‘This is between friends.’
‘Okay. Well, first the good news. Most of the Soviet administrators in Berlin know what they’re doing. Someone said that the Western Allies sent their worst people here and the Soviets sent their best, and that seems about right. It may not look like it, but they made a big difference before the others arrived, and they’re still making one in this sector. And they’re absolutely determined that we should enjoy their theatre and cinema and poetry and God knows what else. I was hoping for bread but not expecting circuses — they brought both.’
‘And the future?’ Russell prompted.
‘Well, there’s some good news in that regard. I don’t know how much you know about changes in Party policy, but one of the key debates has been about what sort of socialism we want to build in Germany, whether we want to replicate the Soviet system or develop a distinctive German model. And that debate is still going on. It hasn’t been shut down, not yet anyway.’
‘You think the Soviets will shut it down.’
‘I don’t know. To be honest, I’m more worried about the KPD leadership that returned from Moscow — Walter Ulbricht, Wilhelm Pieck, and all the rest of them. They have their own ideas how things should go, and they’re not good listeners. They may be following Soviet orders, or just being who they are — it’s hard to tell — but if it comes to a choice between their own comrades and Moscow, I can’t see them backing the comrades.’ He took a quick look around, as if to make sure that no one was listening. ‘Look, the Russian soldiers behaved atrociously when they first arrived — the number of rapes was appalling. The situation has improved, but there are still new cases almost every day. And then there’s the reparations policy. I understand the reasons — why shouldn’t they take our machines and factories to replace what our armies destroyed? — but they’re cutting the ground from under our feet. They have to behave like comrades, apologise for their troops’ behaviour, and let us stand on our own. The German people will never vote for us if they think we’re creatures of the Russians.’
‘But Ulbricht, Pieck and the others don’t agree?’
‘When Party members tried to raise the question of rapes, Ulbricht told them that the matter was not for discussion. When others insisted that the law on abortion should be changed for rape victims, he told them that was out the question, and that he regarded the matter as closed.’
‘And the comrades accepted that?’
‘They were angry, but yes, discipline prevailed.’
‘Perhaps the Austrian election results will give the Russians — and Ulbricht — second thoughts.’
‘Perhaps, but I doubt it. It pains me to say it, but these comrades — the ones who came back from Moscow — are not the men I remember. I had to visit the new Party building on Wallstrasse yesterday, and when I went for lunch I discovered that there were four categories of ticket for meals in the dining hall.’
‘All for Party members?’
‘Oh yes. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Ulbricht and his friends are living in luxury villas out in Niederschonhausen. The whole complex is fenced off and guarded by the NKVD. And anyone who questions the arrangement — as I foolishly did at one meeting last month — is accused of “starry-eyed idealism”.’
There was no humour in Russell’s laugh. This presumably was what Nemedin wanted to hear.
‘But we’ve only just begun,’ Strohm added. ‘If the merger with the SPD goes through, then Ulbricht’s group may find themselves in a minority, and the Soviet may realise that an independent communist Germany is their best bet.’
‘It’s possible,’ Russell said, without really believing it. Stalin didn’t seem like a fan of other people’s independence.
After taking Rosa in during the final days of the war, Effi had gone along with the seven-year-old’s insistence — inherited, no doubt, from her fugitive mother — that their true histories should remain a secret until after the war was over. In the days and weeks that followed their escape from Berlin and Germany she had tried to make up for lost time, and find out all she could about her ward’s past, but Rosa had spent the second half of her life hidden with her mother in Frau Borchers’ garden shed, and all she could remember of the neighbourhood was a nearby railway line. She could summon up a few memories of the years before their voluntary incarceration, but none that offered any indication of where the family had lived before Otto’s disappearance. And the girl had no idea what, if anything, her father had done for a living. It was probably something manual, Effi thought; by the time of Rosa’s birth anything clerical or professional had been forbidden. But before that… well, for all she knew, Otto Pappenheim had been a doctor like Russell’s old friend Felix Wiesner.
