HOW I GOT AMNESTY, DISCOVERING THE GREAT SOUTH WEST - AND WHAT AIDS IS

Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Mexican Border Crossing

My Uncle's House, Santa Fe, NM

In 1981, after I made my decision not to return to Hungary I flew to Santa Fe from San Francisco. I stayed at my uncle’s house and started working at a silk screen printing shop. I worked under different names; changing my identity frequently. My employer was not afraid to employ an undocumented alien; however, years later, when I needed to have a witness to testify that I was here illegally, he totally chickened out. Some of you may remember that the amnesty of the 1980s legalizing all aliens who entered the US illegally before December 31, 1981. Of course, catch 22 applied, you had to be able to prove that you were illegal, and that you entered before said date. I was on the deportation list for nine more years, just because I could not prove I was illegal. Mind you, there was plenty of proof of me being here, I just could not prove that I broke the law!

Unlce's Back Yard

At the T-shirt printing factory I was only trusted to do inventory, count out orders and do heat transfers on baseball hats. The prints usually said clever things like: “Where the hell is Roswell, NM”, “High on Santa Fe”. They were all designed by Steve, who worked there 4-6 hours a day. Jerry ran the shop and his wife helped out occasionally. Once, when we did our inventory, we counted “Beefy Hanes” T-shirt, and the count was over one thousand. She confided in me that she did not know how to write a number greater than a thousand, but she begged me not to tell the owner! As if he did not know! I learnt about the assassination of Anwar Sadat while working in that shop in 115 degree heat. It was a bad day.

New Mexico

I biked to work every day on my cousin’s bike, which was a bit small for me, especially when I had to go uphill at 4 pm in the pouring rain, day after day. It rained every day in August between 4 and 4:30 pm. By the end of the summer I had enough money to buy my first car, a boat on four wheels, a 1973 Buick Le Sable. In September I started college in Santa Fe, just to get some courses under my belt before I could go to the University of NM to get my MBA the following year.

I moved to Albuquerque in January 1982, took a couple of undergraduate classes for one semester because my GMAT score was not high enough to start the MBA program. After completing Calculus and Micro Economics classes that were actually graduate level courses, I was able to transfer to the MBA program. I also took German. Who knows why I was so dumb to pick German instead of Spanish? My classmates have difficulties pronouncing the letter “ü”, which of course for me was a natural sound. But what was even more interesting, that they not only did not know how to say it, they actually did not even hear that it was different from „u”.  One of our exercises was to read and translate a short text in class. I finished my portion and noticed that all eyes were fixated on me; my classmates were staring at me like I came directly from the Moon. Then the coin had dropped! I translated German to Hungarian! Causing even more surprise was when that the professor smiled and said: “That was correct”. Tuned out she was from Austria and she understood some Hungarian!

International Students
with Ioanna, Claudia, me and Gyuri
in New Mexico

I stayed in the undergraduate dorm for the first semester; my roommate was Tim, a tall good looking black dude. Tim had a beautiful and smart black girlfriend but I think that his main purpose in life was to sleep with as many white girls as he could manage. But when I wanted to go out dancing (not sleeping) with a black girl, he told me he was OK by this, but the “brothers” may not like it. So I gave up and let Monika, an aggressive German girl, hang out with me for a while. This did not last long, I was dumped summarily.

Before she dumped me she at least introduced me to Ioanna from Romania and I started hanging out at the international center of which Ioanna was the director. I met Shiao Hong at the center.  We had a huge cultural gap or rather abyss between us so our relationship did not last more than four months.

Meanwhile I worked for my uncle’s fast food joint, Hardees; flipping burgers. I got in a huge argument with the manager after he put me to work at the cash register one day. We came up about a dollar short and he wanted me to pay. He said it was only he and I who handled the money, so it must have been me who messed up. I told him I was willing to take a test to see which one of us can count faster and more accurately but I was not willing to pay. He only responded by blowing smoke, showing me who the boss was, even though I knew that the real boss was my uncle, the owner. I quit as soon as I could and started working for the university cafeteria, La Posada or La Poisonada, as it was called. There I got free food and worked with students washing dishes. Cool job and it paid $3.50, a whole quarter more than Hardee’s minimum wage.

I moved to the dorms for graduate students and got a Korean roommate.  His first words out of his mouth when he found out I was from Hungary were: “I hate communists”. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. He kept asking me to bring my ex Taiwanese girlfriend to our room, which of course I did not even consider. Later he got kicked out from school because of harassing girls.

I met Claudia from Germany and soon I moved in to her house which she shared with two other German girls. Maybe it was not that stupid to take German, after all.

