Masaryk Station

by David Downing

  ‘You could say that,’ Shchepkin said.

  ‘I expected better of the Czechs.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know your Marx. An industrial society, rich in high culture—isn’t that supposed to be the seed-bed of socialism?’

  ‘Of course. But the Czechs have us to contend with, the peasant society that got there first. And the more civilised the country, the tighter we’ll need to screw down the lid.’

  Shchepkin was right, Russell thought. It was the same everywhere. In Berlin his friend Gerhard Ströhm was continually complaining that the Soviets were destroying the German communists’ chances of creating anything worthwhile.

  ‘Look,’ Shchepkin said, ‘I understand your reluctance to come back to Berlin …’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I know what you were doing before you left; and you’re probably doing the same thing here. Neither side has been choosy about whom they recruited, and they’re getting less so with each passing month. Both have taken on a fair proportion of ex-Nazis. To retain your credibility as a double-agent, you have to offer up people on both sides—American agents to us, our agents to the Americans. But as far as I can tell, every last one you’ve betrayed has been an ex-Nazi. You’re still fighting the war.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ Russell wanted to know.

  ‘Two things,’ Shchepkin told him. ‘One, eventually each side will start wondering just how committed you are to fighting their new enemy. And two, you’ll soon be running out of Nazis. What will you do then?’

  ‘Whatever I have to, I suppose. I was hoping you’d conjure us out of all this before I reached that point. Three years ago you talked about uncovering a secret so appalling that it would work as a “Get out of Stalin’s reach” card. Didn’t some innocent birdwatcher accidentally take a photo of Beria pushing Masaryk out of his window, which we could use to blackmail the bastard?’

  ‘It was three in the morning.’

  ‘Pity.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘We’ll meet again on Thursday,’ Shchepkin decided. ‘Here at the same time.’

  It was almost midnight, but Russell still felt more restless than sleepy. He walked north up the seafront, passing groups of huddled refugees, and one suspicious stack of crates guarded by a posse of Jews—more guns for the Haganah’s war with the Arabs. Hitler had been dead for almost three years, but so many of the conflicts his war had engendered were still unresolved. A line from a long-forgotten poem came back to Russell: ‘War is just a word for what peace can’t conceal.’

  It was snowing in Berlin, not hard, just a light flurry to remind the city that spring wasn’t fully established. Effi was near the back of the people gathered around the grave in the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery, among a crowd of others who had worked with the dead woman—directors and writers, producers and cameramen, other actors. She had shared three film sets with Sonja Strehl, and one theatre run back when they were both in their twenties. Effi hadn’t seen Sonja for years, and had never known her well, but still she found it hard to imagine the woman committing suicide. Sonja had always seemed so positive. About life, work, and even men. And no doubt about the children she’d eventually had, the boy and girl now standing by the open grave, looking like all they wanted to do was cry.

  ‘Are you coming back to the house?’ Angela Ritschel whispered in Effi’s ear.

  ‘For a little while.’ They were working on the same film out at Babelsberg and, like the rest of the cast, had grudgingly been given the afternoon off to attend the funeral.

  ‘She was good, wasn’t she?’ Angela said, a few moments later.

  ‘Yes,’ Effi agreed. She’d been remembering Sonja backstage at the Metropol, frantically searching through a pile of bouquets for a note from the man she currently fancied. The look on her face when she’d found it.

  If truth be told, Sonja hadn’t had much a range as an actor. But she could make demure look sexy, light up a screen with joy in life, weep until you had to weep with her. And maybe that was enough. People had paid to see her, which had to mean something, Effi thought.

  The service was apparently over, the crowd of mourners breaking up. There were two cars for close family, but the rest of them had to walk down Oranienburger Strasse to the house on Monbijou Platz, past the still-closed S-Bahn station and the wreckage of the old Main Telegraph Office.

