or not. Some people already know where they are working; they have met the PEPIDs477 on the way. You ask him: “What building?” and he tells you, waving his hand for emphasis, “that one”, or, briefly, “the stink”.
The yard is filling up. It is still quiet. Offices and desks of our Ministry of Health are resting. Only on the ground floor at the front, and on the ground floor in the yard—movement. The headquarters of anti-epidemic armies, “Pepid” and “Brigade”, hold their offices there. In the office of the Disinfection Section, my friend Roman gives out food rations to the most affected colleagues. This quiet and low-key campaign of one brigade member for another requires no advertising; it is not done for show.
The briefing of officers is concluded at the “Brigade” headquarters. Soon, an assembly is announced. One after another, eight brigades line up. Barely breathing, the last tardy soldiers are rushing to take their place.
Enter the general—the head of the brigades with his diplomatic smile. He is a unique superior, especially in these times: both a boss and a friend. He starts the briefing. He is scanning all the faces; they are so different and strange. One—the face of a child, not long ago [2] caressed by a mother’s warm hand, a mother he now must support himself; another one—the wrinkled face of an old man thirty years of age, whose thoughts are with his wife and child waiting for soup. The face of a young girl dreaming of tender caresses, while she has to caress someone's dirty bedding. Lean faces. Swollen faces. Sad faces. Rarely, a normal face. It makes your head hurt.
It is you, you poor brigade member!
It’s nothing that only yesterday you were somebody! Only yesterday you were a talented pupil, a successful student, a skilled expert, a capable official—it is all nothing! Today, you are a brigade member.
For you 3.60 a day will suffice. For you the bell tolls!
You lice-ridden slob!
Go to work, you’ll make money there. Briefing over, we're leaving. Some stop by Tobcia’s, a handful of coins will buy her courtesy; the rest of us are in a hurry to the tenement.
Half an hour later, economic brigades depart. They are a variety of regular brigades, the only difference being that they do same thing with less
