A Woman in Berlin

Herr Pauli is sleeping in the next room. Once again the widow has set up her improvised bed dose to him. Otherwise the situation is clear: the apartment is open to a few friends of the house, if that’s what they can be called, as well as to the men Anatol brings from his platoon and no one else. But only their chief, only Anatol, has the right to spend the night. It seems that I really am taboo, at least for today. But who can say about tomorrow? Anatol comes back around midnight, whereupon the debaters disperse on their own. The last one out is the blond lieutenant, who limps away with his hiking pole, sizing me up with evil eyes.

Now there are holes in my memory. Once again I drank a great deal, can’t recall the details. The next thing I remember is Monday morning, the grey light of dawn, a conversation with Anatol that led to a minor misunderstanding. I said to him, ‘You are a bear.’ (I know the word well – m’edv’ed – which was also the name of a well-known Russian restaurant on Tauentzienstrasse.)

Anatol, however, thought I was getting my words mixed up, so he corrected me, very patiently, the way you’d speak to a child: ‘No, that’s wrong. A m’edv’ed is an animal. A brown animal, in the forest. It’s big and roars. I am a chelav’ek – a person.’

LOOKING BACK ON MONDAY, 30 APRIL 1945 RECORDED ON TUESDAY, 1 MAY

The day breaks grey and pink. The cold blows through the empty window sockets, filling our mouths with the taste of smoke. Once again the roosters. I have this early hour all to myself. I wipe everything down, sweep away cigarette butts, breadcrumbs, fish bones, rub out the rings from the tabletop. Then a frugal wash in the tub, with two cups of water. This is my happiest time, between five and seven in the morning, while the widow and Herr Pauli are still asleep – if ‘happy’ is the right word. It’s a relative happiness. I do some mending and then soap up my extra shirt. We know from experience that no Russians come at this early hour.

But from 8 a.m. on the back door is open to the usual traffic. Unknown men of all descriptions. Two or three burst in out of the blue, start pestering the widow and me, randy as goats, try to grab hold of us. But now it’s the custom for one of our recent acquaintances to come and help us shake them off. I heard Grisha mentioning Anatol by name, affirming the taboo. And I’m very proud I actually managed to tame one of the wolves – most likely the strongest in the pack, too – to keep away the others.

Around 10 a.m. we climb up to the booksellers’, where a dozen of the local tenants are still being sheltered, behind the excellent security locks. We give the special knock, the door opens, we join the other residents for the arranged meeting.

A jostle of men and women. It takes me a while to recognize individual cave dwellers; some of them look unbelievably different. Overnight practically all the women have grey or grey-streaked hair – they can’t get their usual hair dye. Their faces, too, look unfamiliar, older, distraught.

We draw around the table, hastily, for fear the Russians will discover our ‘assembly’ and misinterpret it. Very quickly, as fast as I can speak, I report what news I’ve gleaned from the Russian papers and from the Russians themselves – mostly Andrei and Anatol: Berlin is completely encircled. All the outlying districts are occupied, the only places still resisting are Tiergarten and Moabit. Huge numbers of generals have been captured. They say that Hitler is dead but give no details, that Goebbels has committed suicide, that the Italians have shot Mussolini. The Russians have reached the Elbe, where they’ve met up and are fraternizing with the Americans.

Everyone listens eagerly; it’s all news to them. I look around, ask the woman from Hamburg about her daughter, eighteen-year-old Stinchen with the bandaged head. She answers – with her sharp ‘s’ – that the girl has moved into the crawl space above the false kitchen ceiling in their apartment and spends every night and most of the day up there under the real ceiling. The Russians don’t know about crawl spaces and false ceilings – they don’t have that kind of thing back home. In the old days people would store their trunks there; before that they were used as maids’ quarters – or so they say. So now Stinchen is vegetating away in that cramped, stuffy space, equipped with bedclothes, a chamber pot and some eau de cologne. Her mother says that at the first sign of footsteps or any other noise she quickly shuts the hatch. At least she’s still a virgin.