‘It was an American request.’
‘It didn’t come from this department.’
‘I didn’t think it did. But could you look into it? He’s not a Nazi. Never was — he actually resigned from the Kripo when the Nazis took over, and set up as a private eye. He only rejoined the police after his wife died, when they were really short of men; he was never in the Gestapo. He could be very useful to us both. He knows Berlin better than anyone I know, and he doesn’t like the Russians.’
Dallin reached for the phone on his desk. ‘You’d better wait outside,’ he said, almost apologetically. Noting the marked change in attitude, Russell closed the door behind him. The way to a spy chief’s heart was clearly to offer him spies.
He could hear Dallin’s tone through the door, and there was no mistaking the rising anger. Call seemed to follow call, and the voice grew harder, more insistent. Finally Russell was summoned back in.
‘I can’t get a straight answer from anyone,’ Dallin told him. ‘No one admits to knowing your friend, let alone demanding his arrest. In the end, I just cut through the crap and phoned the French. You can visit the man on Saturday. 11 a.m., out at their army camp. You know where that is?’
‘Roughly. That’s great, thanks. Just one more thing’, he added, thinking that he might as well push his luck. He explained about Effi, and the problems she was having with other invisible Americans. ‘They promised me in London that she’d be able to work,’ he told Dallin, neglecting to mention that ‘they’ were the Soviets. ‘She’s a heroine of the resistance, for God’s sake — you’d think whoever it is would have some real Nazis to chase. If you could have a word with whoever’s responsible, I’d take it as a personal favour.’
‘I can’t promise anything,’ Dallin said, ‘but I’ll look into it.’ He got up to shake hands. There was, Russell thought, almost a smile on the American’s face.
They had arranged to meet Esther Rosenfeld just inside the main entrance to the Elisabeth Hospital. Effi had last seen the complex in 1941, when she’d been one of the famous names invited to cheer up the wounded. The last four years of bombs and shells had rendered it almost unrecognisable. Now parts of buildings were supported by iron and wooden struts, with temporary shelters nestling in between.
Esther was waiting for them. ‘He’s not so good this evening,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you.’ She led them down a long corridor, across an open space to another building, and up a flight of stairs. Effi suddenly knew where she was — they were passing the office where she and Annaliese Huiskes had often shared a bottle of hospital-brewed alcohol. She wondered what had happened to the blonde nurse. The last time Effi saw her, Annaliese was driving off down Bismarckstrasse in the car they had both ‘borrowed’, hoping to escape the Russians’ pincers as they closed around Berlin.
They passed through one ward and entered another. Leon Rosenfeld was in the penultimate bed, lying on his back with a blank expression in his eyes. He seemed smaller than Russell remembered, and much older — he couldn’t be much more than fifty, but he looked about seventy. The marks of the beating he’d received in Silesia were still visible, but only just.
Esther took his hand, and told him who they were. ‘This is John Russell,’ she said. ‘Remember he stayed at the farm?’
There was a slight flicker in the eyes, and a look, both hopeful and dumb, that reminded Russell of the dog he’d had as a child.
‘And this is his wife Effi,’ Esther was saying. ‘They both helped rescue Miriam.’
The eyes found Effi, a slight smile creasing the lips. And then the eyes closed, and he winced as if in pain. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.
After sitting in silence for a couple of minutes, it became obvious that Leon had fallen asleep. ‘He’s not so good in the evenings,’ Esther said again. ‘He’s much livelier in the mornings.’
‘Then next time we’ll come in the morning,’ Effi promised, getting to her feet. ‘Are you coming back with us?’
‘No, I’ll stay a while longer. Thank you for coming.’
The two of them walked back through the wards. At the end of the second Effi noticed a vaguely familiar face. ‘Were you working here in 1941?’ she asked the nurse in question, an unusually plump woman with short brown hair.
‘I feel like I’ve been here since the First War,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘I had a friend who worked here — Annaliese Huiskes. I wondered…’
‘She’s still here. She came back, that is. About two months ago, I think. I saw her earlier — she’s on duty this evening.’
It took them five minutes to find the relevant ward, where another joyous reunion took place. Russell smiled at the patients’ gawping faces as the two women did a jig in the aisle.
Annaliese was wearing a sister’s uniform now. ‘I see you found him,’ she said, eyeing Russell over Effi’s shoulder.
‘I’m not so easy to shake off,’ Russell said, giving her a kiss on each cheek.
Annaliese just stared at them, a big grin on her face. Her blonde hair was longer than Effi remembered, and tied back with a red ribbon. ‘Go wait in the office,’ Annaliese said, ‘I’ll be along in a minute.’
She was back in two. ‘No booze, I’m afraid,’ she told Effi. ‘I’m being good.’
They sat and talked for almost an hour. Effi told Annaliese all about England and Rosa, and the nurse told her what had happened after their nocturnal parting in April. Annaliese had reached her late husband’s parents in Spandau, and they had hidden her in their cellar for several weeks while the Russians raped the neighbourhood’s women. She had then set out across country, hoping for better from the Western Allies, but had ended up in an American camp at Rheinberg. ‘It was more terrible than you could imagine, but I’ll tell you about that another time. I have to do my rounds in a few minutes, and I’d like to show John something before you go.’
‘Me?’ Russell asked, surprised.
‘You’re still a journalist, aren’t you?’
‘I sometimes think so.’
‘Yes he is,’ Effi said, cuffing him round the head.
After finding a nurse to cover for her, Annaliese led them through two large wards to a third, where all the beds were occupied by thin-faced children. Two immediately asked for water, which Annaliese went to fetch. Around twenty pairs of eyes stared dully at Russell and Effi.
‘They’re all diabetic,’ the returning Annaliese explained, ‘and we don’t have enough insulin.’
‘Why not?’ Russell asked, though the answer wasn’t hard to guess.
‘The only suppliers are Grosschieber — the big-time black marketeers — and they make sure that supplies are tight. When they do release some, they invite all the hospitals to bid on them, to maximise the price. They do the same with penicillin, and the VD drugs, Pyrimal and Salvarsan. The staff dip into their own pockets, but it’s not enough. There was a twelve-year-old in that bed there’ — she pointed to the one lying empty — ‘but she died this afternoon. When she arrived ten days ago there was nothing wrong with her that an insulin injection wouldn’t fix.’
‘Where did it come from before?’ Russell asked.
‘There were two labs in Berlin, but both were bombed out. We did get some from Leipzig for a while, but the supply dried up — we don’t know why. One doctor went down there on his day off with some money we’d collected, but he never came back. And no, he wasn’t the sort to steal it.’ She looked at Russell. ‘This would be a story worth telling, don’t you think?’
‘It would,’ he agreed.
It would, he thought, as they walk back through the wards. Trouble was, he’d had the same thought looking at Leon. And watching the dazed refugees tumbling out of their train at Lehrter Station. The victims were different, but there was only one story, and it wasn’t the one he wanted to write. He had spent enough time with sadness and evil, and to what useful end? Any fool could shout ‘never again’, but he might as well change his name to Canute. It would happen again. Somewhere, sometime in the not too distant future. Most people were incapable of looking beyond themselves selves and those they loved — the camp on the other side of the hill was never their business. There was nothing new or surprising about children dying for someone else’s greed. As the seventeen- year-old Albert Wiesner had told him six years earlier, the only mystery in this world was kindness.
Effi was asking Annaliese when they could meet again.
