Chapter 2
Engagement
There came the question of where we would live, where we would have our home. Neither parents could help us to get a flat and neither could house us with them either. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel: we would have that problem only temporarily. We would inherit a good rented room, because her sister with her husband had been living for six years in one, and now their apartment in a high rise have been in construction. Till August they would move in and their room would be free for us. The owners of the house have agreed to give it to us on a little higher rent. For the intermediate time we have had to find another room.
Easter was at the beginning of April that year and we timed our engagement to Good-Saturday. A close family-celebration, 14 people all, it has been. We gave money for the preparations to her mother, and the dinner was arranged in their room.
M. has relieved me from any problems with rings. I told her, I had the rings from my former engagement and wanted to sell them to buy our new ones. She said she was not superstitious and it was not worth doing. The old rings would do. My mother was also turning the question over in her mind and offered me to take her wedding ring. It could not have solved the problem of drawing a different one on the finger of M., as its size would have predetermine it for me.
We have been right to make no fuss and keep the existing ones. From their usage no trouble will have occurred between us.
The next day we started a long walk in her neighbourhood to find a room for us, but we did not succeed. The weather has been fine and even improving. Easter Monday was also a holiday, we went to the hills in our living place and there we agreed not to wait any longer with the fulfilment of our desire. She knew well that her menses were due in two days, there was almost no risk of conception. Dusk fell, as we stopped at a closed place and we let it happen. It could be sensed that first she had pain, but her love has been so great, she did not let out the smallest cry. I think, her joy had only been a spiritual one, nothing enabled her to come to. But she has been as happy as I was. It has been the first time for both of us. When I asked her afterward what she felt, she answered:
"I was so happy, I cannot tell you by words.”
"Me too, my sweetheart, but it did not hurt you, did it?”
"Only at the beginning, after that I felt only a desire to make water.”
We did not speak too much and were walking in embrace to my home.
The family has been watching TV and we have joined them. In the dark we have held hands.
"You are so silent now”, commented my brother-in-law.
We did not give any reply, we were asking ourselves if someone could guess our thoughts.
My mother gave us dinner, we took it in silence. When she looked on me from time to time, there was a never-seen light in her brown eyes. The only one to guess something has been she.
We left for her home. At the gate she said:
"Do not come in, my little sister is sleeping at this time.”
We kissed before she left me and I said:
"I love you, dear.”
"So do I”, she said and went in, but turned and came back. "Tell me, Joe, is it not possible that I would remain pregnant?”
"You know that in this period you do not have risk. Be sure, sweet, in a few days you will have it.”
I believed it firmly, she took it on. We kissed once more and she left me.
There was a mixed feeling in me the next day. I called her by phone and asked:
"Are you angry with me?”
"Oh, no”, she said, "not at all.” I felt that at least there would be no canned food syndrome.
Every day our routine has been the same. In the afternoon I went to meet her at the District Council building, where she worked. Together we went walking or shopping or to her home. There I stayed for a short time and went home. Only those days, when she went to school, have been different. I took my meal at home and caught the tram to fetch her at the school.
Sometimes there were troubles within her family to distort her thoughts from happiness. Her father had retired that spring and for some weeks he had not had any money. M. has always had a large heart when her family has been concerned. She gave all her money to her mother to help her, and slowly also my small bank deposit turned to nothing.
One day, sitting in their kitchen with her father, he suddenly made a remark about lack of gratitude in children:
"The old saying is true. A father can support many children, but the same children cannot support their father.”
We wanted to know exactly what he meant and he elaborated.
I stopped M. when she wanted to tell him about the temporary financial support he had got from us. He did not deserve that lesson. And I have been right, in a few days he received his first pension and the troubles would be solved. But it has not been the last time for her to argue with her mother or father over money.
Her fears have not been confirmed, and, as she has been over the inconvenient days, we began to go on our passion. We have learned how to offer our love and enjoy what the partner offered us. We have got both what we wanted and were fully content with it. We have seen our future in the brightest colours. We were planning our marriage and with it there were a lot of conditions to take into account.
My final exam at the university, called "defending my diploma design” – against two opponents, one of them from the university, the other an outside expert of the trade – has been determined to be on June 18. It was a Thursday and with dr. B. we have joked about it:
"Better for the calendar to say Thursday than for us.” Saying Thursday in our language means misfiring.
