Zoo Station

by David Downing

‘I do. The girls have only just lost their father, and there’s no good reason why they should lose their mother as well. She left the communists twenty years ago, for God’s sake. She’s not going to start a revolution in Golders Green.’

  ‘I hope not,’ Trelawney-Smythe said wryly. ‘All right. I can get her a visa by Monday. The passport… I can’t promise anything – the Yanks dig their heels in about the silliest things – but we’ll do our best. You weren’t born in America, were you?’

  ‘I was born in mid-Atlantic, if that helps. But on a British ship.’

  ‘Probably not, then.’ He was sounding almost chummy now.

  ‘I’ll see you then,’ Russell said, resisting the temptation to be churlish. On his way out he noticed that the reading room was empty, and took time to consult the Embassy atlas. Görlitz was about two hundred kilometres south-east of Berlin, and about twenty from the Czech border. There were direct trains from Berlin, but they took most of the day and were probably checked as they neared the border area. If Albert got safely through the ticket barrier at this end he’d probably be picked up at the other. Russell was going to have to take him in the car.

  There were two obvious routes: he could stick to the old road or take the Silesian autobahn to just south of Kottbus, and join it there. He liked the idea of escaping Hitler’s Germany by autobahn, but the old road, for reasons he couldn’t explain, felt safer.

  So, two hundred kilometres – say, three hours. Stick in an extra half-hour in case he had a puncture. If the car broke down they were sunk, but spending more than a few minutes in Görlitz, with Albert eye-wrestling anyone in uniform, seemed like an excellent way of committing suicide. When it came down to it, the car seemed worthier of trust than Albert’s temperament.

  Russell walked out to Unter den Linden, climbed into the Hanomag and headed east. If only Albert didn’t look so damned Jewish! The boy could hardly wear a mask, though the lifelike Goebbels mask which one of the American correspondents had made for last year’s Halloween party would have been entertaining. How could he hide the boy’s face? A cap over the eyes, perhaps. Collar turned up and the required blue scarf. A pair of glasses? None of it would help if Albert insisted on visibly seething with rage.

  And where was he going to pick him up? Not at the flat, that was for sure. Somewhere crowded? Only if it was somewhere a Jew didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, and places like that were thin on the ground. And the police would be looking for him – a Jew who knocked down a Gestapo officer with a table lamp was going to be high on their wanted list. They’d probably taken his picture in Sachsenhausen, and now all the Orpo stations would have copies hanging on their walls.

  He parked the car in the Wiesners’ street and went up. The girls were out – starting to say their ‘goodbyes’ – and their mother seemed exhausted by grief and worry. Russell told her about Albert’s Monday appointment in Görlitz, and his own role as chauffeur. ‘Tell him to join the visa queue outside the British Embassy between twelve and one – as one Jew among several hundred he should be invisible. I’ll walk by and collect him soon after one. He should be wearing workingmen’s clothes, nothing too smart. But a decent coat on top of them for the queue. People try to look their best for the Embassy.’

  ‘I will tell him.’

  ‘He must be there,’ Russell insisted. ‘If he’s not, that’s it. We won’t be given a second chance.’

  ‘He’ll be there.’

  ‘And I think I’ve got you a visa. You should be able to go with the girls next Thursday.’

  She looked as though she was having trouble believing it all. ‘We’ll know by then? About Albert?’

  ‘We should,’ he said. One way or the other.

  Russell’s weekend followed the familiar pattern, but thoughts of the week ahead kept spinning around his head, sending his stomach into momentary freefall. It wasn’t every week he delivered a fugitive from the Gestapo to the communist underground, went looking for military secrets in a dockside bar, and played some lethal form of hunt the parcel with the border police. In fact, it wasn’t any week, and he was scared. The only time he could remember feeling like this was in the trenches, on those few occasions when he’d been ordered over the top. What had he let himself in for?

