Nightmare in Berlin

  Here, however — given that Russian tanks were rolling past the windows of the chemist’s shop — such talk was especially pointless. There were no more decisions to be made: everything had been decided, and the waiting was over! And anyway, Mrs. Doll had been outside, out in the sunny spring air, she had cycled in between the tanks, she had impulsively grabbed a Russian by the sleeve. The last vestige of that pervasive, unseen fear had left her — and she just couldn’t bear to listen to any more of this talk. In the end, she asked the family rather abruptly to open the door for her again, and she stepped back out onto the street, into the bright daylight, mounted her bicycle, and rode off towards the town centre, weaving in and out between the growing number of tanks.

  Mrs. Doll was presumably the last person to see the chemist and his wife and child alive that afternoon. A few hours later, he gave his wife and child poison, then took some himself, apparently in an act of senseless desperation; their nerves, stretched to breaking point, had finally snapped. They had endured so much over the years, and now, when it looked as if things were starting to get better, and nothing could be as bad as before, they refused to endure the uncertainty of even the briefest of waits.

  But the same chemist’s hand that had just now dispensed Mrs. Doll’s medication for her bilious complaint with such practised precision proved less adroit in measuring out the poison for himself and his family. The very old man and the very young child, they both died. But the wife recovered after a protracted period of suffering, and although she was left alone in the world, she did not repeat the suicide attempt.

  Alma Doll had not gone very far on her bicycle before a very different scene caught her attention and brought her to a halt again. Outside the small town’s largest hotel, a group of about a dozen children had gathered, boys and girls aged around ten or twelve. They were watching the tanks rolling past, shouting and laughing, while the Russian soldiers seemed not to notice them at all.

  The mood of wild abandon that had taken hold of these otherwise rather placid country children was explained by the wine bottles they had in their hands. Just as Mrs. Doll was getting off her bicycle, a boy slipped out of the front door of the hotel clutching an armful of new bottles. The children in the street greeted their companion with cries of joy that sounded almost like the howling of a pack of young wolves. They dropped the bottles they were holding, regardless of whether they were full, half-full, or empty, letting them smash on the pavement, while they grabbed the new bottles, knocked off the necks on the stone steps of the hotel, and raised the bottles to their childish mouths.

  This spectacle immediately roused Mrs. Doll to fury. As a mother she had always abhorred the sight of a drunken child, but what made her even angrier now was that these children, not yet adolescents, were dishonouring the arrival of the Red Army by their drunkenness. She rushed forward and fell upon the children, snatching the wine bottles from their grasp, and handing out slaps and thumps with such gusto that the next minute the whole bunch had disappeared around the nearest corner.

  Mrs. Doll stood quietly and breathed again. The fury of a moment ago had ebbed away, and her mood was almost sunny as she gazed upon the street, deserted by its residents, where apart from her there was nothing to be seen except tanks and a few Russian soldiers with submachine guns. Then she remembered that it was probably time to be heading home again, and with a soft sigh of contentment she turned to retrieve her bicycle. But before she could reach it, a Russian soldier stepped towards her, pointing to her hand, and pulled a little package from his pocket, which he tore open.

  She looked at her hand, and only now realised that she had cut it when she was grabbing the bottles from the children. Blood was dripping from her fingers. With a smiling face she allowed the helpful Russian to bandage her hand, patted him on the shoulder by way of thanks — he looked through her blankly — got on her bicycle, and rode home without further incident. But at the very spot where the German army truck had been parked an hour earlier, Russian tanks were now rolling through. Had the truck got away in time? She didn’t know, and would probably never know.

  When Mrs. Doll reported back to her husband with this latest news, it only served to confirm his decision to await the victors and liberators at the door of his house. But as the Russians could turn up at any moment, even in this remote corner of the little town, Doll abruptly broke off his conversation with his wife and went back to his work on the shrub borders with a dogged determination that seemed almost beyond reason at such a momentous hour, intent on clearing the last tangles of wire and rolling them up neatly and removing the last of the ugly wooden stakes.

  Neither the departure nor the return of the young woman had gone unnoticed on the neighbouring properties. It wasn’t long before these neighbours came round looking for Doll — always on some plausible pretext, of course, such as wanting to borrow one of his tools — and, as they watched him work, they tried to find out in a roundabout way what Mrs. Doll had been doing in the town and what news she might have to report. If he’d been asked a direct question — which would have been entirely justified under the circumstances — Doll would have told them immediately what they wanted to know, but he hated this sort of mealy-mouthed beating about the bush, and he had no intention of satisfying their unspoken curiosity.

  So the neighbours would have had to go away empty-handed, if Alma had not emerged from the house to join her husband. Like most young people, she couldn’t wait to relate her adventures, all the more so as they had been highly enjoyable and reassuring.

