A Woman in Berlin

by Marta Hillers

  That turns out to please him immensely. He repeats my words, sullenly, tenaciously: ‘Yes – that’s good – just like dogs – very good – the way dogs love – just like dogs love.’ Meanwhile both of us are so exhausted we fall asleep for a few minutes, then he starts rooting around and pushing again… I’m so sore, so wrecked; I go on resisting, stupefied, half-asleep. His lips are very cold.

  Around 5 a.m., at the first cockcrow, he gets up, with difficulty, rolls up his trouser leg and pulls the grubby bandage off his jagged wound. I shrink back, involuntarily, then ask, ‘Can I help?’ He shakes his head, stares at me a while – then spits right in front of my bed, spits contempt. He leaves. One nightmare fades away. I sleep like a log for three hours more.

  TUESDAY, 1 MAY 1945, AFTERNOON

  We started off anxious and apprehensive, sitting in the kitchen from 8 a.m. on, already worn out, waiting for whatever new evil the day might bring. But it began the same as always. Suddenly the kitchen was full of men – some familiar, some we’d never seen. One dressed in a white smock introduced himself as a baker, and quietly promised flour and bread, much flour and much bread, if I… (most of them say ‘love’ or even ‘marry’ or sometimes simply ‘sleep with’, but all this man did was look off to the side).

  Some shouting came up from the street, and they all rushed out of the kitchen. A little later they were lined up in two rows, right in full view under the maple tree. Anatol was pacing in front of them, every inch the sub lieutenant, but clearly in high spirits: he was giving a speech, his hands stuck in the pockets of his leather jacket. I could make out a few bits and pieces: ‘The first of May… victory at hand… enjoy yourselves but remember what Comrade Stalin has decreed.’ etc. Then he gave his men a roguish wink, and the men grinned back. Andrei stepped up, asked a question and got an answer. Two or three others raised their hands as well, just like in school, then they started asking questions, and speaking without restraint. I saw no signs of military discipline – no tight ranks or smart saluting. Comrade Sub lieutenant was acting very comradely indeed. Throughout the ceremony the katyushas by the school kept howling away, leaving trails of fire across the sulphur-yellow sky.

  I was miserable, sore, barely dragging myself around. The widow got her medicine chest out from the crawl space where she’d hidden it, and gave me a tin with some remnants of Vaseline.

  I couldn’t help thinking about how good I’d had it, until now – the fact that love had always been a pleasure and never a pain. I had never been forced, nor had I ever had to force myself. Everything had been good the way it was. But what’s making me so miserable right now is not so much the excess itself, extreme though it is; it’s the fact that my body has been mistreated, taken against its will and pain is how it responds to the abuse.

  I’m reminded of a girlfriend from school, now married, who confessed to me at the beginning of the war that in a certain way she felt physically better without her husband, who had been drafted, than she had earlier in the marriage. Consummation of the marriage had always been painful and joyless, though she did the best she could to keep this from her husband. That’s probably what they mean by frigid. Her body wasn’t ready. And frigid is what I’ve been during these encounters. It can’t be otherwise, nor should it be; as long as I’m nothing more than a spoil of war I intend to stay dead and numb, without feeling.

  Around noon I was able to save two lives, just by chance. It started when a German, an older man I didn’t know, knocked on our front door and called out for the lady who knows Russian’, meaning me.

  I have to admit I was reluctant to go with him since he was mumbling something about revolvers and shooting, but in the end I followed him downstairs. To my relief I saw that the Russians were Anatol’s men, mostly NCOs. (Thanks to Anatol’s basic instruction I’m now pretty good at distinguishing the ranks.) The elderly postmaster was there as well, in his slippers completely silent, his face to the wall, his shoulders slumped, his head sunk. His wife, beside him, had turned round and kept yammering the same words over and over, very fast.

