After I came back from getting water, the widow sent me to the meat queue to find out what’s going on. People were cursing, evidently they keep postponing the deliveries of meat and sausage, which maddens these women more than the entire war. That’s our strength – we women always focus on the task at hand. We’re happy whenever we can flee into the present to escape worrying about the future. And for these women the task at hand is sausage, and the thought of sausage alters their perspective on things that may be much more important but are nevertheless much further away.
Back in the cellar, around 6p.m. I couldn’t lie down upstairs any longer – there were some hits close by and I got scared when thick pieces of plaster started falling on my blanket. I dozed down here until Henni came from the baker’s and reported that a bomb had landed right on the pharmacist’s next to the cinema. The owner was killed on the spot, though it was impossible to say whether by shrapnel, the blast or a heart attack. According to Henni he didn’t bleed. One of the three elderly pudding sisters got up and asked, with elegantly pursed lips: ‘If you don’t mind – how did he get finished off?’ That’s the way we talk these days, that’s how far we’ve fallen. The word ‘shit’ rolls easily off the tongue. It’s even spoken with satisfaction, as if by saying it we could expel our inner refuse. We are debasing our language in expectation of the impending humiliation.
THURSDAY, 26 APRIL 1945, 11 A.M.
My fingers are shaking as I write this. Thirty minutes ago we took a direct hit on the fourth floor. We’re still breathing the dust from the plaster. I’m out of breath, having just raced back down from my apartment in the attic. The place looks like a dump, full of shattered plaster and splinters and broken glass. Farewell, my fleeting bit of home, I hardly had a chance to know you. For the moment you’ve been rendered uninhabitable.
I grabbed what I could: a pot, some towels, some gauze for bandages –things we need. My throat is parched, still burning from the dust. I don’t have anything to drink down here. And countless gallons of water have just drained out of the radiators upstairs. We spent–
Wait, first I want to recount everything that’s happened –there’s been so much it’s so long since I last wrote. It all started yesterday around 7p.m. when someone came to our basement and announced that they were selling pudding powder at the comer store. I went along with everyone else and queued up. Then, out of the blue, Russian bombs. At first the queue merely regrouped in the ruins of the building next door, as if the broken walls would protect us from the bombs. Smoke and flames were coming from Berliner Strasse. Another series of bombs exploded closer by. I gave up on the pudding powder and hurried across the street and back to the basement. A man called out to me, ‘Stick to the wall !’ Rattling gunfire, flying debris. Back in the shelter at last, pudding or no pudding. The wife of the concierge started wailing that her daughter was still at the corner store, she probably hadn’t felt it was safe to cross the street under fire.
She showed up half an hour later, also without any pudding powder. She was pretty damn lucky, as she put it, having just managed to squeeze into the shop’s basement when a bomb fell right outside. A teenage boy who hadn’t made it inside caught a fragment in his skull. She had to step over his body on her way out. She pointed to her temple and showed us how the wound was gushing white and red. Tomorrow they’re supposed to resume selling the powder. Evidently the store has plenty left.
The cave dwellers went to sleep around 9p.m. The widow has made a sort of bed for me as well, in the front area of the basement, since there isn’t any space left close to the support timbers, but it’s soft and warm. I slept until the bombs woke me up. My hand was dangling over my bed and I felt something licking it – Foxel, our absent landlord’s terrier. There, Foxel, good dog, don’t be afraid. We’re alone here in this front room. There’s no support structure, but the air is cleaner, and nobody bothers us with snores and groans.
Up early the next morning, to fetch water at the pump. I read my first printed text in days, hot off the press, too. A newspaper called the
Armoured Bear
. Someone pasted one next to the baker’s display window. It had Tuesday’s official Wehrmacht, report, which meant it was two days old. According to a report: a) the enemy was pushing ahead and b) German reinforcements were on the way. The
Bear
also said that Adolf and Goebbels were still in Berlin and would stay. One very smug piece told of a soldier named Hohne who had deserted and was now dangling from a rope at the Schöneberg station for all to see.
