Chapter 1
Beginning of a True Love
One day returning home from the city by tram I caught the glimpse of a girl. I have mentioned her before, she has lived at the second stop from us by tram riding to the city, and I have known her by sight since the time I moved to the capital. First I gave her the nickname "the little brunette” as her hair was almost completely black.
My years of shuttling by the suburban train have made it possible to be introduced to her by a girl, who had been introduced to me by another boy. A little complicated, but clear, I hope. Her name was Margaret. As I have seldom been without a girl-friend and my nature is against having more than one partner simultaneously, I have never tried to court her, however I have liked her look and manner.
On the day, I am speaking about, I saw her stand in the front car of the tram. Originally I had wanted to board the rear one, but seeing her I decided to catch the front car. We have greeted each other and went into conversation. Before she got out she told me her phone number in the office, where she was working as a typist. The next day I invited her to a cinema, and she accepted.
We have seen the film at whose shooting I had been present on the lower Danube. After cinema I accompanied her to their gate, where she said she did not want me to come in. I asked:
"Would you come with me somewhere again?”
"I am learning in an evening school. I have very little time”, she answered.
"What do you learn?”
"Oh, it is only a comprehensive secondary school”, she said. "And I do not have a good head, I have some difficulties.”
"May be, I could help you.”
"That could be nice”, she smiled.
"Do not send me away, then”, I tried to convince her.
She said nothing. I did not know that time, she would inform me only later, that she has had a boy-friend. She has always been so honest, even the idea of keeping two men at her side frightened her. For some weeks I did not meet her, only called her every other day.
In early October my friend Z. found me at the university and invited me with a partner to a dinner in a down-town restaurant to celebrate his birthday the next day. He also told me he wanted me to help in a hard case. As he elaborated I understood well. It has not been characteristic of him, he has always been very skilled with girls. But now he wanted my help.
After his final examination in secondary school he was working as an unskilled mechanic doing repair on pumps. Opposite his working place on the other side of the street there was a bakery for sweets. One of the confectioners, a stuffed-pigeon-like girl, had caught his eye.
But, being a manual worker always in a dirty coverall, he had not had the courage that far to invite her. A day earlier the girl hurt her hand and she was on sick leave. As he knew her address he wanted me to go to her home and give her a message from him. The next day was a Saturday and a half shift to work.
We went together to her apartment, where she has lived with her mother, and I rang the door-bell. An aged woman was opening the door.
"What do you wish?” she asked.
"I am looking for miss Margaret B.”, I said, feeling uncomfortably.
"She is on the ladder, wait a minute”, she closed the door on my nose.
A very short time later a pretty girl opened it again and said smiling:
"Hello, I am Margaret B.”
"Excuse me for disturbing you”, I said the memorized text. "My friend Z.R. working at the pump maintenance shop would like to ask you, if it were possible for you to come with him for a walk.”
The girl’s face became serious and she looked on me sharply.
"What is it all about?”
I fell out of my role. I said:
"Well, do not tell him, please, I confess you, he has not had the courage for coming to you himself. He likes you.”
"Oh, that is it”, she said, and smiled again.
"Well, please, be honest with me and do not tell him.”
"O.K.”, she said, "where is he now?”
"Waiting outside.”
"I am coming in five minutes”, she closed the door and I noticed the bandage on her wrist. Also noticed her boyish hands, big, and with out-of-order nails as a man’s hand.
I was waiting there and she came soon. We went out of the house to meet Z. For a time I have walked with them, but after some minutes I apologized and left. It is funny to look back to it: Z. has found his M. at the same time I have mine.
Being a Saturday afternoon I could not phone to M., I decided to go to the house and try to find her. The house has been a very small one, and even of that she, her parents, her brother and small sister occupied only the lower flat. It has consisted of only a kitchen and a bed-room. Between the house and the street there was a fairly sized garden, in the middle of which, by a concrete foot-path, you had to go upwards to the house from the gate. Behind it, there was the other part of the garden extending to the fence that has been the border of the site. The tenant of the upper flat has been growing vegetables in the garden.
As I was ascending the path I saw her come out. I stopped and she came to me. I began with difficulty:
"Hello, sorry that I came here unexpected, but I wanted to ask something.”
"I am really surprised”, she said, "did something happen?”
"Nothing wrong. I am invited to dinner and should like you to come with me. Would you?”
"This evening?” she seemed to look for some excuse.
"Yes, today.”
She could evidently not find anything against. But she tried the last opportunity.
"Let me ask my mother if I can go.”
She went in and I felt awkwardly in the middle of the large space. I felt eyes on me. In a minute she returned.
"Fine, I am released. When shall I be ready?”
"At six I am here.”
We said see-you-later and I left.
