The summer of 1973 went fast. I still remember it as one of the best summers of my life. I enjoyed the city of Trieste. With roommates, we often watched action movies in cheap movie theaters. I had the best ice creams of my life in those Italian parlors, and our visit to the Miramare Castle was another excitement.

When we needed extra money, we climbed over the fence at the back of the camp where some Italian contractors were looking for some help just about every day. This was my only violation of the rules. By law, refugees were not allowed to work in Italy. However, the law was not really enforced. No one ever got in trouble for earning a few extra Liras.

One day, a contractor was looking for a gardener and a plumber. He had finished building a new house but the garden was still a mess and the central heating was not installed. About ten of us gathered out there that day looking for work but none of us a gardener or a plumber.

I looked at my friend. He winked at me.

‘Oh, what the heck,’ I thought and I raised my hand.

“I’ll do the plumbing,” I said.

“I’ll do the gardening,” my friend said immediately.

The contractor drove off with us and dropped us off at the work site.

“You guys know what you have to do, right?” he said.

We both nodded and he took off.

“A piece of cake,” my friend said after looking around in the garden.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll be inside.”

Well, when I was about ten years old, a new school was built in our village, right across from our house. I spent a lot of time there during the summer watching the workers. I saw how they cut and bent the pipes, how they cut the treads, and how they installed them into the walls.

However, when I entered that Italian house and saw all those long pipes piled up, and all the tools thrown on top of the pipes, I almost changed my mind.

When I started measuring the walls and then the pipes, I felt very overwhelmed.

‘How much damage am I going to cause here?’ I was wondering when I cut the first pipe.

As I began to make progress, I felt more confident about being able to complete the job. Later, when my friend came in to see how I was doing, I said:

“It’s a piece of cake.”

About a week later, we both finished the work.

The contractor checked everything and then he shook his head in disbelief.

“By Italian standard, this was at least a three-week job. You guys did well.”

Of course, he paid us only for one week.

From time to time, a group of people were put on trains and transferred either to the Latina or to the Capua camp in the south. We heard that these people already ‘made it’; they just had to have their interview at the Consulate of the country they chose.

By mid fall, only a small number of new escapees arrived.

November started with the Bura, a very strong and very cold wind, blowing in from the Dinaric Alps. The wind often brought heavy rains. Being in the camp was no longer fun as even running over to the cafeteria in the rain was quite a challenge.

Finally, in the middle of November, I was called to the Caritas office and informed of my departure to Capua within a few days.

The day we left Trieste was nice. There was no wind and the sky was clear.

After the train pulled out of the station, I stood by the open window and watched the seaside beneath. I remember a teardrop rolled down on my face when the train passed Miramare. It was not only the natural beauty that made me emotional. A period of my life was coming to an end as I was getting much further away from my homeland for the very first time.

It was a long train ride down to the south of Naples where the tiny town of Capua, once a gathering place for the slaves of Spartacus, nestled between some hills. The camp there was totally different from the one in Trieste. Fortunately, I had to spend less than two months there.

When I had my interview at the US Consulate in Naples, I was told that my departure for the USA was set for the fifteenth of January.

America

A fairly large group of us flew to New York that day on a chartered Boeing 747. My ticket was paid for by my Sponsor, arranged by the Caritas.

The first flight of my life was a very exciting event for me. The flight itself was an unforgettable experience. Sitting by the window, I watched as the plane started getting away from the ground. I watched as we flew higher and higher. I watched the sea and then the snow covered mountains below.

I was flying to New York! My dream was coming true!

I went to the toilet after the stewardesses served us a snack. While looking at my glowing face in the mirror, I was also shaking my head.

“Is this real? Or am I only dreaming?” I said loudly to myself. “Am I, not so long ago a naïve little peasant boy, really flying over the Atlantic Ocean, heading to America, to the city of skyscrapers? Wow! How did all this come about? Where is the monster-faced guard of the Miskolc police prison now? And where are the cruel, primitive petty officers of the military labor camp? I don’t see any of them among the passengers.”

