Me - Thursday December 22, 1949
This morning I feel absolutely miserable, I drink cup after cup of coffee Real grain coffee. I finally have some at home. I had to pay a fortune for it. By chance I “found” a package of five brand new thermometers at the hospital and I got a couple of marks for them from a second hand dealer. But I can’t make too much stuff ‘disappear’ from the hospital because Ramolla has it in for me, he wants to kick me out. And Pervitin is even more expensive.
The Stöhr woman left the paper on the kitchen table. I take a look. What terrible headlines! Without Heat or Light, Misery in the Garden District – True, many people are worse off than I am… Higher gas Consumption at Christmas time – That’s because they’re all opening the taps… Phone numbers and addresses of taxi stations – Will I ever be able to afford a taxi..? Cars Kill four Children’– How awful! Search for Seidelmann’s Killer – right, let them look.
“Good morning, Mrs. Kusian. Ah, you have our newspaper again… You know, I’m not like that, but my mother says that you should share a little of the cost, because that’s not included in the rent.”
I’m boiling with rage, so early in the morning: that stupid cow! But I must stay calm, I can’t afford to move again. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Stöhr, by the middle of next year, 1950, I’ll pay the whole subscription. By then I’ll finally receive my Uncle William’s money that I have inherited. It’s in the bank in Dayton, Ohio but the Americans froze the account because he’s supposed to have been a big Nazi, which is totally ridiculous.”
“Good.” Stöhr tears the paper from my hands. “My mother would like to read it now.”
I ride to work. Ramolla walks up to me. “You are fired as of December 31st of this year!”
I can’t believe it. The world is so ungrateful! What will happen to me now? I faint.
When I come to, Head Nurse Anita sends me home. I’m to lie in bed and get some rest. God, if she only knew… I have no work. I have exactly 15 marks and 42 pfennigs in my purse. I’m supposed to live on that until I get unemployment next year. Ramolla hates me and if I apply for a job at another hospital, they’ll call him first and then they’ll say: “Sorry, we have no vacancies to fill.” I know that when he doesn’t like someone he has bad things written up about them in their files. I have to move to another city and start a new life – with Kurt. Kurt has to see how much I love him, he’s got to know that I’ll do anything for him, really anything. ANYTHING, ANYTHING, ANYTHING! For him, I would even commit murder.
I need 200 marks, 300, 400. Maybe Walter can lend me some money. I walk to the Zoological Gardens S-Bahn station. I wait for the next train. A train comes in from Charlottenburg. I stand right at the edge of the platform. One step forward – and it’ll all be over. Peace. I’m pulled in… NO!!! I still want something from life, I want many more years, with KURT. I want to have a second life, a new life, where we have money and we open a private clinic.
“Train for Erckner. All aboard.”
I get on and ride to Friedrichstrasse so I can take the Nordbahn to Velten. Oranienburgstrasse, Stettiner station, Humboldthain, Gesundbrunnen, Bornholmen strasse, Wollanstrasse. I get off, I’m in control again. It’s not far from the station to Sternstrasse. I meet Walter’s landlady, she’s coming down the stairs. “Bad luck, Mrs. Kusian, your brother in law just left.”
Everybody thinks Walter is my brother in law; they don’t know he’s my ex husband. After the war I had to lie in order to find a position as a nurse trainee: no one would hire the wife of an ex Nazi. Walter and his golden party insignia – all of a sudden my husband was a war criminal. They threw us out of our house. In 1945, they carried me out of the hospital on a coal wagon. Splinters from a Russian grenade had torn my stomach muscles and calves. The wounds weren’t properly healed yet, everything was still suppurating. At exactly the same time, Walter came back from prison camp, a broken man, physically and morally. I hid him for over a week. He doesn’t know how often I was questioned because of him. No money, no work, five of us in a small room. I went all around Berlin, on crutches, to try and find a new place for us and work for myself. Finally we got a one bedroom apartment. It was hell. Our marriage was falling apart with each passing day and, in the end, I breathed a sigh of relief when Walter finally gave me a divorce.
Walter… Somehow I still feel something for him. Even if there’s Kurt. Walter was so dashing, so sharp. Whenever he took me it was like a storm and he took my breath away. No, he isn’t at home. I’m disappointed. I’m horrified at the same time because I’m betraying Kurt, if only in my mind. How can I make it up to him? With the typewriter of course. But where can I find the money for it…? As my grandfather used to say: ‘Whichever way you turn, your ass is still behind you.’
I ride through the city, although I don’t really have the fare and I hit the stores. I try everything, I tell them the craziest stories, I break out in tears – nothing works, nobody is willing to let me have a machine for a 10 mark deposit.
Only Walter can help me. Maybe he knows a few old Party comrades who have gotten back on their feet and can help me out with some money.
So I go back to Wedding, to Sternstrasse. This time he’s at home, getting ready to wrap the Christmas presents for the children. He makes me some herb tea. I sit down next to the warm tiled stove and watch him.
“How about helping me?” he asks me.
“No thanks.”
“Why are you so listless, what’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, Walter…” I get up, I go to him and snuggle up against him. “I don’t know where I’m at anymore. They fired me at the hospital and they want to lodge a formal complaint against me because they say I stole a typewriter. ‘If you don’t bring the typewriter back by Christmas Eve, Mrs. Kusian, we’ll send the police to your home!’”
“And did you steal the typewriter?”
“No, Walter, I swear by everything that’s sacred to me. But they don’t believe me. If I don’t have the money for a new typewriter by tomorrow, I’ll go to jail. Walter, you must lend me some money.”
But all he does is laugh. “I haven’t got anything myself. Try to rob a naked man.”
I faint again. The second time today. When I regain consciousness, I’m lying in Walter’s bed. He carried me there and took off my blouse and skirt. His hand slips under my panties and he starts caressing me. I think of Kurt and want to push his hand away, but he won’t let me. In the end I give in to him. I can’t help myself. Today has been so awful, I think I deserve a little pleasure. And so I spend the night with him…
Around three o’clock in the morning he gets up to go to the toilet, and when he comes back, I break out and say: “Walter, I’ve done something terrible!”
He switches on the night lamp and looks at me searchingly. “What did you do? Tell me…!”
I can’t and I press my face into the pillow.