  Paul was too distracted himself to notice his father’s distraction. On Saturday they did the rounds of Berlin’s best toy-shops, so that Paul could provide Russell with some useful hints on which birthday presents to surprise him with. On Sunday they went to another away game, at Viktoria Berlin’s stadium in Steglitz, and came away delighted with a fortunate draw. Paul was still full of the trip to London, and eager to know when they could visit his grandmother in New York. ‘Maybe this summer,’ Russell said, surprising himself. But why not? The money was there.

  Effi did notice. On Saturday evening they went to a Comedy Theatre revue involving friends of hers, and he twice needed prodding to join in the applause. An hour’s dancing in one of the halls off Alexanderplatz took his mind off everything else, but on the drive home he almost drove through a red light at Potsdamerplatz.

  ‘What’s eating you?’ she asked.

  As they drove along the southern edge of the Tiergarten he gave her the whole story of his dealings with Shchepkin and Borskaya, ending with the request to take out the documents, and his realisation that he could use the situation to help the Wiesners. ‘Seduced by my own cleverness,’ he admitted. ‘And now I feel like digging myself a very deep hole and hiding in it.’

  ‘Like a fox?’

  ‘More like a rabbit.’

  She took his right hand and squeezed it.

  Glancing to his right, he could see the worry in her face. ‘I can’t back out now,’ he said.

  ‘Of course not. Why don’t we stop here?’ she added.

  He pulled up under the trees, and turned to face her.

  ‘You couldn’t go on the way you were,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She took his hand again. ‘You know what I mean,’ she insisted.

  And he did.

  Monday was a rush. Effi insisted on coming to the Embassy with him – ‘Everyone says I look Jewish, so they’ll think I’m his sister’ – and then displayed her usual inability to be ready on time. Once Russell had finally got her to the car, he suddenly remembered, with another downward lurch of his stomach, that he’d forgotten to tell Eva Wiesner about the blue scarf. A ten-minute search for something suitable in the KaDeWe on Wittenbergerplatz made them five minutes late, a derailed tram in Potsdamerplatz five minutes more. Russell had a mental picture of a Gestapo officer walking along beside the queue, then suddenly stopping and pointing at Albert.

  They left the car on Dorotheenstrasse and walked the single block to the Unter de Linden. Across the wide, now lindenfrei avenue, they could see the queue stretching up Wilhelmstrasse past the side of the Adlon. There were no uniforms in sight, no pointing finger, no scuffle in progress.

  They crossed Unter den Linden and walked towards the end of the queue. Albert was about ten from the back, standing close to the stone building on his right, but making no effort to conceal himself. When he saw Russell he simply walked out of the queue. ‘This is hopeless,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’

  ‘We were looking for you,’ Russell said. ‘The car’s this way,’ he added, thinking that he’d seen pantomimes with more convincing scripts. Several facial expressions in the queue offered unwelcome confirmation of this opinion.

  But there was no sign of the audience that mattered. The three of them walked back to Dorotheenstrasse.

  ‘In the back,’ Russell told Albert, indicating the tight space behind the seats. He drove three blocks down Dorotheenstrasse, turned right onto the much busier Friedrichstrasse and headed south towards Hallesches Tor. He dropped Effi off by the elevated station.

  ‘Be careful,’ she said, as she kissed him goodbye through the driver’s window. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’

 
I hope so, Russell thought. He glanced across at Albert, who was now sitting beside him. The boy looked about sixteen.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I was eighteen last month.’

  The age I was when I went to war, Russell thought. A tram swung in front of him, causing him to brake sharply. Concentrate, he told himself. An accident now really would be fatal.

  They drove past Tempelhof as a small plane took off, then under the Ringbahn and on towards Mariendorf, the city growing thinner with each mile. A police car went past in the opposite direction, two plainclothes Kripo men chatting in the front seats, but that was all. Twenty minutes after leaving Dorotheenstrasse they were out on the lake-strewn Mittelmark, passing under a completed section of the orbital autobahn.

  So far, so good, Russell thought.

  ‘My mother gave me the message from my father,’ Albert said, breaking the silence. ‘What exactly did he say?’

  Russell repeated what he remembered.

  ‘They beat him badly, didn’t they?’ Albert asked.

