“I might move back one day,” I said with a sigh.

“I tell you what,” Brian said. “Come anytime. You don’t even have to drive. If you have a car, sell it. I’ll pick you up at the airport here in LA. You can buy a car once you are here. Of course, you can stay with us until you rent something for yourself.”

Yes, I thought, California is where I need to be. ‘Enough of the long East Coast winters, and enough of the streets of cities like New Brunswick or New York where everything constantly reminded me of the negative experiences of my first few years in America. I need to start a brand new life.’

It was in the middle of January in 1981 when I said good bye to the East Coast. Brian, as he promised, picked me up at LAX and drove me to their home in Ventura. Sofia, his wife, and Brian Junior wholeheartedly welcomed me so I had a good feeling about my move.

“Here is your room,” Sofia showed me to their guest room, “and here is your key to the main entrance. Brian leaves very early every morning on weekdays. You know, he still works in Los Angeles. I leave at about half past seven. I don’t have to be in the office before eight but I need to take little Brian to the baby sitter. You know where the bathroom is, and feel free to use the kitchen. So, welcome home.”

The following day, I took the bus downtown to check out a couple of used car dealerships. I found a blue Opel with a price tag of nineteen hundred dollars. After the dealer, a middle aged Scandinavian man, accepted my offer of fifteen hundred with half down and the other half in 30 days, I thought I struck a good deal.

“You don’t waste much time, do you?!” Brian joked when he arrived home seeing me cleaning the windows of my car.

“And guess what,” I said. “I’ve already got a job as well.”

“No kidding… Where?”

“I looked through the Help Wanted ads in the paper. Carriage Buick is hiring sales people so I went to see the Manager. He said I can start tomorrow.”

“Right on, my friend. Car salesmen can make a lot of money. New or used cars?”

“New, of course.”

“You’ll do all right.”

Sofia also congratulated me when she arrived home.

“And after a great day, we need a great dinner. How about your favorite enchilada?” she asked me. “Don’t worry about Brian,” she winked while planting a huge kiss on her husband’s cheek, “he’ll eat anything.”

“Correction,” said Brian, “anything my sweetheart makes.”

Next day I showed up at Carriage Buick wearing my inexpensive dark blue pin striped suit, the only suit I had then. My white shirt was not freshly ironed but the wrinkles could not be seen with my jacket buttoned. My tie looked nice.

“Wow! You look sharp,” the manager said. He looked at me for a few seconds. I thought he did not like my outfit, but then he said: “Really, you might be somewhat over-dressed for this job. Anyhow, why don’t you follow me?! I’ll show you your assignment.” He took me to the back of the parking lot where he handed me a water hose. “You see these twenty some white cars? Brand new, all of them, but you can see how dusty they are. After you wash them down, you can use these rags to dry them.” He raised his hand. “I know, I know, you want to say you were hired to sell cars. That’ll come. Someone has to do this job, too, and it’s the rookie who does it. Got it? Later, when all the cars are clean, you hang around the salesmen to see how they deal with customers. In a few weeks, you’ll be ready to handle customers yourself. Agreed?”

What could I say? I agreed.

After my third day cleaning cars at Carriage Buick, I told Brian about my job while we were eating dinner.

“Can I see your contract?” Brian said.

“What contract?” I answered.

“The papers… that show how much you earn, when you get paid, and so on.”

“I have no papers.”

“That does not sound right, my friend. You might be working for free. Tomorrow, ask your manager if there is a base salary. Car salesmen usually work for commission only. Commission comes from selling cars, not washing them.”

When I told the manager the following day that I was concerned about my earnings, he was blunt: “Of course, there is no base salary in this business.”

“How am I going to make money then, if I am not selling?”

“You are learning the business, that’s the investment of your time… and when you are ready, you can handle customers. Okay, I tell you what. You hang around in the afternoon after washing these vehicles, and if you catch someone looking at the cars, take them to an available salesman. If the person buys, you’ll get a cut of the commission.”

In the evening, when I told Brian how my day went, he said: “You’d better leave that place and find yourself a decent job. A job that pays. In fact…” He reached for the newspaper and opened it at the Help Wanted ads. “Let’s see… Sales… Here, look! This might just be the one you ought to call. Savin Corporation is expanding the Ventura branch and is looking for several people to sell copier machines. Here is the phone number. If I were you, I’d call them tomorrow.”

I followed Brian’s advice and was able to get an appointment for the following day.

“Great!” Brian said at the dinner table. “And here is what we’ll do. Since it’s my day off tomorrow, and I don’t have to drive to LA in the morning, you’ll take my car going to that interview. You know, it looks much better if you show up driving my brand new Thunderbird.”

