‘What if I’d been murdered tonight?’

  A guilty Bruno accused her of being melodramatic, and Larissa was too exhausted to continue with the quarrel. She just wanted to see her sister Margarita.

  2.

  After the picture, they were both in such high spirits that they went to the billiards bar for a drink. Apart from the woman serving them, they were the only females there, but they’d been there before and were left alone. Then, they both caught the Mariendorf tram, still giggling as they re-lived the Charlie Chaplin picture. Sitting next to them was a grizzled old man, all hunched up in his seat, who every now and again would slip his hand into his pocket and pull out a a small, silver flask, winking at them before taking a long swig.

  As the tram reached Seestrasse, on the corner of Togostrasse, Margarita and Natalya were arrested. The other passengers looked on impassively through the steamed-up windows as the two women were made to step down into the cold by a young man in a soft hat and grey raincoat. Margarita had already noticed him when he’d got on the tram at Rosenthaler, because his head looked too big above such a thin body. Then, when he had approached them to ask what language they were speaking, Natalya had giggled, thinking the man was trying to flirt with them. But Margarita hadn’t been so sure, and her suspicions had been confirmed when the young man had taken out his leather badge from his inside pocket.

  3.

  Margarita crossed the cell floor and rapped on the door. She was sick and tired of sitting there with nothing to do. She tried again, louder and longer this time. Some time later, a hand appeared through the small hatch in the door offering her a glass of water.

  When she was interrogated later on, she told the truth.

  ‘Aznefttrust?’ The policeman raised his head. ‘When did you start working for them?’

  ‘Is it illegal?’

  ‘Less of your lip.’

  ‘Is it illegal?’ she challenged, staring him straight in the eye. ‘It’s a Russian trading company.’

  ‘Depends what you’re really trading.’

  Natalya had thought it safer to lie, making things far worse for herself, as they proceeded to interrogate her for hours. By the early hours of the morning, exhausted and tearful, she had changed her story several times. The schupos had frightened her and she insisted on her rights as a Russian citizen to see somebody from the Soviet embassy. Around half past five in the morning, a consul arrived with a briefcase under his arm and a stinking cold. After a great deal of paperwork and stamping of various documents, Natalya and Margarita were eventually allowed to leave.

  They walked out into the fresh morning air just after seven o’clock. Natalya was very shaken, so Margarita tried to make light of the whole thing, but her friend started to cry quietly into her hands.

  ‘Things aren’t that bad.’ Margarita put her arm across Natalya’s shoulder and hugged her. ‘We’re fine,’ she comforted her. ‘They didn’t charge us with anything.’

  But Natalya just kept repeating the same thing over and over: ‘It’s all over for me now.’

  4.

  As she hung her coat and beret on the hook, Margarita caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and noticed how pale her cheeks were. She peered at herself more closely and thought that she looked dreadful.

  ‘Where in God’s name have you been until now?’ Bruno had appeared from upstairs, in his waistcoat and slippers, looking exhausted.

  ‘Why? What’s the matter?

  He explained what had happened, and Margarita raced upstairs at once.

  ‘Lala?’ she called out as she opened the door.

  The curtains were drawn and the room was in semi-darkness. Her sister was lying in bed with her back towards her.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  She went to lie on the bed, and the sisters clutched each other tightly.

  There was a knock on the door, and the maid came in. ‘There’s somebody on the telephone for you, miss.’

  ‘Take a message and tell them I’ll call them back,’ Margarita told her, and the girl disappeared.

  ‘What happened Lala?’

  Larissa had only just started to explain, when the maid popped her head around the door again.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Margarita irritably.

  ‘They’re insisting that they have to speak to you directly.’

  She was instructed to come in to the office immediately.

  ‘Rest,’ she whispered to her sister, who was already dozing.

  As she wearily put on her coat, Bruno appeared. ‘Are you staying home to look after her today?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’ve already let the hospital know,’ he said looking shamefaced.

  ‘Good, I’m pleased to hear it.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he said as she opened the door.

  ‘Did I say that it was?’

  5.

  At the office, there was no sign of Natalya, and Margarita was taken aback when she saw that her desk had already been stripped bare.

  ‘She’s going home,’ Osip Nikitich explained, when Margarita asked why such a thing had been done.

  ‘To Russia?’

  He looked at her calmly and asked, ‘Where else is home?’

  The following week, a new girl came to sit at the desk opposite Margarita – a much quieter individual than Natalya, and not half such good company. Margarita felt the loss of her friend, and looked forward to the letter which she felt sure would not be long in arriving, but she didn’t hear a word from her. When Margarita asked her boss for Natalya’s address in Moscow, he told her he didn’t know where she was living. From time to time, she would still bring up Natalya’s name with other members of staff, and would make a point of asking any Russians visiting Berlin about her, but nobody ever knew anything. Occasionally, she would have the unpleasant feeling that Natalya had been swallowed alive by the Soviet Union.

