Chapter 31
Gone-by things flavoured with politics
At last the fine weather arrived at the middle of April, there were no below freezing dawns, even the indoor plants felt well outside.
In the good weather I wanted to go on hoeing vines, but my grandson who took the habit of coming home from school after lunch for a time wanted to help me. He soon discovered that it was not a simple job, for this reason he decided to take me with him for a hike to collect insects. He stated on bicycle and I on foot, but, as he had to wait for me always, I pushed the cycle and he chased lizards. It was a hard task as for the warm weather they were quite mercurial. A special kind must have been set to large as we saw several specimens of a beautiful green species that we had never found before. We had came home empty handed but very tired.
All over the country ever more people of those misled a year before realized what had happened, there were statements against the godfather. However it was only as throwing stones on a T-Rex, it cannot do him damage only makes him angry. A revolution will be needed or at least a popular uprising. At that time the whipped up new constitution was passed by the plenary session of the central committee of the governing party (alias parliament), of the four party in legislation only they were voting for it, even so it was passed by two thirds. It contained a lot of hare-brained ideas, I don’t think it will survive a government change.
On the second day of Easter even nature met a sprinkling day, it rained. It was almost late, the last rainy day was already a month past. But the previous day it was still fine, we with my grandson took advantage of it.
I had promised him to take him to Danube bank on the northern limit of Csepel island. He had seen a kind of woods there from the Lagymanyosi (today already Rakoczi) bridge. However, when we started, at the bus stop he asked me to go to another place. He said the hill with a high structure on top, but not the Janos hill, over that to the north. After some guessing we got to the Harmashatar (it means treble border) hill and we decided to go there. Anyway, I asked him not to use this ad-hoc method with me more: about his small woods I had looked for everything in the Internet, at the same time about the hill I had no information, I didn’t know even, which bus goes there from where and when. Fortunately, I had a Budapest map with me, a little old as I bought it 13 years before. Geography doesn’t change quickly, luckily. As we studied the map he saw a round thing in it and asked what might be. It was the amphitheatre in Nagyszombat street. As he wanted to see it too we took both underground lines and the local train to go there. In such cases when we made a hike in the city we used only one ticket, then I bought a day ticket for him that is good all lines. We walked to the ruins of the round edifice. I hardly recognized the surroundings, although I daily commuted along for almost ten years when I was working in the shipyard. Two plazas had been built, instead of trams cars were racing about, no buses, only the local train nearby. The ruins themselves had a lesser effect on the boy, anyway I explained to him that a part of a film titled Teacher Hannibal had been shot there.
We succeeded to find the bus starting from Kolosy square and goes to the restaurant Fenyogyongye (it means pearl of pines), from there walking remained to the top. Not a small tour, although the TV relay station it the only sight there, there are few tourists, even grass is un-trampled, beside us only two young women were photographing each-other, as I overheard them they might have been hostesses hurrying back to their airplane. They enjoyed the walk very much, when he became tired sometimes, he sat down on a fallen tree and took a rest. I myself had been last there about 55 years before, at that time also a refreshment stand was there, but the relay station hadn’t existed yet, and you always bumped into tourists. My aunt had been living nearby and went there from her house.
Alas we did not make any pictures as the camera I forgot to take with me.
We celebrated Zoli’s tenth birthday. He got a few presents that made him happy. His father created him a special DVD about dinos, to design the cover it was my job.
Also, we heard news about the death of the biggest ever terrorist leader. I think it was long overdue.
Here with us in the politics new situations could be seen, one day policemen were beating policemen as because of some regulations of the godfather the order preserving bodies were staging a whole day long demonstration at the Kossuth square.
To use the current expression the police demonstration was ‘rude’, not only smoke bombs were burning, but a locally made flag with a David star too. Even the police of the present government caught the person responsible for it, they wanted to keep their image. The next morning talks began in full swing between the police trade union and interior minister Pinter Sandor (he can be named Mekk Elek, because as the figure in the cartoon, he has a lot of brain).
