A Woman in Berlin

‘Honour your elders’ – yes, but there’s no time or place for that on a cart full of refugees. I’ve been thinking about how our society treats the elderly, about the worth and dignity of people who have lived long lives. Once they were the masters of property. But among the possessionless masses – which at the moment includes nearly everyone – old age counts for nothing. It’s something to be pitied, not venerated. But precisely this threatening situation seems to spur old people to action, seems to spark their urge to live. The deserter in our building told the widow that he had to keep every bit of food locked away from his elderly mother-in-law, because she steals whatever she can get her hands on and devours it in secret. Without a second’s hesitation she would eat up all his rations as well as his wife’s. If they say anything to her she starts moaning that they want her to starve to death, that they’re trying to kill her to inherit her apartment. And in this way dignified matrons are turning into animals greedily clawing at what’s left of their lives.

TUESDAY, 5 JUNE 1945

I slept poorly because of a toothache. Despite that I got up early and set out for Charlottenburg. Today the flags are out again everywhere. The Allies are said to have flown in by the thousands, English, Americans, French. And all these comical, motley flags waving them welcome – products of German women and a weekend’s hard work. Meanwhile the Russian trucks never stop rolling, carrying our machines away.

I trudge along, as always the automatic walking machine. I’m putting in about twelve miles a day, with the barest nourishment. The work itself is fun. The Hungarian is always cooking up something new He heard somewhere that for now the only available paper will go for schoolbooks. So he adds schoolbooks to the publishing programme. He’s guessing there’ll be a great demand for contemporary German primers and Russian grammars; my assignment is to rack my brains about that. Today use actually treated us all to a cup of real coffee. At 6 p.m. I headed home, on paper-thin soles. Along the way I met the first German public service vehicle to resume operation, a bus that runs every half hour. But it’s hopelessly packed; there’s no way to get on. I also saw some German policemen, newly commissioned. They seemed oddly undersized, determined not to stick out.

By the time I got home my feet were aching and I was dripping with sweat. The widow met me on the stairs with some surprising news: Nikolai had been there and had asked after me! Nikolai? It took me a moment to remember. Oh yes, Nikolai from the distant past, Nikolai the sub lieutenant and bank inspector, Nikolai who wanted to come but never came. ‘He said he’d call in again at eight,’ the widow said. ‘He’ll go straight up to the attic and ring for you. Are you glad?’

‘Je ne sais pas,’ I answered, remembering Nikolai’s French. I really didn’t know whether to be glad or not. After Nikolai twice dissolved into thin air, the idea that he’d ever show up seemed implausible. What’s more, that was a bygone era and I didn’t want to be reminded of it. And I was so tired.

I had barely managed to take a quick wash and lie down for an hour, as I always do after the forced march from Charlottenburg, when the doorbell rang. And there, indeed, was Nikolai. We exchanged a few phrases in French in the dim hallway. When I invited him in and he saw me in the light, he was visibly startled. ‘Just look at you. What’s the matter?’ He said I was all skin and bones. How, he wanted to know could that have happened in such a short time. What can I say? All the work and the endless marching around and that degree of hunger and just a little dry bread are a formula to make anyone waste away. What’s odd is that I didn’t realize I had changed that much myself. You can’t check your weight anywhere, and I never give the mirror more than a fleeting glance. But have I changed so much for the worse?