‘We should,’ Effi told him. ‘It’s worth making.’
It was almost dark when Russell found himself outside Otto Pappenheim’s door in the Solinger Strasse apartment block. Again there was no answer to his knock, but this time a different neighbour emerged. Three cigarettes — a gross overpayment, as Russell later discovered — was enough to overcome any reluctance he had about disclosing Otto’s place of work. It was a nightclub on the Ku’damm called, suitably enough, Die Honig-falle. The Honey Trap.
Outside it was growing dark. He walked south, took the temporary walkway across the foul-smelling Spree, and skirted the western perimeter of the silenced zoo. Feeling hungry, he stopped for a sandwich at the Zoo Station buffet and idly leafed through a newspaper that someone had quite understandably left behind. There was nothing in it, save for sundry do-it-yourself tips for the average Berlin householder circa 1945 — ‘how to repair a roof without tiles,’ ‘how to mend a wall without bricks’ — and hundreds of messages from people seeking either long-lost relatives and friends or strangers willing to share their body-heat.
There were neon lights burning on the Ku’damm, but not that many by pre-war standards. There were British soldiers on the pavements, and almost as many German girls, but the night was obviously young. According to Thomas, bus-loads of girls from the Soviet sector — where payment of any kind could rarely be taken for granted — arrived around mid-evening.
The Honey Trap was on the northern side, in the basement of a half-demolished building that Russell vaguely remembered as a music school. The two bouncers guarding the top of the steps looked barely out of their teens, and managed to convey the impression that only their dates of birth had prevented them joining the Nazis.
They eyed Russell with professional suspicion, but relaxed when he mentioned Otto Pappenheim. ‘He’ll be in the office at the back,’ one said, in a tone suggesting surprise that anyone wanted to see him. Walking down the steps, it occurred to Russell that mention of his quarry’s name had not yet produced a single positive reaction.
The barely-lit basement room smelt of stale beer, cigarette smoke and sweat. A barman gestured him through to the room at the rear, where another man was seated at a small and rickety-looking table, his head bent over an accounts ledger. As he looked up, Russell saw dark hair, dark eyes, and features sharp enough to invite comparisons with rodents. The man was probably in his thirties, which was about right for Rosa’s father, but he bore little resemblance to the Nazi stereotype of a Jew. But then few Jews did. ‘Otto Pappenheim?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ the man replied after only the slightest of hesitations. The eyes were suspicious, but what Jew’s eyes wouldn’t be after the last twelve years?
‘I’m looking for someone of that name,’ Russell said, looking round for something to sit on. There was nothing.
‘Why? Who are you?’
‘My name’s John Russell. I’m not with the police or anything like that — I’m just an ordinary citizen.’
‘Okay,’ the man said almost cheerfully. The news that Russell had no connection to the authorities seemed something of a relief.
‘I’m looking for an Otto Pappenheim who left a wife and daughter early in the war, most likely through no choice of his own. His wife’s name was Ursel, and they had a daughter name Rosa…’
‘I never had a daughter,’ the man said. ‘And my wife died in a camp. We had no children. Thank God,’ he added as an afterthought.
‘Ah. I’m sorry.’
‘No, it’s over.’ He smiled thinly. ‘We have to live in the present now.’
‘Of course. But have you ever run across anyone else with the same name?’
‘No. There are such men, I’m sure, but I have never met one.’
Russell could think of nothing else to ask. He thanked the man and walked back towards the front. Passing through the sparsely populated bar, he realised he fancied a drink.
‘What are you paying with?’ was the barman’s first question.
‘What do you take?’
‘What do you have?’
‘US dollars.’
‘They’ll do.’
‘And what else?’ Russell asked as his beer was poured.
‘Pounds. Cigarettes. There’s a list of exchange rates on the wall over there.’
Russell took a first sip and examined the sign. 3 British Woodbines were worth 1 American Pall Mall, and both were listed in their cash dollar equivalents. ‘What about German currency?’ he asked.
The barman laughed and turned away.
Russell found himself a table, sat down, and surveyed the room. The decor was as minimal as the lighting, and no attempt had been made to disguise the myriad cracks in the ceiling. A small dance floor lay between the sea of closely packed tables and a narrow, curtainless stage.
‘John Russell,’ a surprised voice exclaimed beside him.
‘Irma,’ he said, smiling and standing to embrace her. They had met in pre-war days, when she and Effi had been in the same musical. Hardly a highlight of Effi’s career, Barbarossa had marked a real low for Irma Wocz, who had first earned fame as a cabaret artist in pre-Nazi Berlin. She had to be in her mid-forties, but the dark eyes were still challenging, the full mouth still inviting, and the shining brunette hair would have convinced anyone who hadn’t last seen her as a blonde. Her figure, or what Russell could see of it inside the buttoned coat, still had curves to spare. ‘Please, join me,’ he said. ‘Have a drink.’
‘I certainly will,’ she said, sitting down opposite him. ‘But don’t think of paying for it. I work here.’ She raised a hand to get the barman’s attention, and ordered a bourbon on the rocks. ‘Where have you been since the shit hit the fan?’ she asked. ‘Someone showed me your picture in the papers,’ she explained. ‘After your little disagreement with our late lamented leader.’
Russell laughed. ‘We’ve been in England the last few months.’
‘You had the sense to stick with Effi?’
‘Yes, she’s here too. She’s making a movie with some people at the old Reichskulturkammer.’
She took her drink from the barman, and halved it in one gulp. ‘The comrades? That’s a sensible move. Once the Americans get bored and go home, they’ll be running everything.’
‘You think they will? Get bored, I mean.’
Irma shrugged. ‘Once they’ve fucked every girl in Berlin.’
‘You’re singing again?’
‘You could call it that.’ She smiled and emptied her glass. ‘I’m certainly getting too old to fuck for a living. Look, you and Effi should come one evening, for old time’s sake. We’re open every day but Monday. One on the house?’ she asked him, waving her own glass at the barman.
‘No, thanks. I haven’t eaten yet.’
‘Now there’s an overrated pastime. If there’s one thing we can thank the Fuhrer for, it’s teaching us how to live with hunger. Ah,’ she added, looking Russell’s shoulder, ‘here comes the boss.’
He turned to see a man walking towards them.
‘Good evening, Herr Geruschke,’ she said in greeting. He was around Russell’s age, the short side of medium height, with dark eyes and thick charcoal-coloured hair that was beginning to recede. He was smartly dressed in a dark grey suit, stiff-collared shirt, jazzy tie and shining brogues.
The smile, Russell noticed, did not extend to the eyes.
‘Irma,’ he said with the slightest of bows. He watched the barman replace her empty glass with a full one, and looked enquiringly at Russell.
‘This is an old friend,’ she explained. ‘John Russell. He lived in Berlin before the war.’
‘Are you English?’ Geruschke asked with a smile.
‘I am,’ Russell said. It was simpler than explaining his official pedigree as an American.
‘We have many English customers,’ Geruschke said. ‘But few are here by choice. In Berlin, that is.’
‘I’m just here for a visit,’ Russell told him. ‘Seeing old friends, that sort of thing.’ Something about the man gave him the creeps.
‘His girlfriend’s Effi Koenen,’ Irma volunteered. ‘She’s here to make a movie for the comrades.’