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    Zoo Station
    Zoo Station
    Zoo Station
    Ebook374 pages5 hours

    Zoo Station

    By David Downing

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    By 1939, Anglo-American journalist John Russell has spent over a decade in Berlin, where his son lives with his mother. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But as World War II approaches, he faces having to leave his son as well as his girlfriend of several years, a beautiful German starlet. 

    When an acquaintance from his old communist days approaches him to do some work for the Soviets, Russell is reluctant, but he is unable to resist the offer. He becomes involved in other dangerous activities, helping a Jewish family and a determined young American reporter. When the British and the Nazis notice his involvement with the Soviets, Russell is dragged into the murky world of warring intelligence services.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSoho Crime
    Release dateMay 1, 2007
    ISBN9781569477915
    Author

    David Downing

    David Downing is the author of eight John Russell novels, as well as four World War I espionage novels in the Jack McColl series and the thriller The Red Eagles. He lives in Guildford.

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    Reviews for Zoo Station

    4/5

    252 ratings18 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This has a lot of great reviews but I found it to be a bit disappointing. It is well written, and I agree that the author is great at creating unease, but for all the sneaking and planning, there is not a lot of drama in the story. It does have a fairly happy ending, which was unexpected, but it is clear that there will be a sequel and there is no definitive ending to the story.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed the historical aspects, the atmosphere, the challenge for a British man with a German son. The spy thriller plot was the cherry on top.
    • 4/5
      Very good, atmospheric, intense, elaborate story, and pleasantly emotional with the hero's son and his lover, and other relations.
    • 2/5
      Just could not get interested in the character.
    • 4/5
      This is a very good slow boil thriller set in Berlin just before the start of WWII, during 1939. It is billed as a spy thriller but it isn't the sort that Alan Furst excels at. There are several things the story revolves around, notably Jewish Germans and the development of a final solution for developmentally disabled children and other asylum residents. The characters in here are interesting and well developed.

      The author obviously knows his history with all the period detail, although the naming of just about every street eventually seems a little excessive. This isn't a history lesson, however, unless one knows absolutely nothing about the rise of Nazi power in Germany. What it does do is put a human face on the unfolding events. Not a page turner until close to the end but it is a very satisfying read.

      This is the first book in a series and my book included a preview of the following novel Silesian Station which looks very good.
    • 4/5
      David Downing is Alan Furst's equal when it comes to setting a scene and creating a terrific cast and atmosphere, and he probably beats Furst when it comes to plotting in this one. A great read, and the first in a series that I am looking forward to devouring sooner, rather than later.
    • 5/5
      A brilliant evocation of 1939 Berlin, pre-war but with war clouds gathering. Meticulously researched as English journalist John Russell is recruited to spy on the Nazis for the Russians but finds it useful to share information with the British as he tries to help a Jewish family. I can't wait to read the rest of the "Station" series.
    • 4/5
      This is the first book that I have read entirely in 2015.

      Amazon had the whole series as a deal of the day for 99p each. I’d had this one, the first in the series, for a little while so I dipped in to see if the rest were worth buying. I got hooked and spent a fiver!

      I bought this one as an amazon recommendation. I’ve been buying first hand accounts and histories of the SOE for decades. I picked up the pace a bit a year ago when doing background reading for the short story Hunting Nazis which I used for the end of module on A215. I also read cold war spy fiction too. So amazon recommended me Downing’s series. The link is fairly obvious.

      This is about an Anglo American journalist living in Berlin in 1939 where his German ex wife and kid live too. He has a girlfriend too. The book starts on 31 Dec 1938 just as things are darkening. The story is as much commentary on how the war comes and why ordinary people didn’t protest as it is about how John Russell is drawn into working for various intelligence agencies.

      The story is paced very well and has that car crash quality about it. You know everything is going to hell but you want to keep on reading to find out how. I hadn’t expected a number of the twists in the story and I did wonder if it was going to end with him in jail, I knew it couldn’t be worse because there were five more books.

      This was very enjoyable and I finished it in a few days. It sneaked in ahead of some other books in the reading order, although I’m resisting the next one until I’ve managed a couple of paper books, per my 2015 resolution.
    • 5/5
      John Russell, a successful Anglo-American journalist, lives and works in Germany with deep ties in the community. He has a son being raised as a member of Hitler's youth group by his German ex-wife and he has a German girlfriend. Consequently, he avoids the kind of writing which could get him evicted from Nazi Germany as long as possible.