We with M. named June 20 for our wedding day. She has made a complete poll among her acquaintances about what kind of wedding dress she was to wear. At last we bought the material for her dress and took it to her dressmaker. There were other indispensable necessities as wedding bunch, head-adornment etc. Slowly it all had got into order. The only thing unsolved has been our temporary home. For this we have got an offer from Z., but it almost ruined our relationship. Her menses has been late, and she thought she has remained pregnant. It was not probable, but not impossible. We have always been careful at keeping her days in mind, but nature can do surprises.
Hearing about our problem with home, Z. offered to give his summer hut in the hills for the summer period. He would let it us free. To show us the place he invited us a Sunday afternoon to go there together. The place has not been actually his, it was his mother’s heritage, only the small hut on the site was in his use.
When we arrived, there was a big number of his mother’s relatives there, and it was hard to get a little time to speak over the most important details. At last Z. led us to the hut, and we were studying it for a time. Z. had spoken to me earlier about the place that it was here he and his M. had been first together. They have used it constantly and effectively.
When Z. left us alone, we found each other at once, but just as we wanted to lie, a knock at the door stopped us. It was Z. to say his mother was on route walking here. He wanted to warn us.
In her stressed condition – about the possibility of her pregnancy – M. took it as an offence from Z. and she said she was up with me. She was under the effect of her decision on all our route home and for some days after. She would not be friendly with me, and I feared not only that our families would sense the problem, but also for her safety.
One morning some days later I found her in a good spirit combing her hair, even humming. As her mother left the kitchen for a second she kissed my cheek and whispered:
"I have got it.” It meant she has not been pregnant. All improved again. Now it was time to secure our accommodation for the honey-moon. I wrote a letter to my aunt E. and asked her to let us stay with her in the two weeks after our wedding. She wrote it was all right.
For me there remained only to pass my exam and to marry my pretty fiancée. Dr B. asked me one day in that respect:
"What will you do, if you do not pass?”
"You have to take on you all my unnecessary costs for the aborted wedding”, I said. He laughed. We both knew that there was not the slightest probability of my failure.
Something had to be done to minimize our travelling costs during the honey-moon. The employees of the shipping company have been in a favourable position to use also domestic railway lines on discount. By an agreement between the shipping and the railway companies only a 10 percent "for personnel only” fare must have been paid. I knew that after I have joined the company I would get my card for discount. But before I did this, I wanted to spend a month with my new wife everywhere in the country. I agreed with the manager within the company in charge for such questions, that I would join the company in the middle of June and apply for a month of unpaid leave. Thus the cost of our trips by rail and boats would be minimized. For a typist and a would-be engineer it has not been an unimportant question.
The day of my final exam has arrived, together with hot weather. Heat in the small room of the department, the venue of our mariners’ lectures, was unbearable. But the jury – our two lecturers, their assistants and the two opponents – kept on their suits and ours have also been left on. Sweat ran down constantly on our faces.
The exam has been more a social event than a trial. Everybody was given only one question of the sciences we had studied in the previous years. After that the weak points of our diploma designs have been listed.
In theory all of us have been excellent, except one man who had always been taking the practical side of everything. There was a question from the elementary physics for him, but as he has made the net about himself ever more complicated, he has had to be given a life-saving question. It was: what it means that "P” equals "m” times "a”. This life-saver proved to be of lead driving him ever deeper down. At last he has been drawn out of this situation by one of his opponents and "passed” mark has been written into his certificate.
In the drawings and documents of the diploma designs the opponents have found weak points and these topics have been discussed in a friendly mood. Arriving to my work the outside expert – he was the chief designer of the shipyard I later went to work at – said he could find but one big mistake. All the other members of the jury raised their heads inquisitively.
"It is that you did not make this work in our construction bureau.”
There was a laughter and then he said he wanted me to work for them beginning the next day. It was a great award for me. He has been considered the living active classic of the trade.
"Sorry”, I said, "but I am in agreement with the shipping company.”
"A pity”, he said, "then you will be useful to my old friend Frank K. You will be welcome with us any time later.” The name of his friend had been unfamiliar to me, but later I would learn it well. I wanted to make a comment pleasant to his ears so I said:
"I can promise you, any time I have to move, I shall prefer you.”
It became clear in a few years, I would move or would not.
Our group met in a restaurant in the evening of the next day. It was a small banquet and we arranged it so urgently because of my wedding the next day. It has been my farewell to my single life, too.