Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [75]
A few dim, hopeful signs rose curiously in the sunlight in the sea of ruin. The people of Rombaden were working with amazing energy. They had used great ingenuity in the creation of jobs and in using rubble for raw material for a dozen enterprises.
But the digging out would continue for months, perhaps years. A single classroom had been opened without Nazi teachers or Nazi textbooks. A single four-page newspaper and a twenty-five-watt hand-generated radio station represented the press. Half the population had filled out the dreaded Fragebogen. Many of the Nazis were reduced to common labor. Now there was an application to form several trade unions and even a request to begin a political party ... these were signs, however small.
On the other side, the scales weighed heavily. Sean knew now that de-Nazification, in reality, would never work. One does not kill two hundred thousand forming the heart of the Nazi cancer and punish sixteen million others without oneself becoming a Nazi. In the British Zone it was becoming apparent that only the top Nazis would be tried, these trials for showcasing. The French, who realistically had to continue to live next to the Germans, could only pay later for vengeance now.
Nonfraternization was starting to break down. The new troops who had not seen combat were not so hostile toward the Germans, and the good old generous Yankee hearts began to show. American soldiers could not resist giving chocolate to children. And why not, Sean wondered? Were we ever taught to let children starve? Is it our way?
Also, soldiers are men and men needed women—and they would find them, nonfraternization notwithstanding. Certainly, as commander, Sean could make it dangerous, but never dangerous enough to stop it.
Only yesterday he saw something at his own residence that set him thinking. Two of his guards were helping his old servants, Alfred and Heidi Oberdorfer, repair their shattered cottage.
“Goddamn,” Sean whispered aloud, “we are lousy conquerors.”
The scales had dropped even lower—another cut in food ration had been ordered. How long would the energy of the people last? And when winter comes their bodies will demand hundreds more calories for heat. Sean had a foreboding that God would make this winter a severe one.
The food crisis was hastening the black market and bringing on massive prostitution. Crime and venereal disease would follow in natural course.
Sean turned into Princess Allee. Behind the half-smashed facades there were sounds of laughing men and women. It was a strange sound in Rombaden—at least the Poles and the whores had full bellies and bootleg rotgut. The competition to become an “official” Princess Allee whore was intense.
As they saw Sean O’Sullivan walking down the middle of their street they ducked into doorways. The incongruous sound of a woman singing reached his ears; it came from a makeshift cabaret in a cellar. Sean leaned against the doorframe, looked down into the rancid-smelling den. Her husky voice sang:
Du, Du liegst mir im Herzen,
Du, Du liegst mir im Sinn;
Du, Du machst mir viel Schmerzen,
Weisst nicht, wie gut ich dir bin.
A bit of sentimental tripe from another age:
You, you live in my heart,
You, you live in my soul,
You, you cause me great sorrow,
You don’t know how good I am for you.
A resounding chorus of men and women’s voices picked up the song and they thumped mugs on the heavy oaken tables and sang Ja! Ja! Ja! Ja! Everything came to a terrified halt as they saw Sean. He shook his head and walked out quickly.
Sean stood musing in the great square ... from the Romans to the jackboots. He glanced up to his office and to the statue of Berwin and Helga, and across the square to the cathedral. The statue of Mary had been repaired. Tomorrow the cathedral would be returned to the people as a place of worship as the last of the Schwabenwald inmates had been moved to the field hospital in Castle Romstein.
The bell tolled the hour. Berwin and Helga ... Christ and Mary. Would Christ, the Son of God, ever emerge