‘But where will you go?’

  ‘Wherever he’ll be treated with more respect than here.’

  For Margarita, the answer was obvious, but she spoke tentatively, unsure of how her sister would react.

  ‘The Soviet Union. That would be the safest place for the two of you and the girls.’

  ‘Really?’ asked her sister, looking doubtful. ‘Do you know, Walter said the same thing. His family came from Russia originally, before settling in Germany. And that’s where I came from, of course. And you, a long time ago…’

  Larissa knew she would find it hard to leave Berlin. This was her home. Here, she had given birth to her girls; here, she had settled, put down roots, and made a life for herself.

  ‘But I suppose it will be hard wherever we go,’ she said sadly.

  ‘I know,’ said Margarita, squeezing her arm comfortingly.

  But circumstances might not give them any choice.

  ‘I’ll make enquiries about visas for you.’

  ‘Will that be difficult?’

  ‘I’m sure it can be done.’

  35.

  This time, Stanislav Markovich was there too, smoking his pipe.

  Margarita was asked to repeat what had happened when she went to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.

  Stanislav kept his eyes fixed on her throughout her account, and as soon as she had finished speaking, told her he wanted her to phone the Gestapo.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Do whatever they suggest.’

  Her wooden chair felt very hard.

  ‘They might want to interview you again,’ said Stanislav, ‘or they might arrange to meet you somewhere else. They’ll probably be expecting you to smuggle documents out of here for them to copy,’ he said neutrally.

  It went without saying she should report back everything the Gestapo told her at once.

  ‘To you?’ she asked Stanislav.

  He half gestured towards Anton Kovrin.

  ‘When should I do it?’

  ‘The sooner the better.’

  She used the telephone on the desk to call the Gestapo – with Stanislav Markovich at her elbow listening to every word.

  By the time she received a reply from Kai-Olaf, the first rendezvous with the Gestapo had already been arranged. Too late, he wrote that on no account should she play the NKVD’s games for them – they didn’t care one iota about her safety. He emphasised this; they would see her as totally expendable. Kai-Olaf had crossed Stanislav Markovich’s path many times over the years, and knew that he was not to be trusted. He wanted Margarita to arrange through the IKP to leave Berlin without delay.

  She knew what he said was true, and she desperately wanted to leave herself. But it was difficult, if not impossible. She had already asked Anton Kovrin whether it would be possible to arrange four visas for the Soviet Union. He had promised to do what he could, but had added that such matters could take time. Until Larissa and Walter were safely over the border, Margarita felt she had no choice but to stay in Berlin. She wrote an answer to Kai-Olaf explaining her situation, and promised to come to him the minute everything was settled. She added that she longed for him, hoped he was healthy and well in Paris, and that he was always in her thoughts. She had been rather hurt by the tone of his letter – he hadn’t mentioned anything about his feelings for her. But he was busy, no doubt, as the letter seemed to have been written in haste. Once they were together again in Paris, everything would be as it was.

  36.

  They had told Margarita to go to Dahlem, and find the farthest greenhouse in the Botanic Gardens, out of sight of the road. She was to sit on the wooden bench nearest the waterfall which poured down over the big rocks. She followed their instructions and waited, watching the fat orange-and-black koi carp swimming under the white foam in the pool. The fine spray sprinkled her face and hair with a film of moisture. A gang of schoolchildren wandered past, their feet crunching against the gravel, giggling and squabbling. It was so humid that Margarita was already sweating, even though she had taken off her coat and folded it by her side.

  The wooden bench creaked when he sat down beside her. She asked him for a light. He wasn’t a smoker. He was a young man, younger than her, wearing frameless spectacles. He told her his name was Manfred, and then, without further preamble, questioned her about her work in the Trade Department. He was interested in the correspondence coming into her office, and he wanted to know the names of all the companies and organisations they had dealings with, who visited the offices, and who was who in Moscow. He was also very interested in her boss, Anton Kovrin, and even asked about his background and his education. Margarita told him that she didn’t really know him very well and – less truthfully – that their paths crossed very rarely. The young man said that in the last eight months alone, Kovrin had been seen in Stockholm, Vienna, Budapest, Milan and Sofia. On three of those trips, he had met with Stanislav Markov Feldman. Did she know Stanislav Markov Feldman?

  Margarita thought fast and decided to tell the truth. This was a wise decision, because the Gestapo knew they’d been lovers. When was the last time she’d seen Stanislav Markov Feldman?

  ‘A year or two ago… I can’t remember exactly.’

  He observed her keenly, and waited for a hunch-backed old man, leaning on his stick, to totter past them painfully slowly.

  ‘Has Stanislav Markov Feldman visited the Trade Department at all?’

  Not that she knew of.

  Had anybody in the Department discussed him at all?

  Not with her, no, nobody.

  Then he asked her if she had heard of the Special Department.

  ‘No.’

  Had anyone in her office mentioned anything about the Special Department in front of her?

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never?

  She shook her head.

  The young man’s main interest was the Special Department. He wanted Margarita to see what she could find out, and report back.

  37.

