TE20 Migrant Mosaics

Taddeusz. Period

at the wheel how quiet the ladies suddenly were, but had no idea why. Thinking to perk them up, he started to whistle. They reached the destination of their Famous Four jaunt four hours after leaving Gotha – thank God, as Pia said (though Tadeusz was the only real believer among them). A festival was underway in the market square which they of course hadn’t known about but which seemed highly opportune, providing themwithaneededdistraction.The immenselypopular Randfichten were playing, a band hailing from the Ore Mountain border region who sang in the local Saxon dialect. The current song had been a big nationwide hit, a tub-thumping, rabble- rousing ditty extolling Saxony’s famous potato dumplings and mushroom gravy and those jolly holidays to the Czech Republic of former times. Pia absolutelywasn’t into this kind of music, but she let herself be drawn in, stamping and clapping along as if her life depended on it. Berit and Silvia followed her lead. Tadeusz, who (due to the dialect) couldn’t understand a great deal, was the one now left sighing. He went off in search of another beer. All three of themwere dwelling on former times. Pia, on her time asan ‘informer’,whichwasoverbefore it had reallystarted because she’d let on to Berit about it. At that time Berit had the library job at the Rubber Processing Combine. She’d been specially selected for it and saying no to the Powers That Be would not have been a good idea. Which meant that, when Pia had divulged her secret role, Berit had had to hot-foot it to herworkplace’s Stasi official to report an ‘Act of Disclosure’. Acting in good faith , as she’d told Pia later; after all a person like Pia wasn’t really cut out for that type of work anyway. From then on the Stasi made no further contact with Pia, which had made her wonder a bit, but over time the 169