchepkin insisted. ‘I know you. You’re already sympathising with this man, and wondering how you’ll be able to satisfy both Nemedin and your own conscience. Perhaps by reporting enough to demonstrate doubts, but not enough to get the man shot. And yes, that may be possible. But be careful. Nemedin is a clever bastard, and he enjoys catching people out. He and Tsvetkov need this information, but sometimes I get the feeling that Nemedin would get more satisfaction out of skewering us.
‘What’s he got against me?’
‘Everything. You’re an ex-communist with a bourgeois lifestyle and a film star wife. None of which you seem to be ashamed of.’
‘I was on my best behaviour.’
‘Then God help us. Look, he’s dangerous. To both of us. Don’t underestimate him.’
‘Okay, okay, I’ve got the message.’ And he had. His earlier thoughts on pain-free espionage already seemed dated. He couldn’t imagine betraying someone as decent as Strohm, but who knew what the price of refusal might be. And who might have to pay it. Effi’s film and Thomas’s business would certainly be among the casualties.
Shchepkin was asking him whether he’d seen the Americans.
‘I left a message for their man — Dallin, do you know him?’
‘Of him. He’s not one of their brightest.’
‘No. Anyway, I left my address with them on Sunday, and he still hasn’t got back to me.’
Shchepkin shook his head. ‘Amateurs,’ he muttered disapprovingly.
‘I suppose I should remind him I’m here, Russell said. ‘When do we meet again?’
‘Fridays, if that’s all right with you.’
‘One day’s as good as another.’
‘What about your work as a journalist? It’s important that you establish a good cover.’
‘I’m doing a story on the Jews. The survivors. How they’re finding each other, how they’re being treated, where they want to live.’
Shchepkin nodded. ‘That sounds safe enough. And Fraulein Koenen’s film?’
‘The Americans are being obstructive. But maybe Dallin can help out with that.’
‘I expect so. Now that the war’s over, the intelligence agencies are more or less running things.’
‘So we’ve fallen on our feet,’ Russell said wryly.
Shchepkin managed a thin smile. ‘Ah, the British sense of humour.’
Effi was a quarter of an hour late for the morning’s script rehearsal. An expired tram on Hohenzollerndamm was the cause, but she apologised profusely, worried that her new co-workers would be inwardly accusing her of the big star affectations she had always despised. She thought of repeating what her mother, with quite uncharacteristic humour, had once said — that she’d arrived late as a baby, and had been repeating the experience ever since — but the moment didn’t seem right.
Everyone seemed more subdued than the day before, but it wasn’t until after the session was over, and the director took her into his study, that she found out why. ‘The Americans have asked for further checks on three more members of the cast,’ Dufring told her. ‘They’re taking this much further than we expected,’ he added, leaving Effi wondering who exactly he meant by ‘we’. ‘And I think you need to start compiling a dossier of affidavits from those you helped in the war.’
‘Really?’ Effi exclaimed. Gathering testaments to her own political virtue was not an appealing prospect.
‘Really,’ Dufring insisted. ‘And you’ll have to fill out one of these,’ he added, lifting a sheaf of papers from the desk.
Effi looked through the document with increasing dismay. There were pages and pages of questions. One hundred and thirty-one of them. ‘Who did you vote for in 1932?’ she read aloud. ‘How am I supposed to remember that? I probably didn’t bother.’
‘I know,’ Dufring said. ‘It’s absurd. But do your best.’
‘They’ve called it a Fragebogen,’ Effi noticed. ‘Don’t they know that’s what the Nazis called their form proving aryan descent?’
Dufring smiled. ‘Probably not.’
