Chapter 14
In the Better Nest
At last we moved into our new apartment in September. There came a long period of cleaning and cleansing, until at last in November the apartment would look orderly.
In the apartment we had a central corridor. It connected the entrance to the bigger room. On the left there was the kitchen, then the smaller room. On the right a small wardrobe for our food reserves and then the bathroom with toilet. It had no window, only a vent. Our neighbours had a similar flat, only their bathroom was right on the entrance. Their flat went out to the other side of the building.
The other complex of symmetrical two apartments has been the mirror image of the above. The long sides of the house faced east and west. We were on the eastern side, the same, where the entrance to the building has been placed. Our flat was on the 4th floor, the uppermost. The back side of staircase had an earth-to-top glass wall.
There were eight staircases in line, with two flats on the ground floor and four on each floor. Above the entrance there was a common store-room on each floor. Our kitchen was separated from that only by a wall. This has caused a problem, as, being unheated, it further cooled our kitchen, having no heating itself.
We would live in that apartment for 12 years. We had a side-neighbour, a family with one daughter. The opposite young couple would become our friends, only we would lose them for America. The fourth flat belonged to a family, where there was an amazing small boy when we moved in and a daughter would be born.
We made a community on the domino-joint scheme: three of the four men had Joseph as Christian name, and the fourth one had his surname beginning with B as two others.
Leaving our rented room for the apartment meant me a daily shuttle of 3 hours and a half, instead of three hours before. The METRO line, opened early that year, could not help me, only the other one, that would be opened 6 years later.
In some days after our move-in we arranged a new-house celebration for our friends, who helped us to get this apartment. It was a merry evening and everybody enjoyed it.
In the middle of September there began my new high-level English course. Our group has been one of two for 2nd-graders, at the end of the school-year we would sit for an exam at medium degree. After another year for a high-degree one.
One week before the course, we have been called together for a briefing. There a girl my junior by some years joined me and was chatting all the time. It did not annoy me and, as she was an ordinary girl, left in me no trace. First day on course some of the group were present, when I arrived, including her. As I was looking for a proper place, she called my attention by body-language, that my place would be best at her side. I sat down next to her, and so, for two years my place in the group has been determined. She kept me informed all the time, her name was Clare, and in a short time she learned, how to turn my diligence for her advantage.
Conditions for keeping your place in the group have been very strict. Notorious absence would mean disclosure. Also, not to keep up with would mean falling behind irreparably. In the first semester – actually it was the 3rd for the parallel group – we had only Lexica and Grammar. In the latter we were lectured by a young lady, a very good teacher. Her subject would last for two semesters. After the medium-degree exam, grammar was supposed to be known. We used the Candlin text-book in Lexica. The first volume has been left out, we began with the second. Our group-master has been our teacher in it, and he would not prove our first impressions. When seen first, he seemed an unimportant person. He was modest, but his knowledge, especially his experience in teaching English was excellent.
In the group I soon acquired a second place in the order of promotion. To take the first, it would have been impossible, as the one on top was a man at the beginning of his ‘20s, and being a single man, he could spend ten times as many hours as me to memorize details. Actually, in many fields I have been better, only there was no need to stress it too much.
What helped me most, has been my reading experience. And the more than 3 hours daily spent on trams. Alas, reading developed mainly my passive vocabulary, when those – many of the group, including the young man mentioned above – who worked at foreign trade companies, could use their skills in active.
Our apartment took much time from us to bring into order. Simultaneously my home-works from the course had to be completed. There was also my aunt E. from the village, who found solitude every day more oppressive. She had come to the capital, and here all her relatives had their share of accommodating her. She became older – and, alas, looked so –, and found also the glass. I had two cousins in the capital, Maria, the daughter of my aunt Barbara and the son of my uncle Louis.
Maria had left the village against the will of her parents. She had been in a good relationship with a boy from the village, but her parents did not agree with their connection. She had been waiting for him to be over his military service, and then they left the village together and got married. She got a job of typist at the printing press, where the man worked as a skilled printer. It was the time of lead in that trade still.
They succeeded. They even helped us with my wife once with a loan. They had two sons, both nice good boys and diligent at work. Of course, her parents did accept their son-in-law quickly, but with time they had to.
My other cousin, Louis, was of the same age as Maria, they sat in the same class of the elementary school, one year above my brother, who left us so soon. Louis was an apprentice in auto electrics. He came to the capital as soon as he finished his training and worked in a workshop. Soon he left it and became a driver, first for a factory manager, after that at the taxi company, and at last a truck driver with the national long haul carrier.
He married a girl, whose parents found him no good party. It happened still, when I lived at home with my parents. His parents – he had lost his mother to cancer years before and had an exceptional step-mother – loved their daughter-in-law, the young shuttled between their room in the capital and the village. At last they acquired a flat in the capital and remained there. A daughter has been born to them.
My aunt E. tried to stay with all her relatives, with M., L., with my parents, and at last with us. Her problem of solitude has not been solved, as all of us have been working during the day. We took the good old "pot-bed” from my wife’s parents, and she could live in our smaller room. During day she cared for herself, we prepared food, she only had to warm it on the gas-stove. Also she watched – or rather could have watched – TV. She would not do it, she lost her interest. When first she wanted, she could not switch it on. We had showed her to push the lowermost button once for On and again for Off. What she wanted to push was the head of the rivet.
Anyway, we did as much as we could for her. She spent about two weeks with us and before winter turned colder she left for home.