Masaryk Station (John Russell)

by David Downing

  The ten who eventually sat down to eat were likely to share an appreciation of Hanna’s cooking, but Effi was wondering how much disagreement the traditional Sunday discussion would unleash. For the moment though, it all seemed fine. Any group containing Major Bill Carnforth and one of the KPD administrators charged with making American lives difficult was likely to be fraught, but, for the moment at least, Ströhm and Zarah’s boyfriend were getting on much better than their governments did.

  Various aspects of Russian behaviour soon came to dominate the conversation, and Effi was impressed by Carnforth’s refusal to join the chorus of condemnation. Others were much less restrained: Thomas with a scathingly funny account of the latest events at City Hall, Annaliese with a heartfelt attack on Soviet interference in the city’s hospitals. And Effi soon found herself lamenting the recent shift by the Soviet cultural authorities, and lampooning the story of A Walk into the Future.

  Ströhm took it all in good spirit, although he regretted the general tendency to lump the KPD in with the Soviets, as if they were one and the same. He rhapsodised about his old friend Gebauer, and expressed his own hope that Germans would get to decide their own future.

  It was left to Lotte to defend the Russians. ‘What do you expect of them?’ she asked indignantly. ‘They lost twice as many people as all the other countries put together, and they deserve all the reparations they can take. I know some of their soldiers behaved badly here in Berlin, but were they any worse than some of our soldiers in the Soviet Union? They’ve got the economy moving again in their zone, and theatres and cinemas open, and their dancers and orchestras come here to play. And the Americans—I’m sorry, Major—but your government is so aggressive. Everyone knows the Marshall Plan is just a way of getting their businesses back into eastern Europe. And it is absurd that they and the British and the French have these sectors inside the Soviet zone. They’re like three Trojan horses!’

  Effi noticed Thomas smiling and shaking his head.

  Bill Carnforth seemed lost for words.

  ‘But cutting off the milk supply?’ Zarah asked. ‘How could that be justified?’

  ‘It can’t,’ Ströhm agreed. ‘It was a stupid thing to do. But both sides make mistakes. I think these mistakes might even be an inevitable consequence of occupying a foreign country.’ He turned to Carnforth. ‘And wouldn’t your men be happier at home.’

  ‘Sure they would, but how would that work?’

  ‘Get back to the table. Unify the country again. Demilitarise it. Make it neutral. From what I can see both you and the Russians have punished all the Germans you’re going to punish, so why not leave us to rebuild our country?’

  ‘It sounds like sense,’ Carnforth agreed, ‘but then I’m just a soldier.’

  ‘It sounds a bit ingenuous to me,’ Thomas said. ‘Gerhard, you’re a communist—don’t you believe that a country has to choose between one socio-economic system and the other? You can’t have both free enterprise and state planning, can you? It has to be one or the other—the American way or the Soviet way.’

  ‘I’m not convinced,’ Ströhm replied. ‘I agree it looks difficult, but just because it’s never been done, doesn’t mean it never will be. If we could take the best of both systems, and get rid of the worst. A free socialist country—that’s what Marx intended.’

  ‘That was his dream,’ Thomas agreed. ‘And I don’t want to demonise the Russians—they have their reasons, like Lotte said.’

  ‘It’s all above my head,’ Annaliese said equably, ‘but I can see what Gerhard’s getting at. It just doesn’t seem the way things are going.’

  ‘You may be right,’ Ströhm admitted, covering her hand with his own. ‘I guess we shall see.’

  ‘No more nasty shocks in the offing?’ Thomas asked mischievously.

  Ströhm smiled. ‘I only find out an hour before you do.’

  Thomas had the last word. ‘Actually, we all seem to be in the same boat. Effi in her studio, Bill and his country, Gerhard and those in his party who don’t want to replicate the Soviet experience—we all want to say “thank you, but no” to the Russians and their various offers. And we’re all reluctant to do so, for fear of making things worse. It’s not a great position to be in.’

