Chapter 152: A Glimpse of Life Part 1
The celebrations lasted for three days.
By the fourth morning, Helmarte had already begun settling back into its usual rhythm.
City workers removed the colorful banners from King’s Avenue before sunrise, folding each one carefully before loading them onto waiting carts. In Grand Civic Square, carpenters dismantled the temporary viewing platforms piece by piece while sweepers cleared away the last scraps of paper and confetti left behind by the crowds.
By the time most citizens opened their doors, little remained of the ceremony beyond a few ribbons caught in tree branches and the lingering conversations of those who had attended.
Life moved on.
Ernest considered that one of the clearest signs that the reconstruction had succeeded.
A great city could not survive on ceremonies. Its value was found in what happened after the speeches ended, when people returned to work and expected the streets, water systems, and public services to function without interruption.
That morning, the sun rose across Helmarte in a warm golden glow.
Shopkeepers unlocked their storefronts one after another while delivery boys carried baskets through side entrances. The smell of fresh bread drifted from neighborhood bakeries long before most families had finished breakfast.
Milk carts rolled over the granite roads without their wheels sinking into mud. Delivery wagons arrived according to established schedules, stopped only long enough to unload, then continued toward their next destination.
Street cleaners pushed narrow carts beneath the rows of maple trees lining the avenues, gathering fallen leaves before pedestrians could track them into shops and homes.
None of it attracted attention.
That was the point.
For younger residents, these routines were ordinary. They had grown up with paved streets, running water, regular waste collection, and electric lights.
Older citizens remembered something very different.
Margaret Collins opened the curtains of her home on Hawthorne Street and allowed the morning light into the kitchen.
For most of her life, waking before sunrise had meant preparing for the walk to the neighborhood well. She had carried two wooden buckets every morning, sometimes more if washing needed to be done.
During winter, the iron handles became painfully cold. In summer, the queue often stretched around the corner. Rain turned the path into mud, and anyone who arrived late risked waiting nearly an hour.
There had never been an alternative.
Now Margaret crossed the kitchen and turned the brass faucet beside the sink.
Clear water flowed immediately.
She filled the kettle, rinsed several vegetables, and set a pot beside the stove. The action had become so familiar that she barely thought about it anymore.
Her husband entered a few minutes later, still buttoning his shirt.
"You’re up early."
"I’m always up early."
"You already made tea?"
"The water is heating."
George glanced toward the washed vegetables on the table.
"And you finished those too?"
Margaret smiled.
"I had time."
He pulled out a chair and sat.
"I still wake up thinking I need to go to the well."
"So do I."
"Do you?"
"Yesterday I carried two buckets outside."
George looked up.
"You didn’t."
"I reached the gate before I remembered."
He laughed, and Margaret joined him.
For a moment, they both looked toward the unused buckets resting against the wall near the door.
George shook his head.
"Old habits last longer than old roads."
After breakfast, he carried a small wooden stool outside and placed it beside the front step.
He no longer worked full days, and sitting there had become part of his morning routine. From that spot, he could watch most of Hawthorne Street come alive.
Children in clean school uniforms hurried past in groups, arguing about lessons and trading pieces of bread. A horse-drawn omnibus` stopped at the corner, allowing clerks, merchants, and government employees to board before continuing toward the administrative district.
Across the street, two sanitation workers stopped beside an iron maintenance cover embedded in the road.
One inserted a hooked tool beneath the rim and lifted it. The other descended the ladder carrying a lantern and a small leather bag filled with instruments.
A young boy standing nearby tugged at his father’s sleeve.
"What are they doing?"
"Inspecting the sewer."
The child stared at the open chamber.
"They can go down there?"
"That’s what the tunnels are for."
"Why don’t they dig up the road?"
His father glanced toward the workers.
"They don’t need to. It was designed so they could inspect everything from inside."
The boy continued watching until the worker climbed out several minutes later. The cover was lowered back into place, and both men pushed their cart toward the next inspection point.
No traffic had been stopped.
No road had been opened.
George smiled to himself.
