Chapter 25
About to Leave
I did not want to let my TESCO mission go asleep forever and went again to the clerk. She was sorry not to be able to help, but she did not stop at that and introduced me to a middle-aged lady – she has been the wife of a diplomat – who dealt with Ethiopia. First it was a very peculiar conversation. She said after listening to her colleague and scanning me with her sight:
"Recently a man has returned from there, as he had heard somebody speak about shootings. You do not look a die-hard man either.”
This impertinence drove up my blood pressure, but I tried to keep my manner. I said to her all smiles:
"He was one man and I am another. Would you let me try it before judging me?”
"All right, I did not mean to hurt your pride. But there goes a war there, you can know that, if you are following the events.” Actually Somalia attacked the neighbour and occupied quite a few town on the eastern part.
She became more friendly soon and asked me about the exact practice I had.
"I am an engineer of transport and vehicles, but I have a wide experience, especially in civil engineering.”
"A mechanical engineer has been asked for by the university and there is need for an engineer on automotive field. Also they need a civil engineer in the Ministry of Construction.” She was leafing through her papers. "Do you have a CV with you?”
I gave her my Curriculum Vitae in English.
"Well”, she said, "Call me by phone in two days.”
At least I saw a faint hope.
When I called her, she was again her former self.
”You have given me a CV that is good for nothing”, she was shouting, "you have to re-write it and concentrate on what you did and not on where.” My CV really contained my employers and may be, I did not make my activities clear.
I re-formulated it and brought it to her.
"O.K.”, she said, "it will do.”
"When can I know something?” I asked.
"It is slow work”, she answered, "in two months our offer about the new experts will be in the hands of the Supreme Council.” She meant the military junta around Menghistu. "Be convinced, if you are needed, you would go there.”
She has done a good work and, although I did not know it at that time, I have found a sponsor in the person of the soon-to-be representative of TESCO in Ethiopia. He would go there in a month and would take with him the papers.
In the meantime my duties called me to Moscow again. To fix the delivery of the emergency pump, we had to sign the contract with the Soviet deliverer. The import executive took me for the technical questions with him, and there was a girl with us to see through commercial details of other deliveries.
I have used these days off to see as much of the town as possible and to buy equipments – magnifier, development tank, etc. – for my photographic laboratory.
After my return, there followed one of my worst periods. It was a very unstable weather, one day clear, then clouded. Fronts were moving quickly, barometric pressure was changing up and down.
My mother had had a high blood pressure for a long time. By drugs her doctor could not only reduce it, but also stabilize. She made the typical mistake, elderly people often do, she stopped taking her tablets. Her blood pressure shot up, and once she fell off her bed. She was taken to hospital and my sister called me by phone to visit her as soon as possible.
We went in with my wife. Being an employee of the municipal health service, she could arrange a little better attendance for my mother. We guessed from the beginning that she would not come out again. In the fifties, 25 years before, an unintelligent – may be "six-week” – doctor told her she had only one or two years left because of her weak heart. But now at 75, she would not live even if she could. Her husband dead for six years, her surviving children living with their own families, she did not feel her indispensability any more.
My wife was coming to her every day and I at every visiting day. After about 10 days in the hospital she passed. There remained a vast empty space behind her.
Her sister, my aunt and god-mother, was still living, but she lost her husband a year before. Her brothers were living, too, they would leave in a couple of years. My aunt has changed her house for a small flat, then she changed that further for another one. In her old days she would be living with my sister, until her weakness would force her into a welfare home. Her last flat would go to my younger niece, Eve, with her family.
In the summer months I had something to do in the city and met my younger niece on the tram. As we were chatting, I said:
"We have not visited you for a time. We will do it soon.”
Her answer was surprising:
"Only do not go to the airport. We are not living there any more.”
"But what happened?” My astonishment was visible.
"Oh”, she said, "you do not know. Father has got a flat and we moved there.”
I could not say much for a time. Then I asked:
"Could I not have helped you at the moving?”
It was her turn to remain silent.
"Well”, she began, "I do not know anything, it was all organized by father.”
She gave me their address.
My wife was as astonished on the news as me. The next day I called my sister on her working place by phone. I only said I learned by chance about their moving. She has not been in apologetic mood, it all seemed quite natural to her. A sense of being excluded from my family touched me.
