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8. The responsibility is mine

What followed was what you could already expect, but to
understand what it means, which you can never imagine: my
father passed away in 1985. He was the first of the family to
leave. It was as if all the holding power had gone. For years I
dreamed that he was still alive and that he had come back. At
the time of his death, we had already lived in separate
households for 13-14 years, but we still worked together at the
language school. In the 1970s, he stopped teaching, and I
carried on the Biró name in the classroom, in the tuition, but he
remained the head of the school. Before he passed away, he
threw away all the documents, saying that the world had already
changed, and all I found were pages of the amendment
proposals I had submitted, along with a few lists and invoices. I
had to do something because the lawyer ordered the family to
save the business from the bankruptcy it was in. If we don't do
it, the state will seize everything, first compensate itself, and the
family will have nothing left as an inheritance. So, I went back
and told the teachers the truth that there had been no tax
payments for years, no accounting, and they might even be
involved into the investigation. I was elected director to assess
the damage and do something about it. I put these into shape
with a lawyer and acted as the school director, paid the arrears,
organized the autumn courses as usual. My summer and a good
part of my inheritance were gone, but the teachers remained. In
the autumn, at the teacher's meeting, I reported on the
development to the teachers who had returned from vacation
and were rested, and announced that in the future only teachers
with a diploma could teach in the school, the groups of 35
people would cease and the maximum number of the group
would be 15, then 12, it was mandatory to use tape recorders
and videos in the in classes.
Two teachers left, saying that they could not teach in such a
small group. There was someone who didn't have a degree, but

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