      Unfortunately for Russell, events and international agendas will over take him as the Soviets, English and Germans all demand his assistance in spying on each other. What makes this a fine and satisfying novel is his successful juggling act using each of his adversaries to manipulate the other and gain his ultimate goals.
    • 5/5
      John Russell, a British journalist who was once an active communist, is now trying to keep a safe, low profile in Nazi Germany, writing non-controversial articles about life in Germany. He has a German ex-wife and a son with her, and a German girl friend. But he finds it hard to avoid acting according to his conscious, starting from the very beginning of the book, when he happens upon some SA soldiers harassing a kindertransport group trying to leave Danzig and intervenes.
      This book is much more interested in the mood of the time and place than it is with a linear plot line. Its mostly about the everyday life in a city that is on the brink of war and greater disaster. It is similar in this way to Alan Furst's recent book, Midnight in Europe, which I also greatly enjoyed reading.
    • 3/5
      Altogether a decent enough page turner. I have some friends who just love this author and the John Russell series and they pore over old Baedeckers and maps of Berlin etc., delighting whenever they find evidence of the many (!!!) street names and landmarks. Downing certainly does know how to pad: while most paragraphs, and many pages, fail to carry the plot forward in any appreciable degree, he is able to insert something that adds a bit to the reader's store of not uninteresting facts. As for larger meanings, if anyone is in doubt that, on the whole, nazis were rotters and being a good father is a good thing, this book might be of assistance.
    • 4/5
      A quite satisfying novel. John Russell is an English journalist in Berlin prior to the onset of World War II. He is no idealist, and with a girlfriend who is German and a son who is in the Hitler Youth he feels ties to Germany, but his conscience gets the best of him when Nazi brutality hits those close to him.

      This is an atmospheric novel where the gloom of the Nazi shadow is palpable, but it is not as dense as some of Alan Furst's books, and Downing knows how to ratchet the tension up to sweaty-palm levels.

      The first book in a series, I'm eager to pick up the next one.
    • 5/5
      This thriller set in Nazi Germany just before the outbreak of the Second World War, is very well written. The description of the tensions and ordinary life in the capital are exceedingly convincingly realised and the central character, the English journalist John Russell and his German girlfriend Effi, likeable and well rounded. Russell's half German son, Paul, the product of his former marriage to Ilse, is also a well drawn and realistically likeable child, not a cipher like children quite often are in novels. The plot contains a great selection of grim and horrible incidents, but does meander a little occasionally and the ending was abrupt. This is certainly an impressive first book in this series and I was pleased that the next four were available to download for 99p each.
    • 4/5
      John Russell is a british journalist living in pre-WWII Berlin who writes human interest stories for British and American papers. He has a son and girlfriend living in Berlin and if war breaks out Russell will either have to flee the country or risk being placed in a labour camp for the duration of war.

      Russell is approached an old soviet buddy to write some Nazi friendly stories for a Russian newspaper and he reluctantly agrees but quickly finds there are more strings attached. When his american journalist neighbour stumbles onto an explosive story and needs help with a translation Russell accompanies him to the interview and the information they receive could get them killed but if they do nothing could get thousands of children killed. In the midst of all this drama Russell finds himself trying to help a jewish family that he has grown to like and desperately needs his help.

      This is a low key and slow paced thriller but one that kept me thinking. I quite enjoyed this novel and was happy to find out it was part of a series. I will be picking up the next book as soon as I can!
    • 4/5
      John Russell has divided loyalties. A British citizen with an American mother, he married a German woman he met while attending the 1924 Communist Party Congress in Moscow. Now, in 1939, he has been living in Berlin for nearly 20 years, is divorced with a 12 year old son, Paul, and has a German film star girlfriend named Effie. As the Nazi invasion of Poland looms ever closer, events conspire to test these various loyalties.

      From a fellow journalist, John learns about a horrible crime the Nazis are secretly perpetrating against a segment of the German population. When his colleague is murdered, John must decide how to get the information out of the country; perhaps it will be the turning point that will sway American isolationists into the coming war. At the same time, John tutors two Jewish girls in English as their father is trying to get them visas to England. When first the brother and then the father get into trouble with the Gestapo, John has to decide how best he can help the family without the Nazi's revoking his German residency visa.

