Potsdam Station (28 page)

As she reached the top of the square two shells smashed into buildings on the western side, sending out gouts of flame. A car was on fire in the middle, people screaming on the pavements away to her left, but she rode straight on, swerving between still-moving victims and heading straight for the steps that led down to the shelter. Reaching it, they both leapt off, and Effi frantically untied their suitcase. She was reluctant to leave the bicycle, but knew how crowded the shelter would be. Letting it drop, she grabbed the suitcase and hustled Rosa down the steps.

She’d been in this bunker once before, when an early air raid had caught her between trams in the square above. There had been a lot of rooms, some the size of school assembly halls, with electric lighting, pine chairs and tables, and a reasonable number of clean, working toilets. People had sat around having picnics, and made jokes about the feebleness of the British bombing.

That was then. Now furniture and lights were gone, the population had risen ten-fold, and no one was making jokes. Effi led Rosa deeper into the labyrinth, hoping for a space to sit down in. They passed a couple of blocked toilets, and several corners used for the same purpose. The smell was appalling.

All the rooms were full of people. Most were women, but there were some old men and a fair number of small children. They sat or lay in mostly silent misery, their suitcases beside them, often attached to their wrists with string.

The corridors and stairways were also heavily populated, except for those that connected the underground hospital to the outside world. These had to be kept clear for the stretcher-bearers. Two
Hitlerjugend
patrolled them, moving on anyone who tried to settle.

Eventually they found a place, a niche off the cleared corridor where residence was apparently permitted. The previous tenants, their nearest neighbours told them, had just been taken away. The baby had died of hunger, and the mother had tried to stab herself with a shard of broken glass. She’d been taken to the hospital.

Effi leant back against the wall, and enfolded Rosa in her arms. ‘At least we’re safe,’ she whispered.

‘I’m all right,’ Rosa said, then repeated the phrase, just to be sure.

‘Good,’ Effi murmured, and gave the girl a squeeze. They’d be here for a while, she told herself. She wouldn’t take Rosa back outside until the shelling had stopped, and why would it stop before the fighting was over? The Russians seemed unlikely to run out of ammunition, and she couldn’t see the Wehrmacht pushing them back out of range.

When Paul awoke the daylight was almost gone, and a tall figure was leaning over him, gently shaking his shoulder.

‘Hello, Paul,’ the man said.

He recognised the voice before the face. ‘Uncle Thomas!’ he exclaimed, throwing off the greatcoat and scrambling to his feet. They looked at each other, burst out laughing, and embraced.

‘Come, let’s sit down,’ Thomas said, indicating one of the cast-iron seats that lined the river promenade. ‘I’m much too tired to stand up.’ He took off his helmet, unbuttoned his coat, and lowered himself wearily onto the seat.

He looked a lot older than Paul remembered. They had last met three years ago, when his uncle had tried to defend his father, and he had refused to listen. How old was Thomas now – fifty, fifty-one? His hair, cut back almost to nothing, had gone completely grey, and the lines on his face had multiplied and deepened. But the deep brown eyes still harboured mischief – Uncle Thomas had always found something to laugh at, even in times like these.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked Paul.

‘God knows,’ Paul replied. My unit was overrun on the Seelow Heights. The usual story – too little ammo and too much Ivan. I’ve been backpedalling ever since. Looking for my unit.’

‘Still in the 20th?’

‘What’s left of it.’

‘And who’s that?’ Thomas asked, twisting in his seat to look at the sleeping Werner.

‘His name’s Werner Redlich. I picked him up… no, he picked me up – a couple of days ago. The other boys in his unit all wanted to die for the Führer, but Werner wasn’t so sure.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Fourteen.’

‘He looks younger.’

In sleep he did, Paul thought. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked his uncle.

‘Defending Berlin,’ Thomas said wryly. ‘I was called up last autumn. They spent several months training us to fight a street battle, then sent us out here to defend a river.’ He shrugged. ‘The earthworks are good enough, but there’s nothing to put in them. No artillery, no tanks, just a bunch of old men with rifles they might have used in the First War. And a few disposable rocket launchers. It would be a farce if it wasn’t a tragedy.’ He smiled. ‘But at least I’m getting some exercise.’