At home I have been considered an adult. Nobody wanted to interfere with my business. Anyway, I always informed my mother about my whereabouts, I did it that time, too.
"You cannot leave off making programs with Z.”, she said disapprovingly. She has never liked Z. too much.
"It is his birthday, he invited me.”
"Will you go alone?”
"No, in Rose Valley (the name of the tram stop where M. lived) I know a girl.”
"Again somebody like Y.?” she could not leave me completely alone.
"No, she is a nice young one.”
"Be careful and do not drink much.” She knew that I could not, but told me, anyway.
"All right, be assured of that.”
We arrived at the restaurant a little late, but our places have been reserved and no order has been made. I asked M. what to order, but she did not know. I suggested venison. For drink we accepted wine of the bottle Z. ordered. Our dinner has been paid by me, only the wine we drank free. (No wonder, as my score in the 8th semester had been at the maximum, my scholarship have surpassed Z.’s pay.)
The conversation has been pleasant. Beside Z. and his M. Steve and his sister were present – first I thought she was his girl-friend – and S. has always been a great visitor of pubs. Since the time we had been working on construction jobs together he has bought not only his first Hawaiian guitar, he has been a member of a leading dance band.
As M. drank a little wine, her cheeks became rosy, and with her neat black hair coming down to her shoulders and brown eyes she looked very pretty. I put my arm around her waist and she let it be. As I turned to her and asked her to kiss my cheek, she did it.
Following this fine evening, we stood up with the agreement that in the apartment of Z.’s parents a party would be organized in two weeks, and all of us would be there.
I got out with M. at her home and accompanied her to the gate. We kissed each other, but she did it with tight lips. I asked her if I could come the next day, but she said she would deal with her study. Monday morning I was riding the tram as I saw her get in. I stood up and went to receive her. She kissed my lips as one does a natural thing. We were chatting all the way as confident friends. She would not, however, agree to meet me, she said she was busy with her school.
"You did not forget about our party next week?” I asked.
"No, I shall come”, she said.
But during the whole week I could not get a date from her. The next week I called her at work every day and on Thursday she told me she had caught a cold, she would not come to the party. I tried to convince her that cold is no illness. She said she would try it.
Saturday evening I came to her and she invited me in. She said she was drunken as her father had prepared her boiled wine. I was joking with her and she took on her coat. She has really had a strong cold, she used up a lot of handkerchiefs. But it did not stop her of enjoying herself. As I showed her to the bathroom, I wanted to kiss her and she agreed. But I had to beg her:
"Why do you close your tiny mouth, sweet? Open it.”
I was surprised to find she had never kissed before. But from that time, there has never been any problem with her kisses.
We left early because of her cold and went to her home. At the gate we were kissing long and she did not refuse my stroking at her tiny bosom.. When she at last went in, she was turning and waving at every step. I felt some uneasiness, but I took it an aftermath of my past love to Y. I thought I could still stop, if it was turning the same way. It has changed in a very short time.
There were still fine days at the end of October and I got a letter from Y. She wrote she was coming to the hospital for a check of her hand. I met her at the station and we went to the hospital. I left her there and returned later. She said she wanted to talk with me. I took her to our favourite park with Z. during the good old days, and we sat on a bench. She spoke of herself, of being very lonely and I thought she wanted a new start with me. I think now, she was found by the same man, and before her decision she tried it with me.
She left the bench and led me into the denser part of the park, almost a forest, and sat down on the dry leaves. She draw me down to her, too. We began caressing each other and it seemed to me she wanted to make love. As I tried it she did not resist. But at my close attempt she moved away and said complainingly:
"It hurts.”
"I try not to hurt you”, I caressed her again.
I really did not know how to spare her from pain, as it was my first attempt with a girl. Again and again it came out to the same end. She could not bear the pain when I eased into her, and at last, especially when there were sounds of someone coming near us, we gave it up.
After she put herself into order she said:
"It is time I went to the station.”
I did not want to stop her. I began to feel better that it did not happen at last. I was sure she was a virgin, and I did not want to spoil her life. I did not want anything of her any more. Another man with a larger practice in that field or with a more suspicious character might have guessed it had been a kind of theatre to gain me back. Then I did not think of that possibility. Actually she did not mean me so much as two years before.
I accompanied her to the train and there we have kissed each other the very last time. Coming home, I wrote a letter to her at once and informed her about M. and the fact that it was very likely I would marry her.
From that day I have spent all time possible with M. I was helping her with her subjects, and every week-end we went to the cinema or for a walk. She told me at our next encounter after the party, why she had been so secret the week before it. She had told her boy-friend that she had found her true partner and she would not receive his invitations any more. It seems, we could have been very different, but our morale has been the same. Our relationship was coming to the point where it could not be turned back any more.
