CHAPTER FOUR

 

MARRIED LIFE

 

     And so,  married life began.  I was a junior at the University and worked many hours as a free lance reporter.  Now I had housewifely duties too, but I functioned well on this demanding schedule.  I kept a log of the hours I spent on my studies and writing and I would put in twelve hour days regularly.

     In order to cut down on travel, I did a lot of writing for Uncle Mike’s Letter Box which was a Dear Abbey-kind of program on the radio for elementary school age children.    The young listeners wrote to Uncle Mike asking questions and telling him about their lives and I wrote the answers read by an actor into the microphone.  We also answered the children with individual letters.  We gave advice on how to deal with school and parents, how to be a good pioneer, pursue hobbies, etc. etc.  It was a living and a not too political one at that.  Even my brother George helped answer some of the letters.

     In Hungary they ran a great program for young pioneers (children destined to become loyal adult supporters of the communist state).  They constructed a scaled down but real working train which was run entirely by pioneers who acted as conductors, sold the tickets and supervised the stations.  They looked spiffy in their white shirts, red neck-kerchiefs and shielded hats.  My brother, George, was one of the youngsters selected to join this elite group, a great honor and fun activity to participate in.  I have no idea how he grew up to be such a successful venture capitalist when he had such a firm grounding from his communist comrades. 

       My mother-in-law, Boske, had a large and beautiful apartment in a suburb of Budapest left empty by some Nazi sympathizers who fled to the West but now  she was in danger of having some of her rooms requisitioned away from her.  The prospect of sharing her apartment with strangers did not make her too happy but since it was clear that Tony and I were not going to get a place of our own in the near future, Boske invited us to move in with her.

     This was not a good decision since Boske was not crazy about me and the feeling was mutual.  She was critical of my cooking and housekeeping skills, perhaps for good reason but the last thing I needed was another critical mother.

     I had complaints of my own.  Boske had a dozen sets of beautiful china but for some unknown reason, she was saving them so we ate off of chipped and mismatched plates. Soon enough it was Boske preparing breakfast for MY HUSBAND every morning.  I did not like this much as I was trying to train him to make breakfast for himself.  Neither was I  ecstatic about the bridge games converging in her room where MY HUSBAND was always one of the players.

     The Nazi, who’s apartment we inherited when my mother-in-law was bombed out of her home, fled to the West and left behind not only his incredible carved, caryatid supported furniture, but also his most personal diary.  In this book he described how many times he screwed his wife’s friend while his old lady was herself  gracefully serving coffee in adjoining room   The Nazi’s scribble was most explicit.  We used to read it with Eva, my sister-in-law, and tried to imagine how satisfying sex could be under those circumstances.  Here I am, forty years later, and I still do not have a clue, I guess I lived a sheltered life.

     In the meantime, Tony was transferred from the Ministry of Aviation to another engineering job located very far from our home.  The job change was, in fact, a demotion.  Under the circumstances he was not going to have a spectacular career but it was not his fault.  The circumstances were that his father who was killed in the war, had been the director of the Socialdemocratic national paper and a well known Socialdemocratic leader.  Even a street had been named after him.   The communists hated and mistrusted the Socialdemocrats and when they came to power, this mistrust extended  to their families.  It was not enough that my father-in-law was dead and the Socialdemocratic party defunct, the communist’s witch hunt carried on against his widow and children.

     There were many things pulling apart our marriage as early as its second year.  There was the lack of privacy, our inexperience and immaturity, interference from my mother-in-law and my frequent headaches.

     I had spent a couple of weeks resting in a facility owned by the University but what is two weeks rest against a myriad of problems?  I started wearing eyeglasses but the headaches persisted.  I do not think we were fighting a lot but our marriage was not a happy one.  And I was far from admitting anything of the sort.