      What I liked best about this book was the increasing tension as the war looms closer but no one knows exactly when it will start. What I liked least was the portrayal of Effie in this book. To me, she seemed a caricature of a not-so-bright film star used for sex. Fortunately that changes as the series progresses.
    • 4/5
      “ a world more full of weeping than you can understand.”
      -Yeats

      John Russell is a British freelance journalist living in Berlin. The year is 1939 and war is rapidly approaching. He has been there for fifteen years. His girlfriend is German and his son, from a previous marriage also lives in the city.
      One fine day a Soviet agent corners him and asks him to do a few assignments for them. He agrees and soon uncovers various Nazi atrocities and finds himself in some very dangerous waters, especially when the Brits, Americans and the Gestapo want a piece of him too.
      This is a low-key thriller, more of a slow burn than a conflagration. Nicely written, with a likable lead and some fine dry humor: “If the Eskimos had fifty words for snow, the Nazis probably had fifty for dried blood.”
      This is the 1st in a series and I am looking forward to the next.
    • 5/5
      Great story of an English-American journalist struggling to do what is right in Nazi Germany as WWII is about to break out. Provides a stark picture of the realities of Hitler's systematic persecution of Jews and other groups deemed to be unworthy of life and liberty.
    • 4/5
      This was a tightly written, and gripping thriller, that appears understated at first glance, as it doesn't have car chases and thrilling escapes, but is actually more tense through its very nature that you keep expecting the worst to happen.This is the story of John Russell, an English journalist who has been living in Berlin for a number of years, and has a son by a German mother. It is the beginning of 1939, when things in Nazi Germany are beginning to get more difficult. John is torn between his loyalties to his native country, his loyalties to his son, and his loyalties to his adopted country, despite his hatred for the Nazi regime. He gets sucked into smuggling of papers and people, in an attempt to keep the people he loves safe and secure.This is the first in a series of books, the third of which is due to be published in 2009, so I will certainly be looking out for the second book which picks up chronologically where this books leaves off.

    Book preview

    Zoo Station - David Downing

    Zoo_Station.jpg

    Praise for the John Russell Novels

    Downing distinguishes himself by eschewing the easy ways out. He doesn’t shy away from portraying the cold brutality of the Third Reich, and his characters are far from stereotypes—they’re flawed, confused and real.

    —NPR

    In the elite company of literary spy masters Alan Furst and Philip Kerr . . . [Downing is] brilliant at evoking even the smallest details of wartime Berlin on its last legs.

    —The Washington Post

    A beautifully crafted and compelling thriller with a heart-stopping ending as John Russell learns the personal faces of good and evil. An unforgettable read.

    —Charles Todd, author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge Series

    One of the most intelligent and persuasive realizations of Germany immediately before the war.

    —The Wall Street Journal

    Downing is brilliant at weaving history and fiction, and this plot, with its twists and turns—all under the terrible bombardment of Berlin and the Third Reich’s death throes—is as suspenseful as they come. The end, with another twist, is equally clever and unexpected.

    —The Globe and Mail

    Downing is a master of plot, characterization and pace.

    —Huffington Post (UK)

    "A superb sequence of spy novels . . . Masaryk Station offers tight, intelligent plots full of moral ambiguities and a cast of shadowy characters."

    —The Times

     Excellent period work."

    —Tulsa World

    An atmospheric tale.

    —St. Petersburg Times

    Wonderful . . . Downing’s mingling of history and thrills makes this a must read.

    —Rocky Mountain News

    Downing is brilliant at weaving history and fiction, and this plot, with its twists and turns—all under the terrible bombardment of Berlin and the Third Reich’s death throes—is as suspenseful as they come. The end, with another twist, is equally clever and unexpected.

    —Toronto Globe and Mail

    Downing’s outstanding evocation of the times (as masterly as that found in Alan Furst’s novels or Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series), thematic complexity (as rich as that of John le Carré), and the wide assortment of fully rendered characters provide as much or more pleasure than the plot, where disparate threads are tied together in satisfying and unexpected ways.

    —Library Journal, Starred Review

    Outstanding . . . Philip Kerr and Alan Furst fans will be pleased.

