Landed Immigrant by Marika Dekany

I was born and raised in Hungary, in the city of Tata, and was married there in January of 1966.  My new husband, Tibor, was also Hungarian-born, but by then he had made a life for himself in Canada – in Saint John – and had become a Canadian citizen.  My elder sister Eva, who left Hungary during the Revolution of 1956, had gone to Canada with her family and had also made Saint John her home. It was through her that my family and I met Tibor when he came home for a visit.

Shortly after our wedding Tibor had to return to Canada – without me, since I had to stay in Hungary while my application to immigrate was processed and approved. I want to share this story about the feelings I had as I prepared to leave behind everything that was familiar to me – my parents and siblings, my friends, the streets I walked every day, our house, and our yard with the tall trees I’d climbed during childhood.

It would be seven months before I was notified that the Canadian government had accepted my application to immigrate. Those seven months were a time of expectation about the new life waiting for me, and they were also a time of emotional goodbyes. I continued to work as a hairdresser until two weeks before my departure, but I was also able to visit with family members who lived in different parts of Hungary. And of course I spent lots of time with my parents, my younger sister and brother, and my friends. As the date of my departure came closer, I began to have an uneasy feeling in the back of my mind that I might never see them again.

All during that time, it never really occurred to me how difficult it was for my parents to let me go. If they had been opposed to a marriage that would take me so far away, I could not – would not – have married. It would have been unthinkable for me to act against their wishes. They told me that as difficult as it was for them to lose another daughter to the far side of the world, they were glad that I would be living in the same city as Eva. Each of us would have a sister by her side. But I also know that they’d been won over by Tibor’s good-natured personality.

In August, when the immigration papers arrived granting me Canadian Landed Immigrant status, I finally had everything in hand to travel to my new life, my new country, and my loving but not-so-patiently-waiting husband. I chose his birthday, August 28th, for the journey.

Most people I knew had never travelled outside of Hungary, let alone by air. At the airport with my family there were tears and hugs and promises, and the waiting airplane made it feel as if an infinite distance would be put between us. When I boarded the plane, it was with a heavy heart – I was on the path to a new life, but it was so far away!

Not long after we had taken off, the captain spoke to us through the loudspeaker. He said, “Have a look out your windows, everyone. We are just leaving Hungary.” I looked back through my small window as my homeland was left behind. It came to my mind that one of our Hungarian poets had written that whoever changed their country would have to change their heart. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but my mind interpreted the words as saying somehow, it’s not the right thing to do, to turn your back on the country of your birth. With that thought prickling my conscience, I focussed on the land below as the airplane flew over Europe leaving behind one country after another.

Until we arrived in Amsterdam, where I would have to change planes, all my fellow travelers were Hungarian. But after I had boarded the Air Canada flight that would take me to Montreal, I was among passengers who did not speak my language. Knowing neither English nor French I could not communicate with anyone, and I began to feel very much alone. Again, an uneasy feeling settled in me as we left all of Europe behind. Of course I’d always been aware – in my head, at least  – how far I’d be travelling, but I was now overcome with the realization of it. The ocean so far below me seemed endless, and so did the distance that would soon separate my new life from everything I had ever known.

I arrived in Montreal with no real idea about what to expect, and was met at the arrivals gate by a Red Cross worker. When she realized I spoke no English, she quickly found someone in the airport who could speak the Hungarian language. Once we were able to communicate, she gave me information about the flight that would take me to Saint John and told me how long I’d have to wait. Then she had to leave me for a few minutes and she asked me to stay in my seat; “Please don’t move,” she said. She didn’t need to worry about that – I wasn’t planning to wander off anywhere! Once I was alone, I took in my surroundings and all the people hurrying everywhere, and I felt lost. I was sure that I did not belong, and wondered if I ever would.

On August 28, 1966 I finally arrived in Saint John and was so relieved when I saw the familiar faces of my husband, my sister, and her family as they stood waiting for me. It had only been one day – a long day – since I’d left the soothing company of people dear to me, but it seemed like weeks. Now I was comforted by family once again, and we went immediately to my sister’s house for supper. It was a wonderful reunion with people I loved.

