David Downing - Potsdam Station

'Of course,' Rosa told him, 'but we have to wait until after the war is over. We sleep through here,' she added, leading the way into the large basement room. Most of the inhabitants had already turned in, and one of two burning candles was snuffed out as they wended their way to the far corner. 'Our beds are still here, but someone has slept in mine,' Rosa whispered.

'That would be me,' Russell whispered back. 'I didn't know it was yours.'

'That's all right.'

Rosa and Effi took one camp bed, Russell the other, which suited the child rather better than him.

Despite trying hard to stay awake – she didn't want to feel left out, Effi realised – Rosa was soon asleep. The two grown-ups conversed in whis-pers, and she told him about Paul's meeting with his uncle. 'Thomas is also planning to survive,' Effi remembered. 'Like Zarah.'

The shelling outside was much more sporadic, and Russell realised he wouldn't need much encouragement to let desire get the better of sense.

He got none. 'I can't leave her down here on her own,' Effi said, in answer to his suggestion of a trip upstairs. If she woke up and found we were both gone… well…'

'You're right,' Russell told her. 'It was a stupid idea.'

'Not that stupid,' she said, carefully disentangling herself from the sleeping child. 'And I can at least join you over there.'

But entwined and kissing on the narrow camp bed, the issue became rather more pressing. 'Have the customs changed since 1941?' Russell eventually whispered. 'Is lovemaking in air-raid shelters permitted these days?'

'Not between brother and sister.'

'Oh.'

'So we'll have to be very quiet.' No longer a road leading home April 28 – May 2 I t had been light for about an hour, and already the city centre was taking a frightful hammering. As Russell and two other men from the shelter worked their way down Grolman Strasse in search of a working standpipe, the sky to their left seemed choked with Soviet planes, the rise and fall of whining shells overlapping each other like a gramophone nee-dle stuck in mid-symphony. In the centre of it all, the Zoo Bunker Gun Tower loomed above the ruined city, giving and taking fire, half cloaked in drifting smoke.

Paul was inside it.

Russell remembered what Effi had said about the boy seeming overwhelmed. He couldn't think of a better word to describe his own feelings. Seeing Effi again had filled him with joy, yet left untouched the dread of losing his son.

And Thomas too. If anyone deserved to survive this war then Thomas did.

A crowd up ahead suggested water, which proved to be the case. Join-ing the queue, they stood there scanning the sky like everyone else, knowing that a bomb could perhaps be outrun, that a shell would give no warning.

Neither fell, and soon they were hurrying back up the street with their containers, trying not to slosh any water overboard.

Effi was waiting at the bottom of the steps, looking almost angry. 'What happened?' she asked. 'You've been so long.'

Russell put the containers down, and explained that the usual standpipe had taken a direct hit. 'We had to go further afield. One of the men I was with remembered a tap on Grolman.'

'I…' she started to say, and just pulled him to her.

'There were soldiers here while you were gone,' Rosa announced from behind her.

'Two of them,' Effi confirmed. 'They said the Russians are in Westkreuz, so it shouldn't be long.'

'Where did they go?'

Effi shrugged. 'Who knows? They seemed lost, but they wouldn't abandon their uniforms, so Frau Essen had to ask them to leave.' The three of them made their way back to their corner. There was a drawing on Rosa's bed, one of Effi that almost brought tears to his eyes. Russell realised that the girl had drawn the pictures he had seen upstairs. 'This is wonderful,' he told Rosa. 'We must get it framed, and hang it in our new house.'

Effi smiled at that, and Rosa's face lit up. 'I can do one of you too,' the girl said. 'If you'd like. But I promised Frau Pflipsen I'd draw her next. '

'Whenever you have time,' Russell assured her. It was noisy in the shelter, and while Rosa was across the room immortalising her latest subject, he and Effi had the chance to talk. During the night she had told him where Rosa had come from, and now he asked her if Erik Aslund was still in Berlin.

'As far I know,' she replied.

'We may need him,' Russell said quietly. He made sure that they were not being overheard. 'Look, I've been doing some thinking. The Nazis are history, or soon will be. We can forget the bastards, thank God. Germany will be divided up between the Russians, the Americans and the British. And maybe the French. They've already drawn the boundaries. The same goes for Berlin. It'll be right in the middle of the Russian zone, but the city itself will be shared out.

'But not for a while,' he went on. 'The Russians will want to grab everything they can, so they'll take their time. They'll say the city isn't properly secure – something like that.'

'Whose bit are we in now?' Effi asked out of curiosity.

'Probably the British, but what I'm saying is that they won't be here for weeks, maybe even months. It's the Russians we'll have to deal with, and they'll be eager to talk to me.'

'Why?' Effi asked. 'You still haven't told me why they brought you here.'

He went through the story – the American decision to let the Russians take Berlin, his own trip to Moscow, the offer of inclusion in the Soviet team seeking out atomic secrets. He told her what had happened to Kazankin and Gusakovsky at the Kaiser Institute, and how he and Varennikov had hidden out in Thomas's house.

'There are plans for an atomic bomb buried in Thomas's garden?' she asked incredulously.

'In Hanna's vegetable patch, to be precise.'

'Okay.'

'And I'm the only one who knows where they are,' he added. 'Varen-nikov was killed a few days later.'

'How?'

Russell sighed. 'A train fell on him.'

'A train fell on him,' she repeated.

'I know. But that's what happened.'

'All right. But what's the problem? You just hand the plans over to the Russians – no one else need know.'

'That might be the sensible thing to do. Or it might not. I can think of two good reasons why it wouldn't be. First off, the Russians might want to make absolutely sure that I don't tell anyone else. Like the British or the Americans.'

'But that's silly,' Effi protested. 'You could never tell them that you'd just helped the Russians to an atomic bomb. They'd put you in prison.'

'Or hang me for treason. I know that and you know that, but the NKVD doesn't like loose ends.'

'I suppose not.' She felt crestfallen. Overnight it had seemed like the worst might be over.

'I've been thinking I need to bargain with them,' he went on.

'The papers for your life,' she guessed.

'Yes, but more than that. If Paul and Thomas survive, they'll end up in Soviet camps. Zarah might be arrested too – she is the wife of a prominent Nazi, and the Russians are certainly feeling vindictive. So I thought I'd offer them the papers in exchange for the whole family.'

Effi smiled, but looked dubious. 'You know the Russians better than I do, but won't they think that a bit of a cheek? And what's to stop them beating the location out of you? Or just agreeing and then reneging on the bargain once they have the papers?'

'Nothing, at the moment. But that's where your Swedish friend might be useful.' Russell outlined what he had in mind, and she began to see a glimmer of hope. 'But first we wait,' he said. 'The Soviets gave me a letter to use when making contact, and I hope it'll offer us – you – some sort of protection when the ordinary troops arrive. Once the battle's over, I'll find someone senior to approach.'

'That sounds good,' Effi agreed. When they woke up that morning, she had half expected him to set off in search of Paul.