Chapter 17
Toddler in the Family
There were also sad news with us. At the beginning of summer, my father’s health turned worse. He had suffered from multiple sclerosis for some years. First he had suspected my mother of infidelity – in her age over 60 –, then his short memory had begun to give way to his long one.
Towards the end of the ‘60s his illness began to have wrong effects on the function of his organism and he spent some weeks in hospital. There his narratives made us think his senses further cheated him, as he told us nurses would not do their work, patients helped each other. Later we realized, he had been right.
During the final months of my wife’s pregnancy he was again taken to the hospital, but that time to the psychiatric section. His state became worse every day. My mother was visiting him regularly, and after the birth of my son I went once to him. He has not been bright already.
When I wanted to see him once more, the gate-keeper told me, he had passed, but something had been wrong with the notice, as my mother had been sent away, too.
His funeral was a family event and you could tell almost exactly who would be next.
My job as a CYU representative went well. I delegated a large part of the work to my helpers and tried to find a proper person to succeed me. The eighteen year old daughter of the lady heading the personnel department was a good choice. I discussed it with her mother, and she promised to help me in convincing her. At the next election two years later she would take it all right.
There were a lot of different programs we organized for our young, and our position in the company-wide competition of CYU branches has generally been highest. There were also competitions on special topics.
My first such experience had been in the repair yard in 1969. The national trade union of our trade had called for a competition on Comecon questions. It was that time the first attempts came to integrate the community on a greater scale. Our team from the design office had won every stage up to the capital-wide final, where we lost to the airlines team.
That time in the shipyard simultaneously three competitions have been launched. Our company started one of them, actually its Hungarian-Soviet Friendship Society representative, and its questions were concentrated on the S.U. The other was launched by our company’s CYU leadership for teams formed in department or workshop-sized branches, also on S.U. topics. The third by the municipality of the capital to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the capital by unification from three separate settlements. Its subject has been the capital and its history.
The first one to fight was the CYU competition on the S.U. Our team could easily go through all the stages, and in the company headquarters the first prize have been handed to us. It was a tourist trip to the Soviet Union by the tourist office for the young. Well, as reservation for the route would be forgot, we would be given the money. It earned us with my wife our second vacuum cleaner – also a GDR-made one, of course – and a fine watch for me in the place of the kilo-watch from my first Vienna trip eight years before.
The other two competitions also came into motion, but that time only factory level has been settled, and I would be able to write more about them later.
As Christmas in that year came nearer, at the English course we had to give in our first independent work, a translation from an English language periodical into our national language. I have chosen an old volume of "Yachting”, an article about George Steers, a 19th century American naval architect of yachts and clippers. The text was hard and special enough to draw no serious comments from our teacher. Before Christmas our last-but-one semester has been finished and the break began.
The weather around Christmas that year was very mild, with about 70 degrees F air temperature. I remember going to buy our meat supply in the shop my wife had frequented before her delivery time. Also later, all the winter there was no snow, my son would see his first snow a year later, when he would be almost 18 months old.
That Christmas witnessed my sister-in-law accept his husband’s attempts to come back. She did not know at that time what we already knew. As my wife has been over her delivery, she became aware of a woman in the bed next to her. She was familiar to her from somewhere. When a nurse came to the woman to ask for the name of the father for her baby, she said the name of my sister-in-law’s husband. She realized only then that this woman has been the market-woman, the lover of her brother-in-law. It has been a great stress, keeping it in her, and she told me as soon as possible. Thus, the squandering man returned at last. He did not belie himself. He behaved, as if nothing had happened.
We have got a lot of baby-things again, among others a fur sack to bring the baby out in cold weather. My wife took the habit of putting our son into it and then into the pram. That way he could be safe of cold in any weather.
It was a happy time, during these months of baby-sitting. I did not feel as many husbands do after the arrival of their first baby that they have been less preferred for another being. The only hardness has been – but it applied to both of us – keeping away from each other, so as not to risk mother-milk supply. We overcame it by making ourselves busy with other occupations. Alas, in the circle of our close acquaintances there would be precedents of infidelity during nursing time of the wife. It would even result in divorce in one case. Between us such a question has never occurred. Our love and common sense was able to help to overcome those hard periods.
In February the finish began in my English course. My bench-neighbour has not come as she had delivered her baby some days before. The group had been undecided what to write in the telegram of congratulation, and a woman with a very good humour suggested the best sentence. It was this lady, who told us once an anecdote about his small son, as they had been walking on the street, holding hands, the boy about 3. A pregnant woman passed them in the opposite direction. The boy said suddenly:
"She will have a child soon.”
