Silesian Station (2008) Read Online Free PDF

informant, perhaps. A snitch in the expatriate community. And among the German press corps. He had a lot of friends and acquaintances who still wrote - with well-concealed disgust in most cases - for the Nazi press. Effi might be asked to report on her fellow thespians.
    Or maybe they were more interested in his communist contacts. They certainly knew about his communist past, and after the business in March they probably had a highly exaggerated notion of his current involvement. They might want to use him as bait, luring comrades up to the surface.
    The latter seemed more likely on reflection, but who knew what the bastards were thinking?
    He paid the bill and stood out on the pavement once more. Where to go - his rooms in Hallesches Tor or Effi's flat, where he'd been spending the majority of his nights? Her flat, he decided. Check that everything was all right, make sure the Gestapo had remembered to flush.
    When it came down to it, he just wanted to feel close to her.
    He walked through to Friedrichstrasse and took a westbound Stadtbahn train. There was a leaflet on the only empty seat. He picked it up, sat down, and looked at it. 'Do you want another war?' the headline asked him. The text below advised resistance.
    Looking up, he noticed that several of his fellow-passengers were staring at him. Wondering, he supposed, what he was going to do with the treasonous missive now that he'd read it. He thought about crumpling the leafl et up and dropping it, but felt a sudden, unreasoning loyalty to whoever had taken the enormous risk of writing, producing and distributing it. Two minutes later, as his train drew into Zoo Station, he placed the leaflet back on the seat where he'd found it and got off. The attractive young woman sitting opposite gave him what might have been an encouraging smile.
    He collected his suitcases from the left luggage and walked the half-kilometre to Effi's flat on Carmerstrasse. Everything looked much as he'd last seen it - if the Gestapo had conducted a search then they'd tidied up after themselves. So they hadn't conducted a search. Russell sniffed the air for a trace of Effi's perfume but all he could smell was her absence. He leaned against the jamb of the bedroom door, picturing her in the cell. He told him-self that they wouldn't hurt her, that they knew the threat was enough, but a sliver of panic still tightened his chest.
    He stood there, eyes closed, for a minute or more, and then urged himself back into motion. His car should be here, he realized. He locked up and carried his cases back down. The Hanomag was sitting in the rear courtyard, looking none the worse for a month of Effi's erratic driving. It started first time.
    Twenty minutes later he was easing it into his own courtyard on Neuenburger Strasse. He felt less than ready to face Frau Heidegger and the inevitable deluge of welcome home questions, but the only way to his room led past her ever-open door. Which, much to his surprise, was closed. He stood there staring at it, and suddenly realized. The third week of July - the annual holiday with her brother's family in Stettin. Her sour-faced sister would be filling in, and she had never shown the slightest interest in what was happening elsewhere in the building. Frau Heidegger was fond of claiming that the life of a portierfrau was a true vocation, but her sister, it seemed, had not heard the call.
    He lugged the suitcases up to his fourth floor rooms, and dumped them on his bed unopened. The air seemed hot and stale, but throwing the windows wide made little difference - night was falling much faster than the temperature, and the breeze had vanished. There were two bottles of beer in the cupboard above the sink, and Russell took one to his favourite seat by the window. The beer was warm and fl at, which seemed appropriate.
    None of it was going to go away, he thought. Effi might be released on Wednesday, but they could always rearrest her, and next time they might feel the need -