Chapter 10
School in the Capital
Following two months of out-of-school life lessons have begun. Previously I have spent only one day in that school, I have even not known anything about my teachers or classmates. Of the 25 or so boys from class, 3 left the country during the events. I have even not remembered them. Those who remained I soon became acquainted with and, as it is usual, there were boys, whom I liked and vice versa. I can tell that of the latter I cannot remember more than two. And, as the years went by, both have left us because of their substandard behaviour.
There were some excellent guys, and it goes without saying, they have not become very successful in the after-school life. There were also matter-of-fact boys and by their common sense they did well later. And there was one that barely survived many punishments – he was terrible – and, no mistake, he became famous for training actors in fencing, fighting, somersaulting and for marrying the prettiest actress of the country.
There were guys from the country who came every morning by train and shuttled back in the evening in the same way I did it with my former school. They were real peasant boys, but had an accent quite different of mine. Well, that is a proper place to remember my accent from the county of the men of knife.
The western part of our country called Transdanubium is famous for a tasteful accent, and its southern part, south of the lake, is the hardest of it. If we had any Professor Higgins, he would have his hands full for a long time. I think, it took me about five years without any Professor Higgins to leave my accent, but I can consider myself lucky, still to have a sense for different accents of our country. Between the open and closed sound "e” the same difference exists in Hungarian as in English. We have similar cases as words in English spelled by "a” and "e” and pronounced shortly, e.g. bad and bed, or man and men. For the ordinary man, especially an urban one, those nuances are not to be sensed.
The father of one of my class-mates had been a university professor and when I started my study at the technical university he was the rector there. His sister I saw in my first year in the theatre, she was a young actress and even now she is popular. She plays a part in the country’s favourite TV soap opera. This boy has left the country since and I haven’t known anything about him for a long time. Later I will be able to spare him some more words.
Another guy was very proud of his background, his father was a factory director and a good expert of helical gears. I do not need to tell you, I have not been very proud of my father, as that time in my eyes he has not been extraordinary. Now I can appreciate him better. It is 26 years since he has left us.
There was one boy who had so many interests, you could not tell, which of them is his real one. For example, he had plans to make a photographic camera. I do not know if he succeeded, but I stole his idea and made one. I used it only for one roll of film, but all the 12 pictures I have taken were good.
One of the boys was our senior by two years, I do not know why. His hobby has been drumming. He was a member of a small band and he has never lost his interest in it. As an adult he acquired a small sailing boat and it also became his hobby. There was a guy who could have been one of the actors from the old Chaplin silent movies.
And there was Ivan the Great. He has been the youngest of the class, but his wisdom was overwhelming. He was the Justice of the Peace in our class, and for his cleverness we survived misdeeds without punishment many times. He got his name as his Christian name was Ivan and his surname Nagy that means big, large, great. It came evidently that he became Ivan III, that is Ivan the Great. About him I have more to tell, but time is not ripe in this place yet.
My form-master in that school has been an old man, who became one of my ideals in life to follow. He has come from the most distant edge of Transylvania – the venue of my father’s mission in my babyhood – and in the ‘20s and ‘30s he was the third person beside Bartok and Kodaly to collect folk songs of old Hungarian origin. Those composers guessed well, it has been the last moment to catch the original songs on phonograph. My teacher has not become so famous as the other two, as he might not have had the same talent to compose his own music. He only published one collection of songs and returned to teaching his pupils.
It was he, who said, when I came to that school: "You always have to give maximum credit to somebody, whom you have just met, as you cannot know him by face. Only when you got acquainted with him through his misdeeds, are you allowed to debit so much as justified.” And he did not tell it to me, but to a class-mate of mine, who were laughing at my accent. I have made it my principle and, although it carries the danger of giving credit to someone, who does not deserve it, it is better to be cheated than giving somebody a worse judgement than he deserved.
He had two sons from about my age and they have been studying in the same school. The elder one, I guess, went back to his birthplace within Romania and the country’s 1989 revolution launched him on a political career. Alas, we had that form-master not for long. He left us for another school, and his further story became known to me only from the book of his life-story. It has been published in 1988 within a series of Oral History Museum. An interviewer of the state radio recorded the talks she has carried on with him a year before – she came from his country of origin, too – and published the book. It goes without saying, the book shared the fate of my favourites: I have lent it to somebody and have not got it back. Only lately did I succeed to get another copy of it.