    —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

    Downing returns with another taut tale of espionage as World War II shades deeper into the Cold War and good guys get harder to tell from bad . . . Downing writes with a sure grasp of the way bad situations become worse; he’s a master of heightened tension and the sweat-bedewed upper lip . . . The local color and cigarette smoke are thick, and so is the plot, with fine MacGuffins, a truly red herring or two, and even a man in the boot to keep things interesting.

    —Kirkus Reviews

    "

    Books by David Downing

    The John Russell series

    Zoo Station

    Silesian Station

    Stettin Station

    Potsdam Station

    Lehrter Station

    Masaryk Station

    The Jack McColl series

    Jack of Spies

    One Man’s Flag

    Lenin’s Roller Coaster

    The Dark Clouds Shining

    Other titles

    The Red Eagles

    Diary of a Dead Man on Leave

    Copyright © 2007 by David Downing

    All rights reserved.

    Published by

    Soho Press, Inc.

    227 W 17th Street

    New York, NY 10011

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Downing, David, 1946–

    Zoo Station: a novel / David Downing.

    ISBN 978-1-61695-348-5

    eISBN 978-1-56947-791-5

    1. Americans—Germany—Berlin—Fiction. 2. Journalists—

    Germany—Berlin—Fiction. 3. Germany—History—1933–1945—

    Fiction. 4. Spies—Recruiting—Fiction. I. Title.

    PR6054.O868Z66 2007

    823’.914—dc22

    2006026918

    Printed in the United States of America

    10 9 8 7

    in memory of

    Martha Pappenheim (1900–2001)

    who escaped from Germany in 1939

    and went on to help the children

    of those who did not

    and

    Yvonne Pappenheim (1912–2005)

    who married Martha’s brother Fritz

    and spent a lifetime fighting injustice

    Author’s Note

    This is a work of fiction, but every attempt has been made to keep within the bounds of historical possibility. References to the Nazis’ planned murder of the mentally handicapped are mostly drawn from Michael Burleigh’s exhaustive history Death and Deliverance , and even the more ludicrous of the news stories mentioned in passing are depressingly authentic.

    Into the Blue

    There were two hours left of 1938. In Danzig it had been snowing on and off all day, and a gang of children was enjoying a snowball fight in front of the grain warehouses that lined the old waterfront. John Russell paused to watch them for a few moments, then walked on up the cobbled street toward the blue and yellow lights.

    The Sweden Bar was far from crowded, and those few faces that turned his way weren’t exactly brimming over with festive spirit. In fact, most of them looked like they’d rather be somewhere else.

    It was an easy thing to want. The Christmas decorations hadn’t been removed, just allowed to drop, and they now formed part of the flooring, along with patches of melting slush, floating cigarette butts, and the odd broken bottle. The bar was famous for the savagery of its international brawls, but on this particular night the various groups of Swedes, Finns, and Letts seemed devoid of the energy needed to get one started. Usually a table or two of German naval ratings could be relied upon to provide the necessary spark, but the only Germans present were a couple of aging prostitutes, and they were getting ready to leave.

    Russell took a stool at the bar, bought himself a Goldwasser, and glanced through the month-old copy of the New York Herald Tribune, which, for some inexplicable reason, was lying there. One of his own articles was in it, a piece on German attitudes to their pets. It was accompanied by a cute-looking photograph of a Schnauzer.

    Seeing him reading, a solitary Swede two stools down asked him, in perfect English, if he spoke that language. Russell admitted that he did.

    You are English! the Swede exclaimed, and shifted his considerable bulk to the stool adjoining Russell’s.

    Their conversation went from friendly to sentimental, and sentimental to maudlin, at what seemed like a breakneck pace. Three Goldwassers later, the Swede was telling him that he, Lars, was not the true father of his children. Vibeke had never admitted it, but he knew it to be true.

    Russell gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder, and Lars sunk forward, his head making a dull clunk as it hit the polished surface of the bar. Happy New Year, Russell murmured. He shifted the Swede’s head slightly to ease the man’s breathing, and got up to leave.

    Outside, the sky was beginning to clear, the air almost cold enough to sober him up. An organ was playing in the Protestant Seamen’s Church, nothing hymnal, just a slow lament, as if the organist were saying a personal farewell to the year gone by. It was a quarter to midnight.

    Russell walked back across the city, conscious of the moisture seeping in through the holes in his shoes. There were lots of couples on Langer Markt, laughing and squealing as they clutched each other for balance on the slippery sidewalks.

