‘Where do they want to meet?’
Isendahl shrugged. ‘Here?’
‘Suits me.’ He gave Isendahl a quizzical look. ‘You haven’t made up your mind about these people, have you?’
‘No. At first I thought they were crazy, but I’m not so sure any more. Or maybe their craziness just seems more appropriate than other people’s sanity.’
Russell looked at him. ‘How about you? Have you ruled out any of the options on your list?’
‘Not really. I’m beginning to think certainty died with the Nazis.’
Manfred Haferkamp would not have agreed. He looked younger than his thirty-five years, which spoke well of his constitution after spending the last seven in Soviet and Nazi prison camps. He had light brown hair and bright blue eyes, and an air of absolute certainty that Lenin’s buddies would have found familiar.
The other interviewees had all mentally poked and prodded at Russell’s cover story, but Haferkamp just took it for granted that the world would be interested in what he was thinking. Russell had tried and failed to find some innocent means of introducing the subject of Stalin’s betrayal — the handing over to Hitler in 1941 of some fifty KPD victims of the Great Purges, Haferkamp included — but he needn’t have bothered. The German brought it up himself, and the ironic nature of the disclosure failed to conceal the residual bitterness.
He was nothing if not consistent in his view of the Soviets. The task of German communists was the same as it always had been — to mount a real revolution and build a communist Germany. And who was standing in their way? Their supposed allies. The Soviets wanted the Party in charge but no real change; what was needed was the people in charge and a real transformation. The Anti-Fascist committees which had sprung up all over Germany were communist-inclined and truly popular, which was why the Soviets were trying to squash them.
Russell played devil’s advocate — surely no one expected the Soviets to grant the KPD free rein, or not this soon at any rate? Not after the Germans had killed twenty million Soviet citizens.
‘I don’t expect them to ever do so of their own accord,’ was Haferkamp’s reply. ‘We have a real fight on our hands.’
‘Do other comrades share this view?’
‘Most of them, I’d say.’
‘And the leadership?’
Haferkamp made a disdainful noise. ‘The ones who came back from Moscow are just stooges.’
‘All right, but they still have to counter your arguments. And haven’t they said that they support a German road to socialism?’
‘They give it lip service, nothing more. And they don’t counter our arguments, or not in any constructive sense. They just throw insults about. The last piece I wrote, they accused me of “left-wing infantilism”. There was no discussion of the real issues.’
Russell noted with relief that Haferkamp had already aired his views in public. His report wouldn’t tell the NKVD anything they didn’t already know.
He asked if there was any chance of a home-grown challenge to the KPD’s current pro-Soviet leadership.
‘It’s bound to happen eventually. These people have been away too long. Listen, this is the German Communist Party, not some provincial branch of the CPSU. We fought against Hitler and, if we have to, we’ll fight against Stalin.’
Russell couldn’t resist one more question. ‘A statement like that would get you arrested in Moscow. Aren’t you worried that the same will happen here?’
Haferkamp’s blue eyes were cold and determined. ‘I’ve spent half my life in prison or exile. I’m not afraid of either.’
Russell thanked him for his time, and walked out into the night. He couldn’t fault the sense of anything Haferkamp had said, but he still hadn’t liked him. The man might be sincere in his political convictions, but they weren’t what drove him on. He might have been a good comrade once, but the Nazis and Soviets had taken their toll, and his heart was running on empty.
He was also backing the losing side. Russell wondered what an old communist like Brecht would find to admire in the current KPD leadership. Maybe nothing. It would explain why he hadn’t come back from America.
It was still only five — he had two hours to kill before his meeting with Isendahl’s ‘Jewish Avengers’. The name made him smile, which was probably not the effect they were hoping for.
He found a small bar behind the wreckage of the old Reich Statistical Office — the pre-war press corps had called it Fiction Central — and exchanged a pack of cigarettes for a glass of alleged bourbon. The only other customers were two Red Army soldiers, and they were engrossed in a game of chess. The barman disappeared out back in response to a woman’s summons, leaving Russell to idly skim through the Soviet-sponsored Tagliche Rundschau that someone had left on the bar. It was full of poems and short stories, and almost devoid of politics. A reader from Mars might reasonably conclude that sponsoring the arts was the Russians’ main reason for being in Berlin.
Well, no one could make that mistake with the British or Americans.
Two ‘bourbons’ and two excellent short stories later, he was ready for the Nokmim.
When he reached Isendahl’s building, the man himself was standing in the doorway, smoking a cigarette. ‘We’re meeting in a cafe,’ he announced, crushing the stub under his foot. ‘It’s not far.’
It was three streets away, in the candlelit basement of a bombed-out house, and felt more like somebody’s kitchen than a commercial establishment. There were two Nokmim waiting for them, and rather to Russell’s surprise one was a young woman. She seemed to have blonde hair — it was hard to be sure in the gloom — and probably blue eyes too. Her companion, a man of similar age, had a mass of frizzy hair which stuck out at the sides, and gave him the look of a wind-blown cedar. His piercing stare reminded Russell — somewhat inappropriately — of the happily departed Fuhrer.
Isendahl introduced them — the man’s name was Yeichel, the woman’s Cesia — and then sat off to one side, rather in the manner of an umpire.
‘What would you like to tell me?’ Russell asked the two of them.
‘You ask the questions,’ Yeichel said. ‘Isn’t that how it works?’
‘Okay. Tell me about the Nokmim? Who are you? What are your aims?’
Yeichel man smiled for the first time, and it lit up his face. ‘Do you know Psalm 94?’ he asked.
‘Not that I remember.’
‘He will repay them for their iniquity, and wipe them out for their wickedness; the Lord our God will wipe them out.’
‘The Nazis, I assume. So if God has them in his sights, where do you come in? Are you God’s instruments?
‘Not at all. If there is a God, he has clearly abandoned the Jews. We will do the work that he should have done.’
‘And wipe out the Nazis.’
‘That is the intention.’
Cesia seemed about to add something, but apparently thought better of the idea.
‘Have many of you are there?’ Russell asked.
‘A hundred or so. Perhaps more by now.’
‘And you have a leader?’
‘Our leader’s name is Abba Kovner. He is from Vilna. He was the leader of the ghetto uprising there, and the commander of the partisan army in Rudnicki Forest.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘We cannot tell you that.’
‘And the rest of the group?’
‘All across Europe. Wherever Nazis or their friends can be found.’
‘And you plan to wipe them out?’
‘We plan to kill as many as possible.’
Russell found himself imagining an army of 19th-century Russian anarchists carrying out coordinated bombings. ‘How?’ he asked.
‘However we can.’ Yeichel made a face. ‘And when we strike, you will have the answer to your question.’
Russell paused to marshal his thoughts. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked. The answer seemed obvious, but he wanted to hear it from them.
‘The world must know who was responsible, and why.’
‘You want me to explain your actions after the event. Like a spokesman. But I can’t promise to dress it up the way you want me to. I understand your desire for vengeance, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. Some might accuse you of acting like Nazis.’