  What was going on? Apparently the refugee girl who had been lodged at the postmaster’s, who just this past Saturday morning had been moaning to us about not being able to go on any more and ending it all – apparently she’d been caught in the stairwell with a revolver in her coat pocket. She probably brought it all the way from Königsberg, no one really knows for sure. Anyhow, she broke away from her pursuers, raced up the stairs and somehow vanished in the maze of attic rooms. No one’s seen her since. So they ransacked the postmaster’s whole apartment and found – God forbid! – a photo of her… next to a soldier from the SS. The Russians have the picture right there, they show it to me. I have to verify that it is indeed the girl from Königsberg. The SS man could be her fiancé, or most likely her brother, since he has the same large head.

  So the Russians have detained the elderly couple as hostages, now they’ve threatened to shoot them if they don’t produce the girl, if they don’t say where she is hiding.

  I can start by clearing up a misconception. The Russians think the postmaster and his wife are the girl’s parents – evidently these men are still used to proper families, they don’t realize how jumbled and scattered our homes have become, aren’t familiar with our patchwork households. As soon as they learn that the girl was only lodging there, that she was a complete stranger, they change their tone. And right away the old woman, who’s been watching us closely, her frightened eyes going back and forth between the Russians and me – right away she takes advantage of a lull in the conversation and starts cursing and vilifying the girl from Königsberg, hoping to girl in, they’re fed up with her, she’s nothing but trouble, they aren’t surprised at anything. And if the woman knew where the girl was hiding she’d say. After all, she has no reason to keep it a secret. And so on.

  She really would give the girl away, if she could – no doubt about it. She keeps repeating the same nonsense, her voice shaking with fear, while her husband keeps standing there with his face to the wall, impassive and inert.

  Meanwhile I talk and talk, explaining to the Russians that the girl couldn’t possibly have intended to kill any of them, that I myself had heard her say she was planning to commit suicide, which she’s probably long since done it. Maybe they’ll find her body very soon. (The word for suicide – samoubistvo – isn’t in the soldier’s dictionary either. I got Andrei to teach it to me.)

  Little by little the tension eases. I go so far as to portray the postmaster and his wife in a comic light, as a pair of silly old fools who don’t have a clue about anything. In the end the postmaster turns back from the wall, threads of saliva dribbling from his open mouth, just like a baby. The woman is silent, her bright old-lady eyes darting wildly between the Russians and me. Finally they are both allowed to leave, unscathed.

  The Russians instruct me to inform all the civilians in the building that if another weapon is found the entire place will be burned to the ground, according to martial law. And they swear to find the girl and liquidate her.

  My merry vodka-drinkers are completely changed – beyond recognition! They give not the slightest indication of all the times they’ve sat at our little round table and drunk my health. Their happy singing doesn’t mean a thing, evidently; work is work and drink is drink – at least for these three. I better make a note of that, and be careful with them.

  Afterwards I am quite pleased with myself, but also scared. Intervening like that is a good way to attract attention, and sticking out like a sore thumb won’t do me a bit of good. I have to admit that I’m afraid; I’d like to stay hidden. As I was leaving, the German who’d fetched me asked me to translate a Russian phrase he’d heard many times: ‘Gitler durak.’ I told him what it means. ‘Hitler is a fool.’ The Russians say it all the time, triumphantly, as if it were their own discovery.

  WEDNESDAY, 2 MAY 1945, AND THE REST OF TUESDAY

  I spent half of Tuesday afternoon sitting by Herr Pauli’s bed, updat
ing my account. To play it safe I’ve doctored the last few pages of this notebook to look like a German—Russian vocabulary, which I can always show to any Russian who comes bursting in and wants to see what I’m writing. I actually had to do this on one occasion, and was promptly rewarded with praise and a pat on the shoulder.

  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.

  I’d be happy to stay longer. Stepan positively radiates protection. I gaze at him open-mouthed, and in my mind rename him Alyosha, from the Brothers Karamazov. But the widow’s getting restless. She’s concerned about Herr Pauli, all alone in his bed, although it’s clear that our men – especially those who are sick and bedridden – have nothing to fear from the Russians. It’s impossible to imagine one of these soldiers swinging his hips and approaching a man with a whispered, ‘Let’s go.’ They’re all hopelessly normal.

