Berlin: A Novel

by Pierre Frei

  Blindly, Jutta groped her way through the thick smoke. She stumbled on the bottom step of a staircase and crawled up, on all fours. No one followed her. Obviously the tenants of the building knew another way out.

  The plaster of the ceiling in the hall had come down, blocking the entrance to the building and revealing the sky above. Acrid smoke from the burning buildings came in through a hole in the wall on the first floor. Someone was gasping for air. She vaguely made out a figure in the lift. A heavy beam had fallen in front of the grating. She tried to raise it - and looked into the infantile face that was usually incapable of showing emotion. Now it was distorted by fear.

  Girders were glowing up on the fourth floor. Burning phosphorus flowed stickily down the lift shaft and ran over the linoleum on the floor of the cabin. making the man inside tread from foot to foot like a dancing bear on a hot iron surface. 'Help me out of here,' he croaked.

  A hit nearby flung her to the floor. She picked herself up. The pressure had burst the door of the porter's lodge open. There were holes which had once been windows in the living-room wall. It was a way out! Behind her, the man imprisoned in the lift desperately rattled the brass bars. She didn't need to kill him, she could just have let it happen. An offer from the devil himself.

  It seemed like a betrayal of Jochen and Didi, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't let him burn to death. She braced herself against the beam. Her shoulder hurt, but she kept pushing. Slowly she got the beam upright. One last effort, and the force of gravity sent it falling the other way. She opened the folding door, and the man staggered out past her.

  Outside, burning rubble was raining from the rooftops. People were protecting themselves with wet blankets, getting the water from burst hydrants. Fragmentation bombs cut down dozens of fugitives. Then the bombers moved away. Jutta stood in the middle of the street. Her red fox fur looked like the skin of a mangy dog. Animals from the nearby Zoological Gardens were wandering around, disorientated. A female gorilla was carrying her infant in the charred stumps of her arms. The phosphorus had burnt her hands off. Drechsel lay dead on a black heap of snow on the pavement. His brown uniform had been shredded by bomb splinters, and one of the zoo's jackals was licking his empty, infantile face.

  'They won't drop bombs at Christmas.' Frowein the greengrocer had heard it from a customer who had heard it from her dressmaker, whose brother knew someone in counter-intelligence. And they have people close to the enemy, believe you me.'

  'Not spending Christmas in the cellar would be nice,' Jutta sighed. She put the pound of apples and the few nuts to which she was entitled in her shopping bag along with a red cabbage. Next door in Otto's: Coffee Roasters, which had had nothing to roast for ages, there was a special ration of real coffee and even a few ginger biscuits. She hung her net bag in the back room of the bookshop, where her boss was unwrapping something. A bony object came into view. 'What's that supposed to be?' asked Jutta, surprised.

  Diana Gerold was slightly nettled. A goose, of course.' Her friend in the Swiss Embassy had proved useful yet again. 'Rather a thin one, I'll admit, but it will do for the three of us. Can we have Christmas dinner at your place, Jutta? Our stove isn't working. A bomb hit the gas mains.' She opened the Morgenpost. 'Electricity supply guaranteed for Christmas,' it said on page two. 'We can roast the bird in your electric oven. Anja still has a bottle of cherry brandy left from last Christmas. But we'd have to stay the night, there'll be no transport running late.'

  'I can contribute a bottle of burgundy from Father's last stocks.'

  The shop door opened. Herr Lesch was returning two library books. 'Time this mess was sorted out,' he grumbled. 'Not a new Hercule Poirot to be had anywhere. Do you think Agatha Christie is still writing?'

  'We'll find out after the Final Victory.'

  'Do you believe in that?'

  'What, in Agatha Christie?'

  Herr Lesch muttered something and left the shop. Outside, he peered in through the display window, which had been cracked in many places and repaired with sticky tape, and watched Jutta open the last little window on the Advent calendar. It was 24 December 1944.

  Anja Schmitt came at midday, wearing a black cloth coat with a grey astrakhan collar in honour of the occasion, along with fur cap and boots. She looked like a pretty Cossack boy. 'From my Petersburg nights,' she laughed. She had once had an affair with a White Russian princess. Diana Gerold preferred her loden coat and hunter's hat, which made her resemble the mistress of a country estate. Jutta had restored her red fox coat to its former glory with shampoo and a hairdryer. You had to ignore the bare, burnt patches. Pretending was part of survival.

