Masaryk Station jr-6

by David Downing

  The nature of his current work did nothing to help. Everyone at the office knew the crisis was upon them-it was their job to make it tangible-but the starting gun had still not been fired. Breaking the rail link between Berlin and the Western zones wasn’t exactly difficult as all it required was a red signal at either end of the tracks that traversed the Soviet zone. But if Stalin had really decided on such a drastic step, he hadn’t yet told his German comrades.

  Merely slowing things down was more complicated, particularly if you wanted to pretend that the slow-down wasn’t deliberate, and even more so if you weren’t sure what you wanted the other side to believe. And the Soviets kept changing their minds, first insisting that ‘technical difficulties’ be blamed for interruptions in the rail service, then claiming that they’d limited interzonal traffic in order to protect the local economy from the contagion of Western currency reform. And while one moment stressing that such measures were temporary, at others they strongly implied that only a change in Western behaviour could guarantee a restoration of the status quo. It sometimes seemed as if the Soviets were playing with the Western allies, but Strohm had the sneaking suspicion that they were simply incapable of reaching a decision.

  In the meantime, the harassment went on. Passenger trains now left from Friedrichstrasse, whose short platforms dictated the removal of four coaches. Single freight wagons were rejected for minor mistakes in their labelling, causing whole trains to be shunted aside. Crews were ordered to present their personal belongings for inspection, which might only take a few minutes, but the stoppages soon began to add up.

  Strohm was tired of it all. He had always thought that the Western powers’ foothold in Berlin made it harder for the Soviets to let go, but now he was beginning to wonder-perhaps it was only the Western presence which prevented the Russians from tightening their grip. Either way, he wanted to know. ‘If there has to be a showdown,’ he told one colleague over lunch, ‘then let’s have it now. And Moscow should be open about it. Tell the Western Allies that they’re stopping all traffic to Berlin, and tell them what they can do to get it started again. The British and Americans started all this with their currency reform, and they can end it by coming back to the table and agreeing a four-power solution. I would understand that. More to the point, the people of Berlin would understand it. But “technical difficulties”? No one believes this nonsense. They just think we’re liars.’

  His colleague gave him a pitying look. ‘This is a difficult time,’ he agreed, and changed the subject.

  Back at his desk, Strohm went through the press release he had written that morning, explaining the sudden rash of mechanical defects in the wagon fleet. He sighed, and resisted the temptation to crumple up the piece of paper. He had nothing against deception-for much of his life his survival had rested on his ability to deceive his enemies. But was that what he was doing now? He seemed to spend most of his time deceiving the people he supposedly served.

  After dropping Rosa off at school on Friday morning, Effi and Russell walked to the Czechoslovak Embassy on Rauch Strasse. She was met by smiles, he by frowns, but both their travel permits had been approved. Cisar was looking forward to discussing a future collaboration with Effi, and happy to answer her husband’s follow-up questions. The new Ministry of Culture had booked them into a hotel not far from the director’s home.

  With their new papers safely stowed away in Russell’s pocket, the two of them walked down to Tauentzien Strasse, where Effi had shopping had to do. The pavements were crowded for ten in the morning, particularly given the dearth of goods on display in store windows, but Effi wasn’t surprised. ‘Zarah said it was like this on Wednesday,’ she said. ‘With all the rumours of currency reform, everyone’s spending what money they have while it’s still worth something.’

  As if to prove her point, a woman walked by with an exceptionally ugly table lamp under each arm.

  ‘I guess we’re the lucky ones,’ Russell said. The Americans had always paid him in dollars, and Thomas had helped Effi shift some of her earnings into Swiss francs. Whatever transpired over the next few weeks, they would be all right. At least in terms of money.

  The theatrical shop wasn’t overwhelmed with customers-bulk-buying makeup supplies as a hedge against inflation had obviously not caught on. Effi went in to replenish her personal stocks, which she hadn’t used since the war. Then she’d been ageing her own appearance; making Janica look younger would be more of a challenge.

