End. For the beginning, see «Zagranitsa» No. 22(384)
Day Three
It was a working day, like the previous one, starting with lifting gypsum boards. But that morning we carried twice as many. You see, the boss asked us to 'help' his compatriots lift the gypsum to their floor, since they were running out of time. As if we were making great time! But refusing the management's 'request' means immediate dismissal. He will, of course, pay us for the extra hour of work, but who needs such shoddy work? Hauling heavy loads from the very morning, and then fluttering around on stepladders all day like a butterfly. Oh well, we're used to it. But the 'Yugos' – the boss's countrymen – came to work just as we lifted the last sheet. I could no longer feel my arms, legs, or back. And we still had to lift just as many 'our' sheets upstairs. I decided to rebel and sat down on the steps of the staircase for a smoke break. The payback came immediately, in the form of a German Bauleiter, who appeared out of nowhere and silently pointed a finger at a sign with a picture of a smoking cigarette crossed out with a thick red line. Then, in an extremely displeased voice, he uttered some phrase from which I only understood 'Arbeiten! Gut. Schnell!' Shaking his finger at me, he solemnly retreated to where he had emerged a minute earlier. Russian illegals on Berlin construction sites can only smoke on the go – no pleasure at all! Because of such mobile smoking, I reduced my nicotine consumption to about twenty percent. Of course, cigarette prices also played a role – a pack of Marlboro costs 5.35 marks in stores. The arithmetic is simple: a pack a day, and already your wallet is lighter by 160 marks a month.
Fear that the German would report my misdeed to the 'Yugo' spurred my tormented flesh until evening. And finally I understood the meaning of Tikhy's words when he spoke about the need to constantly 'create movement.' Whether there is work or you finished everything long ago – but if no new orders from the management have come, you still need to move, feign busyness. That is, just stand and wave your hands with a tool clutched in them, carry the same gypsum from one room to another, climb up and down the stepladder, measuring non-existent dimensions, etc. As long as it looks plausible.
Exactly at 20:00, the alarm on Tikhy's Orient beeped, and only then did we start collecting the tools, packing them in plastic bags in order to hide them later from prying eyes. On construction sites where Yugoslavs and Poles work (practically all construction sites), theft flourishes. You turn away for a moment, and something gets stolen. It's fine if it's something small like a gypsum cutting knife – it costs mere pennies and I always have a spare with me, but what if it's something more serious? For example, a staple gun for 70-80 marks, or worse – an electric screwdriver (700 marks). You won't be able to pay it off. And the thief will sell it at the Turkish market for about two hundred marks, without even thinking about your problems. As a result, we hide our tools so well that sometimes we can't find them ourselves. Some do it differently: they buy it with their own money and carry it with them all the time, even to the toilet.
First salary! I was overjoyed – almost 90 marks for a day's work! For that kind of money back home I would have had to slave away for at least ten days. Maybe not as intense, but still! At that moment I didn't realize that I had already spent 8 marks on transportation alone that day, plus food and cigarettes. It would be good if at least 60 marks remained from the salary, and that only with steady work. Otherwise, maybe only 30 marks 'net' per day. And they become truly 'net' at home when my family receives them – we deduct another couple of marks for remittance. Total – a quarter per day. Not much. But not empty either. That's how I existed in Berlin – whatever I earned, I sent home, and there my earnings fell into an abyss. Over almost an entire year, I only saved a thousand marks for a rainy day.
A rainy day in Berlin is winter, when there is practically no work for illegal construction workers, no matter how hard you look. This is because the main part of the work for people like us is given by Yugoslav foremen, and from December to March there are many national holidays in Yugoslavia, and every 'Yugo' considers it his duty to go home during this time. And the Germans are not active in construction during this period either. Moreover, before the New Year, police raids become more frequent at construction sites – the local police also have that notorious plan to combat illegals, and where there is a plan, there is always a rush at the end of the quarter.
