Masaryk Station (John Russell) (5 page)

He worked in the old Reichsbahn Head Office building on Hallesches Ufer which, considering its location so close to the Anhalter Station and goods yards, had suffered remarkably little from the bombing. What damage there was had been quickly repaired by their Soviet liberators, who still ran all of eastern Germany’s railways from the building, despite its location in the American sector. Ströhm, like most senior officials who had spent the war either underground or in a camp, had an office on the second floor, overlooking the Landwehrkanal and the elevated tracks running into Potsdamer Station. The third floor was home to the highest echelon of the railway administration, almost all of them comrades now returned from years of exile in Moscow.

Ströhm had barely sat down when his secretary, a young comrade from Leipzig, put her head around the door and told him a Red Star meeting had just been called. As he took the stairs up to the Director’s office, Ströhm wondered what the Russians wanted this time. Red Star meetings were only open to Party members above a certain grade.

The conference room was next door to the Director’s office, and most of Ströhm’s fellow deputies were already seated around the table. There was only one Russian present, Alexander Klementeyev,
the so-called Sovcom Liaison Officer, whom everyone knew was MGB, or whatever it was they called themselves these days.

The Director Arnold Marohn had the usual pained look on his face, a consequence, he had once told Ströhm, of eating and drinking like a Russian for six long years—his stomach had never recovered. Now, he outlined the reasons for the meeting, with occasional glances in Klementeyev’s direction, as if keen that no one present should be under any illusion as to who had really called it. But no one was, Ströhm thought; they all knew the score. The differences lay in how much they liked it.

Orders had arrived from Karlshorst, the southeastern suburb where the Soviets had their headquarters, to make rail travel between Berlin and the Western zones significantly more difficult. Traffic on the only autobahn had already been seriously affected by the closure of the emergency stations earlier that week, and now it was the turn of the railways. More vehicles would be subject to inspection, more discovered to be unsafe. There would be fewer officials available to check papers, and their increased conscientiousness should guarantee longer queues and delays. And there was more—each department was asked to prepare a series of appropriately graded measures, with everything from minor inconvenience to a total cessation of traffic in mind.

‘Are these measures likely to be permanent?’ Uli Trenkel asked, not bothering to conceal his disapproval. Like Ströhm, he had spent the Nazi years in Germany, and they shared a jaundiced view of the Russians.

Marohn looked at Klementeyev.

‘There are no plans to make them so,’ the Russian said carefully. ‘A little pressure, to see how the Americans and British react—that’s all we’re anticipating at the present.’ Klementeyev beamed at the assembled company. ‘Not too difficult, I’m sure.’

Walking back to his office, Ströhm found himself wondering how the Western allies
would
react. So far, the messages had mostly been mixed, especially from the Americans. Their commander in Berlin, General Clay, seemed only too happy to pick up a gauntlet, but his superiors in Washington were obviously divided, with many openly voicing their unwillingness to fight another war for half a ruined city. If they were shown a graceful way out, Ströhm thought, then they might really leave. And if they did, the Russians would feel more secure, and might eventually depart themselves, leaving their German comrades free to build their own version of socialism.

Improbable perhaps, but surely possible.

Back in his office he spent the next two hours dreaming up reasons for future interruptions. The Western authorities would know what was really happening, but they had to be given scope to pretend.

At lunch, Ströhm shared a table with Trenkel and one of the more pro-Soviet deputies, a middle-aged Dresdener named Hadewicz who had spent the war in Moscow, but had worked on the railways in his youth, and distinguished himself in the anti-Nazi struggles of the early ’30s. Hadewicz had the latest Cominform bulletin with him, which gave Ströhm the opportunity to ask them both what they felt about the rumoured disputes between the Russians and the Yugoslavs.

Hadewicz was dismissive—it would soon blow over—while Trenkel just shrugged, as if uninterested.

‘But think,’ Ströhm persisted, ‘if Moscow and Belgrade can reach an agreement on each pursuing their own course in a comradely way, then so can Moscow and Berlin.’

