Stattin Station jr-3

by David Downing

  'At the cinema,' Leonore admitted.

  'Without her star,' Martin added proudly.

  'Without her star,' Leonore echoed. 'My Aunt Trudi was taken,' she went on. 'I think you met her once. She lived in Wedding on her own, insisted on it, and her health's been good for a woman over seventy. She got the notification last week, and she left the day before yesterday as far as we know. I wanted to see her off, but she refused; she said she didn't want a big fuss, but I think she was afraid they'd take me too.'

  'A train did leave the night before last,' Russell said, but thought better of admitting that he'd watched it go.

  'Then she's gone.'

  'Many things are terrible,' Martin said, 'but not everything. Frau Thadden, the woman upstairs, is a real friend to us - she doesn't think any less of us because we are Jews. And a few nights ago a policeman banged on our door. We feared the worst, but he wanted to tell us to pull our blackout curtain tighter - some light was showing. If some of his colleagues saw it, he said, then we'd be in trouble, and he didn't want that. You see,' he said, turning to his wife, 'there are many good Germans.'

  'I know there are,' she said. 'But Aunt Trudi is still gone.'

  Seeing his stricken expression, she relented, and gave him a wonderful smile. After all, Russell realised, the heart that clutched at straws was the heart she'd fallen in love with.

  'Have any of your friends heard any more from those who've been sent East?' he asked.

  'Yes,' Leonore said. 'Two of them. I wrote it down as you asked,' she added, taking down a recipe book. 'It seemed a good hiding place,' she explained, leafing through the pages. 'Here we are. Two letters from Lodz. One from someone's uncle who left on October 17th, the other from an old friend who left on the 25th. Both said they were fine, and not to worry about them.'

  'And they were in the right handwriting?'

  'Yes, I asked.'

  'Well, that's good news,' Russell thought aloud.

  'Better than it might be,' Leonore agreed absent-mindedly. 'This sounds like Ali,' she said, relief in her voice, and a few seconds later the seventeen year-old let herself into the flat. She was pleased to see Russell, but clearly disappointed that he hadn't brought Effi. 'She's just finishing a film,' Russell started to say, only to be interrupted by the rising whine of the air raid sirens.

  Martin looked at his watch. 'They're early tonight,' he complained. 'Let's ignore it for once,' he added, without conviction. Leonore was already reaching for her overcoat, and Ali was pulling her jacket with the star out of her bag. Martin picked up the suitcase that was already packed for such eventualities, and they all tramped down the stairs. Outside, a barely visible procession was heading down the street towards the shelter. Looking up at an impenetrable sky Russell reckoned the RAF needed better weather forecasters - the chances of hitting anything relevant on a night like this had to be zero.

  The Jews had been allocated their own segregated area at one end of the basement shelter, about a sixth of the space for almost half of those present. Russell ignored the local block warden's direction and joined them, almost hoping for a row. The warden restricted himself to a nasty look, and went back to ticking off arrivals on a long list.

  The shelter itself reflected the poverty of the neighbourhood. Old wooden benches lined the sandbagged walls, along with a few double-decker cots for the children. The ceiling had been recently reinforced with new beams, but the provision of fire extinguishers and pick-axes showed a lack of confidence in the cellar's ability to survive a building collapse. A couple of tables, several kerosene lanterns and a single pail of water completed the inventory.

  All around Russell, families were settling in, mothers putting their youngest to bed and entreating their older siblings to entertain themselves as quietly as possible with whatever toys had been brought. Those adults spared the responsibilities of childcare were taking out books, shuffling cards or, in several cases, staring forlornly into space. His list apparently complete, the block warden was working the lever on the air suction pump, and staring malevolently at Russell. Look at me, his expression seemed to say, expelling the stench of the Jews and sucking in good German air.

