[Weeks later, scribbled in the margin, to be used by novelists: For three heartbeats her body became one with the unfamiliar body on top of her. Her nails dug into the stranger’s hair, she heard the cries coming from her own throat and the stranger’s voice whispering words she couldn’t understand. Fifteen minutes later she was all alone. The sunlight fell through the shattered panes in broad swathes. She stretched, enjoying the heaviness in her limbs, and brushed the tousled fringe back from her forehead. Suddenly she felt, with uncanny precision, a different hand burrowing into her hair, the hand of her lover, perhaps long dead. She felt something swelling, churning, erupting inside her. Tears came streaming out of her eyes. She tossed about, beat her fists against the cushions, bit her hands and arms until they bloomed red and blue with tiny tooth marks. She howled into the pillow and wanted to die.]
Evening came and we were all alone – Herr Pauli, the widow and I. The sun went down red – a repugnant image that reminded me of all the fires I’d seen over the past few years. The widow and I went to the little pond for some dirty washing water. (For drinking water a German still has to count on an hour’s wait.)
It might have been 8 p.m. – we’re living without a dock because the one wrapped in a towel and hidden in the back of the chest keeps stopping. Things are quiet around the pond. The murky water is littered with bits of wood, old rags, and green park benches. We fill our buckets and trudge back, letting the cloudy liquid inside the third one slosh away as we carry it between us. Beside the rotting steps that lead up the grassy slope we see something, a shape on the ground – a person, a man, lying on his back in the grass, knees bent and pointing upward.
Is he sleeping? Yes, and very soundly, too: the man is dead. We both stand there gaping. His mouth is hanging open so wide you could stick your whole hand inside. His lips are blue, his nostrils waxen, caved in. He looks about fifty, clean-shaven, bald. Very proper appearance – a light grey suit with hand-knit grey socks and old-fashioned lace-up shoes that are polished and shiny. I touch his hands, which are splayed out on the lawn next to him; his fingers are crooked into daws, facing up. They feel lukewarm, far from the cold of rigor mortis. But that doesn’t mean anything since he’s been lying in the sun. There’s no pulse; the man is definitely dead. His body hasn’t been looted though; there’s a silver pin in his tie. We wonder whether we should check his vest for papers in case there are relatives to notify. It’s a creepy feeling, disturbing. We look around for people, but there’s no one in sight. I bound a few steps down the street and see a couple standing in a doorway, a young woman and a young man, and ask them both to please come with me, there’s a body lying over there. Reluctantly they follow me, pause beside the dead man a moment, don’t touch a thing. Finally they leave without a word. We stand there a little longer, at a loss, and then we leave as well. Our hearts are heavy. Nevertheless my eyes automatically register every little piece of wood, and just as mechanically, my hands stash them in the bag we’ve brought expressly for that purpose.
Just outside the door to our building we run into our old friend Curtainman Schmidt, together with our deserter. I’m astounded that these two have dared venture out onto the street. We tell them about the dead man, the widow imitating the position of his mouth. ‘Stroke,’ mumbles the ex-soldier. Should we all go to have another look?
‘I wouldn’t,’ says Curtainman Schmidt. ‘Next thing there’ll be something missing from his pockets and everyone’ll claim it was us.’ And then he says something that makes even us immediately forget about the dead man. ‘The Russians have all left.’ While we were getting water from the pond they moved out of our building and out of the block and drove off in the trucks. Curtainman Schmidt describes how well upholstered these trucks were, with mattress parts and sofa cushions from the abandoned apartments.
