2004
Mathew
Last year Matthew was wasting away his time at home looking for some apprenticeship program to join. He and a group of others were punished for arriving late for class. It was drizzling and they were sent outside. They refused on grounds of a school ruling that they could not be sent outside during rain. It got into the investigation phase and the students finally succeeded in their goal to fight what they considered an injustice. The unfortunate part of it was that Matthew decided that he did not want to continue to go on to finish his 10th grade. So he was home wasting his time. Susanne set up a meeting with some councilors and at that meeting I suggested that the money I pay for child support should be used to send Matthew to a good private school. I added that if the x-wife support payments I was burdened with would be also used then Matthew could be sent to the same school that Prince Charles kids are sent to.
Soon after Matthew was accepted to a private arts school in Teccin in the Italian part of Switzerland. I had the opportunity to go and see Matthew and his school. Matthew was very happy with his new school. I was even happier to see that the school was doing Matthew good. The school is normally reserved for students 18 or older. They made an exception in his case and at 16, he is the youngest. He is very liked by his school mates who impressed me very much. They are a group of very talented and motivated 18-24 year old students from all over the world. He has his own room and was sharing an apartment with 3 others girls from America, Ireland and Australia. I felt privileged to be invited to visit Matthew in his class and witness firsthand how he spends his time during the day. The students were very helpful and enjoyed learning in an atmosphere that encouraged their creativity to flower. On the last day of the semester they gave a performance for the parents. The art from various media was very impressive as well as their skits and musical performances. Matthew did gymnastic and I was proud to see him still so agile doing hand stands and back flips that I saw him do when he was younger. During the theater, Mathew was on stage all alone when his mobile phone rang. He excused himself and answered it. It was Susanne. He made the call short and continued as if it was all a part of the play, which most of us watching thought it was. The teachers seemed to as well enjoy teaching and it all left me feeling that Matthew was not wasting his time and that I was not wasting my money.
March and April was my last vacation with my company. The job situation looked hopeless, so I decided to look into work from home opportunities. I went to a Herbalife recruiting meeting and was convinced that I was in the right place at the right time. The meeting was t like a “born again” church event. The speakers seemed professional and the product and concept was convincing. The main Herballfe product was a powder mix of herbs, vitamins and minerals that when mixed with milk provided a low calorie meal replacement for people wanting to reduce their weight. It worked on the networking principle where any people you recruited to sell the product bought the product from you at a discount. I bought a license to be a distributor and started to make business plans to work from home.
I reserved a business number 900 IM LOST for a service I saw in Norway. You call a number when you are lost and you get directions via the phone. I got a nutrition analyst program and thought of combining it with my Herbalife projects. I set up an Internet store and felt like a gold miner going up to Alaska. I started a work-at-home opportunity assembling circuit boards at home. They sent you the components to assemble and test at home.
Marianne was skeptical of my schemes, projects and dreams. She did not show any interest and I felt all alone in my dreams. I set up an Internet store, but I was the only one that ever entered to look at it. I was fascinated at the potential the internet offered people like me. I was very proud of my store but very frustrated in being so alone in it. To my surprise Marianne was at the same time having a web store set up as part of her physiotherapy practice. I had trouble understanding her lack of wanting to share her experience with me when we were both doing a similar thing.
Our planned budget vacations to some beach that we talked about taking together during our last vacations in Canada evaporated. Marianne decided to go off on a last minute expensive Egyptian tour that she did not even ask me if I could afford to join her. Then I met Tzonka.
Tzonka
I met Tzonka on a chat program in the beginning of April. She saw my profile and I saw hers - 48 year old female from Bulgaria. We started chatting. She went to my home page and looked over my journal and told me that she wanted to get to know me. I was touched that finally someone looked at my home page that I spent so much time on. As she was fluent in Spanish and understood English, we chatted. I wrote in English and she in Spanish. I asked her to tell me about herself and I was impressed when she wrote me a 4 page journal of her life. I was even much more impressed when I read about her rich and interesting background. She told me how she liked dancing and walking in nature and was interested in health issues. She even heard about Herbalife. Her interests were in history and psychology.
Her father was a journalist and was sent to Cuba when she was 7 years old during the nuclear threat and blockade in 1963. When she was 14, her father became a diplomat and he was sent with his family to Cuba. In 1971 she lived in Mexico and in 1973 her father became the ambassador to Uruguay during difficult provocative times. She wanted to study law or journalism, but the Bulgarian laws did not allow family members of diplomats to study these subjects, so she studied Latin humanities instead. She fell in love with Fernando from Uruguay and they wanted to marry. As her father would lose his position if she would marry Fernando, she decided not to marry him.
She found herself back in Bulgaria to finish her studies and in 1981 she returned to Cuba to work in the embassy as a translator for the military. Although filled with memorable memories, in 1989 when the communist propaganda increased, so did the stress of the demanding job which she decided to quit. She returned to Bulgaria and got a job as assistant to the Peruvian ambassador, a job that was filled with stress and at the same time rich in social and cultural events. At the age of 35 she fell in love with a man, married him and they had a son Martin. He was an alcoholic and was at home only to spend her money. She later found out about his previous 2 marriages and totally lost confidence in him. Over 9 years he hit her 3 times before she finally threw him out. She got a job as a human resources manager for a small company involved with gambling machines. She had a private translating business that allowed her to make extra money. When her father died, her mother moved in with her and her 12 year old son Martin.
When we talked about my problems, especially my financial ones, I was expecting things to cool down but they just heated up instead. She was very sympathetic and interested and supportive concerning my dismal financial situation and offered her friendship. She was poetic in her expression and offered to be my “Chica del sol”. I accepted and within a few days we were opening up our feelings and falling in love. I suggested that I come to Bulgaria and get to know her personally. Fortunately Tzonka was receptive to my idea and was able to take her holidays on such a short notice. She helped me look for the cheapest ticket, which turned out to be a train thru the former Yugoslavian states - Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Romania, and finally Bulgaria.
I was able to use 4 seats in the almost empty wagon and had a pleasant night going thru the many customs checks along the way. I met the daughter of a Serbian-Swiss lawyer Nina. She told me about all the cases of people being held against their will in mental institutions and about her father's work in helping these people get out. She was on her way to make a rap record. I listened to her demo CD of her rap in Bern dialect and I was surprised to have liked it. The train arrived in Belgrade just before 6 pm and I had till midnight to walk around and see the city in my favorite time of day- the sunset. I walked up to the lookout and was amazed by the beauty of it all. I felt that Tzonka was with me holding my hand especially after I called her to share my joy. I changed trains to a much older model with cabins and found myself even more comfortable. I shared a cabin for 6 with 2 others and was alone on my side and had a fantastic sleep listening to the romantic clitter clatter of the train that I find so soothing.
Tzonka was waiting for me at the train station when I arrived Saturday morning one hour late. She was 2 x shorter and 2 x thicker than I had imagined her to be. And with my mountain boots I really had to bend low to give her my first awkward hug and kiss. We took the cab to our little nest that Tzonka had arraigned for us. It was a very nice apartment with a balcony next to a beautiful tree. The first day we spent like we planned to in the chat room - in bed getting to know each other. She showed me her album of her with all the generals and diplomats she worked with and I saw how much weight she had put on in the past 12 years. The next morning I tried to take her out for a jog but soon realized that she was not ready to be jogging with her weight as it was. The next morning she showed me some exercises she used to do but has stopped and promised me that she would continue them after I left.
Her mother came over to celebrate my birthday 2 days later. She was a geography teacher and brought maps of Bulgaria to show me. She also spoke Spanish and so we were able to communicate. A few days later she jokingly told me that she could see that I was taking good care of Tsonka because she noticed a slight weight gain in her since I arrived. I didn’t find the joke funny at all. Communicating was confusing because the body language is very different in Bulgaria. They shake their head sideways for a yes, and up and down for a no. We walked around a lot and talked a lot. I liked how Tzonka expressed herself and her attitude about many things. I liked her openness and honesty and her sensual way of being.
The next weekend I met Martin, her 13 year old son and was shocked to find him as fat as she was. Harder for me to take was Tzonka's attitude about it all. Offering the worst foods and taking pleasure in watching him stuff himself like a pig. We went to the fun park and I went with him on all the rides and we ate at McDonald’s just like I did with my sons what seemed like a long time ago. We entered many churches and lit many candles for our blessings. There was a Mosque near one of the cathedrals beside a synagogue. I was able to enter the Mosque and appreciated its simplicity. Especially after just having entered a cathedral which reminded me of a nightclub with the candles, nude statues and paintings and the kiosk selling things for tourists. I bought Martin a mobile phone that he has been wanting for so long and it was a joy to see him so happy. We went to see a movie about a love story about people our age. The last day we took Martin to see a movie about a family with 12 kids. The film brought back many memories of my past family life with my 4 kids.
We went for a day tour to a historic city 2 hours away and found it so enchanting that we decided to stay in one of the old buildings that was a museum converted to a hotel. The doors were so big and so high that Tzonka had to reach on her tip toes to reach the door handles. She reminded me of Alice in Alice in Wonderland. I felt like a king entering the castle like halls, and like Harry Potter entering our huge bed room with the tall windows and high ceilings. We walked around the old city and Tzonka hopped around the ruins like a goat. Tzonka's shoes fell apart and we were able to find a pair for her to continue. We talked about returning in our old age and I felt more and more in love with her. We went dancing with her friend one evening and I saw how she enjoys dancing and having a good time. She cooked me the same Hungarian hamburgers that I liked so much when my mother cooked them.
We ate out a lot. We went out to a high class restaurant with a waiter that reminded me of Mr. Bean. He was playing the perfectionist where everything had to be re-positioned over and over until everything was perfect. He had the same grin as Mr. Bean and made me laugh. We rented a bicycle for 3 with 3 wheels and Martin took us all over the park that he bicycles with his friends. The bicycles kept breaking. No wonder, with 3 of us crammed on. One day we took Martin up to the ski slopes nearby. We took the cable car up and walked around. It was sad to see Martin's poor shape and how he was unable to walk as far as we would have like. He ended up eating more than walking and most likely gained weight from our excursion than losing some.
It was sad to say good-bye when it was time to go. The 2 weeks seemed like a lifetime. We both felt lucky to have found each other. I fell in love with Tzonka. Her beautiful face and enchanting smile captivated my soul. She inspired me to write a poem.
Tzonka, mi Chica del sol,
my partner to share my life with.
You give flavor to my life.
You enrich my senses with your love.
I gladly sacrifice my strongest arm
for your weakest leg.
My sharpest eye to hear your softest voice.
I cherish your taste and flavor,
sweet, sour and bitter.
You are my happiness whenever I lose hope.
You are my faith whenever I feel lost.
You are my strength whenever I am weak.
I am your partner to share your life with.
And together we will fill it with happiness and love.
Tzonka's mother met me at the train station on Sunday evening to say good-bye. My trip back was just as comfortable as my trip getting there. I arrived in Belgrade early in the morning just in time to witness the city wake up. Having another 6 hours to walk around, I returned to the same places I visited during the evening and saw them this time in the morning light. I had the same seats on the train on my way back home. I came back feeling that I had finally found my partner at last. We committed to make a life together.
Marianne's family reunion.
Marianne rented a big vacation house in Belgium for all the members of the Van Uefellen Klan to meet. I had only one day to prepare myself for meeting Marianne and joining her at the family reunion. I was very worried about ruining the atmosphere of the family reunion with the news of Tzonka. Tzonka and I both agreed that honesty and discretion was the best approach. Marianne picked me up at the Olten train station and we started sharing our vacation experiences.
I asked her to tell me about her week in Egypt. She had a very interesting and adventurous vacation out in the desert on a camel caravan. She slept under the stars and lived the life of a nomad for a few days. Then it was my turn to talk about my adventure in Bulgaria and about Tzonka. She immediately asked if I slept with her.
Marianne felt rejected, angry and hurt. She was so shocked that she had to stop driving and pull over into the next picnic stop on the highway. She asked me if I used a condom as if I was cheating on her with a Bulgarian whore. When Marianne heard that I fell in love with Tzonka, she started crying. She asked me what my new girlfriend had that she did not. "Commitment" was the only word I came up with. I talked about my commitment to Tzonka and Tzonka's commitment to me as partners. Marianne's anger turned to sadness. She was sad in losing the relationship she liked so much with me, but she was at the same time happy for me. We talked about my need for a partnership like we did many times before. And like in our previous talks she expressed her deep understanding for my need of a partnerships and I respected her desires to not commit.
We soon agreed that our special lover / friendship relationship will have to change over to one of friendship only. We both reminded each other, as we discussed many times before, that it would only be a matter of time before one of us finds a partner. She told me that she was glad I was the first as she felt that losing my job and losing her would be just too much for me to bear. I had to agree and I always felt that she would be the first to find a new partner. She told me how she understood that I needed a partner and how she felt she was using me in a way by keeping our relationship to meet her wants even though it did not meet my needs.
