Chapter 10
Preparing for a Better Nest
In the office I have already been wanted for tasks not to be done by others. It is always the same in the last days of a holiday. Although cemeteries are full of indispensable people, there are some cases when someone is needed more than others.
The R-M-D canal series, barges with ordinary sterns, those with perpendicular ends, self-propelled barges and the projected self-propelled freighter/push-boat have all been on their way from drawing board to realization. My next task has been to design a lifting-lowering device for the control-room of the bridge on the freighter/push-boat. Its purpose would be the lowering of the 7-by-7-foot wheel-house containing the controls and steering, in case the ship would reach a bridge on the river, and its lifting to a 7-foot height afterwards. It has involved the transfer of mechanical movements from there down to the engines and backwards to the rudder. I finished it in time and do not have to be ashamed of the results.
For the equipment, I had to act as a purchaser, to find the hydraulic and other elements. Greatest praise on my work ever has been, as the commander on her maiden voyage, dubbed "the monster” for his manners about any reforms, said:
"It is very good that you feel what you are doing by pushing these levers and trotting on those pedals.” The pedals lifted or lowered the control-room.
To avoid dependence on electric circles in case of black-outs, everything has been solved manually through wires, sprockets, chains. No limit-switches. Limitation of lifting at the uppermost position has been done by the hydraulic system safety-valve. Just as in automotive workshops with car-lifts. It can seem funny in a world of electronics to rely so much on mechanical devices, but in navigation, principles are different. On the low-draught tug the boatswain (the second one) said a very clever statement once:
"Steam tug-boats have always been better, because half of them can be in the bag, and they still work.” He meant, a Diesel tug-boat can only do her work, when the repair or maintenance work is completed. Steam-boats can be repaired on route.
It was the same with this freighter/push-boat. Only one of her systems was unsatisfactory. The design of her rudder-blades had been based on a GDR invention. It has not been sturdy enough, it would be necessary to be changed in some years.
We with my wife became accustomed fast to our common life and have been able to accept the reality of our very limited chances in that small rented room. We cared for each other, and both of us tried to make it easy for the other. Anyway, it was our common ambition to get an apartment for ourselves. My wife has been similarly a member in the CYU, and we both handed in our application to our local representative to be selected for an apartment in houses built by the Central Committee of CYU. As it had a low probability to get such an apartment – or rather the opportunity to buy it –, we tried to secure any chance we could get.
We visited the district council member representing us in his constituency and told him all about us to ask for his help. Compared to a CYU apartment, a so-called council flat could be taken free of charge, but it would remain a state property forever. The CYU flat had to be paid for and it would become the property of the person. Chances to get a flat from the council has been near to zero, but no perspective was to be left out.
At the same time my mother has been working on a scheme of her own. It needs some historic review to see connections clearly. Also, as this topic is mentioned here not the last time, it is necessary for the reader to fully understand it. My mother and her sister had purchased a site outside the capital in their maiden years (in the ‘20s). They were planning to build a house there and become self-sufficient in case they would not find anyone to marry. The site had been utilized for building, and my mother’s parents moved in with their younger son, still single that time. After his wedding he took his wife there and, as both my mother and her sister had their own housing facilities, it had been accepted that the house would be for the parents as long as they had been living, and after their death it would come to their brother having taken care for the parents.
My grandfather had died three months before my birth. My grandmother died, when I was 12. After her death, my mother ceded her ownership right of the house in favour of her younger brother, and my aunt did the same both with the ownership of the house and her share of ownership of the site. My mother, however, retained her share of 50 percent of the site. Not very easy to follow, is it?
To make it a little more complicated, the site had not been a separate piece of land. Their ownership right together had originally been for 50 percent of the whole greater site. The whole site had been separately listed in the land register, but their ownership share had been included as 25 and 25 percent beside the co-owner’s 50 percent. The first attempt by my mother and her sister to divide it in a way that their part would become a separate property had been unsuccessful. In that district that had been actually out-of-town that time, then the rules for minimum size of a site would not have been satisfied after the separation.