These years have been the busiest in my life. My younger relatives and my sister-in-law, Cecily, had their weddings around that time. First Maria, my elder niece. She had been working for a foreign trade company and her husband had been her school-mate in the foreign trade high school. She would have more role in this story later.
Then followed Cecily and at last Eve. For Cecily I have been the witness on her wedding. It cost us a lot, but I think, everywhere in the world weddings are costly events.
Both Maria and Cecily with their husbands began their lives in rented rooms. Maria and George could soon buy a flat in a new house through their employer. Of course, their first child, Maria jr., has taken at once the favourite place, the first great-child of my mother.
Cecily and Alex has brought a property share with a house on it. A very poor house, they had to start at once building a new, but it would be a slow business. The new house would grow together with their only son.
Eve had wanted to be a physical instructor, but she could not get into the proper high school, and she stepped into the traces of her mother, she became a teacher for backward children. She married her colleague, Leslie. They would bring up two children, a girl and a boy.
There were other events in our family of broader sense – let alone the girl delivered next to my wife’s bed on the same day as my son. My brother-in-law, the brother of my wife, as I have mentioned, has married his colleague. They got their voucher for a flat and with difficulty they paid for it even without our help. Their apartment has been on the same housing estate, where my elder sister-in-law lived with her family. They lived together without an heir for 10 years, as the man would not have any. At last the wife convinced him, but even then he told us the news, saying:
”We have made the same mistake as you have.”
After the birth of the child the mother became too corpulous and, for this or of mere weakness to avoid adventures during nursing, the man found another girl, another colleague. She preferred him to her husband and my brother-in-law divorced. They bargained their apartment for two smaller ones and went apart. Not a happy story and it is even worse considering that the fall of the second idol in the eyes of my wife contributed a lot to her fixed idea about me.
For a time my trips abroad became rare. The prototype of the raft-towing tug has been in the covered harbour area and her machinery has been installed step by step.
I got a call from the executive at TESCO that the Ethiopian authorities had accepted my person, and the authorization process at the Ministry of Industry has been launched. The lady also informed me that I was offered on the first place to the university and the offer was accepted. Our ministry would ask the company for my transfer to their personnel and it could take half a year.
I had a dilemma then: did I have to advise my bosses or wait, until they would be informed by the ministry. I waited and it was good. In a few months I would be in a bad situation and would have to leave the company. A rejection or disagreement from the part of the employer could have been fatal for my mission.
In January in our country there has been a great celebration. The President of the U.S.A., Mr Carter, decided to send back the Hungarian Holy Crown to its lawful owner, our people. The reception ceremony has been broadcast by our TV company and I think, 100 percent of the TV-set owners was watching it.
For the Russian language I found a course that was proper for my needs. It has been organized by the Hungarian-Soviet Friendship Society, and total results have been promised, even exam certificate. I enlisted for the course. It started in the middle of September and it was really good. In the first lesson I have learned two things that I had not been able to be taught in 9 years in the schools: that verbs of motion are a separate world, a "state within a state” as all its continuous and perfect view forms had a straight and a rambling prefix and, that the present tense of perfect-view verbs has a meaning of future. Also, I could learn numbers’ forms in different cases.
In the course I found bright people. Almost all spoke one or two languages already and their need of the Russian came from special circumstances as with me. Both teachers were women, the one for Lexica a Ukrainian of Hungarian ethnic roots, the other for Grammar a relatively young talented girl.
At the end of the two semesters, I would go and sit for a medium-degree examination successfully.
School has stepped into our family in another way. My son became a pupil of the first grade. He liked it, his school have been situated in a prefabricated barrack, as in the main building there was no place for the lower-section four grades.
My troubles in work did not cease to grow because of the envy from my boss. There was another aspect, my possible promotion into deputy chief designer. This could have been a red rag for him, and I tried to look for a proper job within the company with my double education. A lot of our colleagues had left the company for salesmen jobs with foreign trade companies. But my attempts came aground, as the different divisions could only take personnel from others with the consent of the transferring boss. In my case it would have been torpedoed at the beginning.
Then I tried outside. The monthly newspaper of the Scientific Society for Mechanical Engineers published an ad for a linguistic engineer. I answered it and was called to a conversation.
