David Downing - Lehrter Station

‘So I have to go back,’ he concluded.

‘Have to?’ Paul asked quietly. ‘Couldn’t you — you and Effi and Rosa, at least — move out of their reach? America. Australia even. It’s not as if anything’s holding you here in England.’

Russell shook his head. ‘I doubt there’s anywhere on earth beyond the reach of the NKVD. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for them to turn up.’

‘Neither do I,’ Effi said. ‘I’m going back too.’

‘Why?’ Zarah asked. ‘I mean apart from wanting to be with John?’

‘I’ve been offered a movie as well.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a coincidence,’ Paul said.

‘It isn’t. The Soviets have fixed it up somehow, but the film is being made by Germans, and I know a lot of the people involved. My problem is whether or not to take Rosa. I mean, there’d obviously be practical difficulties — I’ll be on set most of the day, and God knows what our living conditions will be like. But even if most of that could be sorted out, I’d still be taking her out of school, and back to a place full of terrible memories. And if I am going to find out what happened to her father, I’ll need to visit every Jewish refugee centre I can. Which would mean taking her from one dreadful place to another, raising and dashing her hopes over and over again.’

‘You sound like you’ve already made up your mind,’ Zarah said.

‘Perhaps, but I’m ready to be told I’m wrong. What do you think, Paul?’

‘I think she should stay here. As long as Zarah’s happy with that. I’ll do all I can, of course, but unless I give up my job most of the burden will fall on Zarah.’

‘It’s no burden,’ Zarah insisted. ‘If I had to I could manage on my own, and if Paul’s here as well… But I do think you should talk to Rosa,’ she told Effi. ‘Just in case. She’ll be upset, of course, but as long as you make it clear that it’s only for a few weeks, I think she’ll take it in her stride. If I’m wrong, and she gets hysterical, then perhaps you should think again.’

‘I will.’

‘And while you’re there,’ Zarah went on, addressing both of them, ‘can you try and find out what happened to Jens? I think he must be dead, but… well, I can live with the uncertainty, but Lothar… I think he needs to know what happened.’

‘What if he’s alive and we find him?’ Russell asked her.

‘Tell him… oh, I don’t know what to say. I don’t want him back, but Lothar does miss him, and we’ll be all going back eventually, won’t we?’

‘Probably,’ Russell said. It seemed the likeliest option.

‘Then if you see him, tell him Lothar and I are alive, and that when we come back Lothar will want to see him.’

‘Okay.’

‘But I think he’s dead,’ Zarah insisted.

‘If he isn’t, he’s probably in prison,’ Russell said.

‘Yes, of course. Poor Jens.’

Poor Jens, Russell thought. One of the bureaucrats who had organised the deliberate starvation of Soviet cities and Soviet POWs. A mass murderer by any other name. And yet, somehow, ‘poor Jens’ seemed apt.

‘And then, being practical,’ Zarah added, ‘there’s the house in Schmargendorf. If it’s still standing, we should reclaim it. It is ours, after all. Mine, if Jens is dead.’

‘And my flat on Carmerstrasse,’ Effi said. ‘Thank God I only rented the one in Wedding. That’s just rubble now.’ She was, she realised with some surprise, beginning to feel excited at the prospect of seeing Berlin again.

‘And you must try and see Papa and Muti,’ Zarah told her.

‘I’m not sure I want to,’ was Effi’s retort. Both their parents had behaved appallingly when told of Zarah’s ordeal at Soviet hands, and Effi still found it hard to forgive them.

‘We have to try and set things right,’ Zarah told her sternly. ‘They’re old. And they don’t know any better.’

Russell and Effi’s imminent departure cast a shadow across the weekend, which cold wet weather did nothing to dispel. On Saturday morning Effi took Rosa aside, and told her, in as matter-of-fact a manner as she could manage, that she and John were going away for a few weeks. Rosa looked alarmed, but only for a few seconds, and once Effi assured her that Paul, Zarah and Lothar would be staying, the girl seemed almost eager to show how unconcerned she was. She was being brave, Effi realised, and wished with all her heart that there was no need. ‘We can write to each other,’ Effi told her, ‘and perhaps even talk on the telephone. And it won’t be long.’

Russell scoured the newspapers for news of Berlin, but the only stories on offer concerned the Nazis and their offspring. There were pieces on the trial of Hitler’s surviving henchmen in Nuremberg, which was due to open on the coming Tuesday, and what seemed a highly imaginative story about a young girl named Uschi, whom the Fuhrer had allegedly sired with Eva Braun. News of ordinary Germans, and of conditions in Germany, were conspicuous by their absence.

On Monday morning he kept his appointment at the American Embassy, and Lindenberg took him for a stroll round the sunlit Grosvenor Square. It was, the American said, the first blue sky he’d seen in more than a week.

Russell’s offer had been accepted, and a seat on Friday’s boat train provisionally booked.

‘I’ll need two,’ Russell told him, and explained about Effi. He expected objections, but the American seemed pleased that they were going together. Maybe he was a romantic. Or perhaps he thought Effi was a good influence.

‘Okay,’ Lindenberg said. ‘Once you reach Ostend, you’ll take the train to Frankfurt. From there, I don’t know. Maybe a plane into Tempelhof, maybe another train — the Russians keep changing their minds about which routes they want to obstruct. But you’ll be briefed in Frankfurt.’ He gave Russell a name and address. ‘And you can pick up your tickets here on Thursday.’

Russell thought of pointing out that the Soviets employed couriers, but decided against it. He didn’t think Lindenberg had a sense of humour, or at least not where his country and work were concerned.

After they parted, Russell walked west towards Park Lane, and then across Hyde Park towards Kensington Palace Gardens. There were several horsemen exercising their mounts on Rotten Row, and the park seemed chock-full of nannies and their infant charges — the newspapers might decry the government’s lurch towards socialism, but power and privilege seemed less than ruffled.

At the Soviet Embassy he was given ample time to study the prominently placed accounts of Dynamo’s astonishing 10-1 win over Cardiff at the weekend. When the cultural attache finally appeared, Russell informed him that Effi would be accepting the Berlin film role, and that the two of them would be arriving in the German capital towards the end of the week. He also suggested — unnecessarily, from the look on the attache’s face — that Comrade Nemedin should be apprised of this fact.

When Effi met Rosa at the school gates she was still wondering whether to mention the girl’s father, and her own intention of searching for traces once she reached Berlin. In the event, Rosa raised the subject herself. Another child in her class — a Jewish boy from Hungary — had only just heard that his father was still alive, and on his way to England. Which was wonderful, Rosa added, in a tone that almost suggested the opposite.

It took Effi a while to coax out the reason for this contradiction: they were half the way home when the girl stopped and anxiously asked her, ‘If my father comes back, will you still be my mama?’

Wednesday dawned wet and foggy, and though the drizzle soon turned to mist, visibility remained poor. When Russell and Paul took a train from Kentish Town shortly before noon, they were still hoping that conditions would improve, but the world further east was every bit as murky, and they made the long trek up Tottenham High Road expecting disappointment.