by Heinz Rein
So he was left only with his wife and daughter. All his care and affection were now focused upon them, but this life cycle too is endangered daily and hourly, as all human life cycles are. They draw tighter and tighter, they ensnare hearts, the menacing shadows grow blacker and deeper, but the power to which they, yielding and devoted, must bend is not super-terrestrial, it is not the almighty power of God, not the violence of a natural disaster beyond the human will and human prescience. It is the tyrant’s reach for life and certainty, happiness and peace, so from the loss of life and goods grief and resignation do not mature into an inescapable fate, they turn into rage and fury.
During that hour, spent motionless in an armchair in his dark kitchen, Eckert understands why the grief for his lost sons has not completely overshadowed his life, and from that understanding, rage, fury and hatred rise from the unconscious into the consciousness, the inner unease of waiting becomes an explosive disquiet that needs to act. He stands up and pushes the chair away with a violent jerk, shakes off his thoughtfulness, puts on his grey-green uniform cap with the cockade and the golden oak wreath awarded for twenty-five years of service, he pulls on his heavy, dark-grey uniform coat and leaves the flat. He doesn’t yet know, in fact, what he intends to do, but he needs to do something, the waiting has become unbearable and is hollowing him out inside, he is oppressed by the silence and emptiness of the flat, and by the darkness. He stands uncertainly outside the front door of the building and then walks slowly along Residenzstrasse to Osloer Strasse. Here he stops again. The outlines of the electricity poles and the endless lines of the wires cut thin, ghostly figures into the arc of the evening sky, the lights are already burning outside the Gestapo’s Jewish assembly camp in Schulstrasse, and a sentry with a red armband and yellow star is walking up and down in their murky glow.
Eckert turns irresolutely on his heels and is about to go back to Residenzstrasse, which now lies there lifeless and swathed in grey. The blacked-out windows of the houses are like clouded coffins with living creatures moving in them, hoping to outrun death, trying to outwit it by having their air-raid packs – their gas masks and protective goggles – ready to hand, by listening to the radio air-raid warnings and numbing all their senses but their ears. But then Eckert slows his pace, no, he can’t go back to the empty silence of his flat now, but what’s he supposed to do?
He stands alone on the street corner and looks helplessly around. All the energy that twitched within him a moment before has vanished, a paralysing indecision is starting to take hold of him again. Then his eye falls on the telephone box outside the school in Osloer Strasse, and at the same moment the start of his paralysis returns. Making a phone call, that’s what he’s got to do now. He strides quickly towards the rectangular little cabin with the red iron frame and the thick matt-glass panes, opens the door and picks up the receiver. It happens so spontaneously that only now does it occur to him that he doesn’t know the doctor’s phone number. The phone book is in shreds, and it’s so dark in the kiosk that it’s pointless trying to find the number anyway. He steps out of the phone box and closes the door behind him. For a few seconds Eckert is downcast and leans against a street lamp, but then he turns resolutely into Schwedenstrasse, he knows there’s a big restaurant on the right, halfway between Osloerstrasse and Exerzierstrasse, he’ll call from there.
He enters the restaurant with a curt greeting, orders a glass of beer and requests the telephone book. The doctor’s name is Wiedemann, Wiedemann is his name, there are lots of people of that name in the Berlin phone book, four dozen at a guess. Slowly and conscientiously his finger glides from line to line, architect, artists’ equipment shop, painter, tobacconist, then he finds him, at the foot of the first column. ‘Wiedemann, Dr med., Heinrich, dermatologist, Berlin SW 68, Ritterstr. 44, 17 48 64.’ Eckert walks to the phone and turns the dial, one, seven, four, eight, six, four, the engaged tone hums, Eckert hangs up and tries again a few minutes later. It’s fruitless again, even after the first two turns of the dial the deep hum of the engaged tone drones into the receiver. Three more attempts, at short intervals, produce the same result.
