You Not Lucky, You A Mama

These next two pieces are excerpts of a novel I tried to write in the late 1980's, called "Heavy On The Wire", which was about my life as a young single working mother of two very small children.

The title of this piece here "You Not Lucky, You A Mama" comes from something my little daughter said to me at the time. I was telling my children how lucky I was to have work, because it meant we could afford to eat and buy toys (I received no help from the state and my ex-husband was not paying any child allowance at the time). My daughter's reply was "You not lucky, you a mama".

Living as an Englishwoman in Germany, I had my children in Kindergarten in the mornings and worked as an interpreter and translator during this time. At one point, I had a part-time job for a few weeks as an interpreter for one of the immigration authorities, and was assigned to one of the civil servants (in this piece called Herr Zantl) assisting in interpreting statements of refugees seeking asylum.

It was a very difficult job for me, as I was unable to hear their stories and go home and forget them. They did affect me emotionally, and Herr Zantl, who was very smart, realized this. He told me I would lose the job if I could not hide my emotions better, which is in fact what ultimately happened.

Some of the civil servants who are not as smart as Herr Zantl are jealous of him and sometimes try to verbally jab him through his lunch. He and Frau Koszewski talk about everything, from squeezing his spots ("perhaps my sister will do it for me to tonight") to Jennifer, the 19-year old American interpreter who always wears jeans, looks up all the legal terms in the dictionary and flirts a lot with Herr Zantl in English, because she knows he cannot understand what she is saying ("you slimy bastard, I'd like to wring your neck" - "What did she say Frau Cupcake? You're my interpreter, you tell me." "I stopped being paid at 12 o'clock and you know, we interpreters have a union") and who is annoyed because she doesn't want to take time off for a lunch break; "What shall I write on the report?" asks Frau Koszewski anxiously, but they do not talk about refugees, no not even one little tiny one. It is all up there, in that nice new shiny office, the one above the canteen and two flights of stairs along. It is not here. We don't want them for lunch as well. But they are with me. They stay with me all day and all night and all the next three days and they won't go away.

"I can see that," Herr Zantl says. "I can see that you are very affected by all this. I can see you crying with them. Well you shouldn't." Or you will not be able to keep this job Frau Cupcake. And then how do you expect to support your children Frau Cupcake. You are so lucky to have this job.

You not lucky, you a Mama.