  She was no longer sent out on underground missions, and a few weeks later was transferred to the marketing department, where she was one of three. The work was very dull. When she asked Osip Nikitich about her future prospects, his answer was vague to the point of unhelpful. Margarita realised that she no longer had any meaningful role at Aznefttrust and, as a result, she found herself attracted back to her old KPD circles.

  6.

  It was the tiniest advertisement in the Berliner Tageblatt. The early bird catches the worm, Alyosha thought, and went for it without delay. He was interviewed by a young man, not much older than himself, who asked him at length about his previous experience. Alyosha found it simple enough to pull the wool over the man’s eyes, and claimed to have experience in many clubs in France. He surprised himself with his detailed description of his work at the Flamant Rose in Montmartre. In his mind’s eye, he saw Galina waiting on the tables.

  ‘So, why did you leave Paris for Berlin, then?’

  The young man got up from his seat and leant on the side of his desk. He crossed his arms and looked at Alyosha knowingly.

  ‘Things became a little… complicated.’

  Same old story. That’s what Alyosha read in the man’s eyes.

  ‘Have you got a record?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Never been in trouble with the police?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘So you’ve never been in jail?’

  ‘No.’ Alyosha didn’t feel the need to mention his time in Warsaw.

  ‘Pity.’ The man shook his hand and welcomed him to the Havana.

  It was mainly a club for homosexuals, on the corner of Martin Lutherstrasse. There were another four clubs on the same street, three of them for lesbians. The doors opened at half past nine every night, and by ten, the band had started to play. Alyosha’s work was primarily to control the drug dealers who sold hashish or cocaine. Only those who were paying a commission to the Havana were allowed to sell to the clientele, and he was shown who to welcome and who to turn away. The woman who owned the Havana never came near the place, and the manager only popped in now and again as the fancy took him, so Alyosha had the first and last say.

  Before long, all the gangs had heard about the Havana’s new doorman, and sent their men from every corner of Berlin. The Croatians, the Serbs, the Romanians and Poles – they all tried to buy him. He was promised money, a cut of the profits, a supply of the drugs, girls, boys; and, after the bribes didn’t work, the threats began.

  ‘A razor across your face…’

  One of the barmen got up to show his hands. Running across his fingers from one hand to the other was a red scar

  ‘Be prepared. Leather gloves with an iron mesh on the inside will save you,’ he explained.

  Alyosha bought a second-hair pair through a friend of the barman, but he couldn’t get used to them. He felt like some crusader in the sands of Palestine, as the mesh rubbed against his knuckles and his fingers crunched every time he bent them. He hated the job of course – kicking his heels outside the door, keeping his eye on every coming and going – and counted the minutes until the early hours, when the club closed and he could set off for home. He’d only ever seen it as a temporary job, anyway. He checked the situations vacant columns in the morning and evening newspapers every day, looking for something better, but there was precious little advertised, and when when he leant on the bar to turn the pages of the newspapers, he could feel ten million hungry eyes looking over his shoulder at the same time.

  He tried for anything he could, because he knew it was only a matter of time before somebody went for him at the Havana. He’d been told about plenty of other doormen who had been cut. Many of them had been badly scarred, and one had lost his sight. Alyosha decided for his own safety to keep a knife up his sleeve, just in case.

  He hadn’t even thought he was in any danger on that particular night. He had only just locked up, and was on his way home. Two girls came towards him, arm-in-arm, giggling when they bumped tipsily into each other, but, as they passed him, one of them swung her bag across his back, a bag as heavy as a chimney brick. A watery, colourless fog danced across his eyes and he hit the pavement.

  7.

  His white coat was spotless, though there was a lingering smell of iodoform. Like any busy doctor, Bruno Volkmann spoke plainly and without preamble. He was practically moving on to his next patient before he had finished talking. Alyosha found him dry and brusque, and, according to the other patients on the ward, he was a bit of a snob, and could be unfeeling just when somebody was at their lowest point, and craved a word of sympathy. If possible, it was better to talk to one of the other doctors or nurses.

  Later that day, Alyosha was lying on his bed, unable to sleep because he was in so much pain, when Larissa came rushing into the ward, and squealed with excitement when she saw him. She bent over his bed and hugged him, and Alyosha couldn’t help wincing from her over-enthusiastic embrace. Still, he managed a smile and she grinned back, delighted to see him. They hadn’t set eyes on each other for years, since the spring of 1924, when Alyosha had decided to leave Berlin for Paris. With her hair tied back, her forehead looked higher and wider than he remembered, and she was heavily pregnant, but her high spirits seemed undimmed. There was so much to say and so little time, as visiting only lasted half an hour. Larissa wanted him to tell her everything, and insisted that, once he was discharged, he should come and live with them, at least until he’d found his feet. To this, he thankfully agreed.

  8.

  ‘How can we afford a place like this all of a sudden, Artyom? How did you find the money to buy it?’

  ‘My investments on the Bourse have started to pay off. The last nine months have been the best I’ve ever had.’