Otherwise the godfather had already began his punishing action against our enemies in World War II. The square in front of the Academy changed its name from that of the American president to that of the Greatest Hungarian. Probably he took it from Roosevelt as he had been sending bombers over Budapest during the war. All the others would get their retribution. Moscow square went back to his favourite premier Szell Kalman. I was wondering when he would punish the Italians for their desertion at the second half of the war.
About change of geographic names let me say something more. Although it falls within the authority of local government to name streets and squares in the city, but the mayor of the capital elected three years ago is a miniature pinscher of the godfather, he is blindly obedient. He doesn’t even think of doing something he hadn’t been instructed to do. The godfather is sick of a nostalgia for the period between the two world wars, he cannot see the wrong side of that era. He is unable to approach that time interval objectively, and the decades he had been brought up, either. He wants to forget that, independently of his will, history cannot be altered, at most there are shorter or longer periods of time to be hidden of misinterpreted.
Around that time I realized that there was no reason to be afraid of a coming dictatorship, because it was already here. A definite characteristic of that namely is that the dominant class or party isn’t inclined to govern pluralistically, since they are in the position of doing so, they have the power. At that time it was utterly thus here. Already a year before the plenary session of the central committee of the ruling party passed a funny law: on severance pays above 2 million forint an income tax of 98 per cent was to be paid, what is more, the law was effective retroactively back to 2005. The constitutional court decided in short time that it was not OK (in spite of that three of its seven empty places had become held by judges nominated by the party of the godfather and a fourth place by his own nominee). The reply was very quick too, no other that the ‘parliament’ was going to pass it with unaltered text once more and the power of the constitutional court would be reconsidered. Well, the newly passed law was not found unconstitutional again, at least not the whole one, only a sole feature that it was retroactive. The government’ reaction was the same again: the constitutional court is for the cheaters instead of the interests of the country.
Also in that year summer arrived at last, heating could be turned off, but I had a serious job before me: to dismount the boiler and repair it.
At last the representative of the waterworks surveyed the scene I wrote about, I wanted to fill the hole after two months, but my grandson protested, because the large heap of sand was a fine playground for him. When he was returning from school his first steps led to it. However, to keep sand and fill the hole without it cannot be done. I would have to wait until he would become tired of it.
Politics in the country was in seething as before. Several people began to see prospects as I did, but not everybody accepted as peacefully as I did that it would be the grandfather who the oracle would be during the next twenty years, there many who wanted to break out of that situation. It was almost evident that the socialists would split, because the young titan who took the helm in the party after the election defeat behaved rather as a rabbit, it didn’t serve all others. Some wanted change and it looked if he wasn’t to align with them they would form a new party called democratic party at first. The former premier, the last-but-one before the election in 2010, was one of the leading figures in that movement. I waited inquisitively what was to happen.
I succeeded to take my grandson with me for a program postponed a few times already. It was the monument park at the outskirts of the city, the boy liked it very much, he enjoyed the sight of the big statues. My reaction was completely the opposite: I had a desire for crying. This park is one of the stains of shame that had been the product of the period after the change of power in 1990, objects of memories from the history of the country were thrown to the trash heap. Streets today are either empty or monsters of self-selected sculptors are standing there. Who likes for example the horrible monster-bird that can create disgust in passers-by on Nagyvarad square not far from the university of medical sciences. Artworks like that are more than enough. Who are these artists? Although names like Kisfaludy-Strobl and Patzay ring much better, their statues are deposited in the suburban park named "Memento”, as they were waste. Also Kiss Istvan is not to be overlooked, his republic of councils memorial – that had been standing in the municipal park and that has been inspired by 1919 poster – would earn credit all over the world. Those who discarded these statues have no idea about the nature of history: while they make people forget some details someone in the future is going to excavate them. It is impossible to paint history as such all the time what they want people to see it. Like the mass graves in Katyn. Those people consider the Hungarian republic of councils only a shame. And why don’t the French ashamed of their Commune? They also make great mistakes, but in this case they are right. History should be accepted as it is, explain, of course, but not denied. The republic of councils wouldn’t have its turn at all, if those Hungarians who had their leverage on politics wouldn’t strive to burst the monarchy apart before and during World War I. If Karolyi hadn’t been so eager to take his place at the head of the new republic, Trianon could have had just another shape, not this horror as it happened, because the monarchy as whole could have been in a position. But that way as our country tore itself apart from it as the left arm from the human body, it was easily followed by the right arm that was the territory of the Czech, as well as the left arm’s hand, fingers, etc. that was Transylvania, Slovakia and the south of Hungary. Better to stop now and to give a report about what we saw with my grandson.