Her tears dried by the time we arrived in the campground and met her sister Irma and her husband Dick and their beautiful children Leha, Amy, Sanna, and Timo and their lion hunter dog Senza. Irma resembles Princess Diana and Dick acts like a prince and with their huge dog, the family reminded me of a royal family. We had a great evening eating and talking and laughing. Me and Marianne slept in our tent and we reminisced about our previous camping and talked about the nice evening we just had and we cuddled ourselves to a long deep sleep. The next day we all met at the rented house and for the next 2 days we had a nonstop family reunion. It was mother’s day and the fathers joined the children to celebrating with a breakfast in bed. As Marianne was the only one who did not have any kids, I was asked to prepare Marianne something as well. We played charades and we ate and snacked a lot and went for our usual walks. The back yard was well equipped for the children and we all had a great fun time as always.
Marianne and I decided to camp out on our drive back home and we found a beautiful campground that sounded like it was in a jungle. We heard that there were over 50 types of birds living in the woods next to our tent. The area is called Little Switzerland and it was just beautiful with rugged rocks and hills dotted with castles. We drove the scenic route back to Switzerland thru Alsace Lorrain and talked about having to return to explore the area. Marianne's eyes swelled with tears when we started talking about how often we were going to spend time together in the future. We reminisced about our past 4 and half years together and what we learned from each other. Marianne taught me about how to behave with strangers, work colleagues, bosses, counselors, friends and lovers. She taught me the value of people and how to enjoy them. And Marianne tells me she learned from me how to enjoy the moment and make the best of it.
Elsa
I was on the train going to Bern when I met Elsa. I sat down on the bench beside her as I was waiting for the train. She had her shopping bags by her. As I sat down on the bench, she grabbed her shopping bags and held them on her lap. Finding her very interesting and wanting to start a conversation, I joked that she did not need to be so defensive about her shopping bags. She noticed my English accent, and we started to talk in English, something that the Swiss are very inclined to do as they love to practice their English with strangers. We were having such a nice conversation and when she finally had to get off the train she gave me her telephone number and invited me up to visit her. She was 85 years old and was living alone in a house high above the valley right below some caves in a cliff where I took the kids on occasion. There were beautiful steep stepped trails that go up to some very interesting caves below high cliffs. There was a restaurant with a fantastically beautiful view overlooking the Gurbetal Valley. The cave was supposed to have a tunnel going to the cloister in Rueggisberg some 5 km away.
Elsa had a back ache and the next day I decided to visit her and offer to help her in any way I could. I drove my bicycle and had to push my cycle up to where she lived. She had just finished giving a piano lesson. We had a great talk and became instant friends. I offered to vacuum her house and she accepted gladly. Every Wednesday, I bicycled up to her and vacuumed the house and helped her in the garden. And while I worked, she made a very delicious meal. Then we would eat and talk. Elsa had such an interesting life. She was half Jewish and was on her honeymoon when WWII broke out. Her husband was a very talented and gifted machinist. He ended up making miniature measuring equipment that was so exactly made that he was able to sell his products to NASA. His claim to fame was that one of the equipment he designed and fabricated was eventually placed on Mars. They decided to stay and eventually had 5 boys and a girl. They decided to return to Switzerland when their children were grown.
She came over to my apartment a few times as she occasionally shopped next to where I lived. She drove her small car to the closest train station and took the train to the shopping center just across the road from where I lived. After shopping, she would come over and we watched a few movies. Elsa and Christopher have taken to each other. We had dinners, with Christopher playing the role of the cook and Elsa and me as his helpers. Elsa is known by her family and close friends as “The Little General”, because she is short, light and little, and at the same time so overpowering and commandeering.
Once we drove up to the Black Forest in Germany where Elsa was in a special school in the days of the depression 80 years ago. Her father was a patent lawyer in Zuerich and because he had family in Germany, and private schools were so cheap due to the hyper inflation, Elsa was sent to a private school that was used by the very richest of the nobility. A classmate of hers was a prince. We walked around the school grounds and she found the house where she lived in near the school. We also visited an artist that she remembered painted a portrait of her.
We bought some wine and some cold cuts and had a picnic in the woods nearby where she lived as a child. We walked around the places she last walked around 80 years ago. We ended our beautiful day with a nice Chinese meal and a walk thru a beautiful old village.
We had such a nice time that we decided to go camping in a part of Switzerland I have not been before. Appenzel was the last canton in Switzerland to give the vote to women about 17 years ago. We went to the square where they still vote by show of hands. I imagined how difficult it was to publicly vote in opposition to your boss or spouse. We found a farm that was offering a "sleep in the hay" experience with breakfast with the family that was too difficult to pass. The barn was full of flies and we decided to sleep out in the field. It was especially nice to have breakfast with the family of 5 kids. They had 50 cows, and we had all the cheese, butter cream and milk we could eat.
I got the chance to meet Elsa's son Martin and his wife Meradith and their 2 daughters Lila and Merit. Lila the 4 year old is especially afraid of spiders and I became a spider exterminator for the first time vacuuming up hundreds of spiders from all the corners in Elsa's house. I also got to meet her daughter Eve and her husband Martin. One day we were walking and talking about some berries that we found that Eve said made very good jam. I took some to taste, but I found them too sour to eat and spit it out. About 2 hours later I started vomiting so violently and had such extreme hot and cold flashes, that I had to be taken to the hospital.
The doctors thought I had something more than just poisoning so they kept me overnight. Once in the hospital I felt OK. I was fed intravenous and had both arms connected to monitoring machines. They had a hard time to find my veins to take the many blood samples that they took and the nurse was very much embarrassed by not being able to do it as well as she always does it. I had to keep consoling her that everyone has problems finding my veins. They made a ultrasound and by morning when all the results were in, they concluded that it was poisoning and let me go home.
Elsa was invited to visit friends and family for 4 days. When she heard that Tzonka was arriving at the same time she would be away, she suggested that I drive her to the train station and pick her up and that way I can keep the car during the time she was away. I accepted gracefully.
Tzonka's Visit
Napoleon our house cat really took to Tzonka. He even brought her one of the biggest birds he had ever caught. We drove to Gruyere and visited the Castle. On the way back we returned to SchwarzenSee Lake and rented a canoe and went swimming. We went to the canyons of Aare which I saw for the 3rd time in the last 3 months. The first time was when Marianne invited me to visit her brother Rut and his family. I found it so nice that I returned a few weeks later with Christopher. It is a 1.5km walkway along the face of the 30 meter high canyon walls. At some points the canyon narrows to a few meters. Tzonka was so interested in the geology, pointing out so many interesting features, that I enjoyed it more than I did before. We continued to Luzern going over the beautiful back roads through the mountains.
One day we took the cable car up to the peak of Stockhorn and drove up to Elsigan Alp, a place we go skiing nearby. We brought a blanket and had a picnic on the mountain meadows. Then on our way home we walked around Spiez and we met Stefan a man I used to meet on the train when I was going to work. I did not know that Stefan was from Bulgaria, until I introduced him to Tzonka.
We tried to go for a bike ride but Tzonka could not keep from falling off. After a few km, she said she felt like having been raped by 10 men, so we just drove home slowly and never tried it again. We did go for long walks late at night before sleeping. We went to Stefan's house one evening. He prepared us a nice Bulgarian meal. He played his guitar and he played the same repertoire I used to play on my guitar. My nose started to get all blocked up and when we drove back home. Tzonka started her special Bulgarian remedy for colds. Hot bath, vodka, honey, oil, and lemon, tea, massage and a hot bed to sweat it all out. I really enjoyed the loving treatment.
We went for long walks in the evening and found Napoleon following us like a dog a couple of times. That was the first time I have seen Napoleon following me on a walk. I suppose he was really following Tzonka.
Elsa
After Tzonka went back home, Elsa invited Christopher and me to the place of her first job as a teacher 30 years ago. The school was situated in a remote village for troubled boys. On her first day, the students proudly bragged that their last teacher whom she was replacing had a nervous breakdown. Elsa calmly replied that she was not afraid because she had 5 sons and knew how to handle them. She wanted to take us high into the Alps, but the weather was not good enough to go higher so we decided to go to some glacier canyons very similar to the Aare canyons that I wanted to take her to. This one turned out more rough and steep and spectacular. The ticket man congratulated Elsa for being able to do it. We had a picnic with a fire in the woods nearby before taking a long way back home where Elsa used to hike 30 years ago.
Elsa asked me to do some garden chores that needed to be done to ready it for winter. I enjoyed turning over the earth and seeing all the fat worms. While I worked in the garden, she prepared a first class meal which we greatly enjoyed on her terrace overlooking the majestic alps. We both thought that her place with her cooking was better than the best 5 star restaurant. We had a very great time talking. We talked about everything, from religion, philosophy and politics. And she told me of her interesting life.
She told me of the time she was a child living with her aunt in Germany at the time of the hyper inflation. She told me of the time when she went shopping with her and her aunt. Her aunt decided not to by the bag of rice she wanted to buy because she found it too expensive. The aunt broke out in tears when after she changed her mind a few hours later just to find the price had doubled. 20 years later in California, she had to break open the piggy banks of the children to buy food. Her husband was a genius at building mechanical equipment, but was very naive as far as business was concerned. He was taken advantage of and the family was always broke. I began to understand how she does her shopping, looking at all the labels and prices before making her choice. Often she changes her mind and either takes the product back, or changes it to another item or buys 2.
One rainy day Elsa suggested that we go down south to Teccin, the Italian part of Switzerland where it was sunny and go camping a second time. We left early Saturday morning before the sun came up, and we arrived at about 11 in the morning. It was enchanting with crooked stone huts with stone roofs dotting the canyon. Something from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. We noticed many people that looked like in-breeds. We walked all over among the many abandoned stone houses. We drove up Valle Magia. It was truly magical.
All the public campgrounds were full. Elsa suggested that we camp behind one of the many ruins we saw along the road. I had my doubts, as the ground was rock and very rugged and uneven. I told Elsa that if the police see our tent in the middle of the night then they would ask us to move it. Elsa's reply was that we park our car a bit away from where we camp and that we camp far enough away and out of sight from the road. We saw ruins of a chapel and behind was a circular flat garden that was just the right shape for our igloo tent. Then Elsa had a great idea. Her plan was to find a good respectable restaurant with nice toilets and have a nice meal. After the meal, we use the toilets to wash up before returning to the chapel ruins to set up our tent.
The restaurant was excellent, and so were their bathrooms. When we finally left the restaurant, the cold wind turned to a warmer calm. The moon was full and we walked around the narrow cobble stone streets of the old town. We drove to the chapel ruins, set up the tent, blew up the air mattress and tucked our self in our sleeping bags. In the middle of the night I woke up to find strange noises that made me imagine that in-breeds were walking around our tent. Elsa luckily slept thru it all. We had breakfast at a restaurant on the lake and then we drove up another valley. We walked to some very big waterfalls and thru some small villages. I was amazed at the 200 m high dam that was in the James Bond film and saw people bungee jumping. It was very spectacular.
Elsa took a trip to see her family in America every winter. We took the train to the airport using her 2 remaining 1st class upgrade vouchers. We had a picnic in the 1st class wagon. We were recollecting the many nice moments we had. Like the time that when I found the cookies too sweet and she licked the sugar coating off with her tongue and offered it to me saying ..."here, try this, you will like it better".
When we finally arrived at the airport, we were told that her flight going thru London was canceled and they booked her on a direct flight the next morning. So we stayed the night at a hotel in Zurich. Elsa was relieved not to have to go thru the London stop over, which she did not look forward to. We walked around Zurich in the parts that she knew 70 years ago until it was dark She showed me where her father worked as a patent lawyer. She sometimes helped him translate German and English patents. Then we found the restaurant she wanted to find and had a nice meal before going back to our hotel room. Due to her age, she is entitled special services and it was great to see her picked up by a special little car and get special treatment reserved for a VIP that she is.
She wrote a poem about me.
I have a friend called Andrew
My garden he does do
But he has that thing
About weeds pulling out
Weather summer, winter, fall or spring
Because they are so pretty, he says
And a dark cloud moves over his face.
To again make him happy
What can I make?
Bake a cake?
Or fix some soup
With plenty of chive?
Or take a drive?
Or sip on a glass of wine?
By candle light dine?
Or have good talks
Or long walks.
After Elsa left, the first thing I did was what I looked forward to most... cleaning out the overflowing compost. I was able to tip the 2 years’ worth of compost heap and the exposed underneath was rich living earth. The compost was located on an overgrown bed. I peeled the overgrowth off rolling it like a carpet and discovered underneath that the entire bed must have been once one big compost pile.
The chicken coop covered by the overgrowth below became more visible, inviting and accessible. To my surprise the overgrowth behind the shack was once itself a little hidden garden. It was raining on and off that day and I got to try Elsa's tip that weeds do come out better when the soil is wet. And they really do. So I peeled off the overgrowth and found rich fertile earth and a snake that looked like a big fat worm.
It brought back memories of 1980, 23 years ago in Chile, where I had compost that turned from sludge to black soil teaming full with life.