  Russell gave him a big smile, and went back to people he cared about. Ali was giving two young Jewish girls a lesson in how to play skat, while her mother just sat with her back to the wall, eyes closed. Martin, as usual, was eager to talk about how the war was going, and how soon it might end. After about ten minutes the flak opened up, first the loud cracks of those on roofs in the nearby government districts, then the deep boom of those in the huge flak towers. There were two of the latter - the old one in the Tiergarten and the recently completed monstrosity in Friedrichshain Park - and by Russell's reckoning their current shelter was halfway between them. As safe as it got, at least when the sky was clear; on a night like this it probably didn't matter - both gunners below and bombers above would be aiming blind.

  The guns fell silent after forty-five minutes, and the all-clear sounded fifteen minutes after that. Children were woken or carried home sleeping, card games abandoned and bags re-packed. Russell said goodnight to the Blumenthals and walked briskly down to Oranienburger Strasse. Searchlights were still nervously scanning the clouds, casting a dull yellow glow across the city, and for once he could see where he was going.

  The last ones went out as he reached Borse Station, returning Berlin to its customary gloom. From the elevated Stadtbahn platform only one fire was visible, a kilometre or more to the north-west, somewhere close to Stettin Station. It seemed pathetic change for so much expenditure of effort and fuel, not to mention the sundry lives that had inevitably been lost - one or two plane crews perhaps, a handful of Berliners killed by bombs or falling shrapnel, the rising number of rape-murders committed under cover of the blackout.

  It was almost midnight when he reached home, and Effi, as expected, was asleep. Less predictably, she had left a note asking him to wake her. And when he saw the communication which lay underneath it, he understood why. The Gestapo wanted to see him. At their Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse headquarters. In just over ten hours time.

  He walked into the bedroom, sat down on the bed and shook her gently by the shoulder. 'You wanted me to wake you.'

  'Yes,' she said sleepily. 'The note. Do you know what it's about?'

  'Probably my visit to Zembski's studio. I don't think there's anything to worry about. If it was anything serious they would have waited for me.' 'That's what I hoped. Give me a kiss.'

  He did so.

  'And come to bed.'

  He got undressed and climbed in, expecting that she'd gone back to sleep. But she hadn't.

  The sky was still leaden on the following morning. Russell spent twenty minutes vainly searching for a particular jacket, then ate a desultory breakfast at the Zoo Station buffet. After a five-minute journey on the U-Bahn had brought him to Bismarckstrasse, he walked through several backstreets to Knieriem's old house. There was no sign of life within, but one of the neighbours eventually emerged. Yes, she replied in response to his question, Herr Knieriem did still live there, but he always left very early for work.

  Russell walked back to the U-Bahn at Bismarckstrasse, and caught an eastbound train to Potsdamer Platz. Reaching street level he walked along the back of the FUrstenhof Hotel with the intention of turning into Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. This route was cordoned off, and a group of Russian POWs were waiting under guard at the end of a side street. An unexploded bomb, Russell assumed. Someone had told him that POWs were used to defuse them.

  He retraced his steps and almost ran the longer route around the Air Ministry - it didn't pay to be late for a Gestapo summons. The grey five-storey megalith loomed into view, and as he approached the double doors rain began to fall. It seemed a poor omen.

  The reception area was little changed since his last summons in 1939, the usual mishmash of Greek columns, heavy Victorian curtains and Prussian bronzed eagles. The giant swastika had disappeared, replaced by a huge bulletin board
bearing the Party's quotation of the week. The current incumbent was more long-winded than usual: 'Just as our ancestors did not receive the soil on which we stand today as a gift from heaven, but rather through hard work, so also today as well as in the future, our soil and with it our lives depend not on the grace of some other people, but only on the power of a successful sword.' The bracketed 'Words of our Fuhrer' was somewhat redundant.

  A Rottenfuhrer in Gestapo dress uniform sat alone behind the huge reception desk. Russell showed him the summons, and was asked politely enough to take one of the seats beneath a portrait of the uniformed Adolf. He did so, and told himself for the twentieth time that morning that there was nothing to worry about. None of his current activities were illegal. The Gestapo might frown on his attempts to find out what was happening to Berlin's Jews, but the Nazis were making no real secret of their persecutions and deportations, and gathering - as opposed to publishing such information could hardly be considered a crime. His links with American Intelligence were sanctioned by the Abwehr, a veritable pillar of the military establishment. As far as he could tell, he had done nothing illegal since 1939, and the Gestapo must have better things to do than investigate crimes that might or might not have been committed more than two years ago.

