Zoo Station Read Online Free PDF Page A

bridge over Friedrichstrasse and into the station of the same name just before eight in the morning. An eastbound Stadtbahn train was disgorging its morning load on the other side of the island platform, and he stood behind the stairwell waiting for the crowd to clear. On the other side of the tracks an angry local was shaking a toasted almond machine in the vain hope that his coin would be returned. A railway official intervened and the two men stood there shouting at each other.

    Welcome to Berlin, Russell thought.

    He took the steps down to the underground concourse, bought a newspaper at the waiting room kiosk, and found himself a seat in the station buffet. The sight of his neighbor, a stout man in an Orpo uniform, cramming his mouth with large slices of blood sausage, did nothing for Russells appetite, and he settled for a buttered roll and four-fruit jam with his large milky coffee.

    His newspaper shielded him from the blood sausage eater, but not from Nazi reality. He dutifully read Goebbelss latest speech on the vibrancy of modern German culture, but there was nothing new in it. More anti-Jewish laws had come into force on the first: Driving automobiles, working in retail, and making craft goods had all been added to the verboten list. Russell wondered what was left. Emigration, he supposed. So why make it so hard for the poor bastards to leave?

    He skimmed through the rest. More villages judenfrei , more kilometers of autobahn, more indignation about Polish behavior in the Corridor. A new U-boat epic at the cinema, children collecting old tin cans for Winter Relief, a new recipe for the monthly one-pot-stew. A Reich that will last a thousand years. Six down, nine hundred and ninety-four to go.

    He thought about taking the U-bahn but decided he needed some exercise. Emerging onto Friedrichstrasse he found the remains of the last snowfall dribbling into the gutters. A ribbon of pale sunlight was inching down the upper walls on the eastern side of the street, but the street itself was still sunk in shadows. Little knots of people were gathered at the doors of about-to-open shops, many of them talking in that loud, insistent manner which non-Berliners found so annoying in the capitals inhabitants.

    It was a three kilometer walk to his rooms near Hallesches Tor. He crossed Unter den Linden by the Cafe Bauer, and strode south through the financial district, toward the bridge which carried the elevated U-bahn over Mohrenstrasse. Berlin was not a beautiful city, but the rows of gray stone buildings had a solidity, a dependability, about them.

    On one corner of Leipzigerstrasse a frankfurter stall was gushing steam into the air, on another the astrologer whom Effi sometimes consulted was busy erecting his canvas booth. The man claimed hed prepared a chart for Hitler in pre-Fuhrer days, but refused to divulge what was in it. Nothing good, Russell suspected.

    Another kilometer and he was turning off Friedrichstrasse, cutting through the side streets to Neuenburgerstrasse and his apartment block. Walking south from Leipzigerstrasse was like walking down a ladder of social class, and the area in which he lived was still hoping for a visit from the twentieth century. Most of the apartment blocks were five storeys high, and each pair boasted a high brick archway leading into a dark well of a courtyard. A bedraggled birch tree stood in his, still clinging to its mantle of snow.

    The concierges door was open, light spilling into the dark lobby. Russell knocked, and Frau Heidegger emerged almost instantly, her frown turning to a smile when she saw who it was. Herr Russell! You said you would be back yesterday. We were beginning to worry.

    I tried to telephone, he lied. But. . . .

    Ah, the Poles, Frau Heidegger said resignedly, as if nothing better could be expected from her neighbors to the east. She wiped her hands on her apron and ushered him in. Come, you must have a coffee.

    Accepting was easier than refusing. He took