‘Naturally some of the children grew attached to their new parents,’ Lidovsky answered the unvoiced question. ‘But they are Jews. There is no place in Poland for them. Not now.’
Russell changed the subject. ‘Is the group still leaving tomorrow or Friday?’
‘At midnight tomorrow. The British patrol the road by day, which is unfortunate — it is harder at night with so many children. But it is only twenty-five miles.’
‘Aren’t we driving all the way?’
‘Most of it. We have to walk round one checkpoint, which takes a couple of hours. We’ll be there before dawn. Now, I have things to do. If you have any more questions, ask me tomorrow. You’ll sleep in the men’s dormitory — anyone will show you where it is — and there’s soup in the kitchen.’
‘Fine,’ Russell said. ‘Go.’
‘You can talk to anyone you like, but no real names, okay?’
‘Okay.’
Lidovsky hurried away, leaving Russell wondering how to spend the evening. He had all the following day to interview the travellers, but this would probably be his last opportunity to meet their would-be interceptors. He found the dormitory, parked his bag on an empty cot, and walked back into Villach.
A bar on the Hauptplatz provided what he wanted — a group of slightly drunken British soldiers. He bought them a round with his US dollars, told them he was a journalist writing a series of articles on how the top brass treated the common soldier, and settled back to hear their complaints.
The war was over and they wanted to go home. The Germans and Austrians were on their knees — anyone could see that. So why not leave them there?
The Jews? They were a bloody nuisance. You couldn’t really blame the poor buggers, but the soldiers had better things to do than chase them all over Europe.
‘It was like that at the concentration camp,’ one man with a Yorkshire accent said. ‘We liberated the camp, but we couldn’t let the Jews just leave. We had to keep them there to help them — there was nowhere else. Now they’re haring all over the place, and we have to round them up again. It’s a pain in the arse.’
‘What do you do when you catch them?’ Russell asked.
‘Just take them back where they came from.’
‘And a few days later they’re off again,’ a Welsh boy complained.
‘It’s a fucking waste of time,’ the Yorkshireman concluded, to general murmurs of agreement.
Effi was ten minutes late reaching the hospital, and Annaliese’s face seemed to sag with relief when she saw her. ‘I thought you’d changed your mind,’ she said, as they walked back down to the entrance. Their jeep was parked in the old ambulance bay, amidst the makeshift collection of horse-drawn carts now used to bring in emergency patients. Effi was pleased to see the canvas roof — since the cloud disappeared that afternoon the temperature had dropped precipitously.
Annaliese rammed the canvas holdall under Effi’s seat and plonked herself in the other. She was also wearing a long coat, hat and boots — they looked, Effi thought, like two flappers from the Twenties. ‘How much money is there?’ she asked Annaliese.
‘Three thousand US dollars.’
‘My God, that’s a fortune.’
‘Yes.’ Annaliese produced one of her schoolgirl grins. ‘Shall we just head for the border?’
They pulled out onto Potsdamer Strasse and headed south.
‘Where exactly are we going?’ Effi asked at the first opportunity, when a stopping tram blocked the single lane.
‘Just off Goerzallee,’ Annaliese told her. ‘When it turns sharply right we just keep going for a few hundred metres down a dead-end street. It’s about twelve kilometres altogether,’ she added. ‘Half an hour there, half an hour back.’
They motored on through Schoneberg, Potsdamer Strasse turning into Hauptstrasse, Hauptstrasse into Rheinstrasse. A single lane had been cleared in each direction, and more stationary trams were all that slowed their progress. Annaliese kept the jeep moving at a steady thirty — anything faster and the cold wind would have been unbearable.
The further south they got, the higher the proportion of surviving buildings, the lower the ridges of rubble. But the lights grew no brighter — the suburbs were dim as the centre, as if the city had only one battery, and that was nearing exhaustion. Almost all the people they saw were congregated around a few bars and places of entertainment — American soldiers and German girls enjoying varying degrees of drunkenness and physical togetherness. The girls’ mothers and grandparents were seemingly sequestered in their homes, eking out their meagre rations and trying to stay warm on a few bits of wood, while their daughters bought in extra food and fuel with what had once been considered their virtue.
In Steglitz centre they turned left onto the Hindenburgdamm. A drunken melee was underway beneath the railway bridge, but a quarter-moon hung above the straight and empty road ahead. If it hadn’t been so cold, it might have been an evening to treasure. Effi pulled the coat tighter around her, and narrowed the gap between hat and collar.
The street lights became sparser, and when the Hindenburgdamm segued into Goerzallee they disappeared altogether. Annaliese slowed the jeep down and followed the headlights into the suburban murk. A few minutes later they came to the sought-after junction, Goerzallee heading off to the right, a smaller road running straight on. Annaliese pulled the jeep to a halt and they both peered forward, down what seemed a factory-lined cul-de-sac.
‘It doesn’t look very inviting,’ Annaliese said, almost indignantly.
‘No,’ Effi agreed. ‘How long have we got?’
‘Almost ten minutes. I think I’ll drive in and turn round. I’d rather be facing out than in.’
She drove the jeep slowly down between the factory facades, finally emerging in a wide open cobbled space at the head of a long canal basin. A bomb-broken line of factories extended along the northern bank, dimly lit by the sinking quarter-moon. The wind-rippled water lapped against the exposed belly of a half-sunken barge.
Annaliese turned the jeep and brought it to a halt. She left the headlights on for a few seconds, the twin beams vainly searching the road ahead, then thought better of the idea. Staring out along the darkened road Effi had a mental image of cars lined up at the end of the AVUS Speedway, waiting for the starting gun.
Which reminded her of the one in her pocket. She gingerly took it out, and saw the surprise on Annaliese’s face. ‘Just in case,’ she said, placing it down between her feet.
‘Maybe we really should rob them,’ Annaliese suggested.
‘They’d know where to find us.’
‘True.’
Two headlights were approaching in the distance, but they eventually swung away.
‘How’s your love life?’ Effi asked Annaliese.
‘What love life?’
A luminescent beam filled the intersection, and then two more headlights appeared, turning towards them. Soon they could hear the rumble of a lorry engine above the purr of their idling jeep.
Annaliese flicked their lights off and on again. The lorry slowed to a halt some twenty metres in front of them. If the driver wanted to block their escape he had failed — the street was too wide, and there was still enough space for the jeep to squeeze past.
There were two men in the cab, the driver already opening his door, the other man shielding his eyes with a raised hand.
‘Turn your lights off,’ the driver shouted as his feet hit the ground. His German was perfect, but the accent suggested another origin. Polish, Effi thought. He didn’t sound Russian.
‘After you,’ Annaliese shouted back with her customary combativeness.
He hesitated for a second, then reached an arm back into the cab to douse the lorry’s headlights. The other man instantly raised his hands to shield his face, and it crossed Effi’s mind that he feared recognition.