Entire neighborhoods have been demolished. I hardly know where we are. Bombs are worse now, worse than the first thousand-bomb raid, worse than the terror bombings of Cologne and Bremen. Incendiaries with liquid asphalt stick to wood and stone making it hard to put out the fire.

An old man sits on rubble and softly plays an ode to the Unknown Soldier, a white cloth attached to his bugle. Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden.

“This war didn’t start in Berlin. This war was born in Versailles. That damn treaty is destroying the poor volk and causing old people to pledge an oath to the emperor and the Weimar times,” the major says.

Otto was an altar boy when the Catholic Church was popular. He’s sad to think of St. Thomas Aquinas and the “tantum ergo” that he sang as a child. “Et antiquum documentum novo cedat ritui.” What is Thomas Aquinas now when even village priests are hoisting the papal ensign along with a white flag of surrender?

A child’s bike hangs by one handlebar from the eaves of an apartment building half demolished. Where is the child? Is he or she safe? A window frame falls on the bike and both go crashing to the ground. Is the whole world exploding around me, or is it only Berlin?

“I went to the War Academy at Danzig and later attended the General Staff College in order to lead a battalion on the front. And to think… to think I’m leading the Führer’s future wife to her wedding dress. I can tell this to my children and grandchildren someday.”

While exploding shells throw clouds of dirt around us, an organ grinder cranks out hopelessness from a hand organ. He bellows: “The brain depends on the bowels. On the bowels. On the bowels.” Yellow lamps burn in the ceiling of an empty bus. As an officer observes two firemen through a scissors telescope, as they dig in the collapsed rubble that was once a house.

“Fräulein, only admirals have any luck in this war. Our Führer cares nothing about the sea or fishing out soldiers with German boathooks. He sees us as a land power. The navy has no regrets.”

“And are you suggesting, Major, that you have regrets?”

He doesn’t answer but continues to go carefully around two dead black colonial soldiers splayed on the street, their backs mashed smoothly into concrete.

“Think of it, Major, black men dying next to white ones.”

To a squad of soldiers moving meter by meter through ruins, the major shouts, “Shoot at their tank tracks.”

“It’s the Jews with their long beards pulling carts and crying: ‘old knives, old knives’ that did all this.” Squinting his eyes, he’s unable to grasp this landscape of hell. “My mother used to take me every year for Christmas stollen at the Kaiserhof. I’d see fat children eating plate after plate of stollen. When I asked who they were, Mother said they were little Jewish boys and girls who have diabetes and like cakes. The major sneers and says, “They’ve grown up to be Jews selling knives in the street.”

Our excellent cook, Thilde, is not like the Jews in Berlin. She cooks with my mother’s pans. In Simbach, Jews are poor.

Blondi hasn’t even seen a Jew. She’s dumb enough to probably lick a Jew’s hand like any other hand.

“I seldom can eat meat after I drive through the city these days,” Otto says. “I’ve given up stew altogether since seeing one of our soldiers in Russia trying to get a dead Ivan’s boots off. The Russian’s feet were frozen so our mess sergeant cut off his legs with a meat cleaver, then put the legs on the stove right next to his hen-stew until both human legs and chicken legs came warm and easy off the bone.” He pauses, considering his family. “The bread ration has been reduced to 200 grams a day. My sister is pregnant and anemic, eating only watery milk soup and crusts smeared with lard. What kind of child will she deliver? What will the next generation of Germans look like? Americans can hardly criticize us. All the Jews are safe in resettlement camps while our men, women and children are dying in the cities.”

“Since we went into Russia, they’ve continued to criticize us for everything,” I say.

When it’s three blocks to Renate’s apartment, I tell him where to turn.

Swerving, we nearly hit a huge bed that was blown into the street. Two men are on the bed, locked together, the one on top moving in rapturous plunges.

“What are they doing?”

“Spontaneity, Fräulein.”

“I’ve heard all about this men loving men thing.” They’re called “ein warmer Bruder” (a warm brother). Only half that way, Göring wants women as well. He wants everything, and once had to use a chicken when inspecting an outpost that was far from any brothel. The chicken, I’m told, did not survive his ardor, another casualty of war.

We stop abruptly and I fall forward, but the major catches me with an outstretched arm.

