McKinley bristled. Would you have said that ten years ago?
I dont know. Ten years ago I didn't have the responsibilities I have now.
Maybe you should ask yourself whether you can still be an honest journalist with those sorts of responsibilities.
That made Russell angry. You havent cornered the market in honest journalism, for Gods sake.
Of course not. But I know what matters. That once mattered to you.
Truth has a habit of seeping out. Russell wasnt even convincing himself, which made him angrier still. Look, there are seventy-five million people out there keeping their heads down. Im just one of them.
Fine. If you want to keep your head down, wait until it all blows overwell . . . fine. But I cant do that.
Okay.
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
THE CONVERSATION WITH MCKINLEYor, more precisely, the sense of letting himself down that it engenderedlurked with annoying persistence at the back of Russells mind over the next few days. He finished his first article for Pravdaa paean to organized leisure activitiesand delivered it himself to the smiling blonde at 102 Wilhelmstrasse. He received a wire from his US agent bubbling with enthusiasm for the two series. And, by special delivery, he received the letter he had asked Sturmbannfuhrer Kleist for. It was typed rather than written, which was something of a disappointment, but the content left little to be desired: John Russell, it seemed, had full authority from the Propaganda Ministry and Ministry of the Interior to ask such questions as would widen the foreign understanding of National Socialism and its achievements. Those shown the letter were asked and expected to offer him all the assistance they could. All of which would have felt much better if he hadn't seen the disappointment in McKinleys eyes.
The weekend gave him a welcome break from worrying about his journalistic integrity. On Saturday afternoon he and Paul went to the zoo. They had been there so many times that they had a routinefirst the parrot house, then the elephant walk and the snakes, a break for ice cream, the big cats and, finally, the picce de resistance, the gorilla who spat, with often devastating accuracy, at passersby. After the zoo, they strolled back down the Kudamm, looking in shop windows and eventually stopping for cake. Russell still found the Hitler Youth uniform slightly offputting, but he was gradually getting used to it.
Sunday, a rare treatan outing to the fair at the end of Potsdamerstrasse with both Paul and Effi. Getting them together was always harder than the actual experience of their being together: Both worried overmuch that theyd be in the others way. It was obvious that Paul liked Effi, and equally obvious why. She was willing to try anything at least once, was able to act any age she thought appropriate, and assumed that he could, too. She was, in fact, most of the things his mother wasnt and never had been.
After two hours of circling, sliding, dropping, and whirling they took a cab to Effis theater, where she showed Paul around the stage and backstage areas. He was particularly impressed by the elevator and trapdoor in mid-stage which brought the Valkyries up to heaven each evening. When Russell suggested that they should build one for Goebbels at the Sportspalast, Effi gave him a warning look, but Paul, he noticed, was mercifully unable to suppress his amusement.
The only sad note of the weekend was Pauls news that he would be away for the next weekend at a Hitler Youth adventure camp in the Harz Mountains. He expressed regret at not seeing his dad, and particularly at missing Herthas next home game, but Russell could see he was really looking forward to the camp. Russell was particularly upset because he would be away himself on the following weekend, delivering his first oral report to Shchepkin. And on that weekend he would also be missing Effis end-of-run partyBarbarossa had apparently raised all the national consciousness it was going to raise.
EARLY ON MONDAY MORNING, he took the train to Dresden for a one-night stay. It was only a two-hour journey, and he had several contacts there: a couple of journalists on the city paper; an old friend of Thomass, also in the paper business; an old friend of his and Ilses, once a union activist, now a teacher. Ordinary Germansif such people existed.
He saw them all over the two days, and talked to several others they recommended. He also spent a few hours in cafes and bars, joining or instigating conversations when he could, just listening when that seemed more appropriate. As his train rattled northward on Tuesday evening he sat in the buffet car with a schnapps and tried to make sense of what he had heard. Nothing surprising. Ordinary Germans felt utterly powerless, and resigned to feeling so for the foreseeable future. The government would doubtless translate that resignation as passive support, and to some extent they were right. There was certainly no sense that anyone had a practical alternative to offer.
When it came to Germanys relations with the rest of the world, most people seemed pleasantly surprised that they still had any. The Rhineland, the Anschluss, the Sudetenlandit was as if Hitler had deliberately driven his train across a series of broken points, butthanks be to Godthe train was still on the track. Surely, soon, he would pull the damn thing to a halt. Once Memel and Danzig were back in the fold, once the Poles had given Germany an extra-territorial corridor across their own corridor, then that would be that. Hitler, having expanded the Reich to fit the Volk, would rest on his laurels, a German hero for centuries to come.
They all said it, and some of them even believed it.
Their own daily lives were getting harder. Not dramatically, but relentlessly. The economic squeeze was on. Most people were working longer hours for the same pay; many ordinary goods were growing slightly harder to find. The relief which had followed the return of full employment had dissipated.
Children seemed to be looming ever-larger in their parents minds: the demands in time and loyalty of the Hitler Youth and BDM, the years exile of the arbeitsdienst, the prospect of seeing them marched off to war. If Ordinary Germans wanted anything, it was peace. Years of the stuff, years in which they could drive their peoples cars down their new autobahns.
Only one man mentioned the Jews, and then only in a dismissive preamblenow that the Jewish question is nearing solution. What did he mean? Russell asked. Well, the man replied, theyll all be gone soon, wont they? I have nothing against them personally, but a lot of people have, and theyll be happier elsewhere, thats obvious.
THE WIESNERS WOULD HAVE agreed with him. The girls seemed subdued when he saw them on Wednesday morning, polite and willing as ever, but less perky, as if more bad news had just descended on the household. One reason became clear when Frau Wiesner asked for a word with him after the lesson.
She wanted to ask him a favor, she said. She didn't want her husband to know but, could he, Russell, have a word with Albert. He was behaving recklessly, just saying whatever came into his mind, associating with . . . well, she didn't know who, but . . . he wouldn't listen to his father, she knew that, and he wouldn't listen to her, but Russell, well, he was outside it alclass="underline" He wasnt a Jew, wasnt a Nazi, wasnt even a German. He knew what was happening, how dangerous things were. They were working on getting visas, but it took so long. Albert said they were dreaming, theyd never get them, but he didn't know that, and he was putting the girls future at risk as well as his own. . . .
She ran out of words, just looked at him helplessly.
Russells heart sunk at the prospect, but he agreed to try.
Ill make sure hes here on Friday, after the lesson, she said.