Claudia at the Grand Canyon

In the summer my brother Gyuri and Juli, his wife, visited us. Claudia and I went down to the Mexican border because they were coming from Cuba via Mexico. So Claudia and I were on the famous border crossing between Juarez and El Paso. I had no legal papers; Claudia had no reentry visa if she were to leave the US. A border patrol came over to us and asked if we wanted to sit down on the bench after watching us hovering around for over an hour waiting for Gyuri and Juli. “But it is on the other side of the border” I said. He said that he would be there, not to worry, we could come back. So we went, sat there for another hour, but my brother did not show. We decided to walk back to El Norte but we could not find our friendly border patrol. Instead we found a not so friendly one. We kept explaining what happened, to no avail. Finally he got sick of us and looked at Claudia’s blond hair and blue eyes and decided that we were not Mexicans trying to sneak across and let us go. And lo and behold, our friendly border guard appeared from out of nowhere; smiling. I asked him where he was, and he said: “I was watching you guys, would have come if there had been a problem”. What problem I thought, but minutes before I was sweating bullets.

My brother Gyuri

My brother was waiting on the US side of the border! Apparently they caught a cab in Juarez that took them across the border without ever stopping. They came from Cuba with a Hungarian passport, but nobody bothered to check them out! Border patrol was at its best even then!

Mesa Verde, Pink Desert, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, San Diego, Yosemite, San Francisco – and what is AIDS?

Claudia and I at Mesa Verde

Juli at Grand Canyon

It was really exciting to have my family visiting and traveling around the US. Of course we had a minor problem when it came to communication. Funny enough, the same problem still exist when my wife and I visit Hungary. The three Hungarians kept talking and discussing matters in Hungarian, making decisions without letting Claudia know what we had decided. My brother did not really speak English and while Juli’s English was perfect; she often shied away from talking. I kept trying to translate but often failed.  During this trip, the only real long one I took with my brother and his wife, we saw the most beautiful scenery imaginable! I think we all will remember it for the rest of our lives.

White Sands and I



Painted Desert but no Snakes or Scorpions

Leaving El Paso towards Santa Fe we stopped at the White Desert, which never ceases to amaze me with its snow white dunes of sands. We stopped at Santa Fe, Gyuri and Juli slept at my uncle’s house, Claudia and I were put up by Miklos, my uncle’s friend, in two separate rooms. After all, we were not married!  Soon, we packed my Buick, bought new tires, and filled the trunk with engine oil, of which it needed almost as much as it needed gas. We drove to Mesa Verde; one of the most amazing sites I have ever seen. To be honest I am not sure what route we actually took afterwards, but I think we went by Arch Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon. And lately Juli just reminded me about the Painted Desert, where huge signs warned us about scorpions and other insects. Claudia and I walked deep in the desert bare feet, for we did not want sand in our shoes. Scorpions be aware, here we come! We were young and fearless or just plain dumb, but we had dumb luck, and found no angry poisonous insects.

Monument Valley

We saw the Hoover Dam and took a peak at Glenn Canyon before we drove into Las Vegas. We snuck into our hotel room, because I did not know then, what I know now, that in the US you do not pay after the number of people in the room, but rather you just pay for the room. We had little money, we stayed at decent hotels but all four of us shared one room. Except for when we found a motel outside of Bryce Canyon, where to our big surprise we had two adjacent rooms for the price of one. They must have given that to us because we did not really sneak around and they saw that we were two couples wanting to share one room. Honesty pays!

Gyuri and I in the Great South West

From Las Vegas we drove to San Diego where Gyuri and Juli walked across the border to Tijuana. It was an easy walk and I watched them disappear in the crowd of Mexican migrant workers. I wished I could cross with them but I had to wait almost another decade before I could do that. It was sad to see them go but I had to continue my journey.

Claudia and I went to Santa Barbara to see my cousin Kim and my friends Tim and Pam. I did not have Pam’s address but I drove around and found the house where Karcsi and I stayed a couple of years earlier. Some of the original people still lived in the house and they were able to help me find Pam.  We then took Highway One up to San Francisco. Or at least that was the plan but the road was closed. California had more rain and snow that year than in any other time in a hundred years. The road was closed because of mud slides, so we took a detour, but still did not miss the Seventeen Mile road and Carmel. 

In San Francisco I stayed with my Aunt Julie’s brother who had a house on the corner of the steepest street! It was scary to drive my Buick around, because every time I needed to come down on a steep street the nose of my car proved to be too long, I could not see a thing!

