LOOKING BACK ON SATURDAY
I haven’t written since Saturday morning, 28 April – three days ago, three days crammed with so many frenzied images, fears and feelings that I don’t know where to begin, what to say. We’re deep in the muck now, very deep. Every minute of life comes at a high price. The storm is passing overhead, and we are leaves quaking in the whirlwind, with no idea where we’re being blown.
An eternity has passed since then. Today is May Day, and the war is still on. I’m sitting in the armchair in the front room. The widow’s tenant is here too, lying in bed – Herr Pauli, now discharged from the Volkssturm. He showed up on Saturday, without warning, carrying a sixteen-pound lump of butter wrapped in a towel. At the moment he’s sick with neuralgia.
The wind is whistling through the windows, tugging and rattling the scraps of cardboard tacked on so pitifully, the daylight comes flickering inside, making the room now bright, now dark. But it’s always bitter cold. I’ve wrapped myself in a wool blanket and am writing with numb fingers while Herr Pauli sleeps and the widow wanders through the building looking for candles.
Russian sounds come bouncing in from outside. Some Ivan is talking to his horses, which they treat far better than they do us; when they talk to the animals their voices sound warm, even human. Now and then the horses’ scent comes wafting in as well, and you can hear a chain clinking. Somewhere someone is playing an accordion.
I peer through the flapping cardboard. The army is camped outside, horses on the pavements, wagons, drinking pails, boxes of oats and hay, trampled horse manure, cow pats. A small fire, stoked with broken chairs is burning in the entranceway across the street. The Russians crouch around it in quilted jackets.
My hands are shaking, my feet are ice. Yesterday a German grenade broke the last panes we had. Now the apartment is completely defenceless against the east wind. Good thing it’s not January.
Our walls are riddled with holes. Inside we scurry back and forth, listening anxiously to the clamour outside, gritting our teeth at every new noise. The splintered back door is open; we gave up barricading it long ago. Men are forever traipsing down the hall, through the kitchen, in and out of our two rooms. Half an hour ago a complete stranger showed up, a stubborn dog, who wanted me but was chased away. As he left he threatened: ‘I’ll be back.’
What does it mean – rape? When I said the word for the first time aloud, Friday evening in the basement, it sent shivers down my spine. Now I can think it and write it with an untrembling hand, say it out loud to get used to hearing it said. It sounds like the absolute worst, the end of everything – but it’s not.
Saturday afternoon around three, two men banged on the front door with their fists and weapons, shouting in raw voices, kicking the wood. The widow opened. She’s always worried about her lock. Two grey-haired soldiers come careening in, drunk. They thrust their automatics through one of the hall windows, shattering the last remaining pane and sending the shards clattering into the courtyard. Then they tear the blackout shades to shreds, kick the old grandfather clock.
One of them grabs hold of me and shoves me into the front room, pushing the widow out of the way. Without a word the other plants himself by the front door and points his rifle at the widow, keeping her in check. He doesn’t touch her.
The one shoving me is an older man with grey stubble, reeking of alcohol and horses. He carefully closes the door behind him and, not finding any key, slides the wing chair against the door. He seems not even to see his prey, so that when he strikes she is all the more startled as he knocks her onto the bedstead. Eyes closed, teeth clenched.
No sound. Only an involuntary grinding of teeth when my underclothes are ripped apart. The last untorn ones I had. Suddenly his finger is on my mouth, stinking of horse and tobacco. I open my eyes. A stranger’s hands expertly pulling apart my jaw Eye to eye. Then with great deliberation he drops a gob of gathered spit into my mouth.
I’m numb. Not with disgust, only cold. My spine is frozen: icy, dizzy shivers around the back of my head. I feel myself gliding and falling, down, down, through the pillows and the floorboards. So that’s what it means to sink into the ground.
Once more eye to eye. The stranger’s lips open, yellow teeth, one in front half broken off. The corners of the mouth lift, tiny wrinkles radiate from the corners of his eyes. The man is smiling.
Before leaving he fishes something out of his trouser pocket, thumps it down on the nightstand without a word, pulls the chair aside and slams the door shut behind him. A crumpled pack of Russian cigarettes, only a few left. My pay.
I stand up – dizzy, nauseated. My ragged clothes tumble to my feet. I stagger through the hall, past the sobbing widow, into the bathroom. I throw up. My face green in the mirror, my vomit in the basin. I sit on the edge of the bathtub, without daring to flush, since I’m still gagging and there’s so little water left in the bucket.
Damn this to hell! I say it out loud. Then I make up my mind.
No question about it: I have to find a single wolf to keep away the pack. An officer, as high-ranking as possible, a commandant, a general, whatever I can manage. After all, what are my brains for, my little knowledge of the enemy language?
As soon as I am able to move again, I grab a bucket and drag myself down the stairs and out onto the street. I wander up and down, peering into the courtyards, keeping my eyes open, then go back into our stairwell, very cautiously. I practise the sentences I will use to address an officer, wondering if I don’t look too green and miserable to be attractive. Physically I feel a little better, though, now that I am doing something, planning something, determined to be more than mere mute booty, a spoil of war.
For half an hour there’s nothing – no epaulettes with stars. I don’t know their rankings and insignia, only that the officers wear stars on their caps and generally have overcoats. But all I see is a shabby mass of uniform green. I’m just about to give up for the day, am already knocking at our door, when I see a man with stars coming out of an apartment across the street (the former tenant having managed to escape just in time). Tall, dark hair, well fed. He sees me with the bucket, then laughs and says in broken German, ‘Du, Frau.’ I laugh back and shower him with my best Russian. He’s delighted to hear his own language. We chatter away, silly, just fooling around, and I learn that he’s a sub lieutenant. Finally we arrange to meet that night, at 7 p.m. at the widow’s. He’s busy until then. His name is Anatol So-and-so – a Ukrainian.
‘Will you definitely come?’
‘Of course,’ he says, reproachfully. As fast as I can.’
As it happened, another man showed up first, around 5 p.m., someone I’d almost forgotten, Petka from the previous night, with the blond bristle and the Romeo babble. He’s brought two buddies, too, whom he introduces as Grisha and Yasha. Soon all three are sitting at our round table, like a bunch of farm boys invited into a house well above their class. Petka acts as if he’s at home, showing me off to the others with clear pride of possession. The three men stretch out on the armchairs; they feel good. Yasha pulls out a bottle of vodka, and Grisha produces some herring and bread wrapped in a greasy page of Pravda (the front page – unfortunately it’s old). Petka calls for glasses as if he were master of the house. He pours the vodka, then slams his fist on the table and commands, ‘Vypit’ nada!’ You have to drink up!
The widow and I, and even Herr Pauli, who showed up out of the blue half an hour earlier, have no choice but to sit and drink with the boys. Petka sets a slice of dark, moist bread on the table in front of each of us, then divides up the herring, right there on the polished mahogany, using his thumb to press it onto the bread, all the while beaming at us as if this were a special favour and delicacy.