2005
Being Healthy, and Losing Weight.
A book I read re kindled my interest in nutrition and health again. Like I was in my early adult years. It was called „Fats that heal and fats that kill“. The book introduced me to a new nutrient that was not well known at that time, called Omega 3 that I have never heard of. It claimed that Omega 3 was an essential nutrient we had to get from our diet as our body was not able to produce it. Omega 3 it claimed was a building block of all membranes in our body, from the membranes surrounding the nucleus of all our cells, to the walls of our cells and our skin. While omega 3 is found in most of the plant oils, it turns rancid very fast especially when exposed to air, light, and heat. In the modern diet, the oils are processed and all the omega 3 is removed to preserve the oil from going rancid too fast. The book also pointed out that plant oils with high concentrations of Omega 3 were used in making oil based paints. I was amazed that what made good paints which are in effect membranes; to protect wood was the same substance that made good membranes to protect our cells.
I decided to use my diet analysis computer program to find sources for Omega 3 and found flax to be by far the most concentrated source of Omega 3's, much more than the next best source, fish oils. I wrote a summary paper on all the information I collected and wrote a paper on Omega 3 showing that flax was the only source for correcting the w3/w6 imbalance today that was vital in achieving and maintaining optimal health. Then I wrote a paper on Optimal Health, using a city as an analogy of a body, which led me to make a game called Game of Health.
I started to eat ground flax seeds and I suddenly saw noticeable improvements to my health. I felt healthier and could sleep better and my nails were healthy for the first time. I tried just about everything to grind flax seeds. I started with a stone bowl and mallet that proved too small. Then I got a bigger stone bowl but that did not work either. Pepper grinders were too slow and the electrical blender got too hot. Then I found a small electric coffee blender that worked perfectly with flax seeds. I was very convinced of what I had to preach and published them on the Internet but only a few bothered to make any comments. A chapter dealt with losing weight and I had Tzonka in mind. Unfortunately when I asked her to take a look at it, it just aggravated her.
Sonja
Being frustrated and seeing a sign for dancing during one of my walks, I decided to take a closer look and to my surprise found that there was dancing offered Friday and Saturday nights right in the same town I lived in. Things were not looking so good with Tzonka and I felt very lonely. I decided to go dancing one night and to try to find someone to talk and dance with. I entered the dance hall as usual without any expectations other than to enjoy the music and hope to find my dream lady.
I was one of the first ones there that evening and got to choose a table right in front of the dance floor. The music was dancing music and the couples dancing seemed to be giving a dance show. They danced Latin dances and I was greatly entertained by looking at them. I had my eyes on an attractive lady sitting who almost looked too young for me. She was with a couple and I imagined myself to sit with her. She was talking to her friends and I was waiting for her friends to dance so I could ask her to dance. Finally I saw her alone and made my move. I was relieved to hear that she was already 51, and that she was going thru a divorce and that she was sympathetic to my difficult situation. The music was just the right level, so that we could enjoy it and talk at the same time. We danced close and she let me kiss her neck and dance intimately. We had a great time dancing the entire evening.
Although she never invited me to her table, she did ask me to dance between breaks. She was very kind and was facing similar problems with her marriage that I faced 10 years ago. We stayed till the very end and I asked for her phone number. Unfortunately she gave me her business card and I was not able to call her until Monday. She seemed happy that I called and agreed to have dinner at my place on Friday after her work.
She was just as mesmerized by Napoleon as I was of her and I was becoming almost jealous. She was tired and we got to know and to like each other on my couch the entire evening, until Christopher suddenly came home. We become very intimate very fast and I fell in love with her. She showed a great interest in Christopher and Mathew and they both liked her.
Sonja joined the military right after finishing school and worked her way among the ranks. After many years of a wild free life with many wild free people and many hurts by men in her life, she ended marrying a very domineering soldier. She was accommodating and they had 12 years of happy life together slowly raising their motorcycle collection one by one until they had about 30. On one of her exotic trips, she got bit by a monkey and since then she developed diabetes. She has to inject insulin every day into her skin on her stomach. On another exotic trip she fell into a ditch after being distracted by a sexy local macho waving at her.
We understood each other very fast because she was going thru what I had been going thru the past 10 years. Sonja was unexpectedly abandoned by her husband. They were married for 12 years. They both worked hard in the military to achieve a very comfortable life and future. He was 10 years younger and they collected motorcycles for a hobby. Then suddenly he left her for a 10 years younger woman than he was and took with him the 30 motorcycles they cherished like children, The 30 year old single mom has 2 children and was very poor. Now that he had landed in the poor house with her, Sonja felt threatened that she would have to support him like I had to with Susanne. In addition, she faced losing her comfortable long time job due to cut backs in the military. The best advice I could give her was to contact my x-wife's lawyer who was so good at helping Susanne.
I became Sonja’s handy-man. From installing a chimney on her balcony to installing IKEA furniture, we alternated between work, eating, and sleeping, intermingled with lots of fantastic sex and walking around “unten ohne” with just a T-shirt.
Sonja and I took Malu, her mother, to a monkey zoo in Alsace in France. The weather was very unstable, sunny one minute and raining the next. We rented a little house inside a museum village with all kinds of very old buildings. The following day we went sightseeing in the area and went to see monkeys from Angola who live in a park nearby. The place is known for the research on monkey behavior. Their behavior is the same as if they would be back in the wilds of Angola, from where they came. They had problems integrating, much like the many refugees who live in Switzerland. Sonja did all the driving and I played the copilot and navigator and we drove thru some of the country side of Alsace.
2005
Hurghada
We took a holiday to Hurghada to see the corals. The hotel was very nice with friendly service and beautiful coral reefs 10 meters from the beach. Every day we swam out a few times and saw different fish at different times of the day. We almost felt that we got to know them and that they got to know us. The food was great and so was the wine. We got to know the animation manager who called himself Mumu and said “ajajaj” instead of “thank you” and “please”. He was really good at what he was doing and just watching and hearing him try to animate the lazy sunbathing tourists was animating enough for me. Our hotel beach was next to a public beach and we were fortunate to observe the extremes of topless swimmers swimming besides the Islam ladies who were covered from head to toe. A thin house cat regularly came to our table for food and we enjoyed feeding it.
We took a day trip to Luxor and saw temples and took a boat trip on the Nile to a banana plantation. One of the tourists broke her ankle stepping off the boat. We ended up carrying the poor unfortunate lady to the banana plantation in a chair, just like queen Nefertiti was carried thousands of years ago. The tour guide hired a young boy with a mule to carry the lady back to the boat.
We went to the site where many tourists were massacred a few years before. Solders were everywhere guarding the tourists. The hundreds of buses filled with tourists going to Luxor were convoyed by police or the military. One of the tour guides, as if using a laser pointer to point out parts of the mural he was talking about, threw rocks at the parts he was explaining. He was proud of his aim. To make the tourists feel safe from danger, every hotel had a metal detector at the front entrance. At one of our rest stops on the way, Sonja told me how an excited sales man who was trying to sell her some cloth kept on brushing his erection against her the entire time he was trying sell her the cloth which she eventually bought. I couldn't really blame the guy. What is the poor man to do if the lady tourists like it and end up generously buying from him.
We both annoyed each other too much. I annoyed Sonja with how I ate and how I talked too much and loud some times and too little at other times. She accused me of being too selfish and too demanding. She annoyed me with her shallowness, distance and lack of affection and interest towards me. Our relationship got warmer on our last few days when Sonja got a very severe case of diarrhea and I was able to help her in an intimate way like couples are meant to do by cleaning up her shit.
CELTA
We were warned on the 1st day that the course had a reputation of being very tough. We were expected to do from 3-4 hour homework each evening and write a 1000 word essays each weekend. We were warned to put everything away for 4 weeks, including family and friends, and to ask them to help us by cooking for us and motivating us not to give up. Elsa made me dried fruit and nuts snacks enough for the entire course, and invited me up to her house every week for a nice supper. She packed the left overs of the delicious meals she cooked so I could just warm them up later. Elsa's daughter-in-law Meredith who was visiting from NY helped me to edit my essays.
There were 12 taking the course, 8 ladies and 4 men. We soon all got to feel like we were in a war zone and we developed a camaraderie that became closer as the stress accumulated. A few broke down crying when the stress got too much. At the end of the course we were all sad to realize that we would no longer see each other on a daily basis. The 3 tutors made the classes very enjoyable and entertaining. What they taught was very interesting, mind provoking, relevant and convincing. They made me realize that how we speak whether in our native tongue, or in a foreign language, can greatly determine how others perceive us and understand us. The students we taught were volunteers. They were very friendly and forgiving. There were 3 levels of classes.
The first week I taught the intermediates and in one of my classes I made a very funny mistake. We were practicing the “id” sound of verbs like "pointed". I was searching for a word to rhyme with "id". So I asked the students if they knew of any words that rhymed with "id". No one could come up with a word, and suddenly I thought of one, and said. “OK I got one you should all know…...."Idiot". Some started to laugh getting the joke faster than me.
I nearly failed because I tended to talk too much. The school taught me that the best way you can learn a foreign language is to figure out the meaning of words yourself, just like children have to do. They call it “self-discovery”. The best way to teach a language is to provide the proper context to the words you want to teach. Now that I have the certificate, I can teaching English in a private school.
BAG
The longer you remain unemployed, the more difficult it is to get a job. To fill the ever widening hole I found myself in and to make me look employable, the unemployment Insurance office arraigned for a 3 month assignment at the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health known as BAG. I had to publish on their intranet about 100 documents from their ISO 9000 Quality Management Project. The department I worked in was responsible for transmissible diseases and had offices responsible for AIDS and Bio Terrorism. I met many interesting people and had many interesting talks with many of them. Some were doctors, and others were economists, mathematicians, biologists and sociologists.
Most of the work was reformatting and adding links, but I was able to write an Introduction/Forward Chapter and a Document maintenance Chapter for whoever will have to maintain the web site once I left. My boss was very happy with what I did and got me to stay on a few more months. The job went faster than planned and for a while I had to check and archive medical bills for the 50,000 refugees who entered the previous year. Bills without vaccinations were considered “consultation without service” and were not paid by BAG. Doctors were only paid when they vaccinated the refugees whether they needed it or not. BAG wanted to ensure that refugees were vaccinated to Swiss levels. One of my assignments was to collect information available about action plans implemented in other countries to fight the new unexpected polio outbreaks. I summarized them into a format comparing the data to Swiss data so that it could be adapted for Switzerland.
Life after Sonja
Elsa and I celebrated New Years together by having a nice fire in her fireplace. Simone, her neighbor invited us over and it was snowing so hard and the road was so icy that we started to slide down the steep winding narrow road. We slid into a bank so hard that we got stuck. A pickup truck nearly hit us coming up. The man helped move our car safely off the road and drove us back to Elsa's house. In the chaos of the moment I slipped and the dog from the truck helping us bit me. My hips from the fall and my legs from the dog bite hurt for the next couple of weeks.
Elsa convinced me that I had to be better dressed to be able to better sell myself to find a job and find a partner. I was happy to have Elsa help me by going thru all of the clothes that I inherited from Heinz Gougle 5 years ago. I had 2 big suitcases of his clothes that I never really unpacked. I gave Elsa and Christopher a fashion show. They delegated the clothes either to be kept or discarded. I was surprised to see that Christopher had the same opinion as Elsa regarding what suited me and what did not. We were all surprised to see that I had so many nice clothes. I ended keeping 1 full suitcase and giving the rest along with some of the rags I was still wearing to a cloths charity.
My unemployment insurance was running out and I could not find any work, even with my new CELTA diploma. Elsa suggested that I rent a room in her house and I help her around the house. The thought of living up at Elsa's raised my spirit greatly and I started on a cleaning out experience where I kept only the things that I could carry and have delegated all the other things to be discarded. The cleaning out event lasted about a few weeks and I managed to throw most things that I accumulated over the past 20 years.
Mathew agreed to find a place for my books in his house, so my books returned after more than 10 years to their original place in the barn loft of Susanne’s house. The more I threw out, the more I felt relieved and cleansed like I was taking a shower. Elsa did a lot of cleaning out as well of things that she and her husband accumulated over the past 30 years.
2006
The kids
I am greatly relieved at how Christopher turned out. He shops the same way like Elsa does, and it is perhaps the reason why they like each other so much. They are both frugal and know exactly what they want and where to find it, carefully and meticulously looking at the prices and the labels, comparing for the best buy before deciding on what to buy. It clearly shows their Jewish roots.
I am as well pleased how Mathew turned out despite all his bad luck. He ended up in a bio dynamic gardening school based on Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy. He had problems at school where he didn’t feel challenged enough. On top of that he fell in love with a girl who already had a boyfriend. He had sleeping problems that made him come late to school too many times. The school director threatened to throw him out of school unless his attitude changed. Mathew claimed that they were exploiting the students. He told me that when they were learning how to build a garden wall, most of the learning time was used to get the rocks to the garden. He complained how the bio dynamic principles that the school claimed to teach were compromised for economic reasons. At the same time Mathew wanted to be able to finish the program as he was already more than half way to getting his diploma.