In 1950 the site got to belong to the municipality, as the capital was extended that year. Relevant rules have changed and the next attempt to divide it could be made. Until that time, when we with my wife were looking for a possibility, the division has been done. Even the earlier land-shifts, for the provision of a service path, have been arranged back. My mother wanted us to build a house of our own on the free part of the site. But she had not counted with the resistance of his brother and the family, who had considered the house and the garden theirs for a long time.
My mother wanted to bring the matter to an end. She applied for a division of the property in the land-register, and in that case she took the help of my wife – she was an employee in a district council. The attempt would be hopeless anyway. First, the separate halves would not go for the minimum size. Second, both the owners would have to sign the application, and my uncle would never do anything against his interests. The case went to sleep that time. I am to take up the line of this story later, as I mentioned, when it becomes up-to-date.
That means, our only real chance has been to wait for the CC of CYU to accept the application of one of us.
In that year, before the visit of the Germans to us, my wife has warmed up her friendship with a former schoolmate. Her name was Gabriella. She had many brothers and sisters. Their father was an agronomist and the director of a state orchard. Once or twice we visited her at home and she would come from time to time to us. I have never liked her too much, I felt an exaggerated self-confidence in her. She had – with a good reason – troubles in getting a proper boy-friend, and my wife tried to introduce her to my colleague G.K. For this reason she has come with us to an excursion by a sailing boat on the lake Balaton. The event was fine and Gabby enjoyed it, too, but the business between them could not come true. Whether George liked her, I do not know, she has amused herself with the wrong man.
About a year later she would find somebody for a husband, but their marriage would be a short one.
We were saving up for the apartment regularly, but it did not prevent us from spending some money for other needs. TV has become an accepted way of amusement, and we took one on hire-purchase. It was good for us on evenings when we stayed home.
My young colleague John E. decided it was time to marry his fiancée. We were present at the wedding and, as they lived in the same way in a rented room as we did, we became friends. We went frequently to see country towns where we have never been before and once they took us along on a river excursion by a keel-boat. We have spent the night in a tent and it was then that my wife decided never to sleep in a tent again.
As they would be able to buy their CYU apartment on the same estate as we would I can write more about them later.
Towards the end of that year I had an encounter in the workshop that would highly influence my life in the future. One day I went to see, how the assembly of the 250-HP Z-drive stood. Manual work has been done by an old man, who had an extremely high authority among his fellow mechanics. He said to me:
"It is a good design. But I suppose you have not done too much assembly work.”
"Thank you”, I said, "how did you guess it?”
"Some parts are nearly native!” Native parts meant in our jargon, they cannot be put to place, better to "manufacture them inside”.
"Well”, I said, "you can help us with your advice to correct our mistakes.”
He told me then that he was an engineer, but, as he was a good mechanic, by manual work he could get more money than by engineering. He also told me, he had been working all over the world at my age.
"I would catch a train and go where I could to get more money. And seeing the world was a fun, too.”
"You could do it then”, I answered, "but how to do it now?”
He showed me a newspaper, some weeks old, and an information in it. It stated that a new state foreign trade company had been created. Named TESCO, it was to export mental values, i.e. to sell licences of Hungarian inventions and to send educated people to countries in need of them.
"This is your chance”, he said.
Actually, it was. At the next possibility I turned to my acquaintance in the ministry – he had been the man to make the agreement with me for scholarship in the company –, and asked him about it. He said:
"It is started always by TESCO. They send us letters and ask for our suggestion for skilled people.”
"Would you not suggest me next time?”
"You would have to speak English on a high level.”
We agreed, I would study English and come back. I had to get some information about how to get into a proper course for high degree examination in English. My colleague L. told me some of the basics, but he who wanted to get in, had to do an entrance exam. The next course would start in September the following year and there general capabilities would be examined beside our knowledge in the native language. Chances were thin as there were twelve applicants for every place in the group.
I had two months to refresh my knowledge of the grammar and usage of my native language, after a seven-year break. My sense of correct usage is due mainly to that time, as well as to the reader during the short time of my translator activities.
