'No, probably not. I'll go up and get him. But you stay here with Frau Pflipsen,' she told Rosa. 'I won't be long.'
Effi hurried back up the steps, across the yard and into her building. It had to be Aslund, she thought. But what was he doing here? Was he on the run, after all this time? It didn't seem likely.
She trudged wearily up the stairs, and opened the unlocked door.
It was John, sitting in the chair by the window, apparently asleep. She let out a small gasp of delight. She couldn't believe it. Where had he come from? And how? She rushed towards him.
As she placed her hands on his shoulders his eyes opened.
'Effi,' he said, as if everything was right with the world. She looked thinner, exhausted, about ten years older. He had never seen anything half so beautiful.
He stood up, and they dissolved into each other's arms.
'How did you find me?' she asked after a few moments.
'Zarah told me where you lived.'
'But she doesn't…'
'She saw you in the street once and followed you. She needed to know where you lived.'
Effi shook her head in amazement. 'But how did you find Zarah? How did you get to Berlin?'
The Russians brought me. Would you believe I jumped from a plane out beyond Gatow?
She couldn't help laughing. 'Oh John, this is so wonderful.'
'I had to get to you,' he said simply. They stood there, hands on each other's shoulders, staring into each other's eyes.
'I saw Paul yesterday,' Effi said.
He gripped her shoulders a little tighter. 'Where? Is he okay?'
'It was in the big shelter at Potsdam Station. He was in the hospital, but he wasn't badly hurt – just a concussion. He's in uniform, of course, but he'd lost touch with his unit. Some SS bastards told him to report in at the Zoo Bunker, and I suppose he's still there.'
Russell's elation was edged with panic – his son was alive, but still at risk. And only a couple of kilometres away. 'How did he seem?'
Effi grimaced. 'It's hard to say. He was the same old Paul, and he wasn't. He's so much bigger than I remember, but that's… he seemed overwhelmed, but what young man wouldn't be after what they've all been through? You know that Ilse and Matthias were killed?'
'No, no I didn't. When? How?'
'Last year in a car accident. Out in the country. They reached the crest of a hill at the same moment as an army lorry. They were both killed outright.'
'Christ.' Russell had a sudden picture of Ilse in the foreign comrades' canteen, all those years ago. Paul would have been devastated. An utterly selfish thought crossed his mind: his son would need him now. 'Has Paul forgiven me?' he asked Effi.
'I don't know. He asked after you. He didn't sound angry.'
A shell exploded some way up the street, momentarily lighting up the room.
'Where did you see Zarah?' Effi asked. 'Is she all right?'
''All right' might be an exaggeration. Jens tried to interest her in some suicide pills, so she walked out on him.'
'Ten years too late – no, I suppose Lothar was worth it. But… So she's back in Schmargendorf. Aren't the Russians there already?'
'Yes. She was expecting them. She… well, I don't think she's under any illusions. She told me she plans to stay alive for Lothar.'
'Oh God,' Effi murmured, as another explosion echoed down the street. But there was nothing she could do for her sister – the Russians would be between them by now. 'We really should go down to the shelter,' she told Russell.
'Okay.'
'Why were you up here?' she asked, taking his hand.
He smiled. 'Would you believe I wanted to be close to you?'
'I think I might,' she said, and gave him a kiss. 'But we must go down,' she insisted, as another shell exploded, closer this time. 'There's someone I want you to meet,' she added, as they descended the stairs.
'Not a new boyfriend, I hope.'
'No, just a new member of the family.'
'What?'
Effi paused at the top of the basement steps. 'She's seven years old and Jewish, and all her family are dead. I've more or less adopted her.'
'Right,' Russell said lightly. He could see a small fair-haired girl hovering at the bottom of the steps, staring up at them.
They went down. 'This is John,' Effi told the girl, after checking that no one else was in earshot. 'But we'll pretend he's my brother until the war ends.' She turned to Russell. 'And this is Rosa. We've had a lot of adventures together.'
The girl gave Russell a hopeful look, and offered a hand to shake.
Russell took it. 'I hear you're part of the family now,' he said with a smile. 'And I'd love to hear about all your adventures.'
'Of course,' Rosa told him, 'but we have to wait until after the war is over. We sleep through here,' she added, leading the way into the large basement room. Most of the inhabitants had already turned in, and one of two burning candles was snuffed out as they wended their way to the far corner. 'Our beds are still here, but someone has slept in mine,' Rosa whispered.
'That would be me,' Russell whispered back. 'I didn't know it was yours.'
'That's all right.'
Rosa and Effi took one camp bed, Russell the other, which suited the child rather better than him.
Despite trying hard to stay awake – she didn't want to feel left out, Effi realised – Rosa was soon asleep. The two grown-ups conversed in whis-pers, and she told him about Paul's meeting with his uncle. 'Thomas is also planning to survive,' Effi remembered. 'Like Zarah.'
The shelling outside was much more sporadic, and Russell realised he wouldn't need much encouragement to let desire get the better of sense.
He got none. 'I can't leave her down here on her own,' Effi said, in answer to his suggestion of a trip upstairs. If she woke up and found we were both gone… well…'
'You're right,' Russell told her. 'It was a stupid idea.'
'Not that stupid,' she said, carefully disentangling herself from the sleeping child. 'And I can at least join you over there.'
But entwined and kissing on the narrow camp bed, the issue became rather more pressing. 'Have the customs changed since 1941?' Russell eventually whispered. 'Is lovemaking in air-raid shelters permitted these days?'
'Not between brother and sister.'
'Oh.'
'So we'll have to be very quiet.' No longer a road leading home April 28 – May 2 I t had been light for about an hour, and already the city centre was taking a frightful hammering. As Russell and two other men from the shelter worked their way down Grolman Strasse in search of a working standpipe, the sky to their left seemed choked with Soviet planes, the rise and fall of whining shells overlapping each other like a gramophone nee-dle stuck in mid-symphony. In the centre of it all, the Zoo Bunker Gun Tower loomed above the ruined city, giving and taking fire, half cloaked in drifting smoke.
Paul was inside it.
Russell remembered what Effi had said about the boy seeming overwhelmed. He couldn't think of a better word to describe his own feelings. Seeing Effi again had filled him with joy, yet left untouched the dread of losing his son.
And Thomas too. If anyone deserved to survive this war then Thomas did.
