A Woman in Berlin : Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary (16 page)

‘No, no.’ No, not at all, you can go right on being the way you are. I just can’t force myself into this role, to feel at ease so quickly. I have this repulsive sense of being passed from hand to hand; I feel humiliated and insulted, degraded into a sexual thing. And then once more the thought: And what if its true? What if Anatol really has disappeared? What if my taboo is gone, this wall I’ve taken such trouble to erect? Wouldn’t it be good to create a new taboo, one that might last a little longer. To build a new wall of defence?

The major takes off his belt and puts aside his jacket, all in slow motion, with sideways glances at me. I sit, wait, feel my palms sweating. I want to help him and I don’t want to. Then suddenly he says, ‘Please, give me your hand.’

I stare at him. More etiquette manual? Is he trying to grace me with a kiss on my hand? Or is he a palm reader? He takes my hand and clasps it firmly with both of his, then says, with pathetic eyes and trembling lips, ‘Forgive me. It’s been so long since I had a woman.’

He shouldn’t have said that. Next thing I know I’m lying with my face in his lap, sobbing and bawling and howling all the grief in my soul. I feel him stroking my hair. Then there’s a noise at the door. We both look up. The door is ajar, the widow is standing there holding a candle, asking anxiously what the matter is. The major and I both wave her away. She undoubtedly sees that nothing bad is being done to me, I hear the door closing once again.

A little later, in the dark, I tell him how miserable and sore I am and ask him to be gentle. He is gentle and silently tender, is soon finished and lets me sleep.

That was my Tuesday; the first of May.

On to Wednesday. For the first time in all these nights of men I sleep into the morning and when I wake up the major is still by my side. Evidently he doesn’t have any duties; he can make his own assignments. We talk a bit, very friendly and rationally. Out of nowhere he confesses to me that he is not a Communist, not at all – he’s a professional officer, trained at the military academy, and hates the young stool pigeons from the Komsomol. By which I understand him to mean that even higher-ranking officers have reason to be afraid of party watchdogs. I’m amazed at how openly he speaks to me. On the other hand, there are no witnesses. Then, just as abruptly, he wants to know if I really am healthy. ‘You understand, I mean, you understand what I’m saying.’ (The first ‘you’ is formal; the second time he uses the familiar form– as a rule he mixes the two when he talks to me.) So I tell him the truth, that I’ve never had anything like that, but of course I can’t be sure that I haven’t caught something from one of the Russians who violated me. He shakes his head and sighs. ‘Ach, these hooligans!’ (Pronounced
khuligan
, a loan word very common in Russian, used for scoundrels, louts, ruffians.)

He gets up, dresses and calls for his orderly, who waddles in, still in his stockinged feet, carrying his shoes. The lieutenant is nowhere to be seen; he is probably gone for the day. From the room next door I can hear the widow.

Outside, the May morning is chilly. Chains are clinking, horses neighing; the rooster has long since crowed. But no katyushas, no gunfire, nothing. The major limps around the room and stretches his leg, singing one song after the other in a beautiful voice, including the magical ‘Linger with me, my lovely one’. Then he sits on the edge of the bed, pulls a little harmonica out of his pocket and plays a march, with amazing verve and skill. Meanwhile the Asian – who when I ask tells me he’s from Uzbekistan –helps his superior put on his soft leather boots. Taking pains to spare the injured leg, he gazes adoringly at his musical major and sighs in foreign–accented Russian: ‘Ech, is so beautiful!’

Later, after both are gone, the widow hears in the stairwell that Berlin surrendered around 4a.m. – someone heard it on a crystal set. ‘Peace’ – so we think, and are happy. Until we find out there is still fighting going on north and south of the city.

Still Wednesday, the hours are creeping along. People are constantly interrupting me as I write. But no one has. objected; the most I’ve heard was one soldier saying, ‘That’s right. You all need to study hard and learn Russian.’

