tomorrow.’
After she’d gone they all looked at each other. ‘I sometimes think we should make something up,’ Russell said quietly, ‘just to give them some peace of mind. Miriam must be dead — six years without a single trace — she has to be.’
‘Probably,’ Thomas agreed, ‘but we’ve only just started looking again. Give it a few more days at least.’
‘Of course. It’s just…’ He left the thought unspoken.
‘How was the meeting with your Russian friend?’ Effi asked him.
Russell grunted. ‘I’d almost forgotten about that.’ He told them about Shchepkin’s list of comrades for vetting. ‘And there are two for you,’ he informed Effi, expecting an explosion. ‘Ernst Dufring and Harald Koll.’
She took the news calmly, as if she’d half-expected it. ‘Dufring’s loyal to a fault,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ve even spoken to Harald Koll, but he looks innocent enough. What?’ she asked, noticing Russell’s expression. ‘Am I missing something?’
‘What if he isn’t? What if he thinks that the Soviets are the KPD’s biggest problem?’
‘Then I lie to protect him.’
‘And later, when they find out what he really thinks.’
‘I can always say he lied to me. How could they prove otherwise?’
Russell shook his head. ‘They won’t even bother to try. This is the Soviets we’re talking about. They’ll just assume you lied to them, and take whatever action seems appropriate at the time. Darker threats, if they still think you might be useful. A cautionary death if they decide you’re too much trouble.’
‘Do you have a better idea?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I’m going to tell Strohm, but the others… I don’t owe them anything. I think I’m just going to pass on whatever they say. I mean, they must know that holding a high position in the KPD involves a level of risk. If they choose to incriminate themselves, then they have to take their chances. I’m not sacrificing myself for a few apparatchiks.’
‘What exactly are you going to tell Strohm?’ Effi wanted to know.
‘Everything. He can write the report on himself if he wants.’
It was Effi’s turn to shake her head. ‘You’ll be putting him in an impossible position.’
‘How?’
‘Once you tell him that the Soviets have forced you into this, he’ll know that you’re talking to other German comrades. And some of them will be his friends. But what can he do? If he warns them, he’s betraying you; if he doesn’t, he’s betraying them.’
She was right, Russell realised. They both were.
David Downing
Lehrter Station
Rapists and profiteers
A light drizzle was falling on Thursday morning, washing the air clear of brick dust and reminding Effi of London. Looking out the window of Thomas’ study, she imagined Zarah and Rosa walking round the foot of Parliament Hill on their way to the school, and realised she’d forgotten about Jens. Something else to do.
With half the cast filling out American forms, that morning’s rehearsal had been cancelled. Effi devoted several hours to the Fragebogen, read through her answers, and corrected those that might be considered sarcastic. Her original response to Question 115 — ‘have you ever been imprisoned on account or active or passive resistance?’ — was brief and truthful — ‘I was never caught.’ But would the Americans think she was just being cute? She added an explanatory paragraph just in case.
Was it enough? She had no idea, and was tired of second-guessing a bunch of foreign idiots. She forced the papers into her bag and set off for Schluterstrasse.
Kuhnert wasn’t in his office when she arrived, but a secretary she hadn’t met before promised to pass on the completed Fragebogen. Visiting the cafeteria for tea, she found a message from Ellen Grynszpan on the notice board: ‘Something to tell you, come down and see me.’
She reached the basement to find Ellen escorting an American colonel and his wife around the paintings. Ellen gestured for Effi to wait, and two minutes later was wishing her visitors goodbye. ‘Her brother was a painter,’ she explained. ‘He lived in Berlin until 1942. They think he died at Treblinka.’
‘Did he paint any of these?’ Effi asked, looking round.
‘No, all his paintings were burnt by the Nazis.’
Effi sighed. ‘I should have guessed.’
‘Anyway,’ Ellen said, breaking the spell, ‘I have news for you. A friend’s friend knew an Otto Pappenheim back in early 1941. Otto’s brother lived across the street from them, and both men were trying to get to Shanghai, like a lot of other Jews before the Russian war — by that time no one else was letting us in. My friend’s friend thinks they succeeded in getting Soviet travel permits. She didn’t see him or his brother after that time, so she always assumed they’d gone.’
‘Where was this? Where did your friend’s friend live?’
‘In Friedrichshain.’
‘And how old were these brothers?’
‘In their late twenties, early thirties. Around that.’
‘Did she say anything else?’
‘I can’t remember anything else. Would you like to talk to her? I’ll give you her name and address.’
Effi took them down. ‘Have any of the Jews come back from Shanghai?’ she asked. ‘None that I know of.’
Effi gave Ellen a hug. ‘Thank you for this,’ she said.
On her way home she found herself wondering about this new Otto. Why had he gone to Shanghai? Had he gone ahead, hoping to send for his wife and daughter? If it was only him the Gestapo were looking for, had his wife insisted he leave to save himself, as Effi had done with Russell? Or had nothing more noble than fear led him to abandon them?
Uwe Kuzorra’s old apartment building on Demminer Strasse was scorched and scarred but still in one piece. But no one answered Russell’s knock, and the dust outside the door seemed undisturbed. He tried the neighbours to no avail, but a young boy downstairs said his mother was next door. Russell found her hanging clothes in what had once been someone’s parlour, and which now seemed to function as a neighbourhood drying room. Several lengths of rope were strung between jutting bricks across the barely covered space.
‘He still lives here,’ she said in answer to Russell’s query. ‘Or he did. They took him away about ten days ago.’
‘Who did?’
‘French soldiers. We’re in their zone.’
‘Do you know where they took him? Where’s their HQ?’
She shook her head. ‘Not a clue.’
Russell thanked her and walked back to the busy Brunnenstrasse, where his chances of meeting a German policeman or French patrol seemed better. He walked north past Voltastrasse U-Bahn station without seeing either, turning west between what was left of the AEG factory complex and Humboldthain Park, where the apparently indestructible flak tower still exuded useless defiance. There were children playing football in the park, their hair slicked back by the drizzle. The schools were open again, but according to Thomas a huge number of parentless children were living almost feral existences in the ruins, playing games by day and working the black market by night.
On Mullerstrasse he found what he was looking for. The French HQ, a shopkeeper told him, was just up the street, in part of the old Wedding Police Station. In Nazi days the building had functioned as a fort, its Gestapo occupants mounting armed forays out into the local streets, where hammers and sickles still plastered the walls. Now the tricolour flew from the battlements, and basement beatings were hopefully a thing of the past.
Once inside, Russell was passed around like an unwelcome parcel, his journey finally ending at the desk of a middle-aged civilian in a beautifully cut suit. He let Russell struggle with his French, and had obvious difficulty containing his lack of interest. ‘We don’t give out the names of those in our custody,’ he eventually replied in perfect English. ‘Not to American journalists, in any case,’ he added, with something close to a sniff.