The landlord sees Eckert’s helplessness and tells him that all connections through the central and southern exchanges have been disabled, the air raid … Eckert has stopped listening, throws a fifty-pfennig piece down on the metal counter and leaves the pub. An urge has welled up within him to speak to Dr Wiedemann today, he himself doesn’t really know what he expects from it, but the urge is irresistible. On the corner with Koloniestrasse he jumps onto the 88, rides as far as Gesundbrunnen and then switches to the underground. ‘Train travel irregular’, he reads mechanically, ‘interruption between Alexanderplatz and Kottbuser Tor’, and climbs down the deep shaft to the platform. ‘Train stops at Alexanderplatz!’ Only as far as Alexanderplatz, Eckert thinks. He wants to get to Moritzplatz, that’s – he calculates quickly, Jannowitz Bridge, Neanderstrasse, Moritzplatz – three stops further, but none of it matters any more, if the underground only goes as far as Alexanderplatz, then he’ll go from Alexanderplatz to Moritzplatz on foot, even if it means creeping on all fours.
People who, like Eckert, are suddenly swept into a manic compulsion can become so unyielding as to turn into murderers, they can commit deeds which in the whole of their previous lives they would not even have imagined. At first, however, Eckert is peaceful, as he encounters no resistance, he is only uneasy and roused, he is still suppressing his dark apprehensions, those apprehensions are still nothing more than dull sensations.
Eckert hangs on a strap and doesn’t let go of it even when the seat immediately in front of him becomes free at Bernauer Strasse, he is so completely fixed on his goal that he can’t see or hear anything, the word circles incessantly in his brain: Moritzplatz, Moritzplatz, Moritzplatz. He knows the area well, because he used to work very close by, in Sebastianstrasse, in a mechanic’s workshop, before he joined the Berlin tram service. Moritzplatz, the intersection of Prinzenstrasse and Oranienstrasse, it’s a four-cornered square, with the big Wertheim building (he’s never been able to get used to its new name, Awag), and opposite, with the Tam cinemas and function rooms, where he once attended many a Bierfest and whirled many a brazen Berlin girl on the dance floor, with the branch of Aschinger on the corner of Oranienstasse, with its blue and white Bavarian tiles, oddly, but still Berlin’s gastronomic trademark, and the Dresdener Bank on the corner of Prinzenstrasse, with the unchanging Pleite Café opposite Prinzessinnenstrasse, from which the red vans of the post office roll unceasingly. Moritzplatz, it isn’t just the name of a place, for Eckert it’s a concept, even though the square has changed considerably over the last few years, since the four underground exits were added and the roundabout was introduced.
At Alexanderplatz Eckert leaves the underground, he knows the subterranean labyrinth very well, and leaves it by the correct exit opposite the teachers’ union building. By now it’s 20.00 hours and air-raid time, outside the bunkers at the point formed by Neue Königstrasse and Landsberger Strasse a cluster of waiting people has formed, trusting in the dependable punctuality of the English pilots and waiting for the alarm to sound so they can be granted access. A velvet-soft sky stretches over the city, many stars gleam and glimmer. Since there is a new moon it is quite dark, Alexanderplatz is a wide, dark field with high black backdrops, the street lights hang apparently unconnected in the air, the blacked-out trams glide across the city viaduct with a dull rumble and squeaking brakes.
Eckert strides into the urban canyon of Alexanderstrasse. It is empty, as if it has died out, the policeman by entrance A of the main police station opposite Kaiserstrasse leans bored against the grille, he holds a cigarette in the hollow of his hand and smokes furtively. Eckert’s footsteps sound dull, no echo comes from the ruins on either side, behind the empty windows the stars gleam against the dark outstretched canvas of the night sky. When Eckert catches a glimpse of Jannowitz Bridge behind Blumenstrasse, the sky is no longer dark blue and velvet-black, br
oad, red patches are rising from the south, the glimmer climbs almost to the zenith, and if it weren’t night one might for a fleeting moment mistake it for sunrise. But the thought doesn’t occur to Eckert, he has been through all the big daytime and night-time raids and knows exactly what that red wall of clouds means: the city is still burning, nine hours after the raid.
