Chapter 30
A new decade again
There is a never-ending rivalry between two opposite opinions about the date of beginning and ending of a decade or a century. One of the two sides focus on the written form of the year and when it starts with new figure those people say it is the beginning of the new period. The other side thinks a new decade always begins with a year ending in one. My notion is that there was no year Nr. 0, i.e. the first year after the birth of Christ was that followed the event directly and it was Nr. 1 A.D. So, the first decade of our present time-scale ended at the end of year 10 A.D. and the second one began with 11 A.D. Carrying this on, we can find that the third millennium started in 2001. And, at last, our present decade began in 2011.
I dropped the line of my recollections at the end of 2010. I let time pass and didn’t write down a word about the events until now. This time I decided to go on my story in case there would be someone in the next generations interested in it.
The new year began with no trouble for us, and it was really fortunate. After you are over a certain age it is good luck in itself not to have any problem. As the doctor said to the elderly man who went to him complaining about painful parts in his body: “After forty, if you wake up with no pain you may stay as you are, do not try to get up, because you are dead.” We still had a liking to prepare fine food (none of us had indigestion) and sweets (especially my daughter-in-law who is talented in it), we didn’t stay in bed, because we were without cold or flu. I also felt lucky as we were still living as before and together at one place.
However, small concerns I always have. One of them is that, as nothing is forever, a door to one of our wardrobes went wrong. My wife didn’t tell me that is was not working fine, only told me to take home new wrought iron hinge when it fell off at last. That wrought iron actually was a bum pressed aluminium item of the Transylvanian bedroom furniture. All have been changed already, but they don’t last long. Another nuisance was that – just as always when a service pack expires – my phone supplier partner sent me a bill with raised prices and it lasted a considerable time until I could arrange it on the customer free line (advertised as ‘you don’t have to bother much, only call us and it will be done in no time’), as the automatic female voice asked for a lot of identification numbers. I had to change for a better ADSL pack and to put the three services into one.
The third concern was already a greater trouble actually. My wife had always been checking her health (better to say its absence), and at last she succeed to find something. She had a surgical intervention for years before that eliminated all her female organs except the vagina. This time something was identified that had no right to be there. She visited three gynaecologists, but all of them desired to work her off that she didn’t notice. Although it could be determined that the thing is not malignant, but she wanted to get rid of it anyhow. This also generated me an occupation (beyond spiritual stress for the health of her), because those professionals had to be checked for their résumé through the Internet by me. It goes without saying that, because of my imperfection, everything I find is too little for her. All the same, I bore it as it must have been even worse for her.
Well, I think, so much is enough of my grumbling. Here comes a little of OV (our godfather). I have already mentioned some of his deeds as the new media law. That time he was arguing against Brussels, whether it was wrong or right. Certainly, these ‘snaglepusses’ (it is a reference to a cartoon lion resembling the pink panther) would reply always that he who found any fault with it didn’t know what he talked about. I don’t think the critics from Germany or France took it with pleasure.
With the new year the school season went on for my grandson. He made a good start. Although his schoolbooks had to be transported by a shopping trolley (I call this big bag with rollers a semi-trailer as elderly persons draw it behind them) the first day after the school break, it was worth keeping the home, because he was occupied with his studies during the holidays. He got three excellent marks that first day.
Alas, his stay in school was short as usual, he got some illness, that caused not only flu, but also problems in his digestive tract. For a few days he could not eat well. Fortunately he always recovered quickly, soon he came up to our apartment and was irritating his grandma with his manner. As soon as he got over it, although the doctor prescribed him antibiotics only when she saw him the third time, his grandmother took over the task from him. She might have took the virus from him (and she was always helping the bug by staying out in the freezing cold around the house for hours), because she began with a sore throat, she had fever too of course in the evening for some days. When at last she went to visit the family doctor he prescribed her a medicine it cured her. However, her cold lasted for some time and she coughed.
There happened something tragic in the capital around that time. It was a disco accident at a dance-hall for the young (it had a fit name: West-Balkan). A false report caused panic and it ended in a stampede, life was pressed out of three young girls. Literally, as they died from being pressed too much. Even downtrodden. The place had a permit for three hundred visitors, but there were ten times as many people within (like in the pilgrimage ships in Asia), also, it had had to close at ten, but it didn’t happen as the accident happened at eleven.
In our youth it couldn’t have happened for two reasons. First, there wasn’t any such place. And second, in case a boy or girl of that age was seen at a public place in the night, he or she would have been a student only until Monday morning. There were a great need for such a practice this time, too.
As far as I was concerned, no virus attacked me seriously. Maybe, my attempt to avoid cold by taking care of my clothing was right. Of course, it was no foolproof protection, but I have tried to live in a healthy way for some years. Meat was little in my diet, if any it was chicken. I could live on vegetables alone, with some potato and rice. Soy could make up for protein.