  Russell waited outside, watching other shoppers walk by. The procession of faces-most agitated or shut down, very few smiling-got him thinking about the city and its recent history. In the 1920s, when he had come here to live, there had been few places in the world more exciting, either politically or culturally. Then the Nazis had re-cast it as the capital of their swelling boil of an empire, and their enemies had reduced it to rubble. For three years the politics and culture had grown interesting once more, but there was no doubt in Russell’s mind that the shutters were coming back down. So what now, division or Soviet takeover? Which sort of prison would it be?

  Back at the flat, he barely had time to pack a small bag before kissing Effi goodbye and setting out for Fohrenweg. Merzhanov and the ordered jeep were waiting for him, the former looking smart in American civvies. The Russian wore a wary expression on his face during their chauffeur-driven journey to Tempelhof, as if he couldn’t quite believe his luck.

  Their plane was waiting in a distant corner of the airfield, one of many DC-3s parked around the perimeter. Russell’s accreditation saw them straight on board, where seven other passengers were already waiting. They all looked German, but none seemed disposed to exchange any form of eye contact, let alone smile or converse. Merzhanov’s face was now sporting an idiot grin, which only faded as they roared down the runway.

  The flight to Rhein-Main took a little under two hours, the wait for their connection to Munich a little over. Another jeep was waiting in the Bavarian capital, and by five o’clock they were crossing the border between the American zones of Germany and Austria. At CIC HQ in Salzburg, Russell found an old acquaintance waiting-he had crossed paths with Major Rick Sewell on several occasions, and as far as he knew he had caused no lasting offence.

  ‘Johannsen let us know you were coming,’ Sewell said, as he looked Merzhanov over. ‘Sing a good song, did he?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Russell agreed. The American had put on weight since their last meeting, the buttons of his tunic straining to contain his new belly.

  ‘Well, let’s get him tucked up in bed. I’ll drive ’em,’ Sewell told the young corporal who’d collected them from Munich.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Sewell, as Russell now remembered, thought jeeps cornered best on two wheels. He hung on grimly as they wove their way through the early evening traffic, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to check that Merzhanov was still with them. Soon they were out of the city, and jolting along the hilly road which led to the farm the CIC used as a safe house. Russell had been there the previous year, after Sewell’s boss, in dire need of an interpreter, had virtually press-ganged him into helping out.

  Behind him, the Russian was staring at the mountains filling the southern horizon the way someone raised in a desert might gaze at an ocean. At that moment he looked the picture of innocence, not the lust-sick deserter and traitor which most of his erstwhile comrades would think him. But what did that matter? As long as he kept his mouth shut. And the film lived up to its billing.

  The safe house had a permanent staff of six-two housekeepers and four armed guards on twelve-hour shifts. Merzhanov was introduced to those on duty, shown his private sleeping quarters, and offered dinner. The man looked profoundly pleased with life, Russell thought as he left, like someone who had taken a difficult decision and been thoroughly vindicated. Or would be, once Janica was sharing the bed. Before leaving, Russell had taken Merzhanov aside and forcibly reminded him not to mention the film.

  Sewell was chatty on the
ride back into town, but Russell wasn’t feeling sociable. ‘I was up at five A.M.,’ he lied glibly, when the American suggested a bar. ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open.’

  ‘Then I’ll take you to your hotel. Maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘If I’m still here,’ Russell promised, knowing perfectly well he wouldn’t be. ‘I assume Father Cecelja is still in Alt Aussee?’

  ‘He is. I guess you’ll need a jeep in the morning.’

  ‘Yeah, please.’

  ‘I’ll put your name down at the pool. You remember where it is.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Okay, then. Sleep well.’

  Well, the man couldn’t have been more accommodating, Russell thought, as he wearily climbed the hotel stairs. And he was likeable enough. So why had he given him the bum’s rush?

  An hour or so later, alone in the hotel bar, he asked himself the question again. The answer, he decided, was simple enough-he’d just had enough of men in uniforms.

