Knowing that his little brother would be homesick and frightened, Tibor offered to accompany Bela on the train. That made the journey seem a little less daunting to Bela but, still, at the last minute, he secretly tucked a few of his favourite things into his suitcase without Anna neni or Mother finding out.
As he sat on his bed and waited, Bela looked up anxiously when Tibor opened the door. Tibor smiled at Bela and made his way across the room, looking curiously at the suitcase sitting neatly beside his little brother.
"Well, Beluskam (my Bela)," he said, "let's take a look at what you've packed."
Bela sat next to the suitcase looking sullen and hoped that his brother wouldn't discover the treasures he had hidden inside.
Tibor sat down on the bed next to the suitcase and ran his hand over the smooth leather. He didn't want Bela to think that he was searching his private things, but he knew his little brother and suspected there would be things in that suitcase that shouldn't be there. Almost as soon as his hand reached into the soft pile of clothing, Tibor felt something hard and pulled out a slingshot. Then, inside an undershirt, he found three perfect little round stones. Tibor pulled them out and looked at Bela.
"Dear brother of mine. You know that one of the things you will learn at military school is how to use far more sophisticated weapons than these."
"But this is my good-luck slingshot. I've had it since I was six," Bela countered.
"It's no good, Beluskam," Tibor said shaking his head. "What if another boy finds it and takes it away from you? What if he injures someone with it? Guess who will be blamed if that happens?" Tibor spoke gently but tried to be firm.
Bela knew the answer and stared at his brother sheepishly. His brother did have a point. Then the answer came to him. "But I'll take good care of it. I won't let anyone near my stuff," he shot back.
"The one thing you will learn as soon as you set foot inside that military school is that there is no place to hide ‘your stuff,' as you call it," Tibor explained. "Your room captain and commanding officers will come into your room on a regular basis and empty your drawers whether they are perfectly in order or not. Some commanding officers will be fair and decent, but others will simply throw all the clothes in your dressers on the floor because they are having a bad day." Bela sat listening, his eyes becoming rounder as Tibor spoke. "And you will have to get used to that." Tibor waited a moment, watching his brother as he tried to take it all in. "And what if they find something - like a slingshot - that you are not supposed to have? You will be punished and your good luck charm will be taken away from you permanently." Bela choked back his tears and looked pleadingly at Tibor. "But," Tibor continued gently, "if you hide it here in your room, it will always be here when you come home for holidays and in the summertime." Bela looked down at his hands, pondering the alternative. Tibor handed the slingshot back to a pensive Bela.
Bela thought for a moment, then reached into a hidden part of the inner lining at the back of the suitcase and extricated a ten-inch hunting knife sheathed in a fine leather case. He held it lovingly in his hands and looked at the intricately carved handle. Tibor breathed in, trying to camouflage his surprise. He didn't ask his little brother where he had obtained the hunting knife but suspected that one of the many officers who visited their home regularly must have given the prize to Bela.
Bela placed the hunting knife, the slingshot, and the three little round stones in Tibor's hands. "Will you put these in a safe place for me?" he asked.
Tibor hugged his little brother, suddenly overcome by emotion. He knew how much Bela valued these treasures of his and appreciated the confidence the boy had placed in him. "Of course I will," he whispered in his ear.
BELA SAT ON THE train, wearing a crisp, short-sleeved white shirt Anna neni had freshly ironed just before their departure and long cotton pants and polished brown shoes. He was restless and went to look out the window often, watching the rolling hills, towns, and forests pass by. It was a warm summer day and a bit of a breeze offered some relief but Bela was hot and didn't understand why he couldn't wear short pants on such a day. But Mother had insisted. This was a very good school, she had told him sternly. An elite school for children of officers and diplomats. He was going to school in excellent company and he should start his career there by arriving as a well-behaved and properly dressed young gentleman.
Tibor could sense the turmoil in his younger brother and assumed his thoughts were focussed on the conversation they had had earlier in his room. As Tibor watched him, his heart suddenly ached for his young brother. He was still such a child.
Tibor made no secret of the fact that he was a pacifist. He couldn't stand military life. He could barely stomach the basic training he had to complete to obtain the rank of corporal in the reserves for the sake of the family's reputation. After all, they were in the middle of a war, he kept telling himself. Fortunately for him, he was the only male member of the family of draft age who was allowed to remain at home in order to run the family business.
He fingered the picnic basket that sat beside him and motioned to Bela. "Should we see what Mother has sent for lunch?" Bela smiled and Tibor opened the latch. "Bread, cold duck, cheese, and apples." Tibor smiled broadly. "Let's eat!" The two brothers sat alone in their compartment, quietly sharing their lunch until the train screeched to halt.