Someone, probably equally excited as I was, took my seat by the window so I settled next to the emergency exit and kept looking out the tiny round window there.

“Fantastic, isn’t it?” I heard a woman laughing behind me.

I turned around. She was actually talking to me.

“My name is Eva,” she introduced herself, extending her hand to me.

She held a glass with just a little red wine in it. She was slim and beautiful, very well dressed, very attractive. I estimated her to be in her mid thirties.

“My very first flight,” she said after we shook hands and I said my name. Her face was glowing probably more than mine was. “I still can’t believe I am flying to New York. What a sensation this is for me.”

“Same here,” I replied.

“Are you enjoying the flight?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, very much,” I said and turned back to the round window to make sure I didn’t miss too much of the sight below. For the first time, there was something more interesting to me than an attractive woman.

“You will probably want to fly again,” she said trying not to lose me.

“Are you kidding?” I said with a huge smile as I turned back to her. “I want to fly for ever.”

A young boy, no more than twenty years old, kissed her neck from behind.

“Come on, Eva! Don’t leave us alone!” said the boy.

“Oh, silly boy,” Eva laughed. “Go on, I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Must be your son?” I said.

“Not exactly,” giggled the woman. “Although, I am old enough to be his mother… No, he is just one of the boys that were so good to me during my long stay in the Latina camp. They are now like family to me. They always cheered me up when I was in a bad mood… You see, my good time will end soon. I am going to marry an older Hungarian man I hardly know. I’ll be his wife because he is sponsoring me… Well, it’s time to have a husband anyway. Hey, I’ll see you later and I’ll give you a telephone number where you can reach me if you want. I’ll also give you the time of the day when you may call.”

“Okay,” I said somewhat startled and then I went back to my seat, vacated by then, to enjoy the flight undisturbed.

It was late in the evening when the plane landed at JFK.

Eva was waiting for me as I was moving toward the exit. She handed me a folded piece of paper and gently kissed my face.

“I hope to see you again,” she said with a seducing smile. “You have my future husband’s number there. He is at work during the day. Please, don’t call me in the evening or weekends.”

“I promise,” I said thinking that I would probably never call her. Nevertheless, I put the piece of paper into my pocket.

“Good bye,” she said and she rushed ahead all by herself ready to meet her fiancé.

I was also preparing myself mentally and emotionally. According to the last letter I received from my Sponsor, he and his wife would be waiting for me at the airport. They sent me photos to make sure I would recognize them. They also had my picture.

Arriving in the waiting area, I immediately saw the couple.

“Hello,” I greeted them cheerfully. “I am your refugee.”

“Welcome home in your new homeland,” the man said.

Naturally, we spoke Hungarian.

“Wow!” the woman said in surprise. “You don’t look like a refugee at all.”

“True,” added the man quickly. “You are dressed better than most of the politicians here.”

“Well, as you know, I spent some time in Italy where people know how to dress.”

“Yes, but how could you afford to buy these expensive clothes?” asked the woman.

“I did some illegal work and saved all I earned. Besides, these only look expensive. I got them fairly cheap at a market in Capua.”

“We also bought a winter coat for you because, indeed, it’s pretty cold outside.” The man pointed at a large shopping bag he was holding. “Of course, yours looks nicer and even warmer.”

We were leaving the airport in a small Volkswagen. I expected a bigger, fancier car but that was soon out of my mind as I kept looking out the window once we were on the road.

“There,” the woman pointed at some distant lights. “Manhattan…That’s what you are looking for, right? You want to see the skyscrapers.”

“You’re right,” I replied.

“We won’t get much closer tonight but you’ll get plenty of chances to see them at later dates.”

The drive home took about an hour. They lived in a two-story building that had two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, the living room, the kitchen, and another bedroom with a bathroom downstairs.