  Alt Aussee was about forty miles to the east, a small village nestling beside an eponymous lake, in the shadow of a stark plateau. The hour’s drive was stunningly beautiful, almost ironically so given the ugliness of the person at the other end.

  Father Vilim Cecelja was Draganovic’s man in Austria. He was an Ustashe from way back-he had even taken the ritual oath, complete with daggers, candles, crucifixes, and all the other cliches, which allowed him to use the revered title of a ‘Sworn Ustashe’. After the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia he had served as senior military chaplain to the Ustashe militia, officially blessed Pavelic and his odious regime, and he had done nothing to suggest he disagreed with their genocidal goals. In 1944, sensing the game was up, Cecelja had moved to Vienna and founded a new branch of the Croatian Red Cross, which hitherto served as a cover for his work in aiding escapers from Allied justice. In April 1945 he had moved again, this time to Alt Aussee. With Red Cross credentials, new American papers, and Draganovic’s support, he had opened the Rat Lines for business.

  The local CIC had proved more resolute than the US Army, and six months later Cecelja had been arrested. Eighteen months of imprisonment followed, but no charges were brought by the Americans, and Yugoslav requests for his extradition were eventually refused. In April 1947 the US Government finally decided that the priest did have crimes to answer for, but by then it was too late-he had already been released. With increasing numbers of Soviet defectors to shift, the CIC had decided that the Rat Line could be useful in more ways than one, and put Cecelja back in business.

  Russell would have preferred not to use him, but there wasn’t much choice where fugitive escapes to the sun were concerned. The real question was how to get the priest’s help without paying for it, at least in monetary form. Russell was more than willing to promise the Earth on the CIC’s behalf-one more burning bridge behind him seemed neither here nor there.

  The priest was around forty, and looked more Irish than Croatian. He was Russell’s height, with dark hair showing hints of grey. He wasn’t wearing a robe or dog-collar, and no church abutted his two-storey house. Like Father Kozniku, clearly he had placed God on the back-burner.

  He expressed no surprise at receiving a visitor from the CIC, although he insisted on seeing Russell’s accreditation.

  ‘We have a favour to ask,’ Russell began, once they were seated in the large lounge overlooking the lake, and an Austrian youth had brought them both coffees. ‘Two Ukrainian Catholics, a man and a woman, whom the Soviets are pursuing.’

  Cecelja paused in the act of transferring sugar from bowl to cup. ‘I presume you know the fees.’

  ‘A favour we shall reciprocate,’ Russell went on. ‘But not, in this case, with cash. Our funds have been frozen,’ he explained. ‘Temporarily, we hope.’

  Cecelja found that amusing. ‘The mighty United States war machine can’t put its hands on three thousand dollars?’

  ‘I’m sure the war machine could, but not our little part of it.’

  ‘So what are you offering us?’

  ‘We’re offering you a free pass. A statement to the effect that the accusations of collaboration raised against you have been officially dismissed. And all previous statements to the contrary expunged from our official records. Put the two together, and any future application for US visa will be a formality.’

  Cecelja looked interested, but didn’t reply right away.

  ‘This situation won’t last for ever,’ Russell told the priest.

  ‘Which situation is that?’

  ‘The one in which Uncle Sam is so desperate for help from people like you that it’s willing to forgive and forget.’

  ‘Ah, that sounds like a threat.’

  ‘You could see it as a choice. On the one hand, securing your own future safety and helping two good Catholics escape from the communists. On the other …

  Cecelja steepled his fingers. ‘Put that way, the choice does seem rather obvious.’

  ‘I would say so,’ Russell agreed. And it was-sending the two down the Rat Line wouldn’t cost Cecelja anything, but the promised paper might prove priceless. Even if it failed to materialise, he wouldn’t be out of pocket.

  ‘So when can I expect these “good Catholics”?’

  ‘I’ll be dropping them off next Thursday.’

  ‘Along with the document you promised?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then …’ The priest rose and offered his hand, which Russell duly accepted. Over the past few years he had met several men with copious blood on their hands, and all they had shared was a certain coldness. Cecelja didn’t even have that. Without a knowledge of his deeds, there was literally nothing to set him apart.

