Winter of the World

Carla suppressed the hysterical grief that bubbled up inside her by shifting into professional gear. She fetched a cushion and propped up his head. She got a cup of water from the kitchen and dribbled a little on his lips. He swallowed and opened his mouth for more. When he seemed to have had enough, she went into his study and got a bottle of schnapps and gave him a few drops. He swallowed them and coughed.

‘I’m going for Dr Rothmann,’ Carla said. ‘Wash his face and give him more water. Don’t try to move him.’

Maud said: ‘Yes, yes – hurry!’

Carla wheeled her bike out of the house and pedalled away. Dr Rothmann was not allowed to practise any longer – Jews could not be doctors – but, unofficially, he still attended poor people.

Carla pedalled furiously. How had her father got home? She guessed they had brought him in a car, and he had managed to stagger from the kerbside into the house, then collapsed.

She reached the Rothmann house. Like her own home, it was in bad repair. Most of the windows had been broken by Jew-haters. Frau Rothmann opened the door. ‘My father has been beaten,’ Carla said breathlessly. ‘The Gestapo.’

‘My husband will come,’ said Frau Rothmann. She turned and called up the stairs. ‘Isaac!’

The doctor came down.

‘It’s Herr von Ulrich,’ said Frau Rothmann.

The doctor picked up a canvas shopping bag that stood near the door. Because he was banned from practising medicine, Carla guessed he could not carry anything that looked like an instrument case.

They left the house. ‘I’ll cycle on ahead,’ Carla said.

When she got home she found her mother sitting on the doorstep, weeping.

‘The doctor’s on his way!’ Carla said.

‘He is too late,’ said Maud. ‘Your father’s dead.’

(viii)

Volodya was outside the Wertheim department store, just off the Alexander Platz, at half past two in the afternoon. He patrolled the area several times, looking for men who might be plain-clothes police officers. He was sure he had not been followed here, but it was not impossible that a passing Gestapo agent might recognize him and wonder what he was up to. A busy place with crowds was the best camouflage, but it was not perfect.

Was the invasion story true? If so, Volodya would not be in Berlin much longer. He would kiss goodbye to Gerda and Sabine. He would presumably return to Red Army Intelligence headquarters in Moscow. He looked forward to spending some time with his family. His sister, Anya, had twin babies whom he had never seen. And he felt he could do with a rest. Undercover work meant continual stress: losing Gestapo shadows, holding clandestine meetings, recruiting agents, and worrying about betrayal. He would welcome a year or two at headquarters, assuming the Soviet Union survived that long. Alternatively, he might be sent on another foreign posting. He fancied Washington. He had always had a yen to see America.

He took from his pocket a ball of crumpled tissue paper and dropped it into a litter bin. At one minute to three he lit a cigarette, although he did not smoke. He dropped the lighted match carefully into the bin so that it landed in the nest of tissue paper. Then he walked away.

Seconds later, someone cried: ‘Fire!’

Just when everyone in the vicinity was looking at the fire in the litter bin, a taxi drew up at the entrance to the store, a regular black Mercedes 260D. A handsome young man in the uniform of an air force lieutenant jumped out. As the lieutenant was paying the driver, Volodya jumped into the cab and slammed the door.

On the floor of the cab, where the driver could not see it, was a copy of Neues Volk, the Nazi magazine of racial propaganda. Volodya picked it up, but did not read it.

‘Some idiot has set fire to a litter bin,’ said the driver.

‘Adlon Hotel,’ Volodya said, and the car pulled away.

He riffled the pages of the magazine and verified that a buff-coloured envelope was concealed within.

He longed to open it, but he waited.

He got out of the cab at the hotel, but did not go inside. Instead, he walked through the Brandenburg Gate and into the park. The trees were showing bright new leaves. It was a warm spring day and there were plenty of afternoon strollers.

The magazine seemed to burn the skin of Volodya’s hand. He found an unobtrusive bench and sat down.

He unfolded the magazine and, behind its screen, he opened the buff-coloured envelope.

He drew out a document. It was a carbon copy, typed and a bit faint, but legible. It was headed:

DIRECTIVE NO. 21: CASE ‘BARBAROSSA’

Friedrich Barbarossa was the German Emperor who had led the Third Crusade in the year 1189.

The text began: ‘The German Wehrmacht must be prepared, even before the completion of the war against England, to overthrow Russia in a rapid campaign.’

Volodya found himself gasping for breath. This was dynamite. The Tokyo spy had been right, and Stalin wrong. And the Soviet Union was in mortal danger.

Heart pounding, Volodya looked at the end of the document. It was signed: ‘Adolf Hitler.’