Susanne and I attended the meeting where Mathew's doctor had to confirm Mathew's sleep disorder. I felt so sorry for poor Mathew having to defend his integrity in such a difficult way. Mathew is a real thinker and idealist. He even looks that way with his thick hair that looks like a mane of a lion. We talked about everything from physics to metaphysics and everything in between. He reads a lot and was in the middle of reading Aldous Huxley's Island about a island paradise. He suggested I read it, and I enjoyed it very much. Especially the parrots that fly around saying “Here and Now” and “Attention” reminding you to focus on the present. And not dwell on the past or the future.
Susanne moved out of the house leaving Mathew, Stefan, and Florian to live by themselves. Christopher didn't know anything about it, and all I could get out of Mathew, Stefan, and Florian was that Susanne moved out to live in Thun with a man who had Alzheimer. She was taking care of him and came by weekly for a visit. Mathew thought the house cleaner and more orderly with Susanne gone. I was proud to see how well they managed all alone without parents. I am pleased how Stefan and Florian turned out.
Stefan has the build of a Tarzan and is very gentle and kind. He always looked out for his brothers to keep them out of trouble. We used to call him Buffalo Bill or Stefy Beffy because he played the sheriff role too much. He was working as a carpenter and wanted to try other lines of work and travel before deciding on settling down to a job. He assured me that he is looking after Mathew when I found out that they were living without Susanne in the house. He told me that he did the grocery shopping. They had a list of house chores and Mathew was very cooperative and reliable in the house work.
Florian looked like a model with his well-kept hair and his well-chosen clothes. He was the only one with a girlfriend Ester that he has managed to keep for the past 3 or 4 years. He is working in an architecture office and wants to be an architect.
Unfortunately I was not so pleased with how I turned out, especially how I lost everything except my books and clothes.
The past 2 years I was on unemployment insurance. I had to send in 10 job applications every month and had to report to an unemployment councilor regularly. All my applications were rejected. When my unemployment insurance ran out, I landed on welfare and was forced to move to cheaper accommodation. Elsa suggested I move in with her. I gladly accepted.
Life with Elsa
Life with Elsa was very nice. She was like a guru. Her son Peter was visiting with his wife Lisa when I arrived in April with my last load and officially moved in. I helped Peter tear down and rebuild the huge patio and renovate the chicken coop for overflow guests. It was very dusty work and we wore overalls and masks. I felt like a surgeon giving the rotting patio a second life. It rained a lot and we had nice conversations and diners in between work.
A few weeks after moving in with Elsa, my back started to hurt so much that I could hardly walk. I had nightmares and could not sleep. I went to the doctor and was shocked to see my blood pressure dangerously high. He prescribed me medication that after reading about it on the Internet, I was too afraid to take. I read up on high blood pressure and decided that I was going to try to regain my health by changing my life style.
I paid off my debts with what I saved for emergencies I canceled my life insurance, stopped my alimony payments and enrolled on well fare. Once on welfare, I realized that I suddenly had less stress, and more money then I had the past 10 years and I was able to buy myself a motorcycle.
I met Aude Einstein thru Elsa. She is the widowed wife of one of Albert Einstein's sons. Her house was like a museum. She invited me to the wedding of a refugee from Congo whom she helped find a job at a garage. It was a very interesting wedding party with young girls dancing erotically for the groom and the bride. About 200 guests showed up to the party that continued into the early morning. The invitation stated that everyone should be “on time” and that they should “leave the children at home”. We ended up at the wrong church. We knew that it was a catholic wedding and when we saw a catholic cathedral on a hill, we went to it just to find out that it had changed into a protestant church. We were shown that the catholic cathedral was on the other side of the river on the opposing hill. It looked like a protestant temple. When we finally arrived a few minutes late, we saw the friends and family of the bride and groom colorfully dressed in their colorful tribal dress with very high colorful hats. There were lots of children and the ceremony had not yet started, as not everyone had yet arrived. Although it was a catholic wedding, the priest was more like a passionate evangelical preacher.
He started by tempting the bride and groom to change their minds about taking their marriage vows, somehow like what you would in a TV game program like "Deal or no deal". He offered everything like money and independence. When he didn't succeed after repeated attempts, he bounced good advice about love and patience and listening. He got hearty confirmation hallelujahs from the choir and the guests. He then had the groom carefully look over the bride and asked him if he saw any scars, bruises, or other wounds on her. When the groom could not find any he warned the groom to make sure that it stayed that way.
The service lasted over 2 hours and was very lively and interactive. The supper that was scheduled for 8 pm got underway past midnight. The food was typical of the Congo consisting of chicken, fish, vegetables, and a potato preparation that looked too rubbery for me to try. The entertainment was given by provocatively dresses and painted dancing teenagers in very short miniskirts who did their love dance to the bride and groom and cheered and whooped at every kiss or hug.
Marianna
Elsa’s son Martin and his family arrived and I gave up my room to them and drove with my motorbike to Hungary for 3 weeks. Elsa wrote me a poem to take along with me on my trip.
Love is such a strange addiction.
True at times and sometimes fiction.
Falling from heaven, straight into hell.
Wanting, rejecting, hoping, repel.
Impossible, wonderful, crazy time.
To my good friend Andrew on his way
This little rhyme.
As on most my trips to Hungary, I visited the people I always try to visit and went to the places I always try to go back to. The drive to Budapest took 3 days on my motorbike and was very pleasant. I camped near Innsbruck the first night. I remember the receptionist at the campground showing off her huge tits. The second night I stayed at a bed and breakfast on the Balaton. Erszy and Tibor were home and invited me to stay with them as usual. Erszy had become a bit famous and was writing her 5th book. Her mom was sick and was staying with them. They were just about to go swimming with their 3 grandchildren and they invited me to come.
I had addresses of 2 ladies I contacted from the Internet whom I had arraigned to meet over a dinner. Veronika, invited me to stay with her and seemed just as excited to meet me as I was to meet her. She lived an hour drive from Budapest and we arraigned to meet Friday night. I had trouble to find her place because the headlight on my motorcycle broke. We had a nice meal but the chemistry was missing and to her relief I volunteered to leave the next morning.
Then I called Marianna and we arraigned to meet a few days later by the fountain in front of the Gellert mineral bathhouse. When I arrived, I saw a few single elderly women waiting there and asked them one by one if they were Marianna. Fortunately none of them was. When I saw this beautiful young looking woman approach, I did not even bother to ask her as I thought that the Marianna I was looking for would look much older. She came up to me and introduced herself. We had a very nice enjoyable dinner. As far as tastes, likes and dislikes, we could not find anything we had common, but we had a great time opening up ourselves to each other. She invited me to join her for her niece's birthday party the following week in Szeged where she was raised up.
The birthday party in Szeged was very enjoyable. I felt honored to be invited and to be introduced to her sister Andrea and her husband Görgy and their 2 children, Andras and Flora. We walked around Marianna's neighborhood where she was a child. Andras reminded me of a character in Ferenc Molnar's famous book "Paul Street Boys" about a boys gang in Budapest during the war.
Knowing that Marianna enjoyed reading Erzsy's column, I invited Erszy to a diner. She was really happy to meet and talk to Erszy. I had one of Erzsy’s books with me and had it personally signed for her. I wanted to impress Marianna and I did. In the meantime I had moved out of Erzsy's house into the house of her daughter who was away on a holiday in France. It was an entire house that was near the city center and from there I took day trips into Budapest.
I visited my cousin Andrea and Zoltan and took them to the restaurant where they had their wedding party 55 years ago. Zoltan was so rude to Andreas that I could not help but defend her all the time. He criticized her constantly like an impatient parent with a problematic child. He would call her names and call her idiot and worse. Marianna eventually offered to let me stay at her place but she was too busy at work to spend much time with me. I got to meet her daughter Orzsy before they left for a week holidays in Croatia.
The hot spell turned into a cold rainy one. I went on to Nagykanizsa where I paid my respects to my grandfather and my little brother by visiting their grave. I tried to find Kristina whom I met over 10 years ago at the Vecsey school name-change-over ceremony. I had forgotten her family name. I could not find the bookstore she worked in when I first met her but the first bookstore I went to, the sales lady knew her. Kristina had moved to Szombathely and was the culture minister there. She told me that I would find her at the Szombathely municipal offices. So off I drove to Szombathely, in the rain.
I met Ani for a few hours in Szombathely. I was staying at a university that rented out its rooms during the summer break and wanted to phone Kristina, the Culture Minister of Szombathely. Ani was going on a bus tour to Switzerland, and we met outside the building. I asked her if she knew where the municipal offices were and she told me that she was walking that way and that she could take me there.
The lady at the front desk informed me that Kristina had left the office an hour ago. She gave me Kristina’s home and mobile telephone number but to my disappointment, both phones were disconnected. Disappointed I went back to the office to ask if Kristina would be at the office the next day. To my great disappointment, the sign outside was marked as being closed until next Monday. It was only Friday and I thought that I would not wait around 3 days. As I was heading back to my motorcycle the receptionist ran after me to tell me that Kristina just happened to return to her office and that I could go up to visit her.
Kristina remembered me and was now the culture minister of the city. She told me that there were some people interested in finding out about my father who suddenly disappeared 50 years ago when we escaped from Hungary. One was a man called Peter who recently retired as the municipal architect of Szombathely. He wanted to write a book about Szombathely's architecture in which my father played a key role. Kristina promised to introduce me to him the following day, and to show me the church my father built in 1934. She introduced me to her next door neighbor friend Klara who was the retired finance minister and who was publishing a book containing post cards showing Szombathely's architecture, many from my father.
We had such a good talk that Ani stayed with Kristina and me for the afternoon. I had a great time me with the 2 ladies. Kristina kept on talking about me like I was a very important person She said that other people were interested in meeting me and she wanted to set up an radio interview with me. We went to a musical festival where Kristina introduced us to the top brass. When it was time to say goodbye to Ani, she gave me a good luck stone that I put in my pocket, and we exchanged calling cards and mobile phone numbers Then Kristina and I went out to meet the people that were interested in meeting me to ask me about my father, who was a really important man, and about his father, my grandfather Zsigmond who was even more important and more well known. We had a nice dinner together and I made arrangements to call her next morning.
When I woke up next morning, I found a beautifully written poem slipped under my door from Ani that left me wondering how much more beautiful it would be if I would be able to read it and understand it. The letters were all formed with flowery swirls that made it very difficult to read, especially when I didn’t understand most of the words.
The next morning I called Kristina from her front door intercom and she was very angry that I did not call her from a phone, She almost refused to speak to me using the intercom. It was a real shocker. She told me that she was too busy to spend any time with me that day. So I went off by myself to try and find the house where I was living as a child. The name of the square where I lived as a child has been change 3 times since I was there last 50 years ago. I found an elderly man who had lived there at that time. The front part of the building was the only remnants still standing, but the man confirmed where the coal storage room was that I remembered so well, and where the horses came in to deliver the coal. He also showed me the synagogue that I remembered seeing on my way to school, and showed me the church my father built. Unfortunately it was closed.
The following day, I returned to the church in the middle of a baptism. At the end of the service as I was looking around the church, a lady introduced herself and asked if I was Vecsey Andrà s. The lady introduced herself as the wife of Peter, the man Kristina wanted to introduce me to. Peter was writing a short biography of my father.
My father suddenly disappeared from Nagykanizsa after the war. He was persecuted by the Russians who remained and who persecuted both Nazi officers, and people from the nobility. My father, a decorated Nazi officer from a noble family was especially targeted. Peter was delighted to hear that my father survived longer than was thought and that he managed to die in Canada with his family.
When I finally called Kristina, she invited Klara and we went up the hill displaying 12 alters along the way depicting the 12 steps of Christ. I remembered my grandmother took us there for walks many times. The 12 alters had shrunk to about a third of their size as I remembered them as a child.
On my way back home, I went to Sopron. I found a bed and breakfast run by a Mormon family and they were so nice that I stayed an extra day and saw the beautiful city. I camped in the same place in Austria as I did when I came. When I finally got home, Elsa's son Martin and her family were still here and the house was full. Then the next day they suddenly left. The house turned very quiet and it gave me the after holiday blues.
Marianna's visit.
Two days after Elsa left on her winter migration to Utah, Marianna came up from Budapest for a 5 day visit. I promised to give her a great time and show her a bit of Switzerland. I picked her up at the airport and we dove to Nyon where we walked around. Then we drove along the lake to Lausanne and had a picnic in a park on the lake.
When we finally arrived home, I made a fire and a pizza while she took a bath. The second night we had a raclette with vegetables and made love by the fire. When we went to the Beatus Caves, Marianna showed me a stalagmite sticking out from the ground and told me that it reminded her of me. I was flattered.