His mother asked with astonishment.
"How do you know this, my little?”
"They wear such kind of shoes.”
So, she said that time to write in the telegram:
"I suggest to write the basic congratulation sentence: ,Many happy returns of the day’.”
We did it. The girl who got it was not at her best wit. She would not appreciate it high.
Her predatory character caused me some minor troubles. During our final days before the high degree exam, she wanted me to go to her apartment to prepare together for the exam. She even disclosed her husband was abroad. My wife was against it. Anyway, I went there, as I did not sense all in the air. My wife was right, I could only avoid this pitfall, as her baby daughter has been very uneasy. I slipped away as soon as possible, but my wife might have drawn false consequences.
The girl had more cards in her bunch. After the exam would be over she would insist to see my wife – the institute was across the road opposite the workplace of my wife – to get acquainted with her. And she took her 5-month-old daughter along, putting her into my arms to carry. She prepared everything well to put the idea into the head of my wife. Fortunately, that far she had not been an easy victim of such girls.
Back then, when we were newly married, I got a message on a piece of paper in my office to call a certain Mrs P. by phone. At home I gave it to my wife, and the next day she called the given number. It was Y., who wanted to find me. My wife’s sane action diverted her, and for years she let me alone.
When the 5 months of my wife’s maternity-leave passed, she had to go back to her work and my son has been given to a nursery. Around that time, when my son was six months old, our phone line has been connected. It was a party-line phone, but we found the line almost always free. Soon after that, I caught a flu and stayed home. The phone rang and I answered it. A female voice addressed me on my Christian name. It took me some time to recognize the voice of Y.
"What happened?” I asked astonished.
"Nothing new”, she said, "only I wanted to know how you are.”
"It is a great surprise”, I said and was looking for some means to get out of that conversation. To hang up simply, I did not want.
"That is fine”, she laughed, "it means, I can still surprise you.”
”Well, that has always been something you could do well.”
"Do not be rude, what passed has passed”, she answered.
We went on the same way. She said her daughter was 7 years old. I told her our son was seven months old. She laughed:
"Why did it take you seven years to have a baby?”
"We have spent six of it in a small rented room. As soon as we got our flat, the baby has come.” I tried to convince her about reality, although it has not been her business. But she was not to be convinced. She said:
"We have also lived in a rented room. For a baby it is enough.”
"Enough to lose it, too.” She began to bore me, I did not mind being vulgar.
”You have always been too cautious”, she said after a pause, "if you had not been, we would be together.”
”Or apart again as your parents.” I could not bear her manner.
"O.K., do not fight with me. We had better be friends.”
In the remaining minutes of our conversation she said she would see me. I refused, but inquired, why would she want it. She said her husband was too busy and they were meeting only in the week-ends. She told me, they lived in the island of Csepel in the southern part of the capital. Her husband had recently bought a car, and she was to drive it because of his colour-blindness. We hanged up without any agreement, and even so I felt guilty. I thought it would have been better to hang up at once, had she phoned again. She would not for another two years.
The coming months have been very hard. As all over the world in nurseries, my son could be in for at most two weeks, before he got a virus. It has been repeated always. Two weeks at home, two weeks in the nursery. My wife has hardly got money at all. It was lucky that my salary has been raised for the work done on the numerous objects under construction. Sometimes there were some extra tasks to do in overtime work.
For the difficulties with our son, we could only get help from our young female relatives in their teens. My sister’s elder daughter, Maria, was a student in the foreign trade high school, the younger, Eve, was preparing for her grauation and she wanted to apply to the high school for physical education. My younger sister-in-law was working as a typist. They sometimes came and stayed, thus my wife could go to work, even, when my son was ill and remained at home.
During spring this year I had a lot to do in my CYU team. We organized good excursions to the northern hilly part of the country by bus. It was a two-day program and my younger sister-in-law, Cecily, was also to come with us. I wanted to take my family, but at last my wife stayed with the child, and I sensed a determination in her behaviour, so I decided to stay at home, too. Of course, of her excuse, the sickness of the child nothing was true, and we made big walks around our home. C. has gone with the group and caused funny embarrassments. It was her first experience without the observation of her mother and she behaved as a young animal released first time. At that time we stopped seeing her as a child and would let her alone to find her friends.
As my son stood up first and later learned how to sit, our calm was finished. Especially, when he discovered how to escape his cage and wandered around the flat. Cleaning in the flat had to be proper as he put his food always in contact with the floor.