The last day of the year I wanted to celebrate with her, and we decided to accept the invitation of Z. But she changed her mind and said she wanted to remain at home. I said I would come, but she answered:
"At least you can find me in dressing gown and my hair in curlers.”
I think she did not like Z. and his M. Later she will have had a real dislike to them, and she must have been feeling the same at that time already.
At last we found a compromise. We went to the family of Z., but left soon and ascended to a small restaurant hardly known then, but one of the most fashionable today. It was near to our homes, in the upper bend of the old route to the lake Balaton. There we have made a date with her brother and his girl friend. In four we met the New Year of 1964.
M.’s brother has been an electrician for short-wave exchanges. His girl friend was his colleague. They were both working in the factory, where I had a job in the summer after my first university year. Their life and ours have had something common in events, with one exception. They will have been divorced after their son will have been born.
For some weeks in the new year I have been busy with my examinations. But we met regularly, and soon my family wanted to be acquainted with her. One evening in a cold January day we decided to come to us. She has gained my family at once, even my father, who had hated Y. by all his heart, liked her from the beginning. My mother sized her up with her eyes and said:
"She has fine broad hips, a good mother type.”
Mostly my nieces were attracted to her. It took her twenty years of intrigue to loose their sympathy.
In that time M. has caught a flue and she went on sick leave. One day I was coming up the path from the gate to their house and saw her mother sitting at the window. As I went in, she looked at me and said:
"M. has gone to the doctor and said, you were to come back tomorrow.”
Something odd I sensed. I tried to get more information, but she visually wanted me out as soon as possible. I left, but this situation has been stored in the back of my mind. About two years later M. disclosed me the truth with a laughter: She had been in the room behind the door, only she would not want to meet me then. It is another riddle about girls: she was head over heals in love with me, but did not want to see me. Poor mother-in-law, she must have felt uncomfortably, she has always been a simple, good-natured person, it must have hurt her to have to lie to me.
Following the examinations in my 9th semester I got the data for my diploma design work. It is something like thesis in human subjects. My task have been to design a sea-going tug from the parameters given. In the first stage, from towing-tank results I have had to determine the main dimensions of the ship and its propulsion. In the next stage, a theoretical calculation has been performed for the stability, sea-going capability and speed. A rude estimation of weight distribution has been necessary for this calculation. In the third stage, there followed a serious work. It has been the design of the hull lines and the drawing of steel structure of the ship. To do this, as the ship has been based on the classification of the Register of the USSR, I have had to select all the elements of the steel structure from the 3-volume register.
About three months before that I had been doing the same job on the same ship in the preliminary phase. I had been doing such a fine work then that it was worth to prepare the set of drawings. This has been the reason, why my diploma design has been to finish the plans of the same object.
At the preliminary stage, in November 1963, I was in the company of our study-group members. We were busy with our drawings, when we heard through the radio about the assassination of the American president. The news had the effect of astonishing us. But not only that. I also remembered what I heard exactly 3 years earlier, when Mr Kennedy had been elected. An interviewer in our radio asked a woman somewhere in the street in Budapest:
"Would you choose that man John Kennedy for your husband?” He meant, as he had been elected president of the most powerful country in the world. But it was not evident to her. She answered:
"It depends on what kind of a man this John Kennedy is.”
That murder has been a terrible shock not only for the American people. All the human beings on Earth, who were sensible, took it as a sign that for the human race something can go wrong, if not stopped in time. The quantity of information disclosed since his death helps us all to see connections in that complicated case much clearer, but I do not think the world would ever know all the details of that assassination in a full scale.
In our country about America at that time there were two images in the heads of the people. One of the two was the imperialist monster created by official media. The other has been an idealistic one about a free democracy where there is only prosperity and honesty. It has been planted in the heads by Radio Free Europe.
That event on November 22, 1963 have made the first image confused, putting the question: "If it is a monster, why the hell does it want to hurt itself?” And people with the image of American freedom in their minds were getting awaken catching a glimpse of the flaws in the clear image.
But let us come back to my diploma design task. After finishing the structural plan, I took on the last stage: checking the calculation by finalized data. And when I finished it, I had to collect it in a file and have it typed. M. has offered me to do it. May be, she did not see the vastness of the task, but she has finished the 120 pages in time.
As spring came and my perspectives of getting aboard a boat and doing trips got nearer – my scholarship agreement with the shipping company contained an obligation for me to work in the job of machinist on boats for two years –, our future took a fix line in our heads. With spring we have spent all our time together and could not imagine life separately. But, how to realize it has been a point, not agreed upon first by both of us. I wanted to keep in contact with her and, at the end of that mariner period, to marry her.
It did not look fine to her. She wanted to be engaged before I boarded the boats. She said, it would be easier to wait as a fiancée. I did not want to repeat my fault. It would have been a mistake again, so I decided to marry her before I would leave.