Writers 1-1: Hertha Mueller: Ego, Base and Superstructure

Hertha Mueller leafed through the German language manual of a rotary offset printing press. She had never seen the actual model press with her own eyes but only had an impression of the machine from the drawings in the manual. The director of the factory in accordance with a directive from the regional Securitate commissioner had assigned her to translate machine manuals for printing presses. Hertha loathed her work in the factory, even if she was placed in the offices, where she shared a room with two secretaries, one of whom was a snitch for the Securitate. Hertha instinctively felt misplaced around the smell of lubrication grease and human sweat, the boisterous rattle of machinery and the raised voices of holler and commands, all penetrating the office through the cracks, between the frames and the broken glass in the windows. She often thought of her years studying German and Romanian literature. Quietly, she sat tucked away for hours at the end of an isle between two bookshelves, in the university library. Above her the sparse light entered through a tiny broken basement window. She thought of Gretchen's release in Faust, as Mephistopheles shouts 'she is now doomed,' and as she waited for the echoes from heaven, it remained silent but for the hammering and pounding of machinery.