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From an economic point of view,
saving money is a virtue that knows no border.
And how should we overlook or even ignore that
virtue, when we had learned from earliest
childhood to honour thriftiness above all and
before anything else, long before we saw our
first bank advertisement. To save was essential,
as meticulous care was needed to have any
chances of survival, while trembling in
expectation of the “blossoming times” promised
by Ceausescu. We were permitted to save at every
turn, and we wanted to show it: so we saved
everywhere, even where through our saving we
wanted to be immediately helpful to the people
around us.
As an example, take the railway
conductor: He does not have an easy time,
irregular working hours, continuous irritation
of his sense of smell by various exhaust
processes, exposed to shaky and “unstable”
workplaces, no matter how diversified they may
appear… Why shouldn’t we be trying to provide
some help to him, as one ordinary guy to
another, in the salary area? And among the
ordinary people, there were not only students,
workers, artists, and office workers….To help
each other meant helping yourself… So, by not
buying a train ticket, you did some damage to
the state, saved some money, and helped your
fellow man – in this case, the train conductor –
just by indicating with a wink when boarding the
train, that you had no ticket. The events then
run their course. You prepared a cash amount
equal to a fraction of the fare. The longer the
trip, the smaller that fraction - a third, a
quarter, on long trips even one tenth of the
ticket cost – was made ready to go into the
pockets of the good ‘uncle’. Yes, yes, to live
and let live was the philosophy of everyday life
that saved most of the people of the Eastern
Block from despair and nihilistic abyss. That
this way of thinking and acting damaged the
state did not bother anybody, because in the
totalitarian system HE pretended to pay his
subordinates, and they pretended to serve HIM, a
true vicious circle. [….]
One day I boarded the train at
noon, a slow motor train to Temeswar. As always,
the train was overcrowded with commuters going
to their afternoon shift in Temeswar. I was
hoping to find a free seat, where I could do
some work during the one-hour trip. In the
corner of a large compartment – the wagons were
vintage 1930, about forty years past their prime
– I spotted Mr. M. and he indicated by hand
signals that the seat next to him was available.
So I steered myself towards that seat. Mr. M.
had previously been station master in P., and
had moved with is family to Temeswar some time
ago. Presumably he was able to find a better
job; so, why not? He was a smart dresser, a good
conversationalist, and a polite person. We knew
each other, as during my commuting days I passed
through his railway station, and occasionally
exchanged a few words, or even discussed the
progress of his daughter Dana in her school.
There was an exchange of cordial greetings and
polite inquiries about each other’s health. We
touched on his family, the current school of his
daughter, and the chores I had to do in the
city.
The train was moving along, and
the conductor shows up, eager to do his job. I
had made contact with the conductor before
boarding the train, and was now eagerly awaiting
how he would react to Mr. M., as it was
certainly easy for him to recognize Mr. M. as a
railway employee. And indeed, the good old
‘uncle’ turned pale when he saw me sitting next
to Mr. M., but he used his experience gained
over decades to elegantly skip both Mr. M. and
me, as if he did not want to interfere in our
lively discussion. I thought to myself “I made
it” and Mr. M. did not seem disturbed that
‘uncle’ did not bother us. When he reached the
end of the compartment, the conductor turned
around, quickly surveying the situation…, just
as Mr. M. got up from his seat and whispered to
me: “See you later; duty calls; I have to do my
inspection round. Excuse my absence for a few
minutes.” The conductor turned even paler and
my knees started shaking…
In such cases, when the conductor
knew that an inspector was on the train or was
about to board it, he would hand a ticket to his
special traveller, to avoid any scandal. This
time around the ‘uncle’ had no way of passing me
a ticket; how could he have known that mouse
would be sitting right next to the cat?
I wasn’t terribly worried about a
possible fine, but the prospect of being
disgraced made me very uncomfortable. But it was
too late now, and the two of them were starting
their control round at one end of the train. I
was feverishly reviewing the possible solutions.
But all my fantastic schemes led only to silly
excuses. None of them seemed suitable for Mr. M.
I could not do that to myself. From a lost
ticket to pretending that I forgot to buy one,
there were all kinds of excuses, but none
sounded plausible… I was awaiting further
developments, and they came soon enough. The
conductor, surely with his heart in his boots,
was approaching with Mr. M. on his side. The
passenger sitting across from me showed his
commuter pass.
Then Mr. M. turns towards me and
says: “It won’t be long; we’ll finish soon.” My
blood pressure had jumped up and my pulse raced
like an express train. Embarrassed, I mumbled a
few words, but the two railway men seemed to be
in a hurry. The other passengers did not seem to
care that I was not asked to show my ticket.
Everybody was much too preoccupied with his own
problems, to care for such trivial things.
Was I out of trouble now? What if
he is going to ask for my ticket? It’s important
to stay calm, so that he does not notice
anything. But it was impossible to remain calm;
I was too much in an uproar. I tried to read;
reading can be helpful in such a situation. It
did not work; Mr. M. was suddenly beside me and
said: “Done!” And I certainly felt done with,
too.
We continued our discussion
without touching on the control issue. We
arrived in Temeswar and said our goodbyes, with
greetings to his family, and so on. I was going
to give the poor ‘uncle’ his money, but he was
nowhere to be found. And this is how I
unintentionally became a fare dodger, with the
help unwittingly provided by the ticket
inspector. I went to do my chores in Temeswar
with the firm intention to pay compensation to
the ‘uncle’ at the earliest opportunity.
Biographical Note
Dr. Hans Dama
is a native of Großsanktnikolaus (Banat) and a
graduate in German Language and Literature,
Romanian Language and Literature, Education,
Geography, and Economics of the universities of
Temeswar/Timisoara, Bukarest/Bucuresti, and
Vienna. Since 1988 he has been teaching at the
University of Vienna. He has published numerous
contributions on subjects such as German and
Romanian literature, cultural history and
dialects of the Danube Swabians, as well as
poems, short stories, essays, and travel
literature. NT |
