Berlin is so mesmerizing with millions of lights, crowds of people, and a kind of 'wildness' unique to it, that sometimes you lose your sense of direction, even if you've been there several times.
Still, everything that happened a year ago is outside the law – both German and Ukrainian. The very moments that might bring a smile now, a year ago gave the hero of this story an unpleasant chill between his shoulder blades and trembling knees. Though he himself is not a coward.
But enough prefaces. Read for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
GETTING TO KNOW BERLIN
– I came from Ukraine to Berlin to visit a good friend of mine (let's call him Petya), who had previously worked in Germany and was quite familiar with the situation. Moreover, he even lent me money for the visa and travel – so confident was he in the successful development of events. And that's a considerable sum – a whole thousand marks! For me, it was astronomical. I had never held that much money in my hands. In addition, he guaranteed to pay for my housing and food until I could live independently. To give him credit, he honestly fulfilled all the terms of our agreement – he provided me with all the above, and in return I agreed to become his work partner until the police caught us. By that time, I was very good at construction work, knew a lot, and my professional level noticeably exceeded that of my friend. In short, we shook hands, and 'the process began.'
Even from the bus window, I spotted my friend by his clothes – they clearly stood out from the general picture of those meeting and seeing off, and by the nervousness that he simply radiated. This nervousness, caused by his illegal status, for some inexplicable reason immediately transferred to me, and has been haunting me ever since.
My very first steps on German soil brought me down from the clouds I had been on during all the preparations for departure. How could it be – Europe, freedom, big money, castles in the air... All this vanished as soon as we left the central bus station and almost ran to the U-Bahn (train) station. My friend walked far ahead of me so that I wouldn't compromise him with my appearance. I admit, my appearance was indeed stunning. Just the huge checkered bag over my shoulder, which only our 'shuttle traders' and Vietnamese merchants in Berlin use. And although I don't look much like a 'local' Vietnamese, I felt calmer than my friend – my visa was just beginning, while his had long expired. But my calm was overshadowed by the constant fear that he could be 'nabbed' at any moment – and what would I do then in a strange, huge city without a single acquaintance or at least a phone number where I could get help? Besides, I was already so confused that I didn't even remember where the bus station was, so that in case of anything I could return home. And my knowledge of German was limited to 'Hände Hoch!', 'Zurück!', 'Auf Wiedersehen!', 'Arbeiten', 'Schnell!', and 'Gut!'. Well, I loved watching war movies...
During the transfer from U-Bahn to S-Bahn in the Zoologischer Garten area, my guide got lost in three corners, and we spent a whole hour wandering just a few steps from the right station until we finally reached our destination. It's understandable – the evening in central Berlin is so mesmerizing with millions of lights, crowds of people, and a kind of 'wildness' unique to it, that sometimes you lose your sense of direction, even if you've been there several times. What can I say about myself, a Ukrainian provincial, whose 'mind was blown' by all this splendor, and I obediently followed my guide like a sheep on a leash, constantly stopping at luxurious shop windows and gaping in amazement. Well, when we passed by the 'Museum of Erotica', I almost decided I was slowly going crazy.
My friend was also going crazy, but not from the beauty around us, but from anger at himself for forgetting the way, from the abundance of police, and from my excessive curiosity. But fortunately, we finally found what we were looking for and, settling comfortably into the seats of a brand new train car, fell silent for half an hour – conspiracy requires it. Then we walked for another fifteen minutes between some houses, through some parks, until we finally reached a new multi-story building. In this building I had to live for the first few days of my stay in Berlin. Interesting addition: wherever we walked, the road was so brightly lit that it seemed as if it wasn't night outside, but just beginning to get dark. Such an abundance of light, accustomed as I was to pitch darkness in the evening in the center of my hometown (saving electricity on a national scale!), filled me with indescribable delight. Unlike my friend, who tried to choose darker places and generally walk along more secluded paths – the lack of a visa in his passport took its toll.
I won't describe my childish joy at the sight of the automatically opening huge glass doors of the entrance, the absolutely silent elevator that gave no indication of direction (up or down), and the sterile cleanliness of the entrance and stairwells. For us, accustomed to spit-covered stairs and perpetually broken elevators, it's hard to understand at first. It feels like you've stepped into the future a hundred years ahead, and everything around you is nothing but a sweet dream that is about to end.