  Tuesday morning at the Weisensee studio, and the director was confidently predicting that shooting would be complete by the following Monday. Such news usually provoked an end-of-term style euphoria on cast and crew, but not in this case. The on-set atmosphere was unlike any Effi had ever experienced, both regretful and resentful, as if everyone knew that they wouldn’t be making more movies like this one. Most people, Effi guessed, had either seen the script of A Walk into the Future, or something very like it.

  Effi hadn’t yet responded to Victor Samoshenko, hoping, against all reasonable expectation, that he might just go away. But he was waiting for her that afternoon, wearing the same grey suit and the same fixed smile. A red enamel badge bearing a golden hammer and sickle shone on his lapel.

  Effi tried to let him—and herself—down gently. ‘I just don’t feel right for the part,’ was her opening shot.

  He frowned slightly, as if that didn’t make sense. ‘Surely that’s for the writer and director to know,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she responded firmly. ‘They have their ideas, of course, but the actor has to decide.’ And how long would I be considered a serious actor, she thought, if I accepted propagandist rubbish like this? She had played such parts in Goebbels’ movies when the alternative was no career at all, but even if that was the choice again, she wouldn’t do it twice. She felt bad enough about doing it once.

  Samoshenko wasn’t done. ‘Is there any chance you might reconsider? As a personal favour to Comrade Tulpanov?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I have the greatest respect for Comrade Tulpanov—if anyone was responsible for Berlin’s cultural re-awakening, it was him. All Berlin is in his debt,’ she added, realising as she said it that she actually meant it. But that was then. ‘It’s not just the part. I need to spend more time with my daughter, and that means I shall only accept work that really engages me.’

  Samoshenko’s smile was suddenly gone. ‘I understand you’ve accepted a part in a new radio serial at the American Sector radio station.’

  ‘You’re misinformed. I’ve been offered a part, but I haven’t decided whether or not to accept it.’ Effi decided some annoyance was in order. ‘But how did you know about it?’

  He shrugged. ‘You know what actors are like—nothing is secret for long. And you know what people will say, that you have changed sides.’

  ‘I didn’t know there were any sides in film-making.’

  He snorted. ‘Come now, Miss Koenen, you’re a lot more intelligent than that. You must realise how this will look.’

  She did. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I’ll make it very clear to anyone who’ll listen that I’m not making a political point, that if I take this part at RIAS, it will be because the hours are fewer and easier, and I’ll get to see more of my daughter.’

  Samoshenko sighed. ‘Comrade Tulpanov will be very disappointed,’ he said, adding almost ruefully that he hoped there’d be no regrets, before striding out through the door.

  All of which, Effi thought, was little short of ridiculous. Even Goebbels and his minions had taken no for an answer without making a song and dance about it. They wouldn’t let you work against them, but working for them hadn’t been compulsory. Why did the Russians behave like such idiots?

  Samoshenko’s car was receding into the distance when she got outside, the battered studio limo waiting by the kerb to take her and her colleagues back to the British sector. The sun was shining for a change, the temperature somewhere up around twenty, and by the time they reached Carmer Strasse, she felt more at peace with the world.

  Upstairs she found a letter from Russell, and put it aside to read later. Zarah, Lothar and Rosa had been to the American cartoon cinema, and were still laughing at one of the Tom and Jerry
sequences. Effi usually picked Rosa up at Zarah’s, and with the children engrossed in a game, took the opportunity of her sister’s visit to bring out the offending drawing.

  Zarah, rather to Effi’s surprise, wasn’t shocked. ‘You’ve talked to her?’ was all she asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And was she evasive?’

  ‘Not in the least.’

  ‘Well, then. These aren’t normal times.’

  ‘Yes, but given her history …’

  Zarah wasn’t having it. ‘We’ve all have things we’d rather forget,’ she said pointedly, as if Effi might have forgotten that her sister had been gang-raped for two days by four Red Army soldiers.

  ‘But Rosa was a small child,’ Effi protested.

  ‘I wasn’t making comparisons,’ Zarah insisted. ‘But if I was, then people say that children are more resilient.’

