Strange as it may seem, the life of Berlin illegals is rich not only in problems, but also in their successful resolutions.
Moreover, I do not intend to prove the correctness of my words for one simple reason – I do not want to cause trouble with the police for the people thanks to whom I was able to live and work in Germany, and my family in Ukraine to eat bread and butter. I am infinitely grateful to these people for giving me the opportunity to earn a decent living through honest work, which I had no chance to do while in Ukraine. And I will make every effort to shield the characters of the 'Notes' from unpleasant conversations with the police by maximum 'secrecy' of the main landmarks by which law enforcement officers could 'identify' them.
After all, the point of the 'Notes' is not to expose the 'oppressors,' who in reality turn out to be ordinary businessmen and people who know how to count every penny. The point of the 'Notes' is to try, in a more or less engaging form, to describe the most interesting events, in my opinion, that happened to me in Berlin.
Well, now, if after reading this 'Letter to the Reader' anyone still has a desire to continue the journey through illegal Berlin – you are welcome!
DREAMS COME TRUE
The fourth day of waiting for the promised call from Vodil was coming to an end, adding to the string of days that made up aimlessly lived years. In content, it differed little from the previous three – the same tales about illegals told by Gulliver, and our introductory lectures 'Is there life in Ukraine?', many of which had already gone into a second round – the lack of intellect was taking its toll, and as a result, a meager supply of topics for conversation.
The source of inspiration for the tales had dried up, and for a moment silence reigned in the kitchen where we sat. Gulliver was finishing the second-to-last bottle of beer from the crate he had brought from the store that morning without visible effort (in one hand!), inwardly lamenting his lack of foresight – 'Should have taken two!' Petya was pulling another packet of cheap, but no less healthy, rosehip tea from the package, sipping from a cup the same elixir of youth brewed fifteen minutes earlier. My comrade was literally obsessed with preserving his precious health, and this morbid passion for folk methods of disease prevention drove him into a kind of ecstasy.
Only I disrupted the wholesome picture of a healthy lifestyle, mercilessly hanging one axe after another on the dense layers of tobacco smoke emanating from my roll-ups (the economy must be economical – I had to temporarily give up cigarettes, replacing them with cheap, disgusting tobacco from two-hundred-gram tins and cigarette paper).
Frozen in an unimaginable position, pressed from different sides by three books, because only in this way was proper contact with the charger ensured, our 'handy' showed no visible or audible signs of life, earning not very flattering remarks from Petya and me.
We had no reason not to believe Vodil's promises, but hope for good news was gradually fading, and by the time the phone call suddenly shattered the blissful silence our ears so needed, we had already resigned ourselves to failure deep down. Startled by the unexpected telephone trill, Gulliver spilled the remains of a half-liter on his pride and joy – a 'LEVI'S' pullover; Petya scattered packets of the secret potion of ancient healers all over the floor; and I went into a coughing fit, choking on a deep drag of the foul smoke.
Four long days of anxious waiting were generously rewarded – Vodil was calling with an offer to come to him immediately, explaining the urgency by the desire of potential employers (his new neighbors) to inspect the personnel of their future workers (that is, us) before leaving for home, in the West. We had just over three hours left, of which about an hour and a half could be taken by the journey to the meeting place, if not for the offer from one of Vodil's neighbors to give us a lift from the S-Bahn station in his car. It was hard to overestimate the significance of this offer, given the distance we would have had to cover on foot, thereby reducing the time for communication with the new bosses by about forty minutes.
Carefully placing the 'mobile' along with the charger (the decrepit battery of a cheap fish, from which, as they say, only a thin soup is made, sometimes played tricks with complete discharge) into a specially purchased bag, we ran to the bus stop. Hurrying is only good for catching the charges of the master blacksmith Lefty, but not for preparing for an important event, during which we forgot both our travel passes and money to buy tickets. That evening, for the first time, I robbed Berlin's transport system of four marks twenty pfennigs – the then-current fare for two-hour use of transport within 'Zone ABC' (i.e., within the entire city).