At the end of January winter returned, even I hade to sweep snow, but only two centimetres of that fell. Justly as it was Paul in the calendar that meant the middle of winter and the weather turned colder from mild. It wasn’t welcome by me at all. There were two main reasons (the third one was that more gas were consumed for heating). One of them was that I was preparing for the pruning in the orchard in order to be able to perform the so called washing spraying. I didn’t want to let bugs devastate my produce as it happened in the previous year (my pinot noir grapes were destroyed, even the wine became vinegary, I use it for descaling my percolator). I had to postpone it, if I wanted to stay healthy. The other thing was that trouble is like dog-shit: it collects where there is some already. Beside having to top up my heating system every second day because of its leaking, it became clear that our consumption of water was three time that of usual, and that could only mean a burst pipe. The main suspect was the winter tap for the irrigating pipe in the garden. In the previous year it could not have been closed, I even bought a new one. However, as laziness is a human property, I didn’t change it. Now it became urgent, as soon as spring would come, it was to be done. Anyway, I had a hard task before me: to the water supplier I was to apply for crediting me a certain percent. My bill was to be higher by about a hundred thousand forint in a half year.
The year 2011 brought great political storms in Africa just as 1989 did it in Europe. It is known as Arab Spring since. The spark for this was a young man who burned himself in Tunisia as a protest against dictatorship. It soon escalated and ended in the escape of their despot together with his family. Even before the events ended in Tunisia other Arab countries followed the example. Only the hard rulers as the Saudis could avoid the trouble completely. Since then there were such places where the uprising subsided, but even there peace was gone forever. The worst thing in those event was that after decades of relative calm and order in those Arabic countries there arrived an almost never-ending period of anarchy. In Egypt for instance the dictator had to resign – it was easier for him than for his family, especially for the former ‘queen’ – and election were held, but the common people would not accept the new government. Especially the difference between religious and secular groups is enormous. In other countries it led to the overturn of the old regime, but a civil war was needed for that. The most ugly of those tyrants was killed by a mop, when after several weeks in hiding he was found. The most unlikely (at that time, at least) for such problems was Syria, but that country went into a civil war still in raging. Although neither Turkey, nor Europe felt like intervening, slowly it developed into an international salvage problem. At the same time Iran is a very active kibitzer in the Syrian question. By the way, I wonder when will our godfather visit Iran. In Egypt the first people went to the street after his talks there, not one of his partners is there any more. Also in Iran something similar is long overdue.
Beside our being in good health (more or less) my wife didn’t stop searching herself all the time for something unusual (metastasized from her earlier surgeries, she had me surf the net for half Hungarian half Latin expressions used by semi-literary doctors, even she completed her luggage for hospital stay. However, although she never told me anything, the thing packed into the bag wandered back to the shelves, maybe, one doctor or another persuaded her not to have another surgery. As usual, when I say something about it that is silliness, but from a doctor it is like the Holy Bible. Alas, it was only my thinking. At last I proved wrong, she was hospitalized and survived it.
I created a website years ago where all my written works could be viewed (even downloaded), but periodically I experienced problems with it. It had a bad habit of going offline and showing only the contents, but it was not accessible to view it. I tried to create another one with the same content under the same mother site. It was the third time that fault occurred. Rarely finds it someone and asks me to help in shipbuilding or similar issues. They are mainly private persons working on their own boats or ships. Some never calls me again, but one of them, a student on a technical high school, even purchased my handbook on naval architecture on my site. He is very hard working, at the time his first mail he was preparing his thesis. I hope I can infect him with my love for ships.
As I gave my forecast a couple of years before, during the last months of the leftist government, the godfather started to consolidate his grip on the country utilizing the opportunity given by two-thirds-majority of his party in the legislation. What was to be seen everywhere one year after his victory that reminded me of the sad years following 1958. Then too, you could only get off skulking, otherwise the authorities didn’t let you alone. Here and at that time conceptual suits have been created against former officials. Even issues having been made confidential were set free and sent to law. I think it would go on until there comes a particular case unmasking both sides. That could be Pandora’s box and the beginning of the end for the godfather. Followed in a long line by libel cases against the unlucky person who was acting on the godfather’s behalf by creating those concepts.
