A Woman in Berlin

by Marta Hillers

  Hilde related all this without emotion. Her face has changed; she looks as if she’s been singed. She has been marked for life.

  I took a detour on my way back to see my friend Gisela. She’s still putting up the two forsaken ex-students from Breslau. All three of them were pretty grimy – they’d had to pass rubble down a chain for several hours that morning. Blonde Hertha was lying on the sofa, her face flushed and hot – the lady doctor next door diagnosed an inflammation of the ovaries. On top of that she’s most likely pregnant. She throws up the little bit of dry bread she gets for breakfast. The Mongol who forced her open had her four times in a row.

  For their midday meal the three women served a thin flour soup. I had to eat as well, so as not to offend them and I was very hungry. Gisela snipped a few nettles. They’re growing wild in the flowerboxes on her balcony.

  Then it was back home and up the stairs to my attic. A snapshot from along the way: a black coffin, smelling strongly of tar, tied to a cart with string, pushed by a man and a woman, with a child perched on top. Another snapshot: a Berlin municipal dustcart, six coffins on top, one of them serving as the driver’s bench. The men were eating their breakfast as they drove, passing around a bottle of beer and taking turns drinking.

  SATURDAY, 2 JUNE 1945

  I called on one of the roofers and when he opened the door I came right out and told him that I’d come for the radio that had disappeared from my apartment. At first the good man acted as if he had no idea what I was talking about: he didn’t know anything about any radio, I must be mistaken.

  Then I played a dirty trick. I showed him my old paper from the town hall, assigning me as an interpreter to the local commandant, and told him that I could get a Russian to conduct a house search any time I wanted. At that the man immediately recovered his memory: oh, right, it was possible that his colleague, who happened to live in the same building, might have taken the radio, which had been sitting unattended, back home for safekeeping. The roofer asked me to wait, then he climbed up a flight of stairs and came back three minutes later with the radio – still packed in paper and tied with string. I see they took the packing paper from the apartment as well.

  Authority as a means of applying pressure. And here I was, using a little piece of paper to pretend I had authority. The trick produced prompt results, too. I’m convinced that otherwise I would have never got the radio back. Still, it left me feeling grubby. However it appears that most of life’s mechanisms rely on little tricks like that – marriages, companies, nation-states, armies.

  Around noon I went out onto the balcony to sun myself. From there I could see straight into the window across the way, where a woman was working at her sewing machine stitching red and white stripes. Then she started cutting circles out of a white sheet and trimming them into stars. Stars and stripes. It’s supposed to be an American flag. Earlier the woman with eczema asked me on the stairwell how many stars the American flag ought to have. I didn’t know for sure whether it was forty-eight or forty-nine, so I told her to look it up in the widow’s encyclopedia. It’s a difficult flag for our German seamstresses to sew because of the colours and particularly because of the design. Compared to that the Russian flag is a cinch; all you need is to take an old swastika flag – available in every unbombed household – remove the black-and-white swastika pattern, and sew a yellow hammer, sickle and star onto the red background. I’ve seen some touchingly crooked hammers and twisted sickles. The tricouleur works best (the French are victors as well). Just stitch together three vertical strips of blue, white and red, and you’re done. For red most of the seamstresses use ticking or scraps from Nazi flags. White’s easy enough to find, too – an old sheet does the trick. The problem is the blue. I’ve seen people cutting up tablecloths and children’s clothes for that. The widow sacrificed an old yellow blouse for a hammer, sickle and star. Her encyclopedia also came in handy for the Union Jack. The only problem is that ours doesn’t wave very well. It sticks out from the flagpole like a board thanks to several yards of flat braid sewn behind the blue background – made from an apron – in order to keep all the crosses and stripes in place.

  This could only happen in our country. An order came – I have no idea from where – to hang out the flags of the four victorious powers. And lo and behold, your average German housewife manages to conjure flags out of next to nothing. If I were one of the victors looking for a souvenir to take home, I’d go round after all the celebrations were over and pick up some of these amazing rags – all so different in colour, fabric and form. All throughout the afternoon, these bits of cloth kept popping out of the buildings on our street, like pennants stuck on a doll’s house, touchingly crooked and faded.