THE RICH
At the S-Bahn station, 'Quatsch' was already waiting for us, having earned his nickname from us for his favorite expression 'Ah, Quatsch!', used appropriately and not, but with enviable consistency. The interior of his car greeted us with a subtle aroma of beer fumes, and we fastened our seat belts just in case. This gave us confidence when Quatsch imagined himself a Boeing pilot and 'turned on autopilot,' turning to us every minute with the latest news, causing the car to perform intricate pirouettes dangerously close to the right ditch at a speed of about a hundred kilometers per hour.
...In distant times, at the turn of the century, the house bought by the 'rich' from the West served its former owners as nothing other than... a stable. Yes, exactly a stable, later converted into human habitation, and so clumsily that even an inexperienced eye everywhere encountered evidence of the building's former purpose. The original inhabitants of the building were not left offended either, allocating a 'tiny' room for the horses, where stalls with massive steel sliding doors were located. The descendants of the former owners did not harbor an unearthly love for horses, and the aromas of the countryside were not to their liking. Therefore, living in the City, they rented out their house until the technical condition of the building allowed it.
And now the heirs, finally realizing that the old building required not only constant attention but also considerable capital investment in the form of repairs, considered it wise to sell it while there was still something to sell. The building was in such dilapidated condition that buyers were found only a year later, during which the building acquired an even more deplorable appearance.
The buyer, or rather, the buyer, was guided by considerations of elementary economy when purchasing the house. Her daughter wanted to start an independent life as a free artist, and to be closer to the country's cultural life, the girl chose Berlin as her place of residence, where she planned to rent an apartment, monthly withdrawing considerable funds from the family budget for this purpose. In addition, the daughter had a horse and did not want to part with her beloved pet. This led to an increase in monthly expenses for the parents by the cost of keeping the four-legged friend in the boxes of the Berlin hippodrome.
The mother of the young rider considered such waste of family capital an unacceptable luxury, and through simple arithmetic calculations came to the conclusion that paying someone such a huge sum was simply stupid. It would be better to add this money to their modest savings and buy a private house with it, albeit old, but necessarily with a stable, so that her child would always be busy and have no time for various pranks like drugs. And the little house, requiring constant attention due to its advanced age, would simultaneously instill a sense of responsibility in the precious offspring. And finally, the young talent had to live somewhere; the unrecognized genius would not create his masterpieces in his mother's living room! Art is a delicate thing, and masterpieces require solitude from the bustle of the surrounding world, and for these purposes, a little hut with windows offering a lovely view of a forest glade, framed on all sides by virgin pine forest untouched by human hands, would be perfect.
In short, mommy scraped the bottom of the barrel and scraped together some small change – whether a lot or a little, we do not know, but it was enough for the shack.
A FAIRY-TALE CONTRACT
As expected, the newly purchased house was in full swing with the traditional housewarming involving all the neighbors, and their overly cheerful faces indicated that the celebration had begun long before our arrival. In the largest room where the feast was taking place, there was an unimaginable noise, and our 'Guten Abend!' elicited no more reaction than a forest fire in Antarctica. We heroically refused the drink offered by someone, trying to maintain the image of chronically non-drinking Russians, which in itself could not but evoke admiration for our courage. But we did not need admiration; however, it would not hurt us to talk to the owners.
We did not have to wait long – Quatsch brought the lady of the house to us, a very pleasant-looking woman who looked much younger than her age, and, introducing us, began to extol our professional qualities. A few minutes later, Vodil and a charming creature – the owner's daughter – joined our quartet. Vodil took the floor and delivered a five-minute speech, the gist of which was: 'They don't drink beer during work!!!', and therefore we were the best that could be found for that money. At the same time, he looked at us like a doctor at a terminally ill patient. Mom's 'Wunderbar!' and the daughter's 'Toll!' finally convinced us that we were enrolled in their staff.