After supper Tibor and I headed home to to our apartment, which I would see for the first time. Just as we were crossing the Courtenay Bay Causeway, we ran out of gas. He told me to stay in the car, and then left to fill a gas can with enough fuel to get us home. I was in a strange country, at a strange place in this new city, and all alone in the dark, but I was so exhausted after my long trip from Hungary that I fell asleep while waiting for him. I’m not sure that I was scared then, but I am now, just thinking about it!

This is how my new life in Canada began. Now, more than 50 years later, I can say yes, it did become my home, and always will be. I’ve met so many wonderful people who supported me and helped me adjust, and who listened to my frustrations without judging me. And when I cried they would put their arms around me and say that it was all right, that even though they had never experienced the changes I’d been through, they could understand my feelings. Forever, I will be in their debt. I do belong.

Bits and Pieces by Marika Dekany

A few years ago when I wrote down the memories I had of my son’s childhood, I realized that he knew nothing about how I grew up in Hungary, in my home city of Tata. He knew nothing about my childhood interests, the games we played, or the different customs I was born into. I decided to record what stories I could remember of my own growing-up years so he would have more than names and dates to represent his heritage.

Some people write wonderful books in a much shorter time than it’s taken for me to record these bits and pieces of my Hungarian childhood. I started in 2011 to write down memories as they occurred to me. In 2013, I read a book by Kate Morton called “The Secret Keepers”. In it, the main character is a 65-year-old woman who goes to visit her mother in a nursing home and realizes that she has never asked her what her life was like before she became “Mom”. Different questions about the past pop into her head, but her mother is too weak to speak. She regrets not asking those questions earlier. As we get older, it seems we think of the many questions we might have asked, but didn’t. This probably comes to most people’s minds sooner or later.

When I look back at some of my earliest memories, I see a fenced yard with grass, a sandbox, and children playing. Of course, we had no TV, no electronic games, or anything like them. My family was on the “poor side”, not much money. This was after World War II, and we weren’t the only ones dealing with hardship. Some had a bit more a bit sooner, but the 1940’s and ’50’s were difficult times.

As children, though, we were content to play, and my younger sister and brother and I played happily together.  We played a lot of ball games, and in the ditches we played the “cat and mouse” game – the “cat” would stand in a ditch and try to catch the “mice” as they jumped back and forth from one side to the other. From burrs, we built all kinds of things like beds and chairs to furnish our “playhouse”, which we drew on the ground. If we got bored with building things, we threw the burrs into each other’s hair and sometimes only a pair of scissors could get them out. We also played tricks – sometimes together, sometimes on each other – and if some of our tricks got us into trouble, we covered for one another.

We rarely had sweets because there was simply no money for them, but sometimes we could earn enough money ourselves to buy what we wanted. There’s a street in Tata called Chestnut Row because it is full of chestnut trees, and in the fall we’d collect chestnuts. We’d hang in those trees like the Von Trapp children in “The Sound of Music”, and our reward would be enough money to buy a few sweet things. Then when my mother started to work, on paydays she always brought home a big bag of wafer cookies for us. We loved it – anything sugary was the treat of our dreams. My older sister told us that rich people drank their coffee with the cup half-filled with sugar. How I wanted to be rich! I vowed that when I grew up, I’d eat nothing else but chocolate and candy. That’s how much we craved the sweets we didn’t have.

At Christmas time we didn’t have many presents, but we had a tree and there was usually about 2 lbs. of wrapped Christmas candies that we hung on it – a European tradition. Of course, we couldn’t resist; from the next day on, we started to steal candies from their wrappings. In place of the candy, we’d put a small piece of coal in each wrapper and hang it back on the tree. Later, we didn’t even bother with the coal. We just “puffed up” the wrappers to make them look like they still had candy in them. Then when our father eventually wanted a candy, he discovered that all the wrappers were empty – except for the ones at the top of the tree, out of our reach.

In those not-so-easy years in Hungary food was often in short supply, and there was this saying: “Breakfast, nothing; lunch, the same; supper, leftovers.” I remember telling my grandmother, “But in that case, you never eat!” During this time my father would raise two pigs each year. We had lard, bacon, and sausage which was smoked and which lasted for a long time.  When all was gone, it was “lean times” again until the next pig was ready to be slaughtered.

