Zoo Station (23 page)

He parked behind a shiny, swastika-embossed limousine on Prinz Albrecht Strasse, and approached the impressive portals of the State Police HQ. Taking a deep breath, he walked up the steps and in through the revolving door. As usual, the Fuhrer was up there in his frame, beady eyes tracking Russell round the room like some scary inversion of the Mona Lisayou
knew
what
he
was thinking.

Russell explained his plight to the receptionist: the Jew, the debt, the joke about Wiesner running away to a Kz. She laughed, and directed him to the appropriate office for Ongoing Cases. Another receptionist, another laugh, and he was on his way to Completed Cases, which sounded bad for Felix Wiesner.

The officer in charge was in a good mood. It took him less than a minute to find the file on Felix Wiesner, and less than that to read it. Youre out of luck, he said. The kikes in Sachsenhausen, and he wont be back. Your moneys gone.

What did the bastard do? Russell asked.

Gave a German girl an abortion. Thats twenty-five years, if he lasts that long.

Russell felt his heart sink, but managed not to show it. Win some, lose some, he said. Thanks for your help.

He made his way back to the entrance, half-expecting to hear muffled screams from the rumored torture chambers in the basement, but, as in the SD HQ around the corner, there was only the whisper of typewriters to break the silence.

He left the car where it was, walked up Wilhelmstrasse to the British Embassy, and sat beneath the picture of the latest Kingthe third in two yearswhile he waited for Martin Unsworth to see him. It proved a waste of time. Unsworth had heard about the Wiesners from Doug Conway, but felt no dramatic compulsion to risk his career on their behalf. He pointed out, reasonably enough, that a British Embassy could hardly involve itself in the domestic criminal matters of a host nation. He added, just as reasonably, that the host nation would, at best, ignore any request in such a matter and, at worst, make use of it for propaganda purposes. Russell hid his fury, elicited a promise from Unsworth to investigate the Wiesners visa applications, and then thumped the wooden banister so hard on his way down that he feared for a moment hed broken his hand. Walking back down Wilhelmstrasse, surrounded by billowing swastikas, he simmered with useless rage.

Back at Effishe seemed to be living there at the momenthe told her what had happened. She advised him to ring JensTheres a human being in there somewhere, she said. Though you have to dig a bit.

Why not, he thought. Cash in the favor owed while it was still fresh in the memory.

After talking his way past two secretaries, Russell was finally put through to Jens. I havent managed to arrange anything yet, Zarahs husband said, trying and failing to conceal his irritation.

This is about something else, Russell told him. I need a favor from you this time.

Something between a groan and a grunt greeted this statement.

Russell plowed on. Someone I know has been arrested and taken to a camp. A Jew.

I

Please, hear me out. This is nothing to do with politicsits a matter of honor. This mans a doctor and back in 1933, before the Jews were forbidden to practice, he saved the life of my friends child. He went on to explain who Conway was, how hed involved Russell in teaching Wiesners daughters, and his current unreachability in mid-Atlantic. This is not about helping the Jews; its about repaying a debt.

I understand what you Jens began, his tone now mixing sympathy with the reluctance.

I dont want you to do anything, Russell insisted, somewhat disingenuously. I just need to know the details of why hes been arrested, and what the chances of a visit are. A visit from me, I meanI know theres no chance of a family visit. At the moment, his wife and children are in limbo. They cant do anything but wait. I think the wife needs his blessing to do whats best for the children.

There was a moments silence at the other end. Ill find out what I can, Jens said eventually.

Thank you, Russell said. He put down the phone. Ill drive over to the Wiesners and tell them, he told Effi.

She went with him. Frau Wiesner seemed calmer, or perhaps just more resigned. When Russell reported the Gestapo claim about an abortion she seemed torn between derision and despair. Felix would neverneverdo anything so foolish, she said. As for Albert, hed returned the day before, but had soon gone out again. I cant lock him in, she said. Hes a man now.

Initially, she looked somewhat askance at Russells glamorous-looking companion, but Effis obvious empathy quickly won her over. The girls were there, and both insisted on getting the visiting film stars autograph. Marthe produced her movie scrapbook and the three of them took over the sofa. Watching their dark heads together, poring over the neatly arranged photographs of German and Hollywood stars, Russell found he was fighting back tears.

HE SPENT THURSDAY IMMERSED
in work, his apartment door open to catch the sound of the ground floor telephone. It was late afternoon when Frau Heidegger shouted up the stairs that the call was for him.

I have the tickets and reservations, Jens told him. We were lucky: There were four seats left on next Thursdays London flight. It leaves at two, but you should be there half an hour earlier. The return flight is on Sunday, at eleven. I have booked two rooms at the Savoy Hotelhave you heard of it?on a road called Strand. And a car to take you from the airport in Croydon to the hotel and back again. And of course the appointment. I hope that covers everything.

Russell almost asked where the appointment was, but presumed Jens was being cagey for a reason. It sounds, perfect, he said. The Savoy! he thought.

Good. Now, this other business. He paused for a moment and Russell could imagine him checking that his office door was shut. Your friends Jewish doctor has been arrested for conducting an abortion on a girl of seventeen. Her name is Erna Marohn, from a good German family. Her father is an officer in the Kriegsmarine.

Who made the complaint?

The mother. The father is away at sea. There is no doubt the girl had an abortion: She was examined by a police doctor. And there is little doubt that Wiesner carried it out. She was seen entering the clinic he runs in Friedrichshain for other Jews.

