CHAPTER I

Roblecito. Little oak tree. El culo del mundo: the asshole of the world.

The silent, dusty ride from the airport of Valle de la Pascua, where air-currents were measured back in 1955 with a "sock" floating in the breeze, reminiscent of the Venezuelan coffee filter. The company car was waiting for me and my meager belongings. My only treasured possession was the pawn-shop ticket covering my sterling silver. A stroke of good luck, it was me who pawned the large box last--a box that we never even unpacked between its trips to the pawnshop, where the employee didn't even have to look at the contents anymore.

The past two years I started a correspondence course (Scranton PA) in general secretarial studies, and at this point I was able to claim--and substantiate the claim--that I was a fully qualified bilingual secretary.

My typing was excellent, my shorthand good, all other skills painfully, diligently acquired, could finally be put to productive use.

The P.E. Department (Petroleum Engineering) consisted of about nine young engineers, fresh out of college, an education they acquired through the GI bill, all older than I was, thrust into a strange environment. They were mostly Texans and Okies, brimming with camaraderie, good cheer, robust appetites for life in general and alcohol and sex in particular.

My room was in an "H" house, so named for its design: four rooms on four corners, connected by a shared bath on each side. The living room in the middle, the kitchen a separate rickety little building in the back. I never got particularly friendly with the other "girls", nurses, teachers, secretaries; we lead parallel, but very separate lives.

Bewildered, alone for the first time in my life (I was never alone before, not even in my mother's womb), I quickly fell into the routine of work (which started at 7 a.m. with a wake-up siren at 6 a.m.) coffee-break at 9, freedom at 3 p.m. A small pool, club-house, golf-course with its parched scrub, a run-down, barely used tennis-court completed the amenities.

I soon learned that the sport of the place was mainly sex and alcohol. I easily fell into step.

Everything you ever heard or read about life on a tropical oil camp is true. No intellectuals here, only hard-working, drinking, cussing young men, some with their families, some deprived of them, over-flowing with energy, "making it" financially, gambling, thrust into powerful positions over the native workers, heady stuff indeed.

My protective coating that seldom failed me before: "I am really a princess in disguise, I am just playing a strange, temporary, unpleasant role here," almost failed me this time. No one speaking my native language, "You are Hungarian," one jolly lad shouted with glee, "stand over there, let me get a good look at you, I've never seen a Hungarian before." nervously tugging at my skirt, nervously smiling, submitted to such scrutiny: Dolly among the American barbarians.

But the pay was good, so was the liquor; some good-looking, pleasant young men, dancing in the evenings, my books arrived, I started putting my recipes in order, started writing my first "memoirs", started working overtime and making more money, got another secretarial job for a good friend floundering in Caracas (Toy Gerard, from Trinidad, now living in Texas with the husband she also acquired in Roblecito), visited Caracas and Maracay occasionally to see the children and break my heart over and over again. I also started bringing them down for a couple of weeks at a time, always a prolonged battle royal with Janos. A. resurfaced in my life, almost daily love letters sent by AVENSA (our version of UPS), a few ecstatically happy week-ends. No, Mary will not let him go before she gets her USA citizenship. He is working on it.

Started saving some money. Consulted with A. how and where money should be kept, he reassured me that he would open a bank account for me in Caracas.....do I have to spell it out? He "lost" my pitifully small nest-egg, he had enormous expenses in connection with his divorce. What was it with me that I attracted abuse? Was I that transparently naive, weak, stupid?

After an evening spent dancing with a pleasant young man, he asked me to say something in Hungarian. I pulled out my favourite poetry book and started reading the beautiful rhythmical cadenzas. Broke down sobbing. What am I doing here in this strange, weird, hostile land, the bugs, the snakes, the threatening glowing eyes in the dark, the barren, ugly landscape, the barbed wire surrounding the camp, what did I ever do to anyone to deserve this?

One afternoon I started trembling with anticipation of that first after-work drink. I stopped, startled, am I becoming an alcoholic? With extremely strong will-power I cut down on the drinking, started selling AVON with Toy, to make some extra money, accepted every extra office work, and started buying "cacique" gold coins, on a once-a-month plan. I also started writing a column for the English language paper that was issued in Caracas, owned by my beloved ex-boss Jules Waldman. I got a press pass! I also entered and won a recipe contest (sponsored by the same paper). Finished my correspondence school with flying colours. Finally I got my Venezuelan citizenship! I was also sent a "Gaceta Oficial" where I read with alarm that my divorce was granted in my absence (my best friends, with whom I was in constant touch, swearing that they don't know of my whereabouts), hence the final judgment was rendered against me.

