Zoo Station

by David Downing

  ‘You used to be a member of the British Communist Party, correct?’

  ‘Yes.’ He wondered if Trelawney-Smythe and Kleist had ever met.

  ‘Then you know how the communists operate?’

  ‘You think they all operate the same way?’

  ‘I think the Soviets have certain well-practised methods, yes.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘Well, then. We don’t think this will be the end of it. We think they’ll ask for more and more.’

  ‘More and more articles? And who is we?’

  Trelawney-Smythe smiled. ‘Don’t play the innocent. You know who “we” are. And you know I’m not talking about your articles, amusing as they are. We think they’ll be asking you for other information. The usual method is to keep upping the ante, until you’re no longer in a position to refuse. Because they’ll shop you to the Germans if you do.’

  ‘As you said, I know how they operate. And it’s my lookout, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not completely. Do you see this?’ Trelawney-Smythe asked, indicating the words at the foot of the article, which identified the name, nationality and credentials of the author.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘An Englishman currently living in Germany,’ Trelawney-Smythe read out, just to be sure.

  ‘That’s me.’

  Trelawney-Smythe tapped on the paper with an index finger. ‘You are English, and your behaviour will reflect on the rest of us. Particularly at a time like this.’

  ‘A “don’t-rock-the-boat-for-God’s-sake” sort of time?’

  ‘Something like that. Relations between us and the Soviets are, shall we say, difficult at the moment. They don’t trust us and we don’t trust them. Everybody’s looking for signals of intent. The smallest thing – like Pravda inviting you to write these articles – could mean something. Or nothing. They could be planning to use you as a channel to us or the Germans, for passing on information or disinformation. We don’t know. I assume you don’t know.’

  ‘I’m just doing my job.’

  ‘All right. But how would you feel about providing us with advance copies of your articles. Just so we know what’s coming.’

  Russell laughed. ‘You too?’ He explained about his arrangement with the SD. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘I might as well run off a few carbons for Mussolini and Daladier while I’m at it.’ He put his hands on the chair-arms, prior to lifting himself up. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘We would appreciate being told if this goes beyond a mere commercial arrangement. And obviously we’d be interested in anything you learn which might be of use to your country.’

  ‘I’ve already learned one thing. The Soviets think the British and French are trying to cut them out. Look how long Hitler gave the Ambassador at the opening last week. Look at the new trade deal talks. If you don’t start treating the Soviets as potential allies, they’ll do a deal with Hitler.’

  ‘I think London’s aware of that.’

  ‘You could have fooled me. But what do I know?’ He looked at his watch. ‘I have a lunch date.’ He extended his hand across the desk. ‘I’ll bear what you’ve said in mind.’

  ‘Enjoy your lunch.’

  Russell dropped in on Conway on his way out.

  ‘Still talking to me?’ the diplomat asked.

  ‘You, yes; the Empire, no.’

  ‘He’s just doing his job.’

  ‘I know. Look, thanks for the dinner invitation. I’ll let you know soon as I can.’ He paused at the door. ‘And I’ll be sorry to see you go,’ he added.

  • • •

  It was a fast five minute walk to the Russischer Hof on Georgenstrasse, where he and Thomas usually met for lunch. As he hurried east on Unter den Linden Russell replayed the conversation with Trelawney-Smythe over in his mind. Rather to his surprise it had been refreshingly free of threats. If British intelligence wanted to, he imagined that they could make his life a lot more difficult. They could take away his passport, or just make renewal harder. They could probably make it harder for him to sell his work in England, his prime market. A word to a few knighthood-hungry editors – in fact, a mere appeal to their patriotism – and his London agent would be collecting rejections on his behalf. On the plus side it was beginning to look as if every intelligence service in Europe was interested in employing him.

  It was a raw day, the wind whipping in from the east, and Russell turned up his collar against it. A tram slid under the railway bridge, bell frantically ringing, as he turned off Friedrichstrasse and into Georgenstrasse. The Russischer Hof was a nineteenth century establishment once favoured by Bismarck, and sometimes Russell wondered if they were still recycling the same food. The elaborate décor created a nice atmosphere though, and the usual paucity of uniformed clientele was a definite bonus.

