Effi thought about that. ‘Okay,’ she said eventually. ‘He lives not far from Jens — we could walk over there this evening.’
‘And wish him a Happy Christmas,’ Russell added, as he opened Thomas’s front gate.
In the event, Herr Mechnig had to wait. One of the residents had left a short note by the telephone: ‘Message from Lucie — they’ve arrived.’
‘Yes!’ Russell exclaimed, clenching a fist in celebration. He re-read the message just to make sure. The ‘they’ was encouraging, though hardly definitive.
Effi already had the front door open. It was dark when they reached Kronprinzenallee again, and the buses had vanished with the light. After waiting almost an hour, Russell remembered the lot full of Press Club jeeps on nearby Argentinischeallee. They were used for taking visiting journalists on tours of the Berlin ruins, but such jaunts seemed unlikely on Christmas evening. And surely no one could object to one being used for the odd rescue mission.
The sergeant in charge was unimpressed by this argument, but proved susceptible to others — Effi’s smile, an extortionate hire price in cigarettes, and Russell’s surrender of his press accreditation as security. The deal done, he insisted on loaning Russell a US Army greatcoat and cap, ‘just in case’.
Effi wanted to drive, but had to admit that might look suspicious, and once Russell got the hang of the gear- shift they made good progress through the dark and mostly empty streets. After all the frustrations of the last fortnight, moving through Berlin at this sort of speed seemed nothing short of miraculous. There were lights through windows and shell-holes, and the occasional sounds of Christmas revelry in the distance. As they drove past a roofless church in Moabit the bells began to toll, adding their own mournful commentary to the sea of broken homes.
The area around Lehrter Station was as crowded as the city was empty. Russell pulled the jeep up alongside others bearing the UNRRA initials, and was careful to take the key. Several trains stood in the station, and all seemed recent arrivals — the platforms were swarming with people, most turning this way and that for some notion of where to go. Other, earlier arrivals had given up wondering, and transformed the concourse into a field of small encampments, groups of prone bodies surrounded by suitcase perimeters. In one cordoned-off area stretchers were laid out in rows, some bodies twitching, others worryingly still. The strong smell of human waste hung in the air, and one line of cattle cars was being rinsed out by a chain of bucket carriers.
The only thing missing was noise. Apart from the tired hiss of engines and the odd cry of alarm, the crowd seemed subdued to the point of submission. They had reached Berlin and the safety of the newly shrunken Fatherland, but at the cost of their homes and most of their possessions. And now their lives had shrunk to this — a few square metres of concrete under a bomb-mangled roof.
They found Lucie bandaging a young boy’s leg. ‘They’re in one of the offices,’ she told them. ‘Wait a few seconds and I’ll take you.’
She tore and knotted the ends, smiled at the child and got to her feet. The child gazed back with empty eyes, then threw both arms around his mother’s neck and tried to hide his face.
They worked their way along the crowded platform to an office near the end. Opening the door, Russell saw Torsten sitting on the opposite bench, his one arm securing the baby girl on his lap. He looked twenty years older than the young man Russell had met in 1939.
The girl had fair hair and Torsten’s mouth and nose. The boy beside them had dark hair and the eyes from Miriam’s photograph. He was about five, and looked like he hadn’t slept for a week.
‘Herr Russell,’ Torsten said tiredly. It was almost a question.
‘Do you remember me?’ Russell asked.
‘Of course.’ He took a deep breath, as if trawling for energy. ‘You came to Breslau looking for Miriam.’
Russell introduced Effi.
‘And these must be Leon and Esther,’ she said.
Torsten looked confused. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I saw Frau Hoschle in Breslau,’ Russell told him. ‘She told me you where you’d gone.’
‘Why? Why were you looking for me?’
‘That’s a long story, and I think you need rest and food first. Effi and I are living in the same house as Miriam’s mother…’
‘She’s alive?’ he asked, clearly astonished.
‘And her father too, though he’s in hospital. We’d like to take you home to Esther.’
‘That’s her name,’ the boy said, pointing at his sister.
Torsten managed the faintest of smiles. ‘That sounds like heaven.’
When Russell and Effi went out the next morning, the others were all still asleep. They had given up Thomas’s bedroom to Torsten and the children, and colonised the one normally occupied by the Niebels. The mother would doubtless be livid when she found out, but Russell had unearthed a ready-made riposte while shamelessly rummaging through their possessions — a signed photograph of the Reichsmarschal, lovingly wrapped in velvet.
The Nazis lived on in so many ways, he thought, as he and Effi climbed aboard the unreturned jeep: in the devastation they had invited, in the judenfrei Germany which seemed irreversible; in bastards like Ulrich Mechnig, whom the two of them were about to visit.
Russell glanced across at Effi, who gave him a joyous smile. In prewar times her presence on such an outing would have crippled him with anxiety, but no longer. She had as much experience of dicing with danger as he had, perhaps even more. The thought crossed his mind that all their involuntary adventures of the last few years might have made them better people, but another thought running behind it suggested that the obverse was also true. Like travel, struggles with survival both broadened and narrowed the mind.
The address that Horst and his ‘irregulars’ had supplied was a corner house close to the Ringbahn. The street seemed relatively intact, the three boys who came to inspect the jeep almost healthy-looking. Russell promised them a cigarette each to mind the vehicle, and walked up the steps with Effi. The front door was hanging from one twisted hinge; they clambered through the opening and climbed the stairs to Apartment 4.
‘I’ll let you do the talking,’ Effi told him.
‘Okay,’ Russell said, taking the gun from his pocket and rapping sharply on the door. ‘You just look menacing.’
They heard footsteps inside, then a male voice demanding to know who it was.
‘Housing Office,’ Russell improvised.
‘Come back another time.’
‘If you make me come back, I’ll have to report you.’
‘Oh, what the…’ Two bolts were thrown back, the door swung open, and Mechnig came into view. He was surprised to see Effi’s face, alarmed by the gun in Russell’s hand.
Russell prodded him back into the apartment, and heard Effi close the door behind them. A girl was sitting on a threadbare couch, a blanket wrapped around her, but otherwise seemingly naked. She looked about fourteen.
‘Your daughter?’ Russell asked sarcastically, drawing a short laugh from the girl. ‘Go and get dressed,’ he told her.
‘I’ll go with her,’ Effi said, and followed her into the adjoining bedroom. The girl tossed the blanket aside and started putting her clothes on. She was all skin and bones, with bruises across her barely discernible breasts. Once dressed she took a pack of cigarettes from the row on the shelf and gave Effi a questioning look.
‘Take them all,’ Effi suggested, and the girl needed no second bidding.
In the living room Russell had ordered Mechnig onto the couch. ‘Who do you Americans think you are?’ he said sullenly, seemingly confused by Russell’s greatcoat and hat.
It seemed churlish to disabuse him. ‘What name are you using here?’ Russell asked.
‘My name is Meissner, Oskar Meissner, not that it is any of your business.’
‘Your name is Ulrich Mechnig. SS Sturmscharfuhrer Mechnig of the Berlin Gestapo. Or did you rise higher than that?’
Mechnig stared coldly back at him.
‘You’re a dead man,’ Russell said mildly.