  ‘Luck is a fickle friend. What if it turns again? I don’t want to find ourselves back where we were four years ago, not being able to make ends meet, and people after us for their money.’

  ‘That won’t happen again, Zephi.’

  ‘How can you be so certain? Remember you have two little girls to look after now, as well.’

  Six weeks previously, Bibi had been given a sister, a little girl they named Karina. Zepherine’s labour had been a savage one, lasting nearly fourteen hours. She was only just back on her feet, and Artyom had no intention of telling her the truth about their new-found wealth.

  They were standing outside a handsome villa situated in the countryside to the south-west of Paris, about to view the place. Artyom had already looked over it on his own, and had fallen in love with the house and the location, as the countryside around Paris, especially to the south, reminded him a little of rural Russia. He thought it wiser not to mention this to Zepherine, so, as they wandered from room to room, he pretended to be seeing everything for the first time. He could see her enthusiasm growing as she began to see the attractions of living there, although she continued to fret about the financial burden, and Artyom had to work hard to convince her that they could afford to buy it, and that she had no reason to worry at all.

  ‘But how can we afford a place like this?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how.’

  Zepherine, convinced at last, turned around in a complete circle in the middle of the high-windowed salon and declared joyfully, ‘This place is a wonder to behold!’

  Artyom winced. He hated it when Zepherine used that expression. It had been one of his mother’s stock phrases, but, for some reason, he found it horribly annoying when she said it in French. Perhaps it grated on him because it was so old-fashioned.

  ‘I can’t wait to show my sister.’

  It had been raining heavily that morning, but the weather had lifted by the time they finished inspecting the inside of the villa. After she had made a tour of the gardens, Zepherine was in her seventh heaven. She had changed her tune completely from the morning, when she’d told him she didn’t have the least inclination to leave Paris for the country. She was a city girl. Just hearing a cow lowing, never mind actually seeing one, would frighten her. Why was Artyom insisting on taking her to this place when she really didn’t have the slightest interest in seeing it at all?

  ‘Why can’t we buy a bigger place in Paris?’

  ‘Just wait until you’ve seen it before you make your mind up.’

  The journey to Yvelines had been very silent, as Zepherine was in a sulk.

  Her father had been a Marseille man, a sea captain, who had drowned in the Bay of Biscay when his boat had been hit by a torpedo in November 1916. Zepherine only had two pictures of him. In one, he stood straight-backed in his cap and uniform, one hand in his jacket pocket, in front of a sturdy mast. The other had been taken in some bal musette, and, in this one, he was sitting next to his wife, his shirt collar open, his arm lying casually along the back of her chair, a cigarette between finger and thumb. There was a roguish little smile under his beard, and laughter in his eyes. Because of that, this was her favourite. It showed her mother and father as a happy and harmonious couple.

  That, too, was the picture Zepherine always painted to Artyom, but it was all a fabrication. Avril, Zepherine’s sister, let the cat out of the bag one evening, when a conversation turned into a quarrel out of nothing. It transpired that Zepherine had no idea who her real father was. There was no name on either of their birth certificates. From when they were tiny, their mother had sometimes mentioned the ‘Sea Captain from Marseille’, and they had convinced themselves that he was their father. So, Zepherine had learnt to create a fantasy life for herself, so much so that she often couldn’t distinguish between what was true and what wasn’t.

  On the way back to Paris, thoroughly excited, she chattered on about how she intended decorating and furnishing the villa. Artyom didn’t have to say a word, he just had to listen and smile.

  Zepherine didn’t have the faintest idea how Artyom made his money. For many months now, he had been careful to make a bit of a show of himself at the Bourse – nothing too obvious, he just made sure he was seen in those places, which would signal to the right people that he was brokering on the Stock Exchange. He made it known that he was buying and selling for several important clients, a few of them foreigners. It wasn’t only Zepherine who could see a transformation, but his old contemporaries too.

  ‘Good to see the old Artyom is back,’ was a comment he often heard.

  ‘It’s good to be back,’ he’d reply.

  It was a perfect front.

  9.

  Alyosha gave an account of himself to Larissa and Margarita in dribs and drabs, although they were both so curious about his life in Paris, they would have preferred every last detail all at once. But they quickly grasped how precarious his life had been there. Bruno blamed the unstable times they were living in, and Alyosha agreed. He didn’t say a word about Ludwika or his mother. He told them what he knew about Georgik, though, not that it amounted to much more than that he was a pupil at Le Rosey.

  Alyosha could see how Bruno doted on his little girl, Ella. He adored being a father, and was very happy that his wife was pregnant again, and that there would soon be another baby in the nursery – a son this time, he hoped.

  Alyosha didn’t find his cousins so terribly changed. Margarita had cut her hair shorter (though not very fashionably), and she dressed like a professional young woman, but she was still intense and serious, weighing matters up carefully before coming to an opinion, especially when compared to Larissa, who remained ebullient and high-spirited in spite of her domestic responsibilities and pregnancy.