It was almost light next morning when he watched Effi walk out to the waiting single-decker. According to her, the Russians had provided the vehicle to carry the film cast and crew to and fro, but Russell recognised the familiar outline of an American school bus. It chugged off down the otherwise silent street, spewing dark clouds of exhaust into the grey dawn.
No one seemed to be watching the house, neither then nor later, when he walked to the Press Club for an American breakfast. He picked up his allowance of cigarettes before leaving, and handed out a few to the ferallooking urchins who loitered outside the gates. The first word of the ‘No Germans Allowed’ sign had been obliterated with a wodge of something brown.
Back in Thomas’s study, he wrote accounts of his conversations with the three KPD men. He couldn’t actually remember whether Shchepkin had asked for written reports, but a material record seemed less prone to distortion than some NKVD version of Chinese Whispers. He gave Kurt Junghaus and Uli Trenkel the clean bills of political health that their loyalty undoubtedly warranted, and felt slightly worried that the NKVD would find such trust suspicious. His report on Strohm was more nuanced, admitting the man’s support for a ‘German path to socialism’ while stressing his belief in party discipline. Strohm, he said, would argue his case with intelligence, but accept those decisions that went against him.
‘Neither yes-man nor no-man,’ Russell murmured to himself. A comrade of the old sort.
He had abandoned the notion of telling Strohm about his vetting job, deciding instead on a more generic warning. He would say that a Soviet acquaintance had been asking questions, and that he had told this fictitious character what he was in fact reporting to Nemedin. This would warn Strohm that he was being watched, yet leave Russell’s own role looking peripheral.
He put the reports to one side, and leafed through his notes on the DP camps and their Jewish inmates. He had enough for a thoroughly depressing feature — the Western Allies seemed lost for a plan where the surviving Jews were concerned, and the Poles were making matters worse by driving their survivors out. The uplifting news would have to come later, if Hersch and his colleagues proved suitably inspirational.
After two hours at the typewriter, he went back to the Press Club for lunch, and sat listening to a bunch of young journalists at the next table discussing the new United Nations. The Senate in Washington had just voted to join the organisation, and most of the journalists seemed less than impressed. ‘United Nations, my arse,’ as one man elegantly phrased it.
Another two hours and he had fifteen hundred words for Solly to sell. It was just like the old days, he thought — him at a typewriter, Effi out on set. He walked to Kronprinzenallee for a third time, and left the finished article for Dallin to forward. With any luck it might reach London before Christmas.
He hadn’t been home long when the Soviet bus dropped Effi off. In the old days they would have walked down to one of their favourite restaurants on the Ku’damm, window-shopping on the way. Now they had to settle for Thomas’s favourite communal canteen, with only ruins to inspect. So many buildings had been hollowed out, their walls left scorched but standing, their blown-out windows like eyeless sockets.
Effi had enjoyed her day’s work, but it was hard to stay cheerful in such surroundings.
Russell asked if she knew how long the filming would take.
‘Four weeks is what they’re saying, but I can’t see it — it takes half the day to pick everyone up.’
‘Oh for the days of the studio limo.’
‘It had its uses. And anyway, four weeks will take us up to Christmas. I was hoping to spend that with Rosa.’
‘Has she ever celebrated Christmas?’
‘I don’t know. Now you mention it, I don’t suppose she has.’
‘So will you go back in January?’ Russell asked.
She gave him a look. ‘For a few days at least. I wish we both could. Do spies get holidays?’
‘Who knows? Sometimes I feel like telling them all to do their worst. They might agree to let me go.’
‘They might not. And I’d rather be visiting Rosa in London than you in prison. Or putting flowers on your grave.’
Thursday morning, Russell was back in the Soviet zone, hoping to see the last two comrades before his meeting with Shchepkin the following day. Leissner’s office was at Silesian Station, but the man himself was in Dresden, dealing with some undefined railway emergency, and wouldn’t be back until the weekend. Manfred Haferkamp, the only man on his list without an administrative job, was at his desk in the newspaper office, but too busy to see Russell before the afternoon.
It was a reasonable morning for December, bright but not too chilly, and after scrounging a coffee in the office canteen Russell walked on up Neue Konigstrasse towards Friedrichshain, checking the various notice boards for any mention of Otto or Miriam. He came across several of Effi’s messages, but no one had added anything useful.
He walked past several ‘antique stores’ selling salvage from bombedout apartments. A couple of trackless tank hulks faced each other across the next junction, and a group of Soviet soldiers were taking turns having their picture taken in front of one, arm in arm with a young German woman. She was either enjoying herself or putting on a good act. On the other side of the street two white-haired German men were staring stony-faced at the changing tableaux, almost pulsing with repressed rage.
Realising Isendahl’s flat was nearby, Russell decided on a visit. He doubted he’d find anyone better informed when it came to the local Jews and communists, and a journalist should cultivate his sources.
Isendahl had obviously been writing — a cigarette was burning in the ashtray by the typewriter — but seemed pleased to be interrupted. ‘I tried to call you,’ was the first thing he said after bringing Russell in. ‘Is your telephone out of order?’
‘It comes and goes.’
‘Well there’s someone to meet you.’
‘Hersch? He came round a couple of evenings ago.’
Isendahl picked up his cigarette. ‘No, not Hersch. You remember the group I told you about — the Nokmim?’
‘Who could forget?’
‘There are two of them in Berlin. And they’d like to talk to an American journalist.’
‘It seems to be catching,’ Russell said wryly.
Isendahl smiled. ‘It’s a propaganda war for the Jewish soul. Revenge, Palestine or the good life in America.’
‘I know which I’d choose.’
‘You’re not Jewish.’
‘True. You didn’t include remaining in Berlin on your list of options.’
‘No. A few may stay, but…’ He shook his head. ‘Would you?’
‘Probably not, but Berlin will be the poorer.’
‘Without doubt.’
Something suddenly occurred to Russell. ‘Why are the Nokmim here? Are they planning some spectacular act of vengeance?’
‘You’ll have to ask them that. If you want to meet them, that is.’
Russell knew an ethical minefield when he saw one, but it was too good an opportunity to turn down. ‘I do,’ he told Isendahl.
‘There’ll be restrictions, of course. This has to be a secret meeting — they don’t want the authorities to know they’re here in Berlin.’
‘Of course,’ Russell agreed. It would, he realised, depend on what they intended. If the Nokmim told him they had plans to execute some deserving Nazi, then he could probably live with keeping it off the record. But if they outlined plans to poison the city’s water supply, then they could hardly expect him to hold his tongue. Anything in between, he would play it by ear. ‘When do they want to meet?’
Tonight’s a possibility.’
‘They’re not far away then?’
‘No.’