Chapter 12
Teachers
Following this summer I became busy with my study at the university. Coming from a comprehensive school I have had a handicap to the boys having studied in technical secondary schools. I had studied such subjects as literature – and I liked it –, history and in the university nothing of that was necessary.
My last grade, the 4th, in the secondary school has been very good for me. I had found my place and there was a certain respect for me in the teachers, except one. He was our Russian language teacher. I think I had got the knowledge how to gain somebody’s friendship or respect. My scores have been fine. Even, first time in that school, I could have got maximum score, had not been that Russian teacher there.
I think I have to give a short account of my two teachers in the 4th grade. The lady who has lectured us in literature through all our years in that school has been the wife of one of the most famous literary historians in the country. Their marriage could not have been very successful, it has been my impression. Some boys were very fond of her, as she had an extremely fine figure. But she has not been of my favourite type as her face was far from pretty and she chain-smoked. As my teacher I respected her, and she did all to put me on the right track of literature.
"What do you read?” she asked me on the corridor once during break.
"Novels of adventure”, I said.
"Exactly what”, she went on questioning.
"Jules Verne, Dumas, etc.”
"You had better to switch to real values.”
And she gave me a list she advised me to read. She has been right. Films based on the books of Verne or Dumas I watch till this day, but following our talk I have never read another book of either of them.
She has got a good eye to notice that, although literature has been one of my favourite subjects, I have had no sense for literary history and to analyse a poem has not been my force. She has left me alone, she noticed my other interests, e.g. technical things, geography, history and has not forced to make a literary man of me.
We have got a new teacher in that year. Tibor Huszar was a young man, when he came to our school two years before and then he made a bad reputation, but also a high respect among the pupils for taking the post of prosecutor in a process of the school court. In the year following the 1956 events the state had to reorganize not only police, but the party has created a special army of its own, the so called Workers’ Guard. It will have existed until 1990 and its maintenance has been made by the highest party officials through selecting new members to replace retired ones from the most bigot party members in the country. But, before reorganization of forces has been finished, a number of criminals, a large majority of them teenage people, have formed gangs, and security in the capital has become endangered.
After the capture of one of the gangs our school became involved. A few members of the gang have been from us. The school management kept a trial of the school court, before they have been given to the police. It was this process, where the man mentioned has been the prosecutor. All the pupils of the school have been herded to the ball room of the school, and it has really been interesting to hear his clever speech against crime.
In our 4th grade he lectured us in logic. In his style the topic has been highly interesting. Besides, he has had a good wit, he could make a joke about himself, if it was necessary. Once we have been tired and did not pay much attention to him. He stood up and said: "Well, I can understand you completely. You are tired after five lessons, and to make it harder, there comes this black mandarin and is just murmuring, murmuring,...” His remaining words have died in the laughter, and we became attentive at once. But he has remained "the black mandarin” ever since.
Later, when we left school, he and the lady, teacher of literature, will have had their affair. Both will have been fired. I do not know anything about further life of the woman, but he, "the black mandarin”, has appeared many times on the screen of our TV set, as he has become a sociologist and a frequent guest in the studio.
I have mentioned that during the shortened school-year we have been spared of studying Russian. I have chosen German instead of that language. The next year restoration of the Soviet influence began and so, Russian became compulsory again. To catch up during 3rd grade, beside German, we had to finish both 2nd and 3rd grade in Russian. We have got that unsympathetic man as our Russian teacher. He has soon gained our disgust and he has been very successful not to lose it any more.
In the 4th grade, a couple of days before final examination, during his lecture somebody of the class asked for my help. I gave him a piece of paper with the information. He was caught at the blackboard with my paper in his hand. As I could not satisfy him as he wished – to say that I helped him in cheating – he pushed down my final score by a whole mark. This has been the reason why I have in my final exam certificate the scores of one of the 21 subjects below maximum by one mark.
He might have lost his fight against me, had the class not done something wrong at this last period. About two weeks before the end of the school-year there was a free hour in the morning. There was a big noise, as the majority of the class was sitting on its place and they were busy in conversation, and the remaining boys were making a crowd at the open window. One of them put a chair onto the sill and it fell out, probably someone from the crowd touched it accidentally. As it fell from the 4th floor to the ground it passed the window of the school council having an assembly on the second floor. Their highnesses noticed the falling chair.
As during the remaining two weeks it could not have been detected, who had been responsible for the deed, we all got a score decreased on one subject. I have got it on Russian. To this day I do not know what exactly happened with that chair.
During third grade the former military secondary school in the capital has been closed and the pupils distributed to others, a great part of them to us. More than ten boys have come into our class and another at the same grade. They had all prepared to become pilots on fighter planes. It is interesting, by look and behaviour you can recognize at once, when you meet someone born to a military career. These boys looked alike. I liked them from the beginning, however one or two of them quickly became too much civilian. They could not go on their course, but the majority has gone to the Soviet Union to finish their training after their final examination.
As most of them have been from the country they would need a dormitory like in their former school. Our school could not provide it, and they have been accommodated in the office building of the airport, where I lived. Step by step they could get scholarships and have got better places to live. Some of the boys have become fighter pilots. One of them, a silent, calm boy, has died soon after his return from the Soviet Union. His plane has crashed and he could not leave it in time.
It is amazing, but from the time during my 4th grade I can hardly recollect any memories. May be, I have been so busy doing my duties, that it all looks plain and eventless. At 4th grade we have got a new form-master. He had been living in a monastery before, but had stepped out of the order and kept only his teacher’s job. There were rumours that he was gay, but nothing could prove these gossips. He has been a very good teacher. He lectured us in history and from that time this subject has once more become one of my favourites.
It was he who led us to final examination and he is seen on our tableau. I think, he has never really grew up in spirit and for this reason he has been very much boy-scout like. He considered himself one of the class. When we left school we have lost his traces. Several years later, at one of our regular 5-yearly class reunion somebody told us about his life. He has been on a tourist trip in Italy and was visiting a football match, when the bullet of a terrorist caused him to loose one arm.
The final examination came at last and after that our class has fallen apart. Some of the boys I have regularly met on the university grounds, and on alumni reunions in every 5th year. Otherwise I cannot say anything about any one of my former school-mates. The only exception is Ivan the Great, but about him later.