There was one Pole in the party, an English-speaking journalist with one of the local dailies. He had obviously been drinking for a while, which both explained his belligerent attitude and facilitated its expression. 'The sooner the better,' he said, thumping his palm on the polished bar. 'While we still have allies,' he added pointedly, marching an accusative gaze down the row of English faces.
Out on the street Russell saw other Polish faces brimming with a similar bravado, the facial equivalent of the cavalry he had seen in Pidsulski Square. But there were also eyes dulled by resignation, or seemingly stunned that the moment had finally arrived. The Poles he spoke to in English had only one question - would England and France live up to their obligations? Yes, Russell told them, though part of him hoped the answer was no. If sacrificing Poland would keep his son out of a European war, he'd do it in a heartbeat. The trouble was, it wouldn't.
His hotel was quieter than expected, his bed more comfortable, but he still slept badly, hovering most of the night between waking and dreaming, fragments of his own war flickering harmlessly out of reach, like a silent movie through a curtain of gauze. He woke with the smell of the trenches in his nostrils and the old familiar feeling that this was the day he would die.
As he walked up Nowy OEwiat towards Pidsulski Square he scanned the faces of passers-by, and thought he saw something approaching relief. The Pact had been announced, he guessed, both in Moscow and here on the radio. The die was cast.
The Foreign Office Press Department spokesman confirmed as much. He added little of a specific nature, but resolutely refused to accept that Polish intransigence was in any way to blame for the country's new vulnerability. Germany and Russia had always been Poland's enemies, he insisted, and always would be. Poland would fight them both if she had to, hopefully in the company of her Western allies.
Back on the square, Russell felt a sudden overwhelming need to be home, and had to dissuade himself from taking an immediate cab to hotel and station. There was a train mid-afternoon, he told himself - time to write and wire off his piece. There was no need to hurry.
He wrote his impressions of Warsaw on the brink, and walked down to the Post Office. There was no wire traffic out through Germany, but the elderly clerk was aggressively confident of the route via Copenhagen. He and his fellow Poles were not surrounded, he seemed to be saying. The rest of the world was still within reach.
Russell checked out of his hotel, bought his ticket and lunched in the station restaurant. The concourse seemed unusually busy, with lots of children chasing each other around piles of luggage, but there was no hint of panic, despite the headlines announcing the Pact in the lunchtime editions. There was a photograph of Ribbentrop arriving at Khodynka, beaming for the Soviet cameras.
Russell's train failed to leave on time, raising fears that it might be cancelled, but the French wagons-lits eventually jerked into motion. He wondered how many more trips they would be taking across Europe, and where they would be stranded when the frontiers slammed shut.
Jewish Ballast
After Russell's train had stood for more than ten minutes in Berlin's Alexanderplatz Station, a voice over the loudspeakers announced that it would proceed no further. Those passengers travelling to a stop in western Berlin were invited to take the next train from the neighbouring Stadtbahn platform, and Russell seized the opportunity to call Effi from a public telephone.
'I knew it was you,' she said.
'I'll see you in about half an hour.'
'Wonderful.'
He replaced the receiver, surprised at the enormity of his relief. Someone in his subconscious had been more worried than he cared to admit.
He climbed up to the Stadtbahn platform, and stood watching for the lights of a westbound train. It was almost eleven, but the air was still warm and humid, with no hint of a breeze. The sky through the canopy opening was black and starless.
The train was almost empty, and Russell picked up an abandoned evening newspaper from one of the seats. 'German Farmhouses in Flames' the head-line screamed, above the all-too-familiar litany of grievances real, imagined and invented. He looked at the names of the villages and wondered whether their inhabitants knew of their new-found status as victims of the 'Polish archmadness'.
'It looks serious this time,' a man sitting opposite said, with a nod in the direction of the newspaper.
'Yes,' Russell agreed.
'But at least the Fuhrer is back in Berlin,' the man added hopefully.
Whoopee, Russell thought to himself.
The streets between Zoo Station and Effi's flat were empty, her porch mercifully devoid of loitering SD agents. She met him at the door with the sort of sweet, soft embrace that made going away worthwhile, and pulled him into the living room. 'Thank God you're back,' she said.
'Well...'
'Because it has to be tomorrow.'
Russell sunk into the sofa. 'What does?'
'Eyebrows, of course. There's going to be a war, isn't there?'
'Well...'
'So this could be our last chance. Things will change once the war begins.'
'True. But he may not come tomorrow.'
'He did last Friday.'
'What have...'
'I went to see. I didn't do anything. I got your message from Solly Bern-stein, but I just had to see. Don't worry, I was in disguise. I'm getting really good at the make-up. All he'd have seen was a fifty year-old spinster, but he didn't even look at me.'
'He didn't pick anyone up?'
'I don't know. I only stayed a few minutes because I was afraid I might do something stupid if he did. I should have stayed.'
'I'm glad you didn't.'
'I'm glad you're glad, but you do agree - tomorrow could be our last chance?'
'Yes, of course, but he may not pick anyone up tomorrow.'
'Oh yes he will. Me.'
'No, absolutely not. I knew you'd think of this eventually, but it won't work. Believe me, I've thought about it too. But follow it through. If you offer yourself as bait, and let him drive you off in his car, what happens then? I can follow, but if I get too close he'll spot me, and if I don't I might lose you. And if we're incredibly lucky, and neither of those things happens, we're still left with a problem when we get wherever it is we're going. I could probably deal with Eyebrows - assuming he doesn't pull a gun, that is - but the chances are there'll be others. I can't see any way of making it work.'
She smiled at him. 'I can.'
Next morning he took the NKVD papers from his suitcase, kissed a half-awake Effi goodbye, and walked down to Zoo Station. He'd half-expected a thorough search at the Polish border, and the need for another emergency phone call to Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth, but his suitcase hadn't even been opened. The border authorities had been far too busy strip-searching a large family of Poles returning to their German home.
He called the SD number from the station, and rather to his surprise was put straight through to the Hauptsturmfuhrer. When Russell suggested a lunchtime treff in the Tiergarten, an exasperated Hirth told him to leave the papers in reception at 102 Wilhelmstrasse and hung up. Russell replaced the receiver, wondering what had happened. Had the Nazi-Soviet Pact rendered his supposed intelligence irrelevant, or had Hirth and Co. drawn the conclusion that caution was no longer necessary? Did he care? Chances were he would find out eventually, and probably wish he hadn't.
The garden in front of the SD building was full of roses in bloom, all much too fragrant for their owners. Russell presented his Russian envelope to the usual blonde receptionist, feeling more like a postman than an agent. She put it to one side, and went back to her reading as if he'd already gone.