  So why did he feel like vacating his bowels? Because he had seen the corridor of grey cells that lay beneath this marble floor, and had actually visited Effi in one of them. Because he had been treated, for just a few minutes, to a world of screams and whimpers and even more ominous silence. Because he knew what the bastards were capable of. Because Zembski might be down there right now.

  Another five minutes passed before a second Rottenfuhrer arrived to lead him, via lift and several short corridors, to a door on the top floor. His escort knocked, received an invitation to enter, and gestured Russell to do so. There were two men inside, one seated in uniform, one standing in what seemed an expensively tailored suit. In most other respects they looked remarkably similar. Both were in their thirties, with greased blond hair swept back from their foreheads; they could have passed for contestants in a Heydrich look-alike contest, in the unlikely event that one was ever held. Neither would have won, however, since both lacked Nazi Germany's great unmentionable, Heydrich's classically Jewish nose.

  'I am Hauptsturmfuhrer Leitmaritz,' said the seated man, indicating the seat that he expected Russell to occupy. 'Of the Geheime Staatspolizei,' he added formally.

  'Obersturmbannfuhrer Giminich,' the other man said in response to Russell's questioning look. 'Of the Sicherheitsdienst,' he added, with what might have been interpreted as a malicious smile.

  Happy days are here again, Russell thought to himself. 'So how can I help you?' he asked pleasantly.

  'By answering a few questions,' the Hauptsturmfuhrer said shortly. He was peering short-sightedly at the document in front of him, and Russell would have bet money there were spectacles in his desk drawer. Over the man's shoulder he could see a veil of smoke over Anhalter Station half-masking the distant Kreuzberg. The rain must have stopped.

  'You told a Gestapo officer at the Zembski photographic studio that you had not been there since the beginning of the war.'

  'That is correct,' Russell replied.

  'And your reason for going there this week was to have a photograph of your son enlarged?'

  'Yes.' Obersturmbannfuhrer Giminich was now pacing to and fro behind Russell's chair. A tried and tested tactic of intimidation, Russell thought. It worked.

  'Did you ever meet with Herr Zembski socially? A drink, perhaps.'

  'No, it was a purely professional relationship.'

  '"Was"?' Giminich asked. 'Have you any reason to think that Zembski is dead?'

  'None at all. The Gestapo officer at the studio told me he had gone out of business and returned to Silesia. So our professional relationship is presumably over.'

  'The officer was mistaken,' Leitmaritz continued. 'Zembski has been arrested.'

  'For what?'

  'For activities detrimental to the state.'

  'That could mean a lot of things. What sort of activities?'

  'That will be revealed in due course.'

  'At his trial?'

  'Perhaps.'

  'Do you have a date for that?'

  'Not as yet.' The Hauptsturmfuhrer was showing signs of getting flustered, but not Giminich. 'You did have at least one other thing in common with Herr Zembski,' he said from somewhere behind Russell's head. 'You were both communists.'

  Russell tried to look surprised. 'I had no idea Zembski was a communist. Is that what all this is about? As I'm sure you know, I left the Communist Party in 1927.' He was surer than ever that Zembski was dead, and increasingly convinced that something had turned up in their search of the studio that made them suspicious of himself. But what? The only thing he could think of was Tyler McKinley's passport photograph, which Zembski should have destroyed after replacing it with Russell's. But even if that had turned up, it wouldn't prove anything. The doctored passport had long since disintegrated in the Landwehrkanal, and Tyler might have visited Zembski himself. The men interrogating him had a lot of suspicious connections, Russell realised, but nothing to tie them together. And they were hoping that he might inadvertently provide one. This was a fishing expedition, pure and simple.

  The sense of relief lasted only a few seconds. 'We also wish to talk to you about your work for the Abwehr,' Giminich said.