  ‘Yes, they did.’

  Albert fell silent again. They passed through Zossen, where a surfeit of signs pointed would-be visitors in the direction of General Staff HQ. The complex of buildings came into view, and Russell found himself wondering which maps the planners had on the tables that day. Poland, most likely, and all points east.

  He wondered if the Soviets would put up a fight. Their German operation was hardly impressive – a boy with shaky hands and a man in Kiel they couldn’t risk. Where had all the communists gone? Seven years ago they’d been slugging it out with the Nazis – millions of them. Some would still be lying in wait for the right moment, but most, he suspected, had simply turned their backs on politics. He hoped that whoever was waiting in Görlitz knew what the hell he was doing.

  ‘Where have you been staying?’ he asked Albert, once they were back in open country.

  ‘It’s better you don’t know,’ the boy said.

  ‘It probably is,’ Russell agreed.

  Silence descended again. Albert seemed calm enough, Russell thought. Calmer, in fact, than he felt himself. At least the car was behaving, its engine purring smoothly as they cruised along the mostly deserted road at 65 kph. Everyone else had chosen the autobahn.

  The sky to the south seemed clearer, which suggested a cold, clear night. Did that augur well or badly for an illicit border crossing? Visibility would be better for everyone – pursuers and pursued. He tried to remember what phase the moon was in, and couldn’t.

  Albert had rescued the Beobachter from the floor between them. ‘Why do you read this rubbish?’ he asked, scanning the front page.

  ‘To know what they’re doing,’ Russell said.

  Albert grunted disapproval.

  ‘Which reminds me,’ Russell went on. ‘There’s a piece in there about the crisis in Ruthenia…’

  ‘Ruthenia? Where’s that?’

  ‘It’s part of Czechoslovakia. Look, you need to know this stuff. Czechoslovakia is more than Czechs and Slovaks. There’s Moravians and Hungarians and God knows who else. And Ruthenians. The Germans are encouraging all these groups to rebel against the Czechoslovak government, in the hope that they’ll provoke a major crackdown. Once that happens, they’ll march in themselves, saying that they’re the only ones who can restore order and protect these poor victimised minorities.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And the Czech government has started taking action against the Ruthenians. Read the piece. See how pleased the Germans are. “This is not the sort of behaviour that any government could tolerate in a neighbouring state, etc” – you can practically see them rubbing their hands with glee. They’re preparing the ground. So keep an eye on the news. Don’t hang around in Prague any longer than you have to, or you’ll find Hitler’s caught up with you.’

  ‘I have the names of people in Prague,’ Albert insisted. ‘They will tell me.’

  ‘Good. But remember Kristallnacht – and what a surprise that was, even after five years of persecution. If I were you, I’d head for Hungary as soon as I could. Once you’re there you can work out the best way to England.’

  ‘I don’t think I will be going to England. My plan is to go to Palestine.’

  ‘Oh,’ Russell said, taken by surprise. ‘Does your mother know?’

  ‘Of course. I am a man now. I must do what is best for the whole family. When I get work and somewhere to live, I can send for them.’

  ‘Immigration is restricted.’

  ‘I know that. But we will find a way.’

  ‘If there’s a war, they’ll stop it altogether.’

  ‘Then we will wait.’

  They were entering Kottbus now, and Russell concentrated on not drawing attention to his driving. But the market town seemed caught in its afternoon nap, and they were soon back in open country. A few kilometres more, and they passed under the Silesian autobahn. Their road grew suddenly busier, and a sign announced that they were 93 kilometres from Görlitz.

  It was not yet three o’clock. At this rate they would arrive far too early. They needed one of those stopping places with a view which the Germans loved so much.

  The Germans, Russell repeated to himself. After fifteen years of living there, of feeling a little more German each year, the process seemed to have slipped into reverse. Lately, he seemed to be feeling a little less German each day. But not more English. So what did that make him?

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Albert asked him.

