Masaryk Station jr-6

by David Downing

  ‘So how can I help you?’ Effi asked, more abruptly than she intended.

  He reached for a large envelope on the desk behind him. ‘This is the screenplay that you’ve been expecting.’

  ‘Oh. Thank you.’ A Walk into the Future was stencilled on the cover. ‘Is there any reason why it wasn’t sent in the usual way?’

  ‘Only one. Please, take a seat. Comrade Tulpanov decided that a personal delivery would give someone-myself-the opportunity to stress how important we feel this film will be, and how important your own involvement will prove in making it a success.’

  Effi gave him a sceptical look. ‘I’m flattered, of course. But there’s no shortage of good actors in Berlin, so I don’t quite understand why the Minister thinks I’m indispensable.’

  Samoshenko’s smile didn’t waver. ‘I think you underestimate yourself, and your, shall we say, symbolic importance to many Berliners, as both a famous film star and a heroine of the resistance.’

  Her acting skills, Effi noticed, were obviously neither here nor there. ‘I’m looking forward to reading it,’ she said non-committally, picking up the envelope.

  ‘There are also two copies of a contract,’ the Russian continued. ‘The suggested fee is of course open to negotiation, but we think it’s generous.’ He paused, while she took a look.

  It was probably the most she’d ever been offered for a film, but then Goebbels had been notoriously stingy with actresses who wouldn’t sleep with him. ‘It is,’ she agreed.

  ‘Payable in American dollars,’ Samoshenko added, as if that would be the clincher.

  ‘I’ll start reading it tonight,’ she promised. If only to discover why the film, and her participation, seemed so vital to Tulpanov’s Ministry. She started to rise.

  ‘One more matter,’ Samoshenko said, as she gathered up her bag.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your adopted daughter, Rosa.’

  There was a way in which he accented the ‘adopted’ that sent a chill through Effi’s heart. ‘Yes?’ she said again, fighting to keep the fear from her voice.

  ‘She has extraordinary talent.’

  ‘She has.’ Rosa had been compulsively drawing people and scenes since Effi had inherited her, aged eight, in the past few weeks of the war. One drawing of a Red Army soldier playing with a German child had appeared in a Soviet magazine, and become an almost iconic image of the Soviet liberation. Not in Berlin, of course, where the Soviet-built Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was known as the Tomb of the Unknown Rapist, but almost everywhere else in the civilised world. Stalin’s government had even paid her one tranche of royalties.

  ‘A talent that can be hardly be nurtured in Berlin today,’ Samoshenko suggested. ‘In Moscow and Leningrad we have world-famous institutes of art which could really help her development.’

  Effi could hardly believe it. ‘You’re asking us to send an eleven-year-old girl off alone to a foreign country? You must know what she’s been through.’

  ‘Yes, of course. And no, not alone. You would be expected to accompany her-we do make films at home, you know. And your husband, too. He’s an American journalist, I understand. I’m sure there are many American papers who would welcome a fully accredited Moscow correspondent.’

  Effi didn’t know what to say. She decided to be diplomatic. ‘I appreciate the offer,’ she began. ‘And I know how wonderful Soviet education is, and the value your country puts on culture. Instinct tells me she’s still too young. But I will discuss it with my husband. He’s away at the moment, but when he comes back …’

  ‘Of course,’ Samoshenko interrupted, still smiling. He shook her hand again, and held the door open.

  The car was still waiting outside, along with the chauffeur and three impatient colleagues.

  ‘What was that all about?’ one of the women asked Effi.

  ‘My daughter,’ she said, in a tone guaranteed to deter further questions. As they drove back towards the centre of the city, she went through the conversation again in her head. There had been no threats, so why did she feel so threatened? Was it merely the thought of losing Rosa?

  She told herself the whole business was more absurd than menacing. Was it possible that Tulpanov’s people didn’t know that the Berlin MGB considered John one of their own? How would they feel about the Propaganda Ministry relocating one of their people to Moscow, where the only people he could spy on was them?