  Russell had the feeling he'd been ambushed. 'I would need official authorisation to discuss that,' was all he could think to say.

  He needn't have bothered. 'You have to admit it's a rather strange situation - an Englishman with an American passport working for German military intelligence,' Giminich said. Leitmaritz was now just sitting back in his chair watching.

  'I suppose it is,' Russell agreed. 'But it was your organisation which - I suppose "persuaded" is the most appropriate word among friends - which persuaded me to do some intelligence work for the Reich, and which then passed me over to the Abwehr. With, I might add, many thanks for my services.'

  'True, but your work for the Sicherheitsdienst involved operations against the Soviet Union, which I presume - despite your youthful involvement in the communist movement - you now consider our common enemy. Your work for the Abwehr must involve you in business relating to England and America, enemies of the Reich but not, presumably, enemies of yours. A conflict of interest, no?'

  'My work for the Abwehr does not require me to take sides.'

  'How can that be?'

  'I translate newspaper articles. Hopefully the clearer the idea each side has of the other's intentions and needs, the sooner we can bring this war to an end.'

  Giminich snorted. 'You consider that not taking sides? You think that peace is what Germans are hungering for? In the end perhaps, but only after victory. A premature peace could only help our enemies.'

  'I cannot see how governments misunderstanding each other helps anyone.'

  'That is the Abwehr view?'

  'That is my view,' Russell said, with a sudden realisation of where all this was heading.

  'And these are your only duties?'

  Russell paused, wondering whether fuller disclosure or clamming up might prove the wiser option. Given the effect clamming up had on such people's blood pressure, and the probability that they already knew about his meetings with Dallin, he opted for a qualified version of the former. 'I sometimes act as a courier for Admiral Canaris.'

  'Ah,' Giminich said, as if they were finally getting somewhere. 'Between the Admiral and who else?'

  Russell shook his head sadly. 'I'm afraid you'll have to ask him that. I'm not at liberty to share such knowledge.'

  'We are all on the same side,' Giminich insisted.

  'Even so. I would need the Admiral's permission to share such information with you.'

  There was a prolonged silence behind him, as Giminich weighed up the pros and cons of applying other, more painful, forms of pressure. Or so Russell
feared. The pros were obvious, the cons hard to calculate for anyone not versed in the intricacies of Heydrich's long duel with Canaris for overall control of German intelligence. Russell sincerely hoped that Giminich was not intending to use his incarceration as a declaration of war.

  'Your loyalty does you credit,' Giminich said stiffly, moving out from behind the chair, and over to the window. 'Would you like to see George Welland?' he asked over his shoulder.

  'Of course,' Russell said automatically, his mind scrambling in search of an explanation for this sudden turn in the conversation. George Welland was one of the younger American journalists, a New Yorker who had grown increasingly disgusted with his Nazi hosts. He had said so often and publicly, been warned, and said so again. His final crime had been to smuggle out a story about the little-known farm in Bavaria which supplied Hitler - and only Hitler - with a constant supply of fresh vegetables. Welland's American editors had compounded this folly by attaching his by-line to the printed article, and two days later the Gestapo had been waiting at the Promi doors when the journalists were let out. Welland had not been heard of since.

  Russell neither knew nor liked the young man very much, but found it hard to fault his choice of enemies.

  'He's in the basement,' Giminich said - a simple enough statement, but one which did little for Russell's peace of mind. The last time he had been down there was in the summer of 1939, and on that occasion he had been visiting Effi. Then too, someone upstairs had been trying to make a point.

  A Rottenfuhrer was summoned to take him down, carpet giving way to stone as they burrowed deeper. The final corridor had not changed in two years and Welland, it transpired, was locked in Effi's old cell. Hardly a coincidence, Russell guessed.

  The young American was sitting on a wooden bunk. One eye was a mess of dried blood but there were no other obvious bruises. He didn't seem surprised to see Russell, and the look he gave him with the one good eye seemed more resentful than relieved. He offered a hand to shake, without getting up. Even lifting the arm made him wince.