  Bruno came round to the apartment, banging on the door insistently.

  ‘Open the door,’ he shouted.

  ‘Don’t,’ Larissa told her sister. But the knocking continued, and then he started kicking the door, shouting loudly that he had every right to see his wife and children. One of the tenants shouted at him to shut up, but as he was making such a row, they didn’t have much choice but to let him in. He was scarlet and short of breath after all his shouting and kicking, but he pushed past Margarita, and, pointing at Larissa, said, ‘I want a word with my wife. On her own.’

  He glared at Margarita’s tenants, who were staring at him nervously. ‘Who are they?’ he snapped.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Julius.

  ‘Larissa, take Bruno into the kitchen, you can talk there. But for heaven’s sake, Bruno, try to calm down, you’re frightening the girls.’

  She might as well have talked to the wall. Within half a minute, Bruno was bellowing for the whole block to hear that if she didn’t come back to his house immediately, she would never see her daughters again, he’d make damn sure of that. Margarita could hear Larissa’s supplicating tones, but then there was a loud crash. She rushed in to the kitchen to see a bowl shattered in pieces on the floor and Larissa looking shaken. Bruno, with a muttered oath, barrelled past Margarita and stormed out of the apartment.

  ‘He threw it at my head,’ Larissa told Margarita. ‘If I hadn’t ducked…’

  When Walter heard what had happened, he felt wretched that he hadn’t been there to protect her. After that, he tried to come by the apartment every evening after work, which left Julius and his wife sullen and cross. When Bruno came round again a few nights later to find him there, he didn’t mince his words, and called Walter a dirty lying Jew to his face. After every bruising encounter, Larissa begged Margarita to do her best to move the approval of their visas on. She was afraid of what her husband would do next. Margarita had been asking Anton Kovrin about them almost every day, but he always had an excuse. Feeling she didn’t have a choice, she decided to go above his head and ask Stanislav Markovich if he could help, but his mind was on far more important matters – such as duping the Gestapo.

  On the way to the apartment one evening, Walter was badly beaten up. From then on, Larissa was convinced that it was only a matter of time before Bruno would arrange to have him arrested or killed. It wouldn’t be so difficult after all – in fact, it would be the easiest thing in the world.

  They must leave, there was no time to lose. Why were the visas taking so long? Why was her sister having so much trouble getting them? Couldn’t she persuade whoever was in charge how precarious their situation was?

  38.

  On their second meeting, Manfred gave Margarita some photographs, and asked her to identify everybody she knew. Margarita put a name to every face. The next time, she gave him a list of all the German communists who used to work at the Department of Trade. Manfred was visibly delighted. But, in fact, the names were all of former employees who were now members of NASAP. Stanislav Markovich had rubbed his hands when he thought of the fascists arresting fascists, accusing them of treachery and spying, beating them and mistreating them. It was a small blow for all the communists who were rotting in Hitler’s prisons.

  Once the next meeting with Manfred had been scheduled, Margarita went to see Anton Kovrin. She told him she would not be going until she was given the four visas as he had promised. He told her harshly that he didn’t appreciate blackmail, but she held her ground and reminded him that they had made a bargain, and that she was the only one carrying out her side of it. Her sister, her sister’s lover and her two nieces were desperate to reach the safety of the Soviet Union.

  39.

  When Larissa held the four visas in her hand, her emotions were mixed. Although she was filled with relief, in her heart, she didn’t want to leave Berlin. Until recently, she and Walter had been so at home there. Berlin was the axis of their lives, where all their friends were. Here, was everything that was comfortable and familiar, and although she’d been born in Russia, the place was like a foreign country to her now. Would there even be a welcome for them there?

  ‘Don’t look so worried. Of course you’ll be welcomed. They’re desperate for men like Walter over there,’ Margarita said reassuringly.

  When Larissa thought of the Soviet Union, the picture in her head was of an enormous steelworks spreading for miles, belching smoke and steam. The Soviet Union. Even the name made her nervous. But it seemed the only option if she and Walter were to have any chance of a happy future together.

  Meanwhile, Margarita was still meeting Manfred, but how long would it be until he realised he was being duped? He wasn’t a stupid man. Sooner or later, he would work it out, and at that moment, her value to both sides would be zero. But whenever Margarita voiced her anxieties to Kovrin, he would throw back her words in her face, and remind her that a bargain had been struck. She felt as though she was nothing more than a flute for somebody else to play. The Director of the Department of Trade and Stanislav Markovich were happy to risk her safety while she was still being useful to them.

  The night before Larissa left for the Soviet Union, the two sisters stayed up very late talking. They reminisced about arriving in Berlin with their mother, and the confusion of those first weeks, when they were living in an empty barracks, with forty or more people in one room, squashed together like sardines, and sleeping in two long rows of beds on either side, a stove in the middle for them all to dry their clothes and cook their food.

  ‘We were lucky to bag the three beds in the corner, d’you remember?’

  Margarita remembered her mother being mortified that there was so little privacy and that the only place to dress and undress was behind a screen in the bathroom. There’d been only six basins for all of them, and they’d always been filthy. It was while they’d been there that their mother had had all her money and jewellery stolen.

