Then why not risk it again to bring them out? Russell argued.
His life is worth something, she said tartly, and quickly realized that she had gone too far. He is too valuable to risk, she amended, as if he might have mistaken her meaning.
Then why not send someone else in to get them?
Because we have you, she said. And we have already established that you can come and go without arousing suspicion. Were you searched on your way here, or on your way to Cracow?
No, but I wasnt carrying anything.
She put the article on the carpet beside her chair, crossed her legs and smoothed out the skirt on her thigh with her left hand. Mr. Russell, are you refusing to help us with this?
Im a journalist, Comrade Borskaya. Not a secret agent.
She gave him an exasperated look, delved into her skirt pocket, and brought out a rather crumpled black and white photograph. It was of him and Shchepkin, emerging from the Wawel Cathedral.
Russell looked at it and laughed.
You are easily amused, she said.
So they tell me. If you send that to the Gestapo I might get thrown out of Germany. If I get caught with your naval plans itll be the axe. Which do you think worries me more?
If we send this to the Gestapo you are certain to be deported, certain to lose your son and your beautiful bourgeois girlfriend. If you do this job for us, the chances of your being caught are almost nonexistent. You will be well-paid, and you will have the satisfaction of supporting world socialism in its struggle against fascism. According to Comrade Shchepkin, that was once important to you.
Once. The clumsiness of the approach angered him more than the blackmail itself. He got up off the bed and walked across to the window, telling himself to calm down. As he did so, an idea came to him. An idea that seemed as crazy as it was inevitable.
He turned to her. Let me sleep on this, he said. Think about it overnight, he explained, in response to her blank expression.
She nodded. Two PM in the Stary Rynek, she said, as if shed had the time and place reserved.
Its a big square, Russell said.
Ill find you.
SUNDAY WAS OVERCAST BUT DRY. Russell had coffee in one of the many Stary Rynek cafes, walked up past Garbary station to the Citadel, and found a bench overlooking the city. For several minutes he just sat there enjoying the view: the multiplicity of spires, the Warta River and its receding bridges, the smoke rising from several thousand chimneys. See how much peace the earth can give, he murmured to himself. A comforting thought, provided you ignored the source. It was a line from Mayakovskys suicide note.
Was his own plan a roundabout way of committing suicide?
Paul and Effi would miss him. In fact, he liked to think theyd both be heartbroken, at least for a while. But he was neither indispensable nor irreplaceable. Paul had other people who loved him, and so did Effi.
All of which would only matter if he got caught. The odds, he thought, were probably on his side. The Soviets would have no compunction about risking him, but their precious naval plans were another matterthey wouldn't risk those on a no-hope adventure. They had to believe it would work.
But what did he know? There could be ruses within ruses; this could be some ludicrously Machiavellian plot the NKVD had thought up on some drunken weekend and set in motion before they sobered up. Or everyone concerned could be an incompetent. Or just having a bad day.
Shit, he muttered to himself. He liked the idea of the Soviets having the German fleet dispositions for the Baltic. He liked the idea of doing something, no matter how small, to put a spoke in the bastards wheels. And he really wanted the favors he intended to ask in return.
But was he fooling himself? Falling for all the usual nonsense, playing boys games with real ammunition. When did self-sacrifice become a warped form of selfishness?
There were no answers to any of this, he realized. It was like jumping through an open window with a fuzzy memory of which floor you were on. If it turned out to be the ground floor, you bounced to your feet with an heroic grin. The fifth, and you were jam on the pavement. Or, more likely, a Gestapo courtyard.
A life concerned only with survival was a thin life. He needed to jump. For all sorts of reasons, he needed to jump.
He took a long last look at the view and started back down the slope, imagining the details of his plan as he did so. A restaurant close to the Stary Rynek provided him with a plate of meat turnovers, a large glass of Silesian beer, and ample time to imagine the worst. By two oclock he was slowly circling the large and well-populated square, and manfully repressing the periodic impulse to simply disappear into one of the adjoining streets.
She appeared at his shoulder halfway through his second circuit, her ankle-length coat unbuttoned to reveal the same skirt and blouse. This time, he thought, there was worry in the eyes.
She managed to leave the question unspoken for about thirty meters, and then asked it with almost angry abruptness: So, will you do this job for us?
With one condition, Russell told her. I have a friend, a Jewish friend, in Berlin. The police are looking for him, and he needs to get out of the country. You get him across the border, and I will do the job for you.
And how are we supposed to get him across the border? she asked, suspicion in her tone.
The same way you always have, Russell said. I was in the Party myself onceremember? I knew people in the Pass-Apparat, he added, stretching the truth somewhat. Everyone knew about the escape routes into Belgium and Czechoslovakia.
That was many years ago.
Not according to my information, Russell bluffed.
She was silent for about fifty meters. There are a few such routes, she admitted. But they are not safe. If they were, we would not be asking you to bring out these papers. Maybe one person in three gets caught.
In Berlin its more like three out of three.
She sighed. I cant give you an answer now.
I understand that. Someone will have to contact me in Berlin to make the arrangements for my friends journey, and to give me the details of the job you want me to do. Tell your bosses that the moment my friend calls me from outside the Reich, I will collect your papers from wherever they are and bring them out.
Very well, she said after a moments thought. You had better choose a point of contact in Berlin.
The buffet at Zoo Station. I shall be there every morning this week. Between nine and ten.
She nodded approvingly. And a mark of identification. A particular book works well.
Storms of Steel? No, half the customers could be reading that. Something English. He mentally pictured his bookshelves at Neuenburgerstrasse. Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit.
A good choice, she agreed, though whether for literary or other reasons she didn't say. Your contact will say that hes been meaning to read it, and will ask you if its any good.
He? Russell asked.
Or she, she conceded.
NINE OCLOCK ON MONDAY morning found him in the Zoo Station buffet, his dog-eared copy of Martin Chuzzlewit prominently displayed on the counter beside his cup of mocha. He wasnt expecting the Soviets to respond that quickly, and he wasnt disappointed10:00 came and went with no sign of any contact. He collected the car from outside the zoo and drove across town to the Wiesners. There was no obvious police presence outside, which probably meant that theyd recruited some local busybody for their observation chores. A curtain twitched as he walked up the outside steps, but that could have been coincidence.
The sense of raw pain had gone from the Wiesners flatreplaced by a grim busyness, a determination to do whatever needed doing. There was grief to spare, the faces seemed to sayno need to spend it all at once.