    He cut over to Breite Gasse and reached the Holz-Markt just as the bells began pealing in the New Year. The square was full of celebrating people, and an insistent hand pulled him into a circle of revelers dancing and singing in the snow. When the song ended and the circle broke up, the Polish girl on his left reached up and brushed her lips against his, eyes shining with happiness. It was, he thought, a better-than-expected opening to 1939.

    His hotel’s reception area was deserted, and the sounds of celebration emanating from the kitchen at the back suggested the night staff were enjoying their own private party. Russell gave up the idea of making himself a hot chocolate while his shoes dried in one of the ovens, and took his key. He clambered up the stairs to the third floor, and trundled down the corridor to his room. Closing the door behind him, he became painfully aware that the occupants of the neighboring rooms were still welcoming in the new year, loud singing on one side, floor-shaking sex on the other. He took off his shoes and socks, dried his wet feet with a towel, and sank back onto the vibrating bed.

    There was a discreet, barely audible tap on his door.

    Cursing, he levered himself off the bed and pulled the door open. A man in a crumpled suit and open shirt stared back at him.

    Mr. John Russell, the man said in English, as if he were introducing Russell to himself. The Russian accent was slight, but unmistakable. Could I talk with you for a few minutes?

    It’s a bit late . . . Russell began. The man’s face was vaguely familiar. But why not? he continued, as the singers next door reached for a new and louder chorus. A journalist should never turn down a conversation, he murmured, mostly to himself, as he let the man in. Take the chair, he suggested.

    His visitor sat back and crossed one leg over the other, hitching up his trouser as he did so. We have met before, he said. A long time ago. My name is Shchepkin. Yevgeny Grigorovich Shchepkin. We . . .

    Yes, Russell interrupted, as the memory clicked into place. The discussion group on journalism at the Fifth Congress. The summer of twenty-four.

    Shchepkin nodded his acknowledgment. I remember your contributions, he said. Full of passion, he added, his eyes circling the room and resting, for a few seconds, on his host’s dilapidated shoes.

    Russell perched himself on the edge of the bed. As you said—a long time ago. He and Ilse had met at that conference and set in motion their ten year cycle of marriage, parenthood, separation, and divorce. Shchepkin’s hair had been black and wavy in 1924; now it was a close-cropped gray. They were both a little older than the century, Russell guessed, and Shchepkin was wearing pretty well, considering what he’d probably been through the last fifteen years. He had a handsome face of indeterminate nationality, with deep brown eyes above prominent slanting cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and lips just the full side of perfect. He could have passed for a citizen of most European countries, and probably had.

    The Russian completed his survey of the room. This is a dreadful hotel, he said.

    Russell laughed. Is that what you wanted to talk about?

    No. Of course not.

    So what are you here for?

    Ah. Shchepkin hitched his trouser again. I am here to offer you work.

    Russell raised an eyebrow. You? Who exactly do you represent?

    The Russian shrugged. My country. The Writer’s Union. It doesn’t matter. You will be working for us. You know who we are.

    No, Russell said. I mean, no I’m not interested. I—

    Don’t be so hasty, Shchepkin said. Hear me out. We aren’t asking you to do anything which your German hosts could object to. The Russian allowed himself a smile. Let me tell you exactly what we have in mind. We want a series of articles about positive aspects of the Nazi regime. He paused for a few seconds, waiting in vain for Russell to demand an explanation. You are not German but you live in Berlin, Shchepkin went on. You once had a reputation as a journalist of the left, and though that reputation has—shall we say—faded, no one could accuse you of being an apologist for the Nazis . . .

    But you want me to be just that.

    No, no. We want positive aspects, not a positive picture overall. That would not be believable.

    Russell was curious in spite of himself. Or because of the Goldwassers. Do you just need my name on these articles? he asked. Or do you want me to write them as well?

    Oh, we want you to write them. We like your style—all that irony.

    Russell shook his head: Stalin and irony didn’t seem like much of a match.

    Shchepkin misread the gesture. Look, he said, let me put all my cards on the table.

    Russell grinned.

    Shchepkin offered a wry smile in return. Well, most of them anyway. Look, we are aware of your situation. You have a German son and a German lady-friend, and you want to stay in Germany if you possibly can. Of course if a war breaks out you will have to leave, or else they will intern you. But until that moment comes—and maybe it won’t—miracles do happen—until it does you want to earn your living as a journalist without upsetting your hosts. What better way than this? You write nice things about the Nazis—not too nice, of course; it has to be credible—but you stress their good side.

