Nightmare in Berlin

by Hans Fallada

  ‘That’s right!’ she said. Shivering, she snuggled up more closely to him. ‘It’s cold!’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, it’s cold’, he agreed, and hugged her more tightly.

  Berlin! Back in Berlin again, this beloved city where they had both grown up — he thirty years earlier than she, it’s true — this bustling, restless place glittering with lights! Seemingly caught up in an endless frenzy of pleasures and delights — but only if you ignored the grim, sprawling suburbs where the workers lived. Berlin, the city of work! They were going back there again to start a new life: if there was anywhere on earth where there was a chance for them to start again, it was right here in Berlin, a city reduced to rubble, burnt out and bled to death.

  It was half-past two in the morning when the Dolls left the train at the Gesundbrunnen underground station, with the curfew still in place until six o’clock. An icy wind whistled through the station; every pane of glass seemed to be broken, so there was nowhere to shelter from the cold and the wind. They tried various places, but everywhere they were frozen to the bone. Even the little waiting room on the platform, which had somehow survived, was no warmer. The wind rushed in through the broken windows; people were sitting bunched up together on the floor, waiting disconsolately or grimly for the morning.

  Mrs. Doll squeezed in between them, seeking shelter from the icy gusts. But scarcely had she stood her little suitcase on the ground and sat down on it before she had to get up again: she was told she was blocking the passageway! And this woman who always had an answer for everything, who was normally so breezy and spoiling for a fight, now sat down without a word at the outer edge of the clump of people. She pulled her thin coat more tightly around her, trying to shelter from the icy wind that now struck her with full force.

  Doll scraped together the last few strands of tobacco in his pockets, rolled a droopy little cigarette with hands that were trembling from the cold, and ran up and down. He stood for a moment in the ruins of the former station building and looked out at the darkened city, over which a half-moon cast a pale light. All he could make out were ruins.

  ‘Don’t go outside!’ a voice warned him out of the darkness. ‘The curfew hasn’t ended yet. The patrols sometimes shoot without warning.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going out there!’ replied Doll, and flicked the butt of his very last cigarette into the rubble.

  And he thought to himself: What a start! Things always turn out differently from what you expect. What you think is going to be hard is often easy, and something you don’t even think about turns out to be difficult. Standing here for two freezing hours in a completely bombed-out station, with nothing more to smoke — and Alma is ill! Her face looked so yellow …

  He turned round and went back to her.

  ‘I can’t stand it any more’, she said. ‘There must be a first-aid station or a doctor somewhere who can help me. Let’s go and ask someone. I’m frozen stiff, and it hurts so much!’

  ‘But we can’t go into the city. The curfew’s still in place! They say the patrols sometimes shoot without warning.’

  ‘Let them shoot!’ she replied in desperation. ‘If they hit one of us, at least they’ll take us somewhere warm where a doctor can help us.’

  ‘Come on then, Alma’, he replied gently. ‘Let’s see if we can find a first-aid station of some kind, or a doctor. You’re quite right: anything is better than sitting here in the icy cold and freezing half to death.’

  They walked out of the station and picked their way through the rubble. The pale moonlight was more of a hindrance than a help in lighting their path. Doll could see hardly anything with his poor eyes.

  ‘Come on!’ she said as she walked on ahead. ‘That looks like a street turning over there! According to the description, that must be the one where there might be a first-aid station.’

  He followed her, feeling unsure. Suddenly he tripped over an obstacle and fell forward into a dark cavity.

  ‘Look out!’ said his young wife. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’

  ‘Well, there’s a thing!’ an indignant voice called out of the total darkness, speaking in a strong Berlin accent. ‘The wife just lets her husband fall in, and doesn’t even fall in with him. Scandalous, is what I call it!’

  ‘What good would it have done me’, asked Doll, and found himself laughing despite the pain, ‘if my wife had fallen in with me? Where are we, anyway?’

  ‘Gesundbrunnen underground station’, another voice piped up. ‘But the first train isn’t due until half-past six.’