One day, looking out the window of my room, I saw a sun-tanned, extremely broad-shouldered, well-built man polishing a beautiful large Oldsmobile. Fast inquiries confirmed that he was a bachelor, of European descent, the new chief-clerk. We met at the club after hours, he turned out to be a divine dancer. I suspected immediately that he was Jewish, made some more inquiries, and my suspicion was confirmed. By now there were several men who wanted to marry me, nothing really wrong with any of them, but I was not ready. I started enjoying my independence, my "affluence", my freedom. A. sent a post-card from Chile..."Saludos", was all it said.

And then the revolution broke out in Hungary. I went to pieces. My sister, her little children. I was frantic. Flew to Caracas to talk to friends who were in touch; the newspaper reports were devastating. I sat at a restaurant crying, hugging the children. Pablo who recently turned 3 asked me, "why are you crying, mommy?" I tried explaining, "You know, you have two little cousins in Budapest, and there is a war going on and they have no bananas and no oranges, and they are scared." "They have no oranges?" his huge grey eyes were filled with concern. "Why don't you go there and take them some." I looked at him. Of course. You are right, I am going, I will take them some oranges.

That was Sunday. I booked a flight to Vienna (through N.Y.) for Monday. Took the plane back to Valle de la Pascua, woke the bank manager, had him open the bank (Hungary was "the big event" in the news, everyone co-operated), took out my life's savings, and was on the plane to New York, to catch my overseas' flight.

Vinyi was angry. "Whatever you will do, you can only harm them, you are going to endanger their lives, we are broadcasting messages to them, they will have to make the move on their own." Our first encounter since she left was painful, frosty, she NEVER FORGAVE ME for losing my children. "I would've killed him before I surrendered my babies." God, how often I heard this. Don't judge, before you walk a mile in someone else's shoes. But she lent me a coat to wear, going into the European winter.

Vienna in November, seething with rumours, teeming with refugees, where to start searching? I traveled to the border and spent a night on the floor in the straw with hundreds of newcomers. Obviously not a refugee myself, a shy five-year old approached me: "NÈni kÈrem," she lisped, "we are also Jewish, my mommy told me to ask you for some money, we want to go to Australia." How do we find each other on the gym floor of a border town school?

A young Jewish guy, scion of a lingerie empire, who came for a lark as a free-lance reporter for a Long Island paper, we teamed up in search of my sister. Finally I found their name on the list of a refugee camp outside Vienna. By then I had no energy left to pick them up, three days of running, travelling, I simply collapsed, we sent a taxi for them, and by the evening I was reunited with my twin sister and met her husband and her two little boys. Seventh heaven. I moved them to my hotel, outfitted all of them, we went to the movies, the theatre, our step-father came over from Yugoslavia to meet us, there was joy, excitement, stories to swap, they left their luxurious villa-apartment, only salvaged the beloved childhood portrait that someone smuggled out for them rolled up, cut out of the frame. The plastic toy farm I sent the previous year to the little boys from a Sears-Roebuck catalogue was the "price" they paid the man who smuggled them over the border in the middle of the night, with a slightly drugged 4-year old on his father's back.

Frantic, happy days followed, throngs of refugees storming the consulates, mountains of paperwork, but luckily I spoke English, and my brother-in-law immediately received an invitation from "his" factory's branch in Poughkeepsie, with a job assured. Finally the papers were ready, mission accomplished, I could return to Roblecito.

There was no Venezuelan consulate in Austria, so I had to stop over in Paris for the necessary stamp in my passport (bureaucracy reigned supreme in Venezuela. I remembered the episode when applying for my citizenship, finally everything seemed to be together, the health certificate didn't yet lapse, etc. etc. I had to pick up one more document to be filled out. There was a guard standing next to the table with a foot-high pile of the necessary forms. I asked him to give me two, one for me, one for my husband. He told me haughtily, I can only have one. I argued, he stood his ground. I took the one that he proffered, crumbled it into a little ball, and threw it at him, storming out, and thwarting yet again my chances of becoming a citizen.).

At the Paris airport, coming out of customs, I heard a tall, dark, handsome man speak Serbian to a companion. I joined in the conversation. He was a newspaperman, and was extremely interested in my trip to Hungary. He asked me where I would spend the night, and of course offered gallantly his place, with no strings attached. A perfect evening at the "Lido" in Paris. He urged me to stay. He could get me a good job with UNESCO. They badly needed multi-lingual secretaries. To live in Paris. But I have children in Venezuela, how can I live in Europe? And then there was Joe Tiger. The silent, handsome, debonair, man-about-town, maybe too much to hope for, but yet.