    Does shit have a good side? Russell wondered out loud.

    Come, come, Shchepkin insisted, you know better than that. Unemployment eliminated, a renewed sense of community, healthy children, cruises for workers, cars for the people . . .

    You should work for Joe Goebbels.

    Shchepkin gave him a mock-reproachful look.

    Okay, Russell said, I take your point. Let me ask you a question. There’s only one reason you’d want that sort of article: You’re softening up your own people for some sort of deal with the devil. Right?

    Shchepkin flexed his shoulders in an eloquent shrug.

    Why?

    The Russian grunted. "Why deal with the devil? I don’t know what the leadership is thinking. But I could make an educated guess and so could you."

    Russell could. The western powers are trying to push Hitler east, so Stalin has to push him west? Are we talking about a non-aggression pact, or something more?

    Shchepkin looked almost affronted. What more could there be? Any deal with that man can only be temporary. We know what he is.

    Russell nodded. It made sense. He closed his eyes, as if it were possible to blank out the approaching calamity. On the other side of the­ opposite wall, his musical neighbors were intoning one of those Polish river songs that could reduce a statue to tears. Through the wall behind him silence had fallen, but his bed was still quivering like a tuning fork.

    We’d also like some information, Shchepkin was saying, almost apologetically. Nothing military, he added quickly, seeing the look on Russell’s face. No armament statistics or those naval plans that Sherlock Holmes is always being asked to recover. Nothing of that sort. We just want a better idea of what ordinary Germans are thinking. How they are taking the changes in working conditions, how they are likely to react if war comes—that sort of thing. We don’t want any secrets, just your opinions. And nothing on paper. You can deliver them in person, on a monthly basis.

    Russell looked skeptical.

    Shchepkin ploughed on. You will be well paid—very well. In any currency, any bank, any country, that you choose. You can move into a better apartment block . . .

    I like my apartment block.

    You can buy things for your son, your girlfriend. You can have your shoes mended.

    I don’t . . .

    The money is only an extra. You were with us once . . .

    A long long time ago.

    "Yes, I know. But you cared about your fellow human beings. I heard you talk. That doesn’t change. And if we go under there will be nothing left."

    A cynic might say there’s not much to choose between you.

    The cynic would be wrong, Shchepkin replied, exasperated and perhaps a little angry. We have spilled blood, yes. But reluctantly, and in hope of a better future. They enjoy it. Their idea of progress is a European slave-state.

    I know.

    One more thing. If money and politics don’t persuade you, think of this. We will be grateful, and we have influence almost everywhere. And a man like you, in a situation like yours, is going to need influential friends.

    No doubt about that.

    Shchepkin was on his feet. Think about it, Mr. Russell, he said, drawing an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and placing it on the nightstand. All the details are in here—how many words, delivery dates, fees, and so on. If you decide to do the articles, write to our press attaché in Berlin, telling him who you are, and that you’ve had the idea for them yourself. He will ask you to send him one in the post. The Gestapo will read it, and pass it on. You will then receive your first fee and suggestions for future stories. The last-but-one letters of the opening sentence will spell out the name of a city outside Germany that you can reach fairly easily. Prague, perhaps, or Cracow. You will spend the last weekend of the month in that city, and be sure to make your hotel reservation at least a week in advance. Once you are there, someone will contact you.

    I’ll think about it, Russell said, mostly to avoid further argument. He wanted to spend his weekends with Paul, and with Effi, his girlfriend, not the Shchepkins of this world.

    The Russian nodded and let himself out. As if on cue, the Polish choir lapsed into silence.

    Russell was woken by the scream of a locomotive whistle. Or at least, that was his first impression. Lying there awake all he could hear was a gathering swell of high-pitched voices. It sounded like a school playground full of terrified children.

    He threw on some clothes and made his way downstairs. It was still dark, the street deserted, the tramlines hidden beneath a virginal sheet of snow. In the train station booking hall across the street a couple of would-be travelers were hunched in their seats, eyes averted, praying that they hadn’t strayed into dangerous territory. Russell strode through the unmanned ticket barrier. There were trucks in the goods yard beyond the far platform, and a train stretched out past the station throat. People were gathered under the yellow lights, mostly families by the look of them, because there were lots of children. And there were men in uniform. Brownshirts.

