Lehrter Station jr-5

by David Downing

  Another two hours and he had fifteen hundred words for Solly to sell. It was just like the old days, he thought — him at a typewriter, Effi out on set. He walked to Kronprinzenallee for a third time, and left the finished article for Dallin to forward. With any luck it might reach London before Christmas.

  He hadn’t been home long when the Soviet bus dropped Effi off. In the old days they would have walked down to one of their favourite restaurants on the Ku’damm, window-shopping on the way. Now they had to settle for Thomas’s favourite communal canteen, with only ruins to inspect. So many buildings had been hollowed out, their walls left scorched but standing, their blown-out windows like eyeless sockets.

  Effi had enjoyed her day’s work, but it was hard to stay cheerful in such surroundings.

  Russell asked if she knew how long the filming would take.

  ‘Four weeks is what they’re saying, but I can’t see it — it takes half the day to pick everyone up.’

  ‘Oh for the days of the studio limo.’

  ‘It had its uses. And anyway, four weeks will take us up to Christmas. I was hoping to spend that with Rosa.’

  ‘Has she ever celebrated Christmas?’

  ‘I don’t know. Now you mention it, I don’t suppose she has.’

  ‘So will you go back in January?’ Russell asked.

  She gave him a look. ‘For a few days at least. I wish we both could. Do spies get holidays?’

  ‘Who knows? Sometimes I feel like telling them all to do their worst. They might agree to let me go.’

  ‘They might not. And I’d rather be visiting Rosa in London than you in prison. Or putting flowers on your grave.’

  Thursday morning, Russell was back in the Soviet zone, hoping to see the last two comrades before his meeting with Shchepkin the following day. Leissner’s office was at Silesian Station, but the man himself was in Dresden, dealing with some undefined railway emergency, and wouldn’t be back until the weekend. Manfred Haferkamp, the only man on his list without an administrative job, was at his desk in the newspaper office, but too busy to see Russell before the afternoon.

  It was a reasonable morning for December, bright but not too chilly, and after scrounging a coffee in the office canteen Russell walked on up Neue Konigstrasse towards Friedrichshain, checking the various notice boards for any mention of Otto or Miriam. He came across several of Effi’s messages, but no one had added anything useful.

  He walked past several ‘antique stores’ selling salvage from bombedout apartments. A couple of trackless tank hulks faced each other across the next junction, and a group of Soviet soldiers were taking turns having their picture taken in front of one, arm in arm with a young German woman. She was either enjoying herself or putting on a good act. On the other side of the street two white-haired German men were staring stony-faced at the changing tableaux, almost pulsing with repressed rage.

  Realising Isendahl’s flat was nearby, Russell decided on a visit. He doubted he’d find anyone better informed when it came to the local Jews and communists, and a journalist should cultivate his sources.

  Isendahl had obviously been writing — a cigarette was burning in the ashtray by the typewriter — but seemed pleased to be interrupted. ‘I tried to call you,’ was the first thing he said after bringing Russell in. ‘Is your telephone out of order?’

  ‘It comes and goes.’

  ‘Well there’s someone to meet you.’

  ‘Hersch? He came round a couple of evenings ago.’

  Isendahl picked up his cigarette. ‘No, not Hersch. You remember the group I told you about — the Nokmim?’

  ‘Who could forget?’

  ‘There are two of them in Berlin. And they’d like to talk to an American journalist.’

  ‘It seems to be catching,’ Russell said wryly.

  Isendahl smiled. ‘It’s a propaganda war for the Jewish soul. Revenge, Palestine or the good life in America.’

  ‘I know which I’d choose.’

  ‘You’re not Jewish.’

  ‘True. You didn’t include remaining in Berlin on your list of options.’

  ‘No. A few may stay, but…’ He shook his head. ‘Would you?’

  ‘Probably not, but Berlin will be the poorer.’

  ‘Without doubt.’

  Something suddenly occurred to Russell. ‘Why are the Nokmim here? Are they planning some spectacular act of vengeance?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask them that. If you want to meet them, that is.’

