'What did you tell her?'
'That I thought his Mercedes might be for sale. It was the best I could think of.'
'Clever.'
'That's me. So, this is where he comes when he fails to pick a girl up. We need to know where he goes when he succeeds.'
'We need to see him pick one up.'
'We do. Presumably he'll try again on Friday.'
'We don't know he only goes on Fridays,' Effi protested.
'All three sightings,' Russell reminded her.
She sighed. 'It seems a long time to wait if Miriam's still in danger.'
'If she's still in danger. It's been six weeks now.'
'But this might be the week that matters.'
Russell looked at her. 'What else can we do? If we start following him everywhere he's bound to spot us, and when the right time comes we need him not to recognize this car. We know there's no point in involving the police. And I'm off to Bratislava tomorrow for God knows how many days.'
'You'll be back by Friday though?'
'I hope so.'
He left Effi half-asleep in bed the following morning, and drove across town to leave the Hanomag at Siggi's mercy in the Neuenburger Strasse courtyard. A tram from Hallesches Tor got him to Tempelhof Field, where he posted Isendahl's envelope to himself at the Potsdam poste restante. He had several ideas for getting article and leaflet out of the country, but carrying them across the border between Vienna and Bratislava was not one of them.
The aeroplane looked similar to the one which had carried him, Zarah and the children to London earlier that year, but Paul was not around to confirm the name and number, or to volunteer a raft of technical specifications. There seemed more seats than before, and the air hostess, busy dispensing twists of cotton wool to his fellow-passengers, was noticeably prettier.
The aeroplane took off on time, rising over Wilmersdorf and Grunewald before veering round to the south. The pilot straightened her out at about two thousand metres, and the parched Saxon fields spread out beneath them. The sky was clear in all directions, and as they passed over Dresden the peaks of the Erzgebirge were clearly visible up ahead. Around half-past ten Prague appeared to their right, nestling in the silver bend of the Vltava. It looked serene and peaceful, as most places did from a kilometre up. Another hour and Vienna was visible across the wider ribbon of the Danube. As their plane taxied to a halt, the clock on the single storey aerodrome building read exactly eleven-thirty.
Once inside, Russell asked for the quickest way of reaching Bratislava.
'You mean Pressburg?' the young German at the desk responded.
'I mean the town that used to be called Pressburg,' Russell agreed. Until 1918 most of Slovakia had been ruled from Vienna.
There were several options, the young man told him curtly. He could take the gratis automobile into Vienna and take a train back out again. He could try his luck at the local station, which was much closer to Pressburg. He could take a boat down the Danube, though that would take around seven hours. He could look for an autobus outside.
Following up the final suggestion, Russell walked into an argument between a cab driver and a rather ancient German. Their dispute, he quickly discovered, was over the fare to Pressburg - the old gentleman insisting that it was only half of what the cabbie was demanding. 'I'll pay the other half if you'll take me too,' Russell offered.
Both seemed angry for a moment, as if he'd deliberately spoiled their fun, but his suggestion was accepted.
The capital of the newly independent Slovakia was about sixty-five kilometres away, and the drive took about ninety minutes. The border formalities consumed around thirty of those, the Slovaks keen to demonstrate their new independence. Every item in Russell's suitcase was meticulously examined, leaving him highly relieved that he had left Isendahl's leaflet and article behind.
During the final leg of the journey he asked both driver and fellow-passenger about Friday night's pogrom, but neither had much to say. The old German had been visiting relatives in Berlin for several weeks and the driver - a Slovak - pleaded a lack of fluency in any language but his own. Russell hoped his reticence had something to do with shame.
Bratislava looked down on the Danube from the end of a range of hills. Dropped off in the square at the centre of the Old Town, Russell consulted the street map in his vintage Baedeker. German cartographers were still including synagogues in 1929, and a cluster of them signified the Jewish quarter.
It was only a few blocks away, and easy to recognize from the debris littering the pavements. A whole line of shop fronts had been staved in, and while some were covered with hastily-nailed planks, others still gaped open, their shelves bearing nothing but shards of glass. There was a normal flow of people on the narrow street, but there seemed less noise than there should be, as if someone had turned the city's volume down.
The first synagogue he came to was daubed with swastikas and other insults, but the entrance was guarded by a posse of Slovak policemen. Russell showed his press card to the likely leader, but the man just shook his head. Pleas in German and English were met with a brief but noticeably hostile burst of Slovak.
Russell gave up for the moment. A cafe-bar down the street offered food, drink and the possibility of conversation. He was not an expert on central European cuisines, but the menu seemed like a mixture of Hungarian and Jewish, and most of the clientele looked the latter. One young man was staring at him from a nearby table. His face and angry expression reminded Russell of Albert Wiesner.
'I'm a journalist,' he said in German. 'An American journalist.'
The boy looked surprised. 'Can you prove it?' he asked in perfect German, looking around him as he did so.
'Yes,' Russell said simply, taking out his passport and journalistic accreditation.
The young man came over to examine them.
'Have a seat,' Russell offered. 'Can I get you a drink?'
'Whatever you're drinking. I'm Mel,' the youth added, offering his hand.
Russell took it and called for another Pilsen. 'Tell me what happened on Friday night,' he said.
Mel took another precautionary look around the bar. 'It was actually Saturday morning,' he began. 'About a hundred of them came roaring down from Masarykplatz. They were mostly Germans, but there were some Slovaks. You can see what they did.'
'What set them off ?'
'Nobody knows for sure, but most people think it was organized by the Freiwillige Schutzkorps - the local storm troopers.'
'Was anyone killed?'
'No. A miracle really. A lot of people were hurt, though. Some were punched or battered with staves when they tried to defend their shops, and a lot of people were cut by flying glass.'
'Did the police come?'
'Oh yes. Four hours after they were called. Their station's up on Stefanikstrasse - a five minute walk away.'
The story - and the bitterness - seemed all too familiar.
'The worst thing for most people - not me, because I'm not religious - but the bastards destroyed a lot of important stuff in the synagogues. Stuff that was hundreds of years old.'
'The local police wouldn't let me in,' Russell told him.
'You want to see it? There's a back door.'
'Show me.'
'When we've finished our beers.'
A few minutes and several alleys later, they reached the small yard at the rear of the synagogue. The door opened to Mel's push, and they found them-selves in a small storeroom. Another door brought them through to the main chamber, and a scene of devastation. Pools of water lay across the stone floor, and still-sopping carpets had been thrown across seats to dry out.
'They turned on the water hydrants,' Mel whispered.
Hangings had been ripped from the walls, and replaced with more red daubs.