her.
She touched him lightly on the shoulder, and his eyes jerked open. 'Paul,' she said softly. 'Remember me? Dagmar?'
He took in the familiar face, the nurse's uniform, and realised he was smiling. 'I saw you at Furstenwalde Station,' he said.
'I saw you too. Aren't you cold? Where are your clothes?'
'A bit. My uniform's underneath the trolley. I had to take it off – it's covered in blood and brains.'
'Why, what happened to you?'
'A shell. I was on Grossbeeren Strasse. I've no idea how I got here.' He could see the expression on Werner's face. 'A friend had just been killed…' he began, but let the sentence die.
She saw the pain pass across his eyes. 'I'll get you a blanket,' she told him. 'I'll only be a moment.'
While she was gone he levered himself into a sitting position. He felt strange, but that was hardly surprising. Everything else seemed in working order. He vaguely remembered a doctor. He'd also been covered in blood.
Effi came back with a blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders.
'How did you end up here?' he asked her.
'A long story.'
'It must be,' he said with a wryness that reminded her of his father.
'One for later,' she warned him, as one of the doctors went past.
'You know that Dad escaped?' he whispered.
'Yes.'
'Do you know where he is now?'
'No,' Effi admitted. 'But I expect he'll arrive with the first Americans, whenever that is.'
'Why didn't you go with him?' Paul asked, without really meaning to.
It felt like the question had asked itself.
'That's another long story.'
'Okay,' he agreed. He could hardly believe she was standing there in front of him. 'I saw Uncle Thomas a few days ago,' he told her.
Her face lit up, only to darken as Paul outlined the circumstances.
'He was planning to survive,' he concluded, as if that alone might save his uncle. He suddenly realised that a young girl had joined them, the one he'd seen with Effi on the Furstenwalde platform.
'You're supposed to be asleep,' Effi scolded her, without any noticeable effect. It was hard to imagine Effi as an effective chastiser of children.
'You must be Paul,' the girl said in a very grown-up voice.
'I am. And who are you?'
'I'm Rosa at the moment. Rosa Borinski. My aunt has told me all about you. She's been taking care of me since my mother died.'
'That's right,' Effi agreed. 'Look, I'll leave you two together while I do what I can with Paul's uniform. Okay?'
'Okay,' Rosa said, looking suddenly shy.
'So what did Effi – Dagmar – tell you about me?' Paul asked her.
'Oh, that you like football. And models of ships. And that it was difficult for you having an English father.'
It had been, Paul thought. For a while it had coloured everything. And now it seemed utterly irrelevant.
'And that you lost your mother like I did.'
'It's all true,' Paul admitted. His mother's death seemed a long time ago.
A shadow loomed over them, two men in black uniforms with belts so stiff that they squeaked. Their insignia said they were Untersturmfuhrers, the SS equivalent of lieutenants.
'Name?' one of them asked. He had a thick blubbery face with the sort of pop-out eyes that gave the master race a bad name. His companion, by contrast, was a trifle on the weaselish side. Both had one hand on their holsters, as if mimicking each other.
'Gehrts, Paul.'
'Papers.'
'They're in my uniform. It's just been taken to be cleaned.'
'Are you actually injured?' the second man asked.
'I was knocked out by shell-blast. The doctor said I have mild concus-sion,' he added, suddenly remembering as much.
'Do you have a chit?'
'I don't think so,' Paul admitted.
'The doctor's been too busy,' Effi said, coming up behind the two SS.
'But I can vouch for this patient.' She handed Paul his uniform. It still wore the stains of a messy death, but at least the fragments had been brushed away.
'What is your unit?' the first man asked.
'20th Artillery Regiment, 20th Panzergrenadier Division.'
'Their command base is now in the Zoo Bunker. You will report there immediately.'
'As soon as I'm dressed, Untersturmfuhrer,' Paul agreed.
The man looked vaguely dissatisfied, but nodded his head and turned away. He and his partner walked off down the dimly lit corridor in search of other victims.
'I think I can persuade one of the doctors to write out a chit excusing you further service,' Effi told Paul. 'And then you can come back to the flat with us.'
Paul smiled and reached for his trousers. 'No, I couldn't do that.'
'Why ever not? There's no point in getting yourself killed at this stage.'
'I know. But I couldn't duck out on a lie. I owe my comrades better than that. If I decide to take my chances as a deserter I will – there's an honesty in desertion. But I won't cheat the system. Not while honest men are still dying.' He looked her straight in the eye. 'Does that sound childish to you?'
'No, just stubborn.' And she knew there'd be no budging him. There never had been once he'd decided on something. 'But if you change your mind…' She told him their address, and was about to add that his presence might offer them some protection when she realised that the opposite would probably be true. If he came between them and the Russians then the latter would probably shoot him. 'Just come when you can,' was all she said.
'Yes,' Rosa added, offering him a small hand to shake. Taking it, he found himself fighting back tears.
It was around two in the morning when Paul reached the Zoo Bunker flak towers. He had hitched a lift across town in a Ministry of Propaganda lorry – the Reich's few remaining tanks might be crying out for fuel, but delivering the latest edition of Panzerbar obviously had a higher priority. Skimming a copy by the light of the burning buildings on Tiergarten Strasse, he had discovered that treachery was rife and help on its way.
Despite the sporadic shellfire, tanks and infantry were scattered among the trees outside the Gun Tower, offering an illusion of control which shattered the moment he stepped inside the vast concrete edifice. Here the only deterrent to utter chaos was the degree of overcrowding, which rendered physical movement almost impossible. Every stairway, landing and room of the multi-storey block was occupied by a bewildering mixture of civilians and soldiers, all jostling for enough space in which to lie down.
It took Paul more than half an hour to seek out any semblance of military authority, and when he did the news was bad. The Untersturmfuhrers at the Potsdam Station shelter had got their facts wrong – the remains of the 20th Panzergrenadier Division had been sent to Wannsee Island in the south-western outskirts, and the Russian occupiers of Dahlem and Grunewald now stood between Paul and his former comrades. A weary major suggested he attach himself to the 18th Panzergrenadiers, who were actually on the premises, but Paul's request for a precise location went unanswered. There were, the major added in explanation, over twenty thousand people crammed into the tower.
Paul went off in search of somewhere to sleep, and eventually found a large enough space to sit down in, provided his chin touched his knees.