But I got distracted. So there I was, dreaming of fabulous earnings. I completely relaxed. The boss suddenly roared right in my ear: 'Cut the doors!!!' – it knocked all the nonsense out of my head. And the knife suddenly became so sharp! The gypsum started flying out from under it like shavings from a lathe! That's what 'fear of losing your job' means. You'll gnaw the gypsum with your teeth, just as long as they pay.
And so I 'cut' the 'doors' until evening, until the boss showed up for his third 'personnel inspection.' He counted the doors I had processed during the day, twirled my knife in his hands, and, with a heavy sigh, handed me a whole pack... of new blades. And he looked as if he had pinned an order on my chest, and I should thank him for that my whole life. Later I bought such blades myself. They cost 5 marks, and last a week.
That day I returned home in high spirits. After all, the first salary! Ah, life is good! It's just that I somehow don't fit into this goodness, clearly aware of my second-class status in this beautiful but hostile world. With such gloomy thoughts, I fell asleep. This time I was lucky, and I woke up just before my stop. My internal alarm clock worked until my departure from Berlin; now I was not afraid to miss my stop, and I completely calmly fell asleep on the way home, getting off the train already slightly rested.
The evening was festive. We were "washing down" our first pay. We went to bed late, after midnight.
Day four and last
The boss was already waiting for us to deliver the most unpleasant news: today we must finish the work at this site at all costs, and tomorrow he is transferring all his subordinates to another site. There is no place for me there. I even offered to work for free for a week or two as an apprentice, but he flatly refused, reasoning that during the learning process I would constantly distract the "specialists," and that would cost him more than my free labor, that deadlines were more important to him now than incubating professionals.
I remembered the first day, when even 20 marks for half an hour didn't appeal to me. Now I would have agreed to five an hour. What can I say, I had just offered to work for free altogether. Not needed, and that's it! True, in the evening when he paid me, he gave me his business card – call if anything. "So he did take a liking to you after all," said Tikhy. "The other workers beg him for business cards." A weak consolation, but still.
By lunchtime we had finished with the rework, and during the lunch break Tikhy led me somewhere to the upper floor. Along the way he told me to walk as quietly as possible and not say a word. I didn't understand anything, but I had long learned the rule "Trust the professionals!"
Quietly, like partisans, we walked past the room where the "Yugis" – the boss's countrymen – were having lunch to music, and entered the next one. Tikhy pointed at a lightweight aluminum stepladder that had gone missing from our floor on the first day, replaced by a heavy, wobbly wooden one. It was scary to climb even without a load, let alone with plaster in hand – it shook so much. Then Tikhy pointed at a construction wheelbarrow standing next to the stepladder and gestured to me that we needed to take it with us. "An eye for an eye," so to speak. I fully agreed with the plan of revenge, remembering the trembling in my knees that occurred every time I scrambled up the shaky stepladder to the ceiling, afraid to drop both the plaster and myself along with Tikhy. Still as quietly, we carried the wheelbarrow out of the room on our hands and moved it to our floor. The wheelbarrow we just swiped is no different from the others. Try proving it was our doing! All claims go to the Bauleiter! Before him, we are all equal.
After lunch we had to clear the entire floor of leftover drywall and sweep it clean by evening. I counted a total of up to fifty half sheets of drywall, which equals 25 whole ones at 20 marks each. The vaunted German economy...
The wheelbarrow has to be loaded in three tiers, building up the sides with large pieces of plaster. The scraps should be packed tightly, not dumped haphazardly, resulting in something impossible to lift. This wheelbarrow has only one wheel, so almost half the weight falls on the arms, which after a while stretch almost down to the knees.
Steering the wheelbarrow is also a "pleasure." On turns, it tries to run into something new and shiny, like the glass railing of the stairwell. And when tipping, you have to jump aside in time, otherwise all your male pride could end up smeared across its support legs. On top of that, you will inevitably bury your nose in the pile of just-dumped trash due to losing balance when the vehicle rolls back half a meter.
