A Woman in Berlin полностью

We spend a while sitting on the little wall, talking and resting. Soon the sub lieutenant wants to know where I live, and how I’m getting along. He’d like to get to know me better, but right away wants to dispel any wrong ideas: ‘Pas ça, vous cornprenez?’ he says and looks at me with foggy eyes. Oh yes, I understand.

We arrange to meet that evening. He’ll call up to me from the street. I’m to be watching out for him at the arranged time. His name is Nikolai. His mother calls him Kolya. I don’t ask about his wife. I’m sure he has a wife and children, but what does that concern me? In parting he says, ‘Au revoir.’

I go home and report the latest news to the widow. She’s delighted. ‘You better keep him. Finally an educated man from a good home, someone you can talk to.’ (Pauli and the widow also know some French.) In her mind she’s already seeing the provisions rolling in, she’s convinced that Nikolai has access to food and that he’ll do something for me – and by extension for all three of us. I’m not so sure. On the one hand there’s no denying that he’s likeable. Of all the Russian conquerors I’ve seen so far he’s the most westernized. On the other hand I don’t have any desire to get involved with a new man. I’m still ecstatic at being able to sleep by myself between clean sheets. Besides, I want to finally move out of the first floor and away from the widow, above all away from Herr Pauli, who begrudges me every single potato. I’d like to resettle in the attic apartment, clean it up, make it liveable. Why should I sleep with someone to procure food for that lazy Pauli? (Sleeping-for-food is another new concept, with its own vocabulary, its own specialized jargon, just like ‘my major’s sugar’, ‘rape shoes’, ‘plunder-wine’ and ‘coal-filching’.)

Moving on, late at night. Towards 8 p.m. I was waiting by the window, as arranged, but there was no Nikolai. Herr Pauli made fun of me, saying my conquest was so unfaithful. The widow, still hopeful, kept her eye on the clock. Then, as it was getting dark, a call came from outside. ‘C’est moi!’ I opened the door – now all worked up – and led Nikolai upstairs to our apartment. But he’d just come to say he couldn’t stay longer than a quarter of an hour. He greeted the widow and Herr Pauli ceremoniously in French and left right away with his ‘Au revoir.’ In the hallway he said, in Russian, as he shook my hand, ‘Until Sunday at eight.’ And then, in French, ‘Vous permettez?’ Since when are we in a position to permit it or not to permit? Maybe there really is a new wind blowing our way. Incidentally, Nikolai doesn’t think there will be inflation or a new currency – I asked him this morning. He thinks the money we’ve been using will stay in circulation for the time being, but that the banking industry will be overhauled and drastically simplified. ‘Probably socialized, right?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not that. These are completely different conditions.’ And he changed the subject.

Up early to get water at the new hydrant. There’s a newspaper hanging in a shop window, the Tägliche Runclschau, printed by the Red Army for ‘the population of Berlin’. We’re no longer a people, only a population, present and accounted for but representative of nothing. This same linguistic differentiation – Bevölkerung as opposed to Volk – occurs in other languages too, as in the French peuple and population. Reading about the victory celebrations in Moscow, Belgrade, Warsaw, leaves a bitter taste. They say Count Schwerin-Krosigk has addressed the German people, called on them to face facts. Of course, we women have been doing that for a long time. But who knows what will happen once the generals and gauleiters and holders of the Knight’s Cross start doing the same? I’d be curious to know just how high the suicide rate in Germany is at the moment.

Herr Pauli is sounding an optimistic note of late, talks about a rapid economic upswing, about Germany’s being brought into world commerce, about true democracy and a spa cure in Bad Oeynhausen he’d like to treat himself to very soon. When repeating what I’d gleaned from Nikolai, I poured a little water in his wine, he turned genuinely irate, forbidding me to speak of things I know nothing about. I sensed that his anger went beyond this silly incident, that he’s simply fed up with me. He used to have the widow all to himself, taking care of him day and night. I’m a nuisance.