'And I bought the Rugen Island jigsaw which we never got round to doing,' she added once their hug had loosened.
He didn't know whether to laugh or weep.
'I'll boil some water,' she said.
He sat down, ran a hand through his hair. He had to convince her to go back, but the thought of losing her seemed scarier than ever. Too much had happened too quickly. Much too much. He got back to his feet intent on pacing, but the room wasn't big enough. A look around the edge of the window screening revealed only darkness.
She brought in two tin mugs of tea. 'No milk, I'm afraid.'
He took his and held her eye. 'Effi, they're only after me. You had no part in the business two years ago, and there's no way they could prove otherwise. Tomorrow morning, you should go back to Carmerstrasse and… in fact, the best thing you can do is go to the Alex and report me missing.'
She smiled and shook her head. 'John, you know as well as I do that they'll arrest me. And I'm not going back to the Gestapo, not voluntarily. The last time was bad enough, and this time they'd want to know where you are. I'd have a choice between telling them, and wasting all the effort I've put into this place, or not telling them, and having them do God knows what to me. I'm not doing it, so forget that idea right now. We're in this together – if you get out then I get out; if you don't, then I don't want to either.'
'But you're making yourself an accessory,' Russell argued. 'Helping an enemy of the Reich, that's treason. They could execute you. At the very least, they'll put you in Ravensbruck.'
'I know that. And I'm scared. I expect you are too.'
'What about your career?' he asked stupidly.
'I used to enjoy it,' she admitted. 'All of it – the work, the money, being recognised. But not any more. Either it changed or I did. Or both. Whatever it was, it's over now. GPU will have to soldier on without me. And you have to think up some way of getting us out of the country. I know you can. It's the sort of thing you're good at.'
Russell wasn't so sure, but decided to play along. A discussion of the difficulties might make her see sense. 'All right,' he agreed. 'But we have to look at all the options. One,' he began, tapping his left thumb with his right index finger, 'we can give ourselves up. Two, I can try gate-crashing the American Consulate and you can go back home.' He raised a palm to stifle her protest. 'We're looking at all the options, and that's one of them. The bastards have nothing against you, and if they know where I am, then there's no need for them to question you.'
'You're not listening to me,' she said quietly.
'I am,' he insisted. 'I'll try to find a way to get us both out. But if there's no way to do that, then I'd rather go down alone than take you with me.'
'But you said yourself – there's a good chance they'd just walk into the Consulate and drag you out.'
'They might. They might not. But I'll take the chance. Effi, I'm not going to let you sacrifice yourself for no good reason.'
'Love is a good reason.'
'Okay, but love should be a reason to live. And if I'm going down anyway, I'd feel a lot happier knowing that you weren't. Wouldn't you feel the same way?'
'I don't know.'
'Look, let's get back to the options. If we're not giving ourselves up, we're left with two – either spend the war in hiding inside Germany, or find some way of getting out. A life in hiding doesn't look too promising – how would we eat, for a start?'
'I'd rather get out,' she admitted.
'Okay, we could try and get across a border. Switzerland is the obvious choice, being neutral, and I have a feeling we could survive in Denmark if we got there. Going east would be suicidal, going west… well, Holland, Belgium and France are all occupied, and we wouldn't be safe until we got to Spain, which is a hell of a long way away. So, Switzerland or Denmark. But how do we get there? We can't use our own papers, and neither of us – as far as I know – has any facility at forging documents.'
'No,' she agreed, walking into the bedroom and rummaging under the bed. 'But I do have these,' she said, pulling out an apparent pile of brown paper. She spread the paper out, revealing the uniform of an SS Sturmbannfuhrer. 'I also have a Luftwaffe pilot, a Reichfrauenschaft official and a nurse,' she added.
Russell shook his head in amazement. 'From the wardrobe department?' he guessed.
'I was spoilt for choice,' she confessed.
'They might come in useful,' he said, 'but without new papers… Any long distance train journey, there are checks every hour or so. And the moment someone asks for ours, we're done for. We wouldn't get a second chance.'
