A Woman in Berlin

Back in the attic, 2 p.m. Torrents of rain outside. No more newspapers. Even so, people queued up right on time at the distribution centre; apparently some leaflet or extra edition had run an announcement. News is now spread by word of mouth, and every new item gets quickly passed around.

They’re handing out what are officially called advance rations – meat, sausage, processed foods, sugar, canned goods and ersatz coffee. I took my place in line and waited in the rain for two hours before finally getting 250 grams of coarse-ground grain, 250 grams of oatmeal, 2 pounds of sugar, 100 grams of coffee substitute and a can of kohlrabi. There still isn’t any meat or sausage or real coffee. A crowd is milling about the corner butcher’s, an endless queue on both sides, people standing four abreast in the pouring rain. What a mess! My line was abuzz with rumours: we’ve just surrendered Köpenick, they’ve taken Wünsdorf, the Russians are already at the Teltow canal. The women seem to have reached an unspoken agreement – all of a sudden no one is bringing up ‘that subject’.

Talking in the queue, I find myself coming down a level both in the way I speak and in what I say, immersing myself in the general emotion – though this always leaves me feeling a little grubby and disgusting. And yet I don’t want to fence myself off, I want to give myself over to this communal sense of humanity; I want to be part of it, to experience it. There’s a split between my aloofness, the desire to keep my private life to myself, and the urge to be like everyone else, to belong to the nation, to abide and suffer history together.

What else can I do? I have to sit it out and wait. Our days are accented with flak and artillery fire. Now and then I wish it were all over. These are strange times – history experienced first hand, the stuff of tales yet untold and songs unsung. But seen up close, history is much more troublesome – nothing but burdens and fears.

Tomorrow I’ll go and look for nettles and get some coal. Small as it is, our new stock of provisions will keep us from starving. I fret over it the way rich people worry about their money. The food could be bombed or stolen, eaten by mice or looted by the enemy. Finally I have crammed everything into one more box for the basement. I can still carry all my earthly possessions up and down the stairs with hardly any effort.

* * *

Late evening, twilight. I paid Frau Golz another visit. Her husband was there, too, sitting in his coat and scarf, since the room was cold and gusty. They were both quiet, depressed. They don’t understand the world any more. We hardly spoke. Outside the building we could hear a constant, tinny rattle, punctuated by the drum-like flak. As if someone were beating a gigantic carpet that hung all the way down from the sky.

The courtyards echo the sound of the gunfire. For the first time I understand the phrase ‘thunder of cannon’, which until now has always sounded like a hollow cliché, such as ‘courage of a lion’ or ‘manly chest’. But thunder is an apt description.

Showers and storms outside. I stood in the doorway and watched some soldiers pass by our building, listlessly dragging their feet. Some were limping. Mute, each man to himself, they trudged along, out of step, towards the city. Stubbly chins and sunken cheeks, their backs weighed down with gear.

‘What’s going on?’ I shout. ‘Where are you headed?’

At first no one answers. Then someone mutters something I can’t make out. Then someone else mumbles something, but the words are dear enough: ‘Führer, command! And we will follow, even unto death.’

They all seem so miserable, so little like men any more. The only thing they inspire is pity, no hope or expectation. They already look defeated, captured. They stare past us blindly, impassively, as we stand on the kerb. They’re obviously not too concerned about us, us Volk or civilians or Berliners or whatever we are. Now we’re nothing but a burden. And I don’t sense they’re the least ashamed of how bedraggled they look, how ragged. They’re too tired to care, too apathetic. They’re all fought out. I can’t bear watching them any more.

The walls are marked with chalk, by now smeared and running, evidently directing the soldiers to specific assembly points. Two cardboard placards are tacked onto the maple tree across the street, announcements, neatly penned by hand, in blue and red letters, with the names ‘Hitler’ and ‘Goebbels’ on them. One warns against surrender and threatens hanging and shooting. The other, addressed ‘To the People of Berlin’, warns against seditious foreigners and calls on all men to fight. Nobody pays any attention. The handwriting looks pathetic and inconsequential, like something whispered.