‘I’m not convinced,’ Strohm replied. ‘I agree it looks difficult, but just because it’s never been done, doesn’t mean it never will be. If we could take the best of both systems, and get rid of the worst. A free socialist country-that’s what Marx intended.’
‘That was his dream,’ Thomas agreed. ‘And I don’t want to demonise the Russians-they have their reasons, like Lotte said.’
‘It’s all above my head,’ Annaliese said equably, ‘but I can see what Gerhard’s getting at. It just doesn’t seem the way things are going.’
‘You may be right,’ Strohm admitted, covering her hand with his own. ‘I guess we shall see.’
‘No more nasty shocks in the offing?’ Thomas asked mischievously.
Strohm smiled. ‘I only find out an hour before you do.’
Thomas had the last word. ‘Actually, we all seem to be in the same boat. Effi in her studio, Bill and his country, Gerhard and those in his party who don’t want to replicate the Soviet experience-we all want to say “thank you, but no” to the Russians and their various offers. And we’re all reluctant to do so, for fear of making things worse. It’s not a great position to be in.’
Tuesday morning at the Weisensee studio, and the director was confidently predicting that shooting would be complete by the following Monday. Such news usually provoked an end-of-term style euphoria on cast and crew, but not in this case. The on-set atmosphere was unlike any Effi had ever experienced, both regretful and resentful, as if everyone knew that they wouldn’t be making more movies like this one. Most people, Effi guessed, had either seen the script of A Walk into the Future, or something very like it.
Effi hadn’t yet responded to Victor Samoshenko, hoping, against all reasonable expectation, that he might just go away. But he was waiting for her that afternoon, wearing the same grey suit and the same fixed smile. A red enamel badge bearing a golden hammer and sickle shone on his lapel.
Effi tried to let him-and herself-down gently. ‘I just don’t feel right for the part,’ was her opening shot.
He frowned slightly, as if that didn’t make sense. ‘Surely that’s for the writer and director to know,’ he said.
‘No,’ she responded firmly. ‘They have their ideas, of course, but the actor has to decide.’ And how long would I be considered a serious actor, she thought, if I accepted propagandist rubbish like this? She had played such parts in Goebbels’ movies when the alternative was no career at all, but even if that was the choice again, she wouldn’t do it twice. She felt bad enough about doing it once.
Samoshenko wasn’t done. ‘Is there any chance you might reconsider? As a personal favour to Comrade Tulpanov?’
‘No, I’m sorry. I have the greatest respect for Comrade Tulpanov-if anyone was responsible for Berlin’s cultural re-awakening, it was him. All Berlin is in his debt,’ she added, realising as she said it that she actually meant it. But that was then. ‘It’s not just the part. I need to spend more time with my daughter, and that means I shall only accept work that really engages me.’
Samoshenko’s smile was suddenly gone. ‘I understand you’ve accepted a part in a new radio serial at the American Sector radio station.’
‘You’re misinformed. I’ve been offered a part, but I haven’t decided whether or not to accept it.’ Effi decided some annoyance was in order. ‘But how did you know about it?’
He shrugged. ‘You know what actors are like-nothing is secret for long. And you know what people will say, that you have changed sides.’
‘I didn’t know there were any sides in film-making.’
He snorted. ‘Come now, Miss Koenen, you’re a lot more intelligent than that. You must realise how this will look.’
She did. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I’ll make it very clear to anyone who’ll listen that I’m not making a political point, that if I take this part at RIAS, it will be because the hours are fewer and easier, and I’ll get to see more of my daughter.’
Samoshenko sighed. ‘Comrade Tulpanov will be very disappointed,’ he said, adding almost ruefully that he hoped there’d be no regrets, before striding out through the door.
All of which, Effi thought, was little short of ridiculous. Even Goebbels and his minions had taken no for an answer without making a song and dance about it. They wouldn’t let you work against them, but working for them hadn’t been compulsory. Why did the Russians behave like such idiots?
Samoshenko’s car was receding into the distance when she got outside, the battered studio limo waiting by the kerb to take her and her colleagues back to the British sector. The sun was shining for a change, the temperature somewhere up around twenty, and by the time they reached Carmer Strasse, she felt more at peace with the world.
Upstairs she found a letter from Russell, and put it aside to read later. Zarah, Lothar and Rosa had been to the American cartoon cinema, and were still laughing at one of the Tom and Jerry sequences. Effi usually picked Rosa up at Zarah’s, and with the children engrossed in a game, took the opportunity of her sister’s visit to bring out the offending drawing.
Zarah, rather to Effi’s surprise, wasn’t shocked. ‘You’ve talked to her?’ was all she asked.
‘Of course.’
‘And was she evasive?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘Well, then. These aren’t normal times.’
‘Yes, but given her history …’
Zarah wasn’t having it. ‘We’ve all have things we’d rather forget,’ she said pointedly, as if Effi might have forgotten that her sister had been gang-raped for two days by four Red Army soldiers.
‘But Rosa was a small child,’ Effi protested.
‘I wasn’t making comparisons,’ Zarah insisted. ‘But if I was, then people say that children are more resilient.’
Effi let that go-sometimes her sister was less than helpful. ‘I’m beginning to wonder whether Berlin’s the best place for her,’ she mused out loud.
Zarah looked surprised. ‘We’re more fortunate than most.’
And they were. With Effi’s Grade A actor’s rations, Russell’s income from several sources, and Bill Carnforth’s access to US Army bounties, they could hardly be luckier. ‘I know,’ Effi said, ‘but the whole city’s on edge. It can’t help.’
‘No, I suppose not. And …’ Zarah hesitated, and then smiled. ‘I can hardly advise you to stay when I’m thinking of leaving myself.’
‘You are? What? Oh! He’s asked you to marry him!’
‘Last night.’
‘Oh Zarah!’ Effi said, flinging her arms around her sister. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘You like him, don’t you?’
‘Haven’t I said so over and over?’
‘Yes, yes, you have.’
The penny dropped. ‘You’ll be moving to America.’
‘I suppose so. What could Bill do here? And all his family’s back there.’
‘All yours is here.’
‘There’s only you now.’ Both their parents had died two years earlier, within a week of each other. ‘And I do find it hard to imagine you being more than a few minutes away. But what can I do?’
‘Nothing. If you love him, go with him. We won’t lose touch.’ Something else occurred to Effi. ‘But you still haven’t got a divorce.’
‘Oh Jens will agree-he’ll be able to marry his schoolgirl.’
‘She’s almost as old as I am.’
‘Pah!’
‘But he won’t like losing Lothar. Have you told Lothar, by the way?’
‘Not yet.’
‘How do think he’ll react?’
‘I don’t know. He really likes Bill, and he’s crazy about all things American, but he’s always loved his father. God only knows why.’ She shook her head. ‘But there’s plenty of time. Bill doesn’t go home for another six months.’
Effi gave her another hug. She was happy for her sister, who seemed, at the second attempt, to have found a man worth having. But America! Ali Rosenthal, the young Jewish woman whom she’d lived with during the war, had moved there more than a year ago, when her husband Fritz had secured a teaching post at a southern college for negroes, and Effi still missed her. Now Zarah. As sisters they had always been what John said the English called ‘chalk and cheese’, but from childhood on the bond had been strong. Not seeing each other for six months in 1942 had been painful enough, and living an ocean apart would be … well, impossible was the word that came to Effi’s mind.