There arrived the day of examination in my English course. For a time it was my habit to buy the local English-German-language newspaper. On exam day, going to the tram I took it and read through as many articles as possible. One of them caught my eyes especially. It was about a Hungarian man, who destroyed the Pieta in the Vatican. As such a vandalism made me angry, I read it very attentively. It was worth. My first question on the exam was to read and retell this piece of information.
In the afternoon on exam day we had to come back, all to hear the results. We were given our certificates. In mine all marks have been at maximum score. That man, who was ahead of me all the time, got one below. At the last moment I have come to the top of the group.
Two of us did not get high degree, they retained their medium degree from a year before. There was a girl in the group who was so nervous before the oral exam that her palms were cold with sweat. We took her into a pub and forced a glass of brandy into her. She has got her high, of course.
The elderly lady – she was the manager of the English branch of the institute – delivered a hearty speech and gave us incentives not to let our English knowledge deteriorate. After that only once did we meet, at the banquet that evening. We enjoyed it, but somehow I cannot remember too much.
As the weather turned good, our family spent as much time outside as possible. Those years in the neighbourhood of the living estate there were only woods and meadows, no industrial development. Even there was a little swamp with reed and sedge. Evenings you could hear the frogs croak. We did – as we would for some years – big walks in the woods, used the knowledge of my wife about mushrooms and picked them, took rugs with us and, covering the grass with them, laid down for sun-bathing.
Others began to occupy stretches of land on the meadows, fabricated primitive fences and grew vegetables there.
As the boy grew and began to walk, we wanted to make his room complete. We bought a package of East-German furniture, that consisted of wardrobes, shelves, a desk, drawers, and you could assemble it in many ways, just as your needs determined it.
The furniture came in packages, and I myself assembled it. The boy was running and creeping everywhere, even on the boards set on the floor and enjoyed it with all his heart. When it was ready he went on opening doors and closing them, took it into his ownership completely. My wife had to take out the keys when she filled it with his cloths and toys, so as not to let it be mixed up.
The corners of the desk made us problems, he hit his little head at them many times. When he began to walk steadily at about 11 months, we took his baby bed out and his couch became his bed.
The thought that my English could deteriorate disturbed me. To avoid it, I asked one of my colleagues from the department in our office, where typists, blueprint makers and translators worked, to help me in getting a part-time job as translator. He introduced me to a man in the national technical library responsible for that field. That man was a reader and he asked me to translate a given text and to give it back to him. I did it and he scrutinized it completely, finding all the vulgar mistakes I was prone to make. He accepted my work, but said I had to keep the rules of grammar. Since that time, I have always been very careful in my usage of my national language and I hope I may consider myself a literary man.
At the beginning my extra income from translations has not been great, but as my name has been known, some customers were even looking for me to do the work. One interesting thing from that time. At the translation of BS so-and-so British Standard about self-tapping screws, I found one head form not used in our country. There was no name for it. Because it looked like a capital D lying on its left side I named it D-head screw. Our national standard board used my translation, and now in this country this head-type is called D-head.
Translation is a slave work. You sit down at your desk and the family would see only your back. It has not been a good time for my son’s bringing up. Actually I did it only for two years, as in 1974 I started my study in the University of Economics. I consider this period of my life very effective for my English, as my passive vocabulary of technical words multiplied about ten-fold.
I had a possibility to promote my career, as I had to re-polish my knowledge of torsional vibrations. The trust had a monthly about technical news, and I have got an invitation to lecture this topic in the magazine. Following it, a national monthly published another article of mine about it. I have been accepted in circles of my trade, and on the next shipbuilding conference my lecture about environment-friendly production methods was included in the program. The same year an anti-corrosion conference in my namesake town invited me as lecturer.
As I have mentioned, the summer of that year – 1972 – has been very hot. We felt it mostly in our office, as it was on the uppermost floor. The ventilators have arrived, and there was no obstacle in the way of their installation, except that the workers had left the place two years before. We discussed it with my colleague, who was the specialist of ventilation, and he proposed to undertake manual work in the name of our CYU branch. He himself would settle all cases, when the help of the tinplate workshop would be needed.
We sat down with our bosses and they also agreed. In about two weeks our community finished the installation. Beginnings are always hard. In this case that was the hardest. We had to get the equipments of 400 pounds each into the attic above the 3rd floor. The roof has been opened, a lifting device secured to the beams and, by pulley and rope, the ventilators were lifted. All the other activities were child’s play.
When the system has first been started, two years’ dust came out of the vents. Following that only dirt in human nature came fore. One of the draughtswomen objected usage of the ventilator as she was sensitive to draught.
