‘But would Kuzorra let it lie?’
Jentzsch sighed. ‘Probably not.’
Russell was an hour late arriving at Ali’s, but dinner was still cooking. He was about to tell Effi about Miriam when she announced some news of her own. ‘You know you thought Wilhelm Isendahl was too cocky to survive the war?’
‘Yes.’ When Russell had first met Isendahl in 1939, the blond young Jew had enjoyed dining in restaurants patronised by the SS. He and his gentile wife Freya had helped them rescue Miriam and the other girls from the house on Eisenacher Strasse.
‘Well, Ali’s found him. And he’s here in Berlin.’
‘I don’t believe it. That’s great.’ Isendahl had found four families to shelter the rescued girls, but had, at the time, told no one else who they were. But now he could tell them who had taken Miriam. And if any members of the family had survived, they might know what had happened to her, or even where she was.
‘What about Freya?’ he asked.
‘Someone told me that she was in America when Pearl Harbour was attacked,’ Ali said. ‘She may be back now. I don’t know. Anyway, here’s his address.’
Russell pocketed the piece of paper, thinking he could go there next day. ‘I saw Uwe Kuzorra today,’ he announced. ‘He’s the detective we hired to find Miriam in 1939,’ he explained to Ali and Fritz.
‘The one who helped you escape in 1941,’ Ali added for her husband’s benefit.
‘The same. Anyway, he swears he saw Miriam early in 1942. Recognised her from the photograph I gave him. She was walking down Neue Konigstrasse with a baby in a pram.’
‘A baby,’ Effi echoed. ‘How old was it?’
‘Kuzorra couldn’t tell.’
Effi did a quick calculation. ‘If the child was less than eighteen months old, then the father was someone she met after we rescued her. But if it was older than that…’
‘Then the father was one of those SS bastards who visited the house on Eisenacher Strasse,’ Russell said, completing the unwelcome thought. ‘Kuzorra thought she looked happy,’ he added in mitigation.
‘Motherhood can do that,’ Effi told him. ‘It makes no difference who the father is.’
Sunday morning, Effi and Russell went their separate ways. Annaliese expressed disappointment that Russell wouldn’t be sharing their walk, but he suspected she was being polite, and set out for Friedrichshain with a clear conscience.
Isendahl had lived there in 1939, and Russell found himself wondering whether the man had managed to bluff his way through the entire war without even moving apartments. It seemed unlikely — by the end of the war, few adult males of any race had been able to evade the call of the state — but he wouldn’t have put it past him. As it turned out, this apartment was two streets away from the old one, which he and Effi had visited in 1939. Isendahl lived alone in two large rooms, with a panoramic view across the ruins.
His blond hair was longer than Russell remembered, and the old resemblance to Hitler’s security chief Reinhard Heydrich was less marked. ‘We Victims of Fascism are doing well,’ he told Russell, as he ushered him into the spacious book-lined living room. It had taken Isendahl a few seconds to recognise his visitor, but he seemed genuinely pleased to see him. Wilhelm was still a young man; he’d been a prominent member of the KPD youth wing when Hitler first came to power, so he couldn’t be much more than thirty.
What a way to spend your twenties, Russell thought. But then he’d spent most of his own following Lenin’s illusory star.
Isendahl reclaimed the bottle of beer that stood beside his typewriter, and opened one for his guest. After filling each other in on their respective wars — Isendahl had, in his own words, ‘settled for mere survival’ in 1943, and spent almost two years cooped up in a comrade’s roof-space — Russell asked what his host was doing now. Isendahl was happy to tell him, or at least to keep talking, but his answers were somewhat vague. He was working for a local Jewish group which helped survivors get where they wanted to go. He was also liaising with the Soviet occupation authorities, but in what capacity and on whose behalf was less than clear. When Russell asked after his wife Freya, Isendahl looked uncharacteristically sheepish, and mumbled something about this not seeming the right time to send for her. A further question elicited a reluctant admission that she’d been living in New York with her parents since 1941.
Back in 1939, Isendahl had scorned the notion of a Jewish homeland in Palestine — ‘you don’t fight race hatred by creating states based on race’ Russell remembered him saying — but the six years since had modified his stance. Now he was keen to stress the distinction between right and leftwing Zionists, rather than condemn Zionism per se. Without being asked, he rattled off a long list of different groups, ending, somewhat dramatically, with one called the Nokmim, or Jewish Avengers. These followers of a Lithuanian partisan named Abba Kovner were, as their name suggested, determined on vengeance. They believed that six million Nazi deaths were necessary before the Jewish survivors could learn to live with themselves.
Isendahl smiled at the conceit. His view of the Nokmim seemed a mix of amusement and awe.
Russell had never heard of the group, but he recognised the makings of a story. He asked Isendahl if he was in contact with them.
He wasn’t, but he promised to ask around. He was thinking of becoming a journalist himself — or a writer of some sort — once Europe was put back together.
‘Do you remember Miriam Rosenfeld?’ Russell asked abruptly.
‘The mute one.’
‘Do you know what happened to her?’
‘Not in the end, no.’
‘Did she get better?’
‘Yes, she did. I remember now — she had a baby, and that changed everything. Or so I heard.’
‘Did she stay with the same family?’
‘The Wildens? Yes, but later they were killed in the bombing. Someone told me that Miriam hadn’t been hurt, but I don’t know what happened to her after that — we all got more isolated as the war went on. But I can ask around.’
‘Thanks. I don’t suppose you know any Otto Pappenheims?’ He explained about Rosa, and their search for her father.
‘I do know one Otto Pappenheim. Not well — I only met him once.’
‘When was this? How old would he be now?’
‘I only met him a few weeks ago. I should think he’s about thirty-five.’
‘Did he ever have a wife and daughter?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘How would I find him?’
‘Good question. He’s not in Berlin, anymore. He and a friend of mine went off to Poland last month. They’re on their way to Palestine.’
‘Through Poland?’
‘The road begins there, in Silesia. Do you know about this?’
Russell shook his head. He had assumed that Palestine-bound Jews were following well-beaten paths, but had seen no reports of their actual location.
‘A group called Brichah started organising things in Poland,’ Isendahl explained. ‘Then the Haganah — the army of the Palestinian Jews — did the same at their end, and eventually the two of them met in the middle. There are people right along the route now, in Czechoslovakia and Austria, across the mountains and down through Italy to the ports and the ships. The ships that the British try to intercept and send back.’ He noticed the gleam in Russell’s eyes. ‘Another good story, yes? And I am in contact with these people. I could arrange a meeting if you want. They won’t talk to many Western journalists, but I think they would talk to you.’
‘I’d like that,’ Russell admitted. It did sound like a great story, and he might get news of this third Otto Pappenheim.
Walking in the Grunewald was like walking through the past. Some damage had been done by stray bombs or shells, but nature was rapidly repairing all but the deepest scars, and the smell of the pines reminded Effi of Sunday strolls before the war. It was only when they reached the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Turm, and looked back across the treetops at the lacerated skyline in the distance, that the present again became real.