All that remained was to discuss our wishes regarding the number of marks per unit of working time, which we did, but without intermediaries – Mom preferred to handle this delicate issue herself. After hemming and hawing for about half an hour for decency's sake (a woman is a woman!), letting us understand ten times that she was as poor as a church mouse, mommy, apologizing repeatedly and blushing with embarrassment, very indistinctly uttered the long-awaited phrase 'Ten marks per hour.' I pretended that my German was not perfect (which was true) and asked her to write this phrase on a sheet of paper in large font – just in case, what if behind this indistinctness there was some trick? You work a week or two, expecting to get ten bucks, and when it's time to pay, they tell you that you 'just don't know the language well' and therefore didn't understand that you were promised only six marks per hour. And such a seemingly simple piece of paper has the force of a document in such situations, although, of course, it won't save you from blatant deception.
No one was going to entrust us with responsible work, as Mom immediately informed us, assuring us, however, that we were provided with work as laborers for the near future. The offer that followed was so tempting that we simply could not refuse it without a moment's hesitation. It consisted of giving us the opportunity to live in this house until the end of the renovation, provided that we pay the bills for water, gas, and electricity that we would use during our stay. No one, of course, started kissing Mom, although such gifts deserve a juicy kiss on the cheek.
And they say miracles don't happen! They do happen! What else but a miracle can you call such a fantastic offer? Judge for yourself: thanks to it, we were able to save on transport by completely giving up buying travel passes, and that's not so little – a hundred plus a month. In addition, we no longer needed to pay for the apartment where we lived with Gulliver, the cost of which had unpleasantly surprised us when we were forced to move there.
Even from a purely financial point of view, Mom's offer could be considered a gift from Fate – it saved us about four hundred marks a month, but there was also the moral side of the matter, and its importance was hard to overestimate. To some, it may seem insignificant, but not to us, because with the receipt of a 'temporary residence permit,' we gained what cannot be bought for any money – PEACE OF MIND, and how often in our troubled times are we honored with this bliss? The fact is that the houses belonging to the aforementioned people are located away from busy roads, and the white-and-green cars of law enforcement officers so rarely grace these places with their appearance that even old-timers cannot remember when this momentous event last occurred. For illegals, this circumstance is quite enough to create the illusion of complete happiness.
The formula of happiness takes on a complete form when adding the fact that Mom's nearest neighbors maintained incredibly friendly relations, and the very thought of them possibly snitching to the police about our existence seemed blasphemous. Not to mention the freeing up of a colossal amount of time due to the absence of rather tiring trips to work and back, which allowed us to make our rest complete.
PALETTE
If you have ever been in a state of euphoria caused by a fantastically lucky turn of events that perfectly matches your secret ideas about the appearance of Lady Fortune, then you will not be at all surprised by my hasty decision to immediately moisten my suddenly dry throat with any alcoholic drink that my trembling hand could reach. The owner's daughter saved me from dying of thirst by placing a beaker with life-giving moisture of twenty thousandths of a liter into my weakening hand, hoping to relieve my suffering. The combustible mixture from this thimble was barely enough for my body to cover the distance to the nearest bottle of beer, whose miraculous contents restored my former complexion.
Petya decided to kill two birds with one stone – wet his throat and satisfy his hunger at the same time, choosing for this purpose chocolate candies with liqueur, depriving the neighbor's children, for whom the treats were intended, of any hope of a sweet table in a matter of seconds.
Now we were able to continue communicating with the hospitable hostess, but she wished to pay attention to her guests, gently indicating that the conversation with us was over. Mom's last words sounded like a starting pistol shot for her energy-saturated child. The little one had long been waiting for a convenient moment to break into a run across rough terrain. The terrain was crossed by a pile of cardboard boxes of various sizes with household utensils, and we had to jump over them to keep up with our tireless guide, who intended to show us all the sights of her future home in the hour remaining before her departure.
Our guide's hands were painted up to the elbows with indescribable combinations of all the colors of the rainbow and resembled one of the indispensable attributes of every artist, the name of which we gave to our jumping jack. Palette infected everyone and everything that came her way with her irrepressible love of life. Her energy gushed over the edge, threatening to drown any manifestation of apathy by anyone. Her behavior resembled a stormy surf – no sooner had the first wave receded than it was replaced by a new, even more powerful one, and the Ninth Wave was already approaching. With her professional ambitions, she could easily outdo Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, and Picasso combined – she was filled with grandiose plans, and her hard work could put the entire bee family to shame.