“Soldiers enjoying themselves, nicht?” The major jumps out and moves closer to the bed to observe, his freshly polished shoes in contrast to a dusty uniform. “One can hardly blame men who must find enjoyment in hell.”

Two SS Stallions, their uniforms carefully hanging from the bedpost, their lean bodies entwined, are indeed forgetting the war.

Beside the bed are old newspapers, tin cans, leaflets, rubber patches. As powdered dust floats down upon the naked lovers, it’s like a snow-globe I turned over as a child. Now exploded Berlin falls upon the tops of lust.

Sitting on the side of the bed, the major urges them on, though I don’t think the men can hear him in their rapture. Yes, the major is right. One can’t blame any form of pleasure in the midst of so much misery. Escalating groans of pleasure can block out shells bursting. “Der Eiserne Mann, oh iron man,” one calls to the other, and the Major turns slyly to hide his hand that reaches in his trousers for his own iron. All three pop at the same time.

In a friendly manner of a comrade in arms, the major slaps both young men on their bare buttocks.

“I have a shot left,” the one SS captain tells the major.

“Perhaps if you’re here tomorrow. I have an assignment,” the Major replies.

The naked SS captain in bed turns to me. “I have a wife, Fräulein, and I know a woman’s needs. Would you like to go behind that tree with me for a few minutes? If you don’t wish to go the full length, I have my swastika ring for a more gentle persuasion. This is wartime, and one shouldn’t be modest.”

To better hear my response, the other SS officer, a lieutenant, lifts up on one elbow.

“I’m to be married tonight. I’ll have contentment soon enough.” Smoothing down my skirt in emphasis, I feel the light touch of the material against my thighs. What difference would it make if I relieved myself behind that tree? The captain’s ring has a knobby swastika with polished points that I know would do a quick and elegant job. Adi wouldn’t care. Not with a swastika ring. Not without any human touch.

The two naked SS officers turn again to each other when they see me get back into the vehicle. Will pressing my legs together help me reach some kind of conclusion, softly, gently, so that the major won’t know? Would I be able to quickly push his hand away if he placed it in a gentlemanly fashion on my lap, moving his fingers into my skirt slowly, then more steadily, never touching my skin, only working the fabric like a merciful instrument?

But all I do is tell the major to go north and then turn and go two blocks to reach Renate’s apartment.

“I wouldn’t call what’s left blocks,” he says. “But at least there’s nothing more to destroy.”

“Just us,” I say calmly.

The major begins to sing softly, “Ich hat einen Kameraden, einen bessren findst Du nicht… I used to have a good friend, better than any you would find.”

We turn and approach two unharmed streets, one facing the other, each with a row of perfectly preserved lampposts and houses. Equally unharmed are Goebbels’ atrocity slogans: Hate we must. Revenge is just. Hate we trust. Revenge we must. Now Josef is hitting the last big pipe on his huge Wurlitzer organ by adding on the radio, Bombs give us strength! Sweat saves blood!

But have his slogans helped? A mere yard beyond these signs is a barrier of rubble. We can go no farther.

22

“I’M AFRAID YOUR FRIEND’S APARTMENT IS GONE.”

“I don’t give up so easily, Major.”

I get out and stand before the rubble, the major following me. Numerous dented pots and pans are scattered everywhere, and the major says they probably belong to Jews who have fled the city. One can see right away they’re not normal pots and pans, but ones that are used for all those silly dietary laws Jews have. “They’re not Unserer Leute, our kind of pots,” he says, holding out a large skillet.

Attempting humor, I ask, “Are pots why we resettle them, Major?”

“They crowded us. All their furniture, pans, houses. Jews made us go into Russia to get more space. Lebensraum. Nevertheless, Jews love Germany and are tolerant of us.”

“Don’t forget the ghetto uprisings,” I add.

“Anti-German slander. Many Jews want to send their children to be educated in resettlement camps. There are prisoners who don’t wish to be released. Jews from Dachau say it’s a resort compared to Polish camps.”

The major shoves me behind a mountain of debris as he sees a Russian tank in the distance. Nearby, our own tank-hunters look for the enemy with Panzerfausts. Shooting begins. I find myself kneeling on a human corpse. The major nudges the body away with one quick kick, and a thigh comes loose flying up and landing on my head. I scream, and the major pushes the disgusting remains back on the pile.