Chapter 19
Further University Years
From the holiday season to the beginning of my 7th semester, there remained three weeks, and I have been caught in the trap of my aunt. As I had said in their story before, my aunt and my mother had accepted the courting of two customs officers, from which one had married my mother and so, he has been my father, the other had been selected first by my aunt for a husband.
They had never had any children. A relative of the man from the country had been taken as servant, and she lived there with her husband. They had been living in a small room in the house of my aunt and her husband. Their house has been a fine villa, situated on a hillside in a place, perspective at its building time, but the big recession in the thirties had stopped its development. After thirty years it still had to be accessed by foot up-hill. A son has been born to the servant and, having no children of their own, my aunt has always felt towards him as her own child. Alas, as a result, he has become spoiled completely. At 3 he was using all the four-letter words possible, and from that time there remained a funny anecdote, I recount it.
The boy swore heavily in a shop, everyone was looking at him astonished.
"I do not know where he gets these dirty expressions from. He is with me all the time”, her mother said.
His name was Emery. He has been my junior by five years. During my secondary school years I had been obliged to go to my aunt’s house and giving them some help. It had not been a small duty, as you had to travel two hours by bus and suburban train there, and the same back. The expression "help” meant spending my leisure time with the boy and filling all the water containers from the turning well. Of the two it was not the latter that was harder. He had been interested in nothing of my favourites, but he liked and did all I hated. He was a big card player and mad of football. Both of them can drive me out of the world until now.
Well, the remaining three weeks I had to spend in a way, organized by my aunt. We were to ride to the lake Balaton on bicycles and stay there on the beach in tents. Somehow time we spent there was not unpleasant. I took with me also one of my fellow students from my study-circle. During our stay I tried to see A. once more. It did not make me a great joy. When I was invited to enter, she was sitting with her fiancé, her physical instructor from the elementary school – she had finished school and completed her final exam – and a football player, a short plain-faced man about my age.
We have also visited my relatives in the village. The husband of my aunt Elizabeth was still living and in his usual good humour he has told us his funny stories.
Our holiday has had an unexpected end. The bicycle of my fellow-student has been stolen. Nobody would tell us, why just his, as it was the oldest and, to take it, the thief had to unbind them all and lift the third one from its place at the bottom. Thus we made our return trip by train.
My fourth year at the university brought me nearer to my trade: transport engineering, or naval engineering more specifically. According to their specifying, all the members of the 4th year were lectured in different subjects. For new subjects, I have got internal combustion engines, railway basics and in the 8th semester two naval topics: propulsion and the theory of ships. I liked these latter two both from the beginning. The theory of ships has been presented us by Professor Balogh, head of the Hydrodynamic Equipments Department, propulsion by his first assistant dr. Benedek. The professor had been the senior of shipbuilding trade in the country, at his funeral 10 years later the mourners will not have been able to go all into the cemetery, simply there was not enough place there. Our textbook had been written by himself and it was considered a classic. He was a small unimportant-looking man with one lame leg, but, as soon as he began his lecture, he became a giant.
Dr. Benedek has been young and a fanatic of his subject. They both had used the best sources, the British theoretical and experimental technical literature. Dr. B. had been spending six months on a scholarship at the Glasgow university. It goes without saying, using the original British literature and experimental results meant to handle the English units with the same skill as our litres, meters and so on. To this day it cannot cause me any problem to convert our units to inch-base or vice versa.
The study-groups of the year have been reformed by the chosen specifications. We all the eight at shipbuilding, have been registered into the marine group. From my old group many had chosen manufacturing, it means, they would do the design of machine tools and prepare manufacturing instructions. My close acquaintance, K., and his heavy-weight friend both had followed that line.
Specialization could not have been a pleasure for everyone. Many, who, e.g. wanted to become an automotive specialist, but did not have the background – scholarship – for it, had been listed for a field not chosen by enough students. The most unpopular branch had been construction materials – bricks, concrete, tiles, etc. Those who considered it then a punishment, did not know that in a few years the construction boom would make them fashionable and prosperous people.
The seven other students in our marine circle were completely unknown to me. One has come from the evening course. Three have had scholarships from the national shipbuilding trust, one from a smaller firm in a nearby country town. The other two came to our group by unknown sponsors. It was an all-male group and in the period of one and a half year we will have become forged together. Our first difficulty was to be accustomed to lectures in a limited space, where we were only seven beside the teacher. But in a short time we began to like this direct, homely atmosphere.
During that school-year some reforms have been accomplished. Fortunately, the complex examination reform had not been invented yet, we have done our exams in the old way: only the question given by the examiner had to be answered. It has been assumed that the student knew everything, only his mistakes detected in his answer could be deducted as faulty. Some years later, when this will have changed to a test-paper type examination system, the examined student will have had to give a complete answer to each question to ensure his score. What will not have been told, will have been considered unknown. That is a completely unfair system.
