Outcasts (12 page)
Once they received their clothing, the boys were assigned sleeping quarters. Bela shared a room with nine other boys. Each student was assigned a bed and a dresser drawer. One of the non-commissioned officers gave a long, boring speech explaining how order was to be kept in the room, how the bed was to be made, how clothing should be folded and stored, how shoes should be shined.
Finally, dinnertime came and they were all led into a dining room with a two-storey high ceiling, wood panelling, and elaborate chandeliers. It could have been the dining room of the Knights of the Round Table, Bela thought. As each student took his place in an orderly manner, white-gloved young men served the students a three-course dinner of cauliflower soup, chicken paprikash with dumplings, and apple strudel. If this is how we are going to eat every day, Bela thought, then military school wasn't going to be as bad as he had feared.
That night, everyone fell into bed exhausted when lights out was called at nine o'clock. The next morning began a whirlwind of activities and, from that day forward, the structure of military school dictated every hour of Bela's day. Wake-up was called at five-thirty and they were immediately ordered to put on their shoes, rush downstairs, and run around the perimeter of the castle four times. When they returned, the boys washed, dressed, made their beds, had breakfast, studied, attended morning classes, and exercised - all before their four-course lunch. In the afternoons, there were more classes in languages (including Latin), history, military history, arts, and sciences. Around four in the afternoon, they practised military formations and marched around the grounds, rain or shine. Six o'clock was dinnertime and, after that, they had a bit of free time. Then, more structured study hours until lights out. They only had unstructured, free time on Sunday afternoons.
For the first two weeks, Bela was miserable and secretly cried himself to sleep every night. He dreaded room inspection and desperately wished he had paid more attention that first day when everything was explained to them about folding and stacking shirts, jackets, underwear, and socks, and about polishing shoes. If the room captain saw a single infraction of the folding rules, no matter how insignificant, every single item of clothing and bedding was thrown out the second floor window. Sometimes, even though only one person folded something wrong, everyone's clothing and bedding were thrown out the window as a collective punishment. Afterward, it took the young cadets hours to collect everything from the ground below, carry it all back upstairs, and put it back in its place. As he folded and refolded his crumpled clothing, Bela remembered Tibor's warnings and finally understood what his brother was trying to tell him.
School work was never-ending. The instructors usually started each class by calling upon the students for oral recitation of their homework. To make matters worse, they always started at the beginning of the alphabet. Since his name was Aykler, Bela was always called upon first.
He was chubby and couldn't keep up with the other students during exercises, so his fellow classmates and teachers teased him. During physical education, one of the exercises the entire class had to do was climb a vertical rope using only their arms. Their physical education instructor carried around a fencing sword and used it as a pointer or to tap the shoulder of a student if he was not paying attention. When he noticed Bela struggling - huffing and puffing as he tried to climb the rope using only his arms - the instructor hit his behind with the fencing blade. When everyone laughed, Bela was acutely and painfully embarrassed. At that moment, Bela became determined that, if he had to attend this school, he would be the best in class.
He began to sneak down to the gym after lights out to practise the rope-climbing exercise. He got hold of a flashlight and studied at night, making sure that he memorized at least the first section of the homework assigned for each class. If his teachers insisted on consistently calling on him first, he would be ready.
By the time he returned home for his first visit two months later, his pudginess had evaporated and the entire family noticed how much leaner and more muscular he had become.
Bela too felt a difference at home and was strangely awkward around his family. In two short months, he had developed a strong sense of camaraderie with his fellow students. They competed with each other and teased each other a lot, but, on that first visit home, he realized he felt more at home at military school with his friends than in Nagyszollos with his family. He missed his friend Imre. Bela and Imre had become best friends. After they saw the incredible movie about the adventures of the Count of Monte Cristo, they even started their own club, the Monte Cristo Club. They were determined to emulate the Count and his fight for justice and the rights of the downtrodden and they had a secret language that no one else understood - a language they decided to call English.
He had also learned many valuable lessons at school - the most important ones being the three rules of survival in military school.
Rule #1: Never tell one parent the other is also sending you money. Bela received money from his mother as well as his father and, so, he always had money when, by the middle of the month, most of the students had already spent all their allowance and couldn't go out on weekends because they were penniless. Bela started to loan students small amounts of cash, but they had to pay interest until they could pay it back, and the interest payments were exorbitant. Bela soon learned that lots of cash meant that you were always popular, not only with your classmates but also with the girls from the town whom you could meet and invite to the local ice cream parlour.
Rule #2: Never miss a business opportunity. Each cadet was required to write home once a week, but writing these mandatory letters was something all the students loathed. Bela realized that a postcard would simplify the obligatory task and hired a photographer to take some exterior shots of their castle school. He asked the photographer if he would take the best photographs to a printer to produce postcards. Bela's classmates lined up to buy the postcards that showed an impressive photo of the school on one side and had a small space to write a short message like "I am fine. Things are going well. Love, your son," on the other. It turned out to be quite a lucrative business for Bela.