    A sudden shrill whistle from the locomotive produced an eerie echo from the milling crowd, as if all the children had shrieked at once.

    Russell took the subway steps two at a time, half-expecting to find that the tunnel had been blocked off. It hadn’t. On the far side, he emerged into a milling crowd of shouting, screaming people. He had already guessed what was happening—this was a kindertransport, one of the trains hired to transport the ten thousand Jewish children that Britain had agreed to accept after Kristallnacht. The shriek had risen at the moment the guards started separating the children from their parents, and the two groups were now being shoved apart by snarling brownshirts. Parents were backing away, tears running down their cheeks, as their children were herded onto the train, some waving frantically, some almost reluctantly, as if they feared to recognize the separation.

    Farther up the platform a violent dispute was underway between an SA Truppführer and a woman with a red cross on her sleeve. Both were screaming at the other, he in German, she in northern-accented English. The woman was beside herself with anger, almost spitting in the brownshirt’s eye, and it was obviously taking everything he had not to smash his fist into her face. A few feet away one of the mothers was being helped to her feet by another woman. Blood was streaming from her nose.

    Russell strode up to the brownshirt and the Englishwoman and flashed his Foreign Ministry press accreditation, which at least gave the man a new outlet for his anger.

    What the fuck are you doing here? the Truppführer shouted. He had a depressingly porcine face, and the bulk to go with it.

    Trying to help, Russell said calmly. I speak English.

    Well then tell this English bitch to get back on the train with the kike brats where she belongs.

    Russell turned to the woman, a petite brunette who couldn’t have been much more than twenty-five. He’s not worth screaming at, he told her in English. And it won’t do you any good. In fact, you’ll only make matters worse.

    I . . . She seemed at a loss for words.

    I know, Russell said. You can’t believe people could behave like this. But this lot do. All the time.

    As if to emphasize the point, the Truppführer started shouting again. When she started shouting back he reached for her arm, and she kicked him in the shin. He backhanded her across the face with what seemed like enormous force, spinning her round and dumping her face-first on the snowy platform. She groaned and shook her head.

    Russell put himself between them. Look, he said to the man, this will get you court-martialed if you’re not careful. The Führer doesn’t want you giving the English this sort of a propaganda victory.

    The British woman was groggily raising herself onto all fours. The stormtrooper took one last look at his victim, made a pah! noise of which any pantomime villain would have been proud, and strode away down the platform.

    Russell helped her to her feet.

    What did you say to him? she asked, gingerly feeling an already-swelling cheek.

    I appealed to his better nature.

    There must be someone . . . she began.

    There isn’t, he assured her. The laws don’t apply to Jews, or anyone who acts on their behalf. Just look after the children. They look like they need it.

    I don’t need you to tell me . . .

    I know you don’t. I’m just trying . . .

    She was looking past his shoulder. He’s coming back.

    The Truppführer had a Sturmführer with him, a smaller man with round glasses and a chubby face. Out of uniform—assuming they ever took them off—he put them down as a shopkeeper and minor civil servant. Danzig’s finest.

    Your papers, the Sturmführer demanded.

    They’re in my hotel room.

    What is your name?

    John Russell.

    You are English?

    I’m an English journalist. I live in the Reich, and I have full accreditation from the Ministry of Propaganda in Berlin.

    We shall check that.

    Of course.

    And what are you doing here?

    I came to see what was happening. As journalists do. I intervened in the argument between your colleague and this Red Cross worker because I thought his behavior was damaging the reputation of the Reich.

    The Sturmführer paused for thought, then turned to his subordinate. I’m sure my colleague regrets any misunderstanding, he said meaningfully.

    The Truppführer looked at the woman. I apologize, he said woodenly.

    He apologizes, Russell told her.

    Tell him to go to hell, she said.

    She accepts your apology, Russell told the two brownshirts.

    Good. Now she must get back on the train, and you must come with us.

    Russell sighed. You should get on the train, he told her. You won’t get anywhere by protesting.

    She took a deep breath. All right, she said, as if it was anything but. Thank you, she added, offering her hand.

    Russell took it. Tell the press when you get back to civilization, he said, and good luck.