  'So let's shut up shop.' Frau Gerold bolted the shop door on the inside and put the security bar in front of it. They left the bookshop through the back door. Here too she closed all three locks, which she never usually did. Jutta watched in surprise. 'Shall we go the long way round through the Fischtal park? We never get any fresh air these days.'

  Fresh snow had fallen, giving the area something of a Christmassy look. The fir trees in the park were dusted white. Ice crystals glittered in the late afternoon sun. Children slid down the slope on their toboggans, squealing. A lad of fifteen in the uniform of a 'Luftwaffe auxiliary' passed them on one ski. He had turned up his empty trouser leg.

  The sun sank red in the haze. It promised to be a bright, cold night. The three women walked faster. Freezing, Jutta pulled the fur close around her. 'We'll soon warm up at home. I have a little coke left in the cellar.'

  An organ rang out from the church by the U-Bahn station. Professor Heit- mann was playing Bach. The interior of the brick building was crammed. Held, the sexton, had opened the main door wide so that those left outside could share the service and the organ music. Pastor Gess was preaching the Christmas sermon. The birth of Our Lord was an innocuous subject: even the Gestapo spy in the third pew couldn't find anything objectionable in it.

  Now it was winter Jutta didn't go to the trouble of taking the blackout paper off the windows when she left the apartment in the morning, so she could switch the light on as soon as she got in without having the air-raid warden yell, 'Lights out!' She opened the flap of the boiler in the kitchen and poured in plenty of coke. 'We won't be mean with it today.'

  A cherry brandy to warm us up? Find me some glasses, Jutta.' Anja poured the liqueur.

  Jutta raised her glass to the others, and turned on the oven. Then they prepared the goose, peeled apples and potatoes, and cut up the red cabbage, which was simmered with the remnants of some bacon rind.

  The candles in the living room were generally used as emergency lighting when the power was off. Jutta held a fir twig in their flames. The sharp scent of its ethereal oil had something festive about it, and soon mingled with the smell of the roast. Anja poured more cherry brandy, and Jutta retreated into Jochen's armchair with her glass. She wanted to be by herself for a moment. Then the telephone rang. It was her father with good wishes for Christmas, asking if she wouldn't come round to them. 'It's not seven yet, and you could be in Kopenick at nine if there isn't an air raid.'

  'I have visitors here, and a goose in the oven. We're going to drink your burgundy. Happy Christmas, and to Mother too.' She hung up before her mother could take the receiver. She couldn't bear her mournful remarks just now.

  Anja was looking at the photograph of the 1938 class expedition beside the balcony door. 'He was good-looking, your husband. Do you miss him very much?'

  'It's all so long ago.' She didn't want to talk about it.

  'Shall we sacrifice a little of the wine for the gravy?' Diana changed the subject, guessing how she must feel.

  'I still have a stock cube. We can dissolve it in boiling water and use that.'

  The goose was tough and had no flavour. The red cabbage tasted considerably better. Jutta had put a few cloves in it. 'Happy Christmas,' she toasted the other two.

  'Same to you,' said Anja cheerfully.

  They enjoyed the full red burgundy and chewed
the goose with resignation. 'Could have been worse,' Diana comforted her fellow diners. They had ginger biscuits and coffee for dessert. Jutta switched on the People's Radio, and then switched it off again. The Vienna Boys' Choir singing 'Silent Night' was just too much. Instead, she wound up the portable gramophone and brought some long-forgotten records out of the bookcase. She put on a Charleston and danced skilfully through the room with it. Anja followed her example. Diana watched, smiling. When the gramophone played a tango she took Jutta in her arms and led her through the steps.

  They drank cherry brandy, and became cheerful. Anja had found a record of Don Cossack music, and did a Cossack dance with her knees bent. And after that, at the Princess's, there was vodka and caviar and lots of Russian soul stuff,' she remembered.

  'We don't plan to hang around for any of that this time,' said Diana, turning to Jutta. Anja and I are going to Hesse tomorrow. My brother has a farm there. We'd rather be at the American end when they roll in. Why not come with us?'