Every Monday was wash day. We heated water on top of the stove, and the laundry was done in a big wash basin. It was a messy day, especially in wintertime, because it all had to be done in the kitchen. Many years ago I read a book called “Simple Abundance”, and also its companion book, “Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude” which suggested that every day for one year we write down five things we are grateful for. When I was short of things for my list, what I always wrote was “Thank you for inventing the automatic washer and dryer!” It still holds fascination for me that in one hour, I can have clean and dry clothes.

Bits and pieces of memories rise in my mind when I am least expecting it – like the frog incident. We had frogs of all different sizes in our yard. That didn’t bother us, and they were usually hiding under plants, anyway. Except for one big, ugly-looking bullfrog with rough, green, warty skin. We were told not to bother this frog, because the way he’d defend himself would be to spray us with urine. Then our skin would turn rough, green, and warty, like his. We believed it. We had a big walnut tree in our yard, and underneath it was lots of yellow sand. The frog decided he liked the cool sand, and we would find him sitting there when we wanted to play. We couldn’t disturb him, because we didn’t want to get frog-skin. Then we realized we’d get it anyway, if he peed in the sand. So we got a shovel, snuck up behind the frog, and whacked him. Fortunately for us he did not survive the attack, and we had a dead frog to get rid of. Little by little we started to feel very sorry for murdering him, and we thought the least we could do was to give him a funeral. We dug a hole in the garden, picked up the frog (with the murder weapon), and into the ground he went. We filled in the hole and put flowers and a cross on top of the grave, because that was what we’d seen done at the cemetery.

Another memory is about the drunk ducks. There was a girl named Mariska who lived across the street from us, and we played with her a lot. When her parents went to work in their vineyard the children were left alone at home with chores to be done. One day, we all decided to slide down the side of their big haystack, and we really messed it up. Mariska’s father was a stern man, so we were trying to fix it the best we could when we noticed that his ducks were all stretched out on the ground. They looked like they were dead. We panicked, and my sister and I ran home so we wouldn’t have to face her father. We learned later what had happened. There was a big tree in the yard, a mulberry tree, and its ripe fruit had fallen to the ground and fermented. The ducks ate it and got drunk, which was why all of them were passed out on the ground. Then I remembered we were told to sweep up the fruit so the ducks couldn’t eat it, but we’d decided to play first. We thought we could look after the fruit in just a little while…  but we were just a little late!

My sister Eva left Hungary when I was twelve years old. That year, 1956, was the year of the Hungarian Revolution. We didn’t know anything about the uprising or what was happening in the country. We only knew that the grown-ups were nervous, and we heard them whispering. Still, we just wanted to play. One day my younger sister Zsuzsi and I told our grandmother that we wanted to go to Ibolya’s house to play. But Ibolya lived about two kilometres from us, and we were forbidden to go there. Just the same, we left our house and once around the corner, we hurried off to see Ibolya. We played there for awhile, then we went on an errand to get milk for her family from a farm about a kilometre away.

By the time we got back to Ibolya’s house it was dark. Her older sister had just come home from the city centre and told us that the revolution had spread. People in our own city were now pulling down the Russian monuments and demonstrating against the government. We realized that this was the reason our parents were nervous and hadn’t wanted us to go far from home, and we started to cry. When we got home, only our grandmother was there. She told us that our parents had gone to the stores to get whatever supplies they could find. We were sure they were going to be very angry with us, but when they got home they were so relieved that we’d finally shown up that we only got hugs.

In Hungary in the 1950’s compulsory schooling lasted for eight years. The first four years were called “lower grade”, and the next four, “upper grade”. In upper grade we took history, geography, physics, chemistry, music, and literature. Our studies were very concentrated, and we learned a lot. For example, in geography we learned all the countries of the world, their capital cities, major lakes and rivers, their population, what language was spoken, what natural resources they had. In chemistry we learned the periodic table and all the elements’ symbols. We learned about all the well-known writers and poets in literature class, and we studied their work. In music, we studied the lives and works of all the world’s prominent composers.

At the beginning of each year, our parents bought us what clothes they could. We always got a pair of new shoes, which had to last till the next year but often didn’t. We wore a sort of uniform in school, which helped – it was like a lab coat, navy blue in colour, and we wore it over our regular clothes. We all looked the same, which was good; no fashion show! We didn’t have extra sneakers to keep just for gym class, so we used white chalk to brighten up our dirty old sneakers; we often improvised like that. But then when we were jumping and exercising, our legs would become covered with chalk dust.

