Masaryk Station

by David Downing

  The train was slowing down. Effi reached up for the overnight bag in the luggage rack, and pulled it down beside her. She couldn’t think of any reason why they should question the four reels of film. Her papers were in order; she was travelling first class courtesy of a communist Culture Ministry; these same four reels had been in the bag when she entered the country two days ago. And she would top it all off with a winning smile, she reminded herself. John had insisted on one of those.

  She stepped down on to the cinder path and joined the stream of passengers heading toward the inspection hall. It was only as she passed through the doorway that she realised who was behind her—the man from the corridor.

  Her heart skipped a beat, but he did nothing more threatening than stand there in the queue. The urge to turn and challenge him was strong, but she knew she mustn’t. If he was StB, then what would she gain? If he wasn’t, then what was the point? She would merely be making herself conspicuous.

  So she kept her face forward, aware of his breathing, aware of his feet on the move each time the queue shuffled forwards, until an official in front of her commanded all her attention.

  He went through her papers, asked to place her bag on the table, and began to empty its contents. After opening one can and exposing its reel, he repeated the process with the other three, and asked her something in Czech.

  She shrugged her incomprehension and offered up the winning smile, but the official was already walking away, having signalled by hand that she should stay where she was. Behind her, she could feel the queue sighing with impatience.

  The official was back almost instantly, a German-speaking colleague in tow. He extracted one film from its tin. ‘What are these?’ he asked her.

  ‘They’re audition reels,’ she told him. ‘I’m an actress. I’ve been to visit one of your directors—a man named Jaromír Císař. He’s thinking of casting me in one of his films, and he wanted to see examples of my work.’

  The official had never heard of Císař.

  ‘It was all arranged by your Ministry of Culture. They will confirm what I say.’

  The man looked at the film in his hand, said something in Czech to his colleague, and strode off again.

  A third official returned with him, and took his turn staring at the films.

  ‘The names of the films are on the boxes,’ Effi volunteered. ‘Each one contains a few scenes, which I use for audition purposes.’

  The man looked at her, then back at the films. ‘You will have to leave these with us,’ he finally said in German. ‘Once they have been examined, we will send them on to Berlin.’

  Neither Effi nor Russell had foreseen this eventuality—they had both been too busy worrying that she would be held. ‘But I need them,’ Effi protested. ‘I have an appointment to show them in the morning,’ she lied.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the man said. ‘But we have only your word for it that you’re an actress.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous …’

  A voice behind her started speaking in Czech. It was the man who’d been watching her on the train.

  I’m done for, she thought.

  ‘This gentleman says he can vouch for you being an actress,’ the third official told her.

  She turned to face him.

  ‘And of course I’ve heard of Jaromír Císař,’ he added in German.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, but he was speaking to the Czech official again.

  ‘I suggested he telephone the Ministry of Culture,’ he eventually told her, ‘but he doesn’t want to hold the train up. So he says you can take your films.’

  ‘Oh thank you so much.’ She turned back to the official. ‘Děkuji,’ she said, with a second flash of the winning smile. Resisting the impulse to shovel her possessions back into the overnight bag, she carefully restored them one at a time, before striding out through the exit door.

  In the German building a hundred metres farther down the track, each official had his own Russian shadow. Here, too, her baggage was searched, the boxes opened, but this time her explanation had official backing. Comrade Tulpanov had sanctioned her trip, she told the German official, and he should refer any queries to Berlin.

  He started to tell his shadow, but was cut short. Presumably the Russian had understood her German, because his hand now waved her though.

  She walked back out into the sunshine, and on towards the waiting train.

  It left about ten minutes later, and not long after that her saviour appeared in the compartment doorway. ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. And thank you again.’

  ‘Could I buy you a drink?’

  It seemed churlish to refuse, and perhaps unwise—she still harboured a faint suspicion that he’d saved her for purposes of his own.

  But it turned out he was just a cineaste and fan, a decent Czech man with a wife and two children who had seen her recent films and admired them. He had recognised her soon after they left Prague, but had been too shy to approach her.

  Russell’s train reached the Austrian border soon after two. As the train slowed down he wondered whether he should pass through border inspection ahead of Janica, and put himself clear of any subsequent fall-out, or stay behind her in the queue, and know for certain how she had fared.

  It all proved academic. As he could soon see through his window, a spanking new border post was under construction on the site of the old, and the inspectors emerging from a grounded old carriage were clearly intent on boarding the train. They started at the back, and took around twenty minutes to reach Russell’s carriage. His documents were scrutinised with great care, his bag rifled through, but he had the feeling their hearts weren’t it—in the new Czechoslovakia a foreigner leaving was a problem solved.

  They would look a lot closer at Janica.

  After they’d passed through into her coach, he nervously waited for sounds of trouble, his eyes fixed on the corridor connection ahead, in case she erupted through it. ‘I’ve never seen this woman before,’ he murmured to himself in rehearsal. Would they believe him? They couldn’t prove otherwise, but would that worry them?

  Each minute that passed with no sign of alarm left him feeling a little more confident, and then, mercy of mercies, he saw the two officials and their military minder walking back across the tracks towards their temporary office. Without a woman in tow.

