Nightmare in Berlin

  And now Doll suddenly felt qualms about just taking the woman’s coat to use as a blanket. He spent ages taking up a threadbare runner in the back passageway, pulling it free from the tacks that held it down. He managed it eventually, but it was clear that this runner, now completely frayed and tattered along its edges, could never be relaid. In the kitchen, Doll quickly stripped off his suit, lit his cigarette on the gas stove, dragged the runner along behind him, and moved into his overnight quarters, folding the old, dusty carpet over and over on itself to cover him. He used the remains of a dressing gown that he had found in the bathroom to wrap around his feet, which were stiff with cold.

  He lay like this in the dark, the tip of his cigarette glowing red from time to time; with the fiery glow so close to his face, he could no longer see the pale window opening, with the black silhouette of the courtyard building roof and the grey sky above it. When the red glow subsided, he could see the light of the sky again, and the air felt cooler on his face.

  At first, despite the cigarette, he couldn’t really relax because he couldn’t get warm; the runner was heavy, and smelled unpleasantly of dust and all kinds of other things he couldn’t quite identify, but it certainly wasn’t warming. But when he had finished the cigarette and only the night sky above the black roof cast its pale light over Doll’s face, he suddenly found himself, in that bitter cold, in an imaginary world between waking and sleeping, in a place to which he had always resorted ever since his earliest childhood at times when he was feeling particularly vulnerable.

  In this imaginary world, he was Robinson Crusoe on the desert island, but a Robinson Crusoe without Man Friday, and a Robinson Crusoe who dreaded the arrival of white people, and felt only fear at the thought of being ‘saved’ by them. This latter-day Robinson Crusoe did everything possible to hide away completely from his fellow creatures. The vegetation around his cave could never be sufficiently dense, or the pathway through it sufficiently overgrown and concealed. His favourite fantasy was a deep valley basin between steep, towering cliffs, only accessible through a long, dark tunnel cut into the rock, which could be blocked up easily with stones. The valley basin itself was lightly planted with trees, but the tree cover was dense enough to ensure that this Robinson could not be detected from the air.

  Even as a boy, Doll had sought refuge in such fantasies of hidden solitude, whenever the world and other people became too frightening, or when he had failed to grasp a proof in geometry, or when he had told a lie and been found out. As a grown man, he had taken refuge in the same escapist fantasy in times of depression, and in the last few years it had assumed a special importance for him, of course, during the constant heavy bombing raids over Berlin.

  At bottom, though — and Doll knew this very well since reading the works of Freud — this rocky cave or the sheltered valley basin signified his mother’s womb, to which he wished he could return when danger threatened. There and only there had he been safely at peace, and the southern sun that he always pictured shining down on Robinson’s island was in fact his mother’s great, warm heart, which graciously and tirelessly streamed its warm red blood down upon him.

  With these and similar thoughts, Doll finally fell asleep, and when he woke, the fading night was still a dirty grey light in the empty window opening. But Mr. Doll leapt out of bed with alacrity and still feeling all warm, eager to begin the first real day of useful activity after the collapse of all his hopes. In the kitchen, under the electric light, he got a shock when he saw how filthy he was from the dusty old carpet runner. But there was nothing he could do about it, not having a change of clothes with him. Instead he took time and trouble over his ablutions in the bathroom, and felt fresh, if also very cold again, as he inspected himself in the large mirror in the hallway. It seemed to him that he was looking fresher and healthier than he had in a long time. He hurried down the stairs and through the front door, which was already open; but around the corner, the shop run by Mother Minus was still closed.

  He could see a light inside, and began to knock, and he carried on knocking so persistently that eventually the familiar, big, white-haired head of Mother Minus was pressed up against the glass in the door; but she was shaking her head vigorously, to indicate that it was not yet opening time. Whereupon Doll knocked all the harder, so that the sound echoed through the empty street in the pale grey light of dawn, and when dear old Minus finally opened the door to get rid of the importunate caller, with all the irritation that only she could muster, he immediately grasped her hand in both of his, and said: ‘Yes, it’s really me, Dr. Doll! We last saw each other at the end of March, and I’m so glad you’ve come through it all safely, as have we. My wife’s in the hospital at the moment, but I think she’ll be back home again soon. And the reason I was kicking up such a terrible racket just now was that I absolutely must speak to you alone before your first customers arrive!’

