A Woman in Berlin : Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary

by Marta Hillers

  He promises in a low voice and carries me in both arms like a bundle through the hall. I have no idea which of the four he is, what he looks like. In the dark front room with hardly any windows he unloads me on the former tenant’s bare bedstead. Then he shouts a few short phrases to the others, shuts the door and lies down beside me in the dark. I’m miserably cold, I beg and plead for him to let me back into the made–up bed in the next room. He refuses, seemingly afraid the widow might come back. Not until half an hour later, when things are quiet, can I get him to move there.

  His automatic clanks against the bedpost; he’s hung his cap on the bedpost knob. The tallow light has gone on burning quietly, for itself. Petka – that’s his name – has a pointy head, a widow’s peak of bristly blond hair, it feels like the nap on a sofa. A gigantic man, broad as a bear, with the arms of a lumber jack and white teeth. I’m so tired, exhausted, I barely know where I am. Petka fumbles around, tells me he’s from Siberia – well, well. Now he’s even taken off his boots. I feel dizzy, I’m only half present, and that half is no longer resisting. It falls against the hard body smelling of curd soap. Peace at last, darkness, sleep.

  At four o’clock I hear the crowing of a rooster, part of the supply train. Right away I’m wide awake, pull my arm out from under Petka. He smiles, showing his white teeth. He gets up quickly, explaining that he has guard duty, but he’ll definitely be back at seven, absolutely! In parting he practically crushes my fingers.

  I crawl back under the blanket and sleep fitfully, in fifteen minute intervals. Once I think I hear the word ‘Help!’ and jump up but it was only the rooster. Now the cow is mooing as well. I unwrap our alarm clock (it’s really the widow’s, but I now consider myself part of the household) – just to be safe we keep it wrapped in a terry cloth towel, far back in the chest. We never look at it unless we’re completely alone and safe. We don’t want to lose it to some Ivan.

  It is five o’clock. I can’t sleep any more. I get up and smooth out the bed, shove the crates and chairs back against the rear door with its broken lock, clear the empty bottles the men have left behind and check to see whether we still have our burgundy in the kitchen cupboard, hidden in the old bucket. Thank God they didn’t find that.

  A reddish–grey light shining through the window means the war is still on outside. A distant rumble and hum. The front is now rolling into the centre of town. I get dressed, wash myself as best I can, and listen carefully to the morning quiet of the stairwell. Nothing but silence and emptiness. If only I knew where the widow had sneaked off to! I don’t dare knock on any doors, don’t want to frighten anyone.

  The next time I prick up my ears, I hear voices. I run up, they’re already coming my way, a whole group of women, with the widow in the lead, sobbing lamentably, ‘Don’t be angry with me!’ (As of yesterday we’ve been calling each other by the familiar ‘du’.) A number of women around her are sobbing as well. I just laugh in the face of all the lamentation: ‘What’s the matter, I’m alive, aren’t I? Life goes on!’

  As we head up to the next floor, to the booksellers’, the widow whispers in my ear about how she knocked on several doors and asked people to take us in and give us shelter for the night. In vain. No one opened. At the postmaster’s they hissed through the chained door: ‘The girl? That would be asking for trouble. No, we don’t want to be luring them this way!’ After that it was pitch–dark when some Russian came up and grabbed her, threw her on the floorboards... A mere child, she whispers, no beard at all, smooth–skinned and inexperienced – a smile breaks through her face, so swollen with sobbing. I don’t know her age exactly. I’m not even sure she would tell me, probably between forty and fifty, she dyes her hair. But for them any woman will do, when they’re grabbing in the dark.

  Some fifteen people have holed up at the booksellers’, bringing their bedclothes and spreading out on the sofas, the floor, wherever there’s room. The doors of the apartment has patent deadbolts and extra reinforcements anchored in the floor. On top of that the front door has a metal backing on the inside.

  We sit around the unfamiliar kitchen table, all of us hollow eyed, greenish pale, worn out for lack of sleep. We speak in whispers, our breathing is forced, we gulp down the hot malt coffee (which the bookseller cooked on the stove over a fire of Nazi literature, as he tells us).