  ‘Thanks!’ he replied, and they went on their way, arms linked now. ‘That was a proper Berlin welcome, a bit painful, but the real deal. I’ve kissed the ground of this city like a conqueror and taken possession of it, and what Berlin had to say about it was pretty good, too.’

  ‘Did you hurt yourself?’

  ‘Not really — just took the skin off my hands a bit and bruised my legs.’

  They dived into the dark sea of ruins, where the moonlight was unable to penetrate all the way down to the bottom of the street canyons. They picked their way slowly forward. The street was deserted; all was deathly silence, apart from their echoing footsteps.

  ‘We’ll hear any patrols coming from a long way off’, said Doll. ‘So we’ll have plenty of time to hide.’

  ‘Hang on’, she replied. ‘This looks like the first-aid station. Strike a match.’

  It really was the first-aid station, but everything was in darkness, and although they rang the bell and knocked on the door, nothing stirred in the dark ground floor of the building.

  ‘I expect the bell isn’t working’, said Doll eventually. ‘What now? Shall we go back to the station?’

  ‘No, no, anything but that! Maybe we can find a doctor, or a police station. A police station would be best. They’d surely let us sit inside so that we could warm up a bit.’

  So they wandered on through the silent city, with not a single light to be seen at any of the windows, and eventually they did find a police station. After they had been ringing the doorbell for some time, a police officer came out.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked brusquely.

  ‘We travelled into town on the train a while ago, and my wife is ill. The first-aid station is shut. Could we come in and sit down until six o’clock, so we can warm up a bit?’

  ‘I can’t let you do that — that’s not allowed’, replied the policeman.

  They resorted to pleading and begging, saying they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way, and would just sit quietly and wait.

  But the policeman wouldn’t budge: ‘If it’s not allowed, I can’t let you do it! And anyway, what are you doing out on the street? There’s still a curfew!’

  ‘Well, in that case why don’t you just arrest us for a bit, constable?’ asked the young woman. ‘Then we won’t be breaking the rules by sitting inside!’

  But the policeman didn’t go for this suggestion either. Instead he shut the door in their faces, leaving the two of them standing on their own again in the dark street.

  They looked at each other, their faces pale and bewildered. Suddenly they noticed that it was getting light, that it was nearly daybreak.

  ‘Then it must be getting on for six. We’ll just carry on walking. Maybe a tram will come along soon.’

  Later on, they were sitting in a bus that was taking workers to a factory for the first shift. The bus wasn’t passing very close to where they lived, but it did take them to a station on the city rail network, where the first train of the day was due to leave soon. But then they encountered a fresh obstacle: the woman in the ticket office had overslept, and the ticket collector on the barrier refused to let anybody through without a ticket: it was against the rules!

  ‘And what if there’s nobody on the ticket counter for another hour?’

  ‘Then nobody goes through in the next hour! R
ules are rules!’

  ‘But we’ve got to get to work!’ protested many of those waiting.

  ‘That’s not my problem! I have to stick to the rules!’

  ‘We’ll see about that!’ cried a local. ‘You lot, come with me!’

  They all followed him through a side entrance, over a fence, across the tracks in semi-darkness, the electrified rails, and then another climb over a wall. The Dolls brought up the rear — she suddenly had pains in her leg, and he was still hurting all over from his tumble. They arrived on the platform out of breath, just in time to see the red taillights of the early train receding into the distance.

  Then came more waiting in the freezing cold, sitting in the moving train feeling utterly exhausted, changing trains and waiting some more … How they longed just to get home at last! They went all dreamy at the mere thought of their couch! Just to lie there quietly, feeling warm again and falling asleep! Blissful oblivion! Dead to the world!

  At last they were there: they got off the train. ‘We’ll be home in five minutes!’ he said, jollying her along.

