Effi explained that they’d only just started on their list of possible locations, whereupon the woman insisted on comparing that list with another, which one of the American Jewish organisations had compiled. Three more sites were identified, one of them a recently opened agricultural training camp for Zionists.
They were crossing the downstairs lobby when a familiar face came in through the main doors. Effi had met and befriended Johanna — she had never learnt her surname — during her and Rosa’s week-long confinement in the Pathology department, but once Dobberke had signed their releases Johanna had opted to spend the last few days of the war where she was, rather than risk the streets outside. Now a huge smile engulfed her face, and she enfolded Effi in a fierce hug. ‘Where have you been? I’ve often wondered what happened to you when you left. You and Rosa.’
‘You’re looking well,’ Effi said, and Johanna was. In April she’d been painfully thin, but in her case the ‘Victim of Fascism’ ration card was obviously serving its intended purpose — she looked several stones heavier and ten years younger. ‘We ended up in the Potsdam Station,’ Effi said. ‘It was a nightmare. We should have stayed here with you and Nina.’
Johanna’s smile disappeared. ‘No, you made the right decision. You remember — Nina thought the Russians would behave themselves because we were Jews and because there were so many of us. She couldn’t have been more wrong. I got off quite lightly, but Nina was young and pretty and…’ Johanna sighed. ‘Well, she killed herself…’
Effi closed her eyes for a few seconds.
‘But is Rosa all right?’ Johanna asked anxiously.
‘She’s fine. She’s in England, in London. Which is where we were until last week. This is John, by the way. I must have told you about him.’
‘Yes, you did.’ She gave Russell a knowing look, then turned back to Effi. ‘I met another friend of yours a couple of months ago,’ she told Effi. ‘I work in the hospital, but I was in the office when she came looking for you. Her name was Ali something…’
‘Ali Blumenthal!’ Ali was the daughter of two Jews whom Russell and Effi had befriended in the first years of the war. They had agreed to ‘resettlement’ in the East, but Ali, like Effi, had opted for an underground existence. When they ran into each other in 1942, Ali had put Effi in touch with the identity forger Schonhaus, which had probably saved her life. She and Ali had shared a flat, a business and a life of resistance for most of the next three years.
‘Yes, that was the name,’ Johanna confirmed. ‘I told her I’d met you in April, and she told me who you really were. I was surprised, I can tell you. I must have seen some of your films, but I never recognised you.’
‘Did Ali leave an address?’
‘Not here, but most people leave their contact details on the boards outside. Come, I’ll show you where.’
They walked out onto Iranische Strasse, where a line of boarded-up windows were plastered with scraps of paper and card, some neatly cut and printed, others simple scrawls on scraps. It was Effi who recognised Ali’s elegant handwriting. ‘Hufelandstrasse 27,’ she said excitedly. ‘In Wilmersdorf. I think I know where that is. We must go there.’
Russell smiled. ‘Of course.’
Effi thanked Johanna, and gave her Thomas’s address. ‘Wherever we eventually end up living, he’ll know.’
Johanna was reluctant to let them go. ‘Remember how we all agreed to meet on August 1st, in the Zoo Cafeteria. Well, I went to the Zoo, but there was no sign of you and Rosa, and no cafeteria. I wasn’t surprised, but…’
‘Rosa remembered,’ Effi told her. ‘She was upset. But we were in England, and even if we’d known where you were, we had no way of making contact.’ ‘I’m glad you both made it.’
‘And you,’ Effi said with feeling. With so many gone, each survivor seemed doubly precious.
Before the war the trip would have taken forty minutes, but more than two hours had passed when they finally reached Ali’s apartment building. Hufelandstrasse seemed almost untouched by the war, as if some higher power had intervened to protect its residents from the bombs and shells that rained down on the neighbouring streets.
Ali herself opened the apartment door, and let out a whoop of pure delight when she saw who it was. The two women threw themselves into each other’s arms, and shared an excited hug, their feet almost dancing as they twirled each other round. The young man behind Ali smiled and shook his head.
‘This is my husband Fritz,’ she told them. ‘And this is Effi,’ she told him.
‘I thought it might be,’ he said with a grin.
‘And Herr Russell,’ Ali said, giving him a hug too. They hadn’t seen each other since 1941, when she was still living with her parents. In those days she had worn her dark hair long — now it barely reached her shoulder.
She ushered them into a large and cosy living room. There were two desks with typewriters, books and newspapers everywhere. ‘So everything turned out for the best,’ Ali said, still smiling. ‘You always said it would.’
Effi sighed. ‘I did, didn’t I?’ It sounded like a strange thing to say in November 1945, but she knew what Ali meant.
‘Look,’ Ali said, ‘we have a meeting to go to soon, but can you come for dinner tomorrow? Where are you living? Where have you been all this time?’
She looked terrific, Effi thought. ‘England,’ she said. ‘We only just got back. We’re staying at our friend Thomas’s house in Dahlem. It’s not that far from here. What have you been doing? How did you get this flat?’
‘Oh, the flat’s part of the guilt package. We Jews get priority now. It used to belong to a Nazi official, and he’s either dead or in a camp…’
‘Or in South America,’ Fritz added wryly.
‘Whatever. We burned his books,’ she added with a giggle. ‘He had three copies of Mein Kampf, one for here, one in the bedroom, and one beside the toilet.’ She shook her head. ‘They kept us warm for a couple of hours while we worked.’
Russell had noticed the stacks of SPD leaflets. ‘Are you working for the Social Democrats?’
‘Yes, there’s a committee tonight.’
‘Ah, I’d be interested in talking to you both about that. Off the record, of course.’
Ali looked surprised, as if she’d forgotten that he was a journalist. ‘But if you were both safe in England, why have you come back? Life in Berlin is pretty dreadful, and I can’t see it getting any better before the spring.’
‘We’re here to work,’ Effi said. ‘I’m doing a film. Well, probably. If it ever gets started. And you remember Rosa?’
‘Of course. The girl the Swede sent us. I always felt bad about leaving you then.’
‘You shouldn’t have. We survived, and I fell in love with her. She’s in England with my sister. We know her mother’s dead, but I need to find out what happened to her father.’
‘Oh. Well, I can probably help you there. There must be someone I know in every Jewish organisation in Berlin. I’ll give you a list of names and addresses. And you should leave notices wherever you go. And in the papers. They’re even reading messages out on the Russian radio station now. These days Berlin’s like a huge missing persons bureau.’ She grinned at Effi. ‘It’s so good to see you again. When we were living together on Bismarckstrasse, I used to dream about this moment — when the war was over, and there was nothing to fear, and people to love and laugh with.’
‘She talked a lot about you,’ Fritz volunteered. ‘And you too,’ he added, including Russell. ‘You must have known the family.’
‘I did. They really are dead then?’ ‘Oh yes,’ Ali said, almost matter-of-factly. ‘I found their names on one of the Auschwitz lists last summer. But I’d known for years, ever since the first stories reached Berlin.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Russell said. ‘They were wonderful people.’
‘Yes, they were. For a long time I was really angry with them. With my father for being so stupidly optimistic, with my mother for indulging him. But then those were the things I loved about them.’ She sighed. ‘And now they’re gone.’ She smiled at Fritz. ‘And we have our lives to live. Three of them soon — I’m four months pregnant.’