Eva woke up cheerfully and refreshed at exactly seven o'clock, as she did every day except Sundays. She quickly silenced the alarm.
Mark was starting to wake up too.
Eva put the tea on to brew, since the kitchen was on her way anyway. There was still some chicory coffee in the polka-dotted tin, but she and her colleagues would drink it during the ten o'clock break.
It was black tea in the tin. Eva liked the tin so much that she had bought the tea for it. It was produced in the Soviet Union for foreign export. Their country imported it too.
Once the tea ran out, Eva stored the chicory coffee in that tin.
While washing her hands, she thought of Aunt Maria. It would be nice to learn the songs from her.
A children's song came to mind as she washed.
"Free Friday, free Saturday…"
It was Saturday, but it wasn't a day off. Just a normal weekday.
Productivity, production! The Eastern Bloc was in full gear.
The imperialists were lurking over the Iron Curtain.
"Long live the…!"
The cuckoo clock hadn't chimed this morning. Mark tried to fix it in the afternoon, but Paul had arrived to discuss something that wasn't a matter for the phone. Paul had to travel to the capital as well. The publisher was interested in his first book. The colleagues at the editorial office didn't yet know that the publisher wanted to see the manuscript. They wanted to make an announcement in the proper way. That was why it had been kept secret.
Mark only received the publisher's message in the afternoon. First by phone, then Paul came in person to plan the trip. They could travel together.
Paul would tell the others the good news toward the end of the workday, when he took out the pastry box and offered his female and male colleagues some crushed biscuits. His mother had baked them today in joy.
Homemade pastries. Rare. Appropriate for the occasion.
Paul's mother would have to use a little less sugar for the tea, but they made sure to announce the news properly.
The cuckoo clock lay disassembled and broken on Eva's round table, where she usually sewed and read in the afternoon.
"Mark will fix it today," – she thought.
After work today, she would buy a wristwatch.
Through the half-open bathroom door, she heard Mark take the tea off the stove.
She turned on the warm water tap and carefully placed her index finger under the stream.
Then she prepared the basin and went out to the kitchen to heat water in the large pot for the morning wash.
The articulated bus rattled and swayed. Eva sat at the back. From there she could see everyone. She liked to watch people.
"What if the end came off at one of the turns?"
A turn approached, and the rubber section of the articulated bus stretched like an accordion. The back swayed slightly and danced. Then it straightened. Stabilized.
A strange, soundless melody.
The schoolchildren got off at the next stop. Uniforms, hairbands, schoolbags, pens, erasers, pencils, rulers, neatly organized notebooks and textbooks.
The name of the school.
The number.
Every morning she traveled with them. She even remembered the school number on their shoulders.
She didn't know their names. But she knew the number.
Eva was curious about their names.
She didn't see the factory workers in the morning. The shift started at six sharp; they had already arrived.
At six in the morning, at two at noon, and at ten in the evening the factory whistles blew, then the chimney emitted a low, growling, humming smoke. The smoke flattened above the chimney, spread at that height, blocked the sun, never rising high. It dispersed quickly over the city.
Eva had seen a factory from the inside. They had practical assignments in the tenth grade.
Today she had to reply to a few letters from former classmates from the chemical lyceum. She mostly spoke with her university colleagues by phone.
The phone.
Eva frowned. She didn't think about the prankster kids in the morning anymore.
She always arrived at the pharmacy first. The cleaning lady arrived five minutes later by bus from the opposite direction. Elvira, the other pharmacist, and Elisa, the assistant, came ten minutes later.
Soon, before the winter break, they would take interns from the university. They would stay until the end of the year. On Saturdays, some first-year students from the Pharmaceutical University would come here.
Eva was satisfied. This was her dream: to work in a peaceful small town. She didn't want to stay in the capital after university, nor go to the countryside.
She studied diligently so that by the end of university her list of potential places would be longer.
Her final grade was 9.82.
She could have chosen the capital too.
Eva pressed her lips into a razor-thin line, as if trying to keep an unpleasant memory at bay.
And her parents lived an hour away by bus.
That was why studying at the university had been worth it.
She left the door open behind her.
Five more minutes. Valeria had to arrive.
She put on her coat and checked the register.
First, she had to prepare a shaking mixture. A smallpox outbreak had broken out at Kindergarten No. 7 and had spread from there. She had to prepare exactly 476 vials today.
She prepared the ingredients and the vials.
The scent of camphor filled the room in moments.