Like saigas, we jumped after the living embodiment of the Perpetual Motion Machine all over the house, trying to remember at least half of what she said, since the introductory tour was skillfully transformed by Palette into a staging of the first tasks that needed to be completed before her and Mom's next visit. Not really trusting my memory, I covered several sheets of paper with detailed instructions received from Palette, and at the end of our crazy race, I coordinated each point with her to avoid possible misunderstandings.
So, we were instructed to: lift all boxes with dishes, art tools, clothes, bedding, as well as buckets of paint and rolls of wallpaper to the second floor; move the components of Palette's luxurious double bed to her temporary bedroom, assembling them there into a single whole; do the same with the wardrobe and bureau; the bed and folding cot provided for our temporary use awaited the same fate; move the pre-war, incredibly heavy sideboard to the temporary kitchen, and an equally impressive wardrobe to the hallway; install the refrigerator, freezer, microwave oven, toaster, coffee maker in the kitchen, and connect them to an outlet, which should first be replaced along with the cable. This concluded the furnishing of the second floor.
On the first floor, the sink and washing machine awaited connection to the water and drainage mains. The shower cabin needed cosmetic repairs, and the bathroom itself, which actually had no bathtub, desperately begged for a thorough cleaning.
The most important points for Palette were tidying up the stable, replacing a dozen stones in its floor covering, and painting the walls with fresh paint, so that her beloved horse would feel at home, in the West. Otherwise, the horse might lose its appetite, then its mood, and in a bad mood, the four-legged friend might, heaven forbid, kick its owner – it wouldn't be pleasant!
FINAL PREPARATIONS
Among the items that had a beneficial effect on Palette's mood was one very heavy musical instrument – a piano. It didn't matter that the artist was no more familiar with musical notation than with the chemical composition of lunar dust; according to her, the mere contemplation of the noble forms of the descendant of the harpsichord brought her into a state of creative ecstasy. Vodil, Quatsch, Petya, and I were immensely glad that the stimulant of Palette's inspiration was not a grand piano – unable to refuse a woman's whim, grunting and cursing the inventor of the piano under our breath, we nevertheless dragged the ill-fated set of keys from the car trailer into the house. Our heroism was captured by Palette on film so that she could glorify our knightly deed for centuries.
As a reward for our feat, we were honored with heartfelt thanks and an expression of hope for the same dedication in the future. I wanted to wish the ladies in return to take measures to prevent such abuse of my lower back in the future, but out loud I said in a fawning tone, 'Kein problem!'.
Setting out to convert us to the true faith, Vodil made one attempt after another to tempt us with beer, but we, mindful of our tendency to excessive consumption of the divine nectar, steadfastly repelled his attacks. Our resilience was duly appreciated by Mom, and she solemnly conducted the ceremony of taking the keys to her house from Oblomov and handing them over to our reliable hands. Before our arrival, Oblomov had voluntarily put forward his candidacy for the position of site manager, assuring Mom of his reliability, but at the most crucial moment he could not resist Bacchus, thereby considerably damaging his reputation.
One of my countless shortcomings is the bad habit of drawing up an action plan before completing tasks of any complexity, from truly worthy of planning to absolutely insignificant. It would be fine if it were just a plan, but no, I also feel compelled to put deadlines for completing each part of the task next to each item, and I have never met the deadlines I set for myself. So then, on a blank sheet of paper, I wrote the familiar word 'PLAN,' not forgetting to decorate it with ornate flourishes, and turned to Oblomov the site manager with a request to enlighten me about the specific work that could be entrusted to us. Oblomov whispered in my ear the confession that he had already forgotten what specific work Mom was going to assign us, and that it would be quite good if I sorted it all out with her myself.
The boss's order is law for the subordinate, and I, shyly shuffling, asked Mom for her opinion on my idea. She eagerly seized on this proposal, patting me on the head for my quick thinking, which made me feel like a huge fluffy cat, and I almost purred from the attention shown to me. Having sketched out a work plan, I suggested with weak hope in my voice that we could start implementing some points of the plan without waiting for Mom's return from the West, which earned me another pat on the head. Petya timely prevented me from turning into a cat's skin by asking a perfectly fair question: is there any tool in this house necessary for our work? The answer was negative...
