Free Lehrter Station by David Downing Page A

the morning she walked Rosa to school for the last time. When theysaid their goodbyes the girl seemed determined not to cry, but Effi’s tears broke down her resistance. Walking back to the flat alone, Effi couldn’t remember when she’d last felt so wretched.
    An hour or so later, she and Russell climbed into a taxi and waved goodbye to Zarah. Sitting in the back, they watched London slide by, all the drab buildings and overgrown bombsites, faces still etched by the hardship of war. Berlin, they knew, would be a hundred times worse.
    Their boat train left on time, rattling out across the dark grey Thames, and over the long brick viaducts beyond. They might be going home, but they were not returning to anything familiar, and as the misty English countryside slipped past, Russell was assailed by the feeling that, for all their careful calculation, they were simply walking off a cliff, in the hope that some unknown net would catch them.

Death of a swan
    T hat afternoon the Channel was cold and grey, a bitter northerly wind driving everyone off the decks and into the overcrowded seating areas. The passengers were overwhelmingly male, some in uniform, rather more bound for Germany in the civilian dress of an increasingly post-military occupation. Listening to the young soldiers’ banter, Russell was reminded of similar voyages in the years of the First War, and experienced what was, for him, a rare awareness of being English. He hadn’t felt at home in London, and despite all the apprehension and uncertainty surrounding their German future, he still found it hard to regret their departure.
    Beside him on the crowded bench, Effi also had mixed feelings. Though still not convinced that she’d been right to leave Rosa behind, she couldn’t escape a sense of satisfaction at the prospect of returning home, even if Berlin was largely in ruins. And, almost despite herself, she felt excited at the prospect of working again. A life spent acting was something she’d taken for granted until 1941, and she had missed it much more than she expected.
    Night had fallen by the time they reached Ostend, and their American-supplied papers saw them almost whisked through the entry procedures. Someone at the US Embassy in London had decided that a fictional marriage was the simplest option, and Effi was now travelling as Mrs Russell, with her own American passport. She had initially objected – ‘I’m a German,’ she had told Russell indignantly. ‘Of course you are,’ he had toldher with a smile, relieved that she’d been given the potential protection. ‘Someone else’s piece of paper is not going to change that, is it? Think of it as a part, and the passport as a prop.’
    Now, seeing the problems that other returning Germans were having, she had to admit the practicality of the arrangement. But she still meant to get a new German passport at the earliest opportunity. The old one had been left in the Carmerstrasse flat when they both fled Berlin in December 1941, and had presumably been scooped up by the Gestapo. If the stories in the British papers could be believed, it had probably been put to use by some fleeing Nazi’s wife or mistress.
    Their train was waiting on the other side of the arrivals shed, a long line of wagons-lit which had somehow survived the ravages of the last few years. A two-berth compartment was better than Russell had expected, but the bedding was sparse and there was, as yet, no heating. He tried closing the door, and found it almost cut out the noise of the soldiers in the next carriage. ‘We might even get some sleep,’ he muttered.
    ‘It’s scary, isn’t it?’ Effi said.
    ‘What is?’
    ‘We’re going back but we’re not really going home. When people say they’re going home they usually mean they’re going back to the familiar, the known, and we’re not doing that, are we? We have no idea what we’re letting ourselves in for.’
    ‘We have some idea. We’re going back to a city in