Lehrter Station

by David Downing

  That, she realised, could explain why Geruschke had let Russell go. The Americans needed them both, so first they saved Russell from Geruschke, and now Geruschke from Russell and her.

  How crazy was that?

  * * *

  The party reached the transit camp at Pontebba early on Tuesday evening. Since reaching the road on the Italian side of the border, they had endured a day of seemingly interminable waits, first for the lorry, and then for the various Italian authorities to decide on what bribes they were willing to accept. The British had been conspicuous by their absence, but that hadn’t felt surprising – even up here in the northern foothills, Italy seemed far removed from the war and its hangover, from the bleakness afflicting so much of northern Europe.

  It was partly the relative warmth, Russell thought, as he stiffly climbed down from the back of the lorry. It was the first time in a week that he hadn’t felt really cold.

  The Pontebba site had hosted a munitions dump before the Jewish Brigade arrived, and now that both were gone it look like a half-abandoned POW camp, a few dusty barracks in a sea of discarded packing. Russell headed straight for the office to enquire after Otto Pappenheim.

  ‘He’s here,’ the Haganah representative confirmed, once Russell had explained why he wanted him. ‘But he and a few of the others have driven down to Resiutta – there’s a cinema there. And girls.’

  Russell walked across to the group’s designated barracks and left his suitcase on an empty cot. The room was full of excited chatter – his Jewish companions might still be a long way from their Palestine, but reaching Pontebba obviously felt like a huge step in the right direction.

  He went in search of something to eat, and ended up sharing a table with two young men from Breslau. They were happy to describe their escape from Poland – a meet at the abandoned farmhouse, the walk across the mountain border, a long train journey through Czechoslovakia. But what had impressed them most was the warmth of their reception in the small Czech town of Náchod, where two local Jews had created a place of refuge for those heading south and west. This was brave but not surprising – what astonished Russell’s companions was the whole-hearted involvement of the town’s non-Jews. Náchod, almost alone in Europe, seemed eager to lend a helping hand.

  Listening to the two young Zionists, Russell knew he would have to visit the town. Not on this trip perhaps, but soon. Both Poles and Czechs had treated their new German citizens appallingly in the immediate aftermath of the war – like Nazis, as one sad American journalist had told him in London – and if one Czech town was doing well by the Jews it deserved both praise and publicity. In post-war Europe kindness was a story in itself.

  He returned to his bunk intent on waiting for Otto, but thirty-six hours without sleep had taken their toll. The next thing he knew a hand was gently shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes to morning sunlight and someone standing above him.

  ‘You wanted to speak to me,’ a male voice said. ‘I’m leaving in half an hour so I thought you’d want me to wake you.’

  ‘You must be Otto Pappenheim,’ Russell said. He levered himself off the bunk and offered his hand. This Otto was a tall young man in his twenties, with bushy black hair and a friendly smile. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Palestine, I hope.’

  ‘Thanks for waking me,’ Russell said. Looking around, he saw that many others were still asleep. ‘We’d better talk outside.’

  It was a lovely morning, the sun dousing the distant hills in an almost golden glow. A large bird of prey was drawing circles above the camp, presumably hoping for breakfast. Otto lit a cigarette as Russell launched into his now familiar spiel.

  Otto shook his head. ‘I have no children,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been married,’ he added, in apparent explanation.

  ‘Are you sure? I don’t mean to question your honesty, but you’re a good-looking boy…’

  Otto gave him a self-deprecating smile.

  ‘You didn’t know a girl, a woman, named Ursel? In the summer of 1937?’

  ‘I had my first real girlfriend in 1938, and she threw me over for a goy. I was only sixteen in the summer of 1937.’

  ‘Okay,’ Russell said. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Pappenheim is not an unusual name,’ Otto remarked, grinding his cigarette out in the dust.

  ‘So I’ve discovered,’ Russell agreed. ‘You’re our third Otto.’

  ‘Well, good luck with the fourth.’