Next morning when my plane landed in New York, Janos was at the airport. Vinyi's meddling again. Pushing me to go back to Janos in spite of all she saw, because of the children.

He was gallant, generous. Shopping at Macy's, Candide at the theatre, lovely dinner, wooing. I was terrified.

On to Caracas next morning, the last day of the year, December 31st, 1956. Picked up the children and flew to Valle de la Pascua. The company car was waiting and--coincidences never cease--on the road to the camp I saw the large black and white Oldsmobile. My heart skipped a beat. I asked the driver to stop. Joe got out. Yes, he received my letters. "Why did you come back?" he asked in his inimitable style. Vanity, it really is the realm of men, more than women. He pushed the right buttons. "Because of you," I said, of course. He was delighted to meet my children. It was love at first sight. We skipped the New Year's Eve Dance at the club and a month later on my 26th birthday were married by a drunk justice of peace in Las Mercedes.

CHAPTER II

Here, of course, one is expected to say "and we lived happily ever after". It really was not that simple. A 44 year old bachelor who takes his new responsibilities a little bit too seriously, a 26 year old who wants "to live" and have some fun. But I was already pregnant. We quarreled bitterly over some triviality, I stormed out and flew to Caracas to have an abortion. Janos visited me in the hotel where I was recovering, brought the children along. He pleaded for me to come back to him, he needs me. Joe sent a beautiful letter, and arrived the next day. They met and shouted. I called room service and ordered dinner. Mollified by the food and feeling quite good about the two guys fighting over me, I kicked Janos out decisively and went back with Joe to Roblecito who, at this point, promised a few things, among others to let me go on a trip to New York, to see my mother and my sister.

Upon my return I got pregnant again and we started making plans to leave Roblecito.

We also spent a lovely long vacation in Colombia, where I finally met Miklos again, and his lovely wife Margot. They wined and dined us, we made several trips to interesting places, and altogether enjoyed very much each other's company. Miklos, in his inimitable pessimistic style wrote to Vinyi, "I doubt that this marriage will last until the baby arrives."

Joe was wooed by an ex-colleague who established a large navigation company in Maracaibo (one of the hottest cities in the world according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, with an average yearly temperature of 88F.).

A revolution broke out while we were packing for the final move, I was about 7 months pregnant, but we made it safely, lock, stock and barrel, and the maid Pia to Maracaibo.

CHAPTER III

Daniela was born in March, 1958, chubby, healthy, easy baby, the little girl I wanted so much. Betty & Pablo visited, and were elated to have a baby sister. Soon afterwards their father re-married, and things got somewhat calmer. Our efforts to get the children back proved futile, because none of my "friends" in Caracas were willing to co-operate with even the most innocuous statement to help my claim.

We built a lovely house and moved in shortly after Daniela's first birthday. I also went back to work, since help was cheap and reliable, and I liked working. Joe worked extremely hard and was also absent much of the time. We decided to leave Venezuela, where economically and politically things were sliding from bad to worse.

The application from Canada contained a question: "Religion". We put the paper in a drawer and thought about it for the next three-four months. One day we decided: if they don't want us as we are, we don't want them either. And filled out the document, enclosed the required proofs, medicals, etc. and waited. We did not have to wait too long: our visas arrived in 1960, we liquidated our belongings, packed some, sold most, and embarked on yet another new adventure.

A few happy weeks in New York, which I spent shopping, outfitting ourselves in clothes more appropriate for the climate we were going to face, Daniela met her cousins, her grandparents, her aunts, uncles, it was a heady round of family parties, pleasant reunions with long-lost cousins. She just turned three and was a happy, pleasant, pretty child, everybody loved her. Joe's introduction to the family went smoothly too, all the women in my family love handsome men.

Montreal proved somewhat more daunting then we expected, but my joy was boundless. After two weeks in Montreal I rode on a bus and came back elated "Everybody on the bus looks just like me, is dressed just like me, I feel home, I feel home." A civilized city, with a Gaelic charm, theatres and concert halls, cosmopolitan, bursting into spring, we soon made friends, met Hungarian people through previous acquaintances, some Polish ones as well, I found a job, we rented a nice apartment, life was turning pleasant. Betty & Pablo came to visit for the summer, they also enjoyed the sights and amenities of this new world. I had a good job, we enrolled Daniela in a day school.