  While Doll was chatting away so cheerily to Mother Minus, he had been gradually inching his way forward, forcing her to take little steps backwards into her shop. Now he closed the door of the shop behind him as a precaution, in case anyone else might be cheeky enough to take similar liberties.

  ‘Yes’, said Mother Minus, no longer angry. ‘Yes, I’d heard that you were both back again, and someone did tell me that you were not well. So what’s on your mind now, Doctor?’

  But before Doll could tell her about his needs and his prospects and promises, she broke in: ‘But what am I even asking for? Why would anyone call on Mother Minus at this early hour, insisting on speaking with her alone? You want something to eat, don’t you? A nice, tasty morsel, eh? Well now, Doctor, just this once, I’ll do it without ration cards — but just this once, understand? Never again!’

  ‘That’s fantastic, Mrs. Minus!’ cried Doll, delighted that it had been made so easy for him. ‘You’re an absolute star!’

  ‘Get on with you!’ replied Mrs. Minus, and she was already packing things up and filling bags, weighing, slicing, and slapping stuff onto greaseproof paper — while Doll’s eyes grew steadily wider, since the best he had been hoping for was a loaf of bread and a bit of coffee substitute. ‘Don’t talk so much — and don’t make any promises! But don’t forget, I said “just this once”, and I mean it. I know everyone says I’m too soft-hearted and can’t say “no”, but I can! You know it’s not allowed, and they can shut me down just like that for such a thing. But just this once, I say: you’ve got to do right by people, and I’ve heard what the two of you have been through. So here you are, just take the stuff and shut up. It comes to twelve marks forty-seven, and if you’ve got the money, you can pay now; otherwise you can leave it. I can put it down in the book, and in your case I’m happy to go on doing that for a while — that’s different. But not without ration cards!’

  And having said this for the third time with as much emphasis as she could muster, as if she was trying to harden her soft heart, she pushed Doll, who was really touched by her generosity, out of the shop and back onto the street. He heard the key turning in the lock, and nodded vigorously in farewell, since his hands were full and he couldn’t wave. Then he went home, feeling that he’d suddenly become a very rich man.

  When he had left, he had taken the key out of the apartment door and kept it with him, which was a good thing, because when he got back, nobody was stirring as yet. This suited him fine, because now he could unpack his spoils undisturbed and unobserved. When it was all laid out before him on the kitchen table, he really did feel like a rich man who’d been poor Lazarus just a little while ago. Arrayed before him now were three loaves of bread — one white, two brown — a bag of coffee substitute, another bag containing sugar, one with noodles, another with white flour, a twist of paper with coffee beans, a parcel of greaseproof paper with butter and another with margarine, and a cardboard plate piled with jam.

  If I’d had to buy that lot on the black market! thought Doll, and put some water on to heat in a pan — for the
coffee substitute, of course: he was saving the real coffee beans for his reunion with Alma.

  He found it quite difficult to scrape together enough crockery for his breakfast, since they had locked up his kitchen dresser. But he finally found what he needed in the sink, washed it as best he could with cold water, and said to himself once again: All this has got to change — as of today! And then he sat down to a veritable feast.

  He was disturbed only twice. The first time, Mrs. Schulz came wandering into the kitchen like a ghost, albeit a distinctly unwashed ghost, looked aghast at the early-morning guest and rushed out again, with a cry that was more of a croak: ‘Dear God, you might have told me, Dr. Doll!’

  And she was gone again, with her untidy, tattered nightdress and her tousled head, her short locks in curlers. Doll hurried after her. ‘Mrs. Schulz!’ he cried beseechingly. ‘Hang on a minute. I won’t look, really I won’t!’