Hadewicz just shook his head, and Trenkel flashed Ströhm a warning glance. Ströhm took the hint and changed the subject, but the conversation, or lack of it, haunted him for most of the afternoon.
Walking to the Elisabeth Hospital later, where Annaliese would be nearing the end of her shift, he realised that the number of comrades with whom he could share a frank conversation had shrunk to almost zero—even those whom he knew shared his views found it safer to say nothing these days. The only person he could really talk to was his friend John Russell, and that was in spite of their political differences. Russell had turned his back on the Party more than twenty years earlier, but their analyses of what made the world tick were similar, and they didn’t have to look over their own or each other’s shoulder. All of which made for much more productive conversations than those Ströhm endured with his KPD comrades.

Russell, however, was away, and there was no one else. Ströhm loved Annaliese dearly, and her time in an American camp had made her more willing than most Berliners to give the Soviets and their KPD allies the benefit of the doubt, but talk of ideologies bored her.

He was, Ströhm thought, remembering the phrase of a long-dead comrade, suffering from political indigestion. Maybe he should just stopping eating contrary ideas, like the ones in the pamphlet he was reading at home, which was an extract from Arthur Koestler’s ‘The Yogi and the Commissar’. Koestler was also an ex-Communist, and some of his arguments were hard to refute. But even if he was right, and Stalinism was the antithesis of all Marx had intended, what practical relevance did such thoughts have? They were where they were. Both in power and not in power, neither wholly disciples nor wholly slaves. They were struggling with the art of the possible.

Ströhm turned off the canal towards the hospital entrance. As always, the thought of seeing Annaliese cheered him up. He had met her in Thomas Schade’s garden, and been smitten at first sight by her smile. They had both been invited to a family picnic, he by Russell, who had once been married to Schade’s late sister, she by Russell’s actress wife Effi, who had met and befriended her during the war.
Schade was a bourgeois businessman and SPD supporter, but a decent man according to John, and Ströhm had seen nothing to contradict that assessment. If all the Social Democrats were like Thomas, then half their problems would be solved.

He saw Annaliese the moment he passed through the doors. She and Effi were sitting in the patient waiting area, sharing something that made them both laugh. Annaliese jumped up when she saw Ströhm, and enfolded him in a happy embrace. Effi followed suit, with her usual spontaneous warmth.

‘I just dropped in my way home,’ she told him. ‘Mostly to invite the two of you to Thomas’s house for lunch on Sunday week. He doesn’t trust the post anymore, and he didn’t dare ring you at work, in case someone listened in and thought you were plotting with the SPD.’

Ströhm smiled. ‘As if. And we’d love to come, wouldn’t we?’ he asked Annaliese.

‘I’ve already accepted.’

‘And you can bring us up-to-date on Soviet intentions,’ Effi said, tongue in cheek. She liked Ströhm, but he was sometimes too serious for words.

‘Of course. Will John be there?’

She shook her head. ‘Not as far as I know. He’s still in Trieste.’

‘What’s he doing down there?’

‘Researching a story on Nazi escape routes. Or so he claims. Every letter he sends me, he boasts about the beautiful weather. He keeps saying he’ll be back in a week or so …’ She changed tack. ‘Gerhard, I went to Sonja Strehl’s funeral on Tuesday, and there were all sorts of rumours doing the rounds. About how she died, I mean. You haven’t heard anything?’

‘No.’

‘I just wondered. She wasn’t exactly a friend, but I knew her for a long time, and I liked her.’

‘I’ll keep my ears open,’ Ströhm promised. ‘But don’t expect too much. The last rumour I heard was about a missing coal train, which someone claimed the French had taken back to France. He might have been right—we still haven’t found it.’

At the villa above Trieste, Thursday proved depressingly similar to previous days. Perhaps even less entertaining, as Kuznakov and his interrogators were each growing increasingly irritated with the other’s refusal to give way. Dempsey and Farquhar-Smith wouldn’t move the Russian westwards until he’d proved he had something to give; and Kuznakov refused to offer anything tangible until he was safe, as he put it, in American territory. Trieste, though nominally under joint control, was apparently too close to Yugoslavia to qualify. ‘Full of MGB,’ Kuznakov insisted, with almost a hint of pride. He was more than ready to talk about life in the Soviet Union, and here his script seemed somewhat inconsistent, mixing fervent denunciations of communism with occasional, almost compulsive, mentions of Soviet achievements. And throughout it all Kuznakov puffed away on his dreadful cigarettes, of which he seemed to have an endless supply.

