A Woman in Berlin

The cave dwellers went to sleep around 9 p.m. The widow has made a sort of bed for me as well, in the front area of the basement, since there isn’t any space left dose to the support timbers, but it’s soft and warm. I slept until the bombs woke me up. My hand was dangling over my bed and I felt something licking it – Foxel, our absent landlord’s terrier. There, Foxel, good dog, don’t be afraid. We’re alone here in this front room. There’s no support structure, but the air is cleaner, and nobody bothers us with snores and groans.

Up early the next morning, to fetch water at the pump. I read my first printed text in days, hot off the press, too. A newspaper called the Armoured Bear. Someone pasted one next to the baker’s display window. It had Tuesday’s official Wehrmacht report, which meant it was two days old. According to a report: a) the enemy was pushing ahead and b) German reinforcements were on the way. The Bear also said that Adolf and Goebbels were still in Berlin and would stay. One very smug piece told of a soldier named Höhne who had deserted and was now dangling from a rope at the Schöneberg station for all to see.

Breakfast in the basement. Everyone is trying as best they can to recreate some semblance of family life. A genteel morning meal served on trunks, crates and chairs, with paper napkins and little tablecloths. Pots of hot drinks cooked over wood fires or spirit stoves are lifted out of their cosies. You see butter dishes, sugar bowls, jam servers, silver spoons, everything. The widow conjured up some real coffee and cooked it on a fire made of broken champagne crates – that did us good. But people are fidgety, cranky, getting on one another’s nerves.

A little before 10 a.m. a trunk-sized bomb landed on the roof of our building. A terrible jolt, screams. The concierge’s wife staggered in, pale as a sheet, bracing herself against one of the support beams. Then came eighteen-year-old Stinchen with the Hamburg ‘s’, leaning on her mother. Her hair was grey with plaster dust, completely tangled, and covering her young face which was streaked with trickles of blood – she’d been hit while crossing the courtyard. Even the canary in its cage felt the general agitation, which was zigzagging back and forth as it cheeped away.

It wasn’t until fifteen minutes later that someone noticed that the radiators were losing water. We ran upstairs. Well, not all of us. The postmaster’s wife, for example, waved around a medical certificate and shouted that her husband had a heart condition and couldn’t come along. And Curtainman Schmidt lost no time pressing his old spotted paw against his heart. Others hesitated as well, until Fräulein Behn bellowed like a lead mare, You dopes are sitting here babbling while your homes are about to float away’ and charged ahead without turning round to see who followed. I joined some fifteen others in going after her.

Up on the third floor a whole ocean of water was rushing out without stopping. We waded up to our ankles, wrung out the rugs, slaved away as it continued to pour from upstairs. We used dustpans to scoop it up and then we dumped it out of the window just like that into the street, so brightly lit by the sun and so utterly deserted. Shells kept exploding the whole time, many of them quite close. Once a flurry of shattered glass and bits of plaster splashed into the water, but no one was hurt.

After that we headed back to the basement, damp but quite excited. I hunkered down, squatting on wet socks – my feet still inside them, of course – and wondered whether the whole effort had been a smart thing to do. I’m not sure. In any case it was very soldierly. Lieutenant Behn had charged ahead, an assault troop of volunteers followed and everyone risked their lives to secure the endangered position – all under enemy fire. (It clearly wasn’t just about possessions either, about people rescuing their carpets, since practically none of the ones who went along had any more to do with those apartments than I did.) We followed orders blindly, without looking to save our skins. Except that there will no books or songs to celebrate this deed, and no one will receive the Iron Cross. Still, I now know one thing: in the heat of battle, in the thick of the action, you don’t think – you don’t even feel afraid, because you’re so distracted and absorbed.

Were we brave? Most people would probably say we were. Was our lead mare Fräulein Behn a hero? If she really were a lieutenant she would have definitely been given the Iron Cross. In any case I have to rethink my ideas about heroism and courage under fire. It’s only half as bad as I thought. Once you’ve taken the first step, you just keep charging ahead.