Probably, all these emotions were immediately reflected on my face, because Petya advised me to look at myself in the mirror that covered an entire wall of the elevator. I had never seen a more idiotic image in my life...
HOW I WAS ADVERTISED
That same evening, Petya called all his acquaintances to find out if there was any work for me. At the time of my arrival, he had work for another two weeks and didn't want to lose it because of me. But since there was no place for me there, we decided to send me into 'free floating' from the very first day. I couldn't just sit idle for two weeks – I didn't come for a vacation! Besides, the visa isn't eternal, and with it you feel somewhat calmer – there's always a chance to 'weasel out,' even on a construction site. And debts need to be repaid sometime. So we called everyone, but the only answer we heard was: 'No workers needed right now!'
After about the tenth attempt (by then I had lost count), having spent about twenty marks on calls, we finally got what we wanted. Some 'Yugo' (Yugoslav foreman) had an emergency and urgently needed a person to redo the defective work done by one of the Russians during the installation of drywall structures. For two or three days. I nodded happily, expressing my agreement in response to Petya's questioning look. But as I listened to the rest of the conversation, I gradually began to cool down, and my joy vanished without a trace.
Petya, in a firm and confident voice, told his interlocutor that I was a very big specialist 'in gypsum' (drywall), had vast experience working with it, and there would be no problems with me – that I wasn't new to Berlin and was up to speed on everything. But I had never even seen this gypsum before! 'What did you think?' Petya asked after hanging up, hiding a smirk. 'Who would hire you without such advertising? It's always like this: if there's work, you have to do it, even if you're a complete novice. Welcome to Berlin, buddy!'
My confusion knew no bounds. 'Nothing to be done,' Petya continued. 'You need to start getting into this life, otherwise you'll be lost. Like in the army – either you or you!' With these words, he handed me a piece of paper with the name of the station where I was to wait for our interlocutor tomorrow. We spent the rest of the evening studying a map of Berlin's U- and S-Bahn trains, on which Petya marked the transfer stations and the route numbers I needed. He had explained the mechanism of buying tickets from machines on the way from the bus station, but I had already forgotten everything (too many events for one day), but it was awkward to make a fool of myself, and I was terribly sleepy – after all, two days on the road...
DAY ONE
Wake-up at five in the morning, frantic morning routine, lightning-fast breakfast on the go, and at 5:40 I was already boarding the S-Bahn, whose stop was a quarter-hour brisk walk from the house. Petya had left twenty minutes earlier in the opposite direction. He, like me, had to be at work at seven in the morning, but after the train he still had to walk forty to fifty minutes to the work site. If you're late, you lose your job, so it's better to be half an hour early. Anything can happen – for example, railway repairs, and instead of the train, buses run along its route. Transferring from train to bus and back again – additional time loss.
I arrived at the meeting place, which 'cannot be changed,' very early. There were still about forty minutes until the appointed time, and I decided to go out of the U-Bahn for fresh air. In the Berlin subway in summer, there is always a terribly suffocating smell – something like a bitumen-rubber hellish mixture. Berliners are used to it, but even today, entering the U-Bahn – I'd rather walk! So, I went outside and hadn't taken twenty steps when I came across a small shop with a modest sign 'Rolex'. Of course, I had heard about 'new Russians' and their 'people's watches,' but I had never seen a watch worth one hundred and eighty thousand marks with my own eyes. So it's no wonder that I walked around the shop window, constantly picking up my 'dropped jaw' from the asphalt, until the hands of all those Swiss chronographs simultaneously touched the number seven. And only then did my internal alarm remind me of the meeting for which I was actually here.
Still hoping for a miracle, I dashed into the subway and froze at the agreed spot. Minute after minute passed, trains came and went, and I kept waiting. At half past seven, when I had already decided 'Apparently, it's not meant to be!' and took a step toward the train going in the opposite direction, a quiet question sounded from behind, almost right in my ear: 'Are you so-and-so?' Startled, I couldn't even answer, only nodded affirmatively. 'Then let's go!' said a quiet voice.
As I later learned, the owner of this voice was indeed nicknamed 'Quiet.' Turning around, I saw a guy who had been sitting opposite me on a bench all this time, since I rushed into the subway after contemplating the 'Rolexes,' occasionally glancing in my direction, but I hadn't paid attention. 'What conspiracy!' I thought and followed Quiet.