Of the many scenes from my childhood that I wrote down for my son, these are just a few; looking back on those years, it was mostly a happy and carefree time. There were many things we did without, or didn’t have enough of, but now, whenever I talk about the old times with my brother and sister, we always say that at least we had fun and we turned out all right, and we have a good laugh remembering.

Generations by Marika Dekany

Grandmother

Grandmother Heitz, my mother’s mother, lived with us at my childhood home in the city of Tata, in Hungary. We loved her, and she loved us and took care of me and my younger sister and brother. If we did something wrong, she stood up for us. My mother went to work at 6:00 in the morning; Grandmother was the one who got up early, started the fire in the kitchen, made breakfast for us, and got us off to school. She made our dinners and washed our clothes, and told us stories of our mother when she was a child. We always looked forward to the first of the month because she had a small widow’s pension, and when she received it she’d buy us a bit of candy.

We went everywhere with Grandmother, and whenever we passed a worker who cleaned chimneys, which was often, we’d lick one of our buttons because that was good luck; it was especially good luck to meet a chimney sweep on New Year’s Day. We went with her to the cemetery, and we visited the graves of other people she had known. On one of the graves there was a life-sized, black statue of a woman with her arms stretched upwards towards the sky. As a child, I thought she must be praying for God to give her some soap so she could wash up. It would have been simple to ask my grandmother if I was right, but I never did.

I was about 19 years old when she became ill. For months she just stayed in bed and didn’t really know us. My aunt Mancineni and I both did shift-work in our jobs, and between us we arranged to work on opposite shifts so that someone would always be able to stay with Grandmother. During my time at home I spoon-fed her, gave her the medications she needed, and changed her. One day she turned her head away and didn’t want to eat. I said – very firmly – “Grandmother, you have to eat!” I regretted my tone of voice immediately; I stroked her head softly, and when I begged her to eat I remember clearly that she turned her face to look at me, and she knew me. For a moment we held each other’s eyes. Then she shook her head slowly from left to right – letting me know she didn’t want to eat – and she died. It was 1964.

It was an old custom to stop every clock in the house when somebody died, and to open a window so that person’s spirit could leave. We did this when Grandmother died, in keeping with the tradition. But for a long time after her death I felt terribly guilty – why did I have to be so stern with her, just before she died? I tried to feel better by telling myself that I was responsible for her feeding, and I was truly afraid that if she didn’t eat or take her medications, she would die. And I reminded myself that I had stroked her head lovingly, and we had made eye contact. I am not able to express with words what I saw in her eyes, or what I felt. She seemed to be giving me her love, letting me know that she was soothed because I was with her during the last minutes of her life; I believe she knew I had taken care of her, and she was saying goodbye.

What finally eased my mind was a chance meeting, some time later, with an elderly woman I hadn’t seen before. It happened on our street; the lady had stopped to ask me for directions to the cemetery, which was in the area. She was small, and she wore a dress that was just like one my grandmother would have worn. The scarf on her head was just like Grandmother’s. She had a kind face, all wrinkles and loving eyes. Something moved in me – the opportunity to help her seemed like a gift. Filled with a sense of loving respect I carefully explained the route, and with all my heart I wanted to hug her. I had the feeling that my grandmother had sent her my way.

 

Mother

My mother was a very kind person. People liked to talk to her because she was a good listener. She kept out of everyone’s business and if she gave her opinion it was in a way that never offended. When she was young she worked as a kitchen helper for a neighbourhood family. The family owned lots of land and had many hired workers, who they provided with the noontime meal every day. Everything was fresh from the garden or the market. The stores we have today didn’t exist. If you wanted a chicken for dinner you killed, cleaned, and cooked it in the morning, and had it in the fields for the workers by noon. Each day started at 5am. My mother liked to tell us stories about those times. She had fun with the other women and laughed a lot.

Later, she worked at a sports complex as a cleaning lady. This was where many of Europe’s best athletes came to train for world championships like the Olympics. She was well-liked by the athletes. Many of them came back year after year, and she was happy if her favourites were there. She said that sometimes the athletes were tired and asked, “Mama, could you come back in an hour to clean my room so I can sleep some more?” She was happy to do anything they asked.

My sister had moved to Canada in 1956. When she came home for her first visit, Mother and I went to Budapest to pick her up from the airport. We took the early train so we had extra time. I took Mother to the only restaurant I knew – an elegant place close to the train station. The reason I knew this restaurant was that only a few weeks before, I had been in Budapest with my sports club and we were taken there for dinner.