An expedition was urgently dispatched to the nearest 'Hellweg' for the required equipment, led, of course, by Mom. Being slightly tipsy, she nevertheless drove the car very carefully, so we did not have to worry about the safety of our precious lives. Upon returning, we quickly unloaded from the trunk the cable and socket, two construction picks, a small sledgehammer, a crowbar, two chisels of different lengths, a knife for cutting plaster, two pairs of safety glasses, two trowels, two plaster floats, and two electric oil radiators. In total, Mom spent about five hundred marks then, with the lion's share being the cost of the radiators, purchased especially for us. Mid-autumn was approaching, and at night the thermometer dropped to zero, so the presence of electric heaters was not superfluous: the old heating system was planned to be dismantled within a week, and no one dared to name the deadlines for installing a new one.
SETTLING IN
We waved a blue handkerchief after the departing car carrying Palette and Mom, wishing them with all our hearts a speedy return, preferably with the first salary. Before leaving, Mom once again reminded us of the need to obey the demands of the Supreme Commander, that is, Oblomov, and left her phone number in case of possible controversial issues.
It had long been dark, but there was no point in staying overnight in the hospitable house – the prospect of spending the night lying on the floor did not appeal to us, and assembling beds and searching for bedding on an empty stomach was not possible. Petya threatened to pass into the next world if he didn't have a bite to eat within the next hour, and my stomach, from the shocks experienced, had stuck to my spine earlier than usual from hunger. So we went back to the City, locking the precious hut with all the locks, and at exactly ten in the evening crossed the threshold of Gulliver's apartment, whose walls were shaking from his snoring.
Transporting all our belongings to the Artist's House in one trip was unrealistic, and spending half a day on transportation was also undesirable, so it was decided to take the most necessary things in the morning, including work clothes, and in the evening, after work, to transport the food. The rest of the evening was spent preparing for the upcoming move.
At seven in the morning, we began to carry out the tasks set by Palette. First of all, we did a thorough cleaning of the rooms on the second floor of the house, where we were to live together with Palette – she expressed a desire to personally be present at every stage of the restoration work. Her confidence in her abilities as a graphic artist, or, if you like, designer, required immediate confirmation. And so that we would not inadvertently give free rein to our bad taste, mutilating some great idea of the no less great Genius of canvas and brush, Palette (aka the Genius) kindly agreed to spend these terrible months in unsanitary conditions, just so that not even a tiny deviation from her project would be made.
By lunchtime, the temporary apartments sparkled with pristine cleanliness, and after performing the sacred ritual of eating, we began to fill the rooms with furniture and household appliances. The pre-war sideboard gave us a few unpleasant minutes: it got stuck in an unstable position at the very top of the narrow staircase leading to the second floor, threatening at any moment to break loose and spread fifty-six kilograms of my bones in a thin layer over the steps. As always happens in such cases, animal fear awakened unprecedented strength in my body, and the antique literally flew to the second floor, almost crushing Petya there, who did not expect such a burst from me.
Otherwise, everything went smoothly, without any significant incidents, except for an attempt to create a simple version of an electric chair and its testing in action by your humble servant. While replacing the socket in the kitchen, like a born electrician, I placed one carefully stripped wire on a chair, and while stripping the second wire, I decided to sit down from fatigue. The single tiny hole in my overalls was quite enough to create proper contact between the most posterior point of my body and the bare wire... After letting me jump together with the chair for a few moments, so that I would develop respect for safety precautions when dealing with dangers, Providence tore the piece of contemptible metal from my hand, forever discouraging me from touching wires without first de-energizing them.
With the transport of the food supply, the process of moving into our new hut was successfully completed. True, we were able to use the products only after we managed to clean them of ketchup – the container with it spontaneously opened during transport, irrigating the entire interior of the bag with its contents. That evening, my signature dish – stewed chicken legs – remained without a piquant seasoning, but that did not stop Petya from devouring a double portion.
Read also related material: NOTES OF AN ILLEGAL IN BERLIN -4
Andrey Yevdokimov.
Special for 'Zagranitsa'.