  Russell knew an ethical minefield when he saw one, but it was too good an opportunity to turn down. ‘I do,’ he told Isendahl.

  ‘There’ll be restrictions, of course. This has to be a secret meeting — they don’t want the authorities to know they’re here in Berlin.’

  ‘Of course,’ Russell agreed. It would, he realised, depend on what they intended. If the Nokmim told him they had plans to execute some deserving Nazi, then he could probably live with keeping it off the record. But if they outlined plans to poison the city’s water supply, then they could hardly expect him to hold his tongue. Anything in between, he would play it by ear. ‘When do they want to meet?’

  Tonight’s a possibility.’

  ‘They’re not far away then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where do they want to meet?’

  Isendahl shrugged. ‘Here?’

  ‘Suits me.’ He gave Isendahl a quizzical look. ‘You haven’t made up your mind about these people, have you?’

  ‘No. At first I thought they were crazy, but I’m not so sure any more. Or maybe their craziness just seems more appropriate than other people’s sanity.’

  Russell looked at him. ‘How about you? Have you ruled out any of the options on your list?’

  ‘Not really. I’m beginning to think certainty died with the Nazis.’

  Manfred Haferkamp would not have agreed. He looked younger than his thirty-five years, which spoke well of his constitution after spending the last seven in Soviet and Nazi prison camps. He had light brown hair and bright blue eyes, and an air of absolute certainty that Lenin’s buddies would have found familiar.

  The other interviewees had all mentally poked and prodded at Russell’s cover story, but Haferkamp just took it for granted that the world would be interested in what he was thinking. Russell had tried and failed to find some innocent means of introducing the subject of Stalin’s betrayal — the handing over to Hitler in 1941 of some fifty KPD victims of the Great Purges, Haferkamp included — but he needn’t have bothered. The German brought it up himself, and the ironic nature of the disclosure failed to conceal the residual bitterness.

  He was nothing if not consistent in his view of the Soviets. The task of German communists was the same as it always had been — to mount a real revolution and build a communist Germany. And who was standing in their way? Their supposed allies. The Soviets wanted the Party in charge but no real change; what was needed was the people in charge and a real transformation. The Anti-Fascist committees which had sprung up all over Germany were communist-inclined and truly popular, which was why the Soviets were trying to squash them.

  Russell played devil’s advocate — surely no one expected the Soviets to grant the KPD free rein, or not this soon at any rate? Not after the Germans had killed twenty million Soviet citizens.

  ‘I don’t expect them to ever do so of their own accord,’ was Haferkamp’s reply. ‘We have a real fight on our hands.’

  ‘Do other comrades share this view?’

  ‘Most of them, I’d say.’

  ‘And the leadership?’

  Haferkamp made a disdainful noise. ‘The ones who came back from Moscow are just stooges.’

  ‘All right, but they still have to counter your arguments. And haven’t they said that they support a German road to socialism?’

  ‘They give it lip service, nothing more. And they don’t counter our arguments, or not in any constructive sense. They just throw insults about. The last piece I wrote, they accus
ed me of “left-wing infantilism”. There was no discussion of the real issues.’

  Russell noted with relief that Haferkamp had already aired his views in public. His report wouldn’t tell the NKVD anything they didn’t already know.

  He asked if there was any chance of a home-grown challenge to the KPD’s current pro-Soviet leadership.

  ‘It’s bound to happen eventually. These people have been away too long. Listen, this is the German Communist Party, not some provincial branch of the CPSU. We fought against Hitler and, if we have to, we’ll fight against Stalin.’

  Russell couldn’t resist one more question. ‘A statement like that would get you arrested in Moscow. Aren’t you worried that the same will happen here?’

  Haferkamp’s blue eyes were cold and determined. ‘I’ve spent half my life in prison or exile. I’m not afraid of either.’

  Russell thanked him for his time, and walked out into the night. He couldn’t fault the sense of anything Haferkamp had said, but he still hadn’t liked him. The man might be sincere in his political convictions, but they weren’t what drove him on. He might have been a good comrade once, but the Nazis and Soviets had taken their toll, and his heart was running on empty.