     Upon my graduation from the University some  executives from Radio Budapest came over to the school and requested that I be a permanent addition to the radio’s Youth Program.  By this time I had been writing for the radio for four years.  In a communist country, you work where they send you and I was assigned to our suburban high school as a history teacher.  The classmate who was routed to the radio’s Youth Program had never written a line in her life but she was the wife of a highly placed party functionary.  Everything was politics so  I was lucky I was married or otherwise I could have ended up in the boondocks.

     The unfairness of the system gored me and I cried bitterly for hours after I heard the news.  This was 1953--even though Stalin died that year--Hungary still experienced the Stalinist era.  People left in the morning and failed to return home being subjected to arrest, internment  or simply made to disappear.  The gulag was in full swing and it was very frightening.  My sister-in-law, Eva, a straight A philosophy student at the University was kicked out on the basis of some ideological bullshit.

      The Radio was graciously willing to keep me on as a free lance reporter as somebody had to do the writing, after all, and  then in the same time I have started my teaching career.  I was not a gifted teacher and my classes, all seniors, required a lot of preparation.  My students were only four years younger than I was.  But teaching, writing, housekeeping and my troubled marriage was not enough.  I wanted a child.  I guess I thought this was the next step on life’s agenda.  Tony was not anxious to become a father, but he went along with the program.

     Our marriage was not stable enough to start a family and we were so young but I forged ahead and became pregnant.  I was in so much of a hurry that I started wearing maternity clothes in my third month of pregnancy but I still kept up with my demanding schedule.    Once while riding in a crowded streetcar, I threw up on the crisp uniform of one of the Officers of the People’s Army.  As luck would have it, he did not notice this and as things were tough, I wonder what would have happened to me if my vomit had been taken symbolically.

     When I was pregnant my mother encouraged me to visit my uncle Sanyi who was in possession of George’s crib and ask for it back so that I could use it for my child.  To my great surprise, Sanyi refused to hand over the crib although his son, Frank, was already seven years old.  I did not take his refusal kindly and just to prove that I was not my grandfather’s descendant for nothing and knew how to carry a grudge, I had nothing to do with uncle Sanyi for the next thirty years.  I already had it in for him when this happened since I invited him to my wedding and he failed to show.

     It was fun gathering everything together for the baby’s layette and I was looking forward to motherhood even though I knew nothing about it.  During my pregnancy we went to the premier of a new Soviet opera titled “The Young Guard.”  The music was dreadful and poor Peter,  soon to be born but for now still securely ensconsed within me, must have hated it because he kicked vigorously during the entire three hours of the opera.  I guess he wanted out of there.  Needless to say, he is still faithful to the Grateful Dead and as far as I know has never been to an opera performance.

     Early on in my pregnancy I had a huge fight with Tony and I returned to my parents’ home for a week or two.  What was the fight about?  I had had a bad cold and Tony had refused to accompany me to our graduation party.  I went alone and returned to my parents’ apartment until Tony came to get me more than a week later. I remember another fight from this period.   Tony had given me a beautiful Lucite model of an airplane as a gift.  A few days later a friend visited us and upon learning that it was his birthday,  Tony presented him with MY airplane model  without asking me if it was all right.  Tony was a nice guy with a big heart and boundless generosity but I was still pissed as he had not even considered my feelings.

     Of course our life was not all bad.   Boske and I bought Tony a small motorcycle as a birthday present.  He was very happy with it and took me for many rides out into the country.  On Sundays we would sometimes go as far as Lake Balaton.  This was a popular vacation spot; a large, beautiful lake in Western Hungary. 

     We went to the theater, the opera and as many concerts as we wanted to attend.  Books, transportation and entertainment were inexpensive  and we were financially comfortable although the standards were low in communist Hungary. I even accompanied a group of students on a trip to the Tatra mountains.  I was very happy to take a vacation from my ‘real’ life.

     At the end of eight months of pregnancy, I was still working my full schedule.  One night  I started feeling small twinges.  I woke up Tony who handed me an alarm clock to time my contractions and promptly went back to sleep.    I read  Jules Verne’s “The Begum’s Fortune” all night long. In the morning we decided to walk to the hospital.  The building  had been named after my father-in-law so they treated me very well.  I urged the doctor to hurry up as we had opera tickets for that night and I did not want to miss the performance.  Alas,  those plans did not quite work out.