“We have three children,” the man explained after I set down my luggage and took off my coat. “The oldest is a girl who married a schoolmate of hers abroad where she graduated. I doubt they would ever move back here. You met our older boy. The other one has just turned twenty; you’ll be sharing the upstairs with him. You’ll have one of the bedrooms and share the bath. I’m sure you’ll like it here. We are casual folks. I work during the day. My wife works mainly during the night. We have a huge refrigerator, and we try to keep it full. Help yourself to anything you find in there. Let us know if you ever desire anything we don’t keep. Of course,” he laughed, “you can start forgetting about all those real Hungarian flavors.”

“Why?” said the woman. “We have Hungarian restaurants, Hungarian pastry shops, even a Hungarian bookstore. We also have a Hungarian butcher who makes good Hungarian sausages…” While she was talking, she put bread rolls, ham and paprika cream on the table. “For example, this cream is imported from Hungary.”

“Yes,” I confirmed it, “I recognize it. It was one of my favorites.”

“All right then,” said the man.

After we finished eating, I had to answer a whole lot of questions about my life in Hungary. When I started complaining about the lack of freedom I had to endure, the man told me to wait and see whether too much freedom is any better. At that time I did not understand his comment.

It was mainly the man who asked the questions. Once he had a pretty good idea of what my life looked like in Hungary, he said a few things that surprised me.

“You know, you might eventually regret your escape. It sounds to me that you had a very safe and enjoyable life in Hungary. You had a good job and you could have probably progressed if you stayed. You sure did not have to worry about becoming unemployed.” He laughed briefly. “Making a living because you play chess well? Not in America! And here you always have to watch your back. You can’t be carefree like back there. If you are not careful, and even if you are, you can easily get mugged, robbed, or killed. Crime is a serious problem in America.”

His wife was shaking her head.

“Oh, come on, don’t scare him,” she said.

“Well, you’ll see,” the man continued. “People over there think the fence is made of sausage in America. It’s not exactly like that. Newcomers must work very hard to get ahead. At least, these days it is much easier to get started. When we came in 1944, conditions were different. I spoke fluent English, in addition to other languages, and had two diplomas but still I had to work hard as a laborer for a few years. My wife can tell you how exhausted and dirty I was every day coming home from the factory. Many times during those years I wished I could return to my homeland. Of course, for us that was not an option. We were on the official black list for many more years even after the 1956 revolution. By the time the rehabilitation came, we were used to the American way of life, we were settled here.” He drank some water and went on. “I am not trying to scare you but you have to understand reality. Without speaking English, you will have a very tough time here. So, what I recommend to you is that you spend all your time learning the language. You can live here with us as long as you want. We’ll support you until you are ready to get going, once you speak English fairly well. Your room and your food will be free here, so take advantage of this opportunity. We can even give you some pocket money. Of course, if you want, we’ll help you find a job so you can start earning. In case you want to work, I advise you to save all your money. We won’t ask you to pay for anything here. Just keep in mind that learning the language is most important.”

“You know some people at a pharmaceutical company,” said the woman. “They could help him get a job there. His degree is in Chemistry, right?”

“We’ll go and see a friend of mine one day,” the man told his wife and then he turned to me again. “He is the head of one of the laboratories there. He is also a member of what we call here the Hungarian Alumni Association, that’s where I know him from. I’ll call him and make an appointment with him.”

It was already three o’clock in the morning and I was very tired after the long flight and all the excitement of the trip. I was so sleepy I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. As I wanted to be polite, I kept listening and answering questions but I did not quite understand why this ‘indoctrination’ had to be done in such a hurry.

Finally, I was shown my room and the bathroom upstairs and then left alone.

The room was very cozy and very comfortable. I took a quick shower and went to bed. After I turned off the light, my room was in almost total darkness as the shades that covered the two windows did not let much of the street light in.

Shortly after falling asleep, a very strange sound woke me up. It scared the heck out me because I thought there was someone in my room and the person was taking sudden, deep sniffs through the nostrils. I lay there in the dark not daring to make the smallest movement. Finally, after about a minute, I decided to carefully reach for the switch on the night lamp. Once the room was lit, I looked around real fast but saw no one. When I heard the sniffing again, looking into the direction the sound came from, I realized it was some kind of pressure equalizer on the radiator under one of the windows. After some steam was blown out, air was sucked in and that gave out the funny sound.