  And what the young woman had to tell them brought about a complete change of heart among the neighbours. There was no more talk of hiding in the forest. All of them now planned to follow the example of the Dolls and await their liberators in their homes. Indeed, some began to wonder quite openly whether it might not be better to retrieve items that had been hidden or buried, and put them back where they belonged, so as not to offend the victors by the appearance of mistrust. Such suggestions were greeted by other family members with much irritation and head-shaking: ‘You wouldn’t, Olga, surely!’ — ‘What nonsense you talk, Elisabeth, better safe than sorry!’ Or even: ‘I don’t think we’ve hidden anything away, Minnie, you must be imagining things!’

  This neighbourly exchange reached its climax when two old men, who must have been in their seventies, got really fired up over the account of the scene in front of the hotel with the drunken children. At first, the fury of the two old men was indescribable. Had they not, for weeks and months past, been beating a path to the door of this self-same hotelier, whose regular customers they had been since time immemorial — and making that journey almost daily, despite their advanced years and the distance involved — and had not this villain, this criminal, this traitor to his own people, refused their requests for a bottle, or indeed just a glass, of wine, nearly always with the same refrain: that he just didn’t have anything left, because the SS had drunk the lot?! And now it turned out that he still had wine after all, lots of wine most likely, a cellarful, whole cellarfuls, which had been unlawfully denied them, and which children were now emptying onto the street!

  And the two old men stood there looking at each other — their faces, which had been grey and careworn just a few minutes earlier, now flushed red to the roots of their white hair, as if bathed in the reflection of the wine. They patted each other on their bellies, which had grown so slack over the past year that they no longer filled out their trousers, and recited the names of their favourite grape varieties to each other in fond reminiscence. One of them was short, invariably clad in a green huntsman’s suit, and a passionate devotee of Moselle wines; the other was tall, always in shirtsleeves, and tended to favour French wines. As they danced around each other, shouting and patting each other on the belly, they seemed to be drunk already on the wine they had not yet imbibed. The uncertainty of the hour, the war that was barely over yet, the danger that might be lurking round the corner, all this wa
s forgotten, and every memory of long-endured suffering was blotted out by the prospect of a drink. And as they now resolved, each egging the other on, to head into town immediately with a couple of handcarts, and fetch the wine that had been wrongfully denied them, Doll compared them in his mind to people getting ready to dance on an erupting volcano.

  Thank heavens they both had wives, and these wives now made sure that the day’s planned foray into town came to nothing, especially as the roar of heavy vehicles passing through the town, which could be heard very clearly across the lake, was getting steadily louder. Turning back to his loose wire ends, Doll said: ‘But if things don’t turn out quite as expected, we’ll be the ones to blame because they didn’t go and hide in the forest. Just as we’ll be the ones to blame for everything that happens from now on …’

  ‘Well, I didn’t say anything to persuade them one way or the other’, said his young wife defensively.

  ‘It’s not about what you said’, replied Doll, and yanked a staple out of the stake with his pincers. ‘The point is that our dear neighbours have now found a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong.’ He coiled up a length of wire. ‘They won’t show us any mercy, you can be sure of that! For the last few years they’ve always tried to put the blame on others for everything that’s happened, and never on themselves. What makes you think they’ve changed?’

  ‘We’ll get through it’, replied his young wife with a defiant smile. ‘We’ve always been the most hated people in the town — a little bit more or less won’t make a lot of difference, will it?’

  And with that she nodded to him and went back indoors.

  The rest of the afternoon passed agonizingly slowly. Once again they were back to this dreadful waiting, which they had hoped was finally behind them — and how often in the coming days and months they would find themselves waiting again, waiting and forever waiting! From time to time Doll stopped what he was doing and went down to the shore of the lake, either alone or with his wife; across the water from here, they could see a line of houses in the main street of the town. All they could see were the empty shells of buildings, with not a sign of human life anywhere, but their ears were filled with the endless roar of heavy vehicles and the blare of horns — a huge supply train rolling unseen, ghostlike, through the town and heading west.

  Eventually — it was approaching dusk by now — the young woman shouted from the house that supper was nearly ready. Doll, who had spent most of the last hour fiddling about rather than working, packed up his tools, put them in the shed, and washed himself off in the scullery. They sat in the corner, around the circular supper table: the old grandmother, Doll, his wife, and the two children. The conversation went constantly back and forth between the old grandmother and her daughter. The old woman, who, virtually paralyzed, was confined to her armchair, was hungry for news, and this evening her daughter was very happy to oblige (which was not always the case, by any means). The grandmother wanted to know everything in exact detail, and would rather hear a thing three times than once. She bombarded her daughter with questions such as: ‘And what did she say then? — And what did you say to that? — And what did she say after that?’

  Normally, Doll was happy to listen to this steady burble of female chitchat, always wondering how the story would have changed inside the grandmother’s old head the next time it was related. But this evening, when his good mood from the early part of the day had completely dissipated, it took a huge effort on his part to sit and listen to this idle chatter without becoming argumentative. He knew he was being unfair; but then he was in the mood to be unfair.

