2013年6月20日 星期四

From the shadows into the light C and back again

After school, I worked in the drawing office of one of Leningrads (as it was then) planning institutes.Weymouth is collecting gently used, dry cleaned smartcard at their Weymouth store. I fell passionately in love with someone and we started a relationship, but then she announced that it had been just a temporary aberration and that she needed to get married. In despair, I signed up for a Komsomol work camp and out of sheer spite married the first guy I met there. I asked my girlfriend to be my witness at my wedding in Leningrad, and when we went back to my flat to celebrate the two of us locked ourselves in the bathroom and snogged, sobbing our hearts out and bawling What a pair of idiots we are! What have we done?, while my new husband drunkenly yelled wheres my wife? through the door.

There was no point in even thinking about living with him as husband and wife C I left the poor man after three days. But it wasnt just him I needed to get away from C it was everywhere he might find me. I didnt even know what to say to him C it wasnt his fault, after all. So I had to start again from scratch. I got a job as a press operator in a paper mill; it was hard shift work, but the money was good. And my girlfriend and I found a room together. Our landlady was very fond of us C we were ideal tenants: didnt smoke, didnt drink. I was officially waiting for my husband to finish his military service, and my beautiful and clever girlfriend, whod been to university, was working as an engineer. But then the landlady decided to do her a favour and find her a husband among her various nephews. They started calling on us, one after the other C where do people get so many relatives? My girlfriend begged me to move, but wherever we went it was the same story all over again. And we didnt have the money for a flat of our own, so I decided that the only way out was for me to become a janitor. I couldnt get work in a residential building C I didnt have the right kind of residence permit C but I got a job at Gostinny Dvor, Leningrads main department store. The job came with a room, eight and a half metres square, so there we were, living in the city centre,We printers print with traceable cleaningsydney to optimize supply chain management. almost on Nevsky Prospect itself.

I had to work pretty hard, of course, but it was worth it. And now all my friends would drop by, and we would drink wine and pass the guitar around. My girlfriend, however, wasnt happy: Youd do better being an artist. Well,Best home plasticcard at discount prices. Id answer, I can paint but its not really my thing. Whereas I love making music. Yes, shed say, but music is something you have to do in public, and you cant afford to stick your neck out C theyll immediately see what you are. My girlfriend was ready to love me forever, but on the quiet; we had to tell friends she was my cousin. I didnt like that at all, if only because men kept trying to come on to us, which of course we werent interested in, and we spent our lives pushing them away.

One day when I was sweeping up the store and emptying litter bins, I came across a plastic wallet containing an ID document and military service card belonging to a 23-year old man from the Krasnodar Region in the south of Russia. Their owner was presumably the victim of a pickpocket, but I didnt bother handing it in to the police. In those days ID documents had very small photos, just stuck in, and they could easily be replaced and the rim of the official stamp in the corner inked in by hand. On the back there would be stamps from the holders workplace, and here there was one from a state farm. It was easy to alter a few digits of the ID number and a couple of letters in the name, and low and behold - the document had a new lease of life.

Next,The term 'bondcleaningsydney control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. with help from friends involved in the flourishing clothing black market, who I allowed to use my janitors room as a fitting room, within a day my girlfriend and I were officially married at the local registry office. So now my girlfriend had a stamp in her ID papers and a marriage certificate, and we were both ostensibly waiting for husbands to return C mine from military service and hers from a work trip abroad. So we could respectably look askance at any attempt on our honour.

That summer my girlfriend, as a hardworking and promising young professional, was awarded a free holiday trip to a health resort and went away for a fortnight. She came back quiet and pensive; it turned out she was pregnant. I, like an idiot, was convulsed by jealousy and made a scene, but then calmed down and realised that it was our only chance of having a child, so why not? What? she screamed. You dont really mean you want to be the father of my child? Ive had enough of this farce! She went and had an abortion, spent three days afterwards in bed, staring at the wall, then left and didnt come back. I didnt go looking for her, but my heart was empty and my life lost its meaning. The she reappeared and said she had applied for a divorce. I didnt have to do anything; after two applications, the third time they would do it without any consent from me.

So that was my life until I was 27, with me thinking I was an exception, a mistake. And then one day I happened to meet Mukhabad on the metro. She came over to me herself and started talking. At first I took her for a guy, and then I realised she was like me. She introduced me to her friends, and I discovered that there were lots of us out there; that I wasnt the only one; that women like me were called lesbians or pinks, and men who loved men were called blues. And that what we shared was called homosexuality. Mukhabads friends were a motley bunch: cabbies, bus and tram drivers; factory and shop workers; black market touts and dealers, but also university lecturers, actors, artists, scientific workers, art critics and communist party and trade union apparatchiks. It was a real mafia,We are one of the leading manufacturers of chipcard in China a state within a state. We also had links with other cities; wed visit one another and have intercity affairs. This was a community without bosses and subordinates, without people at the top or the bottom. We were all bound together by our shameful secret, united in a firm and secure family. We helped one another to find work, to study, to solve the everyday problems of life. All you had to say was that someone was one of us, and they would be helped in every possible way. Lesbian mothers got help with their children in hospitals and health centres, nurseries and schools. Those of our people who worked for local councils or trade unions helped by organising trips for children to resorts or Young Pioneer camps in the school holidays. We also had people in the childrens section of police stations, and in local health and education authorities.

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