Before the reconstruction, a damaged pipe could close an entire street for days. Workers would dig blindly until they found the problem, often striking something else in the process.
Now most routine inspections were completed before anyone noticed.
Across the avenue, Hawthorne Bakery was already crowded.
Customers waited near the counter while workers carried fresh loaves from the large brick ovens at the back. Steam clouded the windows, and the smell of flour, butter, and warm bread filled the room.
Samuel Weaver stood behind the counter wrapping loaves in paper when Margaret entered.
"Morning, Mrs. Collins."
"Good morning."
Samuel placed two loaves beside the register.
"The usual?"
"Two today. George says one isn’t enough anymore."
"He says that because he eats half before lunch."
"That’s what I told him."
Samuel laughed and reached for another sheet of paper.
Margaret glanced toward the queue behind her.
"You’re busier every week."
"I won’t complain."
"I remember when you did nothing but complain."
Samuel paused before looking toward the avenue outside.
"You mean during the road closure?"
"You threatened to throw an engineer into the trench."
"I never said which engineer."
"You said all of them."
A few customers nearby laughed.
Samuel shook his head.
"They closed the front of my shop for almost three months. I thought I was finished."
"You told everyone they had ruined your business."
"I was convinced they had."
He tied the paper around the loaves and placed them on the counter.
"Turns out I didn’t know what I was talking about."
Margaret raised an eyebrow.
"That must be difficult for you to admit."
"Painful."
More laughter came from the waiting customers.
Samuel nodded toward the windows.
"Before the reconstruction, people from the next district rarely came here. The road was too narrow, and every delivery took twice as long after rain. Now I get customers from three districts before breakfast."
One of his assistants carried a bucket of clean water toward the mixing table.
"The water helped too," Samuel continued. "We used to spend half the morning filling barrels. Now we prepare the dough as soon as the ovens are hot."
"And you sell three times as much bread," Margaret said.
"Nearly."
"So the engineers didn’t destroy you."
"No. They made me hire six more people."
An elderly man near the back of the queue leaned around another customer.
"You still cursed them every morning."
Samuel pointed toward him.
"You did too."
"That was different."
"How?"
"I wasn’t selling bread."
The bakery filled with laughter again.
Another customer shook his head.
"Everyone thought the city had lost its mind. Six billion riels, streets torn apart, trenches everywhere. I remember hearing people say the kingdom would run out of money before the second year."
The elderly man looked through the window at the avenue outside.
"Well, the roads are still here."
"So is the kingdom," Samuel added.
"And the bread costs more," someone called from the back.
"That has nothing to do with the roads," Samuel replied.
"It always has something to do with the roads."
The conversation drifted toward prices, deliveries, and rumors about a new market opening near the tram line. Within moments, the reconstruction was forgotten.
Margaret gathered her loaves and stepped outside.
Helmarte continued around her.
Carriages crossed streets that no longer flooded after heavy rain. Children hurried toward schools supplied with clean water, electric lighting, and heated classrooms. Merchants opened shops that had remained illuminated late into the previous evening.
Maintenance crews inspected tunnels beneath the roads. Trams arrived on schedule. Waste carts moved from one block to the next. Bakers worked without needing to haul water, and shopkeepers received deliveries without wondering whether a wagon had become trapped in mud.
Five years earlier, a morning like this would have seemed impossible.
Now it was simply Tuesday.
No church bells rang.
No speeches were given.
No newspaper printed a special edition to celebrate water flowing from a faucet or a sewer inspection completed without opening the road.
There was no reason to.
At the HCIA headquarters, Ernest stood near the window of his office and watched the capital begin another working day.
A tram moved through the intersection below before disappearing beyond the next row of buildings. Schoolchildren crossed the avenue under the watch of a uniformed traffic officer.
A maintenance crew lifted an iron cover, inspected the chamber beneath it, and moved on.
No one stopped to watch them.
No one pointed toward the road or wondered how the system worked.
The city functioned, and its people trusted that it would continue to do so.
Ernest remained by the window for a few moments before returning to his desk.
Several reports waited for him.