‘How are the family?’

‘Hanna and Lotte are with Hanna’s parents in the country. They should be behind American lines by now.’

‘And Joachim?’

‘He was killed last summer, in Romania.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

‘Yes. I should have found a way to let you know at the time. But, well, I wasn’t thinking too clearly for a while, and then there was the factory to deal with, and then the call-up…’

They sat in silence for a few moments, both staring out across the darkening river.

‘What’s happening at the factory?’ Paul asked eventually. The last he’d heard, the Schade Printing Works was one of the few businesses in Berlin still employing Jews. Thomas had fought a long rearguard action against their deportation, insisting that their expertise was irreplaceable if he was to fulfil his government contracts.

‘It’s still running,’ Thomas said, ‘but most of the workers are Russian POWs. The Jews are gone.’ He grimaced. ‘People always told me it would end badly, and it did.’

‘How?’

‘Oh, the Gestapo just kept coming back. I don’t know whether you knew it at the time, but I was cultivating some pretty disgusting people before your father left. I hoped they would provide me – and the Jews – with some protection. It might even have worked, but the two with the most clout both died in the bombing – and on the same day! A third man was arrested for plotting against the Führer – I couldn’t believe it, the man seemed such a shit! And the rest… well, they just refused to stick their miserable necks out. One did give me a day’s warning, which helped a great deal. There were about forty Jews still working for me then, and I was able to warn them. Half took the chance to go underground, and didn’t turn up for work the next morning. The rest were carted off to God knows where. I assume they were killed.’

Paul said nothing for a moment, remembering a lecture his father had once given him in London about Jews being people too. ‘I saw the remains of a camp,’ he said slowly. ‘In Poland, a place called Majdanek. The SS had flattened all the buildings, and a local woman told us they’d dug up thousands of bodies and burned them. If they did, they did a good job. There was nothing left.’

Thomas sighed.

‘We killed them all, didn’t we?’ Paul said quietly. ‘All those we could get our hands on.’

Thomas turned to face him. ‘Did you kill any?’

‘No, of course not…’

‘Then why the “we”?’

‘Because.. because I’m wearing a German uniform? I don’t really know.’

‘The victors will want to. Did the Germans do this, or just the Nazis? – that’s what they’ll be asking. And I don’t think they’ll find a simple answer.’

‘We voted for him. We knew he hated the Jews.’

‘Berlin never voted for him. But yes, a lot of Germans did, and we all knew he hated the Jews. But we didn’t know he meant to murder them all. I doubt even he knew it then.’

Paul managed a wry smile. ‘It’s good to see you, Uncle Thomas.’

‘And you.’

‘I thought I saw Effi a couple of weeks ago. There was a woman standing on the opposite platform at Fürstenwalde Station – she had a young girl with her. And there was something about the woman. I only caught a glimpse of her before a train came between us, but I could have sworn it was Effi. Of course it wasn’t. I expect she’s living the high life in Hollywood.’

‘Perhaps,’ Thomas said. ‘There was always a lot more to Effi than most people realised. Your father has been lucky with women,’ he mused, ‘first my sister, and then her. I expect you miss them both,’ he added.

‘I do,’ Paul said, and felt suddenly ashamed. Uncle Thomas had lost his son and his sister, and his nephew had refused to talk to him for three years. ‘The last time I saw you, I behaved like a child’ he admitted.

‘You were a child,’ Thomas said drily.

Paul laughed. ‘I know, but…’

‘Have you forgiven your father yet? In your own mind, I mean?’

‘That’s a good question. I don’t know.’

Thomas nodded, as if that was the answer he’d expected. ‘We may never see each other again – who knows? – so will you listen to what I wanted to tell you that day?’

‘All right.’

‘Your father abandoned you – there’s no denying it. But he had to. If he’d stayed, you’d have had a dead father instead of a missing one.’