  No, she told herself, there was no need to worry. They needed John in Berlin, and he needed his wife and daughter with him.

  That evening Effi fussed over Rosa more than usual, and received several bemused looks in return. But on the following morning she suffered a serious shock. With another afternoon start at the studio, she spent part of the morning cleaning the flat, and one of the items she tidied away was Rosa’s latest drawing book. Looking through it, Effi found several pictures of Rosa’s neighbourhood friends, most of them adolescents, three or four years older than her. Many subjects were smoking, which didn’t surprise Effi, but there were also bottles in evidence, which she doubted contained lemonade. And then there was a couple kissing, sweetly drawn. And then a girl with small pubescent breasts, sitting astride a naked boy.

  ‘Oh God,’ Effi said out loud.

  She needed to talk to someone. Not Zarah.

  She rang up Thomas, hoping he might be home. He was, and he had a couple of hours to spare before some meeting or other.

  ‘So what’s the emergency,’ he asked, when she let him in half an hour later.

  She showed him the drawing book.

  He went through the pictures one by one, shaking his head, almost in wonder, at the one which had stopped Effi in her tracks. ‘Christ, she can draw,’ he said.

  ‘That’s hardly the point,’ she almost snapped.

  ‘No, of course not. I’m sorry. But what can I say? Where did you find this-had she hidden it?’

  ‘On the table.’

  ‘So she doesn’t think she’s doing anything wrong. She’s just drawing what she sees, like she always has.’

  ‘So the point is more what she’s seeing.’

  ‘Which comes down to the company she’s keeping.’

  ‘I can’t keep her locked up.’

  ‘No, of course not. I’m sorry, Effi-I have no answers. Other than talking to her, listening to her. Maybe she needs professional help-I don’t know. She’s troubled, but with her history it would be strange if she wasn’t. And these pictures … Well, they’re full of innocence. I don’t think you should worry too much.’

  ‘I suppose I should talk to her about sex. When did Hanna explain it all to Lotte?’

  ‘I seem to remember it was when she started to menstruate. She started young.’

  Effi looked down at the table, shaking her head.

  ‘You could tell Rosa that you’d like to meet her friends, and ask her to bring them back here.’

  ‘How would that help?’

  ‘They’d know that Rosa had adult protection. I’m not saying she needs it, but it couldn’t hurt.’

  Effi nodded. ‘And it would probably be better if John was here too. I wish he’d come home. But thanks, Thomas. I think I panicked a bit when I saw the pictures, but I feel a lot better now.’ She got up. ‘Why don’t you tell me how you are while I make us some tea.’

  ‘Rushed off my feet,’ he told her.

  ‘So what happened to the easy life you were promising yourself? When the Russians bought the business you were telling us that all you wanted was a few years’ rest.’

  ‘Well, I had a few days off, and just when boredom was setting in an old friend suggested I got into politics.’

  ‘You’re loving it, aren’t you?’

  He grinned. ‘A little. In reality, it’s not much different-I’ve still got Americans pulling one way, and Russians the other.’

  ‘How are the family? Is Lotte still working at Radio Berlin?’

  ‘Yes. She finally joined the KPD last week, and she’s already a hardliner.
’

  ‘I remember when she had pictures of the Fuhrer on her bedroom walls.’

  ‘That’s my daughter. She obviously has a knack for being on the wrong side of history.’ He smiled. ‘But she works hard these days. I’m proud of her.’

  ‘And Hanna?’

  ‘Busy in the garden. She spent the winter planning the biggest vegetable plot in Dahlem, and now’s the time to make it happen. If you hadn’t called I’d be out there digging.’

  ‘No wonder you hurried over.’

  ‘You’ll see it all on Sunday week. If the Russians ever cut the city off we’ll all need to take turns guarding the vegetables. Day and night.’

