Chapter 34
Visits in the country
The moderate weather brought us a week of rest, then for two days a mini dog-days followed with over thirty degrees. However, during night a new cold front came. It had a very inconvenient sound, because it was dry ice (no CO2), i.e. strong gusts and a shower of hailstones, but no rain. It turned later to rain. Around that time those thunderstorms became fashionable, there occurred already twice that there was only wind and hail without rain.
When at last there was a little calm in the weather we chose a good program with my grandson, we went to a nearby fishing pond to try our luck. It is very pleasant place, it has been established in a hole, in the clay field of a former brick factory, the ground around it serves it well. It has been populated by carp and Prussian carp. Originally my grandson wanted to go after predators by trolling, however, where it is allowed a national permit is needed and he doesn’t have one. Being a private property in the commission of an anglers’ association this place only needs a daily ticket, five hundred forint for a child. Trolling is prohibited, only cork and ground-line is allowed. Actually we didn’t catch any fish, but for the child it was good, because he learned how to throw and tried the taste of this kind of recreation. He also saw a few large fish, but they didn’t come for the bait. When I was a teenager at the lake Balaton I used to be very successful. Later when my son was at that age he liked it too, but today he doesn’t do it. This is the reason why it is me who takes the boy to such places. About four years earlier we went to another pair of fishing ponds. It is located out of town and it was also allowed to go after predators, but that time he was more interested in frogs. At the shore of one of the two ponds there is a paradise for frogs, he had been busy there in his rubber boots.
The fine summer time made an excellent excursion season, in three with my daughter-in-law and grandson we went to the Danube-bend. Originally our target was the Pilis hills, exactly we wanted to see the Ram-gorge that is good walk of 10 km from Domos to and fro. But fate and the company MAV wanted it otherwise.
I looked up a good train from Nyugati station to Domos ferry stop. Alas, all happened in the wrong way, we were two minutes late. At the enquiry window the (de)information person said that the train would start in exactly one hour. A minor detail however was missing from this info: it would not stop where we wanted to get out. At the next stop, Zebegeny, the train from the opposite direction was just leaving the station as ours reached it five minutes late. The railway employee told us with a huge sympathy that the next such train that would stop where we wanted to get out would come three hours later. Thus we started to leave behind that four kilometres by foot.
The ferry we reached at one o’clock, but, as the ferry was due only in two hours, we continued to walk to Nagymaros that was another three kilometres farther. It a very good tour, in the meantime we stopped and took our lunch on the riverbank. Zoli amused himself with picking clams and relocating them twenty metres farther. When we reached Nagymaros we got to know that we had to go another two kilometres, because the ferry to Visegrad on the right bank starts from the other railway stop. Altogether we walked as much as if we had gone to the gorge. We crossed to Visegrad by ferry. Alas, we could not see the fortress on top of the hill, we were completely exhausted. Otherwise it is a deadly climb, the dirt road was slippery from the rain not long before, we gave up. It was already half past four and we didn’t want to remain until late evening.
We caught a coach to Ujpest and from there we took the METRO and our domestic bus home.
It was a really exhaustive program for all of us.
A few days later we went again in three for a walk, but that time only within the capital. I had long wanted to show Zoli how the Budapest Riviera looks like, that is the Roman shore. Now that was our goal. There were a lot of people, it became a crowded place, for this reason it wasn’t a great success for him. All the same, he discovered the riverbank that resembles the shore of lake Balaton at this section. Also the water level wasn’t too high, there was a wide beach left free. While it is forbidden for a time to swim in the Danube even there, it is not objected that someone wades in and collect clams and snails. We took our lunch in a restaurant there, Zoli ate a whole pizza except a small piece of it given to Klari for a taste. I ordered a portion of Hungarian chowder prepared of carp (I am convinced that it was made of cubed chowder and frozen fish slices). The place was rather good and moderately priced.