  Suddenly the boy at the table called out under his breath: ‘Russians!!’ A noise at the door made them all stop talking and stare, the door opened, and three Russians entered the room.

  ‘Everyone stay where they are!’ commanded Doll under his breath, and stepped towards the visitors, his clenched left fist raised in greeting, and with his young wife at his side, who didn’t think the order to stay seated applied to her. Now Doll was able to smile again, the tension, the angry impatience, had all gone, the time of waiting was finally over, and a new page had been turned in the book of destiny … With a smile on his face, he said, ‘Tovarich!’ and extended his right hand to welcome the three visitors.

  Doll would never forget the manner and appearance of those first three Russians who entered his house that day. The one in front was a slim young man with a black bandage over his left eye. His movements were quick and nimble, there was an aura of brightness about him, and he wore a blue tunic and a sheepskin cap on his head.

  The man behind him looked like a giant in comparison with this rather wiry and dainty figure, and seemed to tower all the way to the ceiling beams. He had a big, grey peasant’s face with a huge drooping moustache, which was black but heavily streaked with grey. The most striking thing about this giant was the short, curved sabre in a black-leather scabbard that he wore at an angle across the front of his body, which was wrapped in a grey greatcoat. The third man, who was standing behind these two, was a simple, very young soldier, with a face that was only now starting to take on a character of its own. He was carrying a submachine gun with a curved, segmented ammunition clip under his arm.

  Such were the three Russians, the long-awaited guests, whom Doll welcomed with his clenched left fist raised in greeting and right hand outstretched, the word ‘Tovarich!’ — Comrade! — on his lips.

  But as he did so, as he stood like this in front of the three men, something odd happened. The clenched left fist was lowered, Doll’s right hand crept back into his pocket, and his mouth did not repeat the word that was meant to forge a bond between him and the three Russians. Nor was he smiling any more; instead, his face had taken on a dark, brooding expression. He suddenly dropped his gaze, which a moment earlier had been directed at the three, and looked at the ground.

  How long they stayed like this — whether for two or three minutes, or just a few seconds — Doll was unable to say later. Suddenly the man in the blue tunic stepped forward between him and his wife and went on into the house, followed by the other two. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Doll followed them, but just stood there in silence, each avoiding the other’s gaze. Then they heard the boy cry out: ‘There they are again!’

  Now they could see the three Russians at the back of the house. They had exited via the scullery; it had only taken them a moment to go through the entire house, which was basically a cabin with just four rooms. And now they were striding past the shed, without pausing or looking round, as if they knew exactly where they were going; they walked out on the jetty, climbed into the boat, cast off, and a few minutes later they had disappeared from sight behind the bushes that lined the shore.

  ‘They’ve gone!’ cried the boy again.

  ‘There’ll be more on their way!’ said the young wife. ‘That was probably just a first check to see who is living in each house.’ She shot a glance at her husband, who was still standing there with his hands thrust into his pockets, brooding morosely. ‘Come on!’ she said. ‘Let’s go and eat before the soup goes completely cold. Then we’ll put the children and grandmother to bed. We’ll stay up for a bit longer; I’ve got a feeling that more of them will be coming this evening or during the night.’

  ‘Fine’, replied Doll, and went back to the supper table with her. As he did so he noted that even his wife’s voice had changed completely: there was none of that bright, vivacious quality it had had when telling of her afternoon adventures. She’s noticed something, too, he thought. But she’s like me — she doesn’t want to talk about it. That’s good.

  Later on, he preferred to tell himself that perhaps his wife had not noticed anything, that her voice had only sounded so different because a new time of waiting was then beginning, waiting for more Russian visitors to arrive. Waiting was now definitely the hardest part of life for every German, and they had to wait for many things, nearly everything, in fact — fo
r days, months, and possibly even years to come …

  But thanks to the grandmother and the children, a lively conversation did now develop, to which the young wife also contributed. The main topic of interest, of course, was the three visitors, whose motley appearance was something they were not used to seeing in their own German troops (or else they were so used to seeing it, in fact, that they no longer noticed). Later on, they discussed at length whether they would get the boat back, whether the Russians would bring it back …

  Doll took no part in this conversation, and didn’t want to talk at all for the rest of the evening. He was feeling far too worked up inside for that. He spoke just once to ask his wife quietly: ‘Did you see the way they looked at me?’

  Alma answered him just as quietly and very quickly: ‘Yes! It was the same way the Russian looked at me this afternoon outside the chemist’s shop — as if I was a brick wall or an animal.’ Doll nodded briefly, and nothing more was said about this incident by either of them, either that day or subsequently.

  But Doll pictured himself standing there in front of the three men, with a grin on his face, the greeting ‘Tovarich!’ on his lips, his fist raised and his right hand extended in greeting — how false it had all been, and how embarrassing it had been for him! He’d got it all so wrong; right from the start, when he had woken early that morning feeling so cheerful, and then thrown himself into his work on the shrub borders so as to make the path ‘safe’ for their liberators, he had completely misread the situation!