  ‘It all feels so long ago,’ sighed Larissa.

  ‘Because it is.’ Margarita exhaled smoke from her cigarette. ‘It’s almost fifteen years ago.’

  That first Easter in the barracks, their mother had somehow found a couple of eggs, and hidden them outside so that the girls could keep to the old tradition, and hunt for them in the long grass behind the building. Then, they’d been moved from the barracks on the outskirts of the city to a refugee centre in central Berlin – an old school which had been shut for twenty years or so, with a leaky roof. That’s how Margarita had found work in the cake factory, when some man had come to the centre one afternoon looking for cheap labour. Her wages had meant they could at least move into their own apartment.

  ‘I don’t want to leave.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘This is my home, Gretushka.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Here’s where I’m happiest. Here is where my children are happiest. When I think about having to go back to Russia, it makes me feel so frightened.’

  She wiped her tears with her sleeve.

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I’ve been there, remember. It’s a different country for sure. But it’s a better country.’

  40.

  It was a damp and miserable morning, with a December fog squatting over the city, the light dull and weak, when Larissa and Margarita stood on the platform at Stettin Station. Porters went rushing by with their piles of trunks, cases, and boxes of all shapes and sizes. By the bar, a row of men stood smoking with their backs to the world; two lovers kissed; children ran here and there, spinning round, playing hide and seek behind the pillars while their mothers scolded; weary travellers nodded off, their cheeks resting on their bags on their laps; and a tall young man clutching a violin case stared vacantly into space as he ate an apple.

  The train hissed and snorted as it built up a head of steam, jerking once as though to prove its strength for the journey. The guard started banging the doors shut as the long whistle sounded. People hugged and said their goodbyes. From inside the train, Larissa held Ella and Clara up to the window. Margarita put her hands on the glass and the little girls held up theirs on the other side.

  ‘Remember to write,’ mouthed Larissa.

  Margarita took a step back and waited with Walter’s brother and his parents, who were standing arm-in-arm, his mother clutching a balled-up handkerchief in her fist. The father’s forehead was deeply wrinkled, and there was pain in his face.

  They waited. The train gave a jolt, and then another, before slowly moving down the line. The train’s whistle pierced the air again, and Margarita closed her eyes and choked back the sob in her throat. She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, but when she turned to go, there was no sight of Walter’s family.

  As she crossed the main concourse and went out on to the street, she had a feeling that she was being followed. She crossed the street, quickening her pace, and slipped into a shop. She waited there for a moment to get her breath back, then resumed her journey.

  A blonde woman drew level with her and walked at her side.

  ‘You have to leave Berlin today,’ she said without looking at her.

  Margarita stopped in her tracks and asked, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Keep walking. I’m Tatyana,’ she answered. ‘Stanislav’s wife.’

  ‘So is he telling me this?’

  ‘The Gestapo are waiting to pick you up at your apartment. Don’t go back there.’

  ‘So what should I do?’

  ‘Leave.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Now. Any way you can. Just get out.’

  Tatyana, without another word, peeled away and disappeared from sight.

  41.

  Margarita knew that she could not afford to hesitate, she must act. It took her only a few moments’ consideration to decide who was best placed to help her, and she caught the tram immediately to the leather factory in Bielfeld where Eggert, a friend in the IKP, worked.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ she asked him.

  He told her she should certainly leave Germany immediately, but better aim for Prague, not Paris. The border was easier to cross without papers.

  ‘I don’t know anybody in Prague.’

  Eggert gave her the names of a young couple in the movement whom she could trust, and their address in Reichenberg.

  ‘And remember, it’s illegal to take money out of the country with you.’

  ‘That’s the least of my worries. How am I going to get across the border?’

  Eggert thought he had the answer – though it was fraught with danger.

  42.

  The picture house was warm and snug, and Alyosha was glad to take off his coat and scarf and settle into his seat. Once he had thawed out, the warmth soon enveloped him, and he started to feel sluggish and sleepy. His chin kept drooping towards his chest, before jerking up again, and in spite of his valiant efforts to concentrate on the images on the screen, his eyes would inexorably shut. He started awake after a few minutes, but his head felt like lead and kept lolling in every direction, like a newborn, until, against his will, he sank deeper into a blissful blackness. On the screen, endless torches burnt the darkness, their flames making a mockery of the night by turning it light as day. Thousands upon thousands of them making a river of light, shoulder to shoulder, column after column, marching, marching, marching for ever. On either side of the central procession, the spectators applauded and saluted, their faces, illuminated by the torches, shining with hope and longing for a better future.

  He left the cinema, blinking as the bright Christmas decorations on the Champs-Élysées dazzled his eyes. He trudged on, but he still felt exhausted. His feet were sore and blistered, and after drying out in the cinema, his leaky shoes made his socks soggy within no time. He sat down wearily on a bench to rest for a minute. He watched the crowds swarming past, and they all looked so clean and tidy, it made him feel more bedraggled than ever.