She remembered a trip to the Zoo with him and Paul. It had been one of those spring days when everything seemed right with the world, even with the Nazis in power. Paul had only been about seven, so it must have been early in their love affair. The three of them had clambered aboard the same elephant, and clung to each other as it lumbered along the wide path between the iron cages…
She woke suddenly, thinking she’d heard a noise outside. There were no lights, no banging – it must have been an animal, perhaps a fox who frequented the cottage and had suddenly scented its human occupant. She hurriedly used her flashlight to check her watch. It was almost two o’clock. Another half-hour and she would have been late for the rendezvous. How could she have been so careless?
There were no moving shadows on the wall, no distant thunder – the air raid had ended. Outside the fires raised by the bombing were reflected in the clouds, casting the world in an orange glow. She selfishly hoped that her own building had been spared – finding new accommodation with her current identity papers shouldn’t prove too difficult, but any contact with the authorities involved some sort of risk.
It was cold, and she could feel the damp of the cottage in her bones. She thought about using the outside toilet, but a memory of dense cobwebs persuaded her to squat down in the garden. She was almost forty years old, but spiders still frightened her more than the Gestapo.
She decided to get going. There were only two kilometres to walk, along an easy-to-follow path, but it would be prudent to reach her destination early, and give herself the chance of sizing up the situation from a distance.
Walking as quietly as she could, she followed the path around the northern shore of the lake and up into the woods. The rendezvous point was a designated picnic area close to, but above, the road from Frohnau to Bergfelde. As she and Ali had discovered at the weekend, it had several wooden benches and tables, along with a board bearing faded pictures of animal life and stern warnings against dropping litter. Engraved arrows on a plinth directed viewers towards prominent landmarks of the distant capital, and one recent visitor had brought the display up to date by scratching ‘ruins of’ in front of several names.
Effi approached the area with extreme caution. No lights were visible, which was as it should be. She thought she heard murmurs of conversation, but was far from sure.
She worked her way off the path and through the trees, grateful for the masking effect of a noisy breeze as she got closer to the edge of the clearing. Stopping, she thought she could make out several figures, some standing, some sitting at one of the picnic tables. Another few metres and she was sure. There were six of them.
They looked innocent enough, but that was the mistake tigers made about staked-out goats.
She told herself that the person or persons who had brought them would still be watching from hiding, if only to confirm her own arrival. She would not see them, and they would only see her from a distance – Aslund had a keen appreciation of cell structures and the security they provided. Which was why he wanted her to take the group from here to the train, to provide a cut-out between his organisation in the city and the railwaymen.
It was always possible that the initial escorts had been arrested en route, their places taken by Gestapo agents. If so, the latter would be close by, watching and waiting for Effi to reveal and condemn herself.
She forced herself to wait a little longer. As she strained ears and eyes for sign of any other watchers, one of the figures at the table suddenly got to his feet and stretched. ‘I imagine many ways in which it would all end,’ he said to his companions, ‘but I never considered a midnight picnic.’
The other men laughed, removing Effi’s suspicions. These men had not been brought by the Gestapo.
She took a deep breath and strode out of the trees. The six men, hardly surprisingly, all jumped at her sudden appearance.
‘I am your guide,’ she said softly. ‘We have about two kilometres to walk, and I want you to follow me in single file. Move as quietly as you can. And please, no talking.’
They did as they were told.
She led them back down the path she had taken, turning off onto another after two hundred metres. This new path led north, climbing into the trees and around the side of a low hill. Effi doubted whether the paths in this wood saw much traffic anymore, but Hitlerjugend playing soldiers had infested all woods within easy reach of the capital until the end of 1942, and nature had not yet succeeded in erasing all proof of their perambulations. This path was still easy to follow.
An occasional noise, probably an animal evading their passage, broke through the constant swish of the wind in the trees, and Effi could feel the nervousness of those behind her. She had no idea how far they had already travelled, or how much they knew of where they were going. She remembered her own aborted flight from Germany three years earlier, and the sense of utter powerlessness she had felt in the hands of those trying to help her. All that waiting, all that tension.
It was easier in motion. She could hear the heavy breathing of the men behind her, could imagine the hope at war with the fear. A few more days and their fate would be decided – sanctuary in Sweden or some impromptu execution yard.
They walked steadily on through the rustling forest. A barely risen moon was soon ghosting the tops of the trees, and by the time they emerged above the cutting it was high enough to reflect off the receding rails. These stretched straight as arrows in both directions: south-east towards Berlin, north-west towards the Baltic coast.
She turned to the six fugitives, and saw them properly for the first time. Three were in their forties or older, all wearing the sort of suits and shirts with high collars which the old upper class favoured. Army politicals, Effi thought, potential victims of the never-ending hunt for anyone even remotely involved in the previous summer’s plot to kill the Führer. The Reich might be on its last legs, but Hitler was determined that all his German enemies should die before he did.
The other three were younger, wearing cheaper, less formal clothes. Jews, Effi guessed, from the look of two of them. She realised with a shock that she recognised one man. A year or more ago, he had spent a night at the apartment.
His eyes told her the recognition was mutual, which boded anything but good. But there was nothing she could do about it now.
‘I’m leaving you here,’ she said, raising a hand to still the sudden alarm in six pairs of eyes. ‘See the railwaymen’s hut down there?’ she added. ‘Wait behind it. The train will stop, someone will come and get you, show you where to get on.’
‘When is it due?’ one man asked.
‘Soon,’ Effi told him. ‘In the next half-hour.’
‘When does it get light?’ another voice asked.
‘Not for another three hours,’ one of his companions told him.
‘Okay, good luck,’ Effi said, turning away.
‘Thank you,’ several voices murmured after her.
It felt wrong leaving them to fend for themselves, but Aslund had insisted that she retrace their steps as quickly as possible, and make sure they were not being followed. If they were, she was supposed to lead the pursuit off in a safe direction. Safe, that is, for everyone but herself.
With the pale light of the half-moon suffusing the trees, without her charges to worry about, she was able to walk much faster, and as her fears of meeting the enemy began to fade, so her progress through the forest began to feel almost exhilarating. She felt like bursting into song, but managed to restrain herself. There’d be plenty of time for singing when the war was over.
And then, somewhere up ahead, she heard the dog bark.