Otherwise, she was a rather good-humoured person. Our boss, F., had back-ache sometimes. That summer his pains were extra high. We have been accustomed to his image creeping along our desks hindered by his sickness. A morning he came in and his motion was completely sporty, as if pain had left him in an instant. That woman asked him:
”Tell me, F., how has your sickness been driven away?”
F. did not stop, but turned to her and said:
"By falling flat.”
He stopped at last and told us, he was taking a hot bath in one of our popular public hot pools and, stepping on a piece of soap left on the stairs, he went down the stairs on his back flat. In an instant his pains were gone.
In the office within the "tetragon” there was a minor scandal. A young man who organized his election as trade union secretary, tried to be promoted by any means, as a careerist does usually. Among others it was to get into confidential relationship with the secretary of the boss. Being a single elderly woman, she was prone to tell pieces of information to her confidential friend. When the boss had hints about this business, he prepared a pitfall, and they easily went into it. The young man was transferred at once to the other shipyard on the opposite side of the river. The secretary stayed, however.
The next year I had to make a decision that I cannot tell even now, if it was right or wrong. After my nominee has been elected in our CYU branch all right, I have been found by the party representative and urged to join the party – the only one at that time. I was hesitating a lot. I asked my wife – she could not say yes or no, either –, and at last I decided to accept their offer. They wanted to co-opt me at once into the group of activists in our office. That would mean for me to sit from one corner of the tetragon to the other. My boss reacted to it favourably. For my entry there was another year to wait.
The competition organized for the celebration of Centennial of the capital has resulted in the victory of our team at factory level. The same way we won the next stage and we would represent the company in the district. We have won it, too, and went for the semi-final. Against odds manipulated in favour of our competitor, we could force out victory once more. But that was all. As we mixed up the pre-decided order we became black-footed. We lost in the final and it was to be thanked for to a popular radio interviewer who acted as play-master. It caused a bitter taste in our mouths, to lose something by manipulations.
In the other competition organized by our company in the subject of the Soviet Union, the basic questions have been published in the company’s two-weekly periodical "Ship and Crane”. I decided to give in my answers, as there was nothing complicated in it. By my answers I was invited to the 3-stage final in the great hall of the company headquarters. As the preparation period has been very long, one of our former colleagues, who has left the company in the meantime remained among participants. It was highly irregular as only employees were allowed to compete. But, as the jury knew nothing about his transfer, he remained. The first stage left out half of the participants.
The second stage was a hard fight as mistakes had to be found in a given text. The outsider mixed up all and would have been left out for the third stage, but he went to the jury and managed to explain his criss-crosses. In the third stage only the prized three competitor stayed in: the outsider, a girl and me.
In a very honest fight the final setting has been solved: she got third prize, a sum of money, he became first, he could take his wife along on a tourist trip to the S.U., I got the second prize, a single trip to the same place. All the three of us got numerous books, too. The trip has not been determined, where and when. I have got a voucher of a given sum, usable with our national tourist company for a trip.
My wife has been happy with my success. For a time I hoped I could persuade her to accept the trip for herself. But she would not leave our son at home with me. She had changed into a typical woman – not in the sense of my former colleague’s aphorism –, a good mother and house-wife: all is known best (or rather only) by her, nobody is able to replace her even for a short time. And so, it has been decided that I would go on that trip.
My senior colleague an group leader would say when he was not to tell straight to a girl she was dishonest: she was a true woman. Girls took it generally as a praise. But it was to be continued, only he would not do it. When he did it sounded like that: malicious and unreliable.
September 1973 has been a busy period in the world from Jordan through Bucharest to Chile. Unhappy news came through newspapers and radio, TV. Three of us from the machinery department, my dept head, my group leader and me, have been selected for a business trip to the GDR, to the town of Magdeburg. We had to settle all technical details with the engine builder SKL about the machinery of projects for our Soviet customers. This time we have not been released without the escort of a saleswoman, the GDR import referent from the foreign trade division. She was the ugliest and most unpleasant woman to work with – on our side of the table – in my life. But the foreign partners already knew her and behaved intelligently.
In Berlin we have only been her "attachments” at the foreign trade firm to drink coffee with her, but in Magdeburg she was our "attachment”. There technical details were agreed, and she was no expert in that field.
Returning to Berlin I visited my friends in their almost new apartment. They were happy to have at last their own private empire. The elder girl, S., was almost a lady at 12 and U., the little one became taller of the two.
Our visit in Berlin has been connected to two events seen on the TV-set in our hotel room, the Pinochet-coup in Chile and the Bucharest earth-quake. Even without proper understanding of the narrators we could all understand by the pictures on TV.
