After scheduling a drink for that evening, Russell hurried back up Okhotnyy Ryad, his NKVD shadow keeping pace. The sky, like his mood, was darkening, and large drops of rain were beginning to fall as he reached the Press Liaison office on Tverskaya Street. A minute late, he was kept waiting for a further twenty, quite possibly as a punishment. There was a picture album of Soviet achievements on the anteroom table, all dams, steelworks and happy kolkhoz workers driving their brand new tractors into the sunset. He laughed out loud at one photograph of Stalin surrounded by nervously smiling women in overalls, and received a withering glare from the young receptionist.
Someone arrived to collect him, a thin, balding man in his thirties with a worried look who introduced himself as Sergey Platonov. Upstairs, Russell discovered the reason for Platonov's anxious expression – another man of roughly the same age with bushier hair, harder eyes and an NKVD major's uniform. His name was Leselidze.
Russell was reminded of another interview he had endured, in Berlin several years earlier. Then too, the monkey had asked the questions while the organ grinder just sat there, making everyone nervous.
The room was like a small lecture hall, with several short rows of seats facing a slightly raised dais. They all sat down, Platonov and Leselidze behind the lecturer's desk, Russell in the audience front row. It felt like more like a tribunal than an interview.
Platonov asked, in almost faultless English, whether Russell was aware of the wartime restrictions on movement applicable to all non-Soviet citizens.
'Yes,' Russell replied in the same language. A moving crane caught his eye in the window, proof that some rebuilding was underway.
'And the general rules governing conversations between foreigners and Soviet citizens?'
'Yes.'
Did he understand the specific rules governing foreign reporters in the Soviet Union, particularly those regarding the transmission of any information deemed detrimental to the Soviet state?
'I do,' Russell affirmed. He had no knowledge of the current details, but the gist was unlikely to have changed – foreign journalists would be allowed to prop up the main hotel bars, sit quietly at official press confer- ences, and have spontaneous conversations with specially selected model workers at tractor assembly plants. Anything else would be forbidden.
'Do you have anything you would like to see?' Platonov asked. 'A collective farm, perhaps.' He sounded every inch the caring host, but his companion's face told a different story.
'I would like to see Berlin with the Red Army,' Russell said, tiring of the game and switching to Russian. 'The rest of the world should know who really defeated the Germans.'
Flattery made no impression. 'There is no possibility of that,' Platonov replied calmly in English. 'We have strict rules – only Soviet journalists are allowed with Soviet forces. We cannot be responsible for the safety of foreign journalists in a war zone. That is quite impossible.'
'I…' Russell began.
'What makes you so certain that the Red Army will reach Berlin ahead of the Americans?' Leselidze asked him in Russian. Platonov slumped back in his chair, as if relieved that his part was over.
Russell answered in the same language. 'About ten days ago General Eisenhower wrote a personal letter to Comrade Stalin. He told the Generalissimo that the Allied armies would not be advancing on Berlin, that their next moves would be towards Hamburg in the north, Leipzig in the centre and Munich in the south.'
Leselidze smiled. 'I was unaware that the details of this letter had been made public in the West. But that is not important. What matters is whether General Eisenhower was speaking the truth. We know that Churchill wants Berlin, and that all the generals do too, both British and American. Why should Eisenhower be any different? He's a general; he must want the glory which goes with the biggest prize. So why does he tell us he doesn't?' The Russian leaned forward in his seat, as if eager to hear Russell's answer.
'You're mistaken,' Russell told him. 'You don't understand how things work in the West. The war is effectively won, but a lot more soldiers are going to die before it ends, and the US government would rather they were Russians than Americans. The occupation zones have already been agreed, so they don't see any point in sacrificing lives for territory that they'll have to hand back. And on top of all that, they've got this ridiculous bee in their bonnets about diehard Nazis heading south to the Alps, where they've supposedly built a fortress to end all fortresses.'
Leselidze shook his head. 'You are clever enough to see through this, but your leaders are not?'
'I know the Nazis better than they do. If Hitler and his disciples knew how to plan ahead they might have won the damn war. And one last thing. Eisenhower loathes Montgomery, who would have to be given a leading role in any advance on Berlin. Believe me, Ike would rather let Zhukov take the prize than give Monty that sort of glory.'
Leselidze sat back in his seat, still looking less than convinced. 'Very interesting. Thank you, Mr Russell. But, as Comrade Platonov has explained to you, the policy forbidding journalists from travelling with Soviet forces is an extremely strict one. So…'
'I'm sure it's a very good policy. But it would be in your interests to make an exception in my case.'
Leselidze looked blank. 'I don't understand.'
'Comrade Leselidze, I have personal reasons for wanting to enter Berlin with the Red Army. My wife and child are probably in the city. My wife, who helped me escape from Germany in 1941, has been a fugitive from the Gestapo for more than three years. And now the Red Army is coming. The soldiers have all read Comrade Simonov's articles calling for punishment of the German people…'
'Yes, yes. But Comrade Stalin has now issued an order calling for the troops to only punish Nazis…'
'I know. And a very wise order it is. But after what the Germans did to your country and your people, an army of saints would be out for revenge. And while I can appreciate that, I still want to protect my family. Can you understand that?
Leselidze shrugged. 'We all wish to protect our families,' he said blandly. 'But I fail to see how helping you protect yours will benefit the Soviet Union.'
'Because I have something to offer in exchange,' Russell told him.
'What?'
'My knowledge of Berlin. Whatever your generals need to know, I can tell them. Where everything is, the best roads, the vantage points. I can save Russian lives in exchange for my family's.'
Even to Russell himself, it sounded dreadfully thin.
'I would be very surprised if we did not already possess this information,' Leselidze told him. 'I will of course pass your offer to the relevant authorities, but I am certain that the answer will be no.'
Alighting from the tram at her Bismarck Strasse stop, Effi checked that her building was still standing. Reassured, she scanned the rest of the wide street for fresh bomb damage. None was apparent. The smoke still rising away to the north-west suggested that the latest British attacks had fallen on that area of the city, where many of the larger war industries were situated. Which made for a pleasant change.
She walked up to their second-floor apartment, feeling the tiredness in her legs. She also felt emotionally numb. Had she grown accustomed to living with fear, or more adept at suppressing her feelings? Was there a difference? She was too tired to care.
Ali wasn't home, but a note on the kitchen table promised she'd be back by four. There was no mention of where she was, which caused Effi a pang of probably unnecessary anxiety. For all her youth, Ali was never careless of her own safety, and only the previous day had lectured Effi on the importance of not growing over- confident. It would be so terrible to fall at the very last hurdle, after all they'd been through.
Ali had left her some soup in a saucepan, but there was no gas, and Effi didn't feel hungry enough to eat it cold. She nibbled on a piece of bread instead, and walked through to her bedroom, thinking she'd lie down for however long it took the Americans to arrive overhead. It would probably make more sense to go straight downstairs, but the idea of spending any unnecessary time in the basement shelter was less than appealing.
She lay down on the bed, closed her eyes, and wondered what Ali would do after the war. Marrying Fritz would be a good start, and no less than she deserved. The girl had lost so much – her parents deported and presumably killed, her first boyfriend the same – but she'd grown into such a resourceful young woman. She had certainly saved Effi's own life. When the two fugitives had run into each other in the Uhlandeck Cafe in June 1942,