    He watched her mount the steps and disappear into the train. The children were all aboard now; most had their faces pressed against the windows, frantically wiping their breath from the glass to get a last clear look at their parents. A few had managed to force back the sliding ventilators and wedge their faces in the narrow gap. Some were shouting, some pleading. Most were crying.

    Russell tore his gaze from the windows just in time to see a small girl leap nimbly down from the train and race across the platform. The stormtrooper by the door spun to catch her, but slipped in the slush as he did so, and fell face-first onto the platform. As he struggled to his feet a boy of around ten rushed past him.

    The little girl’s arms were tightly wrapped around her kneeling mother’s neck. Esther, we have to get on the train, the boy said angrily, but daughter and mother were both crying too hard to notice him. The father’s anguished appeals to reason—Ruth, we have to let her go; Esther, you must go with your brother—fell on equally deaf ears.

    The stormtrooper, red-faced with anger, took a fistful of the girl’s long black hair and yanked. The shock tore her arms from her mother’s neck, and he started dragging the girl across the slush-strewn platform to the train. The mother shrieked and went after them. He let go of the girl and crashed his rubber cosh across one side of the mother’s face. She sank back, a rivulet of blood running onto her coat collar. As the stormtrooper went to hit the woman again, her husband grabbed for the cosh, but two other brownshirts wrestled him to the ground, and started raining down blows on his head. The boy picked up his whimpering sister and shepherded her back onto the train.

    More stormtroopers came racing up, but they needn’t have bothered. Like Russell, the watching parents were too stunned to protest, let alone intervene.

    I don’t want to go, a small voice said behind him.

    He turned to find its owner. She was standing on a seatback, face twisted sideways in an open ventilator, brown eyes brimming with tears. She couldn’t have been more than five.

    Please, can you tell the policemen that I don’t want to go? My name is Fraulein Gisela Kluger.

    Russell walked across to the train, wondering what on earth he could say. I’m afraid you have to make this trip, he said. Your mother and father think you’ll be safer in England.

    But I don’t want to, she said, a large tear sliding down either cheek.

    I know, but . . . Another whistle shrilled down the platform; a spasm of steam escaped from the locomotive. I’m sorry, he said helplessly.

    The train jerked into motion. A momentary panic flitted across her face, followed by a look that Russell would long remember—one that blended accusation, incomprehension, and the sort of grief that no five-year-old should have to bear.

    As the train pulled away a tiny hand poked out through the window and waved.

    I’m sorry, Russell murmured.

    Another hand grasped his arm. The Truppführer’s. You, English. Come with us.

    He was ushered down the platform in the Sturmführer’s wake. Most of the mothers and fathers were still focussed on the disappearing train, their eyes clinging to the red taillight, the last flicker of family. They had sent their children away. To save their lives, they had turned them into orphans.

    One woman, her eyes closed, was kneeling in the snow, a low keening noise rising up from inside her. The sound stayed with Russell as he was led out of the station. The sound of a heart caving in.

    In the goods yard the Truppführer pushed him toward a car. My hotel’s just across the road, Russell protested.

    We will collect your papers, the Sturmführer said.

    As they bundled him into a car, it occurred to Russell that Shchepkin’s envelope was still sitting on his nightstand.

    Danzig was waking up as they drove back toward the city center, shopkeepers clearing the night’s snow off their patches of sidewalk. Russell kept his eyes on where they were going, hoping to God it ­wasn’t some SA barracks out of humanity’s hearing range. As they pulled up outside an official police station on Hunde-Gasse he managed to suppress an audible sigh of relief.

    The Truppführer pulled him out of the car and pushed him violently toward the entrance doors. Russell slipped in the snow and fell up the steps, catching a shin on one of the edges. There was no time to check the wound, though—the Truppführer was already propelling him forward.

    Inside, a uniformed police officer was cradling a steaming cup of coffee. He looked up without much interest, sighed, and reached for the duty book. Name?

    Russell told him. I’m English, he added.

    The man was not impressed. We all have to come from somewhere. Now empty your pockets.

    Russell did as he was told. Who’s in charge here? he asked. The police or the SA?

    The policeman gave him a contemptuous look. Take a guess, he suggested.

    Russell felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. I want to speak to the British Consulate, he said.

    No need for that, the Truppführer said behind him. Now what’s your hotel name and room number? Armed with this information, he went back out through the doors. Russell had a glimpse of gray light

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