Mirror Lake

The first time when I stayed in San Francisco with Julie’s other brother; I was preoccupied by my decision to stay in the US. Yet I remember a couple of details. I learnt the expression holy cow (shit) from Carl after we found out that Karcsi’s ride to the airport broke down in traffic and he had to get up and take him. But one of the most indelible memories of mine is when Carl took us to his friend’s bar. It was a large bar; several hundreds of people were dancing to loud music. And they were all black; Carl, Karcsi and I were the only white people there. I remember finding it extremely exciting and interesting. I had to scramble through all the sweaty dancing people to the bathroom that was at the other corner of the room. Coming from Hungary I did not have any notions about racial tension between blacks and whites, yet I felt all eyes were looking at me as I walked across the room. But nobody said a word and of course there was no reason to say anything. But it was a strange feeling to be so alone, so much in the minority.

Hiking in Yosemite

With Claudia we went to Chinatown where she got tricked by a Chinese restaurant owner. He was about eighty years old and told all the girls that they have to give him a kiss in order to get served. When they did, he turned his head really quickly so he got a peck on the mouth. But the food was good and the Chinese kite flying competition was interesting. We listened to a free classical music concert in the park. During the concert the conductor had a heart attack. But it so happened that there was somebody in the audience who apparently was a famous conductor and he finished conducting the piece. Only in America!

Pride Parade San Francisco, 1983

We went to the gay parade, the first of many I saw. It was one of the most fun parades I have ever seen. But I had no clue why everybody was asking for aid. What kind of aid do these people want from me? I guess I was pretty ignorant or was it still not much talked about in the news? In any case, I learnt about AIDS during the 1983 Pride Parade in San Francisco. I wish we never had to leave San Francisco. We drove to Yosemite Park which was practically closed because of the amount of snow still on the ground in June. Camp sites were closed officially, which meant we could stay for free! The waterfalls had more water than at any other time and Mirror Lake was still there and had tons of water in it. We hiked up to the top of Yosemite Fall without carrying food or water. Then we crashed for a whole day having too sore muscles to go on. We stayed a whole week and hiked all over, walking up and down, under and over waterfalls, in and out of the mist.

On the way back to Albuquerque I figured out that I didn’t need to put on a sweater when I run my air-conditioning, I just needed to adjust the temperature! Still when I got out of the car in Needles Arizona, I felt like somebody hit me on the head, so heavy and hot the air was. I got back to Albuquerque and Claudia went back to Germany.

INTERESTING STATISTICS - MALE DOMINATED SOCIETY

As most blog writer I also monitor the number of hits on my blog. I noticed an interesting statistic. I have two pairs of almost identical posts. How my father survived the war (134) vs. How my mother survived the war (24) and Paternal grandparents (80) vs. Maternal grandparents (36). The numbers behind the titles reflect the number of pageviews for each post. It must be a male dominated society! How else could we explain the large discrepancy in the number of people who are interested in these seemingly identical stories? It would be different if rating after reading the stories would show that one was more interesting than the other, but clearly, people made up their minds before reading.

TRAVELING WITH MY PARENTS - 1968, 69, 70

1968, my first trip abroad at the age of thirteen.

Karpacz

I suppose two things happened in our family that year; my parents judged me mature enough to take me along on a trip, and they

had enough money to take both my brother and me with them on vacation abroad. The trip was partially financed by the University for which my mother was working, thus our group of fellow travelers consisted of all sorts of eggheads, non-productive freeloader professors who all worked for higher education. These individualist moochers did not even travel together they just showed up in Karpacz, one of the most popular mountain resorts of Poland at the time.



Tar Creek Waterfall



On our way, we took our time driving through the Carpathians and I went above 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) for the first time in my life. My love of nature and mountains can be traced back to the Tar Creek Waterfall. On our way we stopped at Zakopane, another beautiful resort town in Poland.

Zakopane

Years later I returned there with my brother in the winter.We bought dollars in the Hungarian black market and sold them in the Polish one. The profits were staggering, so much so that we literally did not know what to do with our money. Some of the aggressive Polish girls helped us. As we were walking in town we noticed that two girls were following us. First, we dismissed this idea as being preposterous, but after crossing twice back and forth the street with the girls still in tow, we began to believe in our good luck. We entered a church and sure enough, the girls followed us.  Little did we know then that they were on familiar territory. We knew we had to make our move now, so we tried to talk to them. The willingness was there, but the common language was not. One of the girls spoke a few words of German, which actually matched my brother’s language skills perfectly. The other spoke perfect Polish and nothing else. My famously non-existent Russian came in handy, and we all four understood each other perfectly. I don’t know how but we figured out that just barely two months earlier these girls were still members of a convent and were walking around in nun uniforms. They decided that convent life was not for them and quit being nuns. I suppose, when they met us they wanted to make up for lost time. We took them to a restaurant where we had no idea what was on the menu and the girls were not much help. So we ordered everything on the menu. (Not to worry, we were in Poland in the late 70s, they only had about 8 different entrees). I guess, like all Poles, the girls also liked vodka. My brother was, and still is, a teetotaler and I am not much of a drinker myself so we only finished one bottle. After dinner we agreed on meeting up later that night. But our luck ran out, the girls direct line to God must have been reinstated, and they never showed.