  Russell drove back to Salzburg with the window open, revelling in the freshness of the wind. He had forgotten to arrange a meeting with Sewell, but despite its being Saturday, he found him in his CIC office.

  ‘I can’t believe you persuaded the good Father to take them free of charge,’ Sewell said, as they drove across town to the Photo and Document lab. ‘You must have got him on a really good day.’

  At the lab, Russell placed his order with the CIC’s resident forger-new passports, travel documents, transit passes, extra IDs, and baptismal certificates for two. The American didn’t want to start work without photos, but eventually agreed that they could be affixed near the end of the process. Russell came away feeling positive: success with Cecelja, success with the documents-it seemed like his luck was in.

  And there was one more piece of good fortune to enjoy. Before he took to the road again, Sewell suggested calling the local airbase, and sure enough, a transport was leaving for Frankfurt in less than an hour. He was on a roll.

  It didn’t last. The flight was smooth enough, but the sky over Rhein-Main was humming with traffic, and the queue to land took almost as long. The reason, as he discovered on reaching the offices, was a general alert. While Russell had been travelling south on Friday, the Soviets had been shutting the Berlin rail link down, and American reliance on their air links had risen accordingly, tripling their flights in and out of the city.

  It was dawn on Sunday before Russell had a seat on one, and seven in the morning before he stepped blearily down on to the tarmac at Tempelhof. Reaching home to find Effi and Rosa at breakfast, he grabbed a fork and took turns stealing scrambled eggs off their plates.

  ‘Did it all go all right?’ Effi asked, when Rosa left them for a few moments.

  ‘Better than I hoped. How’s Rosa?’

  ‘She’s worried about us both going away. She doesn’t actually say so, and I do keep reminding her that we’ll only be gone for two or three nights, but I know she is.’

  ‘Mmm. Well, let’s make sure we have a good day today.’

  ‘We’re going to Zarah’s for lunch. And Bill will probably be there.’

  ‘Well, that’ll be good.’

  ‘Oh, and Strohm rang for you. He sounded disappointed when I told him you were away, and that Monday we were both going off again.’ />
  ‘He must be feeling the pressure,’ Russell said.

  ‘The baby or the Russians?’

  ‘He can’t wait for the baby. It’ll be the Russians. Stuck between the devil and the deep red sea.’

  ‘The devil being Comrade Ulbricht.’

  ‘Or the Americans. He’s spoilt for choice.’

  Effi dismissed it all with a wave of the hand. ‘Anyway, I’m packed. And these,’ she said, pointing them out, ‘are my audition reels.’ There were four of them, each in small round cans of roughly similar size.

  ‘I hope Merzhanov’s isn’t a lot bigger,’ Russell observed. ‘It’ll stand out if it is.’

  Effi shook her head. ‘We can empty one of these and rewind the new film on to it,’ she said.

  Russell gave her an admiring look. ‘You should have been the secret agent, and I should have been the beauty.’

  Bill Carnforth was at Zarah’s when they arrived, peeling potatoes in a rather fetching apron. His news was more sobering-having allowed a resumption of rail traffic between Berlin and the Western zones, the Soviets had turned their attention to the only road link, and closed its bridge over the Elbe, ostensibly for repairs. ‘They’re just messing with us,’ Carnforth said. ‘And they’re gonna keep on doing it until we throw up our hands in despair and head back home.’

  ‘And you should have seen it on Ku’damm yesterday,’ Zarah interjected. ‘Thousands of people spending their money like they couldn’t wait to get rid of it. If they don’t reform the currency soon, we’ll be back to barter.’

  ‘And if they do,’ Russell mused, ‘then God only knows how the Soviets will react.’

  ‘But what could they do?’ Zarah wanted to know. ‘Money is money.’

  ‘I think they’re doing it already, honey,’ her fiance observed.

  ‘You mean blocking the autobahn?’