  ‘And to you,’ Russell replied. Watching the young man walk away, he wondered whether Shanghai Otto would prove to be the one. With any luck Shchepkin would have some news the next time he saw him. Whenever that was. He wondered how long an absence from Berlin the Soviets would tolerate.

  With no little effort, he worked out what day it was – Saturday the 15th of December. What should he do? If he continued on with the group, he might end up hanging around some South Italian port for weeks on end. Sailing on to Palestine – or a British internment camp on Cyprus – would certainly round off the story, but could he spare the time? And he had the gist – the journey and how it was organised, the people and why they were taking it.

  The Soviets might or might not be pining for him, but he was certainly missing Effi. If he started back now he should reach Berlin by the end of the week, in plenty of time for Christmas.

  Always assuming he could find some sort of transport. He doubted whether any trains or buses were running into Austria, at least along the road they’d travelled. There might be flights north from Venice or Trieste, but it would be a long journey south to find out. Hitching a lift seemed the best bet. A lorry most probably, though a private car would be nicer.

  A car like the one moving northwards along the road that skirted the camp. He thought of waving to attract the driver’s attention, but knew he was too far away. And then the need disappeared – as if in response to his silent entreaty, the car turned in through the open gates and drove up to the barracks containing the office.

  The young man who got out seemed familiar, but Russell was still trying to work out why when the man caught sight of him. ‘Herr Russell!’ he exclaimed with what sounded like pleasure, and walked across to meet him.

  It was Albert Wiesner.

  Russell should have been surprised, but he wasn’t, not really. In these circumstances, running across Albert was not such a great coincidence – there couldn’t be many young Palestinian men better versed in the whys and wherefores of fleeing a hostile Europe.

  Almost seven years earlier, in March 1939, Russell had helped smuggle the seventeen-year-old Albert out of Germany. Originally employed by Albert’s doctor father to teach English to his daughters Ruth and Marthe, Russell had quickly become a friend of the family, and when Frau Wiesner had begged him to talk to her son – whose angry outbursts were putting them all in jeopardy – he had reluctantly agreed. Albert was certainly prickly, but few of Berlin’s Jews were brimming with good humour in March 1939. At their meeting in Friedrichshain Park, Albert had calmly predicted the death camps. ‘Who’s going to stop them?’ was the question he’d posed to Russell.

  Then his father Felix Wiesner had been beaten to death in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and Albert had gone into hiding after braining a Gestapo officer with a table lamp. As part of a convoluted deal with British and Soviet intelligence, Russell had managed to arrange the boy’s escape to Czechoslovakia and the rest of the family’s emigration to England. Albert had gone on to Palestine, and had been there ever since.

  He was now in his mid-twenties. He looked bigger and healthier than Russell remembered, with shorter hair, a permanent tan and the same intelligent eyes. ‘It’s good to see you,’ Albert said. ‘The last time Marthe wrote to me, she said you’d all had dinner together in London.’

  ‘In early November,’ Russell confirmed. It seemed months ago. He explained his and Effi’s return to Berlin as best he could, given the need not to mention spying.

  ‘So what are you doing here?’ Albert asked.r />
  ‘Telling these people’s story. Someone thought I’d be a sympathetic witness.’

  ‘And are you?’ Albert asked with a disarming smile.

  ‘How could I not be?’ Russell replied in kind. ‘But what are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m a sheliakh. You know what that is?’

  ‘An emissary.’

  ‘Yes. I’m here to find out how things are going – the camps, the transport, all the arrangements. There’s more trouble in Poland, and that means more people we have to move. So I’m travelling back up the chain, checking that everything’s working smoothly.’

  ‘Do you feel like company?’

  ‘I thought you were travelling south.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I have all I need at this end – I’m much more interested in the early stages of the journey. There’s a place called Náchod – are you going there?’

  ‘Ah, Náchod.’

  ‘Do you remember, in the car on the way to Görlitz, you said that cruelty was easy to understand but that kindness was becoming a mystery?

  ‘Did I really say that?’

