So we put on our harness and pull. That’s logical enough. Nevertheless there’s something about this that bothers me. I often fmd myself thinking about what the fuss I used to make over the men on leave, how I pampered them, how much respect I showed them. And some of them had come from cities like Paris or Oslo – which were farther from the front than Berlin, where we were under constant bombardment. Or else they’d been in places where there was absolute peace, like Prague or Luxemburg. But even when they were coming from the front, until 1943 they always looked neat and well fed, unlike most of us today. And they loved to tell their stories which always involved exploits that showed them in a good light. We, on the other hand, will have to keep politely mum; each one of us will have to act as if she in particular was spared. Otherwise no man is going to want to touch us any more. If at least we had a little decent soap! I have this constant craving to give my skin a thorough scrub – I’m convinced it would make me feel a little cleaner in my soul as well.
A good conversation in the afternoon that I want to record
that as precisely as I can, I still have to mull it over. The hunchbacked chemist from the soft drink plant showed up again. I’d practically forgotten about him, although we often exchanged a few words down in the air-raid basement. Until recently he’d survived in a neighbouring basement that the Russians never discovered, but where he nevertheless heard all the latest news – particularly about women raped while getting water. One of the victims, a very shortsighted woman, lost her glasses in the struggle, so that she now staggers about completely helpless.
It turns out that the chemist is a ‘comrade’, meaning he was a member of the Communist Party until 1933. He once even spent three weeks with an Intourist Group travelling through the Soviet Union, and he understands a few words of Russian – none of which he admitted to me in the basement, any more than I told him about my own travels and language skills. The Third Reich cured us of that kind of hasty confidence. Still, I have to wonder: ‘So why didn’t you stand up and identify yourself to the Russians as a sympathizer?’
He looks at me, embarrassed. ‘I would have,’ he claims. ‘I just wanted to let the first wild days pass.’ And then he adds, ‘In the next day or so I’ll go down and report at the town hall. As soon as there are authorities in place I’ll put myself at their disposal.’
My own sense, which I didn’t share with him, is that the reason he didn’t come forward is because of his hunchback. With so much male fury seething all around, he would have felt doubly bitter about his deformity, which would have made him seem pitiful, half a man in the eyes of those strong barbarians. His head is set deep between his shoulders, he moves with difficulty. But his eyes are bright and intelligent, and he is very articulate.
‘So have you lost a little of your enthusiasm?’ I ask him. Are you disappointed in your comrades?’
‘Hardly’ he says. ‘We shouldn’t look at what’s happened too personally, we shouldn’t be too narrow in our perspective. It’s a case of urges and instincts having been unleashed. A thirst for revenge, too. After all, we did a few things to them over there in their country. Now it’s time for change and introspection, for us as well as for them. Our old West is a world of yesterday. A new world is being born, the world of tomorrow, and it’s a painful birth. The Slavic nations are stepping onto the stage of world history, they’re young and full of unspent energy. The countries of Europe will blast open their borders and merge into larger regions. Just as Napoleon swept away all the little kingdoms and tiny fiefdoms, the victorious superpowers will do away with the nations and countries.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘you believe that Germany will become a part of the Soviet Union, a Soviet republic?’
‘That would be nice.’
‘Then they’ll take away our homeland and scatter us far and wide, to destroy our sense of nationhood.’
‘It’s quite possible that we Germans living today are really just a sacrifice, a kind of fertilizer, a means of transition. Maybe our best use is as skilled teachers. But no matter what the case, I think it’s up to each of us, even under these circumstances, to make our lives as meaningful as we can. No matter where we end up, we take ourselves.’
‘Even if it’s to Siberia?’
‘I have enough faith in myself that with a measure of goodwill I would be able to create a meaningful life even in Siberia.’
He certainly would, too, judging from his past performance: a hunchback, he still managed to hold a good job, as the head chemist of a large soft drink and mineral water plant. But is he physically up to what the future might demand of us? Are the rest of us up to it? He shrugs.
