Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [160]
Elke’s proposition presented moral aspects against her teaching, but morality in such times was a flexible item. Almost everyone was doing something to live that they would not do in normal times. Hilde rationalized that having dates arranged with occupation soldiers was not the same as being a common whore. It even had a ring of respectability. And, if Elke did well, she could do better.
Hilde remembered her own experiences before the Mongol soldiers raped her. The first time she had sex, she was just fifteen. It was encouraged in Hitler Youth as not only honorable but a highly patriotic duty to bear a baby. Illegitimacy did not exist in the Third Reich. In this intense nationalistic atmosphere she and a boy, whose name and face she could hardly recall, decided to try it out with each other.
There was a week-long encampment of Hitler Youth in the Berlin State Forest on the Müggel Lake. They arranged a rendezvous in the woods in much the same way as dozens of other couples.
The boy was awkward and fumbling and caused her pain. He cried afterward because he had done so badly. All she got from it was disgust and anger. He was a stupid clod, like most men.
There was a second experience during the war when Hildegaard realized true womanhood. Berlin, before the big bombings, was a place of gaiety and excitement and a bit of madness. A young submarine officer on leave, named Sigi, pursued her with wild, heady abandon and made her forget the other unpleasant experience.
Hilde cared for him ... well, for a while, anyhow. When his leave was over and he returned to his submarine she forgot him almost completely ... at once. His whining letters annoyed her. Although she had enjoyed Sigi, the affair revealed to her many things. What Hilde craved from him most in those fifteen crazy days were those moments he was unable to restrain himself at the sight of her loveliness, when he lost control simply by touching her. The supreme thrill came when he was in a state of utter exhaustion and unable to function.
When Sigi left, Hilde decided that falling in love so intensely again was a bother and took too much out of her. She saw the example of her sister immersed in misery and pity with Dietrich Rascher, saw her tear herself to bits. No man was worth what Ernestine went through.
Hilde decided that the next affair would be approached with cold calculation with someone who could help her with her ambition to gain lazy comfort. Hilde was self-centered enough to deny herself the giving of love. She pampered her beauty for the right moment, and as a woman of twenty she was an enormously handsome woman in a classical German sense.
The horrors of Berlin told her that the old life was gone. The chances to fill her ambitions were also gone. In this tomb she could not understand how they could not be gone forever. Yet, her craving for things that Elke Handfest had attained began to overpower her.
When she saw Elke again, she said, straight-out, “I would like to try a date with you.”
Elke was pleased that Hildegaard had taken the first step. “I will see what can be arranged.”
“Of course, I would prefer an Ami officer.”
Elke laughed. “You will have to take what is arranged.”
“Do you mean ... I might have to accept a Russian?”
“Some of them are quite nice, Hilde. Being a beautiful creature does not mean everything. You must please the men you are with. If you don’t, you’ll wash out quickly.”
Elke tutored her on the rest of it Never tell a soldier your troubles. He doesn’t give a damn about your crippled mother or the hole you live in. Too many girls spend their evenings boring a man. A man wants a stupid, happy girl who can make love like an animal, laugh at his jokes, allow herself to be possessed. Don’t drink, Elke warned. A girl needs her wits; stupid girls drink. Forget modesty.
“And don’t fall in love, Hilde. But of course, you will never fall in love. You love yourself too much for