The entrance exam has been a novelty to me. The written stage contained such tasks as to formulate a sentence from foreign – I think Finnish – language words given in two other sentences with known meanings. I think I fared well. The oral exam was more on the base of the English language, you had to listen to sounds in low tone and repeat them, repeat words like "thermometer” – I was unable to compose the starting consonant –. There were questions about my intentions about why I would learn the language.
In two weeks I got my notice: of 250 applicants 50 had passed (I among them), but only 18 had been accepted. Alas, I have not been among them. May be, next time, I thought.
My wife has been to me – as always, when I did not succeed in something – very sympathetic. She said, I still had time. I agreed. She has been in her 3rd grade and it would be better, if she finished her school before I started something.
There was another great task for me: to have my teeth bring into order. It had been a surprise for me to have any troubles with them, as I had always did all that looked necessary – at that time – for the health of them. But now I know, those measures have not been enough, as my knowledge about it has been limited, and also I had teeth with a bad start: in the years when my milk teeth were falling and my final ones grew out, I did not have the proper kind of food, as we had been very poor.
In some months the first step has been done, I had no bad teeth, either repaired or extracted. But the second step, to substitute missing ones, would be postponed.
There was another point not to start my study that year. My wife’s application for the apartment at CYU has been accepted. It was a great joy, but, as we had saved actually very little money, it looked improbable that we could pay the deposit being equal to 16-month pay for both of us together. We could have saved this sum in four years.
My wife has been much more courageous in this case than me. She started to collect the money by borrowing from her relatives. It did not look perspective. Her brother still remembered our point of view one year earlier, and her sister’s husband, although he could have paid it out of his vest pocket, refused with the excuse, he had to buy his car at once, and it was more important for him. He has been a purchaser for a cooperative in fruit and vegetable sales. He really needed the car, but he would not want very much to help us, either. I have to tell the truth, from the family of my wife there came not a penny to our apartment.
That man has been a typical human being, with all the charm, naiveté, crudeness and faults. In his young days he had been a very attractive man. About his adventures before his wedding had been tales everywhere. He belied the saying that a man either lives his sex life before or outside his marriage. He did both.
They had been married for years when I was courting M. and there were gossips in the family about his adventure to date. Only a slight comparison: when we were married six years with my wife, we were always sitting side by side at family gatherings, holding hands.
He was a good-hearted man, especially with us, but there were exceptions, as the case I mentioned. He had a very good humour, only he had also been apt to make practical jokes. One evening, e.g. being at us, when I had not seen him, he put our alarm clock to midnight. Aroused at 12 p.m. I could not go to sleep for two hours and at 5 a.m. it would be time to get up. Or, he regularly mixed up the springs on my expander. Or put onions into our shoes.
He was popular with his colleagues – at least I was informed this way by his wife and by himself – and he has always had a big income. All his money he spent on his family(ies). About him I should write somewhat more later.
When I saw that my wife considered getting the money awfully important, I put aside my reservations and started on a big campaign to collect it. My colleague G., our guest sometimes, agreed to buy our TV-set still on hire. He would also give us a small sum as a loan for two years.
My other colleague, the draughtswoman, whom G. would marry some years later, applied for a bank loan and handed us the money, as well as the repay checks.
My boss, who moved from his position as chief designer to chief engineer, gave me about a quarter of the whole sum also as a loan for two years.
And at last my aunt has done the same with the same sum.
We could not get more. It was only 60 percent of the deposit needed. As the dead-line for payment neared, my wife went to the man in charge for the deposits, and wanted to refuse on the ground, that our money would not be enough. I did not know about this at the time, as she would act so on her own. Fortunately, the man was fit for his place. He would not take her refusal. He said there was another chance to join building in another district. It was the same district, where her sister and brother lived, and those flats were not only smaller, but their installation would be cheaper. So, he offered her to take that opportunity and pay the money collected as it was exactly the sum needed there. That way our future has been partly secured. Partly only as it has not been our money that has been paid in, we had to repay it by hard work.