  Russell’s ex-brother-in-law was seated at a window table, glass of Riesling in hand, looking dourly out at the street. The dark grey suit added to the sober impression, but that was Thomas. When they’d first met in the mid-twenties Russell had thought him the epitome of the humourless German. However, once he got to know him, he had realised that Thomas was anything but. Ilse’s brother had a sly, rather anarchic sense of humour, completely lacking in the cruelty which marked much popular German humour. If anything he was the epitome of the decent German, an endangered species if ever there was one.

  The pot roast with cream sauce, red cabbage and mashed potatoes seemed an ideal riposte to the weather, which was now blowing snow flurries past their window. ‘How’s the business?’ Russell asked, as Thomas poured him a glass of wine.

  ‘Good. We’ve got a lot of work, and exports are looking up. The new printers have made a huge difference. And you know the World’s Fair in New York this April? It looked for a moment as if we might have a stand there.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It seems the organizers have decided to include a pavilion celebrating pre-Nazi German Art. And émigré art. If they do, the government will boycott the Fair.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  Thomas gave him a wintry smile. ‘Given the context, it’s hard to be that upset. And there’s always the chance that the Ministry would have refused to let us go. Because of our employment policies.’

  Only one firm in Berlin employed more Jews than Schade Printing Works.

  ‘You don’t have room for one more, I suppose,’ Russell asked, thinking of Albert Wiesner.

  ‘Not really. Who do you have in mind?’

  Russell explained the Wiesners’ situation.

  Thomas looked pained. ‘I have a waiting list of around two hundred already,’ he said. ‘Most of them are relatives of people who already work there.’

  Russell thought of pressing him but decided not to. He could hear Albert in his head – ‘One family’s success is another family’s failure.’ ‘I understand,’ he said, and was about to change the subject when the waiter arrived with their meals.

  Both men noticed that the portions seemed smaller than usual. ‘Sign of the times,’ Thomas observed.

  ‘Any chance of things getting better?’ Russell asked. Thomas had no more inside information than Russell’s other friends in Berlin – and considerably less than many – but he’d always had a knack of knowing which way the wind was blowing.

  ‘I don’t know,’ was his answer. ‘Ribbentrop’s off to Warsaw again. They seem to be trying.’ He shrugged. ‘We’ll probably find out more on Monday.’

  That was the day of Hitler’s annual speech to the Reichstag commemorating his own accession to the Chancellorship. ‘I’d forgotten about that,’ Russell admitted.

  ‘You’re probably the only person in Europe who has. I think the whole continent’s hanging on it. Will he keep the pressure up, demand more? Or will he take the pressure off? That would be the intelligent move. Act as if he’s satisfied, even if he’s only pausing for breath. But in the long run it’s hard to see him stopping. He’s like a spinning coin. Once he stops spinning, he’ll fall
flat.’

  Russell grunted. ‘Nice.’

  They asked after each other’s better halves, both current and former.

  ‘You’re asking me?’ Thomas said when Russell enquired after Ilse. ‘I haven’t see her for weeks. Last time we went over there, well…’ He didn’t continue.

  ‘You didn’t have a row?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ Thomas said, as if rows were something that happened to other people. Which, in his case, they usually were. ‘I just find Matthias so…oh, I don’t know…complacent? Is that the right word for people who say they fear the worst but live their lives as if there’s bound to be a happy ending?’

  ‘It might be,’ Russell agreed. He realized he hadn’t told Thomas about his trip to Cracow, or asked him to take Paul to the match on Sunday, and did so now.

  Thomas was happy to take Paul, but bemused by Russell’s choice of Cracow for the ‘Germany’s Neighbours’ series. ‘Wouldn’t a day trip to Posen have been good enough?’ he wanted to know.

