Russell wasn’t so sure, but he hoped the man was right. Considering their situation, this didn’t seem like the best of times to be trapped.
The flight to the Salzburg airbase took just under an hour, the wait for a jeep almost as long, and it was one o’clock before they reached the farm. When he saw her, Merzhanov face’s lit up with joy. She was more restrained, but there was real affection there, Russell decided. Maybe he’d misjudged her.
‘Can we have some time alone?’ Merzhanov asked.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Russell told him, feeling mean but not really caring-they’d have weeks at sea to cuddle each other. ‘We have to leave straight away.’
Merzhanov’s small bag was already packed, and the two of them followed him out to the jeep. Sitting together in the back, they whispered endearments for most of the ninety-minute ride, leaving Russell to take a mental wander through the minefield of the next few weeks. With the Allied air forces now providing the only ways in and of Berlin, Russell’s idea of hiding copies of the film in various countries seemed likely to be a non-starter. If the Brits or Americans got their hands on one, then Beria’s crime-or a suitably edited version thereof-would end up on Pathe News, and Russell and Shchepkin would have lost their bargaining card.
A kilometre short of Alt Aussee, Russell pulled the jeep over to the side of the road and turned to face the lovebirds. ‘As I told Konstantin last time I saw him-these people believe you are Catholics. That’s why they’re willing to help you. I wish we’d had time to give you a crash course in Catholicism, but we didn’t. If a problem arises, Konstantin will have to say that he had no chance to practise his religion in the Soviet Union-which would be true enough-and so he only knows what little his grandmother told him. But you feel like a Catholic,’ Russell told the Russian, ‘and you’re hungry to learn more. And if anyone questions you, Janica, just say you’re planning to convert as soon as you can.’
‘All right.’
‘Okay. Now, Konstantin, what do you know about the Ukrainian nationalist groups?’
‘They’re all murderous bastards.’
Russell smiled. ‘Well, forget that for a while. They’re popular murderous bastards with the people who are taking you south. You don’t have to claim you were in the OUN, or anything like that, but if the subject comes up, be tactful. Make up a history which they’ll like.’ He looked at them both.
‘Where are we going?’ Janica asked him abruptly.
‘America. South America to begin with, I expect.’
‘But we want to live in the USA.’
‘I know. And I’m sure you’ll get there eventually.’
‘We will need money,’ she insisted.
‘I have five hundred dollars for you,’ Russell said, reaching into his pocket.
‘Is that all?’ Merzhanov said, more surprised than angry. He had apparently forgotten his earlier disdain for the stuff.
‘I’m afraid so.’ Johannsen had only provided $200; Russell and Effi had supplied the rest. ‘It’ll go a long way if you’re careful,’ he added.
‘And we have each other,’ Merzhanov rallied, putting an arm around Janica’s shoulder.
‘Of course,’ she agreed, managing to return his smile.
‘You should be at sea within a week,’ Russell told them. ‘One last thing. The MGB aren’t looking for you now, and I presume you’d like to keep it that way. So don’t, whatever you do, tell anyone about the film.’
‘We understand,’ Merzhanov said.
‘Yes, of course,’ Janica said, a little sulkily.
‘If they find out you took it, they’ll kill you both,’ Russell reiterated, just to make sure they fully understood.
‘Yes, yes,’ Janica said. ‘We know. We say nothing.’
Mordechai’s advice
After returning the previous evening, Effi had dropped in on Zarah to let her know she was back. She hadn’t stayed long, but as she was leaving her sister had presented Effi with a rare gift-around a hundred grams of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, part of Bill’s winnings from a poker match with some Brits. Now, having taken to Rosa to school, she made herself a cup, and curled up on the sofa to savour every last sip.
The tins containing the film reels were stacked on the mantelpiece, Merzhanov’s among them. ‘Hiding something in plain view,’ Russell called it, and she hoped he wasn’t being too clever. Maybe she was missing the point, but a film tin seemed a good place to look for a film.
Looking at the boxes started her thinking about how they were going to view the one in question. They could take Merzhanov’s film to one of the studios she’d worked at over the years and persuade a technician to let them watch it-minor celebrity status could move such minor mountains-but ensuring privacy would probably prove more difficult. The technician would want to work the projector; would, in fact, be the only one there who knew how. And even if he could be bribed into setting things up and leaving them to it, they could hardly lock themselves inside a screening room without raising all sorts of questions. No, it wouldn’t do. They would have to hang a white sheet on the wall the way Cisar had, and somehow get hold of their own projector.
But from where? Resisting the temptation to make another coffee, Effi sketched out a list of possible sources and started making calls. None of her first respondents had one, but most had suggestions as to where one might be found, and an hour or more into her search she finally struck gold. There was a company in Wedding that hired out projectors-there was, it seemed, a booming trade in private showings of pornographic shorts. The Russians and French were particularly enamoured, her informant told her; the Brits and Americans much more prudish.
After ringing the shop, and hearing that it did have the appropriate equipment for hire, Effi took the U-Bahn to Muller Strasse and walked the short distance to the address she’d been given. The sign above the window was for a butcher, but once inside the premises the only flesh on display was human. Someone had been enlarging stills from pornographic movies. A sales pitch, Effi realised, both legal and enticing-the scraps of cloth being worn in the photos were doubtless removed in the films.
Inside, a youth of around twenty was surrounded by film equipment of various types and vintage. He seemed ill at ease, a state Effi attributed to an unfamiliarity with real women. Knowing she badly needed his help, she set out to reassure him, presenting herself as a potent combination of motherly concern and female hopelessness in the face of machinery. After modestly admitting that she had made some films herself-‘several years ago now,’ she added wistfully-she took one of her audition reels out of her bag. ‘I want to show some films like this to a few friends at home,’ she said innocently. ‘Do you have the right projector? And if you do, could you teach me how to work it?’
He did and he could. They went through the process twice together, Effi coyly stopping the film each time the opening frames appeared on the wall, and trying not to notice how keen he seemed to sniff her hair. Once certain she knew how to work the projector, she paid a week’s hire, and left him to box it up. Outside on Muller Strasse the wait for a cab seemed endless, but when one eventually came the youth carefully placed it on the seat beside her, and raised a hand in nervous farewell.
Back at Carmer Strasse a neighbour helped her carry it in, and when Rosa came home from school, they watched one of the audition reels together. Every now and then the girl would turn her eyes from the screen Effi to the one sat beside her, just to check they were one and the same.
Around six, they walked over to Zarah’s. Lothar and Bill Carnforth was there already, and after dinner the five of them played skat. They had the radio playing low in the background, and they almost missed the transition from soothing music to worrying news: The Allies had announced a currency reform. From midnight on the following Sunday the old Reichsmark would no longer be legal tender. Initially, at least, the change would only apply to the British, French, and American zones, and not to their sectors in Berlin; but Bill was convinced it was only a matter of time.