Hungarian Memories

From Our Own Backyard

Photo by Bence Rácz on Unsplash

No clear winner emerged in the battle of the manipulators. In late November of 1956 Rosalie Saul set out for Camp Kilmer in NJ in search of the perfect Hungarian freedom fighter to join our family. “A match made in heaven,” she reasoned. We had plenty of space in our oversized, rickety, Victorian house and Rosalie knew how to access local support services. The Hungarians? They needed a place to stay, and, more importantly, work.  And Rosalie needed someone to help with her ailing father who had moved in, with childcare and keeping house. At Camp Kilmer she and Maria Rusavitch (note Russian name???) struck up a conversation. She and her fiancé, Janosh Papp would be a perfect fit, the women agreed. During the ride home from NJ to CT,  Maria and Janosh seemed to be arguing. Perhaps that was simply animated conversation, Rosalie reasoned.

And then the drama began. My parents, ever confident in their ability to communicate, soon realized that the Hungarian language was unrelated to both English or my mother’s pretty excellent French. My father, who spoke a little Yiddish, and Janosh, who spoke a bit of German were left to figure things out. I remember my father’s shocked expression as he tried to confirm the information about Maria’s and Janosh’s relationship.  

“ Maria, no your bubala?” my father began.

“Nein, Nein, Nein!!!!” retorted Janosh emphatically.

My father turned to my mother. “I think he hates her. “

My parents decided to call a friend of Hungarian descent who would visit the next day for a desperate consult.

It turned out that Maria had been a mapmaker in Hungary and had no interest at all in helping out with my grandfather, the kids or housework. Janosh was some sort of engineer, a truly nice guy, who Maria had somehow misrepresented in order to lure him out of the Camp and make him her own. The situation seemed hopeless until Maria and my mother, both truly resourceful women, came up with a plan. A woman Estie Peshak, still housed at Camp Kilmer, had worked in the “hoshpital”  before the 1956 uprising. Together Maria and my mother would go back to NJ and bring Estie back to help with my grandfather, the kids and the house.

Estie, it turned out, was an Amazon of a woman, 6-feet tall and unbelievably strong. She arrived clad in combat boots, wearing a print cotton dress and pastel cardigan. The first night she acted out her role in the revolution, aiming a pretend machine gun at us kids and laughing. She showed us a pair of her own children’s tired, white baby shoes and we promised to find a way to help her call them as soon as her family could be located.

Janosh began English lessons, got a job and bought a motorcycle. He taught me a bit of Hungarian and gave me motorcycle rides. Maria finally admitted that she was pregnant — and definitely not from Janosh whom she had met only recently. Was that why she joined the exodus from Hungary? We hooked Maria up with social services, Janosh found a lovely girlfriend who soon became his wife and Estie became part of our family for several years.

Estie stories abound. We had a giant clawfoot bathtub that no one could lift. She picked it up singlehandedly and moved it to the third floor. After her first New England snowfall, we found Esite outside shoveling and successfully clearing the entire road, not just the sidewalk. We once suggested that Estie might like a garden and came home to find almost half an acre dug up and ready for planting. Estie gave my grandfather excellent massages, and cooked excellent chirka paprikash and palichinto for the family.

This was a time when calling long distance to Hungary was no easy matter, but every few weeks, with the help of multiple operators, we got a call through to Estie’s family. The sound quality was imperfect; I remember her needing to yell into the phone and wiping her eyes when the call finished. Estie opened a bank account and dutifully deposited all of the money that she earned.

Estie seemed to have no social life for years until one day a group of four guys with slick-backed hair and open shirts showed up in a convertible with the top down. She laughed with them, chatted comfortably in Hungarian—I recall her playfully punching one in the arm. They returned again a few weeks later. By their third visit, Estie had emptied her substantial bank account and took off with the group, waving her scarf from the back seat as she pulled away.

She left the baby shoes in our attic.

Years later I became part of a project in Hungary. The taste of the local palinka brought back memories of Estie as the delicious jam melted on my tongue.