Return to Hungary

Wednesday September 13th 2006

Catherine Lengyel

The first time I crossed the border into Hungary was in 1964. I was eight years old and too young to understand the trepidation that my parents must have felt upon re-entering the country that they had fled a number of years earlier. The security offered by our Canadian passports must have seemed as flimsy as their soft blue covers in the face of the Iron Curtain that shrouded the country in its rigid folds. But there were elderly aunts to visit - which the opportunities of the new world enabled while the values of the old world compelled us to do. Naturally, we came bearing gifts: freshly roasted coffee, drip-dry blouses and nylon stockings.

For me, the experience conveyed a rich mix of sights, sounds and smells. I remember noticing the storks in their immense nests rather than the barbed-wire fences on which they perched and the strings of salami hanging from the rafters of otherwise depleted shops, rather than the long-suffering queues of peasants in their threadbare clothes. And of course the language, a family oddity to me, had suddenly blossomed into common use.

Leaving the country proved to be a more searing experience. We left late and it was twilight by the time we reached the crossing into Austria. Hard-eyed men loomed up out of the grey drizzle. They seethed with resentment, they had guns and there was no deference in their barked orders for us to get out of the car. In the unflinching glare of the search lights, we huddled to one side, while they swarmed over every inch of our hired vehicle. My North American innocence insulted, my outrage rose in a Hungarian rush of paprika-fuelled invective. "Maybe they want to check my chocolate too," I uttered loudly and deliberately (although luckily in English).

I returned on numerous occasions over the years, always with some sense of trepidation. In the early 80s, I crossed by train. After much noisy shunting to and fro, there followed a long period of inactivity culminating - when one least expected it - in a sudden and final flurry of passport checks. This inevitably occurred at 3am. When the barked orders of "Passport, passport" came, the rat-a-tat at my compartment window was peremptory, the shout strident. But by then I knew the drill. The paprika in my soul was more seasoned, even if still impulsive.

As the immigration officer looked up for the third time, I winked. A tide of crimson rose from the harshly starched collar of his uniform, highlighting the peach-fuzz still clinging to his cheeks. In a matter of seconds, my passport was stamped, the door shut behind him. The iron grip was beginning to slacken.

Sure enough, eight years later, the curtain would fall on this bit of history. And with it some parts of family history would come to their own neat finale. The mine-strewn border that my grandparents had fled across in the depths of a terror-filled night and the barbed-wire border that my parents had re-entered with great trepidation had become a mere formality. And now Hungary has rejoined Europe.

The streets of Budapest are no longer stifled by drab anonymity. A museum - the House of Terror, commemorating both the Nazi and Soviet atrocities - has opened in the very building where my grandfather was once interrogated.

Farewells were more casual this time around. Perhaps we could meet up in Greece next time, the family suggested. And a mere two hours later I found myself driving across the border into Austria. Only I didn't even notice it at first. The road was seamless, the barriers non-existent. A lone border guard waved the traffic through cheerily.

To my surprise, I felt a prickle of tears. The outrage of childhood and the cynicism of youth had made way for the softer nuances of adulthood. It was only much later, when the blue-eyed boys of the German customs police pulled us over to check for contraband, that I felt the paprika rising once again.

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