In 1933 rich and middle-class Jews had lived all over Berlin, but as the Nazi persecution gathered pace most had either left the country or moved into those working-class areas of eastern Berlin where their poorer brethren resided. Friedrichshain had always had a sizable Jewish population, and Effi was not surprised to find that two of the women on Ali’s list were now living there. Nor, walking up Neue Konigstrasse from Alexanderplatz, was she surprised to see walls and other impromptu notice boards covered with messages from Jews seeking Jews. Some, frayed and faded, had clearly been up for months, and most, Effi knew, would go unanswered — the men and women sought had long since fed the Nazi ovens. Every hundred metres or so she pinned up one of theirs — ‘Information sought concerning Otto Pappenheim, (wife of Ursel and father of Rosa) and Miriam Rosenfeld (daughter of Leon and Esther). Contact Thomas Schade at Vogelsangstrasse 27, or telephone Dahlem 367.’
The first woman on her list had narrowly escaped a Gestapo trap in the summer of 1944, and spent several nights with Effi and Ali while the Swede Erik Aslund arranged a more permanent refuge. She now lived in a smart first-floor apartment over what had once been a restaurant. She greeted Effi with a heartfelt hug, and answered her apologetic request for an affidavit with an immediate yes. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many people have asked me to sign theirs,’ she said. ‘People who wouldn’t have lifted a finger for me if they’d known I was a Jew. Now they all say they knew. So signing a statement for someone who really did help me will be a pleasure.’
She had known one Otto Pappenheim before the war, but he had been in his seventies. And she had known several Rosenfelds, but not a Miriam. She would ask around.
The other woman on Ali’s list who lived in Friedrichshain had only stayed one night in the Bismarckstrasse apartment, but Effi remembered her better. Lucie’s whole world had collapsed on that one particular evening in 1942. As a Jewish — and therefore unofficial — nurse, she’d been returning from an emergency call when the Gestapo arrived in front of her house. Cowering in a doorway, she’d heard shots inside the building and seen her elderly parents frog-marched into a waiting Black Maria. This had soon sped away, leaving uniformed police standing guard outside the front door. There was no sign of her husband and teenage son, and Lucie of course had feared the worst. Only a friend’s determination had got her as far as Bismarckstrasse, and Effi had spent most of the night trying to comfort her. Lucie’s face on the following morning, when news arrived of her husband and son’s escape, had been a sight to treasure.
And all three had survived, as Effi found when she reached their home. The husband greeted her with obvious suspicion, but Lucie recognised her immediately. ‘Frau von Freiwald!’ she exclaimed, jumping up from her chair, and rushing to embrace her.
‘My real name’s Effi Koenen,’ Effi said once they were done.
‘Not the actress?’ Lucie’s husband said in surprise.
‘The same,’ Effi admitted with reluctance.
Many questions followed, and it was almost an hour before Effi could leave with the promise of another signature. Neither Lucie nor her husband had come across an Otto Pappenheim or a Miriam Rosenfeld, but Lucie was doing voluntary shifts as a nurse at Lehrter Station, and said that she would check through what records there were. All their arrivals came from the East, but some at least were returnees, from either hiding or imprisonment. Otto and Miriam might be among them.
Effi enjoyed the time with Lucie and her family, but as she walked back down Neue Konigstrasse towards the old city centre a dark cloud of depression seemed to roll across her mind. She missed Rosa, and the search for the girl’s father seemed set to be endless. Looking for someone in Berlin reminded her of pyramid schemes, each helping hand seemed to spawn ten more. And the movie… She was loving the involvement, but that too seemed a string without end. When would she ever get back to London? And then there was Russell’s problem. Once she had finished her movie, and they’d done all they could to find Otto, she at least could return. But he would still be stuck here.
She wondered again about bringing Rosa back to Berlin, and the ruins around her seemed answer enough. In time, perhaps, but not in winter, not until… what? Until the rubble had been taken away, until all the windows had
