A Woman in Berlin

TUESDAY, 1 MAY 1945, AFTERNOON

We started off anxious and apprehensive, sitting in the kitchen from 8 a.m. on, already worn out, waiting for whatever new evil the day might bring. But it began the same as always. Suddenly the kitchen was full of men – some familiar, some we’d never seen. One dressed in a white smock introduced himself as a baker, and quietly promised flour and bread, much flour and much bread, if I… (most of them say ‘love’ or even ‘marry’ or sometimes simply ‘sleep with’, but all this man did was look off to the side).

Some shouting came up from the street, and they all rushed out of the kitchen. A little later they were lined up in two rows, right in full view under the maple tree. Anatol was pacing in front of them, every inch the sub lieutenant, but clearly in high spirits: he was giving a speech, his hands stuck in the pockets of his leather jacket. I could make out a few bits and pieces: ‘The first of May… victory at hand… enjoy yourselves but remember what Comrade Stalin has decreed.’ etc. Then he gave his men a roguish wink, and the men grinned back. Andrei stepped up, asked a question and got an answer. Two or three others raised their hands as well, just like in school, then they started asking questions, and speaking without restraint. I saw no signs of military discipline – no tight ranks or smart saluting. Comrade Sub lieutenant was acting very comradely indeed. Throughout the ceremony the katyushas by the school kept howling away, leaving trails of fire across the sulphur-yellow sky.

I was miserable, sore, barely dragging myself around. The widow got her medicine chest out from the crawl space where she’d hidden it, and gave me a tin with some remnants of Vaseline.

I couldn’t help thinking about how good I’d had it, until now – the fact that love had always been a pleasure and never a pain. I had never been forced, nor had I ever had to force myself. Everything had been good the way it was. But what’s making me so miserable right now is not so much the excess itself, extreme though it is; it’s the fact that my body has been mistreated, taken against its will and pain is how it responds to the abuse.

I’m reminded of a girlfriend from school, now married, who confessed to me at the beginning of the war that in a certain way she felt physically better without her husband, who had been drafted, than she had earlier in the marriage. Consummation of the marriage had always been painful and joyless, though she did the best she could to keep this from her husband. That’s probably what they mean by frigid. Her body wasn’t ready. And frigid is what I’ve been during these encounters. It can’t be otherwise, nor should it be; as long as I’m nothing more than a spoil of war I intend to stay dead and numb, without feeling.

Around noon I was able to save two lives, just by chance. It started when a German, an older man I didn’t know, knocked on our front door and called out for the lady who knows Russian’, meaning me.

I have to admit I was reluctant to go with him since he was mumbling something about revolvers and shooting, but in the end I followed him downstairs. To my relief I saw that the Russians were Anatol’s men, mostly NCOs. (Thanks to Anatol’s basic instruction I’m now pretty good at distinguishing the ranks.) The elderly postmaster was there as well, in his slippers completely silent, his face to the wall, his shoulders slumped, his head sunk. His wife, beside him, had turned round and kept yammering the same words over and over, very fast.

What was going on? Apparently the refugee girl who had been lodged at the postmaster’s, who just this past Saturday morning had been moaning to us about not being able to go on any more and ending it all – apparently she’d been caught in the stairwell with a revolver in her coat pocket. She probably brought it all the way from Königsberg, no one really knows for sure. Anyhow, she broke away from her pursuers, raced up the stairs and somehow vanished in the maze of attic rooms. No one’s seen her since. So they ransacked the postmaster’s whole apartment and found – God forbid! – a photo of her… next to a soldier from the SS. The Russians have the picture right there, they show it to me. I have to verify that it is indeed the girl from Königsberg. The SS man could be her fiancé, or most likely her brother, since he has the same large head.

So the Russians have detained the elderly couple as hostages, now they’ve threatened to shoot them if they don’t produce the girl, if they don’t say where she is hiding.

I can start by clearing up a misconception. The Russians think the postmaster and his wife are the girl’s parents – evidently these men are still used to proper families, they don’t realize how jumbled and scattered our homes have become, aren’t familiar with our patchwork households. As soon as they learn that the girl was only lodging there, that she was a complete stranger, they change their tone. And right away the old woman, who’s been watching us closely, her frightened eyes going back and forth between the Russians and me – right away she takes advantage of a lull in the conversation and starts cursing and vilifying the girl from Königsberg, hoping to girl in, they’re fed up with her, she’s nothing but trouble, they aren’t surprised at anything. And if the woman knew where the girl was hiding she’d say. After all, she has no reason to keep it a secret. And so on.

She really would give the girl away, if she could – no doubt about it. She keeps repeating the same nonsense, her voice shaking with fear, while her husband keeps standing there with his face to the wall, impassive and inert.

Meanwhile I talk and talk, explaining to the Russians that the girl couldn’t possibly have intended to kill any of them, that I myself had heard her say she was planning to commit suicide, which she’s probably long since done it. Maybe they’ll find her body very soon. (The word for suicide – samoubistvo – isn’t in the soldier’s dictionary either. I got Andrei to teach it to me.)

Little by little the tension eases. I go so far as to portray the postmaster and his wife in a comic light, as a pair of silly old fools who don’t have a clue about anything. In the end the postmaster turns back from the wall, threads of saliva dribbling from his open mouth, just like a baby. The woman is silent, her bright old-lady eyes darting wildly between the Russians and me. Finally they are both allowed to leave, unscathed.

The Russians instruct me to inform all the civilians in the building that if another weapon is found the entire place will be burned to the ground, according to martial law. And they swear to find the girl and liquidate her.

My merry vodka-drinkers are completely changed – beyond recognition! They give not the slightest indication of all the times they’ve sat at our little round table and drunk my health. Their happy singing doesn’t mean a thing, evidently; work is work and drink is drink – at least for these three. I better make a note of that, and be careful with them.

Afterwards I am quite pleased with myself, but also scared. Intervening like that is a good way to attract attention, and sticking out like a sore thumb won’t do me a bit of good. I have to admit that I’m afraid; I’d like to stay hidden. As I was leaving, the German who’d fetched me asked me to translate a Russian phrase he’d heard many times: ‘Gitler durak.’ I told him what it means. ‘Hitler is a fool.’ The Russians say it all the time, triumphantly, as if it were their own discovery.