Russell stirred in the egg. 'The one thing I do know is how hard it is to break ranks. The pressure to conform, to go along with the consensus, is enormous. You need virtually everyone on board to start a mutiny.'
Like everyone screaming 'I can't do it anymore', Effi thought. She told him what Huiskes had told her about the SS hospital. 'It was Annaliese who gave me the drink,' she added. 'She has a bottle hidden in her drawer in the ward office. I expect they all do.'
'More than likely.'
'And there's no end in sight is there? It's all gone downhill in a few months. Victory after victory for two years and suddenly we're holding our breath. I was looking down the ward this evening and thinking that these are the casualties of success – what on earth is failure going to look like?'
'We'll know in the next few weeks. Whether or not he's failed, I mean. It's impossible to tell at the moment. We don't know how much the Soviets have left, or how quickly the winter will set in. One interesting thing I heard today – the weather's already turned in Siberia, so the Soviets are safe from the Japs until spring. That's a lot of men they can bring west.' 'Hmmm. How was your day?'
Russell took the loaded plate across to the table, placed it between them, and handed her a fork. 'The usual rubbish.' He told her about the press conference, and offered an edited version of his meeting with Dallin – despite precautions, they were never completely sure that the Gestapo hadn't managed to plant a microphone. 'Then I went to see Homecoming,' he admitted.
'Oh, did you?'
'You were really good.'
'I know.'
'And that makes you feel bad.'
She gave him a wry smile. 'Of course. It makes me feel part of it. Just like the boys I talk to, gunning down Jews. I'm sure they're good at their job too.'
'It's not the same,' Russell said, and it wasn't. Not completely.
'Isn't it? It feels like it is. I'm not doing another film like that, John. I'd rather quit.'
'Would they let you?'
'I think so,' she said, for the first time considering the possibility that they wouldn't.
'What would you do?' Russell asked.
'I've no idea,' Effi said getting up. She walked through into the living room, and a few seconds later the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra were easing into 'I'll never smile again'.
She reappeared in the archway. 'Come dance with me.' Betrayals on offer
'Lunch at the Adlon?' Ralph Morrison asked, as he and Russell reached the pavement outside the Foreign Ministry. It was a miserable day, a thin mist of rain hanging in the air.
'Why not?' These days most Americans were persona non grata in most of Berlin, but the Adlon Hotel remained a welcome exception.
'Another hour I'll never get back,' Morrison complained, as they walked up Wilhelmstrasse. 'I even found myself missing that bastard Schmidt this morning. At least he lies with some panache. That idiot Stumm, well, what can you say?'
'If they really have taken Kerch, that's bad news,' Russell said. 'Puts them too damn close to the Caucasus oilfields.'
'I know.'
'Did you get any more on Udet? None of my contacts would tell me anything.'
'Oh yes. He shot himself all right. And left a note blaming Goering – "Oh Iron Man, why have you deserted me?" or some such rubbish. Why do fighter aces never grow up?'
They reached the Adlon entrance and walked through to the restaurant. Gestapo technicians had invaded the hotel a few months earlier and planted hidden microphones everywhere, but over the intervening weeks most had been discovered by the staff, and the guests discreetly warned. Morrison and Russell headed for an area of the large room that was generally considered safe. There was no chandelier directly above their table, and the latter's underside was clear.
Russell had got to know Morrison quite well since his arrival some six months before, as Jack Slaney's replacement. A burly Mid-Westerner in his mid-thirties, Morrison had arrived knowing little about Germany, but he had inherited most of Slaney's excellent sources, and proved a quick learner. If he sometimes appeared even more cynical than his predecessor, that was probably because reporting from Berlin no longer bore any relation to traditional journalism.
The ritual with scissors and ration tickets completed, the two men sipped at what passed for beers in Hitler's triumphant capital. 'I did pick up another story in my trawling,' Russell admitted. 'I was talking to a German friend this morning, a journalist. Apparently the editors of all the big city dailies were called in to Promi yesterday, and told to lay off the winter clothing story. The official line is that it's all waiting at the railheads for distribution, but the trains are in chaos so who knows when they'll get there, and they're worried that the troops will write home and tell their families that nothing's arrived and they're all freezing to death. So no one's supposed to mention the subject, and there's a complete ban on pictures of soldiers in their summer uniforms.' Russell laughed. 'Photographers have been sending back too many pictures of Red Army men in thick coats guarded by shivering Germans in denim.'
Morrison shook his head in amazement. 'Have they really been that incompetent?'
'You bet. The astonishing thing is that they're still advancing. Stalin must be matching them balls-up for balls-up.'
Their lunch arrived, boiled cabbage and potatoes with a few suspicious-looking pieces of sausage. If this was what the Adlon was serving, God help the rest of the Reich.
'The thing about the Nazis,' Russell went on, 'is that everything's short term. They gabble on about thousand-year Reichs but they don't do any real planning. There's a fascinating article in the Frankfurter Zeitung this morning about the importance of infantry in the Russian campaign. Well, it's not fascinating in itself, but the fact of it is. An article like that would have been inconceivable a couple of months ago – all anyone wanted to talk about were the panzers and the Luftwaffe. Short-term weapons, weapons that win quickly, blitzkrieg. And I think that whoever wrote that article has realised that blitzkrieg has failed in Russia, that only the infantry can win it for them now.'
'Do they have the infantry?'
Russell shrugged. 'My guess would be not, but that may be wishful thinking.'
As he ate, another likely consequence of the German emphasis on tanks and tank-supportive planes occurred to him. If German production had all been geared to blitzkrieg over the last few years, there was no chance of Hitler having a fleet of long-range bombers up his sleeve. Russell could understand why Dallin and his Washington bosses were worried: their country was accustomed to immunity from such threats, and the appearance of German bombers in the skies above Manhattan would certainly wreak havoc in the American psyche. But there was no substance to this particular piece of paranoia, and nothing to be gained from his seeking out Franz Knieriem.
Nothing for the Americans, that was. He might earn himself a few points by showing willing. He could at least find out whether the man was still living at the same address – there was no risk in that. And there was always the chance that Knieriem had moved, which would give him grounds for further procrastination. If his luck was really in, the address was now a bomb site.
The slivers of sausage actually tasted quite good, unlike the cabbage and potatoes which tasted of salt and little else.
A waiter materialised at his elbow. 'A call for you, sir,' he said. 'In reception.'
It was his ex-wife Ilse. 'You always told me I could reach you there,' she said, 'but I never quite believed it.'
'Now you know.'
'It's Paul,' she told him. 'He's said something he shouldn't have at school, and…'
'What did he say?'
'I don't know. I'll find out when he gets home. But they want to see his parents, and Matthias is in Hannover.' Paul's stepfather, a thoroughly respectable German businessman, usually acted in loco parentis where the authorities were concerned. 'I'd rather not go alone,' Ilse added.
'What time?' Russell asked.
'Six o'clock. Say half past five here.'
'I'll be there.'
'Thanks.'
Russell replaced the earpiece. Another missed press conference performance at Promi, he thought. Another silver lining. But what about the cloud – what had Paul been saying? Russell left plenty of time for the endless ride out to Grunewald, but one tram broke down and the driver of the next seemed unwilling to risk a speed of more than ten kilometres an hour. Getting round the city grew more frustrating by the day, except for those with the right connections. Arriving ten minutes late at the Gehrts' house, he found Matthias's Horch staring out of an open garage door, its numberplate adorned with the priceless red square which allowed its owner the luxury of continuing use. Russell felt like unscrewing the numberplate there and then, but a written permit was also required.
Ilse opened the door before he had time to ring the bell. She looked worried.