The godfather stack to this ‘witch hunting’ far from the reason that he were the best boy, but he wanted to eliminate those voices that were not in accord with his own, just as the late dictator Rakosi had done, to intimidate them. E.g. limiting the authority of the Constitutional Court, the media law (criticized by all Europe), etc. It is a considerable courage to believe even in his questions, let alone his statements. For a lawyer he is excellent, he had proved it already in opposition. When his swindle is detected his usual reaction is to turn back the accusation on the victim (Rule Nr.1 for lawyers: it’s not truth that matters, but to make it seem true that isn’t). A very good example was the case of tapping. Assisted by the prosecution under his heel and the judge afraid of forced retirement (later he sent a large number of them in early retirement), he won against the former liberal party head Ibolya David. Never mind that was he (or someone of his clique that is the same) who assigned the work of tapping the offices of the Hungarian Democratic Forum on the firm, only when the company’s incompetence made everything leak, and the Great Dame demonstrated the CD at a press conference about the tapping, the godfather went into counter-attack and indicted her with breaking the law by disclosing things without authorization. And as I mentioned, he won.
All of the above is nothing, however, compared to the case I disclose here below.
It is the real gem in the black list of the godfather, almost the same as the lawsuit of MAORT was in that of Rakosi. I speak about the building of Hungarian trade councillor in Moscow. Most people know that it is a general practice in the world that trade councillors’ offices in foreign countries make departments of embassies there. That was different in Moscow where that office was independent of the embassy. The former office of the trade councillor had been in a small street called Kropotkinsky pereulok, it became the head office of the Hungarian automotive federation up to the end of the ‘90s when the association were dissolved and the building given back to the Russians. During my stay in Moscow as the office head of the Hungarian road transport company I used their repair shop for the servicing of my company car. The new building I am speaking about was finished in 1982. I saw it as a new one, because in February that year the staff was just settling in when I took part in a machine tool exhibition and conference. At my first entry into it I had to observe that it had been the stupid design of a silly person: its arrangement good for nothing and by large a monster. Well, it was sold by the Hungarian government in 2008 when the relation of the trade councillor and embassy became normal also in Moscow. The Hungarian government could consider themselves very lucky for getting some money in exchange unlike the seat of COMECON that was paid out by Vatican currency (let God pay for it). The gang of the godfather was stating that this fortune had been wasted, because it could have earned about four times the money they sold it for. They based their estimate on a supposed sum said to be sacked by the broker of that transaction from the Russian state. However, there were also Russian counterparts of Jack Softening-of-the-Brain (I name the poor individual so who creates such conceptual cases on the godfather’ behalf). They in Moscow were asking how could anyone pay such an enormous sum for that building. People of this kind don’t have the necessary specialization to deal with the topic, neither here nor there. Had they even finished the high school of economics they would know difference between value and price of bargain. The latter depends on a long line of factors including demand and supply.
The caddies of the godfather slapped up dozens of conceptual cases like that and, until they are staved off by a popular uprising like that in ’56, they will go on them.
That spring has already been the sixteenth since we with my wife moved up to our newly furnished flat under the roof. Wood is a raw material not for eternity and it was time to renew the steps of the stairs leading to the upper flat. However, I didn’t want to do it every fifth year and decided to make it of wattle. First I purchased eight steps of the 22 needed altogether and changed those in worst state. I hope it will be good for twenty years instead of five (in my childhood in the village people growing grapes used the same stake for fifty years: only every second generation was forced to do that investment).
At last spring came in that year too and, instead of work on my PC, I did some manual work for practice. Around March 15 we had four holidays in one and during the first two days I utilised for finding the cause of leaking in my water supply system. I started with the suspect winter main tap at the garden hose. My family had to go without fresh water for a day, because water was seeping out of the ground when I reached half a metre below ground level.
It was no digging, I could call this activity mud mining.
My daughter-in-law wanted to help me as she had rubber boots, but I closed the supply rather and in the morning it was already workable to finish digging. Even my grandson wanted to do it, but I was afraid of him, he began with a separate excavation. Soon there were three holes in the garden (he was looking for cockchafer-grubs). Quickly he changed his mind, however, and taking advantage of the two cubic metres of sand in the garden, he built very fine sandcastles with complicated tunnel systems.
At last I located the cause of the leaking. It was partly a fault, partly my mistake. About one and a half years earlier as in the autumn I tried to close the very old and extremely tight winter main tap it lost its limit pin and could be turned around. At that time nothing serious happened, but one year later I turned it probably in the wrong direction. Thus the small hole to let water out of the upper tube when closed became connected to the lower pipeline getting water from the main. It was letting out water all the time. There was no visible problem with anything when I reached the bottom and took out protecting bricks. Only when I opened the main supply tap to look for the leaking cause I saw a continuous jet coming from the small hole. I stopped leaking “professionally” by closing the hole with a wooden peg and secured it with tape.
I decided anyway to have the tap replaced, bought the replacement with a very good design (although I didn’t have anything wrong to say about the original one, even after thirty five years it was functional). A plumber recommended by the brother-in-law of my son did the work. His bill could refund me some of the lost money through the insurance, also the sewerage company refunded me later as the water was not flowing into the sewer pipe. Even the waterworks gave me later a considerable discount as goodwill. I decided then that I would change the whole water supply system of my house in some years, but then the digging would be done by younger members of the family.