'Oh.'
'We'll have to get some papers from somewhere,' he said. Precisely where was another matter. Zembski's demise, while always unfortunate for Zembski, now also seemed fatal to their own prospects. Russell couldn't look up another Comintern forger in the Berlin telephone directory.
But he did still have a line to the comrades. Strohm could – and probably would – pass on a request for help.
Would they help? Russell felt he was owed – it was, after all, his passing of naval secrets to the Soviets which had put the Gestapo on his tail. Then again, Stalin and his NKVD were not known for their nostalgic sense of gratitude. But he would have to try them. There was no one else. Kenyon would want to help, if only to get his hands on Sullivan's papers, but now that the Gestapo had abandoned all pretence of following the diplomatic rules there was nothing he could actually do.
'I'll go to Strohm,' he said. 'My railwayman,' he added, remembering he had never told Effi the name. 'He may be able to help us, either with getting hold of some papers, or even with getting us out of the country.'
'That sounds good,' she agreed, deciding to share in his confidence. They had to remain positive, or they were lost. She took a peek round the corner of the window screen. 'There's not going to be an air raid tonight, is there?'
'Not unless the British have completely lost their senses.'
'Good. We can wait until morning before turning you into my older brother…'
'Your brother!?'
'My husband died some years ago, and I'm much too old for a fancy man.' She thought for a moment. 'We should probably leave something to suggest that you're sleeping in here, just in case we have visitors.'
'Can't we just bolt the door?'
'We can at night. But it'll look a bit suspicious during the day.'
'You're probably right,' he admitted.
'You know your English saying about clouds having a golden lining?'
'Silver.'
'Whichever. Well, I don't have to get up at half past four in the morning. The limousine driver will bang on our door in vain.'
'The neighbours will be ecstatic.'
She laughed, the first time she had done so that evening. 'I think I'm ready for bed,' she said. 'Not that I think I'll sleep.'
She did though, much to Russell's surprise. If the truth were told, she had amazed him almost daily since their first meeting almost eight years before. He lay awake in the dark unfamiliar room, marvelling at her resourcefulness, fearful of what the future held for them both. At least they still had each other. He told himself how lucky he had been to meet and know her, to be loved by her. All in all, he decided, he had enjoyed a fairly charmed forty-two years on the planet. He had grown up in a rich country at peace; he had, unlike so many of his friends, survived the horror of the trenches with both body and mind intact. He had been there in the thick of things after the war, when the world seemed dizzy with the hope of something better. That dream might have died, but he wouldn't have missed the dreaming. He had mostly enjoyed his work; he had her and a wonderful, healthy son.
The trouble was, he wanted another forty-two years.
He could just about envisage an escape, but the chances were thin. Better of course than those of the Jews, now that Heydrich and Co. were ordering indicator-free pesticides in vast quantities. Europe's Jews looked doomed. Even if Moscow survived, if the Soviets held out and the Americans entered the war against Germany before the year was out, the Nazis would still have time for a killing spree that sane people would struggle to find imaginable. He thought about the briefcase sitting in the other room, and Sullivan's handwritten postscript to all the proof of corporate perfidy. Would the governments in London, Washington and Moscow be convinced? And even if they were, would they care? They woke together, a sign of change if ever there was one. He made them cups of ersatz coffee and told her what he'd found in Sullivan's briefcase. She sat there, staring into space and wondering at her own lack of surprise.
'We need a newspaper,' Russell announced, once they'd done the usual ablutions and eaten their usual breakfast. 'We need to know if all Berlin is looking for us, or only the Gestapo.'
She greyed his hair and eyebrows, lined his face, and fixed the small moustache, assuring him that the latter wouldn't fall off if he sneezed. 'When we do come to take it off, you'll realise how firmly it's attached,' she added ominously. She also insisted on his wearing gloves and the woolly hat. His head wound was healing faster than he expected, but the tiny lawn in his meadow of hair was something of a giveaway.