     Peter Anthony Linhardt was born around noon on February 13th, 1954.  He was perfectly formed and turned red as a lobster when the doctor slapped him to make him cry.  As Peter had been born a month premature and he weighed only five pounds.  They quickly whisked him away from me and into an incubator.  The delivery was very painful and I was badly torn and stitched back together.  I am eternally grateful that I gave birth before natural childbirth became the vogue.  We suffered through a tough winter that year with lots of snow  and freezing temperatures.  Peter and I were kept in the hospital for ten days and when we were discharged and sent home, Tony had to keep the home fires burning day and night by lugging coal up from the cellar.

     My mother-in-law, even though she sported a cold, was generous helping with the baby and even more generous with her advice concerning the care and feeding of our son, Peter.  She meant well but all this expertise drove me crazy.

     Peter was a very good baby and soon slept through the night.  He did not have much choice as night feeding were not customary at the time.  Tony and I agreed that we did not want our son to be circumcised.  During the Holocaust Jews were often identified on the streets by being unceremoniously ordered to drop their pants.   Besides, I am not in favor of mutilation of small babies. I was breast feeding and Peter thrived.  I had so much milk I  passed some on to other needy newborns but soon enough, I had a painful breast infection.

     I stayed home for six months to care for Peter then we hired a maid to look after him and I returned to teaching.  Later on we tried a child care center but Peter picked up too many colds and a rash.  He was an easy baby to raise and we used to lug him around by the handles of a wicker basket as he lay quietly within,  people on the streetcars just adoring  him.  Although they were working women, both grandmas were enthusiastic baby-sitters.  So was George who was sixteen years old when he became an uncle.

     Although our lives were running smoothly, I was still nervous and anxiety ridden and I was completely lacking in the skills to figure out what was my problem and how to solve it.  I had good friends but we just did not talk about the one thing young women need to talk about above other things:  Sex. 

     I did not like teaching but I could not see any alternatives open to me because you worked where the government placed you.  I did not like living with my mother-in-law but, then again, I could not figure out  a workable alternative. We were not going to get an apartment and in a vague way I was disappointed with my husband. I  thought him to be childish and immature so I was bitchy and critical of him in return. I enjoyed being a mother but with teaching, writing and running our household, it was a lot for me to handle.  Tony did not help me much as he had very chauvinistic ideas about the feminine and masculine job division.  He would change light bulbs or chop firewood,  but changing a diaper or washing the dishes was my strictly my job.

     Periodicals and newspapers experienced a certain amount of newly found freedom in the years after Stalin’s death.  The communist leadership had been mildly criticized and some of the intellectuals who had been interned or jailed for their views were let out.

     We belonged to the Petofi Club which was named after a famous Hungarian poet.  Lectures were held, followed by debates about political and literary issues.  These were mostly attended by intellectuals, and  the nonexistent freedom of the press was a major issue discussed.   Borrowing the title of Ilya Ehrenburg’s book on the subject,  there was a “Thaw” in the air.  It was deceptive but we thought we were getting somewhere in terms of democracy, freedom and human rights.

     On October 23rd, 1956, a revolution broke out against the communist government and its mighty  protector, the Soviet Union.  By nightfall, gun battles erupted and the revolutionaries occupies the Radio Building and had taken over the air waves.    My brother was out there intoxicated by the events surrounding him and the promises they offered.  To the consternation of his parents, that night he came home with a rifle.

     My life was about to change again to an unbelievable degree.  We lived in a suburb about forty minutes away from the center of all the political excitement.  This was before the arrival of television so our only source of information was the radio and the news traveling from mouth to mouth.

     Miraculously the revolution was succeeding and a new government was formed  headed by Imre Nagy.  The Soviet Union kept its distance.  The West was enthusiastically cheering  the revolution through the air waves but military aid was not forthcoming.  We stopped going to work and adopted a wait and see attitude.

