It had begun to snow, a warm snow that didn’t stick. Then finally it lasted for a night or two, and gave a brief, strange beauty to the ruins of the city, before it melted and thickened the muck disfiguring the broken streets. With my tall riding boots, I walked through it without paying any attention—an orderly would clean them for me the next day—but Helene wore simple shoes, and when we reached a gray stretch thick with melted snow, I would look for a board I could throw over it, then hold her delicate hand so she could cross; and if even that was impossible, I carried her, light in my arms. On Christmas Eve, Thomas organized a small party in his new house in Dahlem, a luxurious little villa: as usual, he knew how to get by. Schellenberg was there with his wife, along with several other officers; I had invited Hohenegg, but hadn’t been able to locate Osnabrugge, who must have been in Poland still. Thomas seemed to have had his way with Liselotte, Helene’s friend: when she arrived, she kissed him passionately. Helene had put on a new dress, God knows where she had found the cloth, the restrictions were becoming more and more severe, she smiled charmingly and seemed happy. All the men, for once, were in civilian clothes. We had scarcely arrived when the sirens began wailing. Thomas reassured us by explaining that the planes coming from Italy almost never dropped their first bombs before Schöneberg and Tempelhof, and the ones from England passed north of Dahlem. Still, we dimmed the lights; thick black curtains masked the windows. The flak began to boom, Thomas put on a record, furious American jazz, and led Liselotte in a dance. Helene drank white wine and watched them dance; afterward, Thomas put on some slow music and she asked me to dance with her. Above we could hear the squadrons roaring; the flak barked without stopping, the windows trembled, we could scarcely hear the record; but Helene danced as if we were alone in a ballroom, leaning lightly on me, her hand firm in mine. Then she danced with Thomas while I exchanged a toast with Hohenegg. Thomas was right: to the north, we could sense more than hear an immense muffled vibration, but around us nothing fell. I looked at Schellenberg; he had gained weight, his successes didn’t encourage moderation. He was talking pleasantly with his specialists on our setbacks in Italy. Schellenberg, I had finally gathered from the few remarks Thomas sometimes let escape, thought he held the key to Germany’s future; he was convinced that if people listened to him, to him and his indisputable analyses, there would still be time to salvage something from the situation. The mere fact that he talked about