'WHAT LUCK'
The 'object,' that is, the construction site where I was to work, was about two hundred meters from the U-Bahn station. Along the way, Quiet asked me a few professional questions, and, convinced of the complete discrepancy between my knowledge level and yesterday's advertisement of my construction genius, simply waved his hand. I thought it would be worse. Learning that I was only on my second day in Berlin, he was genuinely surprised at my quick employment. Of course, there is reason to be surprised: most 'illegals' find their first job no earlier than after 2-3 weeks.
'Well, since you're so 'lucky' from day one, we'll quickly get you up to speed. You don't look stupid!' he 'cheered' me up. 'Well, thanks for at least not being stupid!' I snapped. My wounded pride was still speaking – he studied me for half an hour like a guinea pig! 'Don't be angry. Work here as long as I have, see all kinds of idiots – and you'll say worse things!' With that, the conversation ended, and we walked in silence to the elevator in the center of the building under construction, which we needed to take to the sixth floor.
In the elevator, not fearing being overheard, Quiet quickly explained that on the construction site you can only speak German, Yugoslav, Polish, or, in extreme cases, Ukrainian – and under no circumstances Russian! If possible, don't speak at all. And especially don't open your mouth in the presence of a German Bauleiter. He knows anyway that you are a 'black Russian,' but there's no need to remind him of that unnecessarily. It helps him sleep more peacefully; otherwise, he'll have nightmares about paying a fine for using your slave labor. And that ruins his mood for the whole day, and you're guaranteed nitpicking about the quality of your work.
We got out of the elevator and headed to one of the under-construction offices of the future building, piled to the ceiling with metal doors and sheets of drywall. In the corner of the office, under stacks of doors, a pathetic imitation of a changing room had been set up, consisting of two nails in the wall and a piece of gypsum on the floor. Everything around was covered with a thick layer of white gypsum dust. Quiet asked if I had 'overalls,' and from my bewildered look guessed the answer.
Just in case, he advised me to carry my passport with visa in my pocket, so that in case of a police raid I would have at least some chance to slip away – saying I was walking around the city and got lost on the construction site. After all, I didn't have work clothes – just old civilian clothes – maybe I'd get lucky. He also advised me to frequently look out the windows, and if I noticed police 'vans' with white-green coloring – to 'pack up' instantly. Well, if the 'vans' were black and the people in them also in black uniforms, then nothing could help. Those are 'Kripo' – criminal police. Only professional illegals can escape them. And I shouldn't even try.
That's how my first working day began, not very cheerfully, and I didn't even know how much I would be paid for all this. When I asked about it, Quiet replied that the boss would tell me himself, but I shouldn't count on more than eight marks per hour. Not count on more! I would move mountains for that money! Just think – eighty-eight marks a day (for eleven hours of work)! That's how much in hryvnias!
...I rejoiced too soon. After just a couple of hours of work, I wouldn't have wanted twenty marks for half an hour. During that time, without any equipment, we carried from the street to the seventh floor thirteen sheets of gypsum measuring 2000x1250x12 mm and weighing about 20 kilograms each. When the wind blows, you get carried around the whole construction site with that sheet – quite a sail! And we had to carry these 'little leaves' along already finished stairs, sparkling clean and covered with paper. The steps are made of marble tiles, and when you step on the paper, you immediately feel like Katarina Witt – they are so slippery. And try to snag something with a sheet of gypsum! You'll lose your job instantly and make it much harder for others.
In short, with the last sheet, three people had to catch me all along the seventh-floor corridor – I didn't have enough strength, my legs were giving way. And there were still nine hours of such work ahead! They cheered me up by saying that today that was all, but usually you have to carry fifty to sixty sheets a day and still manage to install them. And on particularly 'festive' days, all you do is carry gypsum all day, and someone (mostly 'Yugos') yells at you that they're idle because of you, and you need to work faster. But today – pure pleasure: only rework, so not much gypsum is needed, well, maybe another five sheets will have to be brought up. After these words, I completely lost the desire to move mountains and 'rake in money with a shovel.'