  Russell had a sudden desire to tell Thomas about Shchepkin – if something went wrong, there would be someone to offer some sort of explanation to Paul and Effi – but he held himself back. He would be compromising Thomas, and to what real end? What could go wrong?

  Waiting behind another customer for his Friday morning paper, Russell caught sight of the headline – BARCELONA FALLS. On impulse, he turned away. That was one story he didn’t want to read. The Spanish Civil War was over. The good guys had lost. What else was there to say?

  As it had gone down so well on his last visit, he bought another ancient Daily Mail at the Alexanderplatz kiosk. This had an article on young English girls collecting stamps, which he knew would interest Ruth and Marthe, and a big piece on the recent loss of the Empire Flying Boat Cavalier, complete with map and diagram, which Paul would love. He saved the best, however, for the very end of the girls’ lesson – a report of a tongue-twisting competition on the BBC. Trying to say ‘should such a shapeless sash such shabby stitches show’ soon had Ruth giggling so hard she really was in stitches, and Marthe fared little better with ‘the flesh of freshly fried flying fish.’

  The doctor was not at home, so Russell handed the copy of the latest rules governing Jewish emigration to Frau Wiesner. He had collected them the previous day from the British Passport Control Office. ‘But they ignore their own rules half the time,’ the young official had told him bitterly. ‘You can count on getting a change of clothes past them, but anything else is as likely to be confiscated as not. If your friends have any other way of getting stuff out, they should use it.’

  Russell passed on the advice, and watched her heart sink.

  ‘If you need help, ask me,’ he said, surprising himself. ‘I don’t think I’d have any trouble shipping stuff to my family in England.’

  Her eyes glowed. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and reached up to kiss him on the cheek.

  He journeyed home to pack, stopping off in Alexanderplatz for a late lunch. At least he was pleasing some people. He hadn’t seen Effi since Sunday and the round of mutual accusations which he had so stupidly instigated. They hadn’t had a row – they had even managed two reasonably friendly conversations on the telephone – but he knew she was angry with him, and his non-availability for the Barbarossa send-off had made things worse.

  Paul didn’t seem that much happier with him, despite the promise of a trip the following Sunday to see the cup-tie in Dresden. There was something going on, but Paul wasn’t prepared to talk about it, or at least not on the telephone.

  Frau Heidegger was glad to see him, and sorry his imminent train prevented him from joining her for coffee. Up in his apartment, he threw a few spare clothes into a suitcase, checked he had his notes for the next article, and headed back down. On the next landing he ran into a smiling McKinley.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Russell asked in passing.

  ‘Uh-huh. I’m just waiting for our friend’s letter and… bingo!’

  Russell laughed and clattered on down the stairs.

  He arrived at the Schlesinger Bahnhof with twenty minutes to spare. The train was already sheltering under the wrought iron canopy, and he walked down the platform in search of his carriage and seat. As he leaned out of the window to watch a train steam in from the east a paper boy thrust an afternoon edition under his nose. The word ‘Barcelona’ was again prominent, but this time he handed over the pfennigs. As his train gathered speed through Berlin’s industrial suburbs he read the article from start to finish, in all its sad and predictable detail.

  Three years of sacrifice, all for nothing. Three years of towns won, towns lost. Russell had registered the names, but resisted further knowledge. It was too painful. Thousands of young men and women had gone to fight fascism in Spain, just as thousands had gone to fight for communism in Russia twenty years earlier. According to Marx, history repeated itself first as tragedy and then as farce. But no one was laughing. Except perhaps Stalin.

  Russell supposed he should be glad that Spain would soon be at peace, but even that was beyond him. He stared out of the window at the neat fields of the Spree valley, basking in the orange glow of the setting sun, and felt as though he was being lied to. Seconds later, as if in confirmation, the train thundered through a small town station, its fluttering swastika deep blood-red in that self-same glow, a crowd of small boys in uniform milling on the opposite platform.