  We keep staring at the back door, locked and barricaded, hoping it will hold. Hungry, I stuff myself with someone else’s bread. We hear steps coming up the back stairs, then those unfamiliar sounds, to our ears so coarse and animal–like. The table freezes, falls silent. We stop chewing, hold our breath. Hands clenched over hearts. Eyes flickering wildly. Then silence once again as the steps fade away. Someone whispers, ‘If things go on like this...’

  No one answers. The refugee girl from Königsberg throws herself across the table, crying out: ‘I can’t take any more! I’m going to end it all!’ She’d been through it several times in the night, up under the roof, where she had fled an entire troop of pursuers. Her hair in tangles, covering her face, she refuses to eat or drink.

  We sit, wait, listen as the missiles pipe away overhead like an organ. Shots whip through our street. It’s seven o’clock by the time I creep down to our apartment, together with the widow, carefully checking to see the stair landings are secure. We stop to listen outside our door, which I left ajar – when suddenly it opens from inside.

  A uniform. Shock. The widow clutches my arm. Then a sigh of relief – it’s only Petka.

  The widow listens to our conversation without saying a word. A minute later I, too, am standing there speechless. Petka is beaming at me, his small blue eyes glittering. He shakes my hands, assuring me that he missed me while he was away, that he hurried over as fast as he could after guard duty, that he searched the entire apartment for me, that he’s happy, so happy to see me again. And he presses and squeezes my fingers with his lumber jack paws, so hard I have to pull them away. I stand there like an idiot, in the face of these unambiguous symptoms, listen to this Petka–Romeo babble on, until he finally, finally disappears – promising he’ll be back soon, very soon, just as soon as he can.

  I’m rooted in place, open–mouthed. The widow didn’t understand a word Petka was saying, but she could read his face perfectly, she knew what was up. She shakes her head. ‘Well...’ Both of us are completely stunned.

  And now I’m sitting here at our kitchen table. I’ve just refilled my pen with ink and am writing, writing, writing all this confusion out of my head and heart. Where will this end? What will become of us? I feel so dirty, I don’t want to touch anything, least of all my own skin. What I’d give for a bath or at least some decent soap and plenty of water. That’s it enough of these fantasies.

  I remember the strange vision I had this morning, something like a day dream, while I was trying in vain to fall asleep after Petka left. It was as if I were flat on my bed and seeing myself lying there when a luminous white being rose from my body, a kind of angel, but without wings, that floated high into the air. Even now as I’m writing this I can still feel that sense of rising up and floating. Of course, it’s just a fantasy, a pipe dream, a means of escape – my true self simply leaving my body behind, my poor, besmirched, abused body. Breaking away and floating off, unblemished, into a white beyond. It can’t be me that this is happening to, so I’m expelling it all from me. Could I be raving? But my head feels cool at the moment, my hands heavy and calm.

  TUESDAY, 1 MAY 1945, 3 P.M. LOOKING BACK ON SATURDAY

  I haven’t written since Saturday morning, 28 April – three days ago, three days crammed with so many frenzied images, fears and feelings that I don’t know where to begin, what to say. We’re deep in the muck now, very deep. Every minute of life comes at a high price. The storm is passing overhead, and we are leaves quaking in the whirlwind, with no idea where we’re being blown.

  An eternity has passed since then. Today is May Day, and the war is still on. I’m sitting in the armchair in the front room. T
he widow’s tenant is here too, lying in bed – Herr Pauli, now discharged from the Volkssturm. He showed up on Saturday, without warning, carrying a sixteen–pound lump of butter wrapped in a towel. At the moment he’s sick with neuralgia.

  The wind is whistling through the windows, tugging and rattling the scraps of cardboard tacked on so pitifully, the daylight comes flickering inside, making the room now bright, now dark. But it’s always bitter cold. I’ve wrapped myself in a wool blanket and am writing with numb fingers while Herr Pauli sleeps and the widow wanders through the building looking for candles.

  Russian sounds come bouncing in from outside. Some Ivan is talking to his horses, which they treat far better than they do us, when they talk to the animals their voices sound warm, even human. Now and then the horses’ scent comes wafting in as well, and you can hear a chain clinking. Somewhere someone is playing an accordion.