The last day, like most days we stayed in bed late and it looked like it might rain. We decided to visit Ballenberg with our rain jackets ready. We walked around some interesting buildings and Marianne said a similar thing my mother said about 15 years ago. They both remarked after a while of touring the old buildings -.”when you see one... you see them all”. We then decided to drive to Lucerne over the Brünnig Pass. In Luzern, we walked around the old part of town. I had forgotten myself how beautiful Lucerne is with all the flowers and painted old decorated houses. We decided that we were not going to picnic that day, and found a nice restaurant that served exactly what we both wanted, Rössti. The next day at the airport when she said goodbye she told me that she would like to come up for Christmas and New Years, but that she didn’t see too much hope for a long term relationship with me. I was sad to hear that and for a few weeks I felt very lost. Then I found Samira.
Samira
Samira was an 45 year-old single mom refugee from Burundi where they had those horrible massacres about 10 years ago. She lived a 3 hour drive away and she had 2 children. Nadya 14 and Extian 5. Her politician husband was assassinated. She was in Switzerland for the past 5 years as a refugee without papers. The only reason they did not throw her out was on compassionate grounds because she had children. She found me on match.com on the Internet. We made a 1st date in Zurich. She bought me a rose and we spent a few hours together walking around, shopping and a dinner at an Asian restaurant. I bought her a pair of boots. She is extremely beautiful, with a body of a model, and looks 10 years younger than she is. I came home feeling that Samira would reject me and that I would not see her again. The next day she told me she found me nervous but a very nice man and would love to have a second date with me. We decided it would be up by my place.
When she finally arrived, after a 3 hour journey, she was too tired and hungry to go anywhere but home. We had a nice fire going and we talked a lot. I told her of my difficult financial situation. She told me about hers, which was much worse than mine. She told me she was not looking for a rich man and would love to have someone like me as the father of her 2 children, and as her partner to grow old with. I liked her openness and honesty, her attitude and strength, her beliefs and values. Her wants and needs were the same as mine and she was very serious, spontaneous, adventurous, fearless, fun and happy go lucky. And she was a wonderful mom, and a great lover. She felt a love for me and thought I might be the right man for her. I felt it as well. She let me know how much she wanted and needed me. It was all so wonderful. I felt a superman being able to handle any challenges and surmount any problems... such is the power of love. We talked over the phone daily and raised each other's moods. And she started to tell me she loved me.
We made our 3rd date with her children at my place. She went to her friend in Bern to get strait hair braided on to her curly hair. I offered to pick them up and Nadya her daughter told me to meet her at a train station where I could easily park the car. So I went there and waited for Nadya. I saw a black young girl with a younger looking boy waiting by the Kiosk. I decided to surprise them but they ended surprising me because they were not Nadya and Extian. When I phoned Nadya as to where she was she was waiting at another train station. She had given me the wrong train station name. Finally when I arrived and found her, we had to wait a few hours till Samira's hair was finished. Samira looked really pretty. It was too late to do anything and we were all hungry, so we went directly home and had a nice raclette. I really enjoyed the kids and they enjoyed me. I looked on it as a chance to restart my life where it was 10 years ago, with Joanna from Botswana.
2007
Marianna's visit
Marianna flight was delayed 3 hours and she arrived at midnight. Driving home, I told her of my relationship with Samira and how I needed to find a partner. She hit me hard with her eyes for rejecting and humiliating her. Then she kissed me and told me she loved me and cried for having lost me. She asked me to thank Samira for making her realize that she did love me. I didn't know how much more of this emotional bending I would be able to take. She told me how correctly I understood her and gradually revealed to me how well she understood me. She had never been rejected before by anyone and I ended up to be the first one to have ever rejected her. We both laughed at that, but before knowing it moment by moment, we very soon agreed that we wanted each other for more than an occasional good time. We both wanted partners.
Marianna's requirements are intelligence and humor. At least enough to understand her complicated jokes. For luck she finds me funny and I find her intelligent. My requirements are love and happiness.
I liked the way she wanted to be pleased and I found her mesmerizing, sexy and beautiful and easy to please sexually. We had a wonderful 14 days together filled with passion, laughter and crying. For luck we were able to enjoy each other’s company and we were able to forget and get over our troubled moods quickly. There were many magical moments and It felt like we were in the golden pot at the rainbow's end.
It was not a very ordinary XMas-New Year. Even the weather acted a bit crazy, being more like spring than winter. It started with a few days of heavy fog. We found ourselves in a cloud and that is how we felt as well. The trees got coated with layers of frozen fog and look like glass. Whenever a busts of wind sent the ice falling from the branches, it caused an audio visual effect that was unforgettably beautiful and left us mesmerized. As if the weather was putting on a show for us, the fog lifted over time and changed to rain that kept us indoors huddled between the blazing fire place and the electric air heater. Marianna knitted me a wool scarf and I kept the fire going. We watched DVDs many nights. And we talked a lot about what we could do and where we could live together. We saw fog, rain, rainbows, and glorious rays of sunshine and beautiful cloud formations. We let the weather direct our activities. We were in love.
One sunny day we went high up the mountains in Oey where we saw how the Lothar in 1999 carved out an entire river of rocks and left boulders the size of houses. Visitors piled rocks in figures resembling little people who guard the area from further destruction. We walked up to Guggisberg peak. We walked a lot and saw more of the wonderful close but hidden treasures of nature all around.
A highlight for me was celebrating Christopher's birthday on X-Mas, the right way. Thanks to Marianna we did it with cake, candles, pictures and special salmon lasagna. She was dressed up looking very fine, delicate, beautiful, and dignified. After dinner, we had a round on the game of life. Marianna could not get her heart into the game and the dice eventually helped her out by having her land on her grave. Christopher played like he played as a child, enthusiastic and gleaming with joy. We looked at some pictures especially when he was just a baby. It was nice to be able to share those wonderful memories with Marianna.
Marianna showed interest in Chris and really liked him. She found him a sweet guy, which he is. Christopher liked Marianna as well. Even Napoleon, who was very jealous at the beginning, ended up liking Marianna. I found myself moved into Marianna's family contacts on the internet chat. She gracefully moved herself into my empty family contacts list and ruthlessly deleted Samira from my contact list. On one day, Marianna went to visit Basel with the Hungarian Opera singer Zoltan she met on the Internet. For luck, she felt no chemistry and left him frustrated and I imagine a bit hurt, in a way too familiar. Another broken heart, but this time, not mine.
By the time we got to Geneva and saw the water fountain which squirts water close to 100 meters high, our moods got raised. We were in love. I thought that it was about time I found a woman intelligent enough to value me and at the same time crazy enough to want me. Soon after she left, she bought some tickets to come back in April for Easter.
Budapest
A month later, back home in Budapest, Marianna got a severe nerve condition on her left leg. It left her in a constant pain that was robbing her of any meaningful sleep. I immediately thought of my ordeal the time I had Lyme disease over 10 years ago. Marianna's ordeal started with a fever with sore muscles and headache soon after she returned from Switzerland. It gradually turned into a sore leg, from hip to toe. Within a month she had trouble sitting or standing for more than a few minutes. After initial treatment by her family doctor things rapidly worsened to intolerable muscle cramps that had to be treated by paramedics coming to give her injections against the pain. She was unable to get up out of her bed or even to change her position.
The drive up to Budapest was very exciting. Chris agreed to look after Napoleon. I was so thankful for being able to just hop in Elsa's car and 14 hours and 1200km later in the middle of night I arrived. I drove non stop. I had a good map from the Internet, and Marianna told me the exit to look out for. Fortunately its a name I could easily read and recognize “Gazdagret”. I even knew the meaning of the word. “Rich- neighborhood”. It is on a hill, with beautiful big homes surrounding a ghetto of about ten 12 story blocks. The blocks have family run shops on the first floor. Beauty salons - even for dogs - and massage parlors were everywhere. There are abundant parks and playgrounds and sport areas and even a school. Except for a lack of bicycles and cats, the ghetto reminded me of a Chinese neighborhood.
Marianna lived near a very tall modern church that ran out of money before it could be finished, so it was easy to find in the middle of the night. Unfortunately I spent about an hour looking for a parking space, and all the blocks looked the same. Marianna's family name was on every block I looked at, and when I finally found her she was in a very weak state. She could walk to the bathroom, but she could not sit for more than a few minutes. She was in constant pain and preferred to sleep in her sturdy sofa in the living room, instead of in her uncomfortable sagging bed. So we lay on the sofa a lot and explored her box full of photographs. We were both very thankful that I was able to be there.
The pain became so severe that her house doctor came to give an injection. As the doctor was going away for the long weekend, she left pills behind and told Marianna to call her on Monday. Marianna soon developed unbearable cramps in her entire legs. The cramps were so intense and the skin so sensitive that she was not able to tolerate neither massage nor caressing or even being touched. The magic cream that I sent by post that worked for me when I had Lyme disease finally arrived but by this time I could not touch her to cream her leg.
The next day her cramps had become so severe that she was unable to get back on her sofa from the bathroom. She ended up in her uncomfortable bed next to the bathroom and stayed there in the same position for the next 3 days. For the 3 nights paramedics had to come each night but all they could do was administer heavy drugs to calm her pain. Nothing seemed to work and the paramedics were trying everything they had. They always came sometimes 3 or 4 hours after we called, usually with their cell phones ringing new emergencies. They tried a different injection each time but nothing seemed to relieve her pain.
I was getting worried, and was considering calling my friend Erszy the columnists that I usually visit whenever in Budapest. The medical system is scandalous considering that Hungary is now a member of the European Community. Her doctor finally returned from her vacation and authorized an ambulance to take Marianna to the hospital. Doctors expect tips for their services to supplement their meager incomes. Some offer free untested medicines with promising results to test out, with many detrimental side effects. It took Marianna 4 days to get admitted to hospital and 2 weeks to do 3 tests and come to a diagnosis. At the hospital, Marianna got to try new cocktails of colored pills and injections and insertions and creams provided by the various doctors trying this and that. Suddenly the intolerable cramps went away, but the pain did not. Marianna noticed that when she included that medicine that her house doctor prescribed, then the cramps returned.
The hospital staff wore white and sometimes it was hard to tell the doctors, nurses, and cleaning staff apart. There were much more cleaners than nurses and doctors. Many of them looked old and some looked sicker than the patients, and as run down as the hospital. The hospital food was mushy and clearly made in one big pot. There was always a soup but never a desert. The patients had to provide their own cutlery, drinks and fruits. There was only one warm meal served each day. It was as well fortunately around noon when I visited. It always had a delicious vegetable soup with a meat dish with a pickled cucumber once in a while. For breakfast and supper they served a cold snack.
I felt helpless and couldn't do much more than exchange the hospital food for fresh fruits and vegetables which was more to Marianna's preference. I visited her daily but only for a short time. She appreciated me coming but preferred to be alone. It is as if she was ashamed to be as sick as she was. At times I felt lost in time. One day I didn't know what day it was. A while later I realized that I didn't even know what month it was. Marianna, normally very rational, seemed to have suddenly turned irrational. There was what I hopefully assumed to be dried tomato juice on the wall right behind her bedside table. As if a full container was placed too close to the wall and squirted like it does sometimes. I wanted to clean it as it was starting to bother me but she insisted that I leave it there. It stayed there the entire 2 weeks we were there.
Being in constant pain she often had a needle stuck in her hand for an infusion bag to drain pain killers into her. Yet she was so sensitive that if I would come too close to the needle from the overhanging tubes, she would react as if I had already bumped into it. She gradually lost all interest and motivation. The blood test came back a few days later and did not show anything unexpected but that did not raise her mood. Despite this good news, she told me her worries about her friend who recently had similar pains and ended dying a painful death of bone cancer. I became tormented by not being able to cheer her up and get her thinking positive.
The next test scheduled was a ultra sound around the womb because Marianna strangely started having menstrual bleeding after already having passed menopause a while ago. The pictures did not show any abnormalities. Then they did a CT, this time of the correct area of the spine and hip. At the end of the week, they were still unable to find anything.
Sometimes I felt I annoyed her too much but other times she told me she appreciated me coming and found me very decent. There was one time that she told me she decided she loves me, but I think she was delirious at the time. I developed a daily routine. After visiting her, I would enjoy a meal of rice and vegetables and breaded mushrooms or liver and beer at a restaurant for locals. The next week a rheumatologist was called in to look at the CT results. He diagnosed a hernia that would heal slowly over a month of rest and therapy. We were relieved that no operation would be needed.
With the aid of a walking helper she was finally able to walk to the bathroom and back. By Thursday she was able to go home even without any walking aid or crutch. She regained her strength as suddenly as she lost it. By Saturday she was still in pain, but it was bearable, and she was able to sleep a few hours. She was still very sensitive to sounds, especially the ones I made in the kitchen and bathroom. Marianna finally got her appetite back and ordered a Sushi diner. Even her appetite for me returned and she showed me in her very special way. When it was time for me to go back home, I turned on the car and heard music from the radio that never worked before. It played for a while and just as mysteriously as it turned itself on, it turned itself off. The drive back took the same amount of time as it took to get there. 14 hours and 2 tank stops. I got a splitting headache for a while driving into the sun.
