At this point the path was curving down from the crest of a low ridge. She scanned the darkness below, searching for lights or movement in the tangle of trees.
A second round of barking sounded different. Was there more than one dog, or was that just her imagination?
A light – maybe lights – flickered in the distance. They were several hundred metres away, she thought, though it was difficult to judge distance. Far enough in any case that she heard no voices or footfalls.
What should she do? If it was the Gestapo, then the dog or dogs would be following their scent. There was no way she could erase it, but she could add another trail by moving away from the path. In fact that was all she could do – she certainly couldn’t go forward or back. Without further thought, she left the path and hurried into the trees, moving fast as she could across the broken slope. The ground beneath the trees was spongy enough to absorb the sound of her passage, and no more barks broke through the background swish of the breeze. When she stopped after several minutes and took a long look back, there was no sign of lights.
Had they simply gone on down the path? And if so, would they reach the cutting ahead of the train? She hadn’t heard the latter, but it should have arrived by now.
It was out of her hands. ‘Save yourself, Effi,’ she murmured, and pressed on. A few minutes later she stumbled into a narrow ditch. There was water at the bottom – not much of it to be sure, but it was trickling down, and presumably in the direction of the lake. She followed it down the slope for what seemed an eternity, casting the occasional anxious glance back over her shoulder, but there was no sign of a pursuit. She began to hope she had imagined it. Could the lights and the barking have come from something as innocent as a woodsman and his dog? Did such people still exist in the Third Reich? It was possible. It often felt as if all normal life had been consumed by the war, but things kept popping up to prove the opposite.
She suddenly found herself on the path which ran around the lake, no more than a couple of hundred metres from the borrowed cottage. Paul would have been proud of her, she thought, remembering the boy’s own joy at winning a Hitlerjugend orientation exercise on a pre-war weekend. She felt pretty proud of herself.
There were no indications that the cottage had received any visitors. She ate one of the rolls she’d brought with her, drank some of the water, and tried to decide on a course of action. It wasn’t five o’clock yet, which meant another two hours of darkness. Should she stay or go? She had counted on returning to Berlin around 8 am, and hadn’t bothered to note the time of the first train – if she walked back to Frohnau station now she might find herself alone – and conspicuous – on an empty platform. Staying put for another couple of hours seemed, on balance, slightly less fraught with danger. She settled down to wait for dawn, wishing she knew whether or not the six men had caught their train. If they had, she should be safe for the night. If they hadn’t, someone would soon be talking.
Once again, she found herself waking from an unexpected sleep. This time it was probably the sunlight that woke her – it was almost eight o’clock. She went outside to have a pee, only to hear the sound of male voices in the distance. And a barking dog. They were coming from the direction of Frohnau.
Should she run? If they were looking for her, then the station would be covered in any case. And the dogs would surely track her down if she went back into the woods. Her only hope was to bluff it out.
She needed to be sure of her facts. Hurrying back inside, she went straight to the drawer where she and Ali had found the letters. Two were addressed to Harald and Maria Widmann and bore Heidelberg postmarks. Inside both were a few dutiful lines from ‘your loving son, Hartmut’. He was allegedly ‘working hard’, presumably at his studies. The third was a bill for boat repairs, addressed only to Herr Widmann.
She repeated the names out loud, then closed the drawer and took a quick look along the shelf of mouldering books. There were a couple by Karl May, and several books on birds and fishing.
The voices were outside the cottage now. She stood still, not wishing to gave away her presence, hoping they would walk on by.
No such luck. ‘Check inside,’ someone said.
She walked to the doorway and cried out ‘good morning’, as if overjoyed to meet a posse of passing strangers. The man coming towards her, and two of those remaining on the lakeside path, were wearing light blue-grey Bahnschutzpolizei uniforms; the man in charge was wearing the long leather coat beloved of the Gestapo. He walked slowly towards her, enjoying each step.
‘Is something wrong?’ Effi asked innocently.
‘Who are you, Madame? Where are your papers?’
Effi took them from her bag and passed them over.
‘Erna von Freiwald,’ he read aloud, with a slight, but unmistakable hint of disdain for the ‘von.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed cheerfully.
‘And what are you doing here, Frau von Freiwald?’
‘Ah,’ Effi said. ‘This is slightly embarrassing.’
‘Yes?’
‘This cottage is owned by old friends of mine. My late husband and I used to visit them before the war. Rainer was a keen fisherman, like Harald. They used to spend whole nights out on the lake, and Maria and I would talk…’
‘Your social life before the war does not interest me. What are you doing here now?’
‘I came to see if I could stay here, away from the bombing. It’s getting so bad in the city, and, well, I came up here last night. The train took forever, and I had trouble finding the cottage after all these years, and by the time I did it was too late to go back. So I stayed the night. I was just getting ready to leave when you arrived.’
‘And where are the owners?’
‘I don’t know. Harald was always a bit secretive about what he did, so I imagine he’s doing war work somewhere. I haven’t seen them since 1940.’
‘But you decided to take over their house?’
‘I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if they knew. I was only hoping to stay a few weeks. Until the miracle weapons are ready,’ she added, hoping that she wasn’t overdoing it, ‘and the enemy has to stop bombing us.’
He looked at her, then started through her papers again. He doesn’t believe me, she thought, but he doesn’t know why, and he can’t really bring himself to believe that a middle-aged woman is what he’s looking for.
‘Is there trouble in the area?’ she asked. ‘Has a foreign prisoner escaped from one of the camps?’
‘That is not your concern,’ he said sharply, and thrust out a hand with her papers. ‘If you wish to live here, you must get the written consent of the owners, and a residence permit from the local Party office. Understood?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’ She resisted the temptation to curtsy.
He took one more look at her and turned abruptly on his heels. The dog whined happily at the prospect of resuming its walk.
As the sound of their progress faded, Effi let her body sag against the door jamb, closed her eyes, and let her breath escape in an explosive sigh of relief.
Führer, we thank you!
April 7 – 9
Russell woke early, which was just as well, as he’d forgotten to request a wake-up bang on his door. Assuming the American Embassy hadn’t moved in the last five years, he had time for breakfast and a quick visit before his appointment with the Soviet authorities. He washed and shaved in unexpectedly hot water, got dressed, and hurried down to the restaurant.
It was better patronised than the evening before, and those idly playing with the suspicious-looking slices of cold meat included one British and two American foreign correspondents. One of the latter, Bill Manson, was an old acquaintance from pre-war Berlin. He’d represented various East Coast papers in half a dozen European capitals since the 1920s, and his eternal crew-cut was suitably grey. He had to be well over sixty.