A good deed

(DE) Berlin, June 1978

It's easy to smile at the old joke about two committed young scouts who take their duty to do a good deed every day too seriously and drag an older woman across the street without realising that she doesn't even want to cross the road. Well, overzealous people like to overshoot the mark. "That couldn't happen to me!" I thought to myself, One evening, however, I was proved wrong. I wanted to do something good, but the good deed turned out differently than I thought.

On a warm summer night in June 1978, I was out and about in Berlin-Kreuzberg with a friend from university at around 1 a.m. We had just come out of a pub after a convivial evening and were pushing our bikes to the next intersection to talk a bit more. After that, we would go our separate ways.

Then, we saw an older woman slumped on the pavement at the Oranienplatz. She looked as if she had just collapsed. We rushed to her to help her and call an ambulance if necessary. The old woman grabbed her heart and wailed, "Oh, my heart! Oh, my heart!" When we tried to call the ambulance, she resisted vehemently. She lived just around the corner, and once she was home, everything would be fine, so she said. She asked us if we could bring her home. But, of course, it was just around the corner. And who would want to leave a frail, poor woman sitting alone on the street at night?

So we set off. We hooked her from both sides and pushed our bikes with the other free hand. The address she gave us, Waldemarstraße, was only five minutes away. We would make it!

But our progress was slow because the old woman had to stop and catch her breath again and again and moan: "Oh, my heart! Oh, my heart!" We felt a little uneasy. We would have preferred to call an ambulance, but she insisted she was okay. She just wanted to go home. Finally, after a long 20 minutes, we arrived at her apartment block. "Side wing, third floor," the old woman mumbled. All right, we had dragged her this far. We couldn't leave this frail older woman standing at the front door. Of course, we had to finish our task. Fortunately, The front door was open, so we slowly dragged her to the side wing. However, when we started lifting the older woman up the stairs, we realised it was not so easy after all. Her legs had no strength, and the woman was much heavier than we had thought. We tried pushing and pulling and slowly climbed one step after another—a very sweaty activity. In the narrow stairwell, we noticed that the good woman smelled quite strongly of alcohol and urine. Well, who knows what kind of sad life she has! So we pulled and pushed on. What else could we have done at that point? But eventually, we got stuck. No chance! Nothing worked any more! We were at a loss for what to do.

Then I remembered that the pub on the corner was still open. Maybe I could get help from there! No sooner said than done. I left the old woman in the care of my friend and ran to the pub. There, I looked around for possible helpers. They had to be strong and willing to undertake this unusual task. Eventually, I found two young men who agreed to leave their beers behind for a short time under the supervision of their friends and help me get this helpless old woman home. "No problem, lass, we'll get that sorted!" Good-natured and optimistic, they followed me into the stairwell.

The old woman greeted them with her oh-my-heart-oh-my-heart wail, which promptly spurred the two helpful men on, and they set to work. But even for these two strong lads, it was not so easy. The woman was hefty and hard to move. So, four of us pushed and pulled, step by step, with short breathers in between. The old, frail woman felt heavier than a 100 kg potato sack. One of the guys had put his shoulder under her rear end to have better leverage to push. As we pushed and pulled again, and he heaved with his shoulder, a long fart escaped the old woman loudly. The young man at her rear almost made the woman fall backwards in shock. We struggled to stop her from falling down the stairs. The narrow stairwell soon filled with a terrible stench. Although we hardly dared to take a deep breath, we giggled to ourselves at this absurd situation. At the same time, we tried to be quiet so as not to wake the neighbours.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we reached the third floor. We breathed a sigh of relief. However, the old woman had another difficulty in store for us. She had no key, she muttered somewhat incomprehensibly. While we were still puzzling over what to do, she tried to reassure us: "They'll let me in, won't they?" That was definitely anything but reassuring. She never mentioned that she lived in the flat with other people. And why was it questionable whether they would let her in? Something was very wrong here!

We better kept a low profile from now on. We leaned the frail old woman against the wall, rang the doorbell and quickly ran down to the second floor to watch from our hiding place what would happen now. And really, after a while, we heard noises from inside the flat. A key turned in the lock, and the door was opened a crack. A Turkish woman in a nightgown came out and whined, "No, not again!" But then, resignedly, she pulled the old woman into the flat and closed the door behind her.

The four of us looked at each other in dismay. Oh my goodness! What had we done here? Presumably, the old woman had lived in this flat before, which had now been rented to a Turkish family. Maybe the old woman was homeless or in a nursing home from which she sometimes escaped. Whatever the case, she obviously managed to persuade gullible helpers now and then to drag her back to her old home.

After all, who would want to leave a frail old woman sitting alone on the street at night?

We certainly had to recover from this shock before going home. So, the four of us went back to the pub a bit dazed, irritated, annoyed, with a guilty conscience towards the Turkish family, but also amused. Over a cold beer, we slowly regained our composure and were amazed at the ruthlessness the frail old woman had carried out this action.

(LL)