  I peer through the flapping card board. The army is camped outside, horses on the pavements, wagons, drinking pails, boxes of oats and hay, trampled horse manure, cow pats. A small fire, stoked with broken chairs is burning in the entranceway across the street. The Russians crouch around it in quilted jackets.

  My hands are shaking, my feet are ice. Yesterday a German grenade broke the last panes we had. Now the apartment is completely defenceless against the east wind. Good thing it’s not January.

  Our walls are riddled with holes. Inside we scurry back and forth, listening anxiously to the clamour outside, gritting our teeth at every new noise. The splintered back door is open, we gave up barricading it long ago. Men are forever traipsing down the hall, through the kitchen, in and out of our two rooms. Half an hour ago a complete stranger showed up, a stubborn dog, who wanted me but was chased away. As he left he threatened: ‘I’ll be back.’

  What does it mean – rape? When I said the word for the first time aloud, Friday evening in the basement, it sent shivers down my spine. Now I can think it and write it with an untrembling hand, say it out loud to get used to hearing it said. It sounds like the absolute worst, the end of everything but it’s not.

  Saturday afternoon around three, two men banged on the front door with their fists and weapons, shouting in raw voices, kicking the wood. The widow opened. She’s always worried about her lock. Two grey–haired soldiers come careening in, drunk. They thrust their automatics through one of the hall windows, shattering the last remaining pane and sending the shards clattering into the courtyard. Then they tear the blackout shades to shreds, kick the old grandfather clock.

  One of them grabs hold of me and shoves me into the front room, pushing the widow out of the way. Without a word the other plants himself by the front door and points his rifle at the widow, keeping her in check. He doesn’t touch her.

  The one shoving me is an older man with grey stubble, reeking of alcohol and horses. He carefully closes the door behind him and, not finding any key, slides the wing Chair against the door. He seems not even to see his pre y, so that when he strikes she is all the more startled as he knocks her onto the bedstead. Eyes dosed, teeth clenched.

  No sound. Only an involuntary grinding of teeth when my underclothes are ripped apart. The last untorn ones I had.

  Suddenly his finger is on my mouth, stinking of horse and tobacco. I open my eyes. A stranger’s hands expertly pulling apart my jaw. Eye to eye. Then with great deliberation he drops a gob of gathered spit into my mouth.

  I’m numb. Not with disgust, only cold. My spine is frozen: icy, dizzy shivers around the back of my head. I feel myself gliding and falling, down, down, through the pillows and the floorboards. So that’s what it means to sink into the ground.

  Once more eye to eye. The stranger’s lips open, yellow teeth, one in front half broken off. The corners of the mouth lift, tiny wrinkles radiate from the corners of his eyes. The man is smiling.

  Before leaving he fishes something out of his trouser pocket, thumps it down on the nightstand without a word, pulls the chair aside and slams the door shut behind him. A crumpled pack of Russian cigarettes, only a few left. My pay.

  I stand up – dizzy, nauseated. My ragged clothes tumble to my feet. I stagger through the hall, past the sobbing widow, into the bathroom. I throw up. My face green in the mirror, my vomit in the basin. I sit on the edge of the bathtub, without daring to flush, since I’m still gagging and there’s so little water left in the bucket.

  Damn this to hell! I say it out loud. Then I make up my mind.

  No question about it: I have to find a single wo1f to keep away the pack. An officer, as high–ranking as possible, a commandant, a general, whatever I can manage. After all, what are my brains for, my little knowledge of the enemy language?

  As soon as I am able to move again, I grab a bucket and drag myself down the stairs and out onto the street. I wander up and down, peering into the courtyards, keeping my eyes open, then go back into our stairwell, very cautiously. I practise the sentences I will use to address an officer, wondering if I don’t look too green and miserable to be attractive. Physically I feel a little better, though, now that I am doing something, planning something, determined to be more than mere mute booty, a spoil of war.

  For half an hour there’s nothing – no epaulettes with stars. I don’t know their rankings and insignia, only that the officers wear stars on their caps and generally have overcoats. But all I see is a shabby mass of uniform green. I’m just about to give up for the day. am already knocking at our door, when I see a man with stars coming out of an apartment across the street (the former tenant having managed to escape just in time). Tall, dark hair, well fed. He sees me with the bucket, then laughs and says in broken German, ‘Du, Frau.’ I laugh back and shower him with my best Russian. He’s delighted to hear his own language. We chatter away, silly, just fooling around, and I learn that he’s a sub lieutenant. Finally we arrange to meet that night, at 7p.m. at the widow’s. He’s busy until then. His name is Anatol So–and–so – a Ukrainian.’