My other memory of Zakopane is how little we knew about skiing. Since there were no chairlifts people hiked up to the top of the mountain and took their time to come down. We, the experienced skiers we were, also joined the long line of hikers. Right away something was strange. We were the only ones walking in our brand new ski boots, purchased from the profit of the currency manipulation. Everybody else was carrying their boots alongside with their skis on their shoulders. It did not take too long to find out why. The boots were called ski boots for a reason; they were not designed for walking. By the time we got up to the top we were half dead and our feet were bleeding. Couple that with the fact that we did not know the first thing about skiing and you can imagine what a sorry sight we must have been.  Yet, we had a great time coming down the mountains.

Playing Bridge with Family 2009

Back to Karpacz and to my 13 year old self. Every time my parents went on vacation a small part of the first day was spent on interviewing others at the resorts trying to find bridge partners. In Karpacz they only found one person who could play, so I blurted out: “I could play”. They looked at me incredulously and laughed the matter off. During the second week they reevaluated the situation and let me play. I had been watching my parents and my grandparents playing bridge since I was three years old. In the beginning they tried to send me away from the table, but soon they gave up since my fascination with cards never stopped. They never explained the game, dismissing the possibility that a child can comprehend the game. So, there I was, claiming I could play. So we tried, and grudgingly they admitted that I was OK. When we got back to Hungary, I was dismissed again as being too young. At university, years later, I learnt nothing but playing bridge. From then on I was the one who did not want to play with my parents any more, they never understood what that wonderful sport (not game!) was all about.



In Karpacz I learnt that girls could come and ask you to dance. They often came and asked my brother, maybe because he was good looking but more likely because he also looked Italian. Towards the end of our two-week vacation, one morning in August we woke up to a strange noise. Every 30 seconds planes were flying over us always coming from the North West and never returning. At breakfast, one member of our group, the only one who spoke no other language but Hungarian, came in running and excitedly gesticulating: “Czechoslovakia is being invaded” he screamed. Nobody believed him at first, but we found out, he was right. My parents immediately saw a parallel between this invasion and the events in Hungary in 1956. At that time the crisis at Suez diverted the world’s attention from the struggles in Hungary. The Yom Kippur War was still fresh on their minds and they felt that the Russians and their allies again used the world’s divided attention to crush the Human Faced Socialism of Dubcek’s Czechoslovakia.

Prague 1968

The vacation in Karpacz was abruptly ended, we were told to go to Krakow immediately. The dorms were emptied for us and we were given free food and lodging there. My brother and I enjoyed the extended vacation while my parents worried themselves sick. The borders were open between Austria and Czechoslovakia; it must have crossed their minds that we should do, what we had not done in 1956, leave Socialism behind and move to the West. Soon the order came to leave, go back to Hungary. Special trains were put together and people were transported home, but rather than taking the direct way through Czechoslovakia they had to go around thought the Soviet Union. For the few of us, who came by cars, a convoy was organized and we were to drive to the Polish border where we were given a 24 hour pass through the Soviet Union. We were given enough money for gas and some meager meals, but no hotels. “Let’s get out of there as fast as we can” was the slogan for all of us.

The roads were somewhat better
but it was dark and raining

The trip though the Carpathians was treacherous. The roads were narrow with no signs showing where the road ended or tuned. Missing one of the turns could have meant a dive down the abyss. Driving conditions were hindered by an unrelenting downpour in which only cars with engines in the back could really move at any decent speed. My brother was the “Mitfahrer”, sitting next to my father in the leading car navigating and calling the turns. The rest of the convoy followed our stop lights. One of the cars in the convoy had a license plate starting with the letters “CS”. Some of the “comrades” on the roadside mistakenly took that as the country sign for Czechoslovakia, and let the passengers know what they thought about the mischievous Czechs by throwing rocks at them.  We were forced to improvise; we put black tapes over the letters making them read 08.

Somehow we made it to the Hungarian border by 4 am, after 20 hours of driving in a small Fiat 850. We spent the night in Miskolc.

1969, my second trip abroad but the last one when all four of us went together.