Another important work I did during the four-day-long holiday was that I extracted the fang of the chimney-sweeper company (at least I thought so then): I sawed off the upper part of the crown from my old plum tree, so as not to be forced to raise the chimney by three metres. Thus the highest point of the tree came below that of the chimney, those people had to invent other excuses if they wanted to find faults. For the activity in the garden the weather was fine, the sun shone, eighteen degrees Celsius in the afternoon. It was also beneficial for the national holiday, there were no clashes, which goes without saying: the opposition that time was not aiming street fights. My decision was not to stop with manual work as it did good for my health.
My computer was making me troubles even with the relatively new five-year-old motherboard, mostly the C hard drive proved too small, it was always needed to uninstall something when I wanted to install a new application. Therefore I bought a hard drive with a larger volume, alas, it became necessary to replace as the motherboard wouldn’t recognize it, the seller took it back and gave me the right one, only it cost more, because instead of 80 GB it had 160 GB. I reckoned with a week without PC until my son would put it into order. Fortunately rather quickly, in only tree days, he managed to make it stand up. However, as the popular saying goes, also dogs leave their heaps where they already find something simila, my monitor took some offence. It made the NO SIGNAL sing after disconnection from the PC, but it went black. Then I did not suspect any problem, only when my son brought the PC back and connected it wouldn’t seem alive. I had to use the small monitor my son bought in Moscow almost twenty years before. I call it radiator as it is always very hot.
Another acute job of mine was the biannual technical check of my car that time. The enormous work done by my son the previous summer proved worth, no repair costs occurred during the examination, I only had to pay the basic fee (no little some, either, as it had been raised to twenty five thousand forint). Anyway I earned two years’ peace by it.
Hardest load to my bank account although was the sum of three hundred and seventy thousand forint that had to paid for the insulation of the lower half of the back wall on my house. This job was done by paid workmen, although some work remained also for myself after that, the upper part of the wall I myself wanted to wainscot. Also the stairs to upper flat occupied me for a time, only the worst steps had been replaced. And, of course, there was the garden, the grapes were ready for pruning.
On the insulation work of the house the people soon finished their tasks, however, that they did a much worse job than earlier. The master doing it had some bad luck (that became my bad luck at last) in not getting the raw material at the usual discount, the sudden appearance of the boss in the shop prevented his friend of providing it. Thus the stuff cost ninety thousand forint more (maybe its quantity less as I am going to elaborate). Since it wasn’t my fault, although it was me who paid the bill, I had to cut their wage. As I said the material became short at last, there remained eight square metres undone. I thought It would be me some time in the future who would have to finish it.
For the upper level I still had to design the scaffold, that I did, and some time later when I would be ready for it to buy the planks for it and put it up. That would be needed to be able to begin with wainscoting, the same as it is on the opposite side of the house. Anyway, it was postponed for a later time depending mainly on when I will have funds for it. So far I didn’t.
In the meantime I began to do something that had been my dream since the start of my engineer’s career. In my early twenties I wanted to design and later build a sailing boat for the lake Balaton. Some years before the time I am writing about I got the book of Joshua Slocum about his circumnavigation of the world, actually the first of that kind with a small sailing boat. I scanned the drawings in this book and made a drawing of its lines, shear and stations. Based on that body plan I created a range of lines for vehicles from a small angler’s boat to a sailing ship of 9 m waterline (a sloop). Thus, when I have a little time of my own, I do my own trade in hobby mode. I was working on the fourth of lines drawings. At last it would be a range of Balaton sailing boats. They are touring sailboats of the kind not existing at present in our country.
Political life in the country was very much different from that conventional in a (by present standards) democratic state. In such countries in case a person is elected who is not acceptable for (approximately) half of the electorate, the following election makes change possible. I myself have no hope to see it, this guy will make his place so secure in concrete that he is to stay another nineteen years at least. At that time something was happening that I named probability three to four years before. That man is so hungry for power that he wouldn’t tolerate another defeat ever. At that time (one year after his election victory) he was enforcing unstoppably what Rakosi and his followers were doing at the end of the ‘40s. Nationalization procedures were on their way. The local government in the city of Pecs went over to the representative of his party at the intermediate mayoral election, that happened before the right-wing victory during the previous period. The town waterworks he confiscated in a minute, the real owners who paid for it years before were not allowed to enter the estate. They were promised arbitrary compensation for it, but when, it is a puzzle still. At he same time his team started a number of conceptual cases against them. Soon after the same would happen with the municipal transport company, during night special forces took the company’s office and it is a national property now. The godfather is doing the same in large scale.
I can understand now how my father felt having seen the free elections in forty six and forty seven, then the coup in forty eight.