Eckert is stopped at Jannowitz Bridge. The crossing is blocked, a policeman explains to him that he can under no circumstances go into Brückenstrasse, under no circumstances, it’s completely impossible, the whole district beyond the Spree is closed off. Eckert’s unease turns into agitation as he sees himself being forced away from his goal, but he is still in a state in which every thought, every word and every action is controllable and subject to his will. Before his agitation turns into action, forcing his way through, the sirens fling their fearsome voice into the silence of the night. The policeman nods towards Waisen Bridge, where a yellow and orange sign indicates a public air-raid shelter. Eckert walks a few steps in that direction and stops behind a shattered advertising pillar, he doesn’t even think of seeking out an air-raid shelter, the alarm can only be helpful to his intentions, which he will implement beneath the cover of the alarm. Once the bombing begins the policeman will presumably take cover with the others, and the bridge will be left open. Eckert waits patiently. The arches of Jannowitz Bridge are etched like a huge spider’s web against the dark sky, on the right looms the massive tower of the Märkisches Museum, while on the left the façade of the ruined, burnt-out building of the Josetti cigarette factory rises jaggedly like the battlements of a fortress.
Eckert feels no fear, just a nameless dread. Even though he can’t see what lies beyond the Spree, he knows it is hell over there, its fires still spurting into the sky, engulfing everything. Time flows thickly on, the sky is still deeply dark, but a deep, even hum can be heard, quietly at first, then more and more distinctly. Then a grand spectacle unfolds against the black background, red pyramids, composed of countless licking little flames, appear out of the dark sky, gleam in all directions and float gently to earth, and immediately there are other signs there, three yellow balls that turn white after a few seconds and are then absorbed by the darkness once more.
Eckert is rooted to the spot, he has never watched it before, but he knows that the red pyramids, known as Christmas trees, mark out the targets for the bombers, and the bright spheres are the markings of the fighter planes, and then suddenly the spotlights are there, they stretch spectrally into the darkness, with their long, white arms they feel their way around the sky, unite into a single beam and then fan out again. When one of the spotlights goes out the darkness returns all the more heavily, and when another shoots up behind the savings bank, a small, bright, silver patch appears in it: a plane. Immediately all the other spotlights pounce on it, intersect and almost stumble over another with excitement, they persistently follow the tail of the plane, which continues evenly and unwaveringly on its course. Then the silence is suddenly interrupted, a hard, dry report roars out: the anti-aircraft guns have started firing. All around the plane there are orange flashes of light bursting on either side, above and below, then a glow rises on the eastern horizon, explosions throw their bright-red mushrooms up into the dark background, a few seconds later there is a rumble like a nearby thunderclap.
