Masaryk Station (John Russell) Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the far pavement, ogling a young woman in the queue. She was aware of their attention, Effi noticed, and was looking worried. The soldiers hadn’t yet said or done anything, but of course they didn’t need to—the legacy of the mass rapes that followed the capture of the city was still very much in most women’s minds. And evennow, there was nothing to stop those two men walking across the street and simply taking the girl away. The Soviets had no compunction about abducting people from other sectors, and this was their own.
    Effi walked over to the young woman, and stood between her and the soldiers. ‘Try and ignore them,’ she urged.
    ‘That’s easy to say,’ the girl said. ‘I have to get the tram here every day after work, and most days they’re there.’
    ‘Well, if they haven’t done anything yet, they’re probably too nervous,’ Effi encouraged her. ‘But you could try another way home.’
    ‘I could. But I don’t see why I should have to.’
    ‘No,’ Effi agreed.
    Two trams arrived in tandem, and sucked up most of the waiting crowd. Effi stood in the crowded aisle, catching glimpses of the still-ruined city, asking herself how long it would be before rebuilding started in earnest, before the foreign occupiers all went home, before it was safe for a woman to walk the streets. She knew what John would say: ‘Don’t hold your breath.’
    She got off on Ku’damm, and walked up Fasanen Strasse to the flat which Bill Carnforth had procured for Zarah. It was on the first floor of the middle house in an undamaged row of five, had four spacious rooms, and was only a few minutes’ walk from Effi’s own apartment on Carmer Strasse.
    Zarah was cooking dinner in one of her prettiest dresses. Like most Berliners she had been on a forced diet for several years, and in her case the benefits had almost outweighed the cost—she looked better than she had since her twenties. Through the living door Effi could see Lothar and Rosa hunched over their homework.
    ‘How was it?’ her sister asked.
    ‘Depressing. Are you going out with Bill tonight?’
    ‘I hope so. I’ve cooked you and Rosa dinner in the hope that you’ll babysit Lothar.’
    ‘Oh all right.’
    ‘I won’t be late.’
    ‘I said all right.’
    ‘I don’t know why you don’t both move in while John’s away. There’s plenty of room.’
    ‘I … I don’t want to move Rosa again. And John should be back soon.’
    ‘Have you heard from him?’
    ‘No, but they can’t keep him down there forever.’
    Waking up alone, Gerhard Ströhm remembered that Annaliese was on early shift that week. She must have left at least an hour earlier, but her side of the bed was still warm.
    He clambered out, walked to the window and drew back the makeshift curtain. The previous evening’s snow had melted away, and the sun was shining in a clear blue sky. Maybe spring had arrived at last.
    He made himself a small pot of coffee—one Party privilege that he would find hard to give up—and stood by the window as he sipped from the enamel mug, watching the activity on the street below. The damaged houses opposite were finally being demolished, prior to replacement, and a team of men were piling rubble into three horse-drawn carts. A year ago the workers would all have been women. This had to be progress, of a sort.
    Coffee finished, Ströhm washed and dressed, tying a tie in front of the bathroom mirror with his usual lack of enthusiasm. He wasn’t sure why he found the ritual such an anathema. Was it that he’d spent the first fifteen years of his working life in ordinary working clothes, and couldn’t get used to looking smart? Or had spending the first ten years of his life in America—until his parents’ deaths had seen him repatriated—given him a lifelong penchant for informality? Whichever itwas, it would no longer do. Party officials were supposed to set an example, particularly the high-ranking ones like himself.
    Outside it was colder than