The excursion took place at last in a Sunday morning. We took a bus in front of the plaza called Allee that had been built on site of the former Skala store. Its other terminal was at the entrance of the statue park. It meant a nostalgia for me alone that the bus crossed the district of Kelenfold and Kelenvolgy, the latter is it where that building plot owned by my mother had been located I had so much trouble with. After that the bus climbed the hill at Budafok where the old Balaton road leaves town then crosses Diosd and Erd. With my friend Zoltan I used it frequently for cycling when we still had been students.
But our route was shorter now. In the statue park we could also see foreigners, sure, it meant something completely else for them. As that time I didn’t forget to take my camera I shot some pictures of the child. When the boy had seen all he wanted we started to descend towards the river Danube, it was not needed to walk all the way, however, because we found a bus stop and the bus came soon. During waiting we sampled the early cherry from a branch of the tree inside the neighbouring garden.
I intended to walk along the riverside as I knew he likes it, but he discovered the other side, viz. the Csepel island, and he wanted to go there since the last time we went to the Harmashatar hill instead of it. Thus our excursion was extended, alas, the situation is not better at all in Csepel than at other parts of the city: every centimetre on the bank is occupied by a certain institution, everywhere you find closed gates in the fences with ‘no trespassing’ signs. For this reason I decided that I would find a much better place on the other side of the Soroksári Danube, in Pest, that is not far from our home at all, and I would take him there for a good pastime.
Life is always inclined to cause you little inconveniences. It all started with the weather. At the beginning of June the usual humid warm air settled in the country called by meteorologists descending air-flow. In plain language it means that there are no fronts, however every day there is rain, smaller or heavier (for example one in county Szabolcs it was exactly heavier, because several houses lost their roofs again), here with us there was also a relatively torrential shower. My PC is an ordinary one, it works when there is power and, as there was a total blackout for some minutes, it went off. It happened in my absence in the afternoon when I was out, since I couldn’t let my wife in the abovementioned shower to go to school for my grandson as she can’t drive, this way it was me who drove there the car. The car had to cross pools higher than its bottom plate, because the ancient Egyptians have long died, people forgot how water flows, and sewage holes are not located at the lowest points. Returning at last with the child my son reported there were blackouts twice. Already I didn’t bother with starting my PC, however, the next day it wouldn’t start. My son was detecting the fault, at last he found it in the new memory installed two months before to make it faster. All was well when we replaced it with the old one.
The humid weather also had a good side. Vegetation in the garden was growing, the vines promised so much grapes that it could have been enough even for the blackbirds, if magpies hadn’t devoured them as flappers. You could see almost no blackbirds, also their warble you seldom heard. At the same time, the rattle of magpies was heard anywhere. That year I tried to be precise at the spraying practice, I didn’t want to pick empty baby rattle-boxes at vintage time because of the plant-hoppers as a year before. I took advantage of the opportunity that for two days I couldn’t use my PC, I collected all my energy and performed green pruning that is needed before spraying.