Belgrade

We crammed in our little Fiat and drove south, to Yugoslavia. We spent some time in Belgrade, in fact more than it seemed necessary. Years later I found out that my parents were looking for a connection to hook us up with a mountain guide to lead us across the border to Italy. In Belgrade they found the first link of the human smuggling ring, but our guide at the Italian border never showed up. I was oblivious. I am not sure how serious this plan was, but my grandparents were in the US at my uncle’s place and they were waiting by the phone to get news from us after the crossing. Yet, my parents planned the whole vacation like they have suspected that we would never succeed.

Dubrovnic

We went down to Dubrovnik and Kotor. We watched the crazy divers jump from the bridge of Mostar. We toured the Mestrovic Gallery of Split. We stayed at the lake near Bled. We slept at a campsite that had doghouses for bungalows at the lakes of Plitvice. Somewhere along the way my father got real sick, some said he had typhus. So my brother graduated from “Mitfahrer” to first pilot, while my mother turned into the worst back seat driver ever. But we survived and got back to Hungary. My grandparents also returned, my grandfather holding ten thousand dollars in cash in his hands as he deplaned; asking where he could exchange that legally. That amount of money was a fortune legally, but would have made us all real rich if he exchanged it in the black market. Well, he did not.

Bridge at Mostar

1970, my last trip with my parents and my first trip to the West.

We drove to Vienna and were put up by a man who had some business dealings with my father’s company.  They were working on some plastic doors, which to my knowledge, never materialized. But we got free lodging and my first rotary chicken out of the deal.  Our way took us through Germany for a short time. My father was still not at peace with the Germans, but my mother and I took a more sensible approach and convinced him to drive through since it was a more direct route. But when we stopped at the autobahn and a man walked up to my father and shook his hand and started to tell him that he loved Hungary and that he spent months there during the war, my father was not very happy. He, to my amazement, stayed calm, said nothing, just turned around and walked back to our car.

 Côte d'Azur

Marseille

  I swam in the 15 degree lake of Genf and saw snow for the first time in July on top of the Jungfrau. I saw Paris and the castles in the Vallée de L'Avre. I walked around the cathedrals of Metz and Strasbourg. But I was too tired to go out at night and see Avignon. So I did not dance on the pond but ate snails in Paris and huge sea shells in Marseille at a self-service restaurant. I marveled the architecture of LeCorbusier both in Marseille and in the mountains where his monastery stood. In Cannes we stayed at the luxury hotel of Gray d’Albion, courtesy of my uncle. I had my own room looking down on the Côte d'Azur. My parents went to Monte Carlo and my uncle gave my father a hundred dollars to gamble. He won and kept winning. Finally he had about five hundred dollars. A fortune for us, so he wanted to pay back my uncle, who would not hear of it. My father, the proud man he was, risked the whole amount and let it ride on black. And he won! Well he may have been proud but crazy he was not! He took the money and we ran. We stayed another 4 days on our own and blew the money, eating lobsters for breakfast.

I knew we spent all the money when we stayed in Grenoble at a hotel that was at the busiest intersection of town, and where apparently all the motorcycles had to make sure that they roar their engines at least once a night driving all sleep out of the eyes of the hotel guests. Turned out, most guests rented the rooms by the hour, but this time it was not me, but my parents, who were oblivious what was going on around them.

The rest I don’t remember.

WHY DOES THE WATER TASTE STRANGE

The Hot Pot

This unplanned post was inspired by last night's events. When even drinking water tastes funny you know that something is up.

Joanna and I have been hosting a Taiwanese student for the past three months. Una is real fun, easy going and happy. And her bubbly personality becomes truly exuberant whenever anyone brings up the subject of food or cooking. And she is not alone with her love of food, her friends from her home country and China would hover around the kitchen every time when we prepare dinner. They sniff around like dogs, lifting the lids of pots and pans in order to peek under, spying what is cooking.

One of our friends came up with the theory that eating and cooking in the Eastern cultures take first place in the hierarchy of important activities. Not like in the West where the number one spot on the same scale is indisputably held by sex. This theory seems to contradict the facts; since books like Kama Sutra and tales like The Thousand and One Night are all products of the Eastern World. Clearly the tales of the Brothers Grimm, while containing plenty of sexuality, do not measure up to the advice of the Kama Sutra. I myself do not claim to be the judge in this important debate, but I can say with certainty, that food is important in the Orient.