  Once Thomas had left, Effi felt relieved enough by their conversation to pick up the screenplay of A Walk into the Future. The story, as she already knew, concerned an American Zone-based company’s attempted theft of new prosthetic-limb technology from their own subsidiary in the Soviet Zone. The company was interested in making money, the subsidiary in helping those who had lost limbs in the war, and the former was eventually thwarted by two trade-union workers, a widower in the West and a widow in the East, who knew each from years before, when they worked together in the anti-fascist resistance.

  As a story, Effi supposed it was just about feasible, but then so were many of those dreamed up by Goebbels’ cinematic minions. The characterisation did nothing to help-even the leads were cardboard cut-outs-and the writing in general lived down to the plot, with both leading characters prone to spout slogans as they turned their hopeful gazes towards the inevitable socialist future. All in all, the script felt as if someone had gone though it ruthlessly, excising any hint of nuance or shades of grey. Even the title was dreadful. Effi wanted no part of it.

  Russell visited Father Kozniku’s office, which was close to the San Giusto cathedral, late on Friday afternoon. A buxom Italian woman with a wonderful mane of black hair-Artucci’s Luciana, presumably-showed him through to the inner sanctum, where the priest himself, a corpulent figure with a bulging red face and almost black eyes, was busy copying figures into a leather-bound ledger.

  ‘I’m here for the Balanchuk papers,’ Russell announced, in reply to the look of enquiry. Roman Balanchuk was the name on Palychko’s new passport.

  ‘You’re new,’ Kozniku noted, opening a desk drawer and removing a small sheaf of papers.

  Taking the seat that hadn’t been offered, Russell reached inside his jacket for the documents Crowell had given him-the passport and fake baptismal certificate-and the wad of Benjamin Franklins.

  The priest waved away the baptismal certificate-so much for Draganovic’s Catholics-only strictures-and didn’t even bother to count the hundred-dollar notes. He even looked mildly irked when Russell took time to check the details on the new Colombian visa against those on the American-forged passport. They tallied perfectly.

  ‘The sailing ticket will be waiting in Genoa,’ the priest said. ‘A pleasure to do business with you,’ he finished with, attention already back on his ledger.

  Walking back down the hill in search for dinner, Russell found himself wishing that Shchepkin would suddenly appear at his shoulder. There was so few people who shared his utter dismay at what had happened to Europe over the past thirty years.

  Russell drank too much that evening, and felt like hell when one of the Marko’s daughters woke him the following morning with news that an American soldier had come to see him. The lieutenant in question had scarcely credible news-TRUST, the optimistically acronymed Trieste United States Troops, had run out of jeeps, and Russell would have to reach Udine by other means of transport. There was a military travel pass for him, allowing free passage on all public transport inside Zone A, but once outside the Free Territory, he would have to pay his own way. This information was delivered between disapproving sniffs, as the young man circled Russell’s room, examining his belongings like a Kripo officer seeking out evidence of crimes as yet unknown. Only Effi’s publicity shot stopped him. ‘Your wife?’ he asked, as if he could hardly credit it.

  ‘Yes,’ Russell admitted. The word still sounded strange, though almost a year had passed since they’d finally got married. They had always said they would wait until love was the only reason, but it had been Rosa’s adoption which forced them into it. The love of a child.

  The lieutenant stared at the picture once more, probably hoping to find a flaw, and then abruptly made for the door. ‘Return the pass to the Miramar HQ as soon as you get back,’ was his parting shot.

  Russell lifted his battered suitcase on to the bed, and added a change of clothes to the documents in the bottom. He wasn’t that sorry about the jeep-he had always loved sitting in trains-but the journey would probably now take most of the day, and he ought to be on his way.

  The walk to the station took fifteen minutes, the wait for a train considerably longer. A Venice service eventually carried him up the coast to the Italian border, where the guard demanded payment for an onward ticket to Udine. A change was required at Monfalcone, where a three-hour wait allowed him time to find a reasonable lunch. It was almost three by the time his connection-two ancient coaches behind a rusty tank locomotive-started off up the Isonzo valley, skirting the first of what soon seemed an endless series of First War cemeteries. After a lengthy stop in Gorizia, the train slowly puffed its way northwestward across the southern edge of the Alpine foothills, crossing stream after swollen stream rushing south toward the sea. Once Russell allowed himself to accept the lack of haste, he found himself enjoying the journey-after Trieste and its ludicrous politics, here was the earth reborn again, with all the bright greens of spring.