  Around 5 p.m. Ilse R. stopped in unexpectedly – the woman I visited in Charlottenburg almost two weeks ago. She walked here the long way, in high heels, too, since that’s all she has, elegant lady that she once was. She came with a plan. Her husband knows a Hungarian who somehow wound up in Germany shortly before the war broke out. She says that this Hungarian has a wad of US dollars that he wants to use as start-up money. He thinks a press would be the most lucrative venture – he’s published newspapers, magazines and books. According to him all the old publishing houses are dead because they made deals with the Nazis. So the field is wide open for the first person who comes along with a clean slate and some paper. They’d like me to go in on it since I have publishing experience and know how to do layout. But I don’t know the Hungarian, I’ve never even heard of him and it all sounds to me like so much hot air. Then again I might be wrong. Anyway I said I’d go along. As soon as the company is set up I’d get an employment card and along with that a Group II card and 500 grams of bread per day instead of 300. It staggers the mind!

  The widow came by while Ilse was visiting. The three of us chatted away like a ladies’ tea club. All that was missing was coffee and cake; I had nothing to offer. Still, all three of us were pretty merry, outdoing one another with our rapish wit.

  Then I spent a quiet evening, brightened by the radio I recovered from the roofers. But I turned it off again. After jazz, more disclosures, some Heinrich Heine and humanity, they started broadcasting tributes to the Red Army, a little too saccharine for my taste. Better nothing at all or else a straightforward, ‘Let’s just declare the whole thing over and start a new chapter.’

  SUNDAY, 3 JUNE 1945

  A peaceful morning, hot sun, the pitiful little homemade flags dotting the street with colour. I pottered around the room and cooked my barley soup on the electric hotplate that kept going out. Two more soups and that’s the end of the barley. There’s no fat left, and they have yet to distribute any. But in the shop they said that Russian sunflower oil was on its way. I saw before me the golden sunflower fields of the Ukraine. That would be nice.

  After I ate I made my second trek to Charlottenburg, cutting across the hazy, desolate city. My legs moved of their own accord. I’m like an automatic walking machine.

  I met the Hungarian at Ilse’s apartment; he really is very keen to start something. A swarthy type with a rectangular forehead. He was wearing a freshly pressed shirt and looked so well fed that I had no doubt about his dollars. In rather broken German he presented his plan, which consists of first setting up a daily paper. He even has a name picked out, Die neue Tat – The New Deed, because right now everything has to be new We talked about the content of the paper, what line it should take. A graphic artist was there as well; he’s already sketched out the masthead, very bold.

  In addition to that the Hungarian would like to start up a number of magazines, one for women, one for older youth, to help with democratic re-education. (A phrase he picked up from the radio.) When I asked him how far he’d come in his dealings with the Russians, he answered that there was still time for that, the first order of business was to buy up all the paper left in Berlin to nip any competition in the bud.

  It’s clear he thinks of himself as a future Ullstein and Hearst all wrapped up
in one. He sees skyscrapers where we see rubble, and dreams of a giant consortium. A pocketful of US dollars is a powerful inspiration.

  Despite my doubts and reservations I immediately sat down with the artist and made up a front page. The Hungarian wants a large format and lots of photos. As far as the actual printing is concerned, we all defer to Ilse’s engineer husband. He knows of a print shop that’s still half buried in loose rubble from a fire. He thinks the presses could be excavated, easily repaired, and put back into use. I suggested that they probably can’t be retrieved until after the Russian troops have left. But Herr R. smiled and said that machines like those are probably too old-fashioned for the victors who have their own specialists and are interested only in the newest and best.

  The trip home went fine. I’m just a little sore from walking so fast. But I feel cheery and even sense there’s a chance this just might work.