That GDR trip has lasted only some days, we did not have too much time for walk.
The shipbuilding conference in that year was the last in a line. The gravity of that industry has been shifted in the world to other continents. Even the biggest European countries purchase now their new ships from countries where in my youth there was no industry. Our shipbuilding would be completely eradicated. Even it was the last event of such kind, the importance of our country in both shipbuilding and shipping has gone to the very bottom. Anyway, that time I have not been aware of this side of the future yet, and I wanted to make a good career in my trade.
At the beginning of October I went to my namesake town on the Slovak side of the Danube and took part in a conference on anti-corrosion. It was a very modest event, rather a seminar, most of the people understood my native language. The organizer has been the shipyard of the town having a double profile. It exported freighters for large water reservoirs to the Soviets and built the best dredgers on the Danube. Their factory originates from before World War I, when the land was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and belonged to our country. Actually this event has been a little self-celebration of the company with foreign guests present.
The year 1973 was a busy one for me and both in the family and in my work a happy one. At Christmas we prepared a floor-to-ceiling Christmas-tree to create a great experience for our two-year-old son. It was really great to see him, as decoration was finished, the electric candles lighted, and my wife opened the door for him. I shot a picture at that instant, and his happy little face aglow with the lamps in his eyes is beyond speech.
Alas, the next day his arm was caught in decoration and the tree fell to the floor. His fright was enormous, but we calmed him, I put up the tree again and his mother cleaned away broken ornaments. His mind stored this event up as the next Christmas would bring us another crash where he, the boy of 3, would calm me with great courage.
Certain conditions made me think again on my training. My last trip to the GDR taught me that an engineer could only have a whole picture, when he could see the other side of products or services. That is the economic side. One of my professors at the university gave us a lecture about value analysis. He said once that a chamber-pot with the ability to play "Holy Night” can only be sold on the same price as the one without. The customer would pay for the service – a product is the delivery of a service – only such a price that is necessary to buy it to him. And he is right. The chamber-pot would not fulfil its main function better from being able to play "Holy Night”.
So, I mentioned to my wife that I am for studying economics. She had nothing against. My bosses in the office agreed, too. My task remained then to apply at the university and I did it. In March 1974 I was accepted for the school-year beginning in September.
At the end of this March I was forced to a rest of two months. My left ankle has been sprained in front of our house. I was taken to the emergency clinic and got a plaster for a week. I phoned to my boss and he was most unhappy to hear that. I was a replaceable man, but replacement could be done with some difficulty.
My ordinary plaster cast has been replaced by a walking one. It remained on my leg for five weeks. It was a very long time, I could not sit so much in one place. I was walking in the flat all day. I was working for the family, repainting windows and doors, even installed the water connection for our new automatic washing machine.
During this time I also read a lot. After my high-degree examination I stopped buying books second-hand and became a member in the central library where there were foreign-language books. There I collected a lot of cards about titles and authors for books I wanted to read. I found for example the Hornblower novels of Forester and a book written by Mr Parkinson, clerk of the Admiralty with a title "The Times and Life of Horatio Hornblower”. It was exciting to find that my favourite hero has actually been a real living person. I gave the collected cards to my wife and she brought me the books. There is no recreation in the world other as reading.
During my sick leave Y. has found me by phone again. First there was nothing in her voice, but soon she began a more direct speech:
"I should like to see you.”
"I am in bed and when not, in walking plaster.” I wanted to avoid the contact by any means.
"I can go to you”, she said, "nobody would know about it.”
”But what do you want, actually, of me.”
"To have with you what my stupidity made it lost for you.” It was a direct claim.
"Is there a problem with your marriage?” I asked the obvious.
"Nothing else, but he has always been a substitute of you for me.”
"I cannot believe you. You cheated me with that man. And lied to me.” I began to be anxious from that conversation.
"Please, forget it. I was a fool. You will see, how fine it is to be with me.”
It went on this way and she was very disappointed. She said:
"I will take the offer of a young man, who is asking me all the time to lie with him.”
"It would be dishonest to do that.”
"For whom?”
"For yourself. Do you appreciate yourself only for a girl from the street?”
She laughed:
"It is all right. You helped me take my decision.” And she hung up.
After five weeks I lost my walking plaster cast and my safety feeling. As my ankle became free I felt as if walking on water. I had to visit the swimming pool in the clinic a few times and under water my ankle began to improve. But it had the habit of swelling for half a year, and as a barometer I would be reliable even longer.