  ‘At the rate we’re going, it will take us another twenty minutes’, she replied. ‘I wish I knew what was wrong with my leg. It was only a little sore that had opened up a bit because I scratched it … Oh Lord, the bridge has gone, too. It was still there in March!’

  And as they struggled along for what seemed an endless distance, forced by the destruction of the bridge to make a lengthy detour, suddenly all they saw was the destruction all around them — some of it from before that they already knew about, and some that had happened since they left Berlin. They fell silent, rendered speechless by the sight; so much more had been destroyed in the meantime. Doll thought: What am I going to do with her, if the apartment has gone? She is ill and completely demoralised.

  Then they turned the last corner and peered intently. This time he was quicker off the mark: ‘I can see the window boxes on our balcony! And the glazing bars are back in the windows! Alma, our apartment is still there!’

  They looked at each other with a weary smile.

  They had no keys, so had to go and see the caretaker first. Bad news — very bad news! The little caretaker had not been seen since April. Perhaps he had been killed in the fighting, or perhaps he’d been taken prisoner; his wife didn’t know. Not a thing.

  ‘Run off, you mean, done a bunk? No, my ‘usband isn’t the sort of man to run off and leave his wife and children, my ‘usband’s never been that way, Mr. Doll! And anyway, why should ‘e? ‘E never harmed anybody, ‘e didn’t! The keys to the apartment? No, I don’t ‘ave ‘em any more. Somebody turned up from the ‘ousing office a few days ago, a dancer or singer or something to do with the theatre, I don’t rightly know. With mother and child — oh yes, there’s a little one, too! She got the front room tidied up a bit. And the old lady’s still livin’ out the back, Mrs. Schulz, the one you used to let sleep there from time to time, when you went out to the country, so there’d be someone there to keep an eye on things. Well, you’ll see for yourself ‘ow well she’s kept an eye on things, Mrs. Doll, I’m not goin’ to speak out of turn. Anyway, your big cooking pot ‘as gone, the ‘ome Guard people came and fetched that. And if your vacuum cleaner ‘as gone and your books and all your buckets and if the pantry is empty, then I know nothing about that, Mrs. Doll, and you’ll ‘ave to ask Mrs. Schulz — if you can get to see ‘er, that is. She says she is livin’ ‘ere, but what do I know where she lives! I often don’t see ‘er for the ‘ole week, and she’s never paid a penny in rent!’

  Slowly, ever so slowly, the Dolls climbed the four flights of stairs to their apartment. They hadn’t said a word in response to all the bad news, which washed over them like a tidal wave, nor had they spoken a word to each other. It was just that their faces had turned a shade more pale, perhaps, than they were already from illness, a sleepless night on the train, and hours of sitting around in the freezing cold …

  They had to press the doorbell for a long, long time before anything stirred in the apartment — in their own apartment! And they had to be very patient before they were eventually let in by a swarthy young woman, who was scantily clad (but then it was only around eight in the morning).

  ‘Your apartment? This here is my apartment, officially allocated to me by the housing office. I’m afraid there is nothing you can do about it, madam. The three rooms at the front belong to me, and I’ve already spent a few thousand marks to make the place more or less habitable. The other two rooms have been completely gutted by fire — but then you’ll know that for yourself, madam, if this is your apartment! The big room at the back is occupied by Mrs. Schulz, but she’s away at the moment, and I don’t know if she’ll be back today. But anyway, she’s locked everything up. I’m sorry, madam, but it’s very cold in here, and I’m standing around in my nightshirt, and I need to get back into bed. I suggest you go and talk to the housing office, madam. Good day!’

  And with that the door closed, and the Dolls were left standing in the hallway on their own. He took his wife and led her slowly, leaning very heavily on his arm, into the interior of the apartment. But everything was locked up, and they couldn’t get into any of the rooms. So he led her into the kitchen and sat her down on the only kitchen chair (surely there had been three there before?) between the gas stove and the kitchen table.

