A Woman in Berlin

Towards evening we heard some commotion, someone kicking and pounding the front door. I opened it a crack, keeping the chain on, and caught a glimpse of something white – the baker from Tuesday morning, in his military issue  smock. He wanted to come in. I didn’t want him to, and acted as if Anatol were inside. Then he asked me for some other girl, any girl, an address, a hint as to where he might find one – he said he’d give her flour for it, much flour, and me, too, for mediating. I don’t know of any girl, I don’t want to know any. He got pushy, forced his foot in the door, started tearing at the chain. With difficulty I managed to push him out and slam the door.

Yes, girls are a commodity increasingly in short supply. Now

everyone’s ready when the men go on the hunt for women, so they lock up their girls, hide them in the crawl spaces, pack them off to secure apartments. At the pump people whisper about a woman doctor who’s fixed up a room in the air-raid shelter as a quarantine hospital, with big signs in German and Russian warning of typhus. But the patients are just very young girls from the neighbouring apartment buildings, and the quarantine is a ruse the doctor came up with to preserve their virginity.

A little later we heard more noise. Two men we hadn’t seen before had managed to get into the empty apartment next door. The wall separating the apartments from ours was damaged in one of the last air raids, so that there’s a hole about six feet up, nearly a foot wide. The men next door must have shoved a table against the wall right under the hole; they started shouting through the chink that we’d better open our door at once or they’d shoot us. (Apparently they didn’t realize our back door was wide open.) One of the men shone his torch into our hall; the other levelled his automatic. But we know they’re never quite that trigger-happy – especially not when they’re as sober and quick-tongued as these two seemed to be. So I put on a silly act, attempting to be funny in Russian. Anyway, they were just two boys, not a hair on their chins. I cajoled them and even lectured them about the ukaz of Great Comrade Stalin. Finally they got down from their shooting gallery, kicked our front door a bit with their boots and left, so we breathed a sigh of relief. It’s somewhat reassuring to know that if need be I can run upstairs and call one of Anatol’s men to help. By now most of them know that we’re Anatol’s private game reserve.

Even so, the widow started feeling more and more uneasy, especially when evening came and none of our usual guests showed up. Taking advantage of a calm moment in the stairwell, she darted upstairs to establish contact with the other residents. Ten minutes later she was back. ‘Please come up to Frau Wendt’s. There are some very nice Russians. It’s downright pleasant.’

Frau Wendt is the woman with the weeping eczema – on her own, around fifty, the one who tied her wedding ring to her pants. It turns out that she’s moved in with the former housekeeper for our westward-departed landlord, another example of the rampant regrouping, random affiances forming out of fear and need. Their small kitchen was stuffy and full of tobacco smoke. In the candlelight I could make out both women and three Russians. The table in front of them was piled with canned goods, most without labels, presumably German provisions now turned Russian booty. One of the Russians immediately handed the widow one of the tins.

The women asked me not to speak any Russian, so I just played stupid. None of these Russians knew me. One, named Seryosha, squeezed right up to me and put his arm around my hip. Whereupon one of the others intervened and said, in a gentle voice: ‘Brother, please, none of that.’ And Seryosha, caught in the act, moved away.

I’m amazed. The man who spoke is young, with a handsome face and dark, regular features. His eyes are bright. His hands are white and slender. He looks at me seriously and says in clumsy German, ‘Nicht haben Angst.’ Not to be afraid.

Frau Wendt whispers to the widow and me that this Russian is named Stepan. He lost his wife and two children in a German air raid on Kiev, but he’s forgiven us all and is practically a saint.

Next the third Russian, who’s small and pockmarked, shoves me a can of meat that he’s opened with his penknife. He hands me the knife and gestures for me to eat. I spear a few large, fatty pieces and stick them in my mouth – I’m hungry. All three Russians look at me approvingly. Then Frau Wendt opens her kitchen cupboard and shows us row after row of canned goods, all brought by the three men. It really is pleasant here. At the same time neither of the two women could be called attractive: Frau Wendt has her eczema, and the ex-housekeeper is like a mouse – worried, withered and bespectacled. Enough to give a rapist second thoughts. Heaven only knows why these men have set up here, dragging all those cans of food.