'What are we going to do when we get to Sweden?' Effi asked, snuggling up against him. 'Are we going to England or America?'
'It may take some time to get to either,' Russell told her. 'I suppose Sweden's still trading with the outside world, but I've no idea whether there are any ships to Britain or the States. We may have to stay in Sweden for the duration.'
'I could cope with that. In a way it would be nice - we'd still be close to our family and our friends. Or at least not too far away.'
Wednesday was another long wait. They were unlikely to meet anyone between flat and docks, but Effi applied their make-up with great care, determined that nothing should be left to even the slightest chance. By the time she had finished, their supply was almost gone, but it seemed unlikely they would need any more - once they left the flat, either the ship or the Gestapo would be taking them away, and there would be no need of disguises in either Sweden or a concentration camp.
So went the theory. Margarete and Hans had been home only a few minutes when a tap on the door announced the arrival of Ernst. Bad news was written across his face. 'The ship has been sunk,' he said without preamble.
'By whom?' Effi asked, surprise and indignation in her voice.
'A Soviet submarine,' Ernst told her. 'We should rejoice of course.'
'Of course,' Russell agreed dryly. He supposed they should: there was no reason why his and Effi's war with the Nazis should take precedence over everyone else's.
'I hope the crew got off,' Hans said.
'Oh, of course,' Effi agreed, momentarily ashamed that she'd only been thinking of herself.
'So what happens now?' Russell asked Ernst. As the news sank in, he could feel the stirrings of panic. The Germans had one of their all-engrossing words for it - torschlusspanik, the burst of terror that accompanies a closing door.
'I don't know,' Ernst was saying. 'There will be other ships, of course. For the moment, you must stay here,' he added, looking at Hans and Margarete as he did so.
'Of course,' Hans agreed, and his wife nodded her acceptance of the fact. But she didn't look thrilled at the prospect, and who could blame her?
Later that night, as she tried to fall asleep, Effi imagined herself on a torpedoed ship, the screams of the wounded, the lurching deck, the cold immensity of the dark sea. The sailors from the sunken ship - were they German or Swedish? - were probably out there still, desperately trying to keep warm as their lifeboats bobbed in the chilling Baltic swell. Why, she wondered for the umpteenth time, would anyone sane start a war?
It was only seven-thirty, and still completely dark, when they heard the knock on the door. The softness of the knock boded well - the Gestapo had a propensity to hammer - and Russell allowed himself the absurd hope that their ship had not been sunk after all. He left their room to find Hans admitting Ernst.
Though clearly out of breath from climbing ten flights of the stairs, the comrade's first priority was a cigarette. 'More bad news,' he told them tersely through a cloud of smoke. 'There have been arrests in Berlin. Many comrades. Twenty at least. And one of them -' he looked at Russell and Effi '- is the man who sent you here.'
'What happened?' Hans wanted to know.
Ernst shrugged. 'We don't know. A traitor, I expect. It usually is. But these two will have to be moved. Tonight, after dark. They should be all right until then.'
Which meant, Russell thought, that the arrests had probably happened the previous evening, and that those arrested were expected to hold out until the same time today, to endure a minimum of twenty-four hours' suffering before coughing up the first name. The guard on the train, he thought. The next link in the chain. He remembered the collapsing wooden bridge in an adventure movie he had seen with Paul, the hero racing to cross the chasm as the trestles collapsed behind him.
Margarete was looking deathly pale.
'If we see their cars in the street,' Russell told her, 'we'll get out of the apartment. Onto the roof. They won't know where we came from.'
She gave him a look of disbelief, as if unable to comprehend such naivety.
'You'll get plenty of warning,' Ernst confirmed. 'They only ever come up here in force. But I don't think it'll be today.'
'Where are we going this evening?' Effi asked him.
'I don't know yet. All I know is Moscow wants you out, and I'll do my best to oblige them. Someone will be here after dark.'
After indicating to Hans that he wanted a private word with Ernst, Russell followed the Party man out into the stairwell. 'Can you get me a gun?' he asked. He wasn't at all sure he would use one, but it would be nice to have the option. 'I don't want them to take us alive,' he said in response to the other man's hesitation. He found it hard to imagine sharing a suicide pact with Effi, but he knew that Ernst would like the idea - dead people stayed silent for a lot longer than twenty-four hours. 'I'll see what I can do,' Ernst told him.
The sitting room window faced south, overlooking the street below and offering a panoramic view of central Stettin. They shared the watch, dreading the sound of approaching motors yet perversely eager for any relief from the tension and boredom. When he told Effi about his request for a gun, she looked blank for a moment and then simply nodded, as if accepting that some point of no return had finally been passed.
'But could you hit anything with it?' she asked after a while.
'I'm actually a pretty good shot,' he retorted. 'Or at least I was in 1918.'
The sky was overcast, but they could tell from the fast-vanishing snow that the temperature was rising, and when the clouds opened later that afternoon it was rain mixed with sleet that obscured their distant view of the city. As the hours went by, Russell found it hard not to dwell on unwelcome outcomes, both for them and their hosts. He hated the idea of the Ottings paying with their lives for a few days' hospitality, but there was nothing he could do about it. If he and Effi disappeared at that moment there would still be the men who had brought them from the goods yard to the flat. They were the last link in the chain from Berlin, and the Ottings' only real chance was for those two men to either escape the clutches of the Gestapo or die in the attempt.
Darkness finally began to fall, and soon after five Margarete returned home. She was clearly upset to find them still there, and suddenly burst into tears when Effi offered to help with the cooking. 'I'm sorry,' she said eventually. 'It's not your fault. I keep thinking of my son in Africa, and him coming home to find he has no family.'
Effi encased her in a hug. 'We're sorry,' she said. 'We...'
'You are just trying to survive,' Margarete interrupted her. 'I know that. And I hope you get out. I really do.'
A few minutes later Hans returned, took one look at his wife's tearstained face, and reached out to embrace her. Effi and Russell left them on their own for a few minutes, and when Russell returned to the sitting room he found Hans staring at his books with the air of someone who doubted he'd ever see them again. 'We might as well eat,' Margarete said from the kitchen doorway with a rueful smile.
They were just about finished when a loud and confident knock sounded on the outer door. Hans went to answer it, and returned with a tall, smiling young man. 'Are you ready?' he asked Russell and Effi. 'I'm Andreas,' he added, offering a large and calloused hand to each of them in turn. 'I know who you are,' he told Effi with a big grin.
He insisted that they hurry, and their goodbyes had to be brief. Clattering down the stairs ahead of them, he announced almost casually that the Gestapo were 'all over the town'. Two older men sharing a chat on the next landing down clearly heard the remark, and watched them go by with expressions that mingled sympathy and alarm. In the dimly-lit ground-floor lobby, a young couple embracing in a corner showed considerably less interest in their plight.