HARD HATS, HARD HEARTS - PART THREE

I discovered during this experience that interpreting roughly subscribes to the 80-20 rule, ie 80% of the work is performed in 20% of the time, and vice-versa. This, coupled with Erich’s undoubted charisma and the Brazilian workers’ tendency to constantly seek his attention and/or approval led to my idle time being filled with some fairly strange translating services. One mechanic wanted me to make it crystal clear to the bemused foreigners that he seldom wore underpants, whilst another, latterly known as bekloppt, unashamedly confessed that he occasionally wet his bed in drunken irreverence, but only, he later qualified, on special occasions celebrated with almighty benders, such as Christmas, New Year, Carnaval, Easter, Labour Day, Independence Day, birthdays, barbecues, christenings, weddings, football derbies, etc. Despite making absolutely plain that he didn’t drink every day, each morning he’d arrive a little more bedraggled and give a rough estimate as to how many cans of beer he’d quaffed the previous night, which not infrequently involved the use of the fingers of both hands.

Until Erich arrived and started playing the crowd with consummate ease, the days were filled with periods of total inactivity. I lost count of how many laps of the neighbouring Lamination Department I completed, or how many times I stood by a machine watching rolls of aluminium foil being produced before my very eyes. The occasional fire and accompanying release of a couple of tonnes of CO2 would add interest to proceedings.

A roll grinding mill takes precision to absurd lengths, making for slow progress that does one’s head in after a while. After concreting in the machine base, the feisty Mattias started going along the length of it from point to point with spirit levels measuring fractions of a millimetre, loosening or tightening bolts to raise or lower the eight-tonne structure a couple of microns. Of course each time he adjusted one, it threw the others out, and he’d reach the end then head back again. He carried out this procedure for three whole days. A tarpaulin had to be hastily erected to stop the wind from entering the building, as even a sudden gust could distort the readings on the spirit levels and invoke a Wagnerian response from Herr Mattias. After a time I couldn’t bear to watch any more - I wanted to howl like a wolf or something.

Mattias and Erich left in mid-December to spend Christmas at home, the former never to return, after which the third of the triumvirate of alemães, Markus the machine operator, touched down in early January, with Erich returning with him. The new boy was affable yet assertive, as I discovered when he had me on the blower to Iberia almost hourly to try to recover his lost luggage. Fair play to him, I’d be uncomfortable wearing the same T-shirt and underwear combination to work for five days without respite.

Erich had promised to bring a T-shirt for bekloppt, and duly presented him with a green garment with the word “FREAK” printed in large capital letters on the front. After discreetly checking with me that this word didn’t mean “gay”, he happily stowed it away in his bag where nobody could steal it. When Erich offered to send a postcard from Germany to anybody who wanted one when he got home, work stopped due to the sheer demand – mechanics descended scaffolding at a perilous pace to make sure they got their names and addresses on the list. There was something vaguely tragic about watching grown men queuing up for such meagre fare.

Markus was eminently likeable, but seemed to be undergoing a mid-life crisis, despite only being in his early thirties. The trigger seemed to be the voluptuous sirens that haunted the hotel bar at night, offering to relieve him of a few Euros in return for some dusky practices. Each day he appeared more and more preoccupied, ready to cave into temptation, but torn by having a wife and kids back home. One of the more proactive courtesans even managed to phone him at work one day, though how she got his number remains a mystery.

The testing of the machine was almost as draining as the spirit level business had been. It takes around 30 minutes to grind a roll, then it’s necessary to make minute adjustments and set the whole process going again. Intermittently Markus would wail out loud at the pure tediousness of how he was spending his life. “Don’t tell the operators this, but grinding rolls is a bloody stupid job,” he stated with admirable candour. “The curves they are grinding on these rolls are so small, you can’t even see them with the naked eye,” he continued, “a human hair is around 30 microns wide. Here we’re dealing in 8 or 9 microns.” I began to see why he was dreaming his life away.

My contract ended around a week before Markus was due to leave. Having promised to join him for a farewell beer in his hotel, I phoned him several times, but he never returned my calls. I often wonder if he ever went back to Germany.

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