A steady stream of Russians, liquor, kitchen work, fetching water. We hear there’s a wooden beam lying around somewhere. I rush to get it before someone beats me to it. Two of Anatol’s men come running out of the abandoned apartment they’ve commandeered for the past few days, carrying mattresses and bed covers. Where are they moving to? Not a trace of Anatol himself. Evidently the lieutenant wasn’t lying. And the major promised in parting that he would take good care of me, bring me something to eat. Fine with me. For days I’ve had misgivings about the butter Herr Pauli brought from the Volkssturm. This is definitely a different life from my hungry existence in the attic, where everything had been stripped bare and eaten. First we had the end of the German rations, then what I managed to steal – the loot from the police barracks, the potatoes. And the widow had a few stores of her own –potatoes, beans and peas, bacon. Next we had everything that Anatol and his men left in the way of bread, herring, pork rinds, canned meat. (though the alcohol was always drained to the last drop). And the two cans of meat from the white hands of Stepan–Alyosha. A life of plenty. Actually I haven’t eaten this richly in years; it’s been months since I was so full after eating. It can’t go on like this. But for the moment I’m stuffing myself, to build up my strength.

Outside it’s cold and overcast. Today I stood at the pump for a long time in a fine rain. Little fires burning all around in the trampled gardens, men’s voices singing to an accordion. A woman in front of me is wearing men’s shoes. She has a scarf on her head covering half her face, her eyes are swollen from crying. But for the first time since I’ve been standing in line for water, things are calm. No katyushas. The sky is still smouldering yellow. The previous night had been full of fires. But there’s no more gunfire in Berlin; things are quiet. We stand there in the pouring rain, speaking quietly and saying little. The pump creaks, the lever squeals, Russians fill canister after canister. We wait. The pathetic figure in front of me reports in monotone that, no, she hasn’t been raped yet, she and a few neighbours managed to lock themselves in the basement, but now her husband has come back, from his unit, you understand... So she has to take care of him, hide him, find food and water for him, she can’t just think about herself any more. And a dishevelled woman behind me is moaning about furniture: ‘My good couch, with the royal blue velvet, I had two matching armchairs – they broke them into pieces and used them for firewood!’ And f mall y a scrawny man, all bones, with a face no bigger than a fist, tells us a story about a family in his building who hid their daughter under the chaise longue. They pulled the cover all the way down to the floor, and the Russians even sat on it without any idea the girl was lying underneath. I can’t tell whether the story is fact or fiction. It’s entirely possible. Our lives are all rumours and melodrama, one big kitschy novel.

I’m not in a position to hide, although I know of a hole in the attic I could crawl into. But I don’t have anyone to bring me food and water. Once, when I was nine years old, on vacation at my grandparents’ house, I hid in the attic with my cousin Klara. We climbed into a comer beneath the straw dolls in the rafters, which were warm from the sun, and had a secret conversation about where babies come from. Klara, who was younger than me but knew more, whispered something about women being cut open with big knives so the babies could get out. I can still feel the horror that crept up my throat,.until finally I was saved by our grandmother’s sedate voice calling us for a snack. I clambered down the stairs and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my grandmother in her satin apron, uncut and intact, broad and round as always, her metal–rimmed spectacles perched on the tip of her nose. The house smelled of coffee and apple cake, and I’m sure the cake was dusted with powdered sugar, though in those days a pound of that cost several million paper marks. As I chewed away I forgot all about Klara’s knives and my own fear. But these days I think children are right to be afraid of sexual things – there really are a lot of sharp knives.

The Russians at the pump don’t spend much time sizing up us water carriers. They’ve already caught on that it’s mostly old, gnarled women who are sent to the pump. When I’m there I, too, wrinkle my forehead, pull down the comers of my mouth and squint in order to look as ancient and wretched as I can.

At first, before I started sticking out like a sore thumb, our Russian guests often asked me how old I was. If I told them I’d just turned thirty they would grin and say, Aha, she’s a sly one, pretending to be older than she really is.’ Then I’d show my ID and they had no choice but to believe me. They can’t really tell with us: they’re used to their Russian women, who have lots of children and are quickly worn out; they can’t read how old our bodies are – even if most of us look miserable compared with how we looked in peacetime.

A red–cheeked Russian walks down our line, playing an accordion, and calling out to us: ‘
Gitler ka putt, Goebbels kaputt. Stalin ist gut.
’ He laughs and cackles one of their mothercurses, slaps a comrade on the shoulder and shouts in Russian, even though the people in line won’t understand a thing. ‘Look at him! A Russian soldier. And he’s marched from Moscow to Berlin!’ They’re all so proud of their victory they’re bursting their buttons. Even they are amazed that they made it this far. We swallow it all, stand in line and wait.