‘That might have been easier,’ Paul said without thinking.

Thomas took it in his stride. ‘Yes, for you it might have been. No one would deny that it was hard on you.’

‘On all of us,’ Paul said.

‘Yes, but particularly on you. And then you lost your mother. But Paul, it’s time you stopped feeling sorry for yourself. You had a father and a mother who loved you – a father, I’ll warrant, who still does – and that’s more than a lot of people get in this world. Your father didn’t abandon you because he didn’t care about you; he didn’t leave you because of who he was or who you were. It was the war that divided you; it was politics, circumstance, all that stuff that makes us do the things we do. It had nothing to do with the heart or the soul.’

In the back of Paul’s mind a child’s voice was still intoning ‘but he left me’. ‘I do still love him,’ he said out loud, suddenly aware that he was fighting back tears.

‘Of course you do,’ Thomas said simply. ‘Shit, I think I’m wanted,’ he added, looking over Paul’s shoulder. His Volkssturm company seemed to be gathering at the end of the bridge. ‘There’s always another hole to dig,’ he remarked in the old familiar tone as he got rather slowly to his feet. ‘It’s been wonderful seeing you,’ he told Paul.

‘And you,’ Paul said, throwing his arms around his uncle. ‘And you take care of yourself.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Thomas said, disentangling himself. There was a hint of moisture in his eyes too. ‘Don’t worry, I have no intention of throwing my life away in a lost cause, particularly this one. I’ve got Hanna and Lotte to think about. I shall surrender the first chance I get.’

‘Choose your moment. And your Russian, if you can.’

Thomas gave him an approving look. ‘I shall remember that,’ he said. He smiled once more, then turned, one hand briefly raised in farewell, and walked away down the promenade.

After almost twelve hours in the shelter Effi was beginning to wonder whether she’d exaggerated the dangers of the outside world. Perhaps the shelling stopped at night, or at least grew less intense. Perhaps they could try to get home in the hour before dawn.

Or perhaps she was being foolish: hunger and lack of sleep were unlikely to be improving her judgement. But how could they survive here, without even water?

‘Effi?’ a voice asked, sounding both surprised and pleased.

Startled, she raised her eyes to a familiar face. ‘Call me Dagmar,’ she whispered. The woman might denounce her, but there seemed no reason she should do so by accident. Effi had met Annaliese Huiskes almost four years ago. She had been a staff nurse at the Elisabeth Hospital, and Effi had been one of the film stars who had volunteered to visit the hospital’s swelling population of wounded soldiers. Over the weeks of their acquaintance the two women had discovered a shared taste for hospital-flavoured pure alcohol and a shared disgust for the war.

‘Dagmar?’ Annaliese said, amusement in her voice. ‘Is it really you, Dagmar?’

Effi smiled back. ‘It is.’ It was, she realised, an enormous relief to be who she really was.

‘How did you end up here?’ Annaliese asked, squeezing herself into the niche as a stretcher party went past. There was just enough space for her to sit down.

‘A long story,’ Effi told her. ‘But we were just outside when the shelling started. This is Rosa, by the way,’ she added, as the sleeping girl shifted her body.

‘Your daughter?’

‘No. Just someone I’m looking after. She’s an orphan.’ Annaliese looked much the same as she had four years earlier – small, blonde and worn-out. But there was something heartening about her, something that hadn’t been there in 1941. She was wearing a wedding ring, Effi noticed.

‘I hope you’re going to stay here,’ Annaliese said.

‘I don’t know. We were on our way home, and this place… If we leave before dawn…’

‘Don’t. The shelling hasn’t stopped since it got dark. And it’s not like the bombing, where you get some warning. You’d just be gambling with your lives. And even if you get home… Effi – sorry, Dagmar – you have to think about the Russians now. Have you heard the stories? Well, they’re all true. We’ve had hundreds of women who’ve been raped, and not just raped – they’ve been attacked by so many men, and so violently, that many are beyond help. They’re just bleeding to death. So stay, see the war out here. It can’t be many days now. The Russians are in Weissensee already.’