7.
they divided the sky 26 a small movie house, narrow as a tea cloth, straight into a children’s show. The old machines creaked and the picture wobbled, but that didn’t bother the children, and they accepted it too. The face of the young boy on the screen caught their attention. It was intelligent, made for sorrow and joy but not evil or stupidity; it was clever, disappointed, desperate, joyous. It could be transformed by dirt and hunger, by obsequiousness, baseness and hatred; it could retain its purity and, along with knowledge, also acquire kindness. It was worth every effort and every sacrifice. At the end, when the boy, trembling with anticipation, rode off into the world with his parents on the back of a drafty old truck and in the middle of the fiercest winter, the children’s stored-up tension was released in a polyphonous sigh. The lights came on. Manfred saw that Rita’s face was wet with tears and that she was still not able to control them. For the second time that day he shook his head over her. “Oh, you child,” he said, almost sorrowfully, “whatever am I going to do with you?” 7. Overnight the weather changed its mind. The wind came from the east, grew into a gale, and in the morning it looked like frost. It was Rita’s first day in the factory. “Tally-ho!” Manfred called, as she pulled the door shut. He kept making fun of her but she insisted on keeping the promise she’d made to Schwarzenbach (“these days a teacher has to know a big industrial plant”). Manfred’s father had found her the job; he was director of sales in the factory that produced train carriages. She was timid and had no one to encourage her. And so she gave herself the order: don’t look left or right, and get moving. Keep your eyes open. If you make a mistake, make sure it doesn’t happen again. Don’t let anyone know how you feel. Just decide to do this on your own. Christa Wolf 27 Along the way she realized that the weeks ahead would not be like anything she’d ever known. Her life in the village was growing quite faint, distant and cool. She had no time for regrets. She adjusted her step to the hasty rhythm of early morning. She stood at the tram stop as the first drab, cold, gray crept across the sky. She was shivering and happy to push her way into the full tram. Then she counted the stops until it was time to get out. She joined the crowds of workers streaming into the plant. The wind blew straight at them and scared up the dust as they came down the long, bare street lined with poplars that led to the factory gate. The workers held their briefcases across their faces. They greeted each other with gestures and calls, walking along in twos and threes, talking. Only Rita walked alone among all those groups. She turned up the collar of her coat and held it tight with one hand, so that it half covered her face. She didn’t want to see any surprised or curious glances. At the entrance to the plant she took one look back. The sun was just reaching the tips of the poplars and making a few new silvery leaves glisten. Today the sun and the wind will do their work on them. Inside the factory gates, the seasons were dedicated to production. It wasn’t a gate she entered, but a rather narrow door, and there she was: in a factory yard, the kind everyone knows these days, even if they’ve never been inside such a place, and still the new experience hadn’t started. I will never find my way, she thought, I’ll get lost every morning; better come ten minutes early. She asked for directions to the Ermisch brigade. An older man didn’t know (“I’m new here … ”), and then others came up. They argued: Don’t go telling the lady the most complicated way to get there, just say how she’s most likely to get there! So, listen up … Just as I thought, I’ll never find them! She memorized a few landmarks along the way: leave the notice board to the left (Carriage builders! Work to fulfill the plan for March!— March? Why March?), cross a triangular patch of...
OR