An aged small corpulent man with a red face received me with a young man at his side. He was Mr Louis K., secretary general for the society and the young man the technical secretary. It was the latter who had got an offer, and his place has been a question. In some words Mr K. introduced themselves and said:
"Your certificates with the experiences on a wide field ensures you the job, as we put your name on top of our list. But I think, you are not a person to be closed into a room to deal with documents and organize conferences. I offer you another one, if you are decided to leave your place.”
It was comforting to have a sure place and even a spare one in case of a move.
"I am listening to you”, I answered.
"It is the company Machine Tool Works, a trust of machine tool factories. There is a Commercial Division at the General Management and we would need you there as a salesman.”
"I would meet the responsible executive or manager, if you do not mind.”
He gave me his visiting card and on the other side he wrote the name and phone number of the man.
"Here it is, you can contact him.” He was the general manager of the trust actually and the man whose name was written on the card was the head of that division. It was February 1978. In a month I decided to take the job. I gave in my notice and it was decided, I could leave the place by the end of June.
From my bosses and the party official I have got some unpleasant words. All have been said about honesty to the employer, taking vital information with me and letting the shipyard down by emptying my place of high importance. It goes without saying, my comments about backing up a subordinate under stress from his envious boss and helping an educated person by giving him possibilities remained without reply. When my intentions have become known, even I was offered to be transferred to another job fitting my papers better.
But at that time I was over the lath, there was no backward route. Also, I knew something about the brain-store on the other side of the Danube and had no desire to be put on the shelf in it. When I take into consideration the fate of the shipbuilding trust, I am sure I decided well that time.
I informed TESCO about my move. The woman was angry first, but promised me to reroute the transfer documents of the ministry to my new workplace. However, there was a great risk in getting the consent of management in a new place. Anyway, as I was visiting my would-be boss once more, I informed him of two points: that I had been given permission from the shipyard to apply for an all-day intensive course of Russian, it would last from the middle of June a whole month, thus being a burden on my working time for two weeks at my new employer, and that I had been selected for the abroad mission and for it there was a certain probability to come true. My boss said O.K., he would not block my way.
It is generally not easy to leave a community where almost nine years have been spent. I felt at the farewell glass of wine that more of them were sorry than those who were not. I myself left there a big chunk of my heart. I would not leave these people at once. In the coming months I would come back to visit them. When I would be to leave soon to Africa, I would visit them to say good-bye and Charles would say me: "I have heard you are going to be Cannibal food.”
Anyway, my decision would prove right. The new general manager of the trust would turn against the shipyard where I worked and would ruin it. It was similar to what Samson did with the pillar of the temple, this shipyard supported the whole trust, and soon the whole company would be closed forever, putting to an end an industry that has had 150 years of tradition in the country.
There was only one man backing me in my decision, Otto. He saw clearly the probable future of the shipbuilding industry with such a management. I would not leave my shipbuilder career completely behind. As an expert of justice I would get my assignments and also my membership in the Society would not cease.
The last two weeks have been a transition period. From early morning to 1 p.m. I was at the Russian course and after that I prepared my leave by letting everything in order for my successor. As I guessed, my boss would take the task into his hands, no project manager would be named.
The intensive course itself was a big success for me. Having acquired a good basic knowledge of Russian, I was just before my first exam, when it began. We had four teachers, one was a Russian woman living in our country, she spoke Hungarian, but would not do so. She dealt with ordinary conversations. There were three Russian ladies, who could understand only their native tongue, one of them for developing our speech with an Armenian surname for her husband, the other, a true conceited young Russian girl, who dealt with pronunciation. I could learn again something new: how to pronounce ordinary consonants as m, s, etc., in a mild manner after a letter named mildness mark or a mild vowel as i or e. Hearing that Russian is only one route for me, she would not sympathize with me.
The third woman was a very friendly elderly lady, who taught us grammar.
During the time of the course I sat my medium-level examination with a good success. All my fellow-students and the teachers congratulated me, even the young female teacher looked on me with different eyes.
After finishing the course we called the three ladies to lunch instead of a proper banquet, where we all could take part in the conversation well. They have really done a very good job for us.
In the middle of July I began to acquire skills in my new job.