  'I can't leave my parents on their own.'

  'If you feel like carrying on with the bookshop .'Diana Gerold put the keys on the table.

  The candles had burned down, the bottle of cherry brandy was empty. Christmas was over. Jutta switched the ceiling light on. It had a sobering effect. 'I'll make up the bed for you two, and I'll sleep on the couch.'

  'There's room in the bed for three,' said Diana.

  Jutta lay there between the two friends, abandoning herself to their gentle caresses, but she felt lonelier than she had ever been.

  One bright February night in early 1945, hundreds of British Lancaster bombers carried out an air raid on Berlin, killing several thousand women, children and old men. His Britannic Majesty's Air Marshal Arthur'Bomber' Harris was rehearsing for Dresden.

  The firestorm swept through the ruins of Berlin Mitte. Those who were not vaporized in the heat were torn apart by bombs. In the cellar of Number 47 Wilskistrasse, the inferno sounded like a distant earthquake. Suppose it came closer? Fear knotted Jutta's stomach. Frau Reiche from the first floor left was clinging to a bag containing the family papers. Frau Fritz from next door held her two small children in her arms. Lieutenant Kolbe, first floor on the right, came down the cellar steps. In civilian life he was an architect, and he was now on leave. 'This you have to see. Come on up with me. It's all quiet outside.' His wife fearfully shook her head.

  Jutta plucked up courage. The sky in the east was pulsating and blood red. To the north, the velvety, black sky was a background for the bright 'Christmas trees', the light markings set by pilot planes. Kolbe lit a cigarette. 'They're sparing the suburbs. They don't want to destroy their own future quarters.' He threw the cigarette away and took Jutta by the hips. 'A little quickie standing here? Just to cheer us up?' His prick pressed against her thigh.

  'Please don't, Herr Kolbe.'

  'My wife puts it about more generously than that. I suppose you know better than I do how many uniformed visitors she has. Makes you glad to get back to the Front.'

  'I don't know what you're talking about.' Jutta freed herself and went back down to the cellar. She could have spared herself the journey. The siren on the roof opposite sounded the all clear.

  Her apartment was cold and inhospitable. The coal merchant had held out the prospect of a few briquettes at the weekend, but she hated standing in line almost as much as she hated shivering in a strange cellar if the alarm sounded for an air raid while she was there. She switched on the lamp. It flickered a couple of times and went out. Power cut.

  Luckily the water in the electric storage tank was still warm. She took a candle into the bathroom and ran the tub full. The hot water warmed her freezing body and gave her a feeling of safety. She wrapped herself in a big bath towel and went to bed. I'll open the bookshop again tomorrow, she thought as she went to sleep, but she knew that she wouldn't.

  Spring arrived, and with it the hesitant green of the acacia trees, and mild temperatures. The people in the cellar of Number 47 Wilskistrasse were frozen, but with fear rather than cold. They were eating potatoes left behind by a fellow tenant who had long ago fled to the country. Herr von Hanke, a cultivated man of seventy, always with a tie and a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, divided them up. 'Please, dear lady, be reasonable,' he told old Frau Mobich. 'Who knows how long they'll have to last?'

  'But I'm so dreadfully hungry,' sobbed the old lady. Jutta gave her a few potatoes from her own ration. They cooked the tubers on a burner they had found in her locker in the cellar along with a few sticks of white coal. Mementoes of those Bohemian days in the railway car with Jochen.

  They could be here any time. Then what?' wailed the old woman.

  'Well, I don't suppose you have anything to fear yourself, ma'am.' Lieutenant Kolbe smirked.

  Herr von Hanke cleared his throat, embarrassed. 'The Russians are civilized people like us. I know them well. I was attache to the Imperial German Embassy in St Petersburg in 1912, and made many friends there. As it happens I speak Russian, although French was the language preferred in high society.'

  'You'll have a chance to try both out soon,' Jutta laughed.

  The thunder of artillery over the last few days had grown fainter. Instead, they could hear the tack-tack-tack of machine guns. 'Time I changed my clothes,' announced Lieutenant Kolbe. 'What does a man of the world wear to receive the Russians?'