As they disembarked the train, Tibor looked around. Horse-drawn carriages and drivers, alerted to the increase in passengers arriving by train that day, stood in line, waiting to whisk the cadets to the prestigious military school. Tibor motioned to one of the drivers to take them on the short ride to the institution.
When they arrived at the front gates of the massive castle, Tibor told the driver to wait as he and Bela got down. Tibor took the suitcase out of the carriage and put it down on the ground beside Bela. He stretched out his arms to the boy and hugged him close. "Do well, little brother. Don't let them get you down." He pulled away and looked into Bela's worried eyes. "You can write to me anytime, and I will come visit you if you get lonely, okay?" Bela nodded, not trusting his voice. With that, Tibor turned around and got back into the carriage. He told the driver to take him back to the train station and kept his eyes down as they drove away. He did not want to see Bela's wistful eyes.
When Tibor's carriage finally became a speck in the distance, Bela turned around and looked at his new school. He felt like he was looking at a castle from one of his childhood storybooks. The massive building had four turrets and a moat. The entrance to the castle was about one hundred metres in from the ornate, wrought-iron front gate that surrounded an enormous garden. Bela walked up the long, pebble driveway to the front gate of the castle and went inside to the grand atrium. It looked as if it had just been cleaned and smelled of lemon polish.
As he looked around, he was overwhelmed by the massive entranceway. He felt small and alone and desperately wished Tibor had come with him. The wide, gleaming, marble staircase that led to the second floor had steps that were eight feet wide and a hand-carved, highly polished, cherry-wood banister that was a foot wide. He had never seen such an elaborate staircase and it had at least two landings. At one point, it split into a Y-shape and you could go to the right or to the left. Large paintings of stern, important-looking people hung in elaborate frames on the walls.
The atrium was adorned by three massive marble fireplaces and he noticed what must have been the Karolyi family crest, a coat of arms, engraved into the marble wall above each fireplace. The same four words were written on each wall: Fide Virtute Famam Querere.
As Bela stood gawking, trying to decipher the words, a tall, important-looking officer in uniform walked briskly by. He had very short, perfectly combed hair and Bela noticed that, on his collar, he had a blue stripe. He later found out this distinctive rank meant he was a teaching officer. When the officer saw Bela staring at the words over the fireplaces with a puzzled look on his face, he slowed down and stopped beside him.
"That, young man, is
the motto of this institution." Bela looked at him quizzically.
"It is written in Latin and the translation means ‘To Obtain Glory with Virtue and Loyalty.' Now, come along. Let's get you registered!"
They made their way down a long hallway, down a short flight of stairs, along another hallway and finally arrived at a large, low-ceilinged, well-lit room where tables upon tables were loaded with clothing. There were many other boys already there, all standing in line. At each table, they were handed three each of the different articles of clothing: underwear, shirts, uniform pants, dress shirts, and sleep wear.
Bela watched in awe as each boy received two sets of clothing that had their own special number attached inside each item. There was one brown outfit with britches and riding pants that was meant for all outdoor activities, including hiking and military exercises. They also got a blue dress uniform with pants that had a red stripe on each side extending from the hip all the way to the ankle. Each student also received a chrome belt buckle embossed with the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Hungary. Later, each boy would receive a bayonet to wear at his side.
Tibor Schroeder in Budapest, circa 1942.
The boy in front of Bela turned to him and introduced himself as Imre Laszlo. Imre had friendly, mischievous eyes and Bela felt an immediate affinity with him. The boys were the same height, although Bela was pudgier. Imre had arrived a bit earlier and already knew a few things about the place. He pointed to a blond boy walking a little ahead of them. "That's Laszlo Haller," he told Bela. "He comes from a famous aristocratic family in Erdely. His father is a baron." He had also found out the nickname of one of the sergeants handing out shoes. "The boys call him Pacal (Porker) because he has an enormous head and body," Imre whispered to Bela. The two boys snickered and then saw the boy in front of them handing Pacal back a pair of boots he had received.
"But sir, these aren't a pair," the boy complained.
Pacal looked at the boy and laughed. "That's okay, kid. If they aren't a pair, at least they like each other. Here's another." (Ha, nem parja, cimboraja.) When everyone laughed, Pacal put on a grim face. "What is everyone laughing at?" he scowled. "Let's move it. Move it! Move it!"
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 photogr
aphs 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.
chapter 9 | 1942
THE 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.
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