Fields and farms still filled the windows. Two of her fellow passengers were asleep, one with his mouth wide open. He suddenly snorted himself awake, eyes opening with annoyance, then closing again.
Feeling thirsty, she reached for the bottle Torsten had bought her. She felt stiff after her sleep, and the sight of a man walking past the compartment encouraged her. She would look for the restaurant car, and buy herself a cup of tea.
A young soldier standing in the corridor told her the restaurant car was three carriages ahead. The train seemed to be going faster now, and as she walked along the swaying corridors she felt a wonderful sense of exhilaration.
The restaurant car had seats either side of a central gangway, booths for two on the right, booths for four on the left. She took the first empty two-seater and examined the menu. Tea was thirty pfennigs, which seemed expensive, but a cup of coffee was fifty.
'A cup of tea, please,' she told the young man who came to take her order.
'No cake, then?' he asked with a grin.
'No thank you,' she said, smiling back.
As he walked away she noticed a woman in one of the four-seaters staring at her. She said something to the man facing her, and he turned to stare at Miriam. The woman said something else and the man got up and walked off in the direction her waiter had taken. A minute or so later he returned with a different waiter, a much older man with a bald head and bristling moustaches. The set of his mouth suggested an unwelcome task.
He came over to Miriam's table and lowered his head to talk to her. 'Excuse me, miss,' he said, 'but I need to see your identity papers.'
'Of course,' she said. She pulled them out of her shoulder bag and handed them over.
He scanned them and sighed. 'I'm sorry, miss, but we're not allowed to serve Jewish people. A law was passed last year. I'm sorry,' he said again, his voice dropping still further. 'Normally, I wouldn't give a damn, but the gentleman back there has complained, so I have no choice.' He shrugged. 'So there it is.'
'It's all right,' she said, getting up. 'I understand,' she added, as if it was him that needed reassurance.
'Thank you,' he said.
As he turned away, the woman's face came into view, a picture of grim satisfaction. Why? Miriam wanted to ask. What possible difference could it make to you?
Another passenger looked up as she left the car, an older woman with neatly-braided grey hair. Was that helplessness in her eyes?
Miriam walked back down the train, grasping the corridor rail for balance. Was this what life in Berlin would be like? She couldn't believe it – Uncle Benjamin would have moved somewhere else. In Berlin Jews would live with other Jews, have their own world, their own places to drink tea.
Back in her seat, the glances of her fellow-passengers seemed almost sinister. She took a sip from her bottle, conscious that now she would have to ration her consumption. Torsten had known, she thought, or at least guessed. Why hadn't he warned her? Embarrassment or shame, she wondered. She hoped it was shame.
She resumed her watch at the window. Silesian fields, meandering rivers, village stations that the train ignored. It stopped at a large town – Sagan, according to the station sign. She had never heard of it, nor of Guben an hour later. Frankfurt, which she remembered from a school geography lesson, was the first thing that day to be smaller than expected.
The last hour seemed quicker, as if the train was eager to get home. By the time the first outskirts of Berlin appeared, the sun was sinking towards the horizon, flashing between silhouetted buildings and chimneys, reflecting off sudden stretches of river. Roads and railways ran in all directions.
Her train ran under a bridge as another train thundered over it, and began to lose speed. A wide street lay below her window, lined with elegant houses, full of automobiles. Moments later a soot-stained glass roof loomed to swallow the train, which smoothly slowed to a halt on one of the central platforms. 'Schlesischer Bahnhof!' a voice shouted. Silesian Station.
She pulled down her suitcase, queued in the corridor to leave the coach, and finally stepped down onto the platform. The glass roof was higher, grander, than the one at Breslau, and for several moments she just stood there, looking up, marvelling at the sheer size of it all, as passengers brushed by her en route to the exit stairs. She waited while the crowd eased, watching a strange loco-motiveless train leave from another platform, and then started down. A large concourse came into view, milling with people, surrounded with all sorts of stalls and shops and offices. She stopped at the bottom, uncertain what to do. Where was Uncle Benjamin?
A man was looking at her, a questioning expression on his face. He was wearing a uniform, but not, she thought, a military one. He seemed too old to be a soldier.
He came towards her, smiling and raising his peaked cap. 'I'm here to collect you,' he said.
'My uncle sent you?' she asked.
'That's right.'
'Is he all right?'