For the coming two years we could really buy nothing. Even our food has been very poor. I rationed my breakfast to a quart of milk with a roll instead of the traditional sausage with bread and butter. I could save this way three quarters of the cost. My wife undertook a separate job at a cooperative, dealing with vermin extermination. She walked miles and laid out boxes with rat-poison in places we would not go near to nowadays.
Fortunately, there were a lot of extra tasks in our office, and we could earn some money by them. Our routine became so much part of our life that, when we were over the loans, we could hardly be accustomed to greater possibilities.
Living together in a limited place with hard obligations and common ambition brought us even closer with my wife. It is a habit usually to forget the words said at the wedding ceremony, that we would stay together in conditions both bad and good. Many divorces occur, because the couple would not take on bad conditions, only good. Living through bad times makes us appreciate the better life after. Sensible people are keeping together as they love themselves within their mate, they attribute characteristics to him or her being actually theirs. We with M. had been very different people. Although she had been in love with me very much, she will have not been able to bear my faults after love will have left. I had also been in love with her. She had also had her faults. Without our common life in such hard conditions, it is highly probable we would also spoil divorce statistics. But, as it had been, we held on our life, our habits, experiences, memories and would not ruin ourselves.
When the deposit has been paid we were told to expect moving in no sooner than three years after. Besides, there was a rule, that at the construction every member of the community had to work for a given time as a manual helper. The house would become finished exactly on time and, fortunately, our manual help would not be necessary.
When all was fixed in principle, we visited the site and found a lot of finished buildings with inhabitants, living for years in their apartments. We have learned that up to that time no transport had been organized by the municipal communications company. Besides, no shop were to be found in a circle of about half a mile. But, as the people living there told us, in a short time there would be both a bus-line and a general store.
Three years after our moving into the house, the transport company would not be able to postpone the start of a new bus-line. And, even before that, in 1972, the first prefabricated wooden general store would open.
Just for comparison we took the trouble of travelling to the place, where our house would have been built originally. It was a pleasant surprise to find it even more far away, completely deserted.
Before leaving us for his new job in the shipyard, our boss did a favour to us, subordinates. Every 3rd year in September an international shipbuilding conference had been held at the lake’s northern shore in Balatonfured, in the coronary sanatorium. This year, 1967, it has been due – my first possibility to take part –, and F. assigned as many of us as possible to see and hear what is an international conference like. It has really been a good experience, and a lot of outstanding experts of our trade I have met there first.
We have been in the last year of my wife’s study, in the next year, 1968, she would finish it and get her certificate. We agreed after that, it was time for me to join a course in English. I did it at the beginning of summer and was waiting with great expectation for the course to start.
My wife needed my help for her graduation exam and, with her last exams, her final examination has been completed all right. She took me along to her banquet, where the schoolmates have met last time, after so many troubles together.
We have had some time left of the summer and at aunt E. we tried to have a little rest. We helped her to pick her fruits and to take it to the market. She complained about the couple she was in agreement with, that they would not take into account her rights for solitude. They would always come and use her kitchen, even the other rooms in the house. They would pick fruit for themselves and take it in great quantities.
I think now, there was a certain degree of exaggeration in her narratives, but we did not think so that time. We advised her to turn to the court, if she wanted to break the agreement. We would take their places if she wanted. At last, when her partners would become unbearable, she would try it, but, as they had had their good connections, she would lose. Well, in that summer we listened carefully to her complaints and tried to comfort her during the week we spent with her.
One day we took the boat to the other shore and went up the hill. On the return trip it was very hot and tourism was in full swing. We could hardly get places at the upper deck in front. A family with two children was also there, and the parents got their places, letting the children find theirs. The boy of 12 could, but his sister, about 10, could not. As she was standing beside me I came into eye contact with her and made a sign to sit on my knee. She did it and put out her tongue at the boy. We talked a little, and my wife was smiling at it. May be, she thought about the same: it would be good already to have a child of our own.
Following this pleasant summer, we launched a completely new routine in spending our time. That far my wife has had her study, and I dealt with domestic things as washing, preparing food and sometimes going to fetch her at the school. Since that year it has been changed. It was me coming home late, and she doing domestic work. Until my last exam in languages, with a break during our stay abroad in Africa, it has remained the same.