At times I think I could survive anything on earth, as long as it came from without and not from some devious trick of my own heart. I feel so burned up, I can’t imagine what could possibly move me today or excite me tomorrow. So if one has to go on living, it might, just as well be in some icy wasteland. The doctor and I shook hands, both feeling recharged by the conversation.
At the moment though, I’m completely surrounded by anxiously guarded bourgeois propriety. The widow once again feels herself mistress of her rooms. She wipes and scrubs and buffs, hands me a comb with a few missing teeth so I can comb out the fringes of the rugs. She’s busy in the kitchen with sand and baking soda, moaning about her Meissen figurine that lost its nose and a hand in the various lootings of the basement, whining about not being able to remember where she hid the pearl tie-pin that belonged to her late husband. Sometimes she sits deep in thought and suddenly blurts out, ‘Maybe I put it in my sewing box.’ Then she starts tossing out spools of thread and old buttons… and still doesn’t find the pearl pin. Other than that, though, she’s very capable and ingenious and unafraid of anything. She’s much better at breaking up crates than I am, something she learned from watching the Pole from Lvov, whose uncontrollable temper made him particularly talented at it. (Incidentally, by now the whole house has learned the difference between ‘Ukrainian woman – like this and you – like this’.)
Today the sun is out. Endless fetching of water. We washed our sheets so my bed is freshly made – a much needed change after all those booted guests.
A press of people down at the baker’s – through our shattered windows we can hear them making noise and chatting. Actually there’s no real bread today, only numbers for tomorrow’s bread, or for the day after. Everything depends on flour and coal, which the baker is waiting for. Still, using a few leftover briquettes he did manage to bake a few loaves, just for the building, and I was given a generous share. The baker hasn’t forgotten that I stood up for his wife when the boys were going after her. His salesgirl Erna, the one who survived intact in the little room blocked off by the chest, brought the loaves to our apartment. In fact, the whole building chipped in a little to get this bread made. A number of the men, led by Fräulein Behn, brought a small cartload of water buckets for the dough. And a few of the women ‘shovelled shit’, as Frau Wendt so crudely put it. It seems the Russians used an upholstered bench in the shop as a latrine, pulling it a little ways out from the wall and perching on the back… So the bread is honestly earned.
The Russians have brought us an odd sort of money. The baker showed us a 50-mark bill, a kind of military issue for Germany that we’ve never seen before. He got it from a Russian officer for a mere fourteen loaves of bread. The baker couldn’t make change, but the Russian didn’t seem to mind; evidently he had a briefcase stuffed with similar bills. The baker doesn’t know what to do with the money. He would have given the Russian the bread anyway, but the man insisted on paying. Perhaps some semblance of good faith is coming back. I assume that we, too, will be given this money, and that our own currency will be withdrawn and exchanged, probably for half the value.
Anyway, the prospect of bread is the first indication that the higher-ups are concerned for our welfare, doing something on our behalf A second indication is hanging next to the front door of the building: a mimeographed notice signed by district mayor Dr So-and-so ordering us to return all goods stolen from shops and offices – typewriters, office furniture, shop equipment, etc. After an initial period of amnesty, discovery of such stolen goods will be punishable under martial law. The notice further decrees that all weapons must be turned in. Apartment buildings where weapons are found will be punished collectively. And anyone residing in a building where a Russian comes to harm is subject to the death penalty. I can hardly imagine any of our men armed and lying in wait for Russians. At any rate I haven’t seen any men up to that these days. We Germans are not a nation of partisan fighters. We need leadership, orders, commands. Once I spent several days on a Soviet train, rocking across the countryside, and heard a Russian tell me, ‘Our German comrades won’t storm a train station unless they’ve bought valid platform tickets first.’ Less sarcastically put, most Germans are horrified by unbridled lawlessness. Besides that, our men are now afraid. Reason tells them that they’ve been conquered, that any attempt to stir things up or make a fuss will only make things worse.
