For the criminals too, Russell thought but didn’t say.
He went in search of Kuzorra’s old office, where he’d first heard the news that the Gestapo were after him. No one challenged his presence en route, but when he reached what seemed the right corridor, all of the likely offices lay empty. There were secretaries in two rooms further along, but neither recalled the detective’s name.
Russell traced his way back to the outside world. Kuzorra might have retired soon after their last meeting in 1941. He — and the possibility was chilling — might have been arrested, even executed, for his part in helping Russell escape. Then again, he was more likely to have been killed by a bomb or a shell, like a hundred thousand other Berliners. But whatever his fate, it seemed strange that no one remembered him in the place where he’d spent his working life.
Russell wondered what to do. His main reason for seeking out Kuzorra was to thank him, but he had also nursed a vague hope that the detective would still be working, and in a position to offer him some help. The old Kuzorra could have provided a rundown of what made the new Berlin tick, and what stories were crying out for investigation. He would also have known how best to mount a search for missing Jews.
Maybe he’d retired at the end of the war — he had to be nearly seventy. If so, and if his building had survived, he would probably still be living on Demminer Strasse, which was only a short ride away on the U-Bahn. Or had been in better times. Descending the steps at Alexanderplatz station, he discovered that an unexploded bomb had been found in the tunnels, and the service north suspended.
Back on the surface, he thought about taking a bus, but the first one that came was so tightly packed that only two of the waiting crowd could get on. He supposed he could walk, but what was the point when tomorrow would do just as well?
The problems besetting public transport reminded him he’d once owned a car. Like most private vehicles, it had been forced off the road by war regulations and the acute fuel shortage. Russell had left the Hanomag at the garage where he’d bought it, from Miroslav Zembski’s cousin Hunder. And if it hadn’t fallen victim to high explosives, the car might still be waiting for him. Ordinary Berliners were still forbidden to drive, and petrol was almost impossible to come by, but he was officially an American, and one of his spymasters might like the idea of motorising their favourite agent. It had to be worth a shot.
This flight of fancy sustained him throughout the S-Bahn ride to Lehrter Station, and down several streets of ruined workshops and small factories. But then came disappointment — Hunder Zembski’s yard had not survived its proximity to the nearby railway sheds. The gates were still standing but little else, and the packed lot he remembered from 1941 resembled a wreckers’ yard.
Clambering gingerly across a skein of twisted metal, he headed for where he’d parked the Hanomag, but that corner of the yard had obviously taken a direct hit, and all he could find was a jumble of pulverised brick and metal shards. If the car had not been moved beforehand, it never would be now.
He made his way back to Lehrter Station. A train was noisily pulling in, and he used a gap in the fence to get a better view. The locomotive was pulling cattle cars rather than coaches, and the waiting platform was lined with soldiers, nurses and men with armbands who Russell assumed were refugee agency officials. When the doors were opened people burst violently out, as if they’d been held in under pressure. The shoulders of one arrival visibly sagged as he took in the jagged skyline that lay beyond the roofless station. Could this be Berlin?
Around the station a sprawling refugee camp had grown up. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people living in burnt-out offices, overturned wagons and any niche that a sheet of corrugated iron could roof over. As he looked back at the train, the first of many stretchers was lifted down from the cattle cars. Each bore a human load, but none showed signs of life.
Russell remembered the nights in 1941, when he and Gerhard Strohm had watched trains like these leaving Berlin with their cargo of Jews for ‘resettlement’. The cattle cars looked the same, but this time the cargo was German. These families had been driven from the old Junker heartlands in the east by the victorious Russians and Poles. They had paid the bill for Hitler with their loved ones and their homes.
His reporter’s instinct told him two things — that this was a huge story, and one that the victors would rather not read. Ninety-nine per cent of these refugees would be innocent of any serious crime, but as far as the world was concerned, being German was guilt enough, and any such suffering thoroughly deserved.
For Effi, entering Ernst Dufring’s house in Schmargendorf was like stepping into a time machine. The hall was plastered with framed movie posters from the golden age of German cinema, the huge living room a shrine to Bauhaus interior design. Even the other actors seemed wellfed, with none of the yellow-grey pallor that characterised most Berliner faces. Only the shell-shattered spire of the church across the street offered proof of the war just fought and lost.
Effi had wondered what sort of reception she would receive, but everyone seemed pleased to have her on board. And more than happy in general, as if they’d just won top prize in a national sweepstake. In a way they had, she supposed. The people in this room were pioneers, the first movie-makers of the new Germany.
The writer Ute Faeder, a tall blonde in her forties with a wry sense of humour, explained some changes she had made in the script, and Dufring then listed the scenes they would run through that morning. He looked much older than Effi remembered, but there was no doubting his enthusiasm for making this particular movie. ‘I know you’ve only just received the script,’ he told Effi, ‘but do your best.’
Her confidence increased as the morning passed, but nailing this character was going to be hard. She wasn’t sure why her character let the man stay on in her flat; she only knew that Lilli’s own experiences in the camp had made it impossible for her to evict him. But what experiences, and how could Effi access them? Her week in a cell at the Gestapo’s Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse HQ had certainly been frightening, but she hadn’t gone hungry, hadn’t been physically abused. Lilli, by contrast, had endured years of the worst that the Nazis could offer. How could Effi make sense of her psyche? She needed to talk to people with such experiences, she thought. If she was going to play this role with any conviction, she needed to hear their stories.
It occurred to her that she had never felt this need before — imagination had been enough. Perhaps that was the point — what had happened over the last few years was literally unimaginable. And it would need films like this to make it less so. Movies like this really mattered, unlike most she had made.
This thought had only just crossed her mind when Lothar Kuhnert appeared at her side. ‘I’m afraid we have a problem,’ were his first upsetting words. ‘The British have refused your Spruchkammer certification.’
‘Oh no. Why, for heaven’s sake?’
‘A lot of nonsense about you playing “iconic Nazi roles”, whatever than means. The real reason is that the Americans have insisted.’
‘What in heaven’s name have I done to upset them?’
‘They’re adopting a harder line towards ex-Nazis, and…’
‘I wasn’t a Nazi!’
‘We know that. But some Americans don’t understand that it was possible to do well in the Third Reich without being one.’
‘Oh God! Doesn’t the fact that the Gestapo was hunting me for four years make any difference?’
‘It should. It will. Just leave it with me.’ He sighed. ‘The good news is that there’s no urgency. They’re still investigating Ernst, and there’ll probably be others. But we’ll get this film made, one way or another.’