The waiter knew right away that we were not from Budapest, and he took us into his care. Mother asked too many questions and I kicked her under the table, which made us both laugh. From then on, there was no stopping the laughter. I told her we had to use the knife and fork together, and when she complained that her knife wasn’t sharp enough I couldn’t hold back my laughter. It took me some time to tell her to turn the blade over; then it was her turn to laugh.

The waiter was very good to us so Mother said that she wanted to tip him directly. When the head waiter came with the bill, Mother asked him to send our waiter out for a moment. She explained that he had been very good to us; she wanted to tip him directly and say thank you.

Mother was a good cleaning lady at work, but at home she was not very efficient. When she went to the store it took her forever, because she talked to everyone. If we needed something quickly, we had to get it ourselves. A few years after I’d immigrated to Canada, I was home for a visit, and helping to prepare a meal. One of us had to go to the store and one of us had to start cooking. Of course Mother chose the store. By the time she got back I had set the table and dinner was ready – I’d substituted something else for what she’d gone to get. She praised me for being smart and quick, and then said that she herself was stupid and slow. I said “Mother, you are not stupid. You’re smarter than all of us. You just say that so we’ll do the work.” We all laughed because it was the truth! And she didn’t deny it.

Mother was the only person I’ve known who took such pleasure in even the smallest things her children did for her. She responded to everything with such gratitude and joy that we were happy to do more. As we grew older and settled into our adult lives, we each wanted to give our parents things that they couldn’t have afforded on their own. For example, one of us would finance an extra special Christmas dinner; another, an automatic laundry machine. I gave them tickets to come to Canada for a year-long visit with us, and during that year we took them to Niagara Falls. Our parents were never able to afford to buy us much when we were children, and Mother was so moved by the pleasure we got, as adults, from giving them gifts. I will never forget that she often said “We are lucky parents. We do not deserve our four good children.” She died in 1982, two years after her second visit to Canada.

 

Changing World, Changing Times

My mother used to talk about the days when she was young; she considered them “the good old times”, just the same as I think now that my childhood days were the good old times. She said that some things were better in her time, and I say the same about my time as a child.

I liked it when Sundays were Sundays. You dressed up in your best dress and went downtown “to see and be seen”. Families would go for walks, visit parks, and have ice cream or pastries. Anyone could drop by to visit relatives, friends, or neighbours – doors were open wide, and people were welcoming and happy to see visitors. They were relaxed because it was the day of rest – different from the rest of the week. That was the way of life: simple and rewarding.

Sunday dinners were also better, and we looked forward to eating something special. There were always pastries. Nowadays, Sundays are less enjoyable when we can eat the best of food on any day of the week. On weekends now, actually, we eat leftovers or whatever we can find in the fridge – anything that’s quick. Special Sunday dinners are, sadly, a thing of the past.

Not all change is good change. Now stores are open 24 hours a day, as well as on Sundays, and we less often enjoy the feeling that a certain thing, or a certain time, is special; there’s not as much to look forward to during the week. It also seems that people are not as content with what they have, or with what they’ve achieved, without wanting more – and “more” seems to be the new norm. I don’t think that people of today, generally, are happier than when I was a child. Or maybe they are happy, but in a different way.

Today, I do like looking at young couples holding hands, planning their future, full of hope and love. I feel a bit sorry that my own youthful years are behind me; but then I think of how lucky I am to be alive and able to experience growing old, which is something that’s been denied to so many, including my closest friends.

For me, happiness means being content. As I see it, life is always changing; if we keep ourselves aware of the limited time we have to live, then we can always learn to make the best of that time, to live life well, and to be content.

About Marika Dekany

I was born and raised in the city of Tata, in Hungary. I married there in 1966 and came to Canada with my husband, a fellow Hungarian who had already established himself in Saint John and become a Canadian citizen. I had been trained in Hungary as a hair stylist. I began working within two months of my arrival in Saint John, and focused on building my life in a new country. My love of reading has provided continuous learning about everything from the English language to the human condition. Canada has truly become my home, and my husband and I raised our Canadian-born son in Quispamsis. After many years as a hair stylist, I am now semi-retired and live with my husband in Quispamsis.