  His young wife sat there, but she didn’t look young right now, staring blankly ahead without seeing anything, her face a sickly, yellowish colour. Doll took her cold hands between his own, stroked them, and said: ‘It’s not a good start, Alma, I know! But we won’t let it get us down, we’ll find a way to get through it somehow. People like us don’t give up that easily!’

  At these words of encouragement, Mrs. Doll attempted a smile, but it was the feeblest, most pitiful, and heartrending smile Doll had ever seen from his wife. Then she lifted her head and gazed around the kitchen for a long, long time. She studied every single object, and then wailed: ‘My kitchen! Just look around and see if you can see a single thing in this kitchen that doesn’t belong to us! And now this female just gives me the brush-off in the hall and doesn’t even offer me a chair to sit down on in my own apartment!’ Alma seemed on the verge of tears, but her eyes were dry. ‘And did you see? Through the open door I could see our radiogram parked there in her room, and the big yellow armchair you always liked to sit in! Just you wait — I’m off to the housing office right now!’

  But she didn’t go. She stayed sitting where she was, looking blankly into the distance again. She had always been a pampered, radiant woman. And now she was sitting there in her cheap little coat, which didn’t remotely suit her, and which was borrowed anyway, her stockings were all snagged and torn from the mushroom baskets, and her hands and face still bore traces of the long, dirty train journey …

  Everything lost — drained and spent — like the rest of us! thought Doll bleakly, and went on patting her hands mechanically. But then he reflected that it was now up to him to do something; they couldn’t just carry on sitting in the kitchen. A little while later, he took her downstairs again to the kindly caretaker’s wife, and even if they were still sitting in the kitchen down here, at least this kitchen was warm. The last of the Dolls’ coffee beans were roasted in a little skillet. Bread was sliced, and the remaining meat taken out of the tin and arranged neatly on a plate. With a spot of breakfast on the table, the future suddenly looked more hopeful.

  But his young wife seemed not to share the feeling. She said that Doll should go now, right now, and seek out her friend Ben, the German who was half-English, and when Doll resisted, saying he would rather go after breakfast, she became very impatient: she knew for a fact that Ben was an early riser, and always left for work in good time. If he didn’t go immediately he would miss Ben, and they wouldn’t be able to reach him for the rest of the day — and she needed to speak to him now!

  Doll could think of good reasons for refusing
, but his young wife seemed so feverishly agitated and desperate, and he himself was so exhausted and keen to avoid an argument, that he did actually set out to find Ben’s apartment. ‘I’ll expect you back in under half an hour!’ cried the young woman, now quite animated again, ‘and bring Ben with you. I’ll have breakfast waiting for you!’

  It was not possible to do the journey in under half an hour, because the trams that used to run there were not yet back in service. Doll had to walk the whole way — though ‘crawl’ would be a better word.

  The house he was looking for was still standing, at least, but there was no nameplate on the apartment door, and when he rang the bell, nobody came. He finally discovered from the porter that the gentleman had moved out, just a few days earlier. (Somebody moved into our apartment a few days ago, and now Ben has moved out: a promising start to our time in Berlin, I must say!) The porter claimed not to know Ben’s new address. I can’t go back to Alma with this, thought Doll, and with some effort he managed to find an elderly gentleman in the building who knew where Ben was now living, somewhere way out in the city’s smart, new west end. It would take hours to get there, and he had no intention of going now. Back to Alma, then — and breakfast!

  She really had waited breakfast for them, and had even managed to drum up a few cigarettes, albeit at a cost of five marks apiece, which Doll, who had previously been kept well supplied with tobacco by the Russians, found staggering. The news that Ben had moved was received by Alma with composure. ‘We’ll go and see him after breakfast, even though it will be hard for me with my leg. Believe me, my instinct about this is right: Ben will help us in our hour of need, he’ll never forget that business with the concentration camp! You’ll see’, his wife went on, growing steadily more animated, ‘he’s done very well for himself. The fact that he’s moved out to the expensive west end proves it. He’ll have a villa there, for sure. And he’ll be pleased that he’s able to help us!’