  Inside Sonja’s house, her father was greeting the guests, looking suitably heartbroken. Two of the ex-husbands were there, but not the father of her children—he had been killed entertaining the troops at Stalingrad.

  There was a table groaning with food, supplied by her recent Soviet employers, and enough unopened bottles of vodka to induce the traditional Russian stupor. Fortunately, the Americans had also deemed it politic to send their respects in liquid form, and so Effi chose a small glass of Bourbon to wash down the Russian hors d’oeuvres. Angela had wandered off, and Effi scanned the crowd for another familiar face. She caught the glance of Sonja’s first husband, the actor Volker Heldt. He and Effi had worked on a DEFA project only the previous year.

  He walked across to join her. ‘A good crowd,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Effi agreed. ‘Don’t look now, but who’s the man leaning against the wall in the grey suit? He keeps staring at me.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ Volker said gallantly, taking his time to look around. ‘Oh him—he stares at everyone. He’s one of the Russian culture people. MGB most likely. It was their police who found her, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t. I still can’t believe she killed herself.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think there’s any doubt, despite what some people are saying.’

  ‘How did she do it?’

  ‘Sleeping pills. And there’s no doubt she bought them. She paid a fortune for them on the black market.’

  ‘Did she leave a note?’

  ‘No, and that was strange. But she’d only just broken up with her last boyfriend—the one almost half her age—so who knows what was going through her mind. And anyway what reason would the Russians have for killing her?’

  ‘Is that what people are saying?’

  ‘A few. Like Eva here.’

  The blonde joining them had done the costumes on several of Effi’s films. Eva Kempka was in her forties now, and thin enough to look a little stretched. She had been married once, but according to Berlin’s cinematic grapevine, had since changed her sexual proclivities.

  ‘What are you accusing me of?’ Eva asked Volker, with more than a hint of disdain.

  ‘Of believing the Russians killed Sonja.’

  ‘I’ve never said that. I just don’t believe she killed herself.’ The way she said it made Effi think there’d been some emotional involvement, either real or unrequited.

  ‘Well, maybe not you,’ Volker admitted, ‘but there are a lot of people out there who think the Russians are behind every mysterious happening. Good or bad. And the Russians are really not that smart.’

  ‘Yes, but Sonja was …’ Eva began, then, for some reason, suddenly stopped.

  ‘Sonja was what?’ Volker asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Eva said quickly. ‘And you’re right about everyone blaming the Russians for everything. But they are in control. They closed down the all the help stations on the autobahn yesterday—it took a friend of mine eleven hours to reach Helmstedt.’

  ‘Are they still closed?’ Effi asked. She had the feeling that Eva had only just realised that she was talking to one of Sonja’s ex-husbands, and was eager to change the subject.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Volker answered her. ‘But they could be again tomorrow, and there doesn’t seem much we Berliners do about it. Appealing to the Americans is a waste of time—they’re too scared of starting another war.’

  ‘A good thing to be scared of,’ Effi argued. ‘But we can’t complain about what the Russians have done for our business—if it hadn’t been for them, there wouldn’t have been any new German films. The Americans w
ould have been happy to sell us theirs, and make the occasional one here using their own crews and actors.’

  ‘Like Foreign Affair,’ Eva suggested.

  ‘Exactly. Marlene was the only German with a decent part.’

  ‘True,’ Volker agreed, ‘but things seem to be changing over the past few months. Last year the Americans were only interested in propaganda, while the Soviets were encouraging thoughtful movies, but these days the roles seem almost reversed. I’ve no idea why.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ Effi said, having just noticed that the grey-suited Russian was listening intently to their conversation, a dark frown on his face. Russell had actually explained it all in a recent letter—the Russians, having interpreted the American Marshall Plan as a declaration of hostilities, were busy battening down every hatch they could, including the cinematic ones.

  Another group called Volker away, and Eva seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. But instead of returning to the subject of Sonja, she asked Effi what she was working on.