  ‘You did. I was impressed.’

  Albert shook his head. ‘How wise I was at seventeen!’

  * * *

  On Saturday evening, Effi asked Thomas to accompany her to the Honey Trap. ‘If I go on my own I’ll spend the whole evening fending off drunken Russians – they won’t care that I’m almost forty. And you need a break,’ she insisted.

  He told her he spent his weeks watching Russians behaving badly, and doing so at weekends hardly constituted a break.

  ‘But you’ll come anyway?’

  ‘All right. But only because Frau Niebel has invited friends over for dinner.’

  The latter were arriving as they left, two women who stared at them with almost indecent interest. Frau Niebel must have been gossiping overtime.

  On their walk to the bus Effi asked Thomas exactly how badly the Russians were behaving at the Schade print works.

  ‘Oh, no worse than anywhere else. They’ve brought in extra presses for the school books, but no one will tell me whether I’m expected to pay for their hire. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whose business it is – I sometimes think it would make more sense if they confiscated it, and then hired me to run things. I know it’s Lotte’s inheritance, but…’

  His voice trailed off, and Effi knew he was thinking about his son, who should have inherited the works, but had died in far-off Ukraine.

  They didn’t have long to wait for a bus, and there were even seats to spare. Across the aisle a woman was sitting beside a pile of Christmas shopping. Where she’d found gifts worth giving, let alone the beautiful paper and ribbons, was something of a mystery, and half the passengers were staring at her with the same perplexed expression.

  ‘Are you going to Hanna’s family for Christmas?’ Effi asked Thomas.

  ‘I’m negotiating with the Russians. They think the works should only close for Christmas Day, and they don’t believe anyone else is capable of running things if I’m away. But there are several who could – I just have to convince them.’

  ‘You must miss Hanna terribly.’

  ‘Of course.’ He paused. ‘It sounds ridiculous, I know, but when we’re together there seems more of a point to life. To all of it, I mean. Eating, sleeping, anything.’ He looked at her. ‘You had more than three years apart.’

  ‘We did. It was different, though. Or for me it was. The life I was used to just vanished, and normal feelings seemed almost beside the point. And then of course there was Ali – once we joined forces I was never alone.’

  The tram was on the Ku’damm by this time, the sidewalks full of Germans scurrying home and soldiers in search of excitement. The Honey Trap was already doing good business, but tables were still to be had. A six-piece band were pumping out American boogie music, and two GIs were teaching their German partners to jitterbug on the small dance floor, while a group of British soldiers offered loud disparaging comments. Most of those drinking at the tables and bar were Anglo-German couples, with the girls even younger than Effi remembered. There were, as yet, very few Russians.

  After buying two beers, Thomas surveyed the scene with obvious disapproval.

  ‘We don’t have to stay long,’ Effi said, looking at her watch. ‘Irma should be here in ten minutes, and she’ll be singing not long after.’

  ‘I want to hear her,’ Thomas said. ‘And don’t mind me, I’m just getting more conservative in my old age.’ He grimaced. ‘I’m afraid I look at all these young women…’ He hesitated. ‘I was going to say – this could have been my Lotte. But it’s more than that. First we have the rapes – 80,000 of them, someone told me the other day – and now we have half the women in the city prostituting themselves. For the best of reasons, I understand that. But still. What will the outcome be? What is it doing to us all – to the women themselves, to the men in their lives? And it’s not just sex – everything seems for sale. Everything has a price, and only a price.’ He saw the look on Effi’s face. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll shut up. Next thing you know I’ll be feeling nostalgic for Hitler.’

  ‘No,’ Effi said. ‘I know what you mean, but… who was it said you can still see the stars from the gutter?’

  ‘It wasn’t Goebbels, was it?’

  Effi laughed, and caught sight of Irma slinking her way through the tables towards them.

