After my wife had coldly degraded me to a failure out of unfulfilled vanity, there could be no question of a harmonious marriage.
For me, Sylvia was no longer the woman I had married out of honest affection and respect. In the eyes of my wife I was a zero. Disappointment and a deep perplexity overtook me.
What could I do? I would have liked to run away, but it was too late. Should Jacky grow up without a father, like my two boys? I didn’t want to do that to the child. So I stayed, hoping that our relationship would return to normal in the course of time, with good will on both sides.
After several failed attempts, I managed to trade in the aging Trabant at the store VEB Maschinen- und Materialreserven for a used Soviet-design Moskwitsch, with compensation for its value, of course.
After all, the Moskvich was a car that was envied at the time. Sylvia’s heartbeat faster, although she would have preferred a Dacia, because it was more modern and elegant, but sinfully expensive and unattainable. Clever Sylvie did not remain idle either.
A smart construction manager from her combine pursued a bold plan. In the north of the city, he wanted to close a gap in the buildings caused by an air raid bomb with a new building. Apprentice brigades were to improve their professional skills on this special construction during normal working hours.
After work hours and on weekends, the future tenants were to speed up construction by volunteering their services. Of course, the construction manager had selected only construction professionals as future tenants.
The project required the approval of the combine director as well as his support with building materials and machinery. Since the way to the director was through the secretariat, Sylvia insisted on being included in the construction program. The director also wanted to approve the project only if his secretary was included.
All the apartments were already spoken for, but the construction manager was a pragmatist. Without further ado, the five-story project was expanded by one floor. This created two additional apartments, one for us and the other for the party secretary of the combine. Nothing now stood in the way of construction, and a hard, busy time began for me.
The excavation pit had just been dredged, and I was already laying the sluice pipes. After work, I toiled on the site almost every day. On Saturdays until the afternoon and then off to play music with the chemical combo. To make matters worse, it turned out that none of the builders could assemble and weld the steel structure for the balconies. So I had to get to work.
I borrowed a welding transformer and a grip hoist from the company, organized a power connection, and off I went. To my chagrin, I was left pretty much to my own devices in this endeavor. It was a bloody drudgery. The construction progressed quickly.
The apprentices were diligent and the future tenants very committed. Nevertheless, such a project is not without incidents, one of which I would like to mention: On a stormy day in the fall, a hurricane brought all the large construction sites working with building construction cranes to a standstill.
As a result, the concrete plant could not get rid of its premixed liquid concrete and hurriedly supplied all construction sites working with elevators without prior notice.
For this reason, I received a call in my office around noon to come to the construction site as quickly as possible to process the concrete that had been delivered. I wanted to sign out to my boss, but the Rote Hilde wouldn’t let me go. 𝓣𝓸 𝓑𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓮𝓭…
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