With the end of the Second World War on the horizon, the in-named narrator is living in Berlin in a tiny attic apartment where she listens to the background music of artillery shells falling. She lives of sporadic food coupons and her hunger is almost overwhelming. The people of Berlin fall into a depressing timetable of standing in line for food, trying to find a secondary source of food, running between home and air-raid shelters and trying to decide who to trust and who to hide from. A strange camaraderie forms between the people sharing the air raid shelter - the basement. The author calls them the "cave dwellers". Through this group she meets the widow of a pharmacist invites the author to move in with her after the author's apartment is bombed out.
The bombing stops. The Russian army has taken Berlin and the has arrived on the street where the author lives. The first thing the Russian soldiers do is steal, accumulating watches and bicycles that they compare. They grow. Orednof this quickly and soon go looking for women and alcohol in the basement. They rape the women hiding out in the basement. The author is a strange sort of translator and go-between between the men and their rape victims. She tries to persuade the men not to rape women but her pleas fall in deaf ears. She is raped herself after her fellow cave dwellers lock her out of the basement.The rapist, a soldier called Petka, launches into a diatribe about how much he likes her and how attracted he is to her. The same day the widow's tenant, Herr Pauli, arrives home and the author feels a little protected by the presence of a male. This is more theoretical than actual as later an older soldier climbs through the window and brutally rapes the author in a particularly demeaning manner, throwing half a packet of cigarettes on the bed by way of a payment and opening her mouth forcibly so that he can spit into it. This experience focuses the narrator and she devised a plan to prevent another rape.
She finds a higher-ranked Russian officer to have an exclusive sexual relationship with knowing that this exclusivity will protect her from the other soldiers. She meets a man named Anatol who is a lieutenant hailing from Ukraine. After a brief flirtation they arrange to meet at 7 o'clock. That night Petka and his friends arrive at the widow's apartment and treat it as if it is their own. They spit and throw garbage on the floor. Anatol arrives as arranged but the narrator quickly realizes that his rank has no real effect on the Russians. A taboo is nonetheless formed whereby Anatol comes over for sex and the other soldiers drop by to use the apartment at their leisure, bringing heir own food. The widow and the narrator get some of the food and they also get the benefit of the protection Anatol's men offer. The narrator is also surprised to meet some better educated Russians. One in particular, Andrei, is well-read and the two enjoy debating politics. However most of the Russians are brutal. A lame soldier clearly hates the narrator and rapes her. Another evening he brings an officer with him and asks the narrator to pleasure him. Anatol has left and so the narrator sees she has little choice; the safer and seemingly more pragmatic thing is to call the sexual encounters with the major consensual so that it is not yet another rape. The major is a nice man. He treats the narrator as if they are in a proper relationship and treats their encounters like dates. He shares his life with her and brings her both much-needed everyday food supplies but also extras like candy and chocolates.
Ultimately, Berlin falls completely and the Russians leave the streets. The city begins to rebuild and the German women are called upon to clear the rubble where buildings have been bombed and also to look for zinc. The narrator is it on laundry detail but plans to start a commercial press with a Hungarian woman. The narrator's boyfriend, Gerd, returns from deployment and does not like the change in her or the way in which she freely discusses her rapes. The chronicle ends with the narrator musing about the state and the future of her relationship with Gerd.