  Almost immediately, the train clanked into motion, and within seconds it was rumbling across the small river that marked the border. They were out of Czechoslovakia, and into Austria’s Soviet Zone, which should be a good deal safer. The Russians were too busy trying to stop their own fleeing nationals to worry overmuch about one Czech woman. And few Soviet officials would know a dud Czechoslovak ID from a genuine one.

  Russell even managed an hour or so’s sleep as the train chugged on towards Vienna. It was a minute to five when they crossed the Danube, two minutes past when the train wheezed to a grateful halt in the roofless Nordbahnhof. He found Janica waiting for him on the platform, suitcase in hand. ‘Take my arm,’ he said.

  There were uniforms at the barrier, but either they were waiting for someone specific, or only had a watching brief. No tickets or papers were being inspected, and no one approached them as they calmly walked through to the forecourt, where a line of taxis was waiting. Theirs had seen better days, and its driver looked about eighty. ‘Stephansplatz,’ Russell told him, deeming it wise to seek sanctuary in the international sector.

  ‘You have dollars?’ the driver asked, without starting the cab. He was probably used to passengers arrived from Prague without convertible currency.

  ‘I have dollars,’ Russell admitted.

  The driver smiled and let in the clutch. Soon they were passing the Riesenrad Ferris wheel and heading down Prater Strasse towards the Danube Canal bridge. As they crossed the latter, Russell felt a huge sense of relief—for the moment, at least, they were beyond the reach of the Soviets. As if to reinforce that feeling, an international patrol
drove past in a jeep, the Russian sat beside the French driver, the Anglo-Americans perched in the back.

  Janica, he saw, was staring wide-eyed at the Viennese ruins. ‘But the war’s been over for years,’ she said.

  He told her she should see Berlin.

  They were almost at Stephansplatz when Russell remembered the hotel on Johannesgasse that he’d stayed in three years earlier, and redirected the driver. It was still standing, and offered more in the way of discretion than the American Press Club. She looked it over with ill-concealed distaste. ‘Is there nothing better?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s only for a few hours,’ Russell promised.

  He told the desk clerk the same and got a predictable leer in return.

  ‘There’s only one bed,’ Janica complained when she saw their room.

  ‘It’s all yours,’ Russell told her. ‘I’m off to see about our train to Salzburg.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘If possible. Aren’t you in a hurry to see Merzhanov?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Don’t go out.’

  ‘Where would I go? I haven’t any money.’

  He left her curled up on the bed, probably hoping for a more prosperous future. Outside, his first port of call was the Central Exchange, and the familiar room with the long-distance connection. Effi’s train had been due in an hour before his, so by this time she should be home.

  The phone in the Carmer Strasse flat rang for a long time, and he was beginning to hope she’d gone straight on to Zarah’s when at last she picked up. ‘Who is this?’ the familiar voice asked.

  The sense of relief was strong enough to take his breath away. ‘It’s me. You didn’t have any trouble then?’

  ‘Not too much. Only a mild panic. Everything all right at your end?’

  ‘So far.’

  ‘Do you still think you might be back tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow or Saturday. Was Rosa pleased to see you?’

  ‘Very. I think she was really worried.’

  ‘Tell her I miss her.’

  ‘All right.’

  He hung up, and just sat there for several moments, smiling into space.

  The CIC offices were a few blocks west in the American sector, or had been the previous year. Russell walked to the house in question, hoping that the local CIA hadn’t got around to absorbing their local rivals, the way they had in Berlin, but hadn’t in Trieste. His luck was in—the Viennese CIC was still parading its own independence, and the duty officer that evening was a man he’d dealt with before. Russell explained about Janica, and their need to reach Salzburg. Could the two of them take the Mozart train that night?

  ‘Not a chance,’ Jack Dearlove told him cheerfully. ‘You know it’s Americans Only, and these days the Russians check everybody. This girl of yours will need American papers and a new wardrobe, and that will take several days to arrange. Even with them, you’ll spend the whole trip praying that no one starts asking her questions in English.’

  ‘Shit,’ Russell muttered.

  ‘But no worries, eh,’ Dearlove said with a grin. ‘The Russians get tough; we get airborne. There’s a morning shuttle from Salzburg now, leaves there at eight, here at ten. In the morning take a cab out to Meissner Park—that’s where the airstrip is. I’ll let them know you’re coming.’

  Russell thanked him profusely, and walked back towards the city centre. This was the way things were going, he thought—intelligence people flying where and when they wanted, while ordinary joes formed orderly queues at frontier posts. Well, he might as well enjoy it while he could—if everything went according to plan, he’d soon be a civilian himself.

  Janica looked like she’d been dozing when he got back, but perked up at the promise of a meal. It was a hot summer evening, and they ate at an outdoor restaurant in the Stadtpark, where she batted away his queries concerning her family history, and plied him with questions about life in America. She ate surprisingly sparely, but drank several glasses of wine, and seemed somewhat unsteady walking back. In the hotel lobby, she looked almost scornful when Russell paused at the reception desk to rent a second room.