  He was also backing the losing side. Russell wondered what an old communist like Brecht would find to admire in the current KPD leadership. Maybe nothing. It would explain why he hadn’t come back from America.

  It was still only five — he had two hours to kill before his meeting with Isendahl’s ‘Jewish Avengers’. The name made him smile, which was probably not the effect they were hoping for.

  He found a small bar behind the wreckage of the old Reich Statistical Office — the pre-war press corps had called it Fiction Central — and exchanged a pack of cigarettes for a glass of alleged bourbon. The only other customers were two Red Army soldiers, and they were engrossed in a game of chess. The barman disappeared out back in response to a woman’s summons, leaving Russell to idly skim through the Soviet-sponsored Tagliche Rundschau that someone had left on the bar. It was full of poems and short stories, and almost devoid of politics. A reader from Mars might reasonably conclude that sponsoring the arts was the Russians’ main reason for being in Berlin.

  Well, no one could make that mistake with the British or Americans.

  Two ‘bourbons’ and two excellent short stories later, he was ready for the Nokmim.

  When he reached Isendahl’s building, the man himself was standing in the doorway, smoking a cigarette. ‘We’re meeting in a cafe,’ he announced, crushing the stub under his foot. ‘It’s not far.’

  It was three streets away, in the candlelit basement of a bombed-out house, and felt more like somebody’s kitchen than a commercial establishment. There were two Nokmim waiting for them, and rather to Russell’s surprise one was a young woman. She seemed to have blonde hair — it was hard to be sure in the gloom — and probably blue eyes too. Her companion, a man of similar age, had a mass of frizzy hair which stuck out at the sides, and gave him the look of a wind-blown cedar. His piercing stare reminded Russell — somewhat inappropriately — of the happily departed Fuhrer.

  Isendahl introduced them — the man’s name was Yeichel, the woman’s Cesia — and then sat off to one side, rather in the manner of an umpire.

  ‘What would you like to tell me?’ Russell asked the two of them.

  ‘You ask the questions,’ Yeichel said. ‘Isn’t that how it works?’

  ‘Okay. Tell me about the Nokmim? Who are you? What are your aims?’

  Yeichel man smiled for the first time, and it lit up his face. ‘Do you know Psalm 94?’ he asked.

  ‘Not that I remember.’

  ‘He will repay them for their iniquity, and wipe them out for their wickedness; the Lord our God will wipe them out.’

  ‘The Nazis, I assume. So if God has them in his sights, where do you come in? Are you God’s instruments?

  ‘Not at all. If there is a God, he has clearly abandoned the Jews. We will do the work that he should have done.’

  ‘And wipe out the Nazis.’

  ‘That is the intention.’

  Cesia seemed about to add something, but apparently thought better of the idea.

  ‘Have many of you are there?’ Russell asked.

  ‘A hundred or so. Perhaps more by now.’

  ‘And you have a leader?’

  ‘Our leader’s name is Abba Kovner. He is from Vilna. He was the leader of the ghetto uprising there, and the commander of the partisan army in Rudnicki Forest.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘We cannot tell you that.’

  ‘And the rest of the group?’

  ‘All across Europe. Wherever Nazis or their friends can be found.’

  ‘And you plan to wipe them out?’

  ‘We plan to kill as many as possible.’

  Russell found himself imagining an army of 19th-century Russian anarchists carrying out coordinated bombings. ‘How?’ he asked.

  ‘However we can.’ Yeichel made a face. ‘And when we strike, you will have the answer to your question.’

  Russell paused to marshal his thoughts. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked. The answer seemed obvious, but he wanted to hear it from them.

  ‘The world must know who was responsible, and why.’

  ‘You want me to explain your actions after the event. Like a spokesman. But I can’t promise to dress it up the way you want me to. I understand your desire for vengeance, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. Some might accuse you of acting like Nazis.’

  ‘So we should turn the other cheek?’ Cesia asked, speaking for the first time. ‘We are not Christians,’ she added contemptuously.