  Now it’s up to me. Tomorrow we’re supposed to begin planning for the magazines. For the moment our office is the engineer’s apartment. I’m supposed to have my midday meal there as well. use managed to smuggle in a sack of peas. Good thing, too.

  To round off the evening I concocted a small dessert. I took a teaspoon of what sugar was left in the bag and sprinkled it into a little glass. Now I’m dipping my index finger into the glass, slowly and deliberately, so that my fingertip picks up a few grains at a time. I look forward to every lick, enjoying each sweet morsel more than I ever did a whole box of pre-war chocolates.

  MONDAY, 4 JUNE 1945

  Up early and off to Charlottenburg, very humid outside. Our magazines are already beginning to take shape. I gathered what I could in the way of texts by banned authors – either from Herr R. or others in the building. Maxim Gorky, Jack London, Jules Romains, Thomas Wolfe, as well as older writers like Maupassant, Dickens, Tolstoy. The only question is how to acquire the rights for works not in the public domain, since none of the old publishing houses are still in existence. But our Hungarian isn’t concerned with minor details like that. He’s all for printing. ‘If someone shows up demanding money then we’ll just pay,’ he says and pats his pocket. He’s got hold of a bicycle and has generously put it at the disposal of the ‘publishing house’, which for the time being exists in name only.

  We really did have pea soup for our main meal of the day, although unfortunately it didn’t turn out right. Ilse said she boiled the peas but they refused to soften, so she put the whole mess through the mill. The result was rough as sand, but we managed to swallow it down. She’d cooked it with a bit of bacon; they gave the rind to me since I have so far to walk. I should check my weight – I have the feeling I’m rapidly wasting away. My skirts are getting baggy.

  I marched home around 6 p.m. The streets were filled with small, tired caravans of people. Where were they coming from? Where were they going? I don’t know. Most were headed east. All the vehicles looked the same: pitiful handcarts piled high with sacks, crates and trunks. Often I saw a woman or an older child in front, harnessed to a rope, pulling the cart forward, with the smaller children or a grandpa pushing from behind. There were people perched on top, too, usually very little children or elderly relatives. The old people look terrible amid all the junk, the men as well as the women – pale, dilapidated, apathetic. Half-dead sacks of bones. They say that among nomadic peoples like the Lapps or Indians old people used to hang themselves on a tree when they were no longer of any use, or crawl off to die in the snow. Our western Christian civilization insists on dragging them along for as long as they can breathe. Many will have to be buried in shallow graves along the roadside.

  ‘Honour your elders’ – yes, but there’s no time or place for that on a cart full of refugees. I’ve been thinking about how our society treats the elderly, about the worth and dignity of people who have lived long lives. Once they were the masters of property. But among the possessionless masses – which at the moment includes nearly everyone – old age counts for nothing. It’s something to be pitied, not venerated. But precisely this threatening situation seems to spur old people to action, seems to spark their urge to live. The deserter in our building told the widow that he had to keep every bit of food locked away from his elderly mother-in-law, because she steals whatever she can get her hands on and devours it in secret. Without a second’s hesitation she would eat up all his rations as well as his wife’s. If they say anything to her she starts moaning that they want her to starve to death, that they’re trying to kill her to inherit her apartment. And in this way dignified matrons are turning into animals greedily clawing at what’s left of their lives.

  TUESDAY, 5 JUNE 1945

  I slept poorly because of a toothache. Despite that I got up early and set out for Charlottenburg. Today the flags are out again everywhere. The Allies are said to have flown in by the thousands, English, Americans, French. And all these comical, motley flags waving them welcome – products of German women and a weekend’s hard work. Meanwhile the Russian trucks never stop rolling, carrying our machines away.