  The singer ordered them all complimentary drinks, and recounted a long talk she’d had the previous day with a visiting American film producer. ‘They’re worried that the Russians are making all the running,’ she reported, ‘and next year they’re going to start making films here themselves. American money and German talent. He mentioned a couple of ideas for musicals, and said I’d be ideal. He was probably trying to get into my knickers, but that’s okay. I told him to look me up again when he had a contract for me to sign. He wasn’t bad looking. And neither is your friend,’ she added, once Thomas had gone off to the toilet.

  ‘He’s married,’ Effi told her. ‘And he loves his wife,’ she added in response to the raised eyebrow.

  ‘No harm in asking,’ Irma murmured.

  ‘None at all.’

  When Thomas came back she took her leave, and ten minutes later was up on stage, going through the familiar repertoire. As before, she finished with ‘Berlin Will Rise Again’, and Effi noticed a glint of tears in Thomas’s eyes.

  ‘I’ll just use the bathroom before we go,’ she told him when the performance was over, and worked her way through to the back of the club. Noticing Irma through the open door of her dressing room, Effi was just leaning in to say goodbye when a familiar voice sounded just down the passage. She stepped quickly over the threshold and pulled the door to.

  ‘Oh it’s you,’ Irma said looking up.

  ‘Shhh,’ Effi told her, opening a narrow gap between door and jamb, and pressing one eye up against it. The youth from the canal basin rendezvous was standing outside another doorway, apparently waiting for someone to come out. He looked even younger than he had in the dark, and she noticed a long thin scar on the left side of his neck.

  He turned to go, and the other man – the Gestapo thug from the station platform – emerged through the doorway. She had a fleeting glimpse of his face as he turned away, and followed his young partner out towards the back door. There had to be somewhere for parking, she realised – Geruschke didn’t seem like a man who took buses.

  She pushed the door shut.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Irma asked.

  ‘Just someone I didn’t want to see again.’

  ‘A fan?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  Irma worked it out. ‘One of Geruschke’s goons?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t mess with him, Effi. He’d cut out his grandmother’s heart and sell it for dog food.’

  ‘Why do you work for the bastard?’ Effi felt compelled to ask.

  Irma gave her a sharp look. ‘Same reason we both worked
for Goebbels. Sometimes there’s only one show in town.’

  * * *

  Albert’s business with the Haganah people at Pontebba had used up most of Saturday, and persuading a local garage to supply him with a full tank of petrol took care of the rest. He had purchased the car, a black Lancia Augusta, from the widow of a long-vanished Fascist mayor in the Po valley, and was delivering it to a Haganah base outside Salzburg. According to the widow her husband had rarely used the car in peacetime, and had kept it locked in its garage throughout the war. Motoring smoothly up towards the frontier on that Sunday morning, it seemed eager to make up for lost miles.

  As they neared the frontier Russell kept a lookout for Hirth’s son, but saw no sign of the boy. The descending path from the guardhouse had indeed been easy to follow, and he hoped that hunger would eventually drive the boy down.

  There were no problems at the border – Albert’s papers were exquisite forgeries – and none at the subsequent checkpoints. They stopped for lunch at the Villach transit house, which had just received another shipment of orphans. They would be going south in the next few days, Lidovsky told Russell. And no, he added without being asked, there had been no sightings of the Hauptsturmführer’s son. He felt it too, Russell thought. They had let themselves down.

  Soon after one o’clock they set off again. Albert was eager for news of his mother and sisters. ‘I can’t believe I haven’t seen them for so many years,’ he said. Did Russell think they would eventually come to Palestine? ‘I live on a kibbutz, but I can find them a flat in Tel Aviv.’

  Russell told the truth as far as he knew it, that his mother was torn, that the girls were happy in England, at least for the moment. ‘Of course, if you do get your state….’

  ‘We will.’

  ‘You’re that certain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have a journalist friend who agrees with you. He says the Zionists have the two things that matter – sympathy and money.’

  Albert smiled at that. ‘He’s right.’

  ‘The Arabs won’t give up their home without a fight.’

  ‘No, I’m sure they won’t. But they will lose.’