  Effi let that go—sometimes her sister was less than helpful. ‘I’m beginning to wonder whether Berlin’s the best place for her,’ she mused out loud.

  Zarah looked surprised. ‘We’re more fortunate than most.’

  And they were. With Effi’s Grade A actor’s rations, Russell’s income from several sources, and Bill Carnforth’s access to US Army bounties, they could hardly be luckier. ‘I know,’ Effi said, ‘but the whole city’s on edge. It can’t help.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. And …’ Zarah hesitated, and then smiled. ‘I can hardly advise you to stay when I’m thinking of leaving myself.’

  ‘You are? What? Oh! He’s asked you to marry him!’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Oh Zarah!’ Effi said, flinging her arms around her sister. ‘That’s wonderful.’

  ‘You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘Haven’t I said so over and over?’

  ‘Yes, yes, you have.’

  The penny dropped. ‘You’ll be moving to America.’

  ‘I suppose so. What could Bill do here? And all his family’s back there.’

  ‘All yours is here.’

  ‘There’s only you now.’ Both their parents had died two years earlier, within a week of each other. ‘And I do find it hard to imagine you being more than a few minutes away. But what can I do?’

  ‘Nothing. If you love him, go with him. We won’t lose touch.’ Something else occurred to Effi. ‘But you still haven’t got a divorce.’

  ‘Oh Jens will agree—he’ll be able to marry his schoolgirl.’

  ‘She’s almost as old as I am.’

  ‘Pah!’

  ‘But he won’t like losing Lothar. Have you told Lothar, by the way?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘How do think he’ll react?’

  ‘I don’t know. He really likes Bill, and he’s crazy about all things American, but he’s always loved his father. God only knows why.’ She shook her head. ‘But there’s plenty of time. Bill doesn’t go home for another six months.’

  Effi gave her another hug. She was happy for her sister, who seemed, at the second attempt, to have found a man worth having. But America! Ali Rosenthal, the young Jewish woman whom she’d lived with during the war, had moved there more than a year ago, when her husband Fritz had secured a teaching post at a southern college for negroes, and Effi still missed her. Now Zarah. As sisters they had always been what John said the English called ‘chalk and cheese’, but from childhood on the bond had been strong. Not seeing each other for six months in 1942 had been painful enough, and living an ocean apart would be … well, impossible was the word that came to Effi’s mind.

  After Bill had picked up Zarah and Lothar, she and Rosa played skat for a while, but Rosa could see that she was distracted. Effi’s usual rule of thumb was to tell her daughter the truth, but in this case it didn’t seem advisable—Rosa, a child with a history of abandonment, was very fond of Zarah.

  It was only when the girl was fast asleep that Effi finally opened the letter from John. Written on the previous Tuesday, it was disappointingly short, and said little of what he’d been doing. There were touches of the usual self-deprecating humour—it couldn’t have been written by anyone else—but there was something not quite right about it. About him. He wasn’t in a good place, Effi thought. He needed to come home. They both needed him to.

  Russell stood in the shadows of the covered porch, staring at Kozniku’s darkened office. It was a depressingly clear night, stars twinkling in the overhead corridor of sky, an out of sight moon washing the roofs across the street with milky light.

  It was almost midnight. In the last quarter-hour two prowling cats had stopped to check him out, offered plaintive meows, before padding away across the cobblestones, but the only signs of human life had been the dousing of bedroom lights.

  Earlier that day Russell had visited the office, and told the voluptuous Luciana that he urgently needed to see Signor Kozniku. As he had hoped, she’d told him her boss was still away, and would be for several more days. Russell had looked suitably chagrined, vowed to return, and taken his leave.

  Luciana had presumably left at the usual hour, and by this time was probably enjoying a post-coital cigarette with Artucci. Russell had a fleeting mental picture of them, and wished he hadn’t.

  What was the matter with him?

