A Woman in Berlin

I accept, though reluctantly. During my first trip this morning I discovered a poster by the door proclaiming that, effective immediately, Russians are no longer allowed to enter German homes or to fraternize with German civilians.

We set off. I’m glad because this way I’ll save at least an hour of standing in line, since if a Russian does the pumping for me I’ll have priority. But no sooner are we outside than an officer calls out after my Pole, ‘Hey, you! What are you doing, going with a German?’ The Pole winks at me, hangs back, and meets up with me at the pump, where he serves himself ahead of everyone else. The people in line stare at me with bitterness and contempt. But no one says a word.

The Pole has a violent temper. On the way home he picks a fight with some soldier over nothing, snorting and roaring and swinging his fists. Then a spasm runs through his entire body, and he calms down, catches up with me and points to the back of his head, explaining that he took a bullet there during the fighting at Stalingrad. Ever since then he’s been prone to these rages and violent fits. He often has no idea what he does in his fury, he never used to be like that. I look at him, uneasy, and hurry ahead with my two buckets. He really does have the thick, copper Stalingrad medal, hanging from a colourful ribbon wrapped in cellophane. I’m happy when we get to our building and he slips away. Clearly the new order won’t take effect as long as their soldiers are billeted in abandoned apartments right next to our own.

THURSDAY, 3 MAY 1945, WITH THE REST OF WEDNESDAY

Something comical: while I was at the pump with the Pole, the widow had a visit from Petka, my ex-rapist with the blond bristle, the man who threw our sewing machine around. But he must have forgotten all about this drunken exploit; the widow says he was exceedingly friendly. He showed up lugging a beautiful yellow leather, Petka-sized trunk that another man would have had trouble lifting. Spreading out the contents – mostly clothes – he indicated to the widow that she could take whatever she wanted, that everything was meant for her – while ‘nothing, nothing, nothing’ was to go to me, as he made dear. But that was more for show than anything else. After all, what was to prevent the widow from giving me whatever she liked the minute he was gone? He had probably wanted to play Santa Claus for me, to snatch some more of what he calls love, one final, hasty attempt because he let the widow know that his whole troop was moving on and actually said farewell – ‘Do svidanya.’

With a good deal of self-restraint, the widow declined Petka’s largesse and sent him on his way, together with his trunk. Not that she’d been plagued by moral scruples: ‘Why should I be? After all, they carried off my trunk, too, didn’t they?’ And that from a woman of proper bourgeois breeding, from a good German home. No, her reservations were of a purely practical nature: ‘I can’t wear those things. The trunk was obviously taken from one of the neighbouring buildings. If I went out with those clothes on, I’d risk running into their rightful owner.’ So she limited her take to two pairs of shoes – she couldn’t resist, they were exactly her size. Brown street shoes, nondescript and easy to disguise with a little black polish, according to the widow. She wanted to give one of the pairs to me; goodness knows I could use them, since the only shoes I have are the ones I’m wearing. Unfortunately they’re too small.

The afternoon passed quietly. We didn’t see any of our acquaintances, not Anatol or Petka, Grisha, Vanya, Yasha or Andrei the schoolteacher. The major, however, showed up promptly at sunset, along with his chubby Uzbek shadow and someone else – thank God not the surly lieutenant with the hiking pole. No, this time it was a little red-cheeked boy in a blue sailor’s suit, eighteen years old, Soviet navy. Apparently they’ve taken Berlin by sea as well. We certainly have enough lakes around. The sailor looks like a schoolboy; he smiles innocently from ear to ear as he tells me quietly he has a favour to ask.

Please, go ahead! I call him over to the window, through which we can still smell the stench of burning. And then the little sailor asks politely and very like a child whether I would be so kind as to find a girl for him, a nice clean girl, respectable and kind. He’d bring her food, too.