Cook #2

Cook #1

Una told us about her favorite foods; stinky tofu, thousand year old eggs and the “hot pot”. All sounded very appetizing but not available. While I was traveling in Houston and only feasting on sushi, authentic Mexican and Turkish food, the women in my house sneakily arranged a Chinese dinner. Una and her friends bought all kinds of things at the Asian market, which we have seen before there but never dared to buy. Not because we did not want to try them but because we did not have the slightest clue what they were let alone how to prepare them. So I missed out on the first Chinese meal and in my desperation had to stuff down even more sushi than I originally planned. 

                                                 Our first dinner (some of the dishes)

The Hot Pot Cooks

But things turned for the better. This past Saturday we had a spontaneous potluck type of dinner and we lucked out when a Korean girl brought some delicious “I-don’t-remember- what-was-it-called” dishes. When asked if there was any fish in them, she said, “no, only anchovies”.

Ingredients

and more...

And then yesterday we were able to top all of that. Una will move out at the end of the month and her new roommate is here visiting for a week from California. Apparently the commercials in Taiwan are different then in the US.  While here you cannot leave home without your American Express card, there you can’t leave without your hot pot cooking equipment. So she came, all the way from Taiwan, via Iowa with a short stop in California, never leaving her trusty hot pot behind. I thought of myself as one who knows his Chinese food, but I admit, I was so, so wrong. I knew nothing about :火鍋; pinyin: huǒ guō, which is of course Chinese for hot pot. For those of you who want to dwell on the definition of hot pot check it out on Wikipedia (I could not link it).

Dessert - Japanese Sesame Pudding

For the less curious, I will explain. It is sort of a Chinese fondue, but the pot is divided into two. One part contains a spicy hot “soup” the other a mild “soup”. You dip different veggies into the boiling soup; mushrooms, broccoli, lettuce, lotus roots, sea weed, etc. For seafood lovers there are; shrimp, crab, octopus, etc. And of course meat; pork and thinly sliced best quality beef. And of course there must have been a million other things I forgot to mention! But it was all delicious. When it is cooked, which only takes a couple of minutes, you put it into the sauce that you already have in your bowl, containing plenty of green onion and garlic and some red sauce out of a jar earlier bought in the Asian market.

Cooks and friend

I love hot food especially if it does not only burn your mouth but when it brings out all the hidden flavors of the food you eat. This was the case last night, with one added caveat. When you drink water to sooth some of the still pleasant burning sensation in your mouth, the water tastes funny. It tastes sour, it tastes like something is wrong. We kept bringing in several freshly screened jars of water before we realized that the water was fine, it was our taste buds that played with us, I guess it was not an optical but a “tastical illusion”. And the girls were laughing at us: “You should have drunk beer!” we were told.

MEMORIES - SUMMERS OF 1975, 76 & 77

1975. THE THINGS WE DID - AND GOT AWAY WITH

I spent most of the year skipping classes at Karl Marx University. But instead of playing just hookey, I played bridge. I literally was absent from all lectures and only showed up for classes when it was totally unavoidable. Yet, I still passed all my exams, maybe not always at the first try, but nevertheless, I passed. In Hungary exams could be retaken, as long as it was done inside the six-week exam period. There were some limitations with which I will not bore anyone.

My reward was another carefree summer when I desperately wanted to find a place at the Lake Balaton for free. My partners, in bridge and in crime, were all up for this task. I hang out with Peter F. and his beautiful girlfriend Kati and some other bridge addicts for years. Kati had a girlfriend Böbe, who did not really belong to our circle of friends; however, her mother had a small summerhouse close to the lake. Kati and Peter F were invited to stay for much of the summer. That, however, left me in the city in a very morose state of mind. As it happened, Peter F’s cousin, Peter M from Sweden, was spending the summer in Hungary. Well, one cannot leave a foreign relative alone in the big city! So Peter M got permission to join Peter F and Kati to enjoy the sunshine in Siofok. What the hell, I could have as well been a foreign relative of somebody, or couldn’t I? So for the first time claiming my Jewishness, we decided that I was from Israel. We could have faked that I was from the US but we thought we were smarter than that. I spoke English fairly well, but obviously could not have then (or today) passed for a native speaker. What if somebody recognized I had an accent? Hence the idea of me becoming an Israeli. In hind sight, there was not one person who could even tell if I spoke English or Hebrew, let alone detect my accent! So Böbe’s mother, the kind hearted but simple person she was, agreed to take in another 6-foot plus visitor. And as if this was not enough for the small 12x12 room, Kati brought in two other girls, Jean from England and Monique from France. I honestly do not remember any more how we actually slept, who shared bed with whom.

