Late Chocolate

“Wow, Mom! How did you do it!” I cried, full of genuine admiration and respect. “Years of diligence and sacrifice, my dear,” she answered with a sly smile. As usual.

“Have you ever noticed that dads are usually not picking us up from school?” I asked my friend Caroline, who was sitting on the school playground, aimlessly poking in the sand with a shovel. “Moms, or older siblings mostly go. See!” I indexed with my finger to another mom just coming for her child.

“It’s because dads’ work is more important and harder too,” Caroline answered. “When my father appears at the nursery school I know there will be fun. We are not going home then, but to a pub. Later he usually explains to my mom that I wanted some chocolate, unfortunately all the stores were closed, so we HAD TO go to the pub for soda instead, and, accidentally, a couple of “beerees” too,” she described. Her father was a truck driver, and her mom worked at the post office.

“My dad is the strongest and the bravest man in the world anyway,” she continued. “He would save us whatever bad happens. Once I saw his hand full of bloody bunions, from when he had to stack a huge mountain of coal into the basement. He didn’t cry! He just opened one more bottle of beer than usual.”

The wise proverb says: When you are talking about a wolf, it’s usually behind the door; the wolf was represented by Caroline’s father this time. Caroline winked at me, and left the classroom.

I must say, her hypothesis about hard-working men sounded logical, but could not apply to my situation; my mom worked in cybernetics, which is how work in IT was called at that time, and my father sat in his study and wrote something. He had in his job a special staff – women only of course - who typed everything he wrote by hand. Much later I learned that my father was a sociologist. However, sociology had a huge problem with the regime; it hadn’t been developed for decades, as it was considered a “bourgeois pseudoscience”. With the best of intentions, I couldn’t decide whose work was harder and provided more space for childcare.

That was probably the main reason why my eight-year-older brother was the one picking me up mostly. The Aunties had no problems with this practice; it was very common when an eleven-year-old kid was taking home their three-year-old sibling. My first memory of being loved is connected with my brother. That day I had assumed he would come for me, but the silly Aunties had decided at the last minute that we should go to the playground because of the nice weather. I was pale in my face, full of worries that my brother could not find us and would leave home without me. I wasn’t even able to play. I just sat and stared at the playground gate. And then, then it happened! My brother showed up in the doorway! He sat down on his haunches, spread his arms wide, and I ran to him, laughing loudly. He caught me, hugged me, stood up, and turned around. In that moment I knew, there is a room just for two of us in his heart forever. Nobody and nothing could change it!

I wasn’t happy with the occupation of my parents. Sometimes, when I was older and teachers asked about my parents’ work, I wished my father was a bus driver, and my mom a shop-assistant, so I didn’t need to explain the inexplicable. Teachers asked about our parents’ occupation often – to know if we were a valid part of the working class.

Being a reliable part of the working class was important, at least in the education process. “Unreliable” kids weren’t allowed to study at all, to study at exclusive universities, or to study special fields, humanities and arts especially. Being unreliable meant, for example, if a person was connected with people abroad, or pre-1948 elites. Some strong individuals found a bold solution to this problem. After graduating from high-school they started to work somewhere in a factory, or mines. After a couple of years in the “working process,” they could prove their faithful connection with the working class” and they could be allowed to step into a university.

“Pub again!” Caroline called happily the next morning. “But this time it was very adventurous,” she added. “My dad forgot himself in the taproom for a very long time. It was already dark outside. So he bandaged my knee and all the way home I had to memorize the story for my mom, that I had fallen, hurt my leg and we had to go to the hospital, so that’s why the delay.”

“Wow! And did she believe it?” I widened my eyes.

“No. I was scolded for lying and my dad have to wash the stairs in the hallway for one month,” she answered.

“Well, my mom would say: Years of diligence and sacrifice,” I whispered with a sly smile.