He went into retirement soon after leaving our school and started to search for documents that could have completed the picture about the history of our country. He did it in the Vatican. He has always been very religious and that work could satisfy him.
I was on my assignment in Moscow in 1991 when I saw news about his death in the papers. He was 90 then. I have come into his class at the secondary school second grade. He left us at the end of that school-year. Our new form-master became our teacher of history.
He came to us soon after schooling resumed, following the uprising. He was a rather young man looking like someone with digestion problems. As we cleared our view about him later it was justified. He has been one of the 13 to survive the massacre on the Square of the Republic in the building of the municipal council of the ruling party on October 30. As a former ideologist he has seen history from another view-point, than our former form-master and history lecturer. In his lecturing history has not been our popular subject, but his very precise manner helped us a lot.
During the shortened second grade there has not been any Russian lessons. Instead of that language we could choose between German and English. In my family German had traditions, I have chosen German. It has not been a great delight as there were none who could have given us the right stuff. We had at least three teachers in this first year. During third grade a lady has been transferred to us, and she at last could make us like the language by different stimulation methods. Besides being a good aunt for us, whom we all liked, she taught us German songs and recorded the sound of our choir on tape. Also, she gave us addresses of German girls of the same age, and it was really interesting to be in correspondence with someone so far away. My first partner traded my address to another girl and we continued this correspondence for 5 years. Her job has been done well, and all her pupils have taken advantage of having learned to speak German.
My study in the secondary school could not have been possible without riding there in the morning and back in the afternoon. At my living place there has only been one way of transport after the uprising. The bus service has been cancelled and only the suburban electric train has remained. One terminal of our line has been near my school. The line ran over the city limits, and via a nearby village, and had the other terminal in another settlement. The stop where I lived was about at the middle of the line. The trains ran at every 24 minutes.
When life has returned to its normal course after the events, it was almost impossible to get into the trains, they have always been overcrowded. It has not been rare for me to ride the whole route on the stairs. Slowly it became more normal and it was possible to get into the carriage itself. But never has it been fashionable for us students to sit down, had it been even possible. It was an old custom to gather on the platforms of the car and socialize. A lot of the girls in our sister-school have come from the two suburban villages. We had to take advantage of getting into contact with them.
I am a non-smoker and being such has its origin in my first month in the Siofok secondary school. A classmate of mine has always offered me cigarettes and once I have tried. I did not like it, so I have never done it again.
On the suburban train two cars were selected for smokers and two for non-smokers. Being a smoker or a non-smoker divided us and every student went to the appropriate carriage. During second grade I did not find any girl to fall in love with, but, of course I have made acquaintances and always liked to be in the company of girls. I had my eyes open, and it took no time to notice a pretty face. Much later I will have learned that during that time a certain girl from a place not far from our stop was always watching me. That time I have only noticed her as a small child, as she was twelve then and I was fifteen. The only reason, why she caught my attention was her being always very earnest and neat. About her I have some more to write later.
These rides on the rear platform of carriage Nr 3 of the suburban train made it easier to me to gain friends both in class and outside it. We could talk over every topics from sports to school to girls, even politics. That kind of unavoidable talking parties is missing today, when municipal transport is so much better, let alone private cars.
There was another way of contacting girls and it was school balls. Two to three times a year there were balls organized by the school authorities to keep in their channels the amusement of the young that could be checked this way. These balls have always been whole battle fields between teachers and students, as the latter wanted to form the event according to their taste. Following every ball there were a number of "reports of unsatisfactory behaviour” distributed. But all the same, balls have been necessary, as for the students it was the only opportunity to recreate themselves for a couple of months.
From my third grade on, at balls music has been performed by the school’s own band. Its members have been frequently changed, but its leader was fix. He was my senior by one year in this school and also at the Technical University. His name is Alexander Benko and today he heads the famous Benko Dixiland Band that is very popular all over the world.
On my first ball in that school I discovered that I could not dance as well as I wished. I decided to go to a dancing-school once a week. It has been worth doing it as I could at last leave my timidity and behave more freely than before.
Even the balls and the dancing school could not do something: I still have not found any girl to love. It is true, my thoughts had been engaged earlier for some years to A., and after her in my childhood I have found only one girl in my first secondary school to love, only to find her later unworthy of my feelings. At the same time there were a lot of girls among my friends and I could feel well in their company.