Breakfast in the basement. Everyone is trying as best they can to recreate some semblance of family life. A genteel morning meal served on trunks, crates and chairs, with paper napkins and little tablecloths. Pots of hot drinks cooked over wood fires or spirit stoves are lifted out of their cosies. You see butter dishes, sugar bowls, jam servers, silver spoons, everything. The widow conjured up some real coffee and cooked it on a fire made of broken champagne crates – that did us good. But people are fidgety, cranky, getting on one another’s nerves.
A little before 10a.m. a trunk–sized bomb landed on the roof of our building. A terrible jolt, screams. The concierge’s wife staggered in, pale as a sheet, bracing herself against one of the support beams. Then came eighteen–year–old Stinchen with the Hamburg ‘s’, leaning on her mother. Her hair was grey with plaster dust, completely tangled, and covering her young face which was streaked with trickles of blood – she’d been hit while crossing the courtyard. Even the canary in its cage felt the general agitation, which was zigzagging back and forth as it cheeped away.
It wasn’t until fifteen minutes later that someone noticed that the radiators were losing water. We ran upstairs. Well, not all of us. The postmaster’s wife, for example, waved around a medical certificate and shouted that her husband had a heart condition and couldn’t come along. And Curtainman Schmidt lost no time pressing his old spotted paw against his heart. Others hesitated as well, until Fräulein Behn bellowed like a lead mare, ‘You dopes are sitting here babbling while your homes are about to float away’ and charged ahead without turning round to see who followed. I joined some fifteen others in going after her.
Up on the third floor a whole ocean of water was rushing out without stopping. We waded up to our ankles, wrung out the rugs, slaved away as it continued to pour from upstairs. We used dustpans to scoop it up and then we dumped it out of the window just like that into the street, so brightly lit by the sun and so utterly deserted. Shells kept exploding the whole time, many of them quite close. Once a flurry of shattered glass and bits of plaster splashed into the water, but no one was hurt.
After that we headed back to the basement, damp but quite excited. I hunkered down, squatting on wet socks – my feet still inside them, of course – and wondered whether the whole effort had been a smart thing to do. I’m not sure. In any case it was very soldierly. Lieutenant Behn had charged ahead, an assault troop of volunteers followed and everyone risked their lives to secure the endangered position – all under enemy fire. (It clearly wasn’t just about possessions either, about people rescuing their carpets, since practically none of the ones who went along had any more to do with those apartments than I did.) We followed orders blindly, without looking to save our skins. Except that there will no books or songs to celebrate this deed, and no one will receive the Iron Cross. Still, I now know one thing: in the heat of battle, in the thick of the action, you don’t think– you don’t even feel afraid, because you’re so distracted and absorbed.
Were we brave? Most people would probably say we were. Was our lead mare Fräulein Behn a hero? If she really were a lieutenant she would have definitely been given the Iron Cross. In any case I have to rethink my ideas about heroism and courage under fire. It’s only half as bad as I thought. Once you’ve taken the first step, you just keep charging ahead.
It’s also typical that while I was slogging through all that water I didn’t give my own apartment a second thought – not until some others mentioned the possibility that it might have been hit. So I flew upstairs and found the dump described above. That means that from here on in I’ll have to stay with the widow. It’s perfectly fine with her, she’s afraid of being alone in her apartment. In March they came and took her tenant to serve in the Volkssturm. Who knows whether he’s still alive or not. But that’s just a thought, not something you say out loud.
Four hours later, 3p.m., back in the basement. Once again I’m out of breath, once again my fingers are shaking, and with good reason.
Around noon things calmed down a little outside, so I went to the entryway to warm my damp back in the sunlight. The baker was next to me. A man came running past. He was coming from the former police barracks, most recently used by the Luftwaffe, and was carrying a loin of beef, dripping fresh. ‘Better be quick, they’re giving it all away.
‘We looked at each other and took off just as we were, without a rucksack, without anything. Henni, from the bakery, who always has her nose to the wind, came running behind us. The sun was burning, and the shooting started up again, very faintly. We ducked, hurrying along close to the buildings. Some grey–haired soldiers, probably Volkssturm, were crouching on the kerb by the corner. They were resting their heads on their knees. They never even glanced at us. A crowd outside the barracks, with baskets, sacks, bags. I run inside the first hall I come to. It’s dark and cool and completely empty, evidently the wrong one.