  Seryosha takes the candle and escorts us to the door, pious as a lamb under Stepan’s eye, risking no more than a gentle pinch on my upper arm as we leave.

  We trot downstairs, each with our own can of meat. We hear happy music coming from our apartment and find things there in high gear. Practically all of Anatol’s contingent are camped out in the living room, having let themselves in through the eternally open back door. Somewhere they’ve come up with an accordion and are taking turns. They all try their hand at playing, but none of them really knows how, and the results are as expected. Even so they’re laughing and enjoying themselves – after all, it’s May Day and they want to celebrate. No one knows where Anatol is. They say he’s out on business, he has a lot to take care of.

  We go into Herr Pauli’s bedroom – and find Russians there as well: the sullen lieutenant with his hiking pole covered in badges, and someone else he’s evidently brought along whom he introduces offhandedly as Major —ovich So-and-So. (They have a way of whispering and mumbling both their patronymics and their last names. They want to keep their identities secret, so they never say more than a typical-sounding first name and their rank, which you can figure out anyway if you know what to look for.)

  I stare at the blond lieutenant, full of loathing, and wish him

  elsewhere. He acts as if he doesn’t know me – distant and formal and flawlessly polite. The major he’s brought along is even more polite, leaping to his feet when we enter, bowing as if at a dance lesson, greeting each of us individually. Tall and slender, dark hair, clean uniform. One of his legs drags a little. After a moment I notice a third person in the room, another new face. He has been sitting motionless by the window; now the major calls him over and he steps our way, blinking in the candlelight – an Asian with thick jaws and narrow, swollen eyes. They introduce him as the major’s orderly, and then the man immediately withdraws to his corner by the window where he turns up the collar of his grey woollen coat to help against the wind blowing in from outside.

  Now four of us are sitting around Pauli’s bed: the widow, me, the surly blond lieutenant and the major, who does all the talking. He asks me to translate his polite flourishes and carefully weighed words for Herr Pauli and the widow. He thinks they’re married. As we carry on our exchange, the major and I size each other up furtively. I don’t know what to make of the man, so I keep an eye on him. He offers some cigars that he’s been carrying loose in his jacket pocket. Pauli thanks him, takes two and lights one, puffing away, with help from the major. They smoke a while in peace and quiet; now and then
the major holds the ashtray out for Herr Pauli, very politely. All of a sudden he jumps up and asks if he us disturbing us, in which case he’ll leave right away, at once! And he makes a show of getting ready to leave. No, no, we beg to differ, he’s not bothering us. He sits back down immediately and goes on smoking in silence. A perfect model of etiquette. Another completely new sample from the apparently inexhaustible collection the USSR has sent our way. What’s more, he’s visibly nervous: his hand with the cigar is shaking. Or maybe he has a fever – we’ve just learned that he’s been wounded in the knee. He was in the same hospital as the lieutenant, which is how they know each other. (So the Russians are in the hospital as well. I’d like to know how they managed to squeeze in and where they sent our people who as of last week had filled every bed in every available space.)

  Meanwhile, the glee club has taken its accordion and moved on out of our apartment. Things quieten down, I steal a peek at the lieutenant’s watch. The hands are nearing eleven. The widow, Herr Pauli and I swap glances, unsure what to expect from these guests.

  Now the major gives an order to the Asian by the window, who reaches in his coat pocket and barely manages to pull out… a bona fide bottle of the best German champagne! He places it on the stand next to Pauli’s bed, in the pool of candlelight. In no time the widow is off for glasses, and we clink and sip champagne while the major and the surly lieutenant carry on a quiet conversation that’s evidently not meant for me. Finally the major faces me directly and asks: ‘What do you know about Fascism?’ His voice is as stern and strict as a schoolmaster’s.

  ‘Fascism?’ I stutter.

  ‘Yes, please. Explain the origin of the word. Name the country where this political movement originated.’