  Russell just shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘The reason I ask – a year ago, before Kristallnacht, I used to wonder how people could be so cruel, but I never questioned why someone was kind. Now it’s the opposite. I can see all sorts of reasons why people are cruel, but kindness is becoming a mystery.’

  He was six years older than Paul, Russell thought. Just six years. He tried to think of an adequate answer to Albert’s question.

  ‘Whatever the reason, I thank you anyway,’ Albert said. ‘My family thanks you.’

  ‘I think there are many reasons,’ Russell said. ‘Some good, some not so good. Some I don’t understand myself. I like your family. Maybe it’s as simple as that.’ And maybe, he thought, any half-decent family in the Wiesners’ situation would have been enough to push him off his fence.

  The phrase ‘I used to be a good journalist,’ passed through his mind, leaving him wondering where it had come from. This had nothing to do with journalism. He thought about McKinley’s papers, uselessly hidden in the poste restante, and came, with a sudden lift of the heart, to a realisation so obvious that he couldn’t believe he had missed it. If he was going to risk his life and liberty for a few military secrets, then why not take out McKinley’s papers as well? He had only one head to cut off.

  The road was climbing now, and the sky was almost cloudless. Around ten kilometres from Görlitz Russell found the stopping place he had been looking for, a wide gravelled ledge overlooking a pretty river. Eager to stretch, they both got out, and Russell ran through the arranged script for the Görlitz buffet. ‘Once you are in Prague, the first thing you must do – the first thing – is to telephone me. Your mother won’t leave Germany until she knows you’re safe.’

  ‘You haven’t given me the number,’ Albert said sensibly.

  Russell made him repeat it several times, wondering as he did so how long the boy would resist a Gestapo interrogation.

  Albert seemed to know what he was thinking. ‘I won’t give you up,’ he said simply.

  ‘None of us know what we’ll do in a situation like that.’

  ‘I won’t get into a situation like that,’ Albert said, pulling a grubby-looking Luger from his coat pocket.

  Oh shit, Russell thought, glancing left and right in search of approaching traffic and barking: ‘Put it away!’ The road was blissfully empty. ‘That’s…’ he started to say, and stopped himself. What right did he have to give the boy advice? Albert had been in Sachsenhausen o
nce, and his father had died there. It wasn’t hard to see why going out in a blaze of gunfire seemed preferable to going back.

  He breathed out slowly. ‘You have to leave the coat with me,’ he said. ‘Won’t the gun be obvious in your jacket pocket?’

  ‘I’ll put it in my belt,’ Albert said, and did so. He then took the coat off and offered Russell a 360° turn, like a model at a fashion show. The gun didn’t show.

  Back in the car, Albert pulled a workingmen’s cap from a pocket of the discarded coat, and Russell reached into the KaDeWe bag for the blue scarf. ‘The recognition signal,’ he explained, and Albert wrapped it around his neck, reminding Russell of Paul on a skating trip.

  They drove on, the sky a deepening blue as dusk approached, the mountains slowly creeping above the southern horizon. As they reached the outskirts of Görlitz it occurred to Russell that anyone with a brain would have studied a plan of the town – the last thing he wanted to do was ask directions to the station. Go to the town centre and look for signs, he told himself. The Germans were good at signs.

  He picked up some tram tracks and followed them in what seemed the obvious direction. After passing several large industrial concerns, the road narrowed through a handsome arch and arrived in a wide street full of old buildings. There were theatres, statues, a large water fountain – in any other circumstances, Görlitz would be worth an afternoon stroll.

  ‘There!’ Albert said, indicating a sign to the station.

  They drove down a long straight street, towards what looked like a station. It was. The station building was about a hundred metres long, the entrance to the booking hall right in the centre. There were lighted windows to the left of this entrance, and steam billowing out of two large vents.

  Russell pulled the car to a halt behind a Reichsbahn parcels lorry. ‘The buffet,’ he said, pointing it out. ‘There’ll be an entrance from the booking hall.’

  It was ten to five.

  Albert just sat there for a few seconds, then turned to shake Russell’s hand. The boy looked nervous now, Russell thought. ‘Safe journey,’ he said.