Vicky was born in Montreal in 1963 and was a most adorable, good-natured, plump, happy, pretty baby.

In 1967, during the 6 Day Israeli war, Nick býcsi, Vinyi's wonderful fourth husband, died. Vinyi floundered somewhat emotionally, financially in New York, and we decided after watching her closely for about a year, that she should move to Montreal. She was happy at the proposal, and we rented a nice apartment for her, and for the next 20 years we indeed all lived happily ever after.

Time--the cliche goes--is a great healer. The children grew, we saw them regularly, they spent their summer months in Montreal, we built a lovely cottage on a lake, which everyone seemed to love. It was a good place to bring up children.

Betty went to college, Pablo to boarding school in St. Catharines, then to Bordentown, he floundered somewhat, but matured into a wonderful young man. As soon as he could, on his 21st birthday, he applied for permanent residency in Canada. We were elated to have a son again.

This just about sums things up, as we all mature and face the future, while surveying the past.

I often say that having survived the war in Europe toughened me up to a point that I am never scared of anything any more. It is somewhat of a lie. I had two big scares, and both were due to the danger I faced with my children. No, it was not when I calmly filmed the gunfire of a revolution down on the street below our apartment building in Maracaibo, soldiers scrambling over roof-tops.

One was in Washington, when coming out of the Ford theatre with Betty (who was about 17), I saw people running to get to their cars and suddenly we found ourselves on a dark, completely deserted street, my heart pounding in my throat, what is happening here, when a taxi stopped next to us, gruffly telling me to get in. He proceeded to berate me, "What are you doing in this neighbourhood at this time of the day, two good looking women all alone? Don't you know that people are getting killed here every day?" How is one supposed to know such things about a strange city? We were lucky indeed that a taxi rescued us just in time.

The other time we were coming back from Yugoslavia with our rented car and chauffeur, myself and the four children, having made a side trip to visit my old, ailing step-father, and show him the children. By now he was practically blind, but of course his joy was complete. Miklos asked me to pick up some memorabilia he had stored with some friends in Subotica. Bringing out documents of any kind from communist Yugoslavia was strictly forbidden, I packed the papers in some clothes and stashed them in the trunk of the car.

At the border we showed passports, and the guards waved us through. I sighed with relief, when all of a sudden, the ramp was lowered in front of the car. "Get out," the soldiers ordered. They wanted to search the car. While going about it in a perfunctory manner they started talking among themselves: "We should really interrogate the women." "Yeah, I will take that young beauty and you take the mother." Of course, they were unaware that I spoke Serbo-Croatian, and I was stunned by the tone the conversation was taking, appraising us lewdly and discussing the details of the planned "interrogation". I told the chauffeur, no matter what, we have to get out of here immediately. I didn't let on what the conversation was all about, neither to him, nor to the children. I told Vicky to start crying, that she is hungry. There was no argument, her wailing was loud and spirited. The chauffeur approached the soldiers and pleaded with them to let us go, we were there for only the day, we are not bringing anything back, the children are hungry and tired. An agonizing moment later, the ramp was lifted and we were back in Hungary. I still have nightmares about what could have happened to my 18 year old Betty.

Life for me is seldom humdrum, boring. I do like things "happening", and see to it that they do. I try to find pleasure in all things, and try to see something good, pleasant, worthwhile in all my endeavours.

The focal point of our lives now--as ever--are our children, their spouses and their wonderful offspring, there is indeed a lot to be thankful for.

I started this a few years ago. I am going to finish it now. It was often painful to write; to dig into old wounds, to make them bleed again. Many people I loved are gone now: my mother is not around any more with a word of caution, with advice, with an oft-repeated homily, with a silent look and a raised eyebrow. I miss her. The small voice I often hear admonishing me is always hers. I hope to be around for a little while longer to come to mean to my children what she meant to me, and to become to my grandchildren the grandfather I once had.

P.S. It is almost 40 years now that I saw--in Roblecito--the film Rashomon. One of the watershed experiences for me at that time. A simple enough story: in 17th century Japan a noble family drives in an elegant carriage through a forest. They are accosted by bandits. The beautiful daughter is raped, the father killed. End of story. The film really starts now: the four protagonists (the bandits, the daughter, the mother) re-tell the story. Every tale is different. TO EVERYONE THE SAME EVENT HAPPENED IN A DIFFERENT WAY. Up until then I saw the world in a black and white, true or false way. This film made me realize that life is not that simple. We all bring our own baggage to what we perceive. Our story is unique because we see it from the angle where we stand.