  I trudge along, as always the automatic walking machine. I’m putting in about twelve miles a day, with the barest nourishment. The work itself is fun. The Hungarian is always cooking up something new He heard somewhere that for now the only available paper will go for schoolbooks. So he adds schoolbooks to the publishing programme. He’s guessing there’ll be a great demand for contemporary German primers and Russian grammars; my assignment is to rack my brains about that. Today use actually treated us all to a cup of real coffee. At 6 p.m. I headed home, on paper-thin soles. Along the way I met the first German public service vehicle to resume operation, a bus that runs every half hour. But it’s hopelessly packed; there’s no way to get on. I also saw some German policemen, newly commissioned. They seemed oddly undersized, determined not to stick out.

  By the time I got home my feet were aching and I was dripping with sweat. The widow met me on the stairs with some surprising news: Nikolai had been there and had asked after me! Nikolai? It took me a moment to remember. Oh yes, Nikolai from the distant past, Nikolai the sub lieutenant and bank inspector, Nikolai who wanted to come but never came. ‘He said he’d call in again at eight,’ the widow said. ‘He’ll go straight up to the attic and ring for you. Are you glad?’

  ‘Je ne sais pas,’ I answered, remembering Nikolai’s French. I really didn’t know whether to be glad or not. After Nikolai twice dissolved into thin air, the idea that he’d ever show up seemed implausible. What’s more, that was a bygone era and I didn’t want to be reminded of it. And I was so tired.

  I had barely managed to take a quick wash and lie down for an hour, as I always do after the forced march from Charlottenburg, when the doorbell rang. And there, indeed, was Nikolai. We exchanged a few phrases in French in the dim hallway. When I invited him in and he saw me in the light, he was visibly startled. ‘Just look at you. What’s the matter?’ He said I was all skin and bones. How, he wanted to know could that have happened in such a short time. What can I say? All the work and the endless marching around and that degree of hunger and just a little dry bread are a formula to make anyone waste away. What’s odd is that I didn’t realize I had changed that much myself. You can’t check your weight anywhere, and I never give the mirror more than a fleeting glance. But have I changed so much for the worse?

  We sat facing each other at the smoking table. I was so tired I couldn’t suppress my yawning, couldn’t find the words in my head, so drowsy I had no idea what Nikolai was talking about. Now and then I pulled myself together, ordered myself to be nice to him. For his part he was friendly, but distant. Evidently he had counted on a different reception, or else he simply no longer felt any attraction for the pale ghost I have become. Finally I understood that, once again, Nikolai had only come to say goodbye. He’s already stationed outside Berlin and came in on duty for just this one day, for the last time, as he put it. So there’s no need to put on a friendly show for him; I don’t have to pretend I’m interested. By the same token I kep
t feeling a quiet regret that things turned out as they did. Nikolai has a good face. In parting, in the hallway, he pressed something into my hand, with a whisper: ‘En camarades, n’est-ce pas?’ It was money, over 200 marks. And he’d nothing from me apart from a few half-yawned words. I’d happily use this money to buy something to eat, if only some supper for tonight. But in times like these everyone clings to what they have. The black market is dying.

  WEDNESDAY, 6 JUNE 1945

  Once again it’s evening, and the walking machine has come back home. The rain is streaming down outside, and inside – oh joy! – the water is streaming from the tap in my apartment. I fill the bath and shower myself with water. No more lugging those heavy buckets up the stairs.

  Another day hard at work. I went with the Hungarian to look into renting office space. Our first stop was the Rathaus, where he obtained some official papers, stamps and signatures that are meant to authorize his plans and attest to his clean record. There were a number of amazing characters there, types you haven’t seen for years, people who’ve been staying out of sight and are now crawling out of the woodwork everywhere you look. I saw young male dancers, a Jewish woman who’d gone underground and was talking about her nose operation, an older man with a bright red Assyrian’ beard who was a painter of ‘degenerate’ art.

  After a cup of real coffee, use and her husband had a heated discussion about whether he should accept a job in Moscow They’re offering him a high-level position, good pay. But use is dead set against it, if for no other reason than he would have to make the move by himself at first. He doesn’t want to go either. He’d prefer to keep breathing western air, our publishing plans have helped him take heart and he’s hoping to get back in the usual boys’ game of money and power and big cars.