‘Remember what you said about that camp I was in? It’s the same two things. They still think we need to be punished, and more than a few of them are making small fortunes selling official supplies on the black market.’
‘I suppose that’s it,’ Effi agreed. There were free tables now; it was getting late, and she had another six o’clock start. ‘I must get home,’ she told Annaliese, ‘but I’ll see you tomorrow. Same time at the hospital?’
‘Okay. And thank you,’ she added, giving Effi a hug. ‘You know, I’ve almost forgotten what a normal life looks like.’
That said, it couldn’t hurt to take precautions. The gun that the dead American had given to Russell was still in the bedside table, and taking it with her would provide some insurance.
Russell’s train left the Sudbahnhof at ten past eight on Wednesday morning, and was soon rattling out through the Viennese suburbs. There had been no message waiting for him when he returned, somewhat the worse for wear, from his evening with Slaney, and none when he woke up, feeling very little better, on the following day. He had spent Tuesday morning vainly checking Vienna’s DP camps and Red Cross offices for any trace of Otto or Miriam, the afternoon sauntering around the city, wondering how long he’d be stuck there. It might be a great story, but he wouldn’t be back before Christmas at this rate, and no matter how often he reminded himself that Effi was well capable of looking after herself, the anxiety persisted. The trip in the Mercedes boot was still fresh in his mind.
Then a message had finally arrived, asking him to come to the Rothschild. There was a group crossing the border on Thursday or Friday, Mizrachi told him when he reached the hospital. If Russell took the morning train, he should reach Villach in plenty of time.
So here he was, staring out across the sun-washed Austrian countryside, the sky only smudged by the smoke from their engine. The landscape grew more mountainous by the minute, and after almost two hours they reached the small town of Semmering, which lay astride the Russo-British zonal border. There was no through service, and those passengers heading further east had to walk three kilometres to the British-sponsored train. There were plenty of soldiers in evidence from both armies, but none seemed keen to spoil their day with work, and only a few travellers’ papers were subject to a cursory examination.
The new train puffed its way down the Murz valley, as the outflung eastern arm of the Alps grew larger in the window. It was almost 250 kilometres from Semmering to Villach, and the scenery was mostly magnificent — the train leaping across torrents and delving through dark forests, skirting pellucid lakes and offering glimpses of distant snow-covered peaks shining in the afternoon sunlight. The towns they stopped in looked untouched by war, but Russell knew that wasn’t the case — each would be mourning its quota of men lost on Hitler’s battlefields.
Darkness was falling when the train pulled in to Villach. He had bought bread and sausage at one of the stops, but that seemed a long time ago, and an unofficial refugee camp seemed an unlikely place to find a decent dinner. Villach, it turned out, was not that much better, but he did find a reasonable bowl of soup in one of the bars near the station. Suitably fortified, he laid claim to the only apparent taxi and quoted the address that Mizrachi had written. It was only a street and number, but the driver wasn’t fooled. ‘Where the Jews are,’ he said, with only the slightest hint of distaste.
So much for secret camps, Russell thought.
In the event, it wasn’t so much a camp as a mansion, a large and rambling house with several outbuildings, set quite a way back from the road leading south, right on the edge of town.
On first impression it felt like a school — the house seemed full of children. ‘They’re mostly orphans,’ his Haganah host explained a few minutes later. His name was Mosher Lidovsky, and like Mizrachi he spoke perfect English. Before perishing in the death camps, a large number of Polish Jews had entrusted their children to Catholic friends, and since the war ended the Haganah had been systematically reclaiming them, and moving them out of Poland. As he looked round the faces, Russell noticed a shortage of smiles.
‘Naturally some of the children grew attached to their new parents,’ Lidovsky answered the unvoiced question. ‘But they are Jews. There is no place in Poland for them. Not now.’
Russell changed the subject. ‘Is the group still leaving tomorrow or Friday?’
‘At midnight tomorrow. The British patrol the road by day, which is unfortunate — it is harder at night with so many children. But it is only twenty-five miles.’
‘Aren’t we driving all the way?’
‘Most of it. We have to walk round one checkpoint, which takes a couple of hours. We’ll be there before dawn. Now, I have things to do. If you have any more questions, ask me tomorrow. You’ll sleep in the men’s dormitory — anyone will show you where it is — and there’s soup in the kitchen.’
‘Fine,’ Russell said. ‘Go.’
‘You can talk to anyone you like, but no real names, okay?’
‘Okay.’
Lidovsky hurried away, leaving Russell wondering how to spend the evening. He had all the following day to interview the travellers, but this would probably be his last opportunity to meet their would-be interceptors. He found the dormitory, parked his bag on an empty cot, and walked back into Villach.
A bar on the Hauptplatz provided what he wanted — a group of slightly drunken British soldiers. He bought them a round with his US dollars, told them he was a journalist writing a series of articles on how the top brass treated the common soldier, and settled back to hear their complaints.
The war was over and they wanted to go home. The Germans and Austrians were on their knees — anyone could see that. So why not leave them there?
The Jews? They were a bloody nuisance. You couldn’t really blame the poor buggers, but the soldiers had better things to do than chase them all over Europe.
‘It was like that at the concentration camp,’ one man with a Yorkshire accent said. ‘We liberated the camp, but we couldn’t let the Jews just leave. We had to keep them there to help them — there was nowhere else. Now they’re haring all over the place, and we have to round them up again. It’s a pain in the arse.’
‘What do you do when you catch them?’ Russell asked.
‘Just take them back where they came from.’
‘And a few days later they’re off again,’ a Welsh boy complained.
‘It’s a fucking waste of time,’ the Yorkshireman concluded, to general murmurs of agreement.
Effi was ten minutes late reaching the hospital, and Annaliese’s face seemed to sag with relief when she saw her. ‘I thought you’d changed your mind,’ she said, as they walked back down to the entrance. Their jeep was parked in the old ambulance bay, amidst the makeshift collection of horse-drawn carts now used to bring in emergency patients. Effi was pleased to see the canvas roof — since the cloud disappeared that afternoon the temperature had dropped precipitously.
Annaliese rammed the canvas holdall under Effi’s seat and plonked herself in the other. She was also wearing a long coat, hat and boots — they looked, Effi thought, like two flappers from the Twenties. ‘How much money is there?’ she asked Annaliese.
‘Three thousand US dollars.’
‘My God, that’s a fortune.’
‘Yes.’ Annaliese produced one of her schoolgirl grins. ‘Shall we just head for the border?’
They pulled out onto Potsdamer Strasse and headed south.
‘Where exactly are we going?’ Effi asked at the first opportunity, when a stopping tram blocked the single lane.
‘Just off Goerzallee,’ Annaliese told her. ‘When it turns sharply right we just keep going for a few hundred metres down a dead-end street. It’s about twelve kilometres altogether,’ she added. ‘Half an hour there, half an hour back.’
They motored on through Schoneberg, Potsdamer Strasse turning into Hauptstrasse, Hauptstrasse into Rheinstrasse. A single lane had been cleared in each direction, and more stationary trams were all that slowed their progress. Annaliese kept the jeep moving at a steady thirty — anything faster and the cold wind would have been unbearable.
The further south they got, the higher the proportion of surviving buildings, the lower the ridges of rubble. But the lights grew no brighter — the suburbs were dim as the centre, as if the city had only one battery, and that was nearing exhaustion. Almost all the people they saw were congregated around a few bars and places of