I was hauling out another load of trash. Approaching the freight elevator, I saw it was occupied on the first floor, and deciding not to wait, I pressed the call button for the regular elevator. The day before we had still ridden it to work; its walls were then covered with a special material to prevent damage to the expensive cladding during construction work. Even the control panel was covered with a thick transparent film to avoid scratching the buttons. But that day the elevator gleamed with polished stainless steel panels – the protective covering had been removed. Inside there was a sign with big red letters and an exclamation mark. Paying absolutely no attention to all this, I boldly rode into the elevator, trying not to touch anything. As usual, I pressed the button for EG (Erdgeschoss – first floor in our terms) and went down. How was I supposed to know that this building has two levels, and the EG of the passenger elevator and the EG of the freight elevator are completely different things? And that the part of the building where the passenger elevator stops at the bottom has already been put into operation? The elevator doors opened. And what do I see?! Oh, horror! Before me is the lobby of either a hotel or some business center. Black marble floor, a black carpet runner from the elevator to the entrance doors, behind the counter some guy in a black suit. The entire lobby is packed with Japanese people, all of them as one in black trousers and white shirts with black ties. I confidently drove the wheelbarrow right into the thick of the Japanese... The guy behind the counter was simply stunned.
The Japanese behaved courageously – without a hint of emotion, they silently parted, perfectly understanding that colliding with a wheelbarrow would not bode well for them. For some reason, I felt like a kamikaze. A trail of white tracks from the wheelbarrow wheel and my shoes stretched behind me across the black carpet. The hall's entrance doors automatically swung open, and I quickened my pace. Instead of steps, a gentle slope led from the doors to the sidewalk, and the heavy wheelbarrow, gaining speed, pulled me along. With great effort, I stopped it right next to the bumper of a brand-new BMW. Gathering my remaining strength, I lifted the wheelbarrow off the ground and intuitively turned right. I wasn't mistaken – about fifty meters away was the very entrance through which I had been entering this damned construction site for the third day. Driving straight onto the road, weaving among cars and snarling at the sounds of horns like a cornered beast at the cries of hunters, I almost ran toward the saving gates. I only fully realized what I had gotten into when I reached my floor. But the job was done. Then the German Bauleiter came running, shouting something in his language (they had figured me out quickly!), and someone of lower rank even tried to utter a Russian curse, but I no longer cared. I was spending my last hours on this construction site. If only I could make it to evening, to payday... or payback?
Making it to evening turned out to be quite difficult. The Yugos from the upper floor received a similar assignment – to remove trash from their area. I don't know what happened up there, but a heated argument was clearly audible from above, and the word "chariot" constantly appeared in hard-to-pronounce phrases. Apparently, they had some problem with wheelbarrows.
They came down to us, saw "their" wheelbarrow, and... No, I didn't give it to them. A scuffle was brewing. The German – the little boss – instantly disappeared, to avoid trouble. Only Tikhy and the Germans working on our floor separated us. After all the previous events, I had completely lost my composure, and I decided to stand my ground. Such determination sobered the Yugoslavs a bit, and they backed off. They hung around for a while hoping to snatch the wheelbarrow while I collected gypsum in other rooms, but I held on to it with a death grip, and they went on their way. Never mind, they'll steal another one somewhere else, it's not their first time. And I continued my journeys along the route "7th floor – container."
My last working day at this site was coming to an end. I had already removed all the trash. Tikhy finished sweeping the last office. The Yugos, having changed into clean clothes, came down to our floor and sat on the windowsills, not at all bothered by the thick layer of dust on them. Everyone was waiting for the boss. It was Saturday, the last working day of the week. On Saturdays, it's allowed to finish work 5-10 minutes early.
The boss arrived exactly at eight, quickly settled up with his countrymen, and addressed me with a lengthy speech about the danger I had exposed the sons of the Land of the Rising Sun to. "Well," I thought, "there go my money!" But no – about five minutes later, the boss decided that I had had enough of his lectures and, to my greatest surprise, thrust a wad of twenties and even four deutsche marks into my hand. He paid me to the last penny.
And so ended my first work endeavor. I never saw Tikhy again – a week after our parting, he threw out his back and barely managed to get himself home for treatment. At the site where he was transferred, and where there was no place for me then, there was a crazy rush – they worked 14-15 hours a day for a whole week – that's how Tikhy overexerted himself.