The most annoying thing – while we were manually lifting the gypsum upstairs, the Germans were carrying it on the elevator, and to what floor do you think? Only to the second! And they brought it to the elevator on a special cart. Moreover, they lifted the sheet exclusively together, never alone – you could easily overstrain yourself! And after such 'exhausting' labor, they left with a clear conscience to the nearest café for coffee and returned only half an hour later, rested and ready for new labor feats. And that killed me the most. What injustice! I couldn't help myself and cursed them out dirty (as dirty as possible). They didn't even blink (though they understood everything perfectly), just smiled condescendingly. The ancients were right when they said: 'Render unto Caesar...' i.e., 'To each his own!' Oh, how right!
MY BOSS
But the working day continued, and it was time to meet the boss. He was a huge guy, nearly two meters tall, with broad shoulders and a forehead you could use to kill pigs. He could carry two sheets of gypsum to the tenth floor and not break a sweat. And he judged everyone by himself. He didn't care that Quiet and I together didn't weigh half of his bulk. If he could do it, then everyone should. Well, a 'Yugo' – what can you expect? Instead of 'Zdravo!' ('Hello!'), he barked that we had done nothing in two hours. And what was he paying us for?! To which I timidly tried to object that I hadn't seen any money from him yet, but I had already worked hard.
Only then did he notice that there was a new face in his team. No introduction, let alone 'How are you?', just: 'How much do you want? I pay everyone eight marks an hour.' He's lying, of course. I already knew that our guys get ten to twelve marks from him. But they are already 'specialists,' and I'm still learning, so I agreed to eight. That's it! End of conversation! I sighed with relief: everything turned out much simpler than I could have imagined. Quiet, always standing behind, said that I was lucky, because there was an emergency now, and the work didn't require much brains. And the boss didn't care what kind of specialist you were, as long as you were a person and the work got done. But if after two or three days he thought I had done little or poorly, then I wouldn't see any money. Cheered me up! I didn't need two or three days – I just needed to get through this day until evening and stay alive!
Until the end of the working day (20:00), Quiet and I fixed the defective work for which I had been called. Actually, Quiet fixed it, and I did 'fetch and carry,' picking up experience along the way. I must say, very successfully. So successfully that by the end of the day I no longer asked stupid questions, which immensely pleased my mentor. And those 'five' sheets of gypsum still had to be carried up. But without 'body catchers' – they were busy with their own work, and I had to rely only on myself. Once, my legs did give out. Not surprising – all day I ran up and down a four-meter stepladder, handing Quiet sheets of gypsum. I was lucky that the sheets weren't whole but cut to size, i.e., two to three times smaller.
VIEW FROM THE 'ROLEX' SHOP WINDOW
After the working day ended, I spent another ten minutes beating the dust out of my 'civilian' clothes, but I couldn't restore their former appearance. While we worked, the white gypsum dust had almost soaked through all my clothes, which I had carelessly left on a nail in the 'changing room.' My more experienced mentor had tightly packed his everyday clothes in a plastic bag, which I hadn't noticed. But I learned the lesson forever. All the way home, I constantly caught sidelong glances from Germans – I looked like a person who had rolled in flour. I saw this in the shop window of that same 'Rolex.' The contrast between my reflection and the 'people's alarm clocks' was, to put it mildly, striking. The feeling of belonging to the category of persons without a fixed place of residence (homeless!) haunted me all the way home.
Dirty clothes – that's one thing. Much more serious was the state of my hair and hands. No matter how much I shook the white dust out of my hair, it did absolutely nothing. It only changed my hairstyle a bit. Instead of a relatively neat 'pompadour,' it turned into a masterpiece of hairdressing from the era of industrial megacities called 'explosion at a pasta factory.' Irresistibly white. When I tried to give this 'crow's nest' a decent look, I immediately broke the comb. Since then, my hair has never been longer than a centimeter.
I had to wash my hands in the water that a German plasterer had used to wash his tools. We were lucky – the water had settled, and all the dirt had sunk to the bottom of the bucket. However, the smell of that water could rival the most disgusting stenches in the world. And my hands remained dirty-white, only the dirt was smeared in a thin, even layer. No wonder that in the transport, all seats within a five-meter radius of me were empty. No one wanted to keep me company. The next day, I took a stiff hand brush and water in a plastic bottle to work – I had somehow lost the desire to conquer Berlin dandies with my extravagant appearance.