What followed was real experience for the child. In spite of the fact that he has a little fear of floating vehicles (perhaps his grandmother’ influence) he enjoyed the voyage downriver to the Boraros square. The municipal public transport company restarted its lines for small river boats. They run between the southernmost and northernmost point of the capital every hour every day, on week days the monthly ticket on buses is accepted. The small ships, called floating buses that were originally built for the lake Balaton in the Vac shipyard fifty years ago, still function well. I hope it remains so, I mean they will be maintained properly. This service has enormous popularity, the boat was full when we disembarked.
Fate dealt me out some minor punches, furthermore, in a single instant. As the monsoon-like weather I mentioned began there were some heavy thunderstorms. During one of them there was a lightning and almost at the same time its thunder when I felt the house tremble, I thought it hit us, but it wasn’t an ordinary lightning bolt, but the bursting of a fireball. The small boy from the neighbour stayed in our house and he saw the phenomenon through the window. It must have been a horrible energy as at least one hundred devices around us had their power supplies blown out. In our house those of my TV and video, another TV set in Zoli’s room, Klari’s DVD player, as well as our ADSL modem. And the router completely died. Of the latter it was already the third one, my son ordered a used one through the Internet as soon as he fixed the fault temporarily. The modem would be changed soon by the supplier free of charge as it belongs to them, but the router is ours. I decided not to make the faulty devices. The video was only necessary as the tuner in my TV set had not been working for a time. After the event I took back my reserve TV.
Since that time we have been like the man who was bitten by a snake: he is afraid even of a frog. Even if thunders come from ten kilometres we disconnect everything.
Only three weeks remained from the summer holiday when my grandson and daughter-in-law left for the Bakony hills. They were accommodated in Bakonybel within the Bakony nature reserve. That location has something else for my memory: my father began his training as a forester there when he had left his village, Fonyod, at his age 18 in 1918, because he didn’t want to become an agriculturer. According to my knowledge, he did it for two years, but, as he couldn’t get along with his boss, he found his stable place at the newly formed customs police of the country just turned independent a short time before. He stayed there for several decades.
They called home by phone, I also talked with them once, they enjoyed it very much, they walked a lot and got tired of course.
In August the four-yearly worldwide sporting event, the Olympics, ran its course, that time in London. The Hungarian Olympic athletes, both in the light of the terribly poor support they get and in absolute sense, did excellently. Their performance exceeded what was expected from them. There were two events where they won by a few tenths. I felt a strong desire to slap reporters when they said things such as "only” a silver medal. You could see on the athletes how sick they were at the lost opportunity to come in first, but it was sports. Even the last place is honoured, since: "It’s not victory that matters, but participation!”. I would have stroked the face of Janics Natasa if I had the opportunity, who was quite disappointed, because in two events she was so near to victory. I am quite convinced that they brought home fine results. Also it made me happy that the first overall place at the games was won by the American team, the Chinese had to go with the next place. In my opinion the previous Olympic games were a kind Mon-Olympics like that in Berlin in ‘36. At both places people living under dictatorships wanted to prove the falsehood, that they were better than anyone else.
At the middle of August the great heat returned, the temperature reached 34 degrees, even 40 was forecast. Summer let off its last steam.
August 20 passed too, thunderstorms that were usual every year since 2005 were missing that year. Streets were peaceful, even the general feeling was something like during the last years of Uncle Janos. A huge parade was organized on the Danube, people went to open air to celebrate the day. No wonder that it was possible, the opposition was far from the aggressive, destructive one that had been theirs during their mandate.
Rakosi’s measures have vanished in the sink almost all, but one thing has proven enduring. August 20, that had earlier been accepted widespread as St. Stephen’s day, was called during his governing the Feast of the Constitution (it is long not valid) and also the Feast of the New Bread. And this latter has been re-established by the godfather. Already a year before the Bread of the Nation was baked, but now it was done in an even larger quantity. Wherever the small bald man is resting, he has a reason to smile.
I myself consider this day mainly St. Stephen’s day, but the unlimited religious hocus-pocus, that is performed by the holy pots (the glaze has flaked from them already) coming into foreground once more, I keep as obscurantism. I think the great man of the Russian revolution had made a lot of mistakes, but he was right in that religion can only be sustainable through keeping the people simpletons.