Before, I always had the impression that the Hungarians were friendly people. That was my past experience whenever I looked like a confused and lost tourist. This time I left finding the people disappointingly unfriendly; at least in the suburb and hospital I visited.
Once I asked a sales lady in a department store to help me find a pan. She rudely told me that she was too busy to help me. One morning on the bus, I witnessed a bus driver and an angry passenger verbally abuse each other for 10 minutes like children. The passengers rudely complained they were going to be late for work, but the bus driver refused to give up the verbal fight. At one point the offender finally got off the bus and the passengers all sighed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately the light turned red and it allowed the verbal fight to continue. Before the light turned green, the driver got offended again and got out of the bus to continue the verbal fight to the groans and grumbling of the irritated passengers. Hungarians are a very proud people.
Back at Elsa's house overlooking beautiful Gurbetal from Gutenbrunnen, having traded the hustle, bustle and struggle of the ghetto and the hospital in Budapest with the calm and peace of Gurbetal, the valley looked more beautiful than I remember having left it 3 weeks before. When I went shopping I must have had a really confused look. In both the stores the sales lady came to me to ask if she could help me. And I didn't even need help.
Recuperating in Switzerland
Marianna came to recuperate in Switzerland and I was captivated by her beauty the entire week. She was very talkative and very active. It was hard keeping her still. Fortunately we had summer weather and the car seat reclined and was comfortable. So we drove around nearby and ate out quite a bit. She already knew most of the local attractions so we got to sleep in late and stayed at home a lot. We made love in the mornings staying talking and eating in bed until it was warm enough to lie out in the sun. We walked near the house, walking further each day. She took a lot of pictures of the new born farm animals. One little new-born calf, continually sucking on the ears of his brother reminded me of Christopher when he had his ear fetish as a baby.
There was usually a thin fog over the valley making it look very dreamy. And with Marianna's heavy medication, she felt in a dreamy mood a lot. We went up 2000m one sunny day and walked around in the snow. Huge mushrooms carved from wood along the walk reminded us of a stalagmite in the cave below the mountain that impressed us so much in a previous visit.
We talked and laughed a lot, shopped and ate well and watched DVDs. We talked about how we both wanted to have each other as a partner. We talked about the important aspects of healthy partnership and Marianna highlighted the importance of healthy sex for a healthy partnership. We didn't argue about anything the entire week. It was very peaceful and recuperating for both of and I felt invigorated and passionately in love.
On our last night we invited Mathew and Chris over for a most enjoyable raclette. When I drove Mathew home, he told me how much he liked Marianna and asked me if we were a couple. That made both me and Marianna very happy and we have decided that we would like to live together in a year.
Family meeting
When Marianna went back to Budapest, I got more English classes from inlingua and got new ideas about the shape of atoms that kept me very busy. I made the shapes from cut paper representing the carbon atom and stuck them together with velcro and made a 3-D puzzle to make beautiful forms depending on the way they were put together. When I put the pieces together one way, I got diamond crystals as well as graphite sheets. When the pieces were put together another way by rotating them a bit, I got shapes also that you find in nature, especially in plants and animals. Depending on how I put the pieces together, I got everything between a round ball and a straight stick.
I had about 3 weeks to prepare the house for Elsa’s return. Else was expecting her granddaughter Arielle and her 3 great granddaughters to come within a week of her arrival. Then came the news that Ellie was going to visit Andrea and Zoltan and planned to visit me for 2 weeks before flying home. For luck Marianna came into the picture and made the entire episode as perfect as it can get. Everything turned out just right re-enforcing my feeling that finally things are turning right in my life after all.
Andrea and Zoltan, probably realizing that their guest room was not befitting for Ellie, suggested she book into a hotel rather than stay with them. Marianna jumped to the rescue and suggested that Ellie stay with her and offered to pick her up at the airport. Ellie ended up staying with Marianna and Marianna ended up coming to Switzerland with Ellie. And I ended up with one of my most memorable 2 weeks.
With so much to do and so little time, the time flew by very fast. A corn on my foot started hurting so much that it hurt even when my feet were off the floor and I was in socks. It was as if I had a sharp deep cut. Other times even when I squeezed the area to make it hurt, I could not. The pain would come and go making me think that it could be psychosomatic. Incredibly I found that one old pair of shoes that I had fit so well that I ended up wearing them all the time to avoid the pain.
Before I knew it Elsa had arrived and the house was like it had just been before I moved in. Then the ants invaded. They started from a corner and they slowly started moving and over night, they covered up sections of the wall. Elsa and I counter attacked with ant poison and they retreated as fast as they attacked.
I was able to finish fixing up Elsa’s chicken coop in the garden into a love nest before Marianna and Ellie arrived. I bought a fan, lamp, vacuum cleaner, water vase, water heater, wash basin and hair dryer and a flower vase. My models of atoms were proudly displayed as if on exposition. I had mirrors all over and with the candle and small lamp, the love nest was warm and cozy for me. I hung up the mosquito net and felt like a rooster ready for my hen.
It was raining when we arrived to our love nest. The next morning, Marianna and I heard what appeared to be sheep or cows with bells coming towards our love nest. It was Elsa ringing a bell to wake us up. Ariel, Elsa's granddaughter arrived with her 3 children David (9), Gabriel (6) and Isabel (3) from Phoenix. It was very hectic for a while until everyone found their place. Ellie slept in my room. Ariel slept with her grandma, and the kids slept in Elsa's office. But Isabel eventually ended up in between Elsa and Ariel every night. After a few days, Elsa ended up on the couch in her piano room.
Napoleon, shedding his winter fur and already kicked out a week since Elsa arrived ended up to be ostracized for a while because David, allergic to cats, nearly had to be sent to the hospital when he got some cat hair on him. The ants returned and this time there were two types. Small ones and great big flying ones. They invaded the kids sleeping room and the vacuum cleaner was our only defense.
The children were wonderful. David was very theatrical and imaginative. Gabriella, a big sister to Isabel and a little sister to David played her role well letting David help her with helping Isabel. Isabel is a little princess and lets everyone know it. It was so nice to see 4 generations at one table. Marianna and I both agreed that we too would like to experience this for ourselves one day. Then Marianna got some good news from her daughter Orsi. Orsi was pregnant and she was going to be a grandmother. It really raised her spirits and we talked once more about how nice it would be to grow old together with lots of grandchildren, and how important it is to keep our spirits high and our body healthy, like Elsa has been doing.
My English class with Katie, Margaret and Lotti turned into a party. They got to use their English. Marianna got to practice her English as well as to see and meet some typical Swiss ladies. Ellie got to play English teacher. And Elsa got entertained by it all. Ellie taught me that saying “for luck” is incorrect and should be instead “as luck would have it” , And that if someone does not know what “manure” is, that we should not use “shit” as an alternative. But “poo” is permissible, at times, and that “to provocate” as a word does not exist... it is “to provoke”. I was tempted to ask about the use of “to fornicate” and “to fuck” but was able to hold myself back.
Ellie still treated me as her little brother. She asked me to do things by saying that she will leave it in my capable hands, reminding me every once in a while if I have done them yet. Since I lost my job a few years ago I avoided telling Ellie that I had lost my job because I was worried about how she would take it. Marianna did me the favor of telling her in Budapest so when she was here, we didn't talk too much about it. And I was busy doing many classes, I felt like a real working man. I gave classes at Siemen's and it was a pleasure as always to go teach English to the engineers.
When everyone eventually left, the house felt very quiet and empty.
The pieces fall together
The paper carbon atoms I was making and putting together were amazing me. The complex shaped pieces fit together in many different ways, all of them very interesting and beautiful. One was a straight line that intrigued me and made me realize how easily I could produce the pieces from a long straight piece of wood. With a bit of trial and error and a bit of mathematics from the Internet, I was able to calculate the cross section of the plank of wood and the angles for cutting them. With only 4 cuts I could make 2 pieces. I called the pieces CHONXBLOX with CHONX standing for Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and X for any other atom.
I looked for an electric saw and found one on sale. I also needed a stand for a drill so that I could drill straight holes and I found one for 25 SFr and I was ready to look for a carpenter to cut me some planks that I could cut up into my CHONXBLOX pieces. I was directed to Lorenz in a small shop in Riggisberg nearby and for luck, or as luck would have it, he was very friendly and offered to help me in any way he could. After a few false starts he was able to set up the right angle and got the proper cross section of the plank. He made me long planks from various types of wood, from light to dark and soft to hard. The coloring and grains in the wood in my 3cm high and 3 cm wide blocks made my blocks look beautiful. I got a sander to make them even more beautiful.
I never used such a saw and it was very scary in the beginning. I soon found out that the saw was just right for the 1st cut but too big for the next 3. So I had to get another machine. The stand for the drill turned out to be useless for drilling straight lines and I had to buy a much more expensive one. My first batch of pieces I beaded together with an elastic string to form a necklace. Playing with them I was amazed to see that by stretching on the ends of the elastic, and banging the jumbled blocks on the table, they magically lined up into the straight arrangement they were cut from. The blocks could be turned to fold the puzzle from the straight starting position into either a diamond shape or a spherical ball. All depending on how you turned the pieces. They made a great puzzle, a kind of a Rubik Cube.
They looked so living and so cute that I actually got very attached to them. I decided to make them a face and a hat and the CHONXs family was born. The short version I called BABY CHONX. The more I played with the pieces, the more things I saw that I could make with them and I did. The longer form I called MAMA CHONX and still longer versions called DADDY and Monster CHONX. The monster CHONX was almost a meter long and folded around the neck like a snake. It made a great table decoration when randomly curled up to various 3-D forms. And a great puzzle that folded out to flat forms which transformed the 3-D form into a flat pad that made great isolation pads for hot pots and pans placed on the table.
When I glued the blocks together, or connected them using various lengths of toothpicks, I got very interesting shapes and structures. One form, a ball shape with a removable top was an ideal container that could be stacked. I put a LED light in one and it made an intriguing kind of wooden lantern. The stack-able shapes make wonderful forms and the holes allow light to shine thru throwing interesting shadows on the walls. Another shape made for a pencil holder or even a doll house. I spent hours playing with them, and stacking them up making towers and mobiles and other very interesting forms and structures.
The chicken coop slowly changed into a workshop with my 4 machines. When Christopher saw it all, his only comment was, “You bought all those machines just to make those pieces of wood?” Marianna's reaction was a bit better. She said that she is happy that I have found a hobby and that the machines would come in handy for renovating our future home and that she could imagine enjoying working with wood as well. Elsa's reaction was that I should patent the idea and I found a patent lawyer.
My interview with Mr. Stona, the patent lawyer was very exciting and I had some prototype pieces to show him. He agreed that the idea was patentable and he made an offer. The down payment for the patent was just about how much I could afford. Preparing the paper was very exciting, and as I was preparing it, and making the pieces and playing with them, I came up with many new ideas for the shapes that were appearing. I thought it would make a great business. I talked to my social worker and she was very supportive and suggested I submit a business plan for claiming subsidy for all the expenses. Writing the business plan was exciting as well driving my imagination even wilder that it was already.
I saw myself as an artisan selling wooden toys to working with partners and making better more quality products. On a higher level I saw an international firm going off with my products being advertised on TV. Learning how to use the machines was very exciting. I soon made templates so that I did not have to measure each cut. I got to have a feel for the machines and to use them much like playing a rhythm on a musical instrument. I got so fast at cutting the pieces that it blocked and broke my saw.
The pieces fall apart
Summer arrived and Elsa had her usual visits from her family. The house started to fill up and I gave up my room to the guests like I usually did. Elsa and I both realized that it would be best if I looked for my own apartment. Before moving, I took the train to visit Marianna.
The train was packed and the seat was very uncomfortable. I arrived 30 minutes late and Marianna was waiting for me at the station. I was too dazed and numb from my trip to remember what exactly we did that day, but I remember the evening was nice and Marianna invited her neighbor friend to go for a walk. During the walk as I was talking with her friend, Marianna suddenly started to yell at me for ignoring her. Then she broke down and cried. Her friend seemed to me to be just as puzzled as I was at her behavior. Our first night together was hot and passionate and dried up the tears of the evening.
The following day we went out with Orsi to Saint Andre and I saw a puzzle a bit similar to the one I patented. Curious, I opened the package and played with the puzzle. I tried to put the puzzle back in its original shape but it was too difficult to do in a short time so I just put the puzzle back unfinished and unpacked on the shelf. The sales man showed his annoyance at having to repack the puzzle and unfortunately Marianna saw his annoyance and she got annoyed herself. She ended up crying and yelling at me once we were a respectable distance from the store. I was too stunned to react in any way other than to let Orsi take her away from me a safe distance. The crying only lasted about 15 minutes, but the uncomfortable feeling lingered. Orsi looked on me like I was a monster the rest of the day and it was very uncomfortable for all 3 of us.
