Page 37 - Microsoft Word - 01_A MÁSIK OLDAL English.doc

I had to sell the BMW Isetta after a year. The reason was that
my father wanted the loan back as a punishment for my going
out to Slovakia to sell linen tapestries illegally, together with
my future brother-in-law and a friend.
These were linens used to be hanged in kitchens, they were
decorated with minimum 40-50 deer in the woods painted on
them and as ware were going out of fashion in Hungary. A lot
was made, so they had to be sold. A good number of hidden
workshops existed in Budapest, which made everything and
acquired loads of money because there was a constant shortness
of goods and wares. The suitor of my sister made me go with
them; he said there was enough room in their car. And go I did,
as it looked a fun adventure, plus I was eager to see Slovakia. I
had never been to Slovakia until then. We roamed the mountain
roads, crossed some villages, trying to sell the screen-painted
linen posters. But it was in vain; at least until the day we had
reached a small village on top of a mountain, where we saw
open but empty houses. That is, we did meet one person, who
explained that he was the village’s communist party secretary
and that rest of the population of the village had gone to the
neighbouring village, because the church was there. Thus, we
were about to go there but we were stopped by a small group of
homecomings. We showed them the tapestries but they said that
they had to go home for money and hurried away. So much for
that, we thought, and started to pack our things, but then we
spotted the people of the village running towards the car. The
narrow mountain road dust flew high as they were approaching
and we thought that we were about to get in a big trouble soon.
“Give two, give me three” they shouted and they
literally grabbed and snatched the tapestries out of our hands,
throwing money at us just like that. An hour had passed and we
were there without tapestries, we sold everything, all that was
remained to be done was to look for a town, eat something at a
restaurant and have some rest at a hotel. We were amazed for
quite some time after we had seen how needed the product was.

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