While I respect everyone’s belief, that of Muslims too who created theirs actually of dogmas of Jewish and Christian religions, it is not my obligation to agree.
My grandson had only two weeks of his holiday time left, we decided with my daughter-in-law that we take Zoli to Aggtelek. Accommodation was rather cheap. All three of us paid 6.800 forint for one night. I admit it was room only, and shower and toilet was outside the room, but bed-sheets were clean and beds good. For such an excursion it can be accepted, I think. He who wants more will pay the same money for one person daily, and then he has TV set too. Instead we went walking in the evening.
Aggtelek is worth mentioning more about it. We did the trip by coach, it started from Stadion station and left town through highway M3. From that point I lost my bearings, one thig is certain: the bus wound its way among the hills of Borzsony, Cserhat and Matra, then turned up into Bukk and around Miskolc we reached Ozdra. From there we were taken over the Cserehat to Aggtelek.
Travelling time was almost four hours. The hostel where I booked our room had been built directly at the entrance of Baradla cave. I couldn’t call back the ‘80s when we took there my son with my wife whether it was there already. On the terrace of the hostel another company is running a restaurant where we could take our meals.
The boy was enjoying the one-hour tour within the cave very much. He was even apt to do with us the two-hour one, only that is not organized very well. To reach the starting point of the two-hour tour, we should have had to go to Josvafo that is a walk of about 5 km on the highway, because there are daily only two buses, those coming from the capital. The tour again means about 6 to 7 km walk underground, let alone going back to Aggtelek on foot or waiting for the rare bus. Altogether we should have had to walk at least twenty kilometres, furthermore to a given time, thus we didn’t undertake that forced march and left the second walk in the cave out. Instead we climbed the steep path to the top of the rock face over the cave entrance. There is an excellent view from there over the whole landscape.
As I have mentioned the cave is worth the visit, outside it was hot, but it was compensated by the ten degrees inside. It goes without saying, we took on all our cloths. My main focus was the scenery (and of course to make it sure that Zoli would not be lost, not a small thing as it was pitch dark most of the time). Photography was not too simple either. It was done mainly by my daughter-in-law with her mobile phone. Our Kodak digital camera could have been fine, weren’t it always returning to default automatically with its flashlight. My eyes are not good enough in darkness to correct it every time. I also have the excellent Olympus camera I mentioned before, but I could shoot only a few pictures, because its built-in flashlight is not for cave photography. When the object was not near enough, it sensed that the flashlight would not do, and it would not shoot. My older cameras would have worked and all pictures would have been bad. However, some of the rock formations I could capture, if I could approach them. Outside this device was capable of everything, I had such a fine thing never before. Even Zoli shot some pictures with it. He has a good sense for it, his father teaches him with the small digital Kodak camera too, the main functions are the same.
As there were the limits I mentioned before we decided to start home earlier, but we still had time to see the small lake named after Aggtelek. It is not more than a mud-hole actually, thus I taught the old grotesque versicle to Zoli about the wet bank of the dry lake.
On the return leg our coach wasn’t a direct one, we had to change at Ozd. As the bus drew on to the capital by the highway, we crossed the front that brought the end of the hot weather. It drifted through the country that day. At home we learned that there was strong roof-tearing wind half an hour long. But, as it was already usual, there came no rain. The storm brought us the normal weather, temperature went down to almost twenty, it looked like no hot weather would be in that year more.
September arrived and brought the new school-year for my grandson, it was a smaller financial crisis for my daughter-in-law to buy all needed for it. It was good to hear the boy say that he appreciates senior classes more that the previous ones. It was my true intention to help him in all, the question was, however, how much he would demand it. He was more independent every day and I didn’t doubt that his mentality was going to draw off mine ever more.
