'How did they hear about them?'
'From others who emigrated. I'm supposed to check them out, make contact if it seems advisable, find out where their loyalties lie. It's all rather vague, because they don't really know what they're doing. Basically, they've just woken up to the fact that a European war is coming, and that they have no ears and eyes anywhere on the continent.'
Effi looked thoughtful. 'I'm not doubting your journalistic abilities, my darling, but is this why you were given your new job?'
'The thought did occur to me, but I don't think so.' He shrugged. 'In practical terms, it doesn't make much difference one way or the other.'
'I see what you mean. So you're going to start checking these people out.'
'Slowly. And very carefully.'
'Good. All right. So that's what the Americans wanted for the passport. What did the SD want for me?'
'Not much. Yet. They may have big plans for the future, but the first thing they wanted me to do was re-enlist with the Soviets. The Sicherheitsdienst think they can use me as a conduit for false intelligence.'
'You've seen the Soviets already?'
'On Thursday. I told them I've been forced to work for the Germans and that the information I'll be giving them is a bunch of hooey. The ironic thing is - I was going to make contact with them anyway.'
'After last time?'
'Needs must. Effi, I'm all for fighting the good fight, but I'd really like us to survive these bastards. If the worst happens, and one or both of us ends up on the run from the Gestapo, the only people who could get us out of Germany are the comrades. They've had organized escape routes across the French and Belgian and Czech borders since the late 20s - it was them who got Albert Wiesner out. So I did a deal with myself - I'd work for the Americans, but only once I had our escape hatch arranged.'
'And the Soviets have agreed?'
'Not yet, but I think they will.'
'But what can you offer them?'
'Depends what they ask for. I could argue that I'm already doing them one service by telling them the German information is false.'
'Won't they want more than that?'
Russell shrugged. 'Who knows? It's all getting a bit surreal. Did you ever read Alice in Wonderland?'
'When I was a child. Zarah used to have nightmares about the Queen of Hearts.'
'No wonder she married Jens.'
Effi laughed. 'Poor Zarah.' She held out her empty mug. 'Is there any more wine?'
He poured them both a generous measure, and they sat for a while in silence, sipping from the mugs and staring out at the landscape.
'John,' she said eventually, 'I want to help you however I can, but that's not all I want to do. You and I, well, we move in different worlds, don't we? The people I know...I have to do what I can in my world. I'm going to start talking to people - carefully, of course. There are thousands of people - millions for all I know - who think the Nazis are a cruel joke. I'm going...I don't know, you'll probably think I'm an idiot, but I've asked Lili Rohde to teach me more about make-up. I've told her it's because I'm getting older, and there aren't many parts for older women and I need to think about my future, but that's not the real reason. Make-up - disguise, really - seems like something that might come in useful in lots of ways.' She looked at him warily, as if expecting ridicule.
'It could,' he agreed.
Reassured, she went on. 'And I've been thinking about something else. We don't want to keep secrets from each other, but I think we may have to keep some. I was thinking that we could talk about what we were doing without using the right names. That way...'
'I understand,' Russell said. He had expected one of two reactions from Effi - either one of her trademark rants or a rueful decision to play it safe. He had not expected a simple statement of intent, let alone a cool appraisal of risk. He had underestimated her, and fear had been the reason. This new Effi was living proof that things had changed, and he was scared. For both of them.
'I was never interested in politics,' she said, 'and I'm still not really. You have to be for something in politics, you have to have some idea of a different world which is better than the one you've got. I just know what I'm against. Killing children because they're handicapped in some way. Locking up any-one who publicly disagrees with them. Torturing them. And all this violence against the Jews. It's just wrong. All of it.' She turned to him, angry tears welling in her eyes. 'I'm right, aren't I?'
'I'm afraid you are.'
Rehearsals
The studio car picked Effi up at five-thirty on Monday morning, establishing the pattern for the next two weeks. Whenever she had this sort of schedule Russell spent the weekday nights at Neuenburger Strasse, but on this occasion they agreed to spend Wednesday night - and the air raid rehearsal - together. Being bombed would be so much more interesting in each other's company.
That Monday morning, Russell left the flat soon after eight and headed across town to the Cafe Kranzler. The German newspapers seemed bemused by 'Hudson's Howler', unsure whether it represented a genuine offer, indignant at the very idea that the Reich could be bribed into acquiescence. As a story, Russell decided, it had run its course.
He spent most of the next two hours in one of the Adlon telephone booths, calling up a variety of German contacts in a vain trawl for fresh news. Suitably frustrated, he strode down the Wilhelmstrasse for the eleven o'clock press briefing at the Foreign Ministry. Ribbentrop's spokesman had a sneer or two prepared for the British, but, as usual, soon found himself on the defensive. An English correspondent asked about Pastor Schneider, the Rhineland clergy-man who'd been in custody for twenty-seven months, and whose death from a 'heart attack' in Buchenwald concentration camp had just been announced. Had the authorities reached a decision on which law he had broken?
'An internal German matter,' the spokesman blustered. He held up his hands, as if to show they were clean.
Briefings like that could sap the will to live, Russell thought, as he drove home to Neuenburger Strasse. Frau Heidegger's door was open, the woman herself lying in wait with her deadly coffee. Russell took his usual chair and the usual trepidatory sip, and was pleasantly surprised. 'My sister washed the pot out,' the concierge told him indignantly, 'and the coffee doesn't taste the same.'
'It's a little weaker,' Russell agreed, forbearing to add that it would still jolt a dead camel to life.
Like most Germans, her knowledge of America was gleaned solely from the movies, and Frau Heidegger's questions about Russell's trip were framed accordingly. She was disappointed that he hadn't seen the West, thrilled that he and Paul had visited the skyscraper made famous by King Kong. A distant cousin had once thought of emigrating to America, she told him, but the thought of giant apes running wild had put her off. The woman hadn't been very bright, Frau Heidegger admitted. But then no one from the East Prussian side of the family was.
Her own week in Stettin had been wonderful. Her brother had arranged a sailing trip, and they'd gone so far out that they could hardly see the land. Returning to Berlin was the usual tale of woe, however. It always took her two weeks to undo what her sister had done in one.
'There's one thing I should know,' she said, having reminded herself of her duties. 'Will you be here on Wednesday night for the air raid rehearsal? I'm asking because Beiersdorfer will want to write it all down.' Beiersdorfer was the block warden, in name at least. He was as frightened of Frau Heidegger as the rest of them.
'No, I'll be at Effi's,' Russell said.
'Ah, I saw her picture in the paper,' Frau Heidegger said, leaping up and riffling through the pages of that day's Beobachter. 'Here,' she said, passing it over. Christina Bergner was talking to Goebbels in the Universum foyer, a smiling Effi just behind them.