I got home (more accurately, 'crawled' – I had no strength left even for a straight walk) around ten in the evening. I tried to 'catch a buzz' in the shower. No luck: my whole body ached as if from beatings. I couldn't feel my arms or legs, my back felt like someone had put it in a vise. Somehow swallowing the dinner Petya had thoughtfully prepared, and answering his question 'Well, how was it?' with a tirade of the choicest curses aimed at gypsum, 'Yugos,' Germans, and their mothers, I collapsed into bed and fell into a sweet sleep. There were just over five hours left until wake-up...
DAY TWO
Even on the third try, I couldn't get up quickly. Oh, if only I could get sick leave for a week! But the charms of developed socialism remained in the distant 'motherland,' and here – only the horrors of the 'decaying' one. I can't say I'm not used to heavy physical labor, but everything here is too forced. On the good old Soviet construction site, there were also emergencies, but no one was deprived of smoke breaks. Not to mention the hours-long waits for the next batch of mortar or bricks.
And here you can only smoke on the go – no pleasure at all! But it's good for health. Because of this 'mobile' smoking, I reduced my body's nicotine consumption by about eighty percent. Of course, cigarette prices also played a role – a pack of Marlboro costs 5.35 marks in stores. Simple arithmetic: a pack a day, and your wallet is lighter by 160 marks a month. The most expensive shoes from Salamander cost only 20-40 marks more. Compare for yourself. You can, of course, buy contraband cigarettes from Vietnamese (their 'inconspicuous' faces are a mandatory attribute of every store parking lot) for 3 marks a pack, which many Germans do. But in that case, you risk running into the police and getting a hefty fine (about 400 marks) plus a ticket home – for illegals. But you can proudly admire the excise stamp with the inscription 'Russia' or 'Ukraine' – like, our mafia is invincible!
Well, to hell with cigarettes. The main thing is that morning I still got out of bed thanks to Petya's heroic efforts. As it turned out, he had set the alarm half an hour earlier, anticipating such a situation. And only thanks to him I wasn't late for work. I needed to show up an hour earlier than the previous day, so my S-Bahn departure time remained the same – 5:40 a.m. Now I can easily get up at half past four, going to bed around midnight, but back then it was torture for my body. No wonder the ancients invented torture by sleep, or rather, its absence. They knew a thing or two about such things! In short, I overslept my stop that time. Luckily, the terminal wasn't far, and the train attendant woke me up, politely suggesting I continue sleeping on another train that was about to go in the opposite direction.
WHERE IS THE 'ROLEX' HERE?
Finally realizing the seriousness of the situation, I, 'propping my eyelids with matches,' began to peer intently at unfamiliar station names, afraid to miss the right one. I reached my station, got off, and... went the wrong way... I turn my head around, but the main landmark – the 'Rolex' – is not there, as if it never existed. I began to doubt my sanity. I remembered all my relatives – no, none of them suffered from memory lapses. But I remembered one golden saying: 'Language will take you to Kiev.'
Mindful that Russian would hardly take me anywhere in Berlin, I started accosting passersby with a questioning expression and the words: 'Magazine!', 'Rolex!', 'Shop!', firmly believing in the internationality of these words. The poor Germans couldn't understand why this young man in a dirty-white (the aftermath of yesterday's 'dusting' that I forgot to remove) tracksuit (also out of the ordinary – Germans only wear tracksuits for sports and cycling) needed a Rolex store at half past six in the morning? Those who still remembered GDR times probably decided that in my country Rolex was in short supply, and I wanted to get in line early. The looks on their faces!
However, one kind old lady was found who explained in detail where that damned watch shop was. Too bad I didn't know German... But for the sake of appearances, so as not to offend the old lady, I still went in the direction she kept pointing her index finger.
How right she was! It turned out I had simply come out of the other end of the metro station. Just like yesterday – according to the direction of the train. Though yesterday I had arrived from the opposite side... There's the shop, and that metro exit where I met Quiet yesterday, and there's my construction site! I had just come from there... A quarter of an hour chasing rare passersby, bothering them with my questions, instead of looking around more carefully! Yeah!
The lack of proper rest is the essence of such 'slowdowns.' It's good that the victims of my interrogations didn't report me 'where needed' – it's common practice for them. My appearance was very unpresentable then. At any rate, I didn't look like a regular Rolex customer.
Andrey Yevdokimov.
Special for 'Zagranitsa'.