That sounds bad.

It is. A German doctor caught performing an abortion can expect a lengthy term of imprisonment. A Jewish doctor caught performing one on a German girl, well. . . .

Yes.

But there is some good news. I have managed to arrange a pass for you to visit him in Sachsenhausen. Next Wednesday, the day before you go to England. A courier will bring the pass to your house. You should be at the camp by 11:00 AM. But you will not be able to take anything in or out. And you must not report anything you see or hear. They are letting you in as a favor to me, but not as a journalist. You do understand that?

Absolutely.

If anything appears in print, in England or anywhere else, describing the conditions there, they will assume that you have broken your word, and, at the very least, you will lose your journalistic accreditation. I was asked to tell you this.

I understand. And thank you, Jens.

You are welcome.

FRIDAY DAWNED CLEAR AND COLD.
Russell packed a bag for the weekend, and headed toward Friedrichshain, stopping for a newspaper and coffee at Alexanderplatz Station. The only interesting piece of news concerned a train: In Westphalia a 37-ton excavating machine had run amok on a night freight. Whatever it was that pin-ioned the steel arms in an upright position had come undone, dropping them into their working position over one side of the wagon. A miles worth of telegraph poles, signals, and huts had been demolished, and a station reduced to rubble when the canopy supports were swept away. The train had only been stopped when a witness phoned ahead to a signal box. The guard hadnt noticed anything was amiss. Hitlers Germany in microcosmflailing away in the darkness, ruins piling up behind.

At the apartment in Friedrichshain he told Frau Wiesner what Jens had told him. I dont believe it, she said. Felix will tell you what really happened. He gave the two girls a lesson, and promised to come by on the following Tuesday when he returned from Hamburg. Driving back across town to pick up Effi, he wondered how to dispel the sense of gloom that seemed to be enveloping him.

He neednt have worried. It was about 200 kilometers to Stralsund, and by the time they reached it Effis defiant mood of romantic adventure had overtaken him. After crossing the narrow sound on the steam ferry, they drove the last 40 kilometers to Sassnitz in gathering darkness. On one forest stretch their headlights caught two deer hurrying each other across the road.

As Russell had expected the small resort was virtually empty, and they had their pick of those hotels not closed for the winter break. They chose the Am Meer, right on the promenade, and were given a room with views across the darkened Baltic. With the dining room closed for refurbishing, dinner was served in the lounge, in front of a dancing fire, by a girl of about fourteen. Happy and full, they walked out across the promenade and listened to the comforting caress of the tide. Above the sea the sky was bursting with stars, and over the hills behind them a thin crescent moon was rising. As they clung together for warmth, and kissed on the stony beach, it crossed Russells mind that this was as perfect as life ever got.

Back in their room they discovered, much to Effis amusement, that the bed squeaked and creaked at their slightest movement, and midway through making love she got the giggles so badly that they had to take a break before resuming.

The good weather continued, sunlight advancing across their bed the following morning. After wrapping up warmly they set out for the famous Stubbenkammer cliffs, a ten-kilometer drive through the Stubnitz beech woods. After gingerly looking over the 140-meter precipice, Russell gave Effi her first driving lesson on the large expanse of tarmac laid out for the summer sightseeing coaches. Clanking the gears atrociously, she jerked her way through several circuits before pronouncing: This is easy!

They had lunch in a restaurant they had noticed on the drive up, a sprawling wooden building with intricately carved facades which nestled among the beeches, and then spent a couple of hours walking along the well-tended paths of the sun-dappled forest. The only other signs of human life were various fragments of a Hitler Youth group on a weekend trip from Rostock: groups of two or three boys, their eyes flickering from compass to path and back again. Their leaders, who brought up the rear, claimed to have seen a bear, but the beer on their breath suggested otherwise.

It got dark too early, but there was always the creaking bed. Afterward, they drank, ate, and sat in front of the same fire, hardly speaking, and not needing to. The bed was uncomfortable as well as noisy, but Russell slept better than he had for weeks.

On their final morning he drove them northwest toward the long sandspit which connected the Jasmund and Wittow peninsulas. Seeing that the road along the spit was empty he relinquished the wheel to Effi, and she drove the next twenty kilometers, far too fast, with a huge smile lighting up her face. At the end of the spit they took to the sandy beach, walking a kilometer or more and back again, watching the wind raising whitecaps on the water and the clouds scudding eastward across the blue-gray Baltic. No cars went by, no walkers. No ships appeared on the horizon. The earth was theirs.

But not for long. Effis train back to Berlin left Stralsund at three, and as they made their way back across the island the sunshine became increasingly intermittent, finally disappearing beneath a looming wall of cloud. The short ferry ride was choppy, the railway carriages clanking ominously in their chains, and rain was falling by the time they reached the
Hauptbahnhof
.

This is really sad, Effi said. Youll only be back for a day or so, and youll be gone again. And Ive no idea what the filming schedules going to be.

Its only a couple of weeks, he told her.

Of course, she smiled, but he knew hed said the wrong thing.

Lets do this again, he said. Soon.

Please. A whistle sounded, and she leaned out of the window to kiss him. Are you sure we have this the right way round? she asked. You should be on a train to Hamburg and I should be driving back to Berlin.

Sometimes other people want to use the road, he told her as the train jerked into motion.

She made a face, and blew him a kiss. He stood there watching the trains red taillight recede into the distance, then strode back down the platform and out of the station. The car seemed colder without her.