Siofok, Lake Balaton 1970s

One thing is for sure, whenever Böbe’s mother was around, our communication was somewhat complicated. The two Peters both spoke Swedish and German, Peter M also spoke English, Kati; German and French, Monique and Jean; English and French. So for me, in order to communicate with Kati or Peter F (the two with whom I shared Hungarian as native tongue) I needed Peter M to translate. While this went on, Böbe’s mother was totally unsuspicious. I cannot even remember how many times the phrase „lost in translation” came to mind. And to make matters worse, we continued our game even when we went out. Jean hooked up with one of Peter F’s friends, and he also had no idea who I was. (If I remember correctly it was Peter F’s idea to continue this deception, but I was a willing participant). And I also benefited from it when I picked up a girl at a bar who fancied a rich German, but was more than happy to dump him for an English speaker with whom she could not even talk. Imagine, picking up girls without even having to say a word!

We spent time at the bar
of Hotel Marina

But I got really tired and embarrassed of pretending. I revealed my ability of speaking perfect Hungarian to Jean’s friend, who was taking it really well. It took me a while to realize; he still thought I was from Israel but spoke Hungarian as well. I confessed, but he did not really care. And the girl I picked up at the bar? Well, I never saw her after that night, never had the chance to say who I really was. The summer ended and we all went back to Budapest, and played more and more bridge!

1976 - Hungary and Ceaușescu’s Romania

Next summer Monique returned with her boyfriend Jean Jacques. Jean Jacques joined the French Army or the French Foreign Legion when he was 16 and fought in Algeria. He was small in stature but strong and fast and well trained in martial arts. I liked Jean Jacques, although I cannot say I knew him well, given the fact that I did not speak French nor did he speak anything else but French. By then Kati had a small apartment at the lake, so we needed no more lies. We all crammed in, the same gang minus, Jean and Peter M. Our new addition was Bird. Bird was his nick name, which he hated, but since his last name was the name of one of the rare bird species, we called him Bird. He was one of the smartest and most talented men I have ever met. A mathematician, an excellent bridge player, a brilliant mind. I don’t know what happened to him but at the time when I knew him he was able to do amazing things. We were going to go to Croatia to play bridge. Bird picked up some books and learnt Croatian in a couple of weeks. He was one of those, you did not want to argue with about anything, for he was too smart. Well, the pigs did not know that. They stopped us one late night when we were walking back to the apartment. They wanted to see our identification papers. It was not a pretty sight. Peter and I were worried about Jean Jacques doing something stupid, so we literally held his arms trying to calm him down while Bird was lecturing the officers.  We somehow got home without any major trouble.

Marosvásárhely

We decided to take a short trip to the mountains with one rule in place, no playing cards. We wanted to enjoy nature and not play bridge. The first day passed without an incident. On the second day, the symptoms of bridge withdrawal were clearly noticeable.  Alcohol did not help and at this time no hard drugs were available. I doubt that even that would have helped. We started to analyze boards we played long time ago while hiking. We cut our trip short and caught the train to Romania. In Marosvásárhely a bridge tournament was about to start.

In Ceaușescu’s Romania everything was in short supply. We took soaps, deodorants and contraceptives. Selling just a few of these items was enough to finance our trip. Marosvásárhely is a beautiful city in Transylvania, yet I did not see anything of the city, not because I was playing bridge all day, but because I fell ill. Could not eat or drink anything, I had sores in my mouth and throat. Lying in bed all day I was charged with the dubious task of selling all our „goods”. Contraceptive was the hottest item but I had a hard time giving instructions how to use it. I would have liked to tell the girls who bought them to keep the pills between their knees for 100% effectiveness, but I really had to tell them that they needed to swallow them instead of placing them in the other ”obvious” place.

I got out alive from Romania without ever even playing bridge. Next time I was looking at pictures of Transylvania was in 1989.

It all started in Transylvania

Actually 1989 was the first year when I got off from the US deportation list and was able to visit Hungary for the first time in almost ten years on an UN issued nationless passport. It was one of the warmest Decembers on record in Hungary. The East Germans just left their temporary refugee camps after Hungary opened the borders for them to leave for West Germany through Austria. The whole of Eastern Europe was boiling; the winds of democracy seemed to arrive in the region. Romania, the worst country of the region, was still ruled by Ceaușescu when I arrived in Budapest early December. Around Christmas, things have changed, and changed they did dramatically. Transylvania, where most of the ethnic Hungarians lived, was leading the charge in ending decades of Communist rules. People from Hungary arrived by the truckload with food and medicine. It was not the velvet revolution of Václav Havel, nor was it the peaceful way on which Hungary moved towards democracy. It was a bloody revolution, in which many lost their lives. Of course journalists from all over the world wanted to be the first ones to report live.