  The door was slammed in his face, and he was reluctant to barge into her room. So he called to her through the keyhole: ‘Mrs. Schulz, I’m just going to pop down to the ration card office — can I speak to you later?’

  A sigh, followed by an ‘Oh Lord!’, came back by way of reply.

  ‘I absolutely must speak to you today! It’s about something that’s important for you, too!’ A sigh, deeper than the first one, was the only reply. ‘It wasn’t that bad, you know’, Doll whispered, piped, through the keyhole. ‘I’ve got an attractive young wife myself, after all! So: we’ll speak again later, Mrs. Schulz — in peace and friendship! Until later, then!’

  Another sigh of ‘Oh Lord!’, but at least now it sounded like something that Doll could take for a ‘Yes’. You old bat! he muttered under his breath. Just you wait, I’ll have you out of here so fast your feet won’t touch the ground! Do you think I’ve forgotten how you rejoiced over the divine deliverance of your beloved Führer after the 20th of July?

  He hadn’t been sitting eating his bread and jam for long before he was disturbed for the second time: somebody rang the bell to the door of the apartment. When he opened the door, there stood the tall young man from the previous evening — the one who had let him into the house and thereby brought him in out of the cold.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Dr. Doll!’ he said, momentarily wrong-footed, then quickly collected himself. ‘I thought you’d still be asleep, and I just wanted to drop this off …’ He produced a large package. ‘It’s a coat’, he explained quickly. ‘Only a summer coat, I’m afraid, but there’s a hat, too. I’m taller than you, but it might just fit. It’s just a loan, of course — I hope you don’t mind. But I thought you could wear it until you get something else …’

  ‘But Mr. —’, Doll started to say, quite overcome. ‘See, I’ve even forgotten your name …’

  ‘Oh, never mind the name! Anyway, even though it’s only a summer coat, it’s better than nothing …’ The package had meanwhile changed hands, and the two men had exchanged a vigorous handshake …

  ‘That is really so kind of you, Mr —’, began Doll, but then interrupted himself again. ‘Look, you really must tell me your name—’. Doll felt as if he couldn’t really thank the man properly unless he knew his name …

  ‘Grundlos’, he replied. ‘Franz Xaver Grundlos. But look, I really must be going — I have to get to work. The underground—’

  The last words echoed from the stairwell. Just when Doll could have thanked Mr. Grundlos properly, he was gone.

  For the second time this morning, Doll found himself unpacking gifts. It was as if Christmas and his birthday had come on the same day. How wrongly he had judged the Germans in his depression! Decency, plain old-fashioned integrity — they haven’t died out yet; they will never die out. They will flourish and grow strong again, overwhelming and choking the rank weeds of Nazi denunciation, envy, and hatred!

  Only a light summer coat, and too big for him — the man was right on both counts. But it was a smart, blue-grey cloth coat, partially lined with silk. So people are helping each other out again, nobody is completely alone in the world, everyone can help, everyone can be helped. The coat was a bit too long, certainly, but what of it?

  He kept the coat on, and put on the hat as well — a little velvet number in the Bavarian style. There was a time when he wouldn’t have been seen dead with such a thing on his head. But it wasn’t so stiflingly warm in the kitchen that you couldn’t wear a summer coat while eating your bread and jam. And he did not sit down to resume his meal. He suddenly felt a pressing need to get down to the ration card office. He’d put it off for months, but now he would show the major’s lady wife that he too had ration cards, that he was no longer dependent on her! And today was the day he would show her!

  There was one problem, though: where was he going to put his groceries while he was out? He didn’t trust anyone. In the end, he crept along to the fire-ravaged front room, which was filled with rubble and general clutter, and hid the bags in a drawer of Petta’s scorched changing table.

  He inspected himself one more time in the mirror. Good! he said to himself. Or at any rate, a thousand per cent better than I have looked in the last few months. And now it’s time to get down to the Food Office with all guns blazing! I hope to God that some of the people down there are as decent as the three I’ve met in the last twenty-four hours. But this is my lucky day, and I can’t go wrong!