  ‘No,’ Russell agreed.

  ‘Look around this city,’ Yeichel said calmly. ‘Everywhere you turn, there are Nazis resuming their old lives as if nothing had happened. No one is going to punish them.’

  ‘We are living in the ruins of their capital.’

  ‘Oh, the Germans have been punished for invading other countries. But not for what they did to us. Read the reports from Nuremberg — the Jews are hardly mentioned.’

  ‘We are the lucky ones,’ Cesia said bitterly. ‘We survived when millions didn’t, and we owe them a debt. One day we will have homes and families and jobs again, but our war will not be over until that debt is paid. Until then we belong to the dead.’

  ‘And when do you think that might be?’

  ‘Soon,’ Yeichel told him. ‘We have a homeland to build in Palestine, so our business here cannot take long.’

  Russell could think of other questions, but he wanted away from the two of them, from her burning resentment and his chilling self-righteousness. Haferkamp would have fitted right in.

  Three corroded souls.

  Interview over, he and Isendahl walked back down to Neue Konigstrasse. ‘What do you think they’re planning?’ Russell asked his companion, not really expecting an answer.

  ‘I don’t know. But… I have a Jewish friend — this is off the record, all right?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘This friend is also in a group — they call themselves the Ghosts of Treblinka. Or just the Ghosts. And they look for ex-Nazis. Not the sort who just joined the Party out of greed or fear, but men who killed Jews, or sought profit from their deaths. Men they could turn over to the Occupation authorities with a reasonable expectation of punishment.’

  ‘Sounds admirable.’

  ‘But they don’t turn them over,’ Isendahl continued. ‘They dress up as British soldiers, tell these men they’re arresting them, and then drive them out into the countryside. When they reach their destination, they tell the Nazi that they’re Jews, and execute him.’

  ‘Ah.’ Russell found himself wondering whether the Ghosts made use of Kyritz Wood. ‘You think the Nokmim are planning something similar?’

  ‘No. I told Cesia about these people, and she hated what they were doing. She said they were treating the Nazis as individual
s, which was not how the Nazis had treated the Jews. She said the Nazis should be killed the way the Jews were killed. Anonymously, impersonally. On an industrial scale.’

  ‘Of course,’ Russell murmured. ‘Gas?’ he wondered out loud. ‘Poison in the water? But where would they find that many Nazis?’

  ‘In a prison camp.’

  ‘Did they tell you that?’

  ‘No, it just seems logical.’

  It did. And almost just. Almost. ‘And you’re happy to let them get on with it?’

  ‘Happy overstates it,’ Isendahl admitted, ‘but then again, I’m not in the business of rescuing Nazis. Are you?’

  It was a fair enough question. And the answer, Russell realised, was no.

  Effi was already asleep by the time he got home, and already gone when he woke in the morning. In the old days he would have made his leisurely way down to Kranzler’s on Unter den Linden, read the papers, sipped his way through at least one cup of excellent coffee, and basked in the life of a freelance journalist in Europe’s most exciting city. But that was then — he was, he realised, dwelling more in the past than was healthy. Maybe ruins encouraged nostalgia.

  He was not looking forward to meeting Shchepkin, and realised that was unusual. Asking himself why, he decided that he’d always seen himself as a self-employed, independent sort of spy. A permanent place on Stalin’s payroll evoked very different feelings.

  The sun was shining as he emerged from the Potsdamerplatz U-Bahn station, but the chill in the air was appreciably sharper than on the previous day. The home of Europe’s first traffic lights was still a wreck, but several reconstruction gangs were at work behind the shattered facades of the perimeter, the dust from their efforts hanging red in the bright blue sky.

  Russell walked up the old Hermann-Goring-Strasse and into the Tiergarten. The open-air market seemed as popular as ever, and would doubtless remain so until the occupation authorities created the conditions for something more legal. As he arrived, he noticed two women proudly bearing away a precious square of glass. Berliners were only allowed to glaze one room per dwelling, but people were travelling out into the country, removing windows from their own or others’ cottages, and bringing them back to the city to sell.