Inside the torture chambers of Ceaușescu’s 

And another

I spent more time in front of the television than celebrating Christmas. We had 24-hour live coverage of the events, we could almost watch Ceaușescu’s and his “beloved” wife Elena’s executions in real time. After New Year’s Eve, in the wee hours of the morning, I ran into an old classmate of mine. Gabor N, a journalist and radio reporter, who just got back from Transylvania. We had to have a couple of morning drinks to clear our head and he shared some of his stories with me and left me some pictures he took while in Romania. I have posted some here.

1977

I graduated from Karl Marx, and before applying my vast knowledge to further build Socialism in Hungary, Kati, Böbe and I were going to take a long trip in Western Europe. I had not seen Böbe’s mother for over two years. She still did not know about our little white lie and I was afraid of being found out. But fortunately she did not seem to recognize me, or she was smarter and nicer than I have ever given credit to her, and she knew everything all along. In any case we got on the train towards Vienna, where I ended up in the same bed with two girls. Böbe was a bit apprehensive, so she slept on the left, Kati in the middle and I on the right. All platonic in the beginning and it stayed like that all the way through Munich, Paris and Venice.

In Munich we were greeted by a huge poster from which Hitler was screaming at us. For a second I thought that I was time travelling back to the past, but soon I realized that the poster was advertising a movie about Hitler’s life. The Germans, unlike the Hungarians, were able to look into the eyes of their past demons, and build a real democracy out of a terribly unjust political system. In the famous beerhouses I only met a few Brünhildas but no brown shirts. Munich was (and still is) a wonderful city with its happy and kind inhabitants and great museums.

Arriving to Paris at 5 am was magical. The streets were all empty and Jean Jacques, now a tour bus driver, took us around the city that was just about to wake up. No traffic jams just the beautiful sights! We stayed with Monique and Jean Jacques, whose other profession was being a chef. A French Chef! One night we woke up to a strange noise. Periodically we seemed to hear somebody hammering something far away, but only using the hammer every 20-30 seconds, or it was a real slow woodpecker. The mystery was uncovered next day at dinnertime. Jean Jacque bought live snails that he kept in a covered bucket overnight. These little creatures tried to escape, they climbed up to the rim of the bucket, only to fall back in the depth when they hit the cover. The meal was delicious, snails as appetizers followed by steak. Only it was no beef, but horse meat. Well, we stayed at Maisons-Laffitte, where horse races were kept and paddocks were plentiful.

We abused Jean Jacques’ and Monique’s hospitality for about three weeks, then took the night train to Marseille. It was the 1^st of August and all of Paris tried to get on the same train. I had a seat but I gave it up to try to sleep outside, in front of our cabin. After Marseille we took the night train to Venice. By then I was half dead of sleeplessness, insensitive to the beauty of the place. I fell asleep on the Lido and woke up as a new man. I loved Venice, and I still love it.

Then, with bleeding heart I parted from the two girls and took the train to Greece through Yugoslavia. I shared a cabin with two Scottish girls, and was not really sure what language they spoke. Fortunately, there was an Aussie in our cabin, who repeated everything they said in English. When you understand someone better from Australia than someone from Great Britain, you know something is wrong with you.

In Greece I was supposed to be have been met at the railway station by a girl I met a couple of years earlier in England. I sent a telegraph to her from Venice. No small task to wait patiently for your turn in an Italian post office, but I thought I was successful.  Turned out I was, at least technically. The telegram was only delivered 5 days after I arrived to Athens. So I figured I would call her, but I could not really spell her name in Greek!!! and did not have her phone number. The cabs were cheap so I got to her house but nobody answered the door. Finally a woman came, she looked like her but 20 years older.  She was indeed her mother, but spoke nothing but Greek, so naturally everything she said was real Greek to me. I did stay with her, eventually my friend showed up as well. Greece was wonderful, I travelled around, slept in parks, in other people’s tents, I shared hotel rooms with three others I have never seen before and survived the biggest storm in Delphi.

I ran out of money, my friend’s mother ran out of patience, so she put me up in  hotel but only for one night. I had to change my ticket to catch a flight back to Hungary where I knew I would score some food at my parents place. I walked to the office of MALEV, the Hungarian Airline. I showed my ticket to the girls who were minding the store. As soon as they looked at my ticket they started screaming. I thought I must have handed them the wrong document, but before I could even utter one more word, one of them got up and ran into the manager’s office. He came out, smiled and shook my hand and introduced himself. Only I did not know he was saying his name, I thought he was asking my name. But no, the excitement erupted because he and I shared the exact same first and last name!

I got back to Hungary at the end of August to start my illustrious career in foreign trade in September 1977.