I made a decision too to start a new era. Three years earlier the Ministry of Justice sent me an obligation to take part in a retraining course in legal affairs. Otherwise they were to take away my expert of justice card and take my name out of the list of experts. I had two years deadline until starting the training. Already at that time I decided that in case they insisted I myself would give back the card and stop expertise. Well, they were more patient by one year, but at the time I am writing about the assignee in the ministry called on me and said that time was up, either I went to the training or finished. I replied them in a mail that it was finished. Also to the chamber of experts of justice I sent a mail about it. They required for my secession a printed letter, I postponed it all to the end of the year. I gave all reasons for my decision to the responsible person: partly it was not worth paying for the membership in the chamber as well as costs of the training from my pension, partly I thought it unnecessary to sit in the school-bench at my age of seventy one and with a practice of expertise of thirty six years. Let alone advocates consider experts enemies during processes, to be rammed into clay. Finally time has come for me to free myself from this burden.
My first thought was that in place of this activity I try something in my profession, I intended to find a builder of small ships that needs my theoretical knowledge. Also in the Association for the Transport Sciences (KTE) I wanted to be present more often, until that time always there was some obstacles. Alas, these remained intentions so far. KTE was organizing a one day long study tour with bus to the town of Melk in Austria late in September. A new lock had been built there and also there is museum for shipping nearby. The offered fee was reasonable, I even wanted to take my grandson with me provided that my daughter-in-law would succeed in acquiring his ID card. That can be used as a passport within the EU, I need a passport as my ID card is an ancient one unfit for that purpose. At the end he didn’t come with me, perhaps next time.
On the day of the excursion I didn’t bother with starting my PC, I had to leave house at half past four and returned only at eleven in the evening. The tour came out better that I expected. I met heaps of old acquaintances not seen from my young days. On route I could observe with my own eyes what a great difference the Alps make between the weather of the two next-door countries. At start it was a pleasant mild fall weather, but, as soon as we crossed the border to Austria, there came dark clouds from behind the mountain, which later pour rain on us all the time we spent there, until we came back to the border station (deserted, of course, between two Schengen states). The rain stopped only there. Overall organization of tour was quite good, we were looked after by a nice professional at the Melk lock, he guided us till our leaving. We had a look at all details of the dam (the equipment had been utilised there that had become redundant in Nagymaros after the demonstrations where green(horn)s upset the hydroelectric station there), the power station and the bypass facility regulating the flow depending on seasonal water level, as well as the two locks. I remembered with nostalgia the beginning of ‘60s, the time I was sailing at that session of the river. Then there were only two dams on it, one of them finished near Ybbs where you could see Habsburg Otto’ castle, the other was under construction at Aschach. About the present one at Melk there wasn’t an idea then. At present there are nine hydroelectric power stations working on the Danube in Austria. I had my fine camera with me and tried to make as many pictures as possible. My memory is lasting only for myself, but they remain here longer.
We were late on the homebound route by about one and a half hour, it was a huge task to keep order among the forty people in the group, always there was someone keeping us waiting.
Public opinion was stirred by a diplomatic bungle. It was a rather complex case. Some years before an Armenian student studying in Hungary had been murdered (slain with an axe) in the college by another foreign student, who had come from Azerbaijan, a soldier with special training. The murderer was condemned before a Hungarian court and went into prison. However, someone had it in his or her interest to extradite the criminal to his own homeland (highly probable that the godfather and his clique was after certain economic benefits), and for this reason the cabinet went into talks with the Azerbaijani partners concerning the extradition, to settle that the perpetrator serve his time at home. Well, those people are Turks (sure they are, since even their language is a dialect of the Turkish language, there is no bigger difference, than between British and American English), and they took advantage of the transfer to spit the West in the eyes, because it is backing up the Armenians. At any rate, the Hungarian delegates should have known better and foresee consequences, the lob was offered the Azerbaijanis, and they made a fool both of us and the country of the victim. The criminal was freed and celebrated as a hero. This case can show best, how incompetent the responsible (?) officials of this government are. After all this was highlighted in the press I missed one thing only, namely that the Hungarian Foreign Ministry (if it was still named so, because the mates of the godfather was renaming everything from Moscow square to Ferenc ring METRO station) were placing the following statement on its website: "The Hungarian Foreign Ministry is claiming the exclusive right to place the hereunder cited inscription on the façade of its building, that was drawn up for Lenin’s mausoleum in 1953 on the occasion of Stalin’s laying in it and it sounds as ‘Uncle Scandal’s Cabin’.”
