My wife kept me constantly on the go. Every year I had to take a vacation abroad.
To Hungary or even better to the Bulgarian sunny beach. Vacations in socialist countries were awfully expensive at that time. Because of the extremely limited possibilities to exchange GDR marks into forints, lei and leva, everything imaginable had to be dragged along to save money.
This ranged from gasoline and food to important spare parts for the car. We had to be prepared for all eventualities so that we wouldn’t be stranded somewhere in Romania or Bulgaria. Finally, I built a lockable tin cover for the trailer to improve the transport possibilities and also to accommodate the giant suitcase with Sylvie’s sorted out wardrobe.
She successfully hawked the refurbished clothes on weekly markets in Hungary and the last rest for a few lei in Romanian mountain villages. When I was looking forward to a weekend without an appointment, Sylvie’s mother usually had to be visited in the distant rope town in Thuringia.
That was every time an eternal driving. From Christmas to New Year’s Eve she was invited and of course picked up by car. In February, her mother was still there, and I was supposed to teach the old lady that she finally had to go home again.
This scenario repeated itself year after year, although Sylvia’s eldest brother ran a medical practice in their home neighborhood in his own house; but there was no room for his mother there, even over the holidays. Sylvia’s second brother lived in Berlin and did not show up more than once a year.
Sylvie’s youngest brother was the only one who took care of his mother. By the way, none of Sylvie’s brothers visited us as long as I was married to her. What my wife particularly lacked was the West money to buy a few little things in the Intershop now and then, for example a small gold finger ring or West perfume.
So I got my passenger transport license and wanted to work as a makeshift taxi driver at the spring and fall fairs. But the schedule at VEB taxi station didn’t suit me. So I drove without ticket. At night, the cash register rang quite nicely, and there was plenty of West German money.
But I was smart enough not to hand over all my earnings to good Sylvie. The fare evasion got a considerable boost outside the fairs, too, when I managed to get hold of a used Lada by a very adventurous coincidence. This type of car was a sought-after cult car at the time.
The owner of the object of my desire was a bit unsettled because at some point the garage door had been in her way and the car had suffered a rough paint damage and a few harmless dents. But I assured her that the damage did not bother me in any way and that I was professional enough to fix everything.
Fortunately for me, the lady trusted me and even gave me time to sell the Moskvich, because without the proceeds of the sale I would not have been able to pay for the Lada. 𝓣𝓸 𝓑𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓮𝓭…
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