Page 46 - Microsoft Word - 01_A MÁSIK OLDAL English.doc

run down the road and hit a tree. Then and there in a flash my
whole life ran in pictures, and I can still recall that I decided to
avoid the crash no matter what. I yanked the wheel to the left,
only to realize that the front right wheel left the concrete road
and during the jump back to the road the axis broke, the car
turned upside down and we slid sixteen meters. All I could do
was to hold Kate and keep her in the middle, while the windows
imploded one after the other. After the car managed to turn back
with a big jerk, the car ran down the road, toppled a fence
before finally stopping under a tree. Trabants were made of
plastic, sort of, so the roof slowed us down for a while, but it
popped out of its place and made it on top of a walnut tree, once
the car turned over and was on its front again. We were not the
first to be so unlucky, or so it seems, because someone else had
hit the fence before us, but thanks to them, it gave up in an
instant and we could stop in the garden. After catching my
breath, I realized that we were sitting beside the car on the
ground. Acknowledging that both of us survived, I switched off
the battery of the engine…
“I’ll put you in jail, you… you, you golden youth …”
shouted a man in pejorative sense, the one driving the car that
came from the opposite direction. Golden youth meant that you
were not a communist type of man, a playboy maybe. They
were the ones who wanted to live life instead of looking
forward to an uncertain future of communism. I could afford a
Trabant; hence I was a golden youth, or at least that is what he
thought. I asked him to think of compulsory medical aid. After
all, a small cut on my small finger bled heavily; blood was
everywhere. Later, the men at the garage watched the car with
deep regret thinking that many people had died in the car, and
offered their condolence when examining the wreckage. I hurt
my finger while switching off the battery, but Kate started to
complain about some pain in her shoulders. Her collarbone
broke. A German family stopped to take care of us. After the
wakening or rather exploding change in his quiet profession and

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