Of course there occurred similar clumsy deeds in world history already, for instance what happened to the Lockerbie terrorist.
Summer had wound down. At the end of September there was a short time rather cold as in November, rain and around ten degrees at noon. It was followed by milder weather, but it was only Indian summer.
I had only a few pears and some bunches of dessert grapes waiting for harvest. Wasps became so bold that I had had to pick all Pinot Noir grapes already, the last of it was kept in the fridge.
During the previous weekend I did squeezing that produced only ten litres of juice. My son drank one litre and the remaining worked. A week later the first racking was done. It had a fine flavour, I hoped fermentation would not continue and it would not turned into vinegar.
The new law regulating proceedings at elections excited people very much. In its sense nobody would be entitled automatically to vote – that had been a subjective right of every citizen –, even if the constitution (also the new godfather-constitution too) guarantee it to him or her. By this law he who wouldn’t register as a voter two weeks before election day at latest would not be entitled to vote. Besides, all this was presented in public that would broaden democracy (comrade Kosa Lajos said it, the mayor of the city Debrecen). Maybe, it will be broader, only its height would diminish like that of a pancake. The godfather had successfully ensured himself a probable support rate of 90 per cent at the next election I forecast about one and a half year earlier. I stopped to liken him to Satan, he reminded me a much worse figure: Ceausescu.
For the last weekend in September we with my niece, daughter-in-law and grandson planned another excursion to the ground of Eva in Borzsony. We had hope that the fine weather would last. The night before there was a heavy thunderstorm with a torrential shower, everywhere there were puddles on the road still. Its heart was precisely above us, lightning bolts were followed by thunders without delay. I disconnected everything to prevent another mass repair or replacement.
The tour was a success, weather was fine. Only Eva became a little disappointed, because it was too early for the chestnuts to drop fruits, she was to have another trip to collect it. Zoli was different from his self one year before, a true youngster, hard to control. Anyway we managed it at last, his manner was as mild as ever.
One Sunday in the middle of October there was a great popular banzai in the borough where we live. Not far from the place where our first own apartment had been located called KISZ (brief for Communist Youth League, today called St. Lorinc) living estate, there is a recreation park that was originally the ground for a summer camp for children on an abandoned empty property. Its present name is Bokay garden. It houses several civil institutions from the borough, buildings like schools and kindergartens were built where events like workshops of different subjects are held. For years on end there have been open air events organized there in the fall, and at the event I mentioned also the zither group of Zoli came into play.
We had to prepare for the winter. All the indoor plants were taken into the house, even the great agave that takes two strong person was carried up by my daughter-in-law and me. In the previous year I had been forced to bring it up myself alone. Fruits were in a vegetable box (singular is right as all produce of three apple trees and a small pear tree went into it). And the wine was waiting till I would drink it two years later.
My everyday troubles increased again, these came mainly from the shape of my wife or rather indirectly from that. People are very diverse and most of them can survive even under the most extreme circumstances. I have seen something in Yalta long ago when it was not fashionable to touch such topics within the ‘peace camp’. It was creature of a man who lost both his legs under the hip, but to move around he didn’t use the conventional wheelchair, instead it was a piece of thick board with four ball bearings. During my childhood there were boys in the village whose children’s room was run through by road traffic, they gageteered similar structures. Being a boy whose elder brother had died in an accident, I wasn’t allowed to go alone even to the lake Balaton.
The horrible thing I mentioned I saw in 1974. It was serious lesson for me again, how you could trust the news in the official press. Well, that man survived even so. He needed common sense to size up his chances and act accordingly, expressed differently it was intelligence.
Now let’s see why I mentioned it. From her twenties my wife suffers from gall complaints, thus she has always had to be careful what she eats, drinks and chiefly how much. As she aged and has gone through a number of operations, her diet has become so critical that she is often unwell and in those times she is living on ladyfingers. It also concerns me, because all the meals that she had prepared before such a period, and that would even feed a whole regiment, I have to consume alone. It is unimportant, however, what matters is that she is unable to adjust to her health condition.
