10.
Christa Wolf 45 really fun anymore. Only my profession—that’s good. Just enough precision, just enough creativity. And you, you’re good, too.” “Just enough precision, just enough creativity,” said Rita in a small voice. Manfred took it seriously. “Yes, little brown miss,” he said. “That’s how it is.” 10. Today she knows: that night she had the first, still unutterable premonition of danger. She kept her sense of helplessness to herself; it was her unconscious way of being brave, a way that didn’t hurt Manfred’s feelings. She had exactly the kind of courage he needed. She was getting along better in the plant. Gradually she lost her fear of everyone looking at her. She was still amazed that every day two shiny, dark green railway carriages—streamlined, solid and brand new—could come out of the hectic confusion, the shouting and the yelling. At the end of the shift, they slowly rolled out of the plant on the internal track. Even as they move, the last installers would leap off, their toolboxes in hand; sometimes Rita was one of them. She would join the others laughing about the daily desperation of the quality control inspector, and then they’d all stand there and watch the little train until it was swallowed up by the city smog. “When you think … ,” Hänschen said, lost in thought. That was his favourite phrase, but for some reason he never managed to say what happened when you thought. “Oh, don’t even start,” the others would gently warn him. All in all, they had a good time together, though they didn’t talk about it. Everybody did what they had to do; nobody quarrelled. Even Meternagel, who could be unpredictable, kept a low profile. At lunch, they sat together on raw planks in a green corner of the yard, their legs stretched out, their backs pressed into the boards, their hands dug into their pockets, and everything seemed just fine the way it was. They squinted into the sun that was still mild, they watched the clouds drift by and followed the individual white feathery ones take they divided the sky 46 the same route across the sky; they were surprised at how transparent the air was at lunchtime. Far away from the city, supersonic jets broke the sound barrier with a deafening noise, and were suddenly over them, flying very high, very fast. They watched them lazily, and grew even more placid. This feeling was probably strongest the day before the big ruckus broke out at the plant. They were celebrating the five thousandth train carriage that had rolled out of production since the end of the war, and also their foreman’s birthday. Rita can still see it all before her. She realizes that she didn’t miss a thing that day. The yard had been swept clean; the wind was blowing across it. On one of its narrow sides stood the anniversary float draped with garlands, and the number 5000 could be seen from far away shining brightly next to the date, April 20, 1960. A band played enthusiastically, and a few speakers had their say. Everyone got their applause; everything was the way it should be. Rita, standing between Meternagel and Hänschen, as always, happily clapped her hands with the rest of them. She kept having to laugh even though she’d only had malt beer. When the dance troupe arrived on stage in their white blouses and colourful skirts, the mood got even better. They laughed as they saw Ermisch quietly make his way to the front of the crowd because his invitation to the podium had been forgotten, and he could see no other way to get attention. In the end, the dark grey lowering sky opened up for a downpour and they all dashed off. They’d known it was going to rain: all day the smell of malt coffee had hung in the air, which meant a westerly wind. The wind pressed a few remaining scraps of paper into the board fence, and then the yard lay abandoned. Ermisch’s men went off to the nearest pub with their birthday boss, a place where they were well known and could push a few tables together at a corner window. It could rain as much as it liked; they would let Ermisch buy them beer and schnapps and they would drink to his health. The light in the smoky, narrow room...
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