Rule #3: Never let anyone know you are scared. Some schoolmates named Bela "The Jew," resenting that he was charging interest on the money he lent them. They decided it was time to teach him a lesson. There was a practice at school known as "blanketing." The victim was lured into an enclosed space, like a classroom or study room, where at least a dozen boys were waiting. Once a blanket was thrown over the intended victim, the other boys would beat him with bayonets and sticks. Bela sensed something insidious was about to happen when a handful of his classmates led him into an empty classroom where several nervous-looking boys were waiting. When he saw the blanket, Bela grabbed the oldest boy by the neck and shoved him with full force toward the window. The window was smashed, the boy's arm was bloodied, and everyone scattered. No one ever tried to "blanket" the kid from Nagyszollos again.
Bela Aykler in his cadet military uniform.
T
HE ADVERTISEMENT IN THE
local newspaper leapt out at her:
Busy office in Nagyszollos looking for full-time office stenographer with impeccable experience. Typing, shorthand, bookkeeping. References needed.
Hedy felt her heart skip a beat as she read it again. She couldn't help herself as she blurted out, "It's perfect!"
Recently graduated from business school, Hedy was seeking employment close to home. With the war just outside Hungary's borders, she wanted to stay close to her family and knew instinctively that they needed her there as well. There were plenty of talented young people who had graduated with her and she knew the competition within their community was fierce. The courses had been challenging but she loved the feeling of solving problems and completing difficult tasks. She felt she was learning skills that she would use for the rest of her life. In the end, Hedy had finished in the top three - all young women like herself. Women were gaining ground in so many areas of industry and commerce, in large part because so many men had enlisted but also because, Hedy fully believed, the times themselves were changing.
"What's perfect?" Suti asked, looking up from his homework. Icuka was sitting close to him, slowly, carefully drawing each letter he was writing down. Their mother, at the kitchen table kneading bread dough for the weekly baking, looked up, smiled at Hedy, and gave her an inquisitive look.
Hedy smiled back at her and read them the advertisement. "Typing, shorthand, bookkeeping. And the firm is right here in Nagyszollos!" She omitted the sentence about experience. Hedy felt sure she could overcome that small detail somehow.
Without comment, her mother returned to pummelling and folding the bread dough. She was impressed with the idea of Hedy applying for the job, but she wouldn't say so out loud. Terez never lavished Hedy, or any of her children, with praise. Even when she finished at the top of her class, Hedy didn't need to be told it was expected of her to excel in her studies. She realized that her mother's attitude only made her more industrious, more motivated to excel in her studies.
"Whose office is it?" Her mother's voice interrupted her thoughts and she looked up.
"Schroeder and Berliner."
Everyone in town was familiar with the store, which was centrally located on a small street adjacent to the Roman Catholic church. Her mother nodded and went back to the dough. The Schroeder and Berliner families were both well-respected in the community and they operated the only store in town where residents could requisition radios, radio parts, and rubber tires. The store handled salt and yeast requisitions as well - items needed in every household. Since the start of the war these items had been designated "essential" and the government monitored supplies and kept exact records of who requisitioned what. Rubber was also scarce and first priority went to the military. Radios could only be obtained with special permission as they could be used by spies or to listen to the BBC news. The Schroeder and Berliner store handled the paperwork for all of these items. Although she didn't show it or say anything, Terez was proud of her daughter.
Yes, Hedy thought to herself, I will apply for the job. She cocked her head to the side as she studied the name and address listed in the newspaper. The name of the firm had a distinguished resonance to it.
Tibor Schroeder
Electrical and Engineering Enterprise
Telephone: 11
Post Office Box: 32
This wasn't the first time she would have contact with Schroeder and his family. When she was ten, Hedy had been invited to the grand house on the hill by Tibor's sister, Picke. The stately house was situated on a perfect hillside for sledding and, as soon as the first snow fell, the neighbourhood children would all congregate on the hill, their screams and shouts echoing in the distance as they rode their toboggans and sleds down the steep incline. Hedy and Picke had started chattering and laughed all through the afternoon of that snowy day. Picke found Hedy very entertaining and later invited her back to the house for hot chocolate.
As she stepped into the front foyer, Hedy was overwhelmed by the impressive two-storey atrium filled with rows upon rows of books. She had never seen so many books in one collection. Hedy had the urge to stop there and just run her fingers along the neatly organized spines, to just read the titles, but Picke took her hand and led her inside on a tour of the house.
Hedy didn't know where to look first. Mahogany chaise lounges and chairs sat elegantly in the front parlour beside side tables and coffee tables with elaborately carved designs on the sides. Bronze statues of ancient Greek mythological deities and porcelain figurines decorated the tables, bookshelves, and glass-enclosed china cabinets. Flowing landscape paintings and portraits of important-looking ancestors hung on the walls. Rich, ornate Persian carpets covered the main areas of the oak parquet flooring. She ran her hand sensuously over the impressive black Bosendorfer grand piano that stood in one corner.
"Come," sang Picke as she led Hedy into the dining room where the table was being set with Meissen china. Hedy had only seen such china patterns in magazines and watched mesmerized as the maid made her way around the table, polishing the silverware, checking for any spots on the crystal wine goblets as she set three goblets at each place setting. The maid didn't even notice the two young girls as she went about unfolding each stiffly starched white serviette and folding each again as she laid them on the table beside each dinner plate. Each serviette was big enough to cover a small side table.
