A Woman in Berlin

Outside it’s cold and overcast. Today I stood at the pump for a long time in a fine rain. Little fires burning all around in the trampled gardens, men’s voices singing to an accordion. A woman in front of me is wearing men’s shoes. She has a scarf on her head covering half her face, her eyes are swollen from crying. But for the first time since I’ve been standing in line for water, things are calm. No katyushas. The sky is still smouldering yellow. The previous night had been full of fires. But there’s no more gunfire in Berlin; things are quiet. We stand there in the pouring rain, speaking quietly and saying little. The pump creaks, the lever squeals, Russians fill canister after canister. We wait. The pathetic figure in front of me reports in monotone that, no, she hasn’t been raped yet, she and a few neighbours managed to lock themselves in the basement, but now her husband has come back, from his unit, you understand… So she has to take care of him, hide him, find food and water for him, she can’t just think about herself any more. And a dishevelled woman behind me is moaning about furniture: ‘My good couch, with the royal blue velvet, I had two matching armchairs – they broke them into pieces and used them for firewood!’ And finally a scrawny man, all bones, with a face no bigger than a fist, tells us a story about a family in his building who hid their daughter under the chaise longue. They pulled the cover all the way down to the floor, and the Russians even sat on it without any idea the girl was lying underneath. I can’t tell whether the story is fact or fiction. It’s entirely possible. Our lives are all rumours and melodrama, one big kitschy novel.

I’m not in a position to hide, although I know of a hole in the attic I could crawl into. But I don’t have anyone to bring me food and water. Once, when I was nine years old, on vacation at my grandparents’ house, I hid in the attic with my cousin Klara. We climbed into a corner beneath the straw dolls in the rafters, which were warm from the sun, and had a secret conversation about where babies come from. Klara, who was younger than me but knew more, whispered something about women being cut open with big knives so the babies could get out. I can still feel the horror that crept up my throat, until finally I was saved by our grandmother’s sedate voice calling us for a snack. I clambered down the stairs and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my grandmother in her satin apron, uncut and intact, broad and round as always, her metal-rimmed spectacles perched on the tip of her nose. The house smelled of coffee and apple cake, and I’m sure the cake was dusted with powdered sugar, though in those days a pound of that cost several million paper marks. As I chewed away I forgot all about Klara’s knives and my own fear. But these days I think children are right to be afraid of sexual things – there really are a lot of sharp knives.

The Russians at the pump don’t spend much time sizing up us water carriers. They’ve already caught on that it’s mostly old, gnarled women who are sent to the pump. When I’m there I, too, wrinkle my forehead, pull down the corners of my mouth and squint in order to look as ancient and wretched as I can.

At first, before I started sticking out like a sore thumb, our Russian guests often asked me how old I was. If I told them I’d just turned thirty they would grin and say, Aha, she’s a sly one, pretending to be older than she really is.’ Then I’d show my ID and they had no choice but to believe me. They can’t really tell with us: they’re used to their Russian women, who have lots of children and are quickly worn out; they can’t read how old our bodies are – even if most of us look miserable compared with how we looked in peacetime.

A red-cheeked Russian walks down our line, playing an accordion, and calling out to us: ‘Gitler kaputt, Goebbels kaputt. Stalin ist gut.’ He laughs and cackles one of their mother-curses, slaps a comrade on the shoulder and shouts in Russian, even though the people in line won’t understand a thing. ‘Look at him! A Russian soldier. And he’s marched from Moscow to Berlin!’ They’re all so proud of their victory they’re bursting their buttons. Even they are amazed that they made it this far. We swallow it all, stand in line and wait.

I come home with two buckets full of water. A new commotion inside the apartment. Two soldiers we don’t know are running through our rooms looking for a sewing machine. I show them our Singer in the kitchen. Ever since Petka the bristle-haired Romeo played catch with it the machine seems a little bent. What do these two need a sewing machine for?