One morning at the start of my shift, I thought I saw a swimmer far out with my binoculars. It was either a man tired of life or a daredevil, well-trained long-distance swimmer.
We immediately launched the lifeboat. Due to the high waves, we kept losing sight of the swimmer. When we finally reached him, we found that the person had been dead for hours.
In rigor mortis, the drowned man was floating face down in the water. The man’s pale skin was marked with scratches and scrapes, obviously caused by stones somewhere in the shallows. Away from the bathing beach, we laid the body down.
No one knew who the dead man was. Neither in the mayor’s office nor with us a missing person report was present. It was not until noon that it became clear that the drowned man had gone swimming the previous evening against the will of his fiancée.
The current and the wind drove the body overnight near our beach. There was no end to the interrogations and accident reports I had to write. All kinds of institutions were interested in the accident, from the CID to the Coast Guard and the Stasi.
Long before this sad incident, I had by chance become a member of a small vacation band whose guitarist and singer was prevented by an operation. Until the end of the season, I played with the three musicians on Wednesdays and Saturdays at the Dorfkrug for dancing.
I really could not complain about boredom. The mayor, my highest employer, also signed this contract, obviously he was satisfied with the work of his deputy swimming master. After weeks of service without a single day off, everyone longed for the end of the season, for we lived in very simple conditions.
The barrack in which we slept had been standing for many years behind the dunes in the shade of ancient beech trees. Despite open windows, it always smelled musty. In each of the two rooms there were four beds, four lockers, as many chairs and a table, which was all.
Next door was the toilet with two sinks and a shower from which only cold water bubbled. In order to rinse the sea salt from our bodies at least in the evening, we placed a few full water buckets in the sun. With the watering can we showered each other off.
For lunch we took turns riding our bikes to a school. The food for the evening and the breakfast for the next morning we took right back with us, well packed. There was no reason to complain, but after weeks of living under these conditions, everyone was longing for the family.
Despite my request, Marga decided not to go on vacation to the Baltic Sea this season. She did not say whether this was due to her baby bump, which could no longer be overlooked. Finally back home.
Little Andi was happy that his father was back after such a long time. Despite her pregnancy, Marga had lost none of her usual busyness. Dad had just put down Fallada’s ‘Whoever Eats Out of a Tin Bowl,’ when he went straight back into Thomas Mann’s ‘The Buddenbrooks.’
Reading was his great passion. My mother was not doing very well. Repeatedly she complained of pains in her abdomen. When she was urged to finally have a thorough examination, she refused, saying that these were the unpleasant side effects of menopausal women.
My sister was still waiting with her children for the new, larger apartment. I met up with the combo just in time for the first rehearsal to musically open the traditional annual fountain festival in the spa gardens of the nearby small town of Bad Lauchstädt.
Two days later, the third year of my studies began, with new demands that I had to face. The time went by, I hardly came to my senses. Shortly before the Christmas vacations, our second son was born. The birth went without complications, Thomas was a healthy child. Marga and I were incredibly happy. 𝓣𝓸 𝓑𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓮𝓭…
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