It was mid morning when I woke up. The house seemed empty. I had some cold cuts with a roll and drank some orange juice. After getting dressed, I stepped outside the house. Well, I stepped right back inside because it was bitterly cold, way below the freezing mark. I put on more clothes and ventured outside again. It was bright and sunny, not a single cloud in the deep blue sky. The ground was covered with snow.

‘Quite a contrast to what I left behind in the south of Italy,’ I thought.

Looking around, I felt like I was at the end of the world. In one direction, I saw nothing but bush as far as I could see and the street did not continue that way. The other way, I saw the top of a house quite far away behind a hill. I walked up the hill. The street continued straight and I saw houses here and there on both sides but pretty far apart. I had a very strange feeling as there was not a single human being to be seen anywhere. I did see some toys in the snow in front of a house and a bicycle thrown into the ditch as well as an open garage full of all kinds of garbage.

It took me about twenty minutes to reach the end of the street where I saw some traffic, mainly passenger cars. I also saw a yellow colored vehicle that looked pretty much like a bus. Later I learned that those yellow vehicles were the school buses that took the kids of the neighborhoods to and from schools.

As I was walking back to the house, a large station wagon passed me. It was full of kids, driven by a woman. The window was rolled down on the passenger side and after one of the kids shouted something at me, all of them started laughing. I think the kid said something like ‘you must have a flat tire’.

Back in the house, I sat down and remembered what my Sponsor talked to me about during the night. I did have some mixed emotions and, as I remember, I was not really happy about being in America. I walked up into my room and took my English grammar book out of my luggage. I looked at the book for a while, remembering that it came with me all the way from Hungary, swimming over the Italian border in a plastic bag. I had already covered the first couple of lessons before leaving for Yugoslavia but I could recall only a few of the words I had learned.

I was not really in the mood to study. Instead, I felt like writing a few letters as I saw envelopes and white pads on a shelf next to my bed.

My mood changed after I started writing. I wrote to my parents, to my brother and to some friends, all of them in Hungary, and did a great deal of bragging. After all, I was in America, and I was mighty proud of myself for being there. Frankly, today I do not blame myself for bragging back then. I can even understand why for so many more years that followed I had been a pretender: I had no material possessions but I had never thought of myself as being poor.

I got so busy writing, I did not even notice that everyone had arrived home. After I finished the letters, I wrote a few pages about my negative experiences in Hungary. While in the camp in Trieste, the ‘Poet’, as we called the old fat guy, gave me the address of a right wing Hungarian newspaper published in Canada and encouraged me to write articles to bash the communist regime back home.

When my Sponsor knocked and then entered my room, I showed him the article I wrote.

“I’ll read it later. Now, come and have dinner with us.”

We had spaghetti. It was not as good as what I was used to in the camps in Italy but I was hungry.

“This is our son,” the woman introduced the young man to me.

The fellow had fairly long hair. He wore jeans and a bomber jacket (if I remember well), and he was not very friendly. He did not even have dinner with us. After the introduction, he picked up his plate and went up to his room.

“He is all right,” the man said. “He is just a bit surprised to see you here.”

The woman giggled.

“I think he is not very happy about having to share the bathroom,” she said. “He’ll get used to it.”

“He is not keen on going to school. After high school, he wanted to make money, so he got himself a job at Brown Boveri. They make electrical equipment as far as I know. He does not tell us much about his activities. You might see his girlfriend here from time to time. If they listen to their music too loud, just knock on his door and ask him to turn it down.”

“His Hungarian is not better than your English,” the mother said, “so communicating with him will not be easy. I think that’s why he left us. He is kind of shy. But he is a good kid. I think you two will get along quite well. Just give it some time.”

Later, the man came up to my room with my article in his hand.

“Not bad,” he said handing the sheets back to me. “However, keep in mind that writing Hungarian articles might be a waste of your time. Even if you find a newspaper willing to publish them, you won’t make any money. They might give you a few dollars. You are much better off spending your time learning the language. I see you have a pretty good grammar book. I can also help you when I am home. Besides, the newspapers that might be interested in your writings are outdated. The owners and editors of those papers live in the past. They are unable to forget all that they suffered at the hands of the early communists. They are not willing to acknowledge that the political system is much different today than it was shortly after the communist takeover.”

