Lorraine Connection

Начало книги

A room enclosed by four grey sheet-metal walls, bisected by a conveyor belt carrying two rows of television screens and their cathode ray tubes, under the glare of neon lights from which a stray electric wire dangles. Two rows of four women sit facing each other on either side of the conveyor. Autumn is around the corner and it is very chilly: when they took up their positions this morning it was still dark outside. All the women know each other and feel almost close in this confined space where they work as a team on collective output and bonuses, but no one feels like talking, since the prospect of long nights and short days dampens their spirits.

The women, also looking grey in their short overalls, lean forward, their eyes constantly moving from the aggressive oblong-shaped bases of the cathode tubes filing past them to the tilting polished-steel mirrors overhead. The same crushing images of the same tubes are reflected from a different angle, as if magnified. Holding tiny soldering irons, they add a few final spots of solder then, on leaving the production line, the finished cathode ray tubes are conveyed to the next workshop on the other side of the sheet-metal wall, where they will be packaged, stored, and ultimately despatched elsewhere, generally to Poland, where they will be given plastic casings and become television sets.

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