  It had been a bad week. He had spent most of it pursuing leads that went nowhere, asking questions of people who had no answers, no matter how emphatically they claimed they had. He had spent far too many hours sitting in the Piazza del Unità, being shat on by pigeons and watching the wretched little locomotive clank up and down the promenade with its trio of wagons. And he had endured another lengthy briefing from Youklis on his imminent trip to Belgrade. They had someone they wanted him to contact—one of Mihajlović’s former favourites, no less—with an eye to recruitment. When Russell had suggested that a man like that would be under surveillance, the CIA man had actually looked surprised, as if something so utterly obvious hadn’t occurred to him. He had swiftly recovered himself. The potential gain was worth the potential risk, Youklis had decided out loud, as if the man he was risking was somewhere out of earshot. And when Russell had pointed that out, all he’d received were a smirk and a shrug that translated as ‘you’re expendable’.

  Well, fuck them, he thought. He would go to Belgrade, and maybe—maybe—take a careful look at the man in question, but all other bets were off. And so here he was, loitering outside Kozniku’s office with felonious intent, knowing full well that such action would piss the Americans off no end.

  It was foolish, and he knew it, but like Shchepkin had said, journalists and spies had the same objectives. So why not use the same sleazy methods, particularly on scum like Kozniku?

  He took a deep breath, and hurried across the street. Forcing the front door was out of the question, but there was another entrance off the ginnel which burrowed between Kozniku’s building and its neighbour. Here, where the shadows were deepest, he hoped to find a way in.

  The door was locked, and seemed more than a match for his shoulder. There were no windows overlooking the passage, so he risked using his flashlight, first on the keyhole and then on the foot of the door. The news was good in both cases—the key was in the lock, and the gap beneath the door looked big enough to take it. He took the folded newspaper from his inside pocket, flattened it out, and slid it through the gap. A gentle prod with the two-inch nail he had brought with him pushed the key out on to the paper, which he carefully drew back out. He couldn’t remember which detective novel had introduced him and his school friends to this trick, but in the thirty years since it was the first time he’d performed it.

  He unlocked the door, slipped through, and re-locked it from the inside. It was pitch dark within, and after wasting a few seconds hoping his eyes would adjust, he resorted to the flashlight. The door in front of him was, he assumed, the one he’d noticed behind Kozniku’s left shoulder during their meeting. This was also locked, but the same tricked worked its magic. Kozniku’s office was windowless, but there was enough l
ight seeping in through the glass panels of the connecting door for him to see his way. This door wasn’t locked, so he walked across Luciana’s office to check that the outer one was.

  ‘Okay,’ he murmured to himself, stepping back into Kozniku’s inner sanctum. He hesitated for a moment over whether or not he should shut the connecting door—leaving it open would give him warning of unexpected arrivals, while shutting it would make it less likely that anyone would notice his use of the flashlight. Close it, he decided—who would turn up at this time of night?

  First the desk, he told himself. Then the cabinets. He had no idea what he was looking for, but hoped he would know if he saw it. The man’s absence had been too good an opportunity to miss.

  Russell tried to leave each drawer as he found it, which wasn’t that difficult—Kozniku had everything arranged just so. A sudden burst of laughter in the street gave him a jolt, but also reassured him; the interior wall were clearly thin enough to prevent his being caught in the act.

  Two minutes later, he heard more voices—it was like Piccadilly Circus out there. He was just thinking that they seemed surprisingly close when he picked up the sound of a turning key. A few seconds later, the light went on in Luciana’s office, and spilled through the windows of the connecting door.

  Russell froze. If anyone opened that, at least he’d be standing behind it, but that was the best he could say. For the moment at least, no one in the next room seemed inclined to do so—in fact they seemed more concerned with trying to understand each other. There seemed to be three of them: Luciana, who sounded annoyed to be there, and two males, who sounded annoyed with her. They were all trying to speak English, and mostly failing in the attempt. The men had Balkan accents, and Russell recognised Serbo-Croat when they spoke to each other. Oh great, he thought. He’d spent half that morning listening to a British journalist recount, with wholly reprehensible glee, some of the worst atrocities carried out by the Ustashe. And here he was, at their mercy. Why the hell hadn’t he brought his gun with him?