The young man must have heard it before Russell, the sudden shift of his spread-eagled body anticipating the sounds of the approaching train by a few seconds. As Russell turned to look, it passed the end of the platform, the locomotive steaming furiously, the line of laden flatcars still snaking round the curve above Kantstrasse. Turning back, he found the youth already in motion, running, half stumbling, away from the screaming Gestapo.
Oh no, Russell thought.
The young man ran diagonally across the platform and launched himself into the face of the oncoming locomotive. A silent flurry of limbs, a splash of crimson, and he was gone.
The locomotive thundered by, the unknowing driver on the other side of the cab. The long line of flat-cars rattled through, their draped loads bound for the East and other, less accidental, encounters with death.
The platform was full of stunned faces. Even the dogs seemed shocked.
As the train cleared the platform, Russell found himself drawn to the edge. A headless body was lying between the rails about twenty metres on from where the youth had jumped. The head was nowhere to be seen.
The dogs were whining now, the three leather coats staring down at the mutilated corpse. Even they seemed subdued by the turn of events. Russell was probably imagining it, but their expressions seemed those of children, up early on a Christmas morning, who had just broken a much-anticipated toy.
He turned on his heel and made for the stairway. Half-way down he found one of the leaflets the youth had been distributing. 'In whose name?' was the headline; that of the German people, the text insisted, had been taken in vain.
Too true, Russell thought. But who gave a Fuhrer's fuck for the wishes of the German people?
Back home that evening, Russell listened as Effi recounted her depressing lunch with Zarah, and decided against making things worse by sharing his experience at Zoo Station. Thinking the BBC might raise their spirits, they risked a joint listening session, seats pulled up close beside the wireless. But for once the Oxbridge-vowelled spokesman sounded strangely unsure of himself. They scoured the German wavelengths for some cheerful music, but all they could find were variations of central European gloom. The idea of going out was swiftly abandoned when the rain began beating on the blacked-out windows.
'A day to forget,' Effi said, as they settled for an early night.
Which was easier said than done. As Russell lay there unable to sleep, the train thundered on in his mind.
Next morning at ten, they met Paul at the main entrance to the Friedrichstrasse Station. Since his fourteenth birthday that March, Russell's son had been allowed to navigate his own way across Berlin, and the novelty had obviously not worn off - he clattered down the stairs from the elevated platforms in his Hitlerjugend uniform, looking very pleased with himself. Noticing how happy his son was to see Effi, Russell congratulated himself on overcoming her objections to attending. 'Why would I want to stand in the rain for God knows how many hours just to watch some dead Nazi roll by on a flag-covered cart?' had been her first reaction to his suggestion.
The actual ceremony was a bigwigs-only affair - the Fuhrer had apparently arrived overnight from his eastern military headquarters - but thousands of Berliners were thronging the streets, heading for vantage points on the route of the procession. The rain had finally moved on, and the sky in the west showed definite signs of brightening. The wind remained brisk, lifting and shaking the legions of swastikas that flew at half-mast from poles, roofs and facades.
'I thought the Marschall Bridge,' Russell suggested to Paul.
'Good idea,' his son agreed, with the sort of smile that Effi imagined she used on Zarah. Perhaps her sister had a point about families and war.
They walked along the front of the station, crossed over the river, and continued down past the Electricity Works to the Marschall Bridge. A lot of people had had the same idea, but the three of them found a good vantage point on the downstream side, up against one of the parapets.
'The service should be over by now,' Russell said, looking at his watch. The crowd around them was growing by the minute - soldiers, sailors and airmen on leave, bureaucrats in suits and secretaries in high heels, lots of mothers with children, a large sprinkling of older men wearing their Great War medals.
'There are lots of people, aren't there?' Paul said. 'People must have known how good he was.'
'I'm sure they did,' Russell agreed.
He might just as well have disagreed, Effi thought, watching Paul's face. She understood what Russell had meant when he begged her to come. The boy did seem to be looking for a fight, although whether or not he was aware of it was another matter. 'I hear you've been getting yourself into trouble,' she said lightly.
He shrugged. 'Not really.'
'Well, I know how easy it is. I got arrested for making a joke, remember? And I've been really careful ever since.'
'I'll be careful.'
'Promise?' Russell asked playfully.
'Didn't I just say so?'
'Yes...'
'They're coming,' Effi said, hoping that Udet's funeral procession was indeed responsible for the signs of movement on the distant Wilhelmstrasse.
It was. A few moments later a snatch of music arrived on a momentary change of the wind; a few minutes more and the strains of the funeral march were clearly audible. It grew louder as the small object in the distance slowly grew into a gun-carriage with a swastika-draped coffin, flanked by an honour guard, followed by rank after rank of men in Luftwaffe uniform. As the carriage crossed onto the bridge, the hands in the crowd swept up in the familiar salute, Paul's among them. After only a moment's hesitation Effi followed suit, but Russell resisted. He was English, he told himself, and therefore excused.
His son thought differently. 'The England football team gave the salute,' he almost hissed at his father.
Russell raised his arm, feeling more foolish than for many a year. Paul gave him one last reproachful look, and turned back to the procession. Another famous pilot, Adolf Galland, was one of the honour guard, but Russell didn't recognise any of the others. On the other hand the fat man padding along behind the gun-carriage was easy to identify - the Reichsmarschall, resplendent in red-brown boots and gold-braided pale grey uniform. Goering was already breathing heavily, and Russell wondered whether he'd make it to the Invalidenfriedhof cemetery. He wasn't yet halfway.
The top-ranking Luftwaffe officers marched behind him, along with all those pilots who had won the Knight's Cross. 'There's Walter Oesau,' Paul whispered excitedly, more to himself than any audience. 'And Hans Hahn. And there's Gunther Lutzow! But where's Molders?'
Where was Germany's other famous ace? Russell wondered. His shoulder was beginning to ache, and now that the bigwigs had gone past most people were lowering theirs. Russell happily followed suit. But Paul held his aloft for several minutes more, waiting until the gun carriage had disappeared under the Stadtbahn bridge and the crowd had slowly begun to disperse.
By the time they'd had lunch and - at Paul's suggestion - revisited the stamp exhibition at the Central Library, it was time for Russell to head off for the afternoon press conference. Effi suggested to Paul that the two of them walk back across the Tiergarten to Zoo Station, and Russell stood for a few seconds on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Unter den Linden watching them head off towards the park, hoping that she would come back with a clearer idea of what exactly was eating at his son.