  It was well before eight when Doll left the house, and it was way past noon when he returned — a very different Doll. He sat down without a word on the kitchen chair next to the gas stove. He was utterly exhausted. Miss Gwenda, who was keeping an eye on her potato soup on the stove — it had been sitting there for four hours, and should surely have come to the boil by now, but the gas pressure was so feeble — asked him for the key to the door of the apartment, which she assumed he had taken. Doll stood up without a word. He saw at a glance that the keys to both pantries and the kitchen dresser were now back in their locks. He took them out, put them in his pocket, and made to leave the kitchen.

  The two women — Gwenda and the widow of Major Schulz — exchanged a quick glance and came to a mutual understanding: they should just let the poor lunatic have his way for now. Mrs. Schulz was all dolled up now, her hair in coquettishly tight little curls, and she said in honeyed tones: ‘If you want to speak to me, Dr. Doll, I am at your disposal. I have come specially to see you.’

  But he was not at her disposal. He went along the passageway to Mrs. Schulz’s room. He entered, locked the door behind him, and sat down in an armchair. He was feeling really under the weather, dead tired and pretty desperate. The morning had been too much for the feeble strength of a man who was still convalescing. All he wanted to do now was rest … He leaned back and closed his eyes. But he opened them again immediately. He felt cold — really, really cold! He was still wearing the coat, but … He struggled to his feet again and moved the electric fire right next to his legs. He fetched the quilt from Mrs. Schulz’s bed-settee and wrapped it tightly around him …

  He closed his eyes for a second time. Before nodding off, he thought to himself: I mustn’t sleep later than four o’clock. I need to be with Alma by five. Though I don’t know what I’m going to tell her about my brilliantly successful brush with officialdom … But I mustn’t think about that now, otherwise I’ll never get to sleep!

  He slowly drifted off. But he hadn’t been asleep for more than five minutes before there was a knock at the door and Mrs. Schulz was chirping: ‘Dr. Doll, have you got a minute? I thought you wanted to speak to me?’

  He pretended not to hear. He was sleeping. He had to get some sleep.

  ‘Be a dear, Dr. Doll, and open the door just for a minute, so that I can at least get my hat and bag! I have to go out!’

  Doll slept on. But when she had pleaded with him for a third time, he jumped up, knocked the electric stove over, lunged towards the door, turned the key in the lock, flung the door open, and shouted angrily:
‘Go to blazes! If you don’t get away from this door right now, I’ll move you myself, down all four flights of stairs — do you understand, woman?!’

  This angry outburst was so effective that Mrs. Schulz fled before him down the passageway. ‘I’m going, I’m going!’ she shrieked in terror. ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you! It won’t happen again, I promise!’

  Doll then slept soundly, falling into a deep, peaceful sleep immediately after his angry outburst, as if this storm had cleared the air. When he woke again, it was already getting dark in the room. He felt wonderfully rested and refreshed — better than for a long time. His first healthy sleep without any kind of sleeping aids! He stayed sitting quietly in the armchair, and was now able to reflect more calmly on the outcome of his morning visit to the ration card and housing offices.

  He pictured himself again, standing along with so many others in a long line at the ration card office. Even though he had arrived early, there were nearly a hundred people there before him. Once again, he saw how the other people waiting with him were constantly bickering and needling each other. He saw people nearly come to blows over a single word, which was often just a simple misunderstanding, and the unbelievable outbursts of fury when they thought someone was trying to jump the queue. Waiting for three hours in this hate-filled atmosphere inevitably put paid to Doll’s early-morning conviviality. He tried to fight it, but this depressing mood was all-pervasive.

  Eventually, he was standing in the room, at a table, in front of a girl or a woman, with people talking behind him and beside him, and now it was Doll’s turn to speak, to say what he had thought about and rehearsed in his head a hundred times …

  But he didn’t get beyond the third sentence. ‘First you need to bring your police registration form and your housing referral form’, explained the girl. ‘Without them we can’t issue any cards here. You’ll have to go to the housing office first! — Next, please!’