  He had never been to Udine, which was larger than he’d imagined, and seemed, from the back of a cab at least, to be blessed with a wealth of interesting architecture. Another time perhaps.

  The Hotel Delle Alpi was impressive, and more luxurious than he’d come to expect when American Intelligence was footing the bill. It and its proprietor, who introduced himself as Boris, and who looked more German than Italian, had survived the war apparently unscathed, a circumstance that Russell always-and, he admitted, often unfairly-considered grounds for suspicion.

  Only one room had been booked for himself and Mister Balanchuk, which was much more in line with the usual stingy CIC practice. And it was barely big enough for two, let alone the three which Boris suggested. The rooms on either side were taken, but after only a brief show of annoyance, the proprietor found him two adjoining rooms farther down the corridor. Babysitting a human monster was bad enough, and Russell was damned if he was going to share a bed with him.

  The hotel restaurant looked less than inspiring, but it was already growing dark outside, and he supposed he should be there when Palychko arrived. As it happened, the food was exquisite, the wine as good as any he’d drunk since pre-war days. Russell lingered over coffee and brandy, reading with one ear cocked for a vehicle outside, but when the lobby clock chimed eleven he decided to call it a day.

  It felt like he’d only just closed his eyes when someone knocked on his door. ‘Your friends have arrived,’ Boris half-shouted.

  Two apparent soldiers were drinking in the bar, one a CIC Major whom Russell recognised from a meeting in Salzburg a year or so earlier, the other Maksym Palychko, who was dressed as a GI corporal. He was shorter than Russell had imagined from the picture, with an unexpectedly appealing smile. The long white scar on the neck seemed the only predictable thing about him.

  They all shook hands like civilised people, and the Major-whose name, Russell remembered, was Hanningham-poured Russell a generous measure of Scotch.

  ‘Any problems?’ Russell asked, for want of anything better.

  ‘None,’ the Major said cheerfully. ‘I think everyone manning that border is on our payroll.’

  Palychko was looking around the empty bar.

  Russell introduced himself in Russian. ‘Or would you rather use German?’ he added in that language.

  ‘Deutsch,’ the Ukrainian said
shortly. He drained his glass. ‘It’s been a long day,’ he added.

  Either Hanningham had no qualms about sharing the bed ‘big enough for three’ with Palychko, or he was too tired to care, and soon Russell was lying in his own. They met again at breakfast in the wood-panelled dining room with its distant view of the mountains, and after half an hour of Hanningham’s overweening arrogance, Russell was beginning to wonder which man was the more objectionable of the two. The mass murderer Palychko just sat admiring the view, offering the occasional friendly smile. Only when the American’s jeep had finally shrunk to a dot on the road heading north, did he offer more than a single syllable. ‘Where did you spend the war?’

  Russell had no desire to tell this man his life story. ‘In the States, and then with the US Army in France and Germany, as a war correspondent.’ All of which was true enough, if hardly the complete picture. ‘How about you?’

  ‘In Poland and Ukraine.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Fighting communists. And losing.’

  ‘Any regrets?’ Russell couldn’t help asking.

  ‘You know who I really am, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He offered up that smile again. ‘That’s more than I do.’

  Oh shit, Russell thought, a psychopath with an identity crisis.

  It must have shown on his face. ‘My father was a priest,’ Palychko said, as if by way of explanation. He looked at Russell. ‘Were you old enough to fight in the First War?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you know what men can do to each other.’

  ‘I still don’t why,’ Russell said, getting drawn in despite himself.

  ‘Neither do I. That’s what I meant-evil is a mystery, even to those who do it. Especially those.’

  ‘That’s why we have courts.’

  Palychko shook his head. ‘Do you really believe after everything you’ve seen and heard that men are capable of judging their brothers?’