Despite my doubts and reservations I immediately sat down with the artist and made up a front page. The Hungarian wants a large format and lots of photos. As far as the actual printing is concerned, we all defer to Ilse’s engineer husband. He knows of a print shop that’s still half buried in loose rubble from a fire. He thinks the presses could be excavated, easily repaired, and put back into use. I suggested that they probably can’t be retrieved until after the Russian troops have left. But Herr R. smiled and said that machines like those are probably too old-fashioned for the victors who have their own specialists and are interested only in the newest and best.
The trip home went fine. I’m just a little sore from walking so fast. But I feel cheery and even sense there’s a chance this just might work.
Now it’s up to me. Tomorrow we’re supposed to begin planning for the magazines. For the moment our office is the engineer’s apartment. I’m supposed to have my midday meal there as well. use managed to smuggle in a sack of peas. Good thing, too.
To round off the evening I concocted a small dessert. I took a teaspoon of what sugar was left in the bag and sprinkled it into a little glass. Now I’m dipping my index finger into the glass, slowly and deliberately, so that my fingertip picks up a few grains at a time. I look forward to every lick, enjoying each sweet morsel more than I ever did a whole box of pre-war chocolates.
MONDAY, 4 JUNE 1945
Up early and off to Charlottenburg, very humid outside. Our magazines are already beginning to take shape. I gathered what I could in the way of texts by banned authors – either from Herr R. or others in the building. Maxim Gorky, Jack London, Jules Romains, Thomas Wolfe, as well as older writers like Maupassant, Dickens, Tolstoy. The only question is how to acquire the rights for works not in the public domain, since none of the old publishing houses are still in existence. But our Hungarian isn’t concerned with minor details like that. He’s all for printing. ‘If someone shows up demanding money then we’ll just pay,’ he says and pats his pocket. He’s got hold of a bicycle and has generously put it at the disposal of the ‘publishing house’, which for the time being exists in name only.
We really did have pea soup for our main meal of the day, although unfortunately it didn’t turn out right. Ilse said she boiled the peas but they refused to soften, so she put the whole mess through the mill. The result was rough as sand, but we managed to swallow it down. She’d cooked it with a bit of bacon; they gave the rind to me since I have so far to walk. I should check my weight – I have the feeling I’m rapidly wasting away. My skirts are getting baggy.
I marched home around 6 p.m. The streets were filled with small, tired caravans of people. Where were they coming from? Where were they going? I don’t know. Most were headed east. All the vehicles looked the same: pitiful handcarts piled high with sacks, crates and trunks. Often I saw a woman or an older child in front, harnessed to a rope, pulling the cart forward, with the smaller children or a grandpa pushing from behind. There were people perched on top, too, usually very little children or elderly relatives. The old people look terrible amid all the junk, the men as well as the women – pale, dilapidated, apathetic. Half-dead sacks of bones. They say that among nomadic peoples like the Lapps or Indians old people used to hang themselves on a tree when they were no longer of any use, or crawl off to die in the snow. Our western Christian civilization insists on dragging them along for as long as they can breathe. Many will have to be buried in shallow graves along the roadside.
‘Honour your elders’ – yes, but there’s no time or place for that on a cart full of refugees. I’ve been thinking about how our society treats the elderly, about the worth and dignity of people who have lived long lives. Once they were the masters of property. But among the possessionless masses – which at the moment includes nearly everyone – old age counts for nothing. It’s something to be pitied, not venerated. But precisely this threatening situation seems to spur old people to action, seems to spark their urge to live. The deserter in our building told the widow that he had to keep every bit of food locked away from his elderly mother-in-law, because she steals whatever she can get her hands on and devours it in secret. Without a second’s hesitation she would eat up all his rations as well as his wife’s. If they say anything to her she starts moaning that they want her to starve to death, that they’re trying to kill her to inherit her apartment. And in this way dignified matrons are turning into animals greedily clawing at what’s left of their lives.
TUESDAY, 5 JUNE 1945
I slept poorly because of a toothache. Despite that I got up early and set out for Charlottenburg. Today the flags are out again everywhere. The Allies are said to have flown in by the thousands, English, Americans, French. And all these comical, motley flags waving them welcome – products of German women and a weekend’s hard work. Meanwhile the Russian trucks never stop rolling, carrying our machines away.
I trudge along, as always the automatic walking machine. I’m putting in about twelve miles a day, with the barest nourishment. The work itself is fun. The Hungarian is always cooking up something new He heard somewhere that for now the only available paper will go for schoolbooks. So he adds schoolbooks to the publishing programme. He’s guessing there’ll be a great demand for contemporary German primers and Russian grammars; my assignment is to rack my brains about that. Today use actually treated us all to a cup of real coffee. At 6 p.m. I headed home, on paper-thin soles. Along the way I met the first German public service vehicle to resume operation, a bus that runs every half hour. But it’s hopelessly packed; there’s no way to get on. I also saw some German policemen, newly commissioned. They seemed oddly undersized, determined not to stick out.
By the time I got home my feet were aching and I was dripping with sweat. The widow met me on the stairs with some surprising news: Nikolai had been there and had asked after me! Nikolai? It took me a moment to remember. Oh yes, Nikolai from the distant past, Nikolai the sub lieutenant and bank inspector, Nikolai who wanted to come but never came. ‘He said he’d call in again at eight,’ the widow said. ‘He’ll go straight up to the attic and ring for you. Are you glad?’
‘Je ne sais pas,’ I answered, remembering Nikolai’s French. I really didn’t know whether to be glad or not. After Nikolai twice dissolved into thin air, the idea that he’d ever show up seemed implausible. What’s more, that was a bygone era and I didn’t want to be reminded of it. And I was so tired.
I had barely managed to take a quick wash and lie down for an hour, as I always do after the forced march from Charlottenburg, when the doorbell rang. And there, indeed, was Nikolai. We exchanged a few phrases in French in the dim hallway. When I invited him in and he saw me in the light, he was visibly startled. ‘Just look at you. What’s the matter?’ He said I was all skin and bones. How, he wanted to know could that have happened in such a short time. What can I say? All the work and the endless marching around and that degree of hunger and just a little dry bread are a formula to make anyone waste away. What’s odd is that I didn’t realize I had changed that much myself. You can’t check your weight anywhere, and I never give the mirror more than a fleeting glance. But have I changed so much for the worse?
We sat facing each other at the smoking table. I was so tired I couldn’t suppress my yawning, couldn’t find the words in my head, so drowsy I had no idea what Nikolai was talking about. Now and then I pulled myself together, ordered myself to be nice to him. For his part he was friendly, but distant. Evidently he had counted on a different reception, or else he simply no longer felt any attraction for the pale ghost I have become. Finally I understood that, once again, Nikolai had only come to say goodbye. He’s already stationed outside Berlin and came in on duty for just this one day, for the last time, as he put it. So there’s no need to put on a friendly show for him; I don’t have to pretend I’m interested. By the same token I kept feeling a quiet regret that things turned out as they did. Nikolai has a good face. In parting, in the hallway, he pressed something into my hand, with a whisper: ‘En camarades, n’est-ce pas?’ It was money, over 200 marks. And he’d nothing from me apart from a few half-yawned words. I’d happily use this money to buy something to eat, if only some supper for tonight. But in times like these everyone clings to what they have. The black market is dying.