The match itself was a disappointmentanother point in Germanys column as far as Paul was concerned. It was hard to argue with him: If this was the best football in the world, then the world of football was in trouble. There was none of the magic England had shown in Berlin nine months earlier. In fact, both teams seemed markedly less endowed with basic skills than poor old Hertha.
What Paul did find fascinating was the crowd. He had no way of appreciating the wit, but he reveled in the sheer volume of noise, and the swirling currents of emotion which rose and fell all around him. Its so. . . . he began, as they crunched their way out across the carpet of roasted peanut shells, but an end to the sentence eluded him.
At the Arsenal station they shared a seemingly endless tunnel to the platform with several thousand others, and their Piccadilly Line train was full to bursting until it reached Kings Cross. After the relative spaciousness of the U-bahn, the train itself seemed ancient, airless, and claustrophobicanother point in the German column.
They walked back to the Strand through Covent Garden Market, and ate another delicious dinner in the Savoy restaurant. Paul was quiet, as if busy absorbing his impressions of the last two days. He seemed, Russell thought, more German somehow. But that, he supposed, was only to be expected in England. He hadn't expected it, though.
On the way to breakfast next morning he stopped off at reception to consult the hotels ABC Railway Guide, and after theyd eaten he told Paul there was something he wanted to show him. They took a bus up Kingsway and Southampton Row to Euston, and walked through the giant archway to the platforms. The object of their visit was already sitting in Platform 12the blue and silver Coronation Scot. They bought platform tickets and walked up to where a dozen youngsters were paying court to the gleaming, hissing, streamlined Princess Alice.
Its beautiful, Paul said, and Russell felt a ridiculous surge of pride in his native country. Paul was right. The German streamliners reeked of speed and power, but this train had a grace they lacked. One mark at least for England.
Back at the Savoy they packed, took a last look at the Thames, and joined Zarah and Lothar in the lobby. The car was on time, the Sunday roads empty, and they arrived almost two hours early. While Paul stood with his face glued to the window, Russell scanned the News of the World for a clue to British concerns. He discovered that a vicar had been assaulted by a young woman in a village street, and that now was the time to protect your crocuses from sparrows. A half page-ad for constipation relief featured a wonderful photographthe man really did look constipated. And much to Russells relief, the game theyd seen the previous afternoon got a highly critical write-upso at least it wasnt the norm.
It was the same aeroplane and crew which had brought them over. This time though, the clouds were lower, the flight rockier, the view more restricted. Jens, waiting for them at Tempelhof, hugged Zarah and Lothar as if theyd been away for weeks and thanked Russell profusely. He also offered to take Paul home, but Russell demurred, unwilling to sacrifice half an hour of his sons company.
As it was, Paul sat mostly in silence as they drove west, gazing out of the window at his home city. It seems . . . well, strange, he said, as they turned into his road. After being there, the idea of a war against England seems . . . it seems silly.
It is, Russell agreed. But coming nevertheless. And, in one way, the sooner the better. Say it lasted four years, like the last one. Assuming they stuck to the current call-up at eighteen, Paul would be drafted in March 1945. For the war to be over by then, it had to get started early in 1941.
No need to worry, Russell told himself. Hitler wouldn't be able to wait that long.
Blue Scarf
AFTER SPENDING THE NIGHT with Effi, Russell drove her out to the studio for an early start. She was pleased but not surprised by Dr. McAllisters diagnosisI said there was nothing wrong with him!but despondent about Mother. The director was a mechanic; her co-stars all thought, wrongly, that they were Gods gift to acting; the on-set adviser from the Propaganda Ministry kept trying to clarify the films social role by inserting lines that even a baboon would have trouble misunderstanding. I suppose I should be grateful, she said, as they drove in through the studio gates: Ill probably go down in history as one of Germanys great comediennes.
Afterward, Russell drove to Zoo Station, where he bought breakfast and a paper. Nothing unusual seemed to have happened during his time in England. The widening of the Kiel Canal had been decreed: It obviously wasnt big enough for the Bismarck. Hitler had opened the International Motor Show just down the road, and unveiled a model of the new peoples car. For 950 marksabout 50 British poundsthe average German would get a small five-seater, with deliveries to begin in about fifteen months time. Having made an appearance at this birth, the Fuhrer had proceeded to the funeral of some obscure Carinthian Gauleiterthe man had probably held his hand when the bullets started flying in 1923. Hed certainly been given all the Nazi trimmings: swastikas everywhere, black banners with runic emblems, lines of flaming pylons to light his way across the Hesperus.
Back at Neuenburgerstrasse, Frau Heidegger was waiting to ply Russell with coffee. She was elated by his impression of British unreadiness for war, which she thought, rather perceptively, both lessened the chance of war and increased the chance of German success if there was one. Before retiring upstairs to work, Russell phoned Unsworth at the British Embassy. He was told that Conway had been in touch, and that representations were being made in the appropriate quarters. Russell thought about visiting the Wiesners but decided against it. He had nothing really to tell them, and instinctively felt that it was safer to limit his visits to the scheduled lessons.
He spent most of the next 48 hours working in his room, writing the fourth Pravda article, which he planned to deliver in Posen that weekend, and sketching out a piece on artists and entertainers for the Ordinary Germans series. His only trip out was to the Greiner Works in Wedding, one of the Reichs major production centers for military vehicles. Expecting suspicion and probable refusals, he went straight to the Labor Front office, and was almost laughably surprised by the warm welcome he received. Yes, of course the German worker was torn between his love of peace and his desire to arm the Fatherland against its foes. What human being would not be? And of course Herr Russell could talk to the workers about their feelings. The rest of the world should be given every chance to understand both the German hunger for peace and the nations determination to defend its rights and its people.
After this, talking to several groups of workers in the canteen proved something of an anti-climax. Most were understandably reticent, and those prepared to speak their minds had nothing surprising to say. It was a job, that was all. As usual, the pay was bad, the hours too long, management more of a hindrance than a help. The Labor Front at least listened, if only to ward off potential trouble. Open discussions were infinitely preferable to either noncooperationslow working, mostlyor the sort of covert resistance that could lead to sabotage. Reading between the lines and facial expressions of the men to whom he spoke, Russell decided that the level of noncooperation was probably significant without seriously affecting production levels or quality, and that the amount of real resistance was negligible. And when war came, he guessed, both would decrease.