Hungarian Review, 1975 (21. évfolyam, 1-8. szám)
1975-01-01 / 1. szám
FROM THE PLANT This is the story of a 47-year-old locksmith, Károly Iszlai. I remember when I was called “little Charlie”, or “junior” and look at me now. Now I’m “the old man”. Mind you, it’s a good thirty years since I started my apprenticeship. Why did I become a locksmith? Who the hell knows? In those days, there wasn’t such a big do about choosing a career. “Well, son,” says my dad one day, “your brother is in high school, and it’s time you got a job. With four kids in the family, one going to school is plenty.” My old man was a miner, he took a train to the mine each day, but since I didn’t feel like all that travelling I became a locksmith. It was only later that I came up to Budapest. There was a manpower or labour exchange type of office on Rákóczi Street which I visited and they told me to go out to the shipyard. That’s how I got here, but He works at the Óbuda plant of the Hungarian Ship and Crane Works. I’ll tell you, in those days I’d never even seen a ship, much less been on one. Do I like my work? Yeah, I guess so. When I get up in the morning I’m always whistling or something, thinking of the day ahead, working with the guys. There are seven guys under me in the pipe fitting section, where we install the airconditioning of those 16 and 25 ton barge derricks. They’re going to the Soviet Union. The guy on the line always knows what’s going where. Right now, we’re working for the Russians within the framework of a COMECON contract, which will keep us busy for a year. I’m no economist, but everybody knows that COMECON means cooperation. For example, we send the Russians boats and cranes in exchange for which they give us cars and machinery, things they produce. ■ I'm gonna be meeting Ellic this afternoon. Not that it’s any big deal, but she’s my wife and has been for some 22 years now and maybe that is a big deal these days. It doesn’t seem like the modern thing to do but I love my wife as much as ever, as rriuch as on that day when I first asked her for a dance. That’s just the way I am. That’s the way the two of us are. We have the same interests, we had the same goals in life, and when our eyes meet we’re thinking the same thing. Not that we had an easy life, mind you. Getting a place of our own, for example. I know this still ain’t easy; we lived with our inlaws for six years in their one room and kitchen. Our son, The Óbuda plant of the Hungarian Ship and Crane Factory Károly Iszlai I Do I like my work? ' Yeah, I guess so