     It was mind boggling and very exciting to even imagine that the communist system could come to an end.  We  had been cut off from the rest of the world for almost a decade.  If you want to know how to secure borders,  just ask the Hungarians since not a pin could pass in either direction.  As far as we knew, the borders were still secured and surrounded by minefields.

     On a Sunday afternoon three weeks  after the revolution broke out we went for a walk with our two and a half year old son and with our friends, the Gastons.   Russian tanks were rolling down the main street  in a long row  heading toward the center of Budapest.

     One moment everything was peaceful and the next the Russians opened fire, shooting into the strolling, relaxed Sunday afternoon crowd.  There were casualties and our friend, who was a doctor, was pressed into service.  Shaken and frightened, we rushed home.  The Russians arrested Imre Nagy, the head of the revolutionary government and members of the new multi-party government and replaced them with their puppets.  Later on Nagy and several others were executed.

     The next morning as we were having breakfast, the same friends,  Peter and Sari Gaston and their three year old son, Paul, stopped by for a talk.  They had heard on the Radio Free Europe and on the BBC that Hungary’s borders were now deserted because some of the border guards had joined the revolutionaries and hundreds of Hungarian refugees were pouring into Austria.  The Gastons asked us.

      “Do you want to leave Hungary?”

     This was such a far fetched idea, I have never even discussed it with Tony.  We made our decision on the spur of the moment knowing that if the Russians were going to clamp down on Hungary, there would be hell to pay.  This was a window of opportunity and we seized it.

     As I was getting dressed, I looked  at my brand new black suit  and considered putting it on but  then I shook my head.  This was too good for such an uncertain trip.  Too good to be shot in!

     We took a streetcar to the city and spent the night with my parents.  My mother suggested that we leave Peter with her  but I would not hear of it.  So,  the next day we left for the border; the three of us, the Gastons and my brother George who was a freshman at the Technical University.  I crossed the long courtyard of the apartment house I grew up in and never looked back.

     We hitched a ride in the back of a truck to the railroad station where there was a crowded train leaving for the West and we managed to get on it.  Even today I still have difficulty believing that we had the courage to attempt this great escape with two small children.  Peter and Sari Gaston were survivors of the concentration camps and certainly the last people inclined to seek out danger.  Yet they, too, were willing to chance it.....for freedom.

     A few hours into our journey, the train stopped and we boarded a bus which was supposed to take us to the border.  It was pitch dark and we were trying to follow the route on a map by the beam of a flashlight.  At times we thought  the driver was taking us back towards the East and away from the Western border.

Finally the bus came to a stop in the middle of a small village.  This was as far as the bus driver was willing to go.  It was the middle of the night, dogs barked, lights went up and people came out of their homes.  We managed to wake up the village.  We were frightened because there was no way of knowing if there were any border guards stationed there.

     The farmers told us that the borders were indeed not guarded and the mines were mostly gone.  This was reassuring but uncertain information but we never-the-less we were ready to press on.  The border between Hungary and Austria was just a couple of miles away but the fields were  muddy and it would have been difficult for the two little boys to walk the distance.

     We hired one of the local farmers to take Sari, myself and the children to the border in a horse drawn carriage.  It was a scary ride as we heard shots ringing out close to us and we were separated from the men who were walking.  The children were sleeping as Sari and I whispered to each other. 

     “If we make it to the West, I am going to have another child.”  I said.  We also decided to have long evening gowns as soon as possible--something not de rigeur in the communist countries and a little frivolous planning  under our circumstances.

     We had left Hungary without any luggage.  I did not have a purse, a nightgown,  a lipstick or even a comb.  This was not very smart of us  as the Gastons brought all their clothes and valuables, even their Oriental carpets.  In the long run, it did not make any difference, perhaps it was symbolic.  When we arrived at the Bridge of Andau which led into Austria, we were reunited with our men and then said goodbye to the farmer and gave him all our Hungarian money.  We walked fifty meters and we were in Austria.