  ‘Another film with Ernst Dufring. I agree that the Soviets are becoming less open, but they haven’t stopped people like him making thoughtful films. Not yet, at least.’

  ‘What’s this one about?’

  ‘It’s the history of a family, and one woman in particular—Anna Hofmann. The film’s named after her. She starts off as a serving girl in an officer’s family around the turn of the century, has a family of her own, loses her husband and son, and ends up making a dress for her granddaughter’s graduation—they’re the only two left. But it’s not depressing, not really. And it asks a lot of questions.’

  ‘And who do you play?’

  ‘The woman in middle age. It’s not a big part, but it’s a good one. Anna Jesek wrote the screenplay, and some of the lines are heavenly. What about you?’

  ‘Oh, nothing at the moment. No one’s making period dramas—I guess the Nazis made too many—and films set in the last few years are pretty easy to clothe—any old rags will do.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘So what’s next?’

  ‘No idea. I’ve got an audition at the American radio station—they’re planning a serial about ordinary Berliners which sounds interesting. And DEFA have offered me a film which doesn’t, although I haven’t seen the script yet.’

  ‘Will the Russians be happy to let you go?’ Eva wondered.

  ‘They don’t own me.’

  ‘No, but they can make life difficult for people.’

  ‘Well, if they do, I just might take an extended holiday. I need to spend more time with my daughter anyway.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had one.’

  ‘We adopted Rosa after the war. Both her parents had been killed.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Eleven and a half.’

  ‘A difficult age.’ Eva opened her mouth to say something else, closed it, and then took the plunge. ‘Look, I don’t want to talk about it here, but the Russians were making life difficult for Sonja, and I just have to tell someone what I know. Could we meet for a coffee or something? I know you’re busy, but …’

  ‘Of course. But why me? I hardly knew her.’

  Eva smiled. ‘I don’t know. I’ve always thought you were more sensible than most actors.’

  A back-handed compliment if ever she’d heard one, Effi thought an hour or so later, as she waited for the tram to carry her back across town. But a coffee with Eva would be pleasant enough. She wondered if the woman had had an affair with Sonja, and what secrets she had to tell. Nothing dangerous, she hoped.

  There was no point in worrying about possible problems in the future when she had enough on her plate already. Rosa might be almost twelve, but she could act anything from age six to sixteen. Most of the friends Rosa had made in their neighbourhood were a lot older, and though none of them seemed like bad children, some were definitely on the wild side, with no obvious signs of parental control. At school, where her marks remained high, Rosa’s friends seemed mostly the same age as she was.

  Effi’s sister, who looked after Rosa when Effi worked early or late, insisted there was nothing to worry about, and she was usually right about such things. But these days Zarah’s attention was so focused on her new American lover that she wouldn’t have noticed a visit from Hitler. And bringing Rosa back to Berlin had always felt risky to Effi as the girl had lost both her parents here.

  By this time the number of people waiting for the tram exceeded its capacity, but the only alternative was a six-mile walk. Two Soviet soldiers were standing on the far pavement, ogling a young woman in the queue. She was aware of their attention, Effi noticed, and was looking worried. The soldiers hadn’t yet said or done anything, but of course they didn’t need to—the legacy of the mass rapes that followed the capture of the city was still very much in most women’s minds. And even now, there was nothing to stop those two men walking across the street and simply taking the girl away. The Soviets had no compunction about abducting people from other sectors, and this was their own.

  Effi walked over to the young woman, and stood between her and the soldiers. ‘Try and ignore them,’ she urged.

  ‘That’s easy to say,’ the girl said. ‘I have to get the tram here every day after work, and most days they’re there.’

  ‘Well, if they haven’t done anything yet, they’re probably too nervous,’ Effi encouraged her. ‘But you could try another way home.’

  ‘I could. But I don’t see why I should have to.’

  ‘No,’ Effi agreed.