The one detail in the reform that time influencing my life most has been the introduction of a 16-week industrial practice period following the fourth year. Every student has had to finish his exams by the end of March and go to take a job within his specialization. It was to be finished at the end of July. There was something more having on me an effect of the same importance. A suggestion of our dean, forced for a long time, but that far unaccepted by the ministry, has been taken on. It involved a study tour abroad by student-change.
For us, marine students, the 16 weeks were to spend on river-boats, first in the downriver, then in the upriver direction. The study tour has been arranged for 18 of us, six mariners and 12 manufacturers to the GDR.
I have finished my 7th semester fine by doing all my exams to the middle of January, and wanted to do advance preparations for the next semester that was to be finished in a record time. Unexpected events made me forget it.
Y. has sent me a letter announcing that she would come to the capital for an operation in the hospital for emergency surgery. She had had an accident on duty cutting her wrist by a broken door glass. The wound had healed, but she could not use it properly. She had been ordered to undergo that operation. Her letter disturbed me very much. In the six month after my return from the lower Danube, my soul had become calm. Now I have been upset again. I did not want at all to go into the same trap. After our separation at my return, for some months I did not need any girl in my vicinity. But my friend Z. wanted to cure my wound with the same medicine, and he has always organized some kinds of programs with other friends and girls, carefully in such numbers, so as I have never stayed without one.
To tell the truth, some of them I even liked. But, fortunately, I had enough to do at the university, and no girl could make on me a very big influence.
I have met again Agnes, the beauty from the nearby village and have taken her to the cinema to show her where I have been during summer. It was the film The Golden Man. She has been really a good friend, she knew everything about my engagement. She was sympathetic with me and wanted to encourage me after that fiasco by going into long passionate kisses in the cinema. She was a dear to understand my troubles so well. But she had a lot of other boys to be around her, and I did not have the desire to compete for her.
In the same village, where she lived, I often had to go to a house to change the empty gas cylinders for full ones, as my mother used butane gas for cooking. The widow, who was the representative of the gas company, had a pair of twin daughters. She was guarding them like a dragon, but sometimes in her absence they stayed there to serve customers. They might have been 2 to 3 years younger than me. I have known them from their childhood, and that time they have already been quite pretty girls, however, a little stuffed pigeon type. The problem was that I could not tell them from each other. This condition could have forbidden me from courting them, had it even been easier with their mother. As soon as she asked me about my true intentions, I had to give up seeing them.
In short, I did not stopped socializing with girls, but they could not catch me and it was all right that way. So, I decided to help Y. as much as needed, but not to go over that. She has come and I spent that day with her in the hospital. She told me a story, it might have either been true or false.
The young man, with whom she had become intimate, could not marry her at once, either. He could have been the young man of the anecdote whom the policeman asked:
"What are you living on?”
"Pension.”
"So young? Are you on pension?”
"No, I am not, but my grandmother is.”
He had no proper job that time.
She felt a great disappointment for that, as she had broken with me to get him. Also, she became aware of her fault, that she had ruined my life in spite of my love to her. She became aware at last of her insincerity with me and began to see herself with my eyes. All it resulted in stress. She could not sleep well and was always tired during her work.
She decided to break with the man. It even made things worse that he took it in a matter-of-fact way and did not come to her more. In that state of mind she did not concentrate on her movements and, running on a freshly cleaned floor, she fell and with her hand broke the glass of the door. The glass cut her wrist, severed not only veins, but nerves as well. She has been cared for, but the wound had to be opened once more to join nerve ends.
After the entry examination she has been ordered by the doctor to come back the next morning. She wanted to find his father living not far from our apartment, but I insisted she came to us and spent the night there. Last time she had been with us was one year before. The situation has greatly altered and I did not know how my family would accept her. However, my sister, nieces, brother-in-law, as well as my mother and father proved more intelligent than to say a bad word to her.
The next morning I went with her to find her father. He made on me a negative impression taking all in his hands and mixing everything up at once. He came with us to the hospital and there arranged to let Y. go for another two days – it was a week-end – that she was to spend with him and his partner.
Leaving the hospital I went to mind my own business as her father showed me clearly, he wanted to stay alone with his daughter, after so many years. I did not make any remarks, only thought, that it was long overdue for him to take care of her. Two days later I visited her. She was already in a sick-ward, but she knew nothing about her operation.
Another week went by, as the surgeon wanted to consult with other colleagues about the task. At last her hand has been operated, and all went well. Only a big scar remained on her wrist to remind her.
She was not very keen to return to her duty. As she left me, at the station she was expecting my proposal to begin all again. She was not getting it. Her letters have come regularly and I sent a reply to every one of them. But our intimacy has gone forever. Anyway, it has not been her last attempt to get me back.
The university has occupied all my time and all my thoughts. The new subjects on ships and their propulsion have been so interesting that I have always prepared my works in advance. My fellow-students have taken it always for their advantage and copied as much as they could.