  They shared breakfast at a nearby café, and a cab out to Meissner Park. ‘I’ve never been on an aeroplane,’ she admitted, as they drove across the grass to what looked like a makeshift control tower. She sounded more curious than nervous.

  The usual DC-3 touched down about ten minutes later. This was the last trip, the pilot told them. Now that the Russian blockade of Berlin had begun, their squadron was being sent north. His luck was holding, Russell thought, but the German capital’s might have run out. He asked the pilot for specifics, but came up empty. ‘They’ve locked it up tight,’ he said. ‘On the ground, that is; they can’t blockade the fucking sky.’

  Russell wasn’t so sure, but he hoped the man was right. Considering their situation, this didn’t seem like the best of times to be trapped.

  The flight to the Salzburg airbase took just under an hour, the wait for a jeep almost as long, and it was one o’clock before they reached the farm. When he saw her, Merzhanov face’s lit up with joy. She was more restrained, but there was real affection there, Russell decided. Maybe he’d misjudged her.

  ‘Can we have some time alone?’ Merzhanov asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Russell told him, feeling mean but not really caring—they’d have weeks at sea to cuddle each other. ‘We have to leave straight away.’

  Merzhanov’s small bag was already packed, and the two of them followed him out to the jeep. Sitting together in the back, they whispered endearments for most of the ninety-minute ride, leaving Russell to take a mental wander through the minefield of the next few weeks. With the Allied air forces now providing the only ways in and of Berlin, Russell’s idea of hiding copies of the film in various countries seemed likely to be a non-starter. If the Brits or Americans got their hands on one, then Beria’s crime—or a suitably edited version thereof—would end up on Pathé News, and Russell and Shchepkin would have lost their bargaining card.

  A kilometre short of Alt Aussee, Russell pulled the jeep over to the side of the road and turned to face the lovebirds. ‘As I told Konstantin last time I saw him—these people believe you are Catholics. That’s why they’re willing to help you. I wish we’d had time to give you a crash course in Catholicism, but we didn’t. If a problem arises, Konstantin will have to say that he had no chance to practise his religion in the Soviet Union—which would be true enough—and so he only knows what little his grandmother told him. But you feel like a Catholic,’ Russell told the Russian, ‘and you’re hungry to learn more. And if anyone questions you, Janica, just say you’re planning to convert as soon as you can.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Okay. Now, Konstantin, what do you know about the Ukrainian nationalist groups?’

  ‘They’re all murderous bastards.’

  Russell smiled. ‘Well, forget that for a while. They’re popular murderous bastards with the people who are taking you south. You don’t have to claim you were in the OUN, or anything like that, but if the subject comes up, be tactful. Make up a history which they’ll like.’ He looked at them both.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Janica asked him abruptly.

  ‘America. South America to begin with, I expect.’

  ‘But we want to live in the USA.’

  ‘I know. And I’m sure you’ll get there eventually.’

  ‘We will need money,’ she insisted.

  ‘I have five hundred dollars for you,’ Russell said, reaching into his pocket.

  ‘Is that all?’ Merzhanov said, more surprised than angry. He had apparently forgotten his earlier disdain for the stuff.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Johannsen had only provided $200; Russell and Effi had supplied the rest. ‘It’ll go a long way if you’re careful,’ he added.

  ‘And we have each other,’ Merzhanov rallied, putting an arm around Janica’s shoulder.

&
nbsp; ‘Of course,’ she agreed, managing to return his smile.

  ‘You should be at sea within a week,’ Russell told them. ‘One last thing. The MGB aren’t looking for you now, and I presume you’d like to keep it that way. So don’t, whatever you do, tell anyone about the film.’

  ‘We understand,’ Merzhanov said.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Janica said, a little sulkily.

  ‘If they find out you took it, they’ll kill you both,’ Russell reiterated, just to make sure they fully understood.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Janica said. ‘We know. We say nothing.’

  Mordechai’s advice

  After returning the previous evening, Effi had dropped in on Zarah to let her know she was back. She hadn’t stayed long, but as she was leaving her sister had presented Effi with a rare gift—around a hundred grams of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, part of Bill’s winnings from a poker match with some Brits. Now, having taken to Rosa to school, she made herself a cup, and curled up on the sofa to savour every last sip.

  The tins containing the film reels were stacked on the mantelpiece, Merzhanov’s among them. ‘Hiding something in plain view,’ Russell called it, and she hoped he wasn’t being too clever. Maybe she was missing the point, but a film tin seemed a good place to look for a film.

  Looking at the boxes started her thinking about how they were going to view the one in question. They could take Merzhanov’s film to one of the studios she’d worked at over the years and persuade a technician to let them watch it—minor celebrity status could move such minor mountains—but ensuring privacy would probably prove more difficult. The technician would want to work the projector; would, in fact, be the only one there who knew how. And even if he could be bribed into setting things up and leaving them to it, they could hardly lock themselves inside a screening room without raising all sorts of questions. No, it wouldn’t do. They would have to hang a white sheet on the wall the way Císař had, and somehow get hold of their own projector.