We slept in separate beds that night, and all night I was thinking about what to do. Before I came, we both decided that we should have a good time. I envisioned dancing and meeting her family. It certainly was not turning out that way. Finally when Marianna woke up, I went in her bed and told her that it upset me so much that the first 2 days together I made her cry 2 times. She told me that she decided that she does not want me as a partner but was still undecided about telling me because she thought it would hurt me too much. Like leaving in the bullet because it hurts too much to take it out I thought.
That is when I broke down and fell to pieces. I slowly felt my love and my hopes that I had with her draining out of me. Before it drained away she took me in her arms and tried to comfort me. The entire day I felt short of breath and felt like a time bomb that was in the process of exploding, leaving Marianna wondering if I was insured outside of Switzerland should I require medical care. She asked to see the samples of the toys I made that I told her I would bring. I showed her Baby CHONX and Mama CHONX. She was not impressed. I felt a bit foolish. I slowly found myself having difficulty in looking in Marianna's eyes. I offered to go to another place, but she suggested that I stay. She became noticeably nicer.
The next day we went with Orsi to the Museum which was closed and then we went to the dentist. Marianna had her teeth cleaned and I had my teeth fixed. There was a man dentist and what I assumed to be a young dental assistant working on me. The dentist was flirting with his assistant while he was working in my mouth, looking more toward her than towards my teeth he was working on. I was just about to complain, when his mobile rang and the assistant he was flirting with took it out of his pockets and held it up to his ears. It was a son or daughter, or maybe a wife and there seemed to be some family problem that all of us, including me were focused on while he was working in my mouth. When the young dental assistant began drilling, I was a bit concerned, but she seemed to be so focused on her work that strangely I was happy she was doing the drilling instead of that man with those roaming eyes. I asked her a bit later if she was a dentist and she proudly told me that she had just graduated.
We did not fight again and she did not burst out crying again. Orsi seemed to be happier as well joining us most places we went. We went up to the castle at Visgrad, went hiking, went to museums, and ate out a lot. Marianna was nice for a while but got a bit hurt when she wanted to make love but I just could not.
On Thursday Marianna was expecting a telephone interview in English for an exciting job opening. She did not want me to help her prepare her for it, asking rather that I leave the apartment during the interview. When the time came, I went outside to sit under her window. An hour later, I got an SMS telling me that they did not call and that I can come up. But when I rang the doorbell, so that she could let me in, she did not let me in. I thought that the reason she did not open the door, was that she had received the phone call she was expecting, so I waited... until I got a second SMS annoyingly asking me where the hell I was. So I called up to her window on the 3rd floor that I was ringing her to let me in. She did not respond but instead came storming down and called me an idiot for not holding down the ring button long enough. I thought that I should be the one that should be upset, having been locked outside for about an hour. So I politely told her to go fuck herself and not to talk to me like that again.
She responded by telling me to leave her apartment and look for another place to stay. By this time I had enough of this and reminded her that she did invite me to come with an empty wallet, and that if she wanted me out, she would need to find me another place. She told me to pack, went to pick up Orsi, and in about a hour, they dropped me off at a Bed and Breakfast house 20 minute walk to the Danube. She booked me in for 3 days and hugged and kissed me good bye as if she was leaving me permanently behind a prison, or hospital. I felt all mixed up. Overwhelming disbelief soured with resentment and embittered by loss and abandonment. My stomach hurt.
Gradually I felt a sweet sense of relief. I felt rescued. On the way to my dentist appointment I went out to eat and as I was having a beer waiting for my meal, a flock of birds shit on me all in one dump. It was like 3 bowls of bird shit. It drenched me so much that I had to wash most my shirt and pants. For luck it was warm and my clothes dried quickly. When I told the dentist about it, in case she should smell funny odors from my shirt, she told me that when you get shitted on by birds in Hungary, it means good luck.
I still had 3 days before my train ride back to Switzerland and I worked on my new Internet store that I started for presenting my wooden blocks. There was KFC restaurant nearby so I got a bucket and found my seat on the train. It was not as crowded as on the way up and I was able to stretch and put up my feet for much of the way. I got a book about Hungarians that made me laugh. The author claimed that Hungarians tend to think about things in an opposite way than many other people do. My impressions of Hungarians continue to sink in many ways. They shit on each other in public, but in a cute kind of way they laugh about it. They treat each like annoyed parents might treat their annoying kids. Like Zoltan treated Andrea the last time I saw them. And how I saw myself being treated by Marianna.
When I arrived back home, my room was still occupied, but Elsa had a pile of apartments ready for me to apply for. I called them up and made appointments to see them. They were all pretty much the same, small dark rooms in old houses. Most were in out of the way places or unattractive locations like next to the railway tracks or the airport. I felt scrutinized by most people who interviewed me. I was rejected by all. Then a studio apartment nearby caught Elsa’s eye and when I called for an appointment, I was told that I could see the place immediately. I hopped on my motorbike and went to look at the place. I met Fritz and his wife Trudi and their grandson Jonathan. Fritz told me that he had excruciating pain and that the doctors didn't know why.
I looked at the studio apartment by the garden; it was very beautiful, facing south overlooking the Swiss Alps. It already had curtains and the refrigerator was bigger than I expected. I could use the garden and it was cheaper than other places next to railway tracks instead of a garden with a great view. When I told Fritz and Trudi that I would very much like to apply for it, Trudi told me that I didn't need to apply for it because it was mine if I wanted it. I asked about Napoleon and she started talking about her 3 cats and how nice a place it is for cats. She told me I could move in immediately, without references and without a down payment. I signed the contract and she gave me the keys.
Ani
Ani sent me a Christmas card with poems and a few letters with more poems that were more and more difficult to understand. I felt very bad in only responding by SMS to thank her that I got them.
Then I got an email asking to call her. When I called her home we had a nice chat and before I knew it she was talking about coming to Switzerland to meet me for Christmas and then soon after about her coming before Christmas. Things happened so fast during our conversation that by the time we hung up she decided to come up to Switzerland in a month. When I told Ellie about all this, all she could do was warn me not to allow myself to be hurt by another woman again. She thought that Ani would be mad at having to spend all the money and time when her illusions finally burst. I agreed with her this time, for the first time.
I had a month to move into my new room in Trudi's studio before Ani arrived. Moving in was a pleasure as I used Elsa's car and threw away more than a half of what I was left with after having thrown out most of what I had when I moved in with Elsa. It was getting easier and easier to move. Trudi my new land lady was especially friendly inviting me up for dinner a couple of times and even offering me some furniture. She made me feel at home by even offering me some place in her house for my suitcases and boxes.
Ani finally arrived, just in time to give my new home a woman’s touch. I picked her up at the train station and by the time we got back home 3 hours later we were both hungry and tired. She had slept the entire night on the train sitting up and she had problems with her legs for the past 15 years. So we ate, showered, and went to bed. She has not had a boyfriend for the past 15 years since her husband unexpectedly died. We stayed in bed for the rest of the day and slowly fell in love.
She became more attractive and more beautiful with every minute. I felt that Ani understood me better in a few days than Marianna did the year we were together. Ani made me know that she wanted me the way I am and that she didn't want me to change. That was of course what I so longed to hear and it was soothing music to my ears. Everything we did seemed to synchronize and work out. Even Napoleon, despite Ani having stepped on his tail, soon showed his affection for her. When Ani was in bed, he usually placed himself right on top of her covering as much of her as he could.
My social worker had me accepted into a program that assigned retired CEOs to evaluate projects of people who want to start an independent business. A meeting with a man to look at my CHONX project was organized. The man phoned me the week before Ani arrived and I invited him for lunch. I don't know if it was Ani's cooking or my ideas, but even though he told me he could not stay too long, he ended up staying nearly 3 hours.
I wanted Ani to meet Elsa before she had to return back t Hungary, We drove to Elsa on the motorbike. Ani told Elsa that she was so thankful to God that she got to meet her. She said that with such passion that Elsa thought she had a close call on my motorbike and that god had saved us from an accident. As we were laughing about the misunderstanding, she fell down into Elsa's sunken living room and ended up under a glass table.
We decided that I would go visit her and her family on Christmas and that she would try to return to Switzerland before then. Ani impressed and touched me in many ways. She is very open, practical, creative, and wise and humorous. As a young woman she wanted to be a professional dancer. She ended up to be a teacher teaching sewing. She is very talented and displays it with pride. I was impressed when I saw the beautiful photographs that she took. She is a very good listener, talker, and observer, and she is very kind and compassionate, understanding and tolerant. She strives to be happy and to live healthy. She is positive and spiritual. She is down to earth and up in the air all at the same time at the right times. She has few close friends and lives a simple life. She is thankful, helpful, honest, and positive. I am impressed at her stamina in coming here with her painful leg and that she went on the motorcycle and went for walks. I was touched by how she moved in, redecorated, and left many of her things behind. How she put toothpaste on my tooth brush while I was smoking outside. How she called my smoking place the salon, and how she sat there while I was still sleeping in the morning. I was touched by how much she impressed Elsa and Trudi. I was very much touched when she asked me to be faithful to her. I was touched that even though she showed no interest in my little CHONX puzzles or my CHONXBLOX project, she did ask for a puzzle to take back to Nora, her grand-daughter.
Ani returns
A few days later Ani told me that she was able to arrange the time and money to return in one week for her birthday in October. And before I knew it I was picking her up at the train station in Bern. We worked and played, ate and socialized for 2 weeks. We went to church the following day and Ani started getting cramps in her neck in the middle of the service. We had to leave and for a while I thought I would have to carry her to the hospital which was just a few minutes walk. She told me that it was the stuffy air in the church and the stink from the sweaty little boy sitting right beside her. For luck the boy didn't fart.
The weather was perfect fall weather the entire 2 weeks with all its colors sunshine and freshness. We drove on the motor bike quite often. We took a big trip to Stockhorn, a mountain nearby that had a chairlift going up to the peak. There were 2 ladies with about 10 dogs and when Ani approached to photograph the dogs they started to bark and attack her sending her rolling backwards in what seemed like a choreographed dance move that left her lying motionless on the floor. People gathered around not knowing what to do until Ani suddenly burst out laughing and got up making me almost want to applause.
Ani got to meet Lorenzo, the carpenter helping me with my blocks and his Hungarian wife Ildike who works in the restaurant in the village. She is from Szombathely and has been here for only 4 years. She invited us to a lottery at her restaurant. Both of us feeling lucky, decided to go. The lottery turned out to be a bingo for platters of meat. Ildike was in the smoking section and I was left alone to try to translate Swiss dialect numbers into Hungarian. We must have looked quite helpless as the workers selling bingo cards stayed by our table helping us find the numbers on our cards.
While I was giving my English classes, Ani was busy working in the garden, fixing up our love nest, and preparing delicious meals. It was a pleasure to come home to a home with a hug and kiss waiting at the door and a good smell coming from the kitchen. She jumped into my CHONXBLOX project with just as much gusto and enthusiasm as she jumped into the apartment, making it ours. She helped me drill the holes in the small wooden blocks by marking the centers with a marker. The method worked so well and she kept on preparing more and more pieces for me to drill. Many days we would go to Lorenzo's shop to drill the blocks, then I would put them together and she would take photos of them. We bought some material for about 20 bags for the blocks. She made a prototype and now the CHONXBLOX have a nice looking cloth bag that makes them look that much more attractive and professional.
We started a daily routine when she would get up a few hours earlier than me to write her verses to give to me. Then we would do about 15 minutes of exercises and dancing before eating breakfast. We made calls to her friends and family. We even had a video call with her son Dodi and his wife Cica on skype. It was nice to see how loving Ani was with everyone. We listened to a lot of music, mostly mine, and Ani liked it so much that for her birthday, I set her up with an MP3 and filled it with her choice of songs. We walked quite a lot, and Napoleon even walked down to the town with us once. Usually we were too tired to do too much more than to start watching the only movie I have in Hungarian, “Life is Sweet”. Over the 2 weeks, we managed to finish the film. We slept with music and candle light and enjoyed each other’s warmth and made love often.
Her leg was healing from her last fall at Elsa's but she had some cramps in her legs that seemed to go away with massage. She finally began to loose her wisdom tooth, and it was starting to hurt her, but despite the pain she was always able to maintain a good mood.
One evening, we were invited by Trudi, my new landlady, for raclette with 3 of her neighbor friends. Christopher was able to join us and he made a very nice impression on everyone and so did Ani. She took many pictures and I overheard some comment on how she shines with a special glow. They all wished she could stay longer and agreed that I should make sure not to lose her. Elsa invited us for her annual end of the year recital with her piano students and their families. At one point, all the children disappeared and were found on the top floor having a dancing lesson with Ani. Ani started a dancing session with the children and the adults joined in. Everyone was very impressed by her. Despite not speaking any German or English, she integrated so well.
Xmas with Ani
To start 2008, I took the train to Ani for Christmas and New Year’s. The 2 weeks went quite well despite Ani's problems with her legs. Ani arranged some friends to pick me up at the train station and drive us to Petofibanya, an abandoned coal mining town 90km away. Ildike, Ani's daughter drove up as well with her new boyfriend, and they all gave me a warm welcome. Right from the start, I felt very good and at home in her somewhat small dark home and found it cozy and comfortable with lots of beautiful plants hanging everywhere. We managed to fit in her small bed and we found ourselves very cozy warm and comfortable.