Eckert can’t tear himself away from the spectacle, but eventually he does get moving and cautiously approaches the bridge. It is unguarded now. Eckert wraps his coat tighter around his body and runs over the bridge, he pants a little as he goes up the gentle incline, but then he has reached the summit of the bridge and his legs run all by themselves. The closer Eckert comes to the crossing with Köpenicker Strasse, the hotter the breath of the flames strikes him, and smoke billows in his direction. It’s too dark for Eckert to make out details, but he can tell that no houses here have been left standing, the flames still lick from windows and skylights, from shutters and cellars, the storm whips them up and down, pushes them down and draws them back up again. The street is like a path across a scree slope, stony and uneven, the traffic lights and street lights are bent, the overhead tramlines dangle loosely. Eckert cuts his cheek open on a wire, but barely notices, wipes away the pumping blood with his glove and at last presses his handkerchief to the wound, he stumbles on across the debris, every step is dangerous, because the rubble still lies loosely around, deep holes have opened up in the thoroughfare. Eckert doesn’t pause for a moment, the idea of turning round barely occurs to him, it is as if an invisible fist were pushing him forward. Darkness and fire, rubble and debris embrace him, the gas spits from burst pipes with an unpleasant hiss, water spouts from cracked conduits, high in the sky the anti-aircraft shells explode, British Mosquitoes and German fighters circle, but Eckert stumbles on into the field of rubble. When he falls his hand touches a soft, sticky mass, the blood halts in his veins and seems to congeal, he is shaken by a feverish shiver, an unfathomable terror seizes him and brings a cold sweat to his forehead. His hands, which he stretched out to protect himself as he fell, have plunged into a slippery mass from which a sickly smell of blood rises, and he senses rather than knows that he has touched the smashed body of a human being. For a few seconds he lies there as if paralysed, he feels as if he has reached into the bloody face of unbridled war, then he draws himself wildly up and staggers on, with just one thought, Moritzplatz, Dr Wiedemann, his wife, his daughter. At last he just stumbles on, every stone and every hole is a cunning and treacherous trap, and when the three long notes of the pre-warning sound, he has only got as far as Dresdener Strasse, and again and again he is surrounded only by mountains of fire and rubble, the miasma of blood and the smell of burning. He can hardly see a thing, because his eyes are sticky with blood and soot and dust, but he makes it as far as Ritterstrasse, he knows the area well, and he also finds Dr Wiedemann’s house.
When he almost falls into the main door of the house, the last inhabitants are coming up from the air-raid cellar. A woman stops and pauses for a moment as if frozen when she glimpses him, then cries roar loud and shrill from her, a young woman crouches down on the lowest step of the stairs and starts whimpering quietly, a child throws its hands over its face and weeps silently.
Eckert looks terrible, like a corpse that has risen from some terrible mass grave. His face is torn on the right cheek by a dreadful gash, blood still seeps from it, his coat is drenched with blood, dusty and torn, human tissue is trapped in the buttons of his right sleeve, from the soot that covers his face two wild, crazed, bloodshot eyes stare. Eckert wants to say something, but he can only gurgle, the words well into his mouth, he takes another few steps then his knees give, he tries again to pull himself up, but at last his feet are pulled away and he collapses.
When he comes to he is lying on a sofa, a man with severe rimless glasses is bending over him and running a wet object over the wound on his cheek. The bespectacled man asks him to lie still, not to move, as the wound needs stitching. Eckert lets his head fall back again, he suddenly has an ice-cold feeling on his cheek and he is aware of delicate, painless needle jabs. Who is the man with the rimless glasses? A doctor? Of course a doctor, it must be … ‘Dr Wiedemann?’ Eckert struggles to say.
The other man nods, he has finished stitching the wound, walks to a basin and methodically and ponderously washes his hands. ‘How do you know me?’ he asks over his shoulder.
The fact that the man who is now in the same room with him is actually Dr Wiedemann, to whom he has made his way across rubble and debris, over bomb craters and corpses, through fire, gas and water, immediately revives him, he swings his legs carefully off the sofa and tries to stand up, but Dr Wiedemann pushes him gently back down onto the sofa. ‘Lie where you are,’ he says in a friendly but resolute voice. ‘You are in quite a dire condition,’ he adds. ‘Where have you come from?’
But Eckert is not in a mood to answer questions, the questions he needs to ask burn within him. He carefully slides himself back against the cu
shion. ‘My name is Eckert,’ he says.
Dr Wiedemann looks at him quizzically.
‘Eckert, Max Eckert from Reinickendorf,’ Eckert repeats. ‘My daughter is a patient of yours, Doctor.’
‘Right,’ says the doctor. ‘Now I understand.’ He looks closely at Eckert. Fluxus salinus, he thinks, so this is the father. ‘And what brings you to me at this late hour?’ he asks.
Eckert takes a deep breath. At last he has reached his goal, he doesn’t yet guess that it is only a stage on the way. With short, hurried words, without full stops or commas, he tells his story.