In the evening I went to get water. Our pump is a fine piece of work. The shaft is broken and the lever, which has come undone many times, has been lashed on cumbersomely with yards of wire and string. Three people have to hold the structure up while two pump. This collective effort is now taken for granted; no one says a thing. Afterwards both my buckets are full of floating splinters and shavings from the pump. We have to strain the water. I’m once again amazed at the fact that ‘they’ went to such efforts to build barricades that proved useless but didn’t give the slightest thought to ensuring we had a few decent water stations for the siege. After all, they put cities to siege, so they had to have known. Probably anyone in a position of power who’d talked about pump scoundrel.
A quiet evening. For the first time in three weeks opened a book – Joseph Conrad,
A glorious summer day. Noises first thing in the morning – an optimistic damour of beating rugs, scrubbing, hammering. Still there’s apprehension in the air, a looming fear that we’ll have to hand our apartments over to the military. The rumour at the pump was that troops will be billeted on our block. Nothing in this country belongs to us any more, nothing but the moment at hand. And all three of us chose to enjoy that by sitting dawn to a richly spread breakfast table, Herr Pauli still in his robe, but already halfway healthy again.
Bells are ringing all over Berlin to celebrate the Allied triumph. Somewhere right now the famous parade is under way, a parade that doesn’t concern us at all. They say that the Russians have a holiday, that the troops have been given vodka to celebrate the victory. The word at the pump is that women should do what they can not to leave home. We don’t know whether to believe it or not. The widow shakes her head uneasily. Herr Pauli is again rubbing the small of his back, says he should lie down. I’ll wait and see.
As it is, the subject of alcohol has been much on our minds. Herr Pauli heard about an order issued to retreating German soldiers to leave all liquor stores intact for the advancing enemy – experience shows that alcohol impairs the enemy’s strength to fight and slows their advance. Now that’s something only men could cook up for other men. If they just thought about it for two minutes they’d realize that liquor greatly intensifies the sexual urge. I’m convinced that if the
Russians hadn’t found so much alcohol all over, half as many rapes would have taken place. These men aren’t natural Casanovas. They had to goad themselves on to such brazen acts, had to drown their inhibitions. And they knew it, too, or at least suspected as much, otherwise they wouldn’t have been so desperate for alcohol. Next time there’s a war fought in the presence of women and children (for whose protection men supposedly used to do their fighting out on the battlefield, away from home), every last drop of drink should be poured into the gutter, wine stores destroyed, beer cellars blown up. Or else let the defenders have their final spree, as far as I’m concerned. Just make sure there’s no alcohol left, as long as there are women within grabbing distance of the enemy.
Onward. It’s now evening. The much-feared Sunday is over. Nothing happened: it was the most peaceful Sunday since 3 September 1939. I lay on the sofa; outside was full of sun and twittering birds. I nibbled on some cake the widow baked using a sinful amount of wood, and took an accounting of my life. Here’s the balance.
