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superiors in Washington were obviously divided, with many openly voicing their unwillingness to fight another war for half a ruined city. If they were shown a graceful way out, Ströhm thought, then they might really leave. And if they did, the Russians would feel more secure, and might eventually depart themselves, leaving their German comrades free to build their own version of socialism.
    Improbable perhaps, but surely possible.
    Back in his office he spent the next two hours dreaming up reasons for future interruptions. The Western authorities would know what was really happening, but they had to be given scope to pretend.
    At lunch, Ströhm shared a table with Trenkel and one of the more pro-Soviet deputies, a middle-aged Dresdener named Hadewicz who had spent the war in Moscow, but had worked on the railways in his youth, and distinguished himself in the anti-Nazi struggles of the early ’30s. Hadewicz had the latest Cominform bulletin with him, which gave Ströhm the opportunity to ask them both what they felt about the rumoured disputes between the Russians and the Yugoslavs.
    Hadewicz was dismissive—it would soon blow over—while Trenkel just shrugged, as if uninterested.
    ‘But think,’ Ströhm persisted, ‘if Moscow and Belgrade can reach an agreement on each pursuing their own course in a comradely way, then so can Moscow and Berlin.’
    Hadewicz just shook his head, and Trenkel flashed Ströhm a warning glance. Ströhm took the hint and changed the subject, but the conversation, or lack of it, haunted him for most of the afternoon.Walking to the Elisabeth Hospital later, where Annaliese would be nearing the end of her shift, he realised that the number of comrades with whom he could share a frank conversation had shrunk to almost zero—even those whom he knew shared his views found it safer to say nothing these days. The only person he could really talk to was his friend John Russell, and that was in spite of their political differences. Russell had turned his back on the Party more than twenty years earlier, but their analyses of what made the world tick were similar, and they didn’t have to look over their own or each other’s shoulder. All of which made for much more productive conversations than those Ströhm endured with his KPD comrades.
    Russell, however, was away, and there was no one else. Ströhm loved Annaliese dearly, and her time in an American camp had made her more willing than most Berliners to give the Soviets and their KPD allies the benefit of the doubt, but talk of ideologies bored her.
    He was, Ströhm thought, remembering the phrase of a long-dead comrade, suffering from political indigestion. Maybe he should just stopping eating contrary ideas, like the ones in the pamphlet he was reading at home, which was an extract from Arthur Koestler’s ‘The Yogi and the Commissar’. Koestler was also an ex-Communist, and some of his arguments were hard to refute. But even if he was right, and Stalinism was the antithesis of all Marx had intended, what practical relevance did such thoughts have? They were where they were. Both in power and not in power, neither wholly disciples nor wholly slaves. They were struggling with the art of the possible.
    Ströhm turned off the canal towards the hospital entrance. As always, the thought of seeing Annaliese cheered him up. He had met her in Thomas Schade’s garden, and been smitten at first sight by her smile. They had both been invited to a family picnic, he by Russell, who had once been married to Schade’s late sister, she by Russell’s actress wife Effi, who had met and befriended her during the war.Schade was a bourgeois businessman and SPD supporter, but a decent man according to John, and Ströhm had seen nothing to contradict that assessment. If all the Social Democrats were like Thomas, then half their problems would be solved.
    He saw Annaliese the moment he passed through the doors. She and Effi were sitting in the patient waiting