  A suit in sober colours. No dinner jacket until after six in the evening,' Jutta suggested. The telephone in her apartment was still working. She dialled her parents' number. Her father, in great distress, answered. She could hear yelling and shooting in the background. 'Jutta? This is dreadful - they're here.'

  'Listen. Vati, you must keep calm and be friendly. Do what they ask, and don't show any fear. It won't be all that bad. I'll call again when it's over.'

  It hadn't even begun yet in Onkel Toms Hutte. Low-flying aircraft roared over the district for two days, and still nothing happened. The rattle of tanks could be heard. Three T34s crawled up Riemeister Strasse and came to a grinding halt outside the U-Bahn station. Their gun turrets swivelled menacingly back and forth. Someone on the top floor of Sommerfeld's cafe waved a white sheet on a broomstick. Pillow cases, towels and napkins followed suit from the windows of the surrounding buildings. The hatch of one of the monster vehicles was raised, and a round face under a leather helmet came into view. The tank soldier waved, laughing. There was applause from behind the white flags. The soldier disappeared, the hatch closed, the colossus started moving again.

  They heard the applause down in the cellar. 'Well, there we are,' said Herr von Hanke, and he pulled out his white silk handkerchief and went up the steps. Jutta and a few of the others hesitantly followed. Old Frau Mobich ran past them. They have fresh vegetables at Frowein's!' she cried, her expression ecstatic.

  A jeep stopped, and a personnel carrier behind it. An officer jumped down from the jeep, a dark, stocky man with short legs. Herr von Hanke addressed him courteously in Russian. It was the Russian of the Tsarist period: a deadly insult. The officer drew his pistol and shot the old man in the forehead. He kicked the corpse aside with his boot. Then his gaze fell on Jutta. He shouted an order. Two soldiers grabbed the struggling woman, dragged her to the jeep, threw her across the hot radiator bearing the red star and held her firmly there, grinning. Panting, the officer writhed on top of her. He stank of vodka and garlic. She felt nothing, convincing herself that she wasn't the one being raped, it was some other woman, a stranger. The officer finished quickly, let her go and got back into the jeep. He drove off without a moment's thought as she fell into the road.

  A soldier helped her up, a boy with a friendly smile. She thanked him, smoothed down her dress, turned to go back to the others. He held on to her, saying something in a halting voice: it sounded like a request. Another time, right?' she promised, just for something to say. His eyes narrowed. He struck her in the face and dragged her into the bushes in front of the building. This one took a long time. The
rapist forced her into more and more contorted positions. He was enjoying his victory to the full. Afterwards, she staggered into the building, exhausted. At least you've got it behind you,' Frau Reiche consoled her.

  'You think so?' said Jutta. Swaying, she made her way into her apartment and tore her clothes off. She stood in the bathtub and turned on the shower. A trickle of brown fluid was all that came out. 'Oh, bloody shit!' The bad language did her good. She rubbed herself with a towel and the pathetic remnant of some eau-de-Cologne. It gave her the illusion of being clean.

  Frau Reiche appeared with a rubber sheet. 'Memento of Grandpa. He wasn't entirely leak-proof at the end,' she said, trying to strike a humorous note. She spread the rubber sheet on the bed. 'Now, lie down.' She had brought an enema syringe and a bottle of seltzer water with her. 'My last. It may help.' There was a pop as she opened the bottle. 'Open your legs.' The seltzer water was cold, and the carbonic acid prickled like little pins. After the douche Jutta felt better.

  The motorized advance party was followed by shaggy little horses pulling carts, and soldiers stiff with dirt. Even their own generals saw them not as men, but as primitive human material to be sacrificed in their thousands in achieving some insignificant strategic advantage, or driven into the minefields, clearing a path as they were blown up. Thin cows trotted behind the carts, and chickens cackled in wicker cages. The convoy stopped. Soon smoke was rising from fires built in the road. A pockmarked Asiatic soldier sawed the head off a chicken and let the blood drain from the flapping body before he plucked it. Another cut thick slices of black bread and handed them out to the hungry children. Then he picked up his accordion and began to play.

  Jutta dressed: long trousers, a tight belt, a high-necked sweater. As if that would be any use. She put a sharp kitchen knife in her belt. 'I'm going to kill the next one,' she said.