It was frustrating not knowing Hungarian well enough to be able to easily understand it or speak it. found Ani's logic or lack of it perplexing. She had the cat litter in the kitchen, and did not allow her cat on her balcony for fear that it would fall off. She also insisted in repacking the vacuum cleaner in the box it came in after every use. And she made great effort to put the box away in the most out of the way place in her crowded apartment.. You had to remove everything from the crowded closet each time you wanted to vacuum.
With 3 or more plastic buckets for catching the water and reusing it for the laundry it was not comfortable showering together. So we removed the buckets and had a nice bath. Unfortunately, our long hot bath ended up being very bad for Ani's legs and she had severe cramps for many days. They got very bad and moved up to her bowels, her back and her shoulders. Her cat was in heat and sometimes I really wasn't sure who was moaning and for what reason.
When we stayed home, we seemed to get on each other’s nerves. My slow broken Hungarian was too much for Ani. She would not let me finish what I was trying to say, instead finishing off the sentence for me. She did not believe that I did not know the words she used in her many poems she thrust on me and in many of the things she wanted to tell me. Strangely, we could not find most words in the dictionary. She expected that by repeating the same word many times, I should know what it means.
More frustrating was Ani's poetic talent of not answering questions directly. At times I felt like an annoying detective trying to desperately squeeze a “yes” , or a “no”, or even a “maybe” or “I don't know” out of her. In trying to understand something from Ani, I usually ended up more confused than I was at the start. It all became very confusing, frustrating and tiring. We found each other critical, and both being sensitive to criticism, we had to practice self-control. I enjoyed Ani's balcony and had a smoke there quite often. It offered a nice view of her garden where she and her neighbor fed 5 stray cats. Ani was the only one in the neighborhood who had a compost heap, or a garden.
Ani managed to get her video player going. She called in the mayor of the city who is a friend. For luck he was a TV repair-man before he became mayor, and was able to connect it properly to make it work and we were able to watch many of her annual vacation videos. They were all very professionally made with sound and music and zooming techniques. At times I thought I was watching a TV program. We didn't walk too much as it was cold and when we were resting at home we watch and listen to a lot of gypsy music on TV.
We went to the church where Ani usually went and met more of her friends. She took me to her husband’s grave. He was a watch repair man and died 15 years ago. Ani meticulously removed the beautiful fresh blanket of snow from his grave stone. It reminded me of the time in Nagykanizsa when I found my grandfather’s grave. When the cemetery worker who was helping me look for the grave saw the beautiful flowering weeds all over it, she started to shamefully tear them all out.
We met very many of Ani`s friends, all very special warm hearted people, all with special talents. One couple kept bees and trained mail pigeons for competitions. They drive the pigeons to Wien and let them fly back home, a distance of a few hundred kilometers. The fastest pigeon gets a prize. Their house was filled with trophies. One lady was on the Hungarian shooting team for the Olympics. Another man did beautiful paintings. I met many very interesting friends of Ani.
Sanni, 22 who looks like a boy was the youngest elected politician in Hungary. He talked English and we had a great talk on the importance of the environment in politics. He was just about to get his environmental engineering diploma. His mother Zsoka, when she was younger was the fencing champion of Hungary. Now she was going off to conferences talking about ISO 9001 quality management. Everyone was very interesting and nice.
For a while Ani's legs were so painful that she didn't think she would be able to go to the New Year’s Dinner and Dance that we were invited to. But when the time arrived, she dressed me up in a suit. Unfortunately due to a color clash, I had no other choice than to put on one of her blouses covered by a tie and jacket. Not being able to take the tie and jacket off got a bit warm, especially while dancing. Seeing Ani dance when just a day ago she was walking with pain was amazing. At times I got too hot to keep dancing and Ani just kept on dancing with the ladies. The food was great and so were Ani's friends. They rented a top part of a restaurant and brought their own dessert and drinks. It was a very memorable New Years Eve.
The weather was not so nice for most of my 2 week visit. It was cold and icy and the streets were very slippery. Ani arranged for a friend to drive me to the train station in Hatvan, about 15 km away. It was very slippery in the beginning and for a while I thought I might miss my train. Ani was very sad that I was going, and I was very glad to be loved by her and to love her. The train back home was not very crowded and for most of the night I was able to use 4 seats to myself and reflect on the past 2 beautiful weeks. Despite being uncomfortable at times with her cold critical mood, I found in Ani's warm heart a place I would like to be. She wrote me many poems, and I wrote one for her.
When we first met,
You treated me like a seed
That you would like to treasure.
I was growing in your heart
When you first came to me,
You treated me like an orphan
That you would like to take home and keep.
You called me your little sweet one
and put my things away for me.
You were very patient and pleasant.
Your face was smiling.
Now you scold me
like a disappointed mother.
Seeing I have not learned well,
You became very impatient and unpleasant.
Your smile became a frown.
The next time we meet,
Whenever, wherever,
Please treat me like a man.
Please keep me in your heart,
Whether you smile or frown.
Whenever and wherever
We live in the same home,
Please treat me like a partner.
Then I will keep growing
In your smiling heart.
Short History of a Long Future
Lego turned down CHOXBLOX after a few months of considering it. Zometools, a toy manufacturer who showed interest also lost interest. Despite all the pictures of CHOXBLOX on the internet, I could not find anyone who was interested in them. I finally finished reading “The Bible According to Einstein” that I started to read 5 years ago. It is all about how the universe started and an explanation of the sciences, in the format of the Christian Bible.
The book inspired me to start to write the novel I always wanted to write, where I can say all the things I wanted to say about everything. Somewhat like a “Bible According to Andrew Vecsey”. The words came to me as I was writing. I wrote for an entire month. To my amazement I was able to cover everything I wanted to say about the history of humanity and its future. About gravity, light, morality and immortality. About how god evolved and how life was created. I used analogies, simplifications, mythology, and poetry to guide a new form of life, much like the Bible is written to guide us.
Spring with Ani
Ani came up for 2 weeks. Her train to Budapest was late and she just missed her train to Zurich. Fortunately she was able to get a day train the next morning. The delay left her quite sick for the next few days. Mathew finally called and I had a very special evening with him, Christopher and Ani. Trudi, my new landlady, met Mathew for the first time. I was very proud as both Ani and Trudi were impressed by him. It was so nice to see and hear Mathew and Christopher talk about things that I haven't heard them talk about. Things like science and religion.
Easter came and Ani seemed to fall into a deep depression. She couldn't sleep and didn't talk to me. One morning she disappeared and I didn't know what to do. Trudi saw me outside and she got concerned as well and offered to help. I finally found Ani at the church and when I brought her back Trudi greeted us with a breakfast. Ani and Trudi seemed to touch souls and understand each other. Trudi seemed to understand Ani more than I did and soon Ani and Trudi were real close friends. Once Trudi showed Ani her sewing machine Ani almost moved in with her.
Because it was Easter, Trudi had lots of family over. Each time someone would come she invited us over to meet them. I knew most of them already but with Ani I got to know them even more. Trudi`s husband Fritz just died as I moved in. She has 2 sons Martin and Richard and 2 daughters Priska and Therese. All of them have children, from Martin’s youngest 1 year old Didier, to Priska’s 18 year old Jonathan who has a rap band called “Pragmatic Industries”. We were invited out to eat with them on most days. Ani started to sleep better and I felt really great translating for Ani and all the people she attracted. Ani spent a lot of time sewing things for Trudi. It was so nice to see them get along so well. Everyone, especially me, loved Ani. Even Christopher and Mathew came back for dinner before Ani left.
The weather got nicer and nicer and we went for more and more walks. When it was time for her to go back home, Trudi and Rosemary, her neighbor drove us to the train station where they almost cried when we put her on the train. Just before the train left, Trudi asked Ani to watch her house, sew her things and feed her pets for 2 weeks in July when she planned to go to Turkey for a holiday with her family.
Summer with Ani
Ani arrived 2 weeks before Trudi's vacation with a very painful leg. Her leg hurt so much that for a while she had to use crutches. Trudi offered us her guest room where the bed was more comfortable. Trudi and all her family and neighbors who met Ani before were very happy to see her again. Ani brought special gifts for all of them. Eva, our neighbor offered us the use of her swimming pool. Ani's legs improved greatly with the daily swimming. Trudi invited her to a day outing with her friends on the train one day while I had to work. Ani came back with many wonderful photos and memories.
With other people around, Ani was able to smile, but alone with me, she was very disappointed and frustrated. Once we sat down on a bench in the woods and she insisted that I wipe the bench with a Kleenex before sitting down. I remembered Ani rolling down the grass hill when she first visited. She changed a lot. She was very negative and complained about me staying up too late and getting up too late. When she voiced regrets at having come in the first place to me, I reminded her that she was free to go back home any time. That hurt her to a point where she refused to talk about it.
She straightened out my papers and books and found a letter from Mary Sacha, one of my first girlfriends when I was at McGill University. Mary had found me on the Internet and wanted to buy my science fiction novel I was writing. She sent me 30 dollars with pictures of herself. I found all this out from Trudi who told me that Ani came crying to her. It is amazing how Trudi and Ani can communicate with each other without speaking each other's languages.
Ani constantly reminded me that I was a loser, living out of a suitcase, imprisoned in a dream. She reminded me that I had lost all there was to lose. She did a good job of hurting my pride and I felt very uncomfortable whenever alone with her. I did a good job of hurting her feelings as well. I told her that I don't want a cook, a seamstress or a housekeeper, but just a good friend.
The language was a problem. When I didn't understand her, she claimed I either didn't want to understand her, or I was stupid, or a liar. Her irony and indirect way of speaking was annoying and difficult to get used to. We seemed to provoke each other with whatever we said.
When Trudi left for her vacations, she told me that I could use the car while she was away. For the next 2 weeks we were mostly alone and had the house to ourselves. We watched TV and Ani played Trudi's piano. We played cards once and went for many walks. We stayed at home going out for small short walks with Sweenaly. Ani went swimming almost every day in our neighbor’s swimming pool. We talked about our problems. I told Ani that we must become friends if we ever want a partnership to develop.
We used Trudi's car to go to the Beatenberg caves which we both liked very much. We went swimming up at Schwartzensee. We swam all the way to a float 100m away and stayed there for a while in the sun. The canoes that I used to rent were unfortunately no longer there. One day we drove to the Aare canyons, another favorite tourist attraction of mine. We took the cable car up to the waterfalls and had a picnic. We went to the car museum in Toffen. Ani seemed to be happier. Her beautiful smile slowly came back. We cleaned the house before Trudi came and we picked her up in Bern as we promised with Sweenaly.
The next 2 weeks were very nice. One day Trudi took Ani to see her daughter Therese in Zug. Unfortunately I could not go because I had to work. I worked every Wednesday at the butcher shop Trudi`s son Martin ran. I vacuum packed meat. It was quite stressful as new cases of meat came faster than I was able to package them.
One day we went to Murten where we had a boat ride and a nice diner out. Ani's mood heightened and she invited everyone to her “name day” party a few days before she had to leave back home. 12 people came. Christopher and Elsa and the neighbors were there. It was a great party with delicious Hungarian dishes that took Ani 2 days to prepare.
In the 6 weeks Ani was with me, she fixed both my sandals and anything else that needed fixing, made me pillow cases, and fixed my pants for the motorcycle. She left my little studio room as her second home, everything in its ordered place.
Fall with Ani
Ani came back to celebrate her birthday. She came with her big suitcase filled with presents for everyone. She was very happy to see everyone and everyone was very happy to see her. She was able to put up her legs on the train, and she was able to sleep a bit, until some young Hungarian girls that were going to Switzerland to dance in the bars came on the train and provided entertainment. She turned down an invitation to drink with them, and she was more annoyed than entertained.
Trudi's friend, who lost her husband the same time in the same hospital that Trudi lost her Fritz gave me all of her husband’s expensive clothes. He was my size and Ani was able to tailor them just for me. Suddenly I had new clothes again. Trudi invited us to a choir and orchestra concert in Bern to celebrate Ani's birthday and I dressed up in one of my new suits. It even had a vest. I felt like a gentleman in an old movie.
Whenever we were in company, Ani was especially nice to me and I felt very good. Whenever we were alone, I felt like a small boy being scolded. I told her that I needed a friend, and didn’t want a mother. Nor did I want a cook or a cleaning lady. So she stopped cooking and cleaning for a while. We had just as much if not more trouble communicating as before. When I got too far behind the foggy words and realized I was misunderstanding more than understanding what she was saying, she claimed that I was lying, or stupid. I felt very uncomfortable alone with her.
Fortunately Trudi and Ani spent a lot of time together and became really good friends. She told me that if she ever comes back it will not be to see me but to see Trudi.
NEXT: Trudi
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NEXT: Trudi
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