'He's fine. Nothing to worry about. Some urgent business came up, that's all.' He reached out a hand for her suitcase. 'The car's outside.' Into the Cage John Russell lifted his glass, reluctantly tipped the last drops of malt down his throat, and placed it ever so gently down on the polished wooden bar. He could have another, he supposed, but only if he woke the barman. Twisting on his stool, he found an almost depopulated ballroom. A threesome at a distant table was all that remained – the blonde torch singer who had been making everyone nostalgic for Dietrich and her two uniformed admirers. She was looking from one to the other as if she was trying to decide between them. Which she probably was.
It was gone three o'clock. His twelve-year-old son Paul had been asleep in their cabin for almost five hours, but Russell still felt too restless for bed. A turn round the deck, he told himself, a phrase which suggested ease of movement, not the obstacle course of couples in thrall to passion which usually presented itself at this hour. Why didn't they use their cabins, for God's sake? Because their wives and husbands were sleeping in them?
He was getting obsessive, he thought, as he took the lift up to the boat deck. Four weeks away from his girlfriend Effi and all he could think of was sex. He smiled to himself at the thought. Thirty more hours at sea, five from Hamburg to Berlin.
It was a beautiful night – still warm, the slightest of breezes, a sky over-flowing with stars. He started towards the bow, staring out across the darkly rolling sea, wondering when the French and British coastlines would become visible. Soon, he guessed – they were due to make their stop at Southampton before midday.
He stopped and leant his back against the railings, gazing up at the smoke from the twin funnels as it drifted across the Milky Way. He hoped Effi would like her presents, the red dress in particular. He had gifts for Paul's mother Ilse and her brother Thomas, things that could no longer be found in Hitler's never-ending Reich, things – as the popular phrase had it – from 'outside the cage'.
He sighed. Nazi Germany was everything its enemies said it was, and often worse, but he would still be glad to be back. America had been wonderful, and he had finally managed to swap his British passport for an American one, but Berlin was his home. Their home.
He turned to face the sea. Away on the distant horizon a tiny light was flashing at regular intervals. A lighthouse, presumably. An extremity of France. Of Europe.
It really was time for bed. He walked back down the starboard side and slowly descended seven decks' worth of stairs. As he let himself into their cabin he noticed the folded sheet of paper which had been pushed under the door. He picked it up, backed out into the corridor, and studied it under the nearest light. It was a four-word telegram from Effi's sister Zarah: 'Effi arrested by Gestapo'.
Light was edging round the porthole curtain when he finally got to sleep, and two hours later he was woken, accidentally-on-purpose, by his son. 'It's England,' Paul said excitedly, wiping his breath from the glass. The Dorset coast, Russell guessed, or maybe Hampshire. The town they were passing looked large enough for Bournemouth.
Sitting in the bathroom, he wondered whether it would be quicker to leave the ship at Southampton. One train to London, another to Dover, a boat to Ostend, more trains across Belgium and Germany. It might save a couple of hours, but seemed just as likely to add a few. And he very much doubted whether the Europa carried copies of the relevant timetables. He would just have to cope with twenty-four hours of inaction.
At breakfast the elderly couple who had shared their table since New York seemed even more cheerful than usual. 'Another beautiful day,' Herr Faeder announced, unaware that his upraised fork was dripping egg yolk onto the tablecloth. 'We've been really lucky on this voyage. Last year we were trapped in our cabins for most of the trip,' he added for about the fourth time. Russell grunted his agreement, and received a reproachful look from Paul.
'I can't wait to get home, though,' Frau Faeder said. 'I have a feeling this is going to be a beautiful summer.'
'I hope you're right,' Russell said amicably. The Faeders probably came from another planet, but they'd been pleasant enough company.
Once they'd hurried off to claim their favourite deck chairs, he poured himself another coffee and considered what to tell Paul. The truth, he supposed. 'A telegram came for me last night,' he began. 'After you were asleep.'
His son, engrossed in chasing the record for the largest amount of jam ever loaded onto a single piece of toast, looked up in alarm.
'Effi's been arrested,' Russell told him.
Paul's jaw dropped open. 'What for?' he eventually asked.
'I don't know. The telegram just said she'd been arrested.'
'That's…' He searched for an adequate word. 'That's terrible.'
'I hope not.'
'I expect she said something,' Paul volunteered after a few moments' thought. 'That's not very serious. Not like murder or treason.'
Russell couldn't help smiling. 'You're probably right.'
'What are you going to do?'