In those late October days her problem might have been more serious, because she suffered from jaundice. Although it was established that her sickness wasn’t infectious, she had to stick to a diet for a person with hepatitis. She went to different medical examinations more than once a week for a long time as the Hungarian health service is as slow as the mills of the gods. At last it became clear that her gall pipe was stopped (maybe there was a piece of semi-precious stone in it) and, for this reason, if she eats something heavier that demands gall from her bladder, it cannot flow to the appropriate point, but only into the blood-stream. I felt that it was something serious, because she asked me to accompany her at the examinations, that not occurred for years.
The sickness was leaving my wife slowly, she felt well, honestly, for a time she was careful with her meals. Se launched a horrendous study of her medical records, she made me continuously look up the meaning of unintelligible expressions in lax medical Latin on the Internet. Its reason was that she didn’t understand what had become of her gall stone that had been found by the ultrasonic record in the previous year, but was not mentioned by the present record. My opinion was that it had got through the tube and, either through vomiting or by the natural way, it left. I also tried to suggest this to her, but it is generally not accepted what I say, however, what a medicine-man says is of the Holy Scripture.
It is quite interesting how chauvinistic the medical trade is, no outsider can make his or her opinion accepted. I myself can recall more than one such occasions from my own life. All the same, I hoped that she would not repeat that bad time and we would weather Christmas calmly.
But as soon as she didn’t feel herself seriously sick, and also her diet brought back her strength, she made a tour of her doctors and at last she was hospitalized in order to take out her gall stones. Also my father-in-law went under such treatments at the same age, however, in his case the principal means was lancet and not endoscopy as with my wife. The other day some smaller stones were taken out, but the bigger ones left there. The next day she was released with the prospects that the remaining stones would be taken out two months later, after prescribed medicine would make them slimmer.
In the last November issue of Newsweek the leading article informed readers that they could only read the printed issue up to the end of December that year, because it will turn all-digital from January 1, 2013. After that date only the digital issue will be available and I can be read on the desktop of a PC or on special devices such as an a-book reader (that was not clear at that time what about those as me who had subscribed to the printed one up to end of 2013, but in later issues it would be explained).
I have mentioned already that for the sake of my grandson it was my intention to buy an e-book reader, this circumstance made my decision firmer. Alternately I would have to sit stooped in front of my monitor and read on it. A most unacceptable variety would have been to print those pages I would be interested in. I had no idea at that time that there would be no such format of digital Newswwek that one can download and transfer to the reader, but it only became clear in the new year.
Nature was descending not only on us here, but on New York too, even more than on us. My Hungarian-American friend could not write a line to me for three weeks for the storm that hit the great city. She recounted her hardships in a words in her mail when she could do it again. "The hurricane concerned me only so much that I haven’t had power in my flat for five day and, consequently heating either. I went out to the surrounding banks to charge up my mobile phone to be able to communicate. Westward from me in one block, on Madison Avenue they had power, everything was open, but east of me no power. In the house I was alone, it was pitch-dark in the night, I always strived to get home in time, but mainly I was out as there was almost nothing to do in the dark and cold apartment. Nights I was reading by torchlight. Otherwise it didn’t concern me, but it was impossible to work, it was terrible. Here there was no great wind, it rained. Thus the place where I live looks like as nothing happened at all.”
Well, it was a great happiness to get her mail finally. Even the worst things occurred to my mind, life can be raw sometimes.
At the beginning of December I bought myself the e-book reader, first I searched through its contents and tried to learn its features. As default there was about two hundred and fifty e-books in it, Zoli’s required reading all, together with my favourite Hungarian classics. I planned to load on to it the issues of Newsweek and those e-books I would be able to download.
Being around Santa Claus day means me that winter has arrived. In that year its arrival was real, in the hills the snow-generators started, thus he who wanted to break his leg could do it. In the capital it was minus three in the morning, the boiler of the heating was on more than thus far. I saw on the account balance, and it was fortunate, that during summer a certain sum had been built up because of the smaller bills. I hoped it will be enough till spring without my getting a surprise bill, i.e. a letter with an attac