A Woman in Berlin

Still, at least Anatol is a full two hundred pounds. So maybe his size will help even if his stars do not. In any case, I’m not changing my mind. He moves like a comet, with a tail of young people, boy-like soldiers, who in the meantime have found shelter in the apartment abandoned by the pudding-sisters. One of Anatol’s entourage really is just a child – Vanya, sixteen years old, with a stern face and intense black eyes. The widow takes me aside and whispers that he could have been the one, back then on the stairs, his face was small and smooth, his body slender. For his part, Vanya doesn’t show any sign of recognition, although that’s to be expected, since he never even saw the woman he took in such a clumsy, juvenile fashion – he only felt her. Still, I have the sense he knows who she is. After all, he heard her voice, the widow told me how she sobbed and begged. In any event, Vanya follows her around like a puppy, carrying fresh glasses and washing out the dirty ones.

I drank a lot that evening. I wanted to drink a lot, wanted to get drunk, and I did. That’s why I only remember bits and pieces: Anatol next to me again, his weapons and things scattered around the bed… All his buttons and all his bags and everything in them… Friendly, helpful, childlike… But born in May – a Taurus, a bull… I felt like I was a doll, no sensation, shaken, shoved around, made of wood… All of a sudden someone is standing in the dark room, shining a torch. And Anatol is yelling at him roughly, shakes his fists, and the man disappears. Or did I dream that?

Early in the morning I see Anatol standing by the window, looking outside, a reddish glow is flaming into the room, a yellow light tugs at the wallpaper. I hear the katyushas howling away as Anatol stretches his arms and says, ‘Petukh paiot’ – the cock is singing. It’s true – between shells you can actually hear a rooster crowing down below.

As soon as Anatol left I got up, washed myself in the bath with what water was left, scrubbed down the table, swept away the cigarette butts, herring tails and horse manure, rolled up the carpet and stowed it in the chest. I looked in the next room, where the widow had set up camp under the protection of her tenant; both were snoring away. Ice-cold air was blowing through the cardboard on the windows. I felt rested and refreshed after five hours of deep sleep. A little hungover, but nothing more. I’d made it through another night.

I figured out that it was Sunday, 29 April. But Sunday is a word for civilians, at the moment without meaning. There are no Sundays on the front.

LOOKING BACK ON SUNDAY, 29 APRIL 1945 RECORDED ON TUESDAY, 1 MAY

The first part of the day was filled with the constant, whip-like popping of rifle fire. Trucks rolling up down below, trucks driving away. Hoarse shouts, neighing, clinking of chains. The field kitchen sends its smoke right through our missing kitchen window, while our own oven, stoked with nothing but a few broken crates and pieces of lath, is smoking so much it makes us cry.

The widow asks me through the smoke, ‘Aren’t you scared?’

‘You mean of the Russians?’

‘That, too. But it’s really Anatol I’m thinking of. Such a great big bull of a man.’

‘I’ve got him eating out of my hand.’

‘While he gets you with child,’ the widow responds, poking at the fire.

Ah yes. She’s right, that threat is looming over us all, though until now I haven’t been very worried about it. Why not? I try to explain to the widow, with a saying I once heard: ‘No grass grows on the well-trodden path.’

The widow disagrees; she doesn’t think that logic applies here. So I continue. ‘I don’t know, I’m simply convinced it couldn’t happen to me. As if I could lock myself up, physically shut myself off from something so unwanted.’

The widow’s still not satisfied. Her husband was a pharmacist, she knows what she’s talking about. Her medicine chest is well stocked; unfortunately, she doesn’t have anything that would help me protect myself, as she puts it.

‘And you?’ I ask back.

Next thing I know she’s running to her purse, which is lying on the kitchen cabinet, fishing out her ID card and showing it to me, pointing to her date of birth, as self-conscious as if she were undressing in front of me. Sure enough, she’s turning fifty this year. I had pegged her as about six years younger.

‘That’s at least one worry I don’t have,’ she says. Anyway, we should start thinking about whom to go to in case it does happen.’ She assures me that she has connections, thanks to her late husband. let me handle it. I’ll figure things out. You’ll be able to get rid of it, no question.’ She nods as if that were that and, having finally brought the water to a boil, pours it over the coffee substitute. And I stand there, my hands on my belly, feeling stupid. But I’m still convinced that my sheer aversion can prevent such a tragedy, that I can will my body shut.