In that year Croatia was already very much preparing for the decision that would give him official entry into the waiting room for EU membership. I had heard in the news from the radio that the Croat shipyards were put offered for sale. I had the impression at once that it was a general tendency for every small country striving to reach the European standard to give up shipbuilding. Our former shipyards would be well functioning plants today, hadn’t been Angyal Adam the shipyard-killer the general director of the united shipyards and district party secretary of Obuda in one then at the end of the ‘80s. With that great leverage in his hand he was able to undermine every attempt for privatization and so shipyards went under. I could only hope that the predecessor of the angyalfold shipyard, that in Fiume (Rijeka now), would not have the same fate.
It is funny how you make elephant from flea sometimes in your imagination. At the end I didn’t have the courage to start repairing the boiler of heating system, however, when I called a mechanic he said the trouble was a minor one, only a small O-ring went wrong because of scaling, water from was seeping there.
In June the hot weather arrived, in that year it was so all over the world. In spite of that I was doing my work on the house at slow pace, I had already designed Venetian blinds for the windows on the south side, but at that time I decided to alter the design for a simpler solution, it was a closed shutter easy to fabricate. I started work on it and a pair for one window was finished, as well as the frame for the other. I wanted to make such an equipment at all, because first I wanted to protect the interior from rays of the sun. Drapes within the window make shade, but heat can come in as the sun shines on them and they give off these calories within the room. Second, here with us rain is falling horizontally from the wind sometimes, then water comes through the window in spite of its nominal water resistance. I thought shutters are to prevent it from doing so. Alas, at the end I wouldn’t mount them as my was afraid they would fall and kill someone.
There was a lucky day when I succeeded to have my grandson discover a certain area in the neighbourhood I had always wanted to call his attention to. It is very near to our home, a little streamlet is meandering around supplying the wetlands around Ocsa. The boy with his mother had been frequenting that streamlet for years, but they were visiting only the nearest stretch of it. That time I took him a little farther and hoped that he would persuade his mother to go on discovering it. That area had been a wetland itself in the past, it had been named Salty Swamp, however, today it is neither salty nor swamp, only its living environment remained to a certain extent.
As the end of June arrived the heat became excessive. I placed hot weather into the same box as mosquitoes and toothache: all the three are obstacles in the way of having a good rest. This the reason that I like such places as Addis Ababa, where all year there is a temperate September weather.
The first such school-year when they were getting marks my grandson finished with an excellent school record. However, every good result has a small stain on it, and the flaw in his case was behaviour. It had not been scored, only characterized in some words, actually they wrote it was ‘varying’ that means average in plain language (mark 3). It’s good that it doesn’t matter in his record. He was also handed a certificate of honour, in which his behaviour was marked exemplary, i.e. excellent (mark 5). As if I were seeing myself at that age.
That time I felt a living creature very much, mainly because of the physical practice of manual work. Well, in that sense as the doctor said to the elderly lady, namely when she was complaining that her body was causing pain everywhere. He said pain was not her enemy, it was a signal from being live. He who is awakening a morning with the feeling that he doesn’t have pain anywhere in his body, had better to stay in bed, since he is dead already.