He explained why he had forgiven the communists. As I later learned, he, and his friends, members of their Alumni, actually maintained contact with certain officials in Budapest. They organized trips for well known intellectuals in Hungary, who would give lectures or read their writings for Hungarian American audiences at Rutgers University. As he took me to such meetings a few times, I got a better idea of the division within the Hungarian emigrant community. His group was referred to as the Dippies, from DP, short for Displaced Person. The freedom fighters of the 1956 revolution, who did not want to hear about making concessions to the communist regime, could not stand the Dippies.

The Dippies were very intelligent people who could express themselves beautifully and were able to use the Hungarian language eloquently, much better than the freedom fighter generation or those of us that came to America sporadically in later years. The Dippies completed their American education as soon as they had the chance, and they all had well paid jobs. Some of them became managers, business owners, or professors.

“You are right,” I told him. “I will try to learn English as much as possible.”

“That’s where the key to your future is. Otherwise, you’ll never have a job again like the one you left behind in Hungary.”

Whatever his reason was for forgiving the totalitarian system of Hungary, I was not about to change my mind in a big hurry. I did not want to argue with him, of course, but I told myself: he left even before the communists took over so he never had to suffer the lack of individual freedom, the lack of freedom of movement or the lack of freedom of expression. He had only heard about the masses living their lives without enjoying their basic human rights.

As soon as he left me alone in my room, I addressed an envelope to that Hungarian paper in Canada, put my article in it and the next day when he and his wife drove me into the city of New Brunswick, I asked them to show me where the post office was and I mailed the letter. Later, I received a five-dollar bill from the editor of the paper and an encouraging letter to continue my writing. At that point I realized that, indeed, it made no sense to spend my time writing about my past experiences.

During our visit to New Brunswick, the city only about a ten-minute drive away, I was taken to a Hungarian restaurant where I had pretty good ‘chicken paprikas’. After the meal, we walked next door to the Hungarian book store where I was introduced to the owner, a smiling, friendly old man. After we left the bookstore, my Sponsor warned me that the old man was on the side of the freedom fighters and as such I should avoid him as much as possible.

The more I learned about the ‘other’ Hungarian emigrants the more I wanted to get acquainted with them.

About a week after my arrival, my Sponsor took me to see one of his friends, a chemist, at a pharmaceutical company.

The chemist was not a complicated man. After he asked me a few questions about my past work experience, he told my Sponsor that he could immediately hire me to be his assistant in his laboratory.

“No, not yet!” my Sponsor waved him down. “First he needs to learn English.”

“I can speak Hungarian with him, so I see no problem,” the chemist said. “In the meantime, he can learn whatever he needs to know here, in English. And I will pay him a decent wage.”

“Oh, no!” my Sponsor objected. “It would be too much inconvenience for you now. We’ll come back when he is more prepared.”

That was the end of that interview.

I speculated that my Sponsor did not want me to have an easy start. He probably thought it would be unfair given how he had to struggle in the beginning.

I have no way of knowing what direction my life would have taken had my Sponsor allowed me to start working in my profession. All I know is that after the interview I stubbornly insisted that I wanted a job as soon as possible.

“Well, I don’t think you are ready,” my Sponsor said, “but if you must work, you can go to Brown Boveri. My son says they are hiring. If you work there, it will be very convenient because my son can drive you there in the morning and bring you home when you finish.”

“Perfect,” I said.

I earned three dollars an hour at Brown Boveri. My job did not exactly relate to my education as I was put on a machine to engrave words into small plastic plates. The high pitch noise of the machine and the constant looking into one point gave me bad headaches by the end of every day.

My Sponsor’s son transported me diligently to and from work but that’s as far as he was willing to go. He never said a word to me and if I tried to ask him something he just shook his head and answered: “I don’t understand.”

... 

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