  The food in the restaurant car proved surprisingly good. The menu had a distinctly Polish flavour, although as far as Russell could see there were few Poles on the train. Most of his fellow-passengers were German males – mainly commercial travellers or soldiers on leave. There was only a sprinkling of couples, though the pair at the next table had enough sexual energy for ten. They could hardly keep their hands off each other while eating, and the young man kept checking his watch, as if willing the train on to Breslau, where the sleeping coaches would be attached.

  The couple soon disappeared, probably in search of an empty bathroom. The romance of trains, Russell thought, staring at his own reflection in the window. He remembered the overnight journey to Leningrad with Ilse in 1924, just after they’d met. People had slept in the bathrooms on that train, and anywhere else they could find a space. He and Ilse had had to wait.

  Fifteen years. The Soviet Union had come a long way since then, one way or another. Some people came back from visits singing its praises. There was still much to do, but it was the future in embryo, a potential paradise. Other returnees shook their heads in sadness. A dream warped beyond recognition, they said. A nightmare.

  Russell guessed the latter was nearer the truth, but sometimes wondered whether that was just his natural pessimism. It had to be a bit of both, but where the balance lay he didn’t know.

  More to the point, what did Moscow want with him? What they said they wanted? Or something else? Or both? Trelawney-Smythe had been certain they would ask for more, and Kleist had hinted as much. He didn’t even know who he was dealing with. Was Shchepkin NKVD or GRU? Or some other acronym he hadn’t even heard of? A French correspondent in Berlin had told him that the NKVD was now split between a Georgian faction and the rest, and for all Russell knew the GRU was eaten up by factional rivalry over how much salt they put in the canteen borsht.

  And why was he assuming it would be Shchepkin again? The revolution was burning its human fuel at quite a rate these days, and Shchepkin, with his obvious intelligence, seemed highly combustible.

  He would have to deal with whoever presented himself. Or herself. But what would he or she want? What could they want? Information about German military strengths and weaknesses? About particular weapons programmes? Political intentions? Military plans? He had no information – no access to information – about any of that. Thank God.

  What did he have that they valued? Freedom to move around Germany. Freedom to ask questions without arousing suspicion. Even more so now, with Kleist’s letter in his possession. Maybe one of their agents had gone
missing, and they would ask Russell to find out what had happened to him. Or they might want to use him as a courier, carrying stuff to or from their agents. That would explain the meetings outside Germany.

  Or they could use him as a conduit. The Soviets knew the Germans would check up on him, and assumed he would be asked for reports on his meetings And the British too. They would have counted on the British calling him in. They could use him as a human post-box, with Kleist and Trelawney-Smythe as the sorters.

  They might be just making it up as they went along. His unusual situation made him potentially useful, and they were still looking for a way to realise that potential. That would explain the articles and oral reports – a sort of halfway house to prepare him for a truly clandestine life. There was no way of knowing. Russell leant back in his chair, remembering the remark of a Middlesex Regiment officer he’d met in 1918. ‘Intelligence services,’ the man had said, ‘were prone to looking up their own arses and wondering why it was dark.’

  Soon after ten the train reached Breslau, the destination of most passengers. As they filtered out through the dimly-lit exit, many of the remaining passengers took the chance to stretch their legs on the snow-strewn platform. Russell walked to the back of the train and watched a busy little shunter detach four saloons and replace them with three sleepers. It was really cold now, and the orange glow from the engine’s firebox made it seem more so.

  He walked back up the platform, arms clasped tightly across his chest. ‘Cold, eh,’ a young soldier said, stamping his feet and taking a deep drag on his cigarette. He was only about eighteen, and seemed to be wearing a summer uniform.

  As Russell nodded his agreement a whistle sounded the all aboard.

  Walking up the train, he reclaimed his seat in an almost empty carriage. The sleeping car attendants would be rushed off their feet for the next quarter of an hour, and he wasn’t ready for sleep in any case. As the train pulled out of the station the ceiling lights were extinguished, allowing him a view through the window of flat meadows stretching north towards a distant line of yellow lights. The Oder river, likely as not.