I come home with two buckets full of water. A new commotion inside the apartment. Two soldiers we don’t know are running through our rooms looking for a sewing machine. I show them our Singer in the kitchen. Ever since Petka the bristle–haired Romeo played catch with it the machine seems a little bent. What do these two need a sewing machine for?

It turns out they have a package they want to send to Russia; they’d like to have it sewn up in a cloth cover – which of course should be done by hand. With great eloquence consisting mostly of repetition, I convince the boys that current technology isn’t up to the task, that this is more a job for grandmother’s simple handiwork.

Finally they nod their round heads and agree. They’re carrying a whole loaf of bread as payment. The widow thinks for a moment and decides to pass this princely commission to the bookselling wife, who is skilled at sewing and short on bread. She hurries over to fetch her from her triply secured apartment.

And the woman actually decides to come. She’s mistrustful, hesitant... and at the same time eagerly considering the bread. She and her husband are living off beans and barley. She takes her place at the kitchen window and carefully sews white linen doth around the bundle. The contents remain a mystery. It feels soft – probably clothes.

I try to imagine what the Russians think about all these things lying around unprotected and abandoned. There are deserted apartments in every building that are theirs for the taking. Basements with whatever is stowed in them. There’s nothing in this city that isn’t theirs if they want it – the problem is there’s simply too much. They can no longer take it all in, this abundance; they nonchalantly grab whatever objects catch their eye, then lose them or pass them on; they haul things away and then discard them as soon as they become a burden. This is the first time I’ve seen them take the trouble to pack up and mail some of the plunder. For the most part they have no ability to assess the value of things. They grab the first thing they see and they have no concept of quality or price –why should they? They’ve always just worn what they’ve been allotted; they don’t know how to judge and choose, ·how to figure out what’s good, what’s expensive. When they steal bedding, for instance, they’re just looking for something to lie down on right away. They can’t tell eiderdown from shoddy. And what they value most of all is liquor.

While she sews, the bookseller passes on what she knows. Yes, eighteen–year–old Stinchen is still being kept by her mother in the crawl space, lately during the day as well, ever since two Russians came back with the designated water carriers, burst into the apartment, brandished their pistols and shot a hole in the linoleum floor. The girl looks pasty. No wonder. But at least she’s still intact. The bookseller also tells about some new residents, two young sisters, one a war widow with a three–year–old son. They moved into one of the empty apartments, where they carry on with the soldiers, sometimes by day, sometimes by night, rumour has it things are very merry there. We also learn that a woman across the street jumped out of a fourth–storey window when some Ivans were after her. She’s buried in the little yard in front of the cinema. A number of people have apparently been buried there. I can’t say, since I take a different path to get my water. And that’s the only place you go outside these days.

So the bookseller stitches away and recounts what ·she knows. Rumours – the goddess Fama. I’ve always pictured her as an old woman all shrouded up and murmuring away. Gossip. We feed on it. Years ago people got all their news through hearsay and word of mouth. It’s impossible to overestimate how this affected ancient cultures, how unclear and uncertain their view of the world must have been – spooky; nightmarish, a swamp of murmured horrors and fears, of malicious men and resentful gods. These days, too, there are times when I feel I can’t be sure of anything, that nothing is true, that Adolf may have long ago escaped by submarine to Spain and that Franco is putting him up in a castle where he’s sketching plans for Truman about getting the Russians back to Russia. But one thing is beyond doubt – the deep–down feeling of defeat, the certainty of our being at the mercy of the victors.

The two Russians come back, are very pleased with the sewing, take the package and give the woman her fresh bread. I talk with them and find out that neither one is actually an ethnic Russian. One comes from around Kuban and is of German descent; the other is a Pole from Lvov. The German is named Adams, his ancestors came from the Palatinate two hundred years ago. The few German words he produces are in that local dialect, for example, ‘
Es hat gebrannt
’ –it burned – for
Es hat gebrennt
. The Pole is strikingly handsome, with black hair and blue eyes, quick and lively. He breaks up a crate for our firewood and exchanges a few words with the widow, who as a child used to visit relatives on an estate in East Prussia, where she picked up a few phrases from the Polish field hands. He offers to go with me to get the water.