I dash back, hear people ahead of me groping and gasping, then someone shouting, ‘Here! Over here!’ I grab a crate that’s lying around and drag it behind me.
Feeling my way, I bump into some people and get kicked in the shin. All of a sudden I’m in a basement that’s completely pitch–black, full of people shrieking in pain. A boxing match in the dark. This isn’t distribution – it’s sheer plunder.
Someone switches on a torch, I can see shelves with cans and bottles, but only down below, the upper shelves have already been cleaned out. I bend over, drop to the ground, rummage in the lowest compartment, pull out five, six bottles and stuff them in my crate. In the dark I get hold of a can, but someone steps on my fingers and a man’s voice shouts, ‘Those are mine!’
I leave with my things, head for the door, go into the next room. There’s a faint shimmer of light coming through a crack in the wall. I can make out loaves of bread, rows and rows, once again only on the lowest levels. I grab a few, kneel back on the ground and grope and dig for more. I’m kneeling in a pool of wine – you can smell it. Shattered glass is everywhere, I cram all the bread I can inside my box. Since I can’t lift it any more I have to drag it out through the door, into the corridor, and towards the exit, which beckons at the other end of the dark tunnel like a brightly lit stage.
Outside I run into the baker. He has also managed to get some bread and packs it into my box. Then he hurries back for more. I stay right by my crate and wait. He comes back with canned food, porcelain plates, coarse towels and a ball of bright blue knitting wool, very frizzy and felted.
All at once Antoine the Belgian is there, the little baker’s apprentice, with a leg of beef, and then Henni with Chartreuse in thick–bellied bottles. She’s angry: ‘They have everything inside, everything. Coffee, chocolate, brandy. They were living it up all right, that little band of brothers!’ And she disappears back inside. I guard my crate. A man comes up, he’s made his jacket into a sack to carry several bottles of alcohol. He looks longingly at the bread in my box. ‘Can I have one of those?’
‘Sure,’ I say, ‘for some brandy.’
We trade one loaf of whole–grain bread for a bottle of Steinhäger, both very pleased with the exchange.
Wild scenes are taking place all around in the dazzling sun light. Now and then a few shells hit, two of them close. Men smash bottles against the walls, drinking in greedy gulps. Antoine and I each grab a side of my crate and head back.
It’s full and heavy, and hard to carry, so we frequently have to set it down. I’m very thirsty and do just like the others: I take a bottle of red wine and smash the neck against the gutter (the ones I got were all French labels). The jagged edge cuts my lower lip, I didn’t even notice until Antoine points it out and wipes off the blood with his handkerchief, all the while standing watchfully astride our box. The blood had already dribbled down below my neckline.
The baker comes puffing up behind us, carrying the bluish leg of beef, smeared with horse manure, pressing it against him like a baby. The sun is scorching, I’m dripping with sweat. A few close hits. Then, farther off, the tacktacktack of strafing and the bangbangbang of the light anti–aircraft guns.
Outside our house we divvy up the loot. The idiotic blue wool managed to get into everything. My share consists of five bottles of burgundy, three jars of preserved vegetables, one bottle of Steinhäger, four loaves of whole–grain bread, six packs of pea flour, which the baker generously gave me from his own stores, and one unlabeled can of I–don’t–know–what. Now I’ve lugged everything upstairs to the widow’s.
Hot and sweaty, I recount my adventures to about a dozen people as I stand next to the stove, plate in my left hand, and wolf down a few spoonfuls of the mashed potatoes that the widow fixed. A number of families have chipped in for fuel. More bombs hit outside. The others are eyeing my loot, but they don’t dare go to the barracks which had undoubtedly been emptied of their plunder by now.
Several hours later, around 6p.m. back in the basement. I was able to get a little sleep, the widow and I having finished the open bottle of burgundy. When I woke up I felt giddy, with a bitter taste in my mouth, it took a while to connect to the kerosene flicker of the underworld. Not until I saw people running out and heard them calling for sacks: ‘Come on, they’re taking potatoes out of the barracks!’