  Two trams arrived in tandem, and sucked up most of the waiting crowd. Effi stood in the crowded aisle, catching glimpses of the still-ruined city, asking herself how long it would be before rebuilding started in earnest, before the foreign occupiers all went home, before it was safe for a woman to walk the streets. She knew what John would say: ‘Don’t hold your breath.’

  She got off on Ku’damm, and walked up Fasanen Strasse to the flat which Bill Carnforth had procured for Zarah. It was on the first floor of the middle house in an undamaged row of five, had four spacious rooms, and was only a few minutes’ walk from Effi’s own apartment on Carmer Strasse.

  Zarah was cooking dinner in one of her prettiest dresses. Like most Berliners she had been on a forced diet for several years, and in her case the benefits had almost outweighed the cost—she looked better than she had since her twenties. Through the living door Effi could see Lothar and Rosa hunched over their homework.

  ‘How was it?’ her sister asked.

  ‘Depressing. Are you going out with Bill tonight?’

  ‘I hope so. I’ve cooked you and Rosa dinner in the hope that you’ll babysit Lothar.’

  ‘Oh all right.’

  ‘I won’t be late.’

  ‘I said all right.’

  ‘I don’t know why you don’t both move in while John’s away. There’s plenty of room.’

  ‘I … I don’t want to move Rosa again. And John should be back soon.’

  ‘Have you heard from him?’

  ‘No, but they can’t keep him down there forever.’

  Waking up alone, Gerhard Ströhm remembered that Annaliese was on early shift that week. She must have left at least an hour earlier, but her side of the bed was still warm.

  He clambered out, walked to the window and drew back the makeshift curtain. The previous evening’s snow had melted away, and the sun was shining in a clear blue sky. Maybe spring had arrived at last.

  He made himself a small pot of coffee—one Party privilege that he would find hard to give up—and stood by the window as he sipped from the enamel mug, watching the activity on the street below. The damaged houses opposite were finally being demolished, prior to replacement, and a team of men were piling rubble into three horse-drawn carts. A year ago the workers would all have been women. This had to be progress, of a sort.

  Coffee finished, Ströhm washed and dressed, tying a tie in front of the bathroom mirror with his usual lack of enthusiasm. He wasn’t
sure why he found the ritual such an anathema. Was it that he’d spent the first fifteen years of his working life in ordinary working clothes, and couldn’t get used to looking smart? Or had spending the first ten years of his life in America—until his parents’ deaths had seen him repatriated—given him a lifelong penchant for informality? Whichever it was, it would no longer do. Party officials were supposed to set an example, particularly the high-ranking ones like himself.

  Outside it was colder than he’d expected—the horses’ breath should have told him as much—and he set out on his two-kilometre walk to work at a brisker pace than usual. He could have taken the U-Bahn, but Ströhm welcomed the exercise, and the chance each day to notice signs of the city’s revival. Some houses here, some offices there, a pothole filled in, a leaking water main repaired. This might be the American sector, but these days Germans ran the local town hall, Social Democrats and Communists in the main, and they were putting Berlin back together.

  He worked in the old Reichsbahn Head Office building on Hallesches Ufer which, considering its location so close to the Anhalter Station and goods yards, had suffered remarkably little from the bombing. What damage there was had been quickly repaired by their Soviet liberators, who still ran all of eastern Germany’s railways from the building, despite its location in the American sector. Ströhm, like most senior officials who had spent the war either underground or in a camp, had an office on the second floor, overlooking the Landwehrkanal and the elevated tracks running into Potsdamer Station. The third floor was home to the highest echelon of the railway administration, almost all of them comrades now returned from years of exile in Moscow.

  Ströhm had barely sat down when his secretary, a young comrade from Leipzig, put her head around the door and told him a Red Star meeting had just been called. As he took the stairs up to the Director’s office, Ströhm wondered what the Russians wanted this time. Red Star meetings were only open to Party members above a certain grade.