  Will you definitely come?’

  ‘Of course,’ he says, reproachfully. ‘As fast as I can.’

  As it happened, another man showed up first, around 5p.m., someone I’d almost forgotten, Petka from the previous night, with the blond bristle and the Romeo babble. He’s brought two buddies, too, whom he introduces as Grisha and Yasha. Soon all three are sitting at our round table, like a bunch of farm boys invited into a house well above their class. Petka acts as if he’s at home, showing me off to the others with clear pride of possession. The three men stretch out on the armchairs, they feel good. Yasha pulls out a bottle of vodka, and Grisha produces some herring and bread wrapped in a greasy page of Pravda (the front page – unfortunately it’s old). Petka calls for glasses as if he were master of the house. He pours the vodka, then slams his fist on the table and commands, ‘Vypit’ nado!’ You have to drink up!

  The widow and I, and even Herr Pauli, who showed up out of the blue ha1f an hour earlier, have no choice but to sit and drink with the boys. Petka sets a slice of dark, moist bread on the table in front of each of us, then divides up the herring, right there on the polished mahogany, using his thumb to press it onto the bread, all the while beaming at us as if this were a special favour and delicacy.

  The widow, appalled, runs for some plates. Grisha is the silent type with a permanent smirk, his voice has a deep rasp. He makes sure each person receives an equal portion of bread and herrings. Yasha is short, with a crew cut, he smiles and nods all around. Both are from Kharkov. Little by little I start talking to them, acting as interpreter between them and Herr Pauli. We drink one another’s health. Petka from Siberia is loud and fully at ease.

  I keep listening for the door and checking the dainty lady’s wristwatch on Yasha’s arm. Any minute I expect sub lieutenant Anatol to show up as arranged. I’m worried, because I suspect there’ll be a fight. Petka is strong as an ox, of course, and clean, but he’s primitive, uncouth – no protection. A sub–lieutenant, on the other hand, ought to guarantee a kind of taboo, or
so I imagine. My mind is firmly made up. I’ll think of somethin g when the time comes. I grin to myself in secret, feel as if I’m performing on the stage. I couldn’t care less about the lot of them! I’ve never been so removed from myself, so alienated. All my feelings seem dead, except for the drive to live. They shall not destroy me.

  Meanwhile Grisha has let it be known that he’s an ‘accountant’. Then Herr Pauli, who works as an industrial salesman, makes a similar declaration. Both men have drunk a good deal, and they fall into an embrace, shouting for joy. ‘Me accountant, you accountant, we accountants!’ And the first kiss of German–Russian brotherhood smacks across Herr Pauli’s cheek. Soon the widow’s tenant is completely drunk. He calls out to us, elated, ‘These guys are great, these Russians, full of vim and vigour!’

  Another round. Here’s to international accountancy. Now even the widow is feeling merry, for the moment having forgotten about the herring being sawn right on her polished table. (None of the boys bother with the plates.) I drink very measuredly, secretly switching glasses, I want to keep my wits about me for later. Still, the mirth at the table is tainted, especially for us two women – we want to forget what happened three hours before.

  Outside, the sun is setting. Yasha and Petka sing a melancholy song, with Grisha chiming in. Herr Pauli is in a blessedly relaxed mood. It’s a bit much for him, after all, only this morning he was courting death with the Volkssturm, until his troop had the sense to disband and, lacking both weapons and any orders to the contrary, dismissed themselves and went home. Suddenly he belches, falls forward and throws up on the carpet. The widow and fellow accountant Grisha immediately spirit him into the bathroom. The others shake their heads, express their sympathy. Then Herr Pauli crumples into bed in his room next door, where he spends the rest of the day, and, as it turns out, the foreseeable future. A lame duck – probably his subconscious wants him that way. Neuralgia of the soul. Even so, his simple male presence keeps things somewhat in check. The widow swears by him and his rare pronouncements about the world situation and massages his back.