The only excitement of the day came late, when a vehicle was suddenly heard entering the compound. This time Kuznakov did look alarmed, and so did Farquhar-Smith. ‘It’s the CIA guy,’ Dempsey told them, ‘I forgot to tell you he was coming. It’s Russell here he wants to see.’

‘What for?’ Russell asked, heart sinking.

‘He’ll fill you in. We might as well wrap this up for today.’ Dempsey went to the door, summoned a soldier to take Kuznakov back to his room, and disappeared. A minute later he was back. ‘The Colonel’ll see you on the terrace,’ he told Russell.

The man in question was tall, grey-haired, probably in his early forties. He was wearing civilian clothes—quite a smart suit, in fact.
He rose from a wrought-iron chair, offered Russell a hand, and introduced himself as, ‘Bob Crowell, CIA.’

The terrace was at the side of the villa, overlooking a steep drop, and with a distant view of the sea through the pines.

As Russell sat down, a soldier appeared with two bottles of beer. ‘If you don’t want one, I’ll drink both,’ Crowell told him. Despite being middle-aged, he had the air of a grown-up kid.

‘I think I could manage one,’ Russell said. ‘So what brings you here?’

Crowell ignored the question. ‘How’s it going with Kuznakov?’ he wanted to know, as if Russell was doing the interrogating.

‘He’s eager to leave the Balkans behind. I don’t think we’ll get anything out of him until he feels he’s on safer ground.’ Russell found himself wondering which story Kuznakov would end up telling them, that the Red Army was ready and willing to attack, or that the threat was all in the Western powers’ imagination? Did Stalin want to scare the Americans, or provide them with a false sense of security? Not that it would be false—as his friend Ströhm had pointed out, what country intent on moving its armies further west ripped up half the European railway network for reparations?

Crowell shrugged. ‘Ah well, I expect that’s what we’ll do then. But I have another job for you. It’s all been cleared with your control in Berlin, by the way. Nothing dangerous,’ Crowell added, mistaking the look on Russell’s face. ‘Just a bit of escort duty—what with the Italian elections, we’ve run out of manpower.’

‘I thought they’d been bought and paid for,’ Russell said dryly, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Not because it was untrue—the only real question was whether they’d used cash the Nazis had confiscated from their victims—but because he really had to rein himself in. Like Shchepkin had said, Russell knew he should offer at least the pretence of commitment.

He needn’t have worried in this instance as Crowell just ignored
his comment. ‘There’s a Russian—Ukrainian actually, but he speaks Russian—who we’re taking out. Of Europe, that is. He’s being brought down from Salzburg to Udine on Saturday—you know where that is?’

Russell nodded.

‘Well, you’ll meet him there. But before you leave Trieste, you have to collect a visa for him.’ Crowell took a folded piece of paper from his pocket, which Russell opened. The name and address belonged to Father Kozniku—Draganović’s man in Trieste.

‘The local forger?’ Russell asked flippantly. He was curious as to whether Crowell would come clean about the Rat Line.

‘No, the papers are official,’ was all the other man said.

Russell raised an eyebrow.

‘You don’t need to know,’ Crowell said shortly.

‘Okay.’

‘Just get to Udine, the Hotel Delle Alpi, and babysit the man for one night. Someone will collect him the following morning.’ Crowell reached for the briefcase beside his chair, and extracted a large envelope. ‘You’ll find a DP passport in there, some supportive papers, fifteen hundred US dollars for Father Kozniku, and some lira for your own expenses. When you pick up the visa, check the details against the passport, just in case someone fucked up. We’ve asked the Army for a jeep, but they haven’t got back to us yet. Someone’ll contact you.’

‘Who is he? Or do I call him Mr. X?’

‘His name is Maksym Palychko.’

‘That sounds vaguely familiar. And not in a good way.’

‘I’m told some of the tales about him have been exaggerated,’ Crowell said. ‘But that’s neither here nor there. He’ll be more use to us in America than he would be gumming up a tribunal or rotting in a Soviet grave. So our job is to get him there. Right?’

Russell nodded, and drained the last of his beer. The sun was still shining in a pure blue sky, the clouds all in his mind.

Later that evening, Russell was early for his appointment with Shchepkin. The Russian, when he arrived, had instructions for Russell—he would be meeting a Comrade Serov ahead of his trip to Belgrade. A note would be left at his hostel with the time and place.