‘It feels like a trip in a time machine,’ Russell said between tunes.
‘There were German men in those days,’ Effi replied. ‘This feels…’
‘Wrong?’
‘Humiliating.’
‘Yes,’ Russell agreed. There didn’t seem any point in stating the obvious, that victors had always humiliated losers, and fucking their women was just one of many means to that end. At least these women were getting something back, which was more than could be said for most of the Red Army’s victims.
‘Effi!’ a voice cried out behind them. It was Irma, floating on a cloud of expensive-smelling perfume. As the two women hugged, Russell grabbed an empty chair from the next table. For the next few minutes, Effi and Irma swapped tales of Barbarossa-the-musical and brought each other up to date. They were only silenced by the behaviour of a nearby couple, whose tongue-wrestling and under-table groping became impossible to ignore.
‘Where do they go?’ Effi asked, half amused and half disgusted. ‘As least I assume they’re not going to do it here.’
Irma laughed. ‘Does it shock you?’
‘No. Well, yes, a bit. Is it really the only way to survive?’
‘They think so. And to answer your question, there’s an alley out back with plenty of darkened doorways. But most girls like to take the soldiers home — if they give them family as well as sex it’s more likely to last. The parents lie there listening in the next room — they might disapprove, but they’re usually willing to share the spoils.’ She looked at her watch, an American Mickey Mouse model. ‘I’m on in half an hour; I have to get changed. How long are you staying?’
‘What time do the fights usually start?’ Russell asked.
‘Not for a couple of hours yet. The amount of water Geruschke adds, it takes most of the evening to get drunk.’
‘I haven’t seen him this evening.’
‘He’ll be around somewhere — he always is.’
They watched her squeeze her way through the packed tables, responding to each boisterous soldier’s greeting with a wave and a smile. The band started playing ‘Sentimental Journey’.
‘Do you think we’ll get our seats back if we have a dance?’ Effi asked.
Russell looked around. ‘Other people seem to,’ he said, noticing several empty tables with half-full glasses and coat-draped chairs.
They had three dances, and were beginning to enjoy themselves when two British soldiers decided to show off their jitterbugging skills. Effi was nearly laid out by a flailing arm, and decided enough was enough. Their seats were still vacant, but another couple had colonised one side of the table — a Russian corporal and a German girl who looked about fifteen. The former asked in stilted German whether they minded sharing their table, and seemed almost ecstatic when Russell responded in Russian. He spent the next ten minutes complaining how much he missed his wife, children and village by the Volga.
Russell sought escape with a trip to the toilet. In the corridor outside, two men were doing some kind of deal. They both gave him a quick once-over, decided he posed no threat, and went back to their business at hand. In the toilet, Russell detected marijuana among the less agreeable odours.
Back at the table, the Russian was ready to resume his life-story. Russell could think of no polite way of stopping him, but the German girl contrived to alleviate her own boredom, and finally shut him up, by the simple expedient of inserting a hand in his trouser pocket.
He grasped her by the arm, pulled her to her feet, and almost dragged her away towards the rear exit.
‘A darkened doorway,’ Effi murmured.
‘If they make it that far.’ As he watched them disappear, Russell had the sudden sensation that he was being watched. Turning his head, he found Rudolf Geruschke looking straight at him. The nightclub boss raised a hand by way of hello, and turned away.
A few minutes later two glasses of bourbon were delivered to their table. Unwatered. Compliments of the boss.
Why? Russell wondered. The man only knew him as Irma’s friend, and he didn’t seem greatly enamoured of her. And he’d never heard of Effi.
The thought was drowned by a drum-roll, and the appearance of a nattily-dressed MC. He treated his audience to a few jokes — all either rich in sexual innuendo or dripping with amused contempt for the no longer dangerous Nazis — and introduced Irma to rapturous applause.
A spotlight revealed her, now wrapped in a metallic-looking sheath of a dress. The voice was slightly huskier than Russell remembered, but she could still hold a note. She sang a couple of songs in English, then switched to German for a version of ‘Symphonie’ which reduced several of the Russians to tears. One more song in English had the Brits and Americans happily singing along, before she closed the set with a song that Effi knew of but hadn’t yet heard — ‘Berlin Will Rise Again’. It was stately, sad, defiant:
Just as after the dark of night,
The sun always laughs again,
So the lindens will bloom along Unter den Linden,
And Berlin will rise again.
The lights went out as the applause began to fade. Irma had vanished when they came back on, and Rudolf Geruschke was standing by the side of the stage, deep in conversation with an American colonel.
Kyritz Wood
Russell left early for his trip out to Wittenau, but the buses and trains proved worse on a Saturday, and it was early afternoon before he reached the French military base. The duty officer examined his passport and found his name on the shortlist in front of him, but still felt the need to seek confirmation from a senior officer. The major who emerged reeked of Gauloises, and gave Russell a long stare before examining his documentation.
Russell kept his temper. If they were seeking an excuse to renege on the promised visit, he wasn’t going to offer them one.
He wondered sourly why the French were even here in Berlin. The Resistance might have covered itself in glory, but the regular army had played no significant part in the Wehrmacht’s defeat. Half the generals had supported Vichy, yet here they were claiming equal shares in the occupation.
The major returned the passport to his subordinate, and walked back into his room without a word to Russell. A few seconds later a lieutenant appeared, and asked Russell to accompany him. They walked down a long line of wooden barracks still bearing Hitlerjugend exhortations, and into a large two-storey brick building. In an upstairs room two upright seats faced each other across an open table. The only item of wall decoration was an unframed photograph of General de Gaulle.
After about five minutes the door swung open and a limping Uwe Kuzorra was ushered in by the same lieutenant.
The detective showed surprise and pleasure when he saw who his visitor was. ‘John Russell,’ he said with a smile, extending his hand.
‘Fifteen minutes,’ the French lieutenant said, and left them to it.
They sat down. Kuzorra looked in poor health, Russell thought, but then so did most Berliners. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said, ‘but if we have only fifteen minutes we’d better save the small talk for later. I’m here to help, so tell me why you’ve been arrested.’
‘I was denounced as a former member of the SS.’
‘But you were never…’
‘Not in the usual way, no, but the reorganisations under Heydrich did confuse matters.’
‘But there must be colleagues out there who will testify that you were never a Nazi.’
‘There might be. But it wouldn’t help.’
‘Why not? Who denounced you?’
‘A man named Martin Ossietsky.’
‘Why? Has he got a grudge against you?’
Kuzorra shook his head. ‘He was paid to denounce me, and if his accusations prove insufficient then there’ll be others.’