strangely enough my story is set in 1945 Berlin as well
‘Berlin Sushi’ – Benedict. J. Jones
The guns boom and crack in the distance, the sky is lit up like flashes in a pan and I sit in the dark waiting for Ivan. My mother put me into the attic and told me to stay there. I’m only fifteen but I know what the Russians will do to me if they find me: what they’ll try and do to all the women of Berlin. Frantic shouting echoes up from the street and I peek through the small window. Men in camouflage smocks, feld grau blouses and overcoats move into the street and begin hiding. Their officer barks orders at them like a head chef making sure his kitchen is in order before service and within moments they have vanished as though they were the meat from the soup my mother has made for the last year.
I see my first Ivan an hour later. The newsreels were right he looks like one of Ghengis Khan’s Mongols descending on us from the steppes. The gun in his hands had an ammunition clip shaped like a banana, not that I’d know a banana if I saw one any more, and a thick fur cap sat upon his head. He looked up and down the street before motioning back from whence he had came. An engine roared and a tank jerked around the corner. A dozen Ivans were clinging to the shell of the metal beast and another half dozen of their comrades moved warily along the pavement. The tank was half way down the street when a machine gun began chattering. Two of the smocked men emerged from a cellar and fired their Panzerfausts at the side of the tank. There was a great bang and a crack like wet celery being snapped in half. The tank jerked forward once and stopped. I put my hands over my ears as the machine gun continued to chatter. The Russians fired back and began to run back down the street. The great gun on the tank boomed once and the Millers house at the end of the street shook as the front wall collapsed. The machine gun fell silent. The crew of the tank bailed out and ran after their comrades.
The Russians came back twenty minutes later pushing a big green field gun. They blasted the houses where the German soldiers had hidden themselves and dropped grenades into the cellars. When they were done they searched some of the houses and came out holding curtains, dresses and watches; their faces like those of child raiders who had forced the lock on a sweetshop. Then they broke down the door to my house.
I watched through a gap in the floorboards as the laughing Ivans threw my mother around the kitchen and made her dance with them. They emptied the cutlery into their bedrolls and one even took our good soup bowl. At the end of the dance she lay on the floor - her legs white and spread as though she were a chicken waiting to be stuffed. They took turns stuffing her. There were fifteen of them. I counted. When they were finished and leaving one remained. He walked back to my mother and struck her in the head with the butt of his machine gun. Then he climbed back on her and stuffed her one last time. When he was done she had gone the colour of icing and didn’t move anymore. The Ivan kicked her and left.
After an hour I climbed down and rearranged her skirts so that she was covered. I took her recipe book from the bottom drawer and snuck out into the street. There was nothing more I could do for her. The cold pale thing, like a piece of leftover pork, that lay in the kitchen was no longer my mummy.
I moved slowly down the street expecting an Ivan with his britches down behind every wall and corner. There were none. The gunfire popping a few streets away made me think of the fat cracking and spitting as a joint roasted. My stomach spoke to me in low grunts and grumbles as I picked my way across the rubble which now covered the pavements. I looked up and stopped. A great, tawny, lion padded across the top of the intersection in front of me. He regarded me strangely before padding on to sniff at the charred corpse of a Volksturm volunteer who lay on the broken bricks and masonry. I closed my eyes and felt like that made me invisible to this roving king. But I couldn’t keep my eyes shut and peeked from beneath my lids. The great beast looked from the corpse to me and back again for a minute before it moved on. I watched the swish of its tail until it vanished behind the burnt out shell of a truck. I closed my eyes once more and felt my cloak of invincible invisibility fall once more over me and I dropped to my knees in front of the roasted corpse. I stayed there for a long time.
The Russians had already been at Kristina’s house, her dress was torn and one of her eyes bruised, but her and her mother welcomed me in. We sat in the dark as the gunfire began to recede. Shouting in the street dragged us awake but the shouts were quickly silenced by a single gunshot. Hunger stabbed at my stomach like toothpicks in a club sandwich and the soles of my shoes began to look as tasty as freshly sliced beef.
We learned to go out early in the morning and scavenge for water and food while the Ivans slept off their hangovers. At night we sat quiet in the dark as packs of them swaggered around the streets drinking and firing their guns in the air. Once one of them tried the door but we had pushed a bureau against it and he soon cursed at us in bad German before stomping off in search of easier sport.
Kristina and I barely spoke until the Tommys arrived. She would just sit in the corner with dark rings growing beneath her eyes. The Tommys eyes weren’t as hard as those of the Ivans and sometimes they would give us chocolate and try to help us. I kept my distance but the chocolate was nice. Kristina’s house was on the edge of the new British zone so we still saw the Ivans, especially at night, roving in their packs on a hunt for women and loot. In their own way the Tommys were as bad as the Ivans but at least they were nicer about it; victorious soldiers always want the same things.
Within a couple of weeks Kristina had three boyfriends; two Tommys and an Ivan. Even the Ivan was nice, his name was Alex, and they all brought food for us. The canned meat tasted like ashes in my mouth and I found it hard to keep the potatoes down. Kristina told me that one of her Tommys – Jack - had a friend, George, who wanted to meet me. My ears turned the colour of beetroot at the thought. She had told him I was nineteen. George brought me flowers. Kristina lent me her blue dress and George took me to a bar filled with other Tommys. It was nice but when he went to kiss me I ran back into the house. George wasn’t angry he just laughed and said he’d see me the next day. Kristina didn’t come home that night.
They found her the next day in the ruins of an old bank. She had been lain out on the concrete like a carcass on a butchers slab. The Hitler Jurgen dagger that had done the work was still in her side. She still had the remnants of her yellow dress but her shoes and nylons were gone. A neighbour told me that they didn’t find all of her.
George took me out again two days later and this time as we walked home from the bar he pushed against me in a door way. Fumes hung on his breath and his groin swelled as he pressed his body against mine. I smiled and he told me how beautiful I was. He leant in close, lips as red as the essence that drips from rare steak, and I stretched up towards him. My teeth sank into his cheek as the army bayonet I had had concealed in my hand bag slid into his stomach as easily as if it were butter. George sank to his knees and fell forward.
I spat out the remnants of his cheek.
I prefer the more tender cuts from the rump and thighs. As I cut into him I remember back to that charred corpse in the street that first sweet taste of cooked flesh. I begin to feel full for the first time since Kristina and it is a wonderful feeling. I gorge myself. The world is a different place now and a girl with a beautiful smile can go anywhere. George was nice to me and he tastes like chicken I’ll always remember him.