I did not dare go to my parents. I was still afraid of my father’s wrath, and I didn’t want to do that to my mother.
Fortunately, my sister had long since moved into her new apartment in the southern suburbs. Because of her four children, she slaved half the night as a waitress in a neighboring café, which, however, was more like a smoky beer pub. Working nights allowed her to at least be there for her children during the day.
She truly deserved better, but to me, despite everything, she was still my understanding little sister. She informed me about the state of our mother’s health and strongly advised me to visit her. I pulled myself together. Father did not speak a single word with me.
Mother had survived a serious operation. Abdominal cancer in an advanced stage. She was no longer able to run the household and was constantly losing weight. Hospitalizations alternated with discharges. Finally, she was no longer able to eat and had to be fed artificially.
Talking to us was impossible for her, but her heart and circulation were stable and did not allow her to die. After months of infirmity, death released her from her terrible suffering. Life went on.
I was not made for a permanent unmarried-person-life; I was looking for an understanding partner in whom I could confide. Several attempts had failed again and again because of the music-making on the weekends. Then I met Sylvia. The long-legged, slim former mannequin with the discreet make-up face let the Venus trap snap shut immediately.
Divorced without children, she wanted to bring peace into her life, was looking for a partner for life and worked as a management secretary in a construction combine. She was smart, artistically talented and an ace on the typewriter. Sylvie lived in a meager apartment with a toilet in the stairwell, on a very busy noisy street where I couldn’t even park the Trabant. After all, a modest start, at least better than my furnished chamber.
I had changed jobs with a heavy heart and had not returned to my proven work collective after successfully completing my diploma thesis because I wanted to avoid joining the combat group, which the party secretary had asked me to do several times.
Now I was working in an educational institution in a large combine that produced piping of all dimensions. In this academy I was responsible for the guidance and supervision of the prospective young engineers, including their final theses.
I enjoyed the new work, but the work collective could only be endured with stoic equanimity. The head of the academy, who was also the deputy head of the cadre, was only called ‘Red Hilde’ in the combine. My immediate colleagues constantly produced themselves as conscious, unimpeachable communists, but on weekends they ducked away to their dachas when the other colleagues were called upon to participate in the obligatory demonstration processions on socialist holidays.
For me, the work was only bearable because I spent most of my time working with the students and their mentors in all the combine plants. Fortunately, I did not have to endure these two-faced phonies for too long. 𝓣𝓸 𝓑𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓮𝓭…
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