     Never had a country been more deserving of desertion  than Hungary.  My family had lived there for three hundred years.  The Hungarians were just as ready as the Germans to destroy us because we were Jews.  We stood on the silent, dark Austrian border, a freezing wind blowing  through our clothes.  A few minutes later, a tractor pulled up and its driver identified himself as representing the International Red Cross and offered to take the children to the nearby refugee shelter. 

     “Not my child!”  I protested.  I was not about to be separated from Peter.   We negotiated a ride for the children and their mothers  and climbed up to the tractor. The date was November 19, 1956.  In the shelter we were treated to hot chocolate and cookies and there was plenty of straw to sleep on.

     Once the Soviet Union crushed the revolution, two hundred thousand people fled communist Hungary.  We were among the first five thousand.  The next day we were out strolling through the village when we heard shots fired.  I thought that the Hungarians had come after us but as it turned out,  the Austrians were just in high spirits as they celebrated at a wedding.

     When nightfall came, an Austrian farmer invited Sari, myself and our two children to spend the night in his home.  We were treated to a hot bath, a good dinner and a feather bed.  It was heavenly!  In the morning I gave my pretty scarf to the farmer’s wife as we said our thanks.  This was the beginning of my education about the kindness of strangers.

     The Red Cross was moving slowly about processing the new refugees,  they were overwhelmed by their sheer numbers.  Peter Gaston adjusted to freedom quickly.

       “Let’s get out of here.”  He said.  Before we had left Hungary, my mother had sewn a few dollars and some gold in to the lining of my coat.  I dug out my U.S. currency and Peter Gaston called his brother in New York City and after that we walked to the railway station, bought our tickets and took the train to Vienna.

     When we reached our destination the loud speaker in the railroad station was paging Doctor Peter.  His Yankee  brother had mobilized some friends  and they swept us up into their apartment and welcomed us with a delicious spread and Coca-Cola.  I had never tasted Coca-Cola.

     We called Uncle Jerry in Far Rockaway, New York and then bedded down in the Hotel Goldenes Lamb and being completely exhausted, slept the sleep of the just. I remember Peter loved the piss pot in the night stand.  He kept taking it out, lugging it around and admiring it.  It was a nice piece, rotund porcelain; very Viennese.

     We had  chosen  our destination which was to be the United States of America as we had relatives living there.   Two Marines guarded the U.S. Embassy but I managed to push my son through the entrance and in the name of motherhood and apple pie, I threw myself in after him.  I promptly ran into one of my students.

     The Embassy staff was very selective but we were young, educated and Tony was an aeronautical engineer, so our chances were good.  On the other hand, his Socialdemocratic background  was not exactly in our favor.  This was during the McCarthy era and pink was red.

     We spent the next  ten days touring Vienna.  The HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society)  paid for our hotel room and gave us some coupons for restaurant meals and then sent us to a department store to be outfitted.    Having taken care of all this, we then went on to visit the Art Museum of Vienna.  I remember viewing a famous painting by Rubens in which one of the figures in the picture appeared to have three arms.

     We went to the Schoenbrun, the summer palace of the Habsburgs, and to St. Stephen’s Church, but mostly we walked the glorious streets of Vienna.   We could not believe our good luck having left the Iron Curtain behind us and having cultured Austria as our first take on the WEST. 

     We sampled a lot of food which had not been available in Hungary.  We gorged on oranges, bananas and dates.  We loved the famous Viennese confectionery with hot chocolate.  Tony had some relatives in town and we had  a nice visit with them.  There was a great deal of sympathy in Austria towards the Hungarian refugees and world wide, we were called freedom fighters.  I remember a Viennese woman dropping a bar of chocolate into Peter’s lap as we rode on a streetcar.

     Ten days went by and we still had not heard from the U.S. Government.  In a huff, I said that if they did not want us, we could always go to Canada or Australia.  I guess I scared the people in the Embassy as our visas were granted that same day.  Little did I know that people waited for as long as ten years to gain entrance visas to the Promised Land.