The circumstances meant that we were existing, however, there were troubles. Which is quite normal usually. Also politics went on as before. The road to dictatorship was cleaned out ever more, it was to be influenced by nothing or no-one. What the state party wanted could accomplish, in one or maximum two days – instead of so many months as it were acceptable in a democratic system – all bills (that came from them, of course) passed parliament – excuse me for this false expression, that is not existing since the latest elections, only the plenary session of the central committee of the state party. Time arrived also for other people beside me to wake up, sometimes I heard my own words from the radio or TV. All the same, nothing was able to wipe off the sardonic smile from the face of those having their thumb on the wrist of politics. As well as for my father during the period before ’56, my greatest concern was that on one hand I began to lose my hope of ever living in a normal society within my life and, on the other hand the rate was only a few per thousand of the public actors in the governing party with a smart face, others looked like criminals waiting for punishment with at least ten years at the first instant. Any nonsense could occur from their part and it was put into use at once. Comrade crocodile (I name so Pokorni Zoltan, who was shedding crocodile tears in 2006 after it became public that his father has been an undercover man during the pestilent years; he retired then, but, when his party began to dictate, he didn’t stay in the background, at present he is active in the education, his original profession) suggested that the summer school break should get shorter and the break in the spring and the autumn longer instead. He might be right as his circle of friends have their holidays for some million forint somewhere in the southern hemisphere usually in the winter season. And for the others who cares. Another pearl following the plunder of money from private pension funds was their decision to declare one hundred and ten thousand disability pensioners capable of working, so as their pension payments could be stopped. How would an American president say? "It is the number of jobless, stupid!” Since the number of jobless would grow by the same number at once, because there would be no surplus vacancies, especially for those people who are unable to work.
It was already July, the heat was terrible, although from a certain time the wind brought a little relief. After the change the evening temperature was only thirty degrees Celsius. Before that I read thirty eight from the thermometer, I thought the device went wrong, but through the radio I heard that it was thirty eight point four degrees in Budapest. I was remembering hot summer days in my childhood, only in the shade could you bear it. At that time my parents were taking me with them to the field, my father had a little farmland of about a thousand square metres, where he grew maize and squash as feed during winter for our usual sole pig and ducks. He had inherited it with his brothers and sisters from their parents. My aunts and uncles were hoeing on their own plots simultaneously. It was then that I learned how to drink properly from a bottle, not by the method, of course, today small girls use in doing so in public transport, but letting water flow out of the bottle taken completely into my mouth. Nowadays, however, I don’t like that method at all, I always have a plastic glass with me, thus, if anybody needs fluid because of nausea, I do not have to offer him or her water infected with my flora. That time during hoeing water was ladled from a well, where water level was at most three metres below ground level. It belonged to the Balaton wetlands that was a bog. That water could not be used for drinking today, there is too much chemicals in it.
Returning to the year I am writing about, mornings we were sitting with the boy under the walnut tree in the shade, then we took lunch still in the garden and stayed there until evening. Except when my grandson had desire to have a little game on my computer, in that case we were sweating in the upper apartment for a while, until I issued a ban and we went back into the garden.
One afternoon he asked me to take him to the pet shop some bus stops apart from our home and there he made me by him two pairs of crickets (nowadays they are bred as food for pet bird spiders, thirty years ago it was unimaginable to meet such madmen playing with such animals in their homes). From that time on the boy was occupied by his new pets.
Four years before my son began to build a new garage in place of the old wooden structure. At that time he finished his activity, but with the chimney the statement of the architect came true, namely, that those ‘sooty’ people are not ordinary ones, it is they that are the hardest of all partners to work with. In my opinion it is the chamber of architects that caused this trouble by letting that small private company, one of their partners, get into a monopolized position and play the authority. Actually there is a dictatorship in this field. Although my order for the on-the-spot survey was accepted, the two flippant persons performing the check didn’t even surveyed the chimney, because they found something wrong, precisely there was no sweeping grid (a scaffolding for chimney sweep to stand on – for such a flat roof that is made of wavy slate and its height is only 3.5 metre, accessible by an aluminium ladder and an upright man can see into the chimney), they issued a piece of paper named expertise stating that the chimney is unfit for use. For that I was billed on fifteen thousand forint. When I objected that in the ‘expertise’ it had not been listed what I had to do additionally they uttered that I had better to delegate a chimney builder who would do all in half a day. In plain language: it is not the chimney that was wrong, but the person who asked for the survey. No accident that monopolized positions make mafia-like connections. Well, I decided not to carry on this quixotic fight, I would pay as much as needed to the professional to add what was needed. But I told my son that there would be no building activity until I am to be told that rest in peace.