I could see some curious faces coming to a second floor window of the Savin building as I was parking Brian's fiery red car. The interview went fairly well, especially after I showed the manager the magazine of the Texas company with my picture on its back cover.

“Really? Newcomer of the year?” he said. “Over sixty orders in just a few months? Not bad… Not bad at all. You must have made a ton of money that year.”

“Many of those orders were small quantities,” I explained, “just to patch up some holes on the roof.”

“Makes no big difference,” he replied. “You sold them to different customers… Guess what! You’re hired. I’m sure your English will improve.”

I showed up again the following Monday to start my one month class training. The sales manager arrived in the parking lot the same time I did. I thought he had a puzzled look on his face seeing me getting out of my beaten old Opel.

I did well during the training. We had a written test at the end of every day, and I scored over ninety percent most of the time.

After the second week, my car had serious problems. When I tried to start the engine Sunday to go to the grocery store, it gave out loud knocking noise and I saw smoke rising from under the hood. Brian happened to be outside, so he heard the engine noise and asked me what the problem was.

“I don’t know much about cars,” I said.

After he lifted the hood and saw the oil burning on the outside of the engine, he shook his head.

“You got yourself a bad deal here. This engine is fried. I’d say it’s time for you to get a new car. Now that you have a job, that should be no problem. Your credit is good I’m sure. There are dealerships nearby and on Sundays you can always find good deals.”

Monday morning I drove to work in a new Ford Pinto station wagon.

My manager was talking on his mobile phone still sitting in his car when I pulled up next to him on the parking lot. When he saw me getting out of my car, he rolled down his window.

“Did you trade in your Thunderbird?” he asked laughing.

“No, that was not mine,” I replied.

“I didn’t think it was,” he said. “Hey, nice scores,” he added, “keep up the good work. And if you’ll do as well out in the field as here in the classroom, you’ll be a top producer.”

He was not too far from the truth. After training was over, and I started driving out to my assigned territory to do my cold calling, I did not have to wait too long to make my first sale. I loved my job. I showed up at the office every morning exactly at eight, pushed my demo unit, a nice Savin 840 with a red cover, out the door on top of a gurney that collapsed nicely into the back of my station wagon, and drove the twenty-five miles to Simi Valley where I called on as many businesses as I could.

Brian was right: this was a different California than what I experienced living in Los Angeles. People were friendly and most of them seemed to have a genuine curiosity about me, the European. The freeways were never crowded, it was always a pleasure driving. I usually took the 101 going south and changed over to the 23 in Thousand Oaks to get to Moorpark, also part of my territory, and then onto the 118 to the Valley. On the way back at the end of my day I liked to drive all the way on the 118 because of the nice countryside.

I stayed at Brian's place for ten more days and then I rented myself a furnished room not far from the beach just off Seaward Avenue. The landlady, who owned the house, was super nice, and the girl who rented the third bedroom had just returned from the Far East and told me a lot about her adventures so I felt real good at home, too.

Although, it was often very challenging, I performed well on my job. I started reading books on how to be a successful salesman because I wanted to be the best I could. Of course, my brain had been overloaded most of the time and there were days, especially during the first six months, when arriving home in the evening I did not even feel like eating dinner. I would just sit on my bed for long minutes trying to unwind, feeling a strange tingling in my brain.

I began to understand what the assistant manager meant by saying I would be a good gimmick for the company. Indeed, during my sales calls people I approached asked me questions about my background so it was not difficult for me to establish relationships. I was the one, the salesman, who was supposed to ask the questions to find out about the needs of my prospects but often my prospects were the ones with real curiosity. My English was getting better every day. I paid special attention to using the grammar correctly which slowed me down in the beginning but I really enjoyed seeing myself improving. I was glad I invested the time during my first year in America to learn all the rules of grammar; now finally I had the opportunity to practice all I had learned.

More than a year passed after I first drove out to my Simi Valley territory when I started feeling restless again. No wonder, I realize now, my life during all that time was nothing more than a concentrated effort doing my job. I was one of the top sales reps, I saved plenty of money, and I became much more self confident. I no longer had my thoughts based in Hungarian using English words to express myself, instead, my brain switched to thinking in English. It was a very intense one year and I needed a break.

I started looking at travel brochures and I concluded that it was Europe where I needed to be, at least for a while. And if Europe, why not - what I considered the best - Switzerland. I was not planning a trip, say a couple of weeks, using time off from work. No, I was thinking of moving to Europe.

It was the middle of March, 1982. I purchased a one way ticket for a flight from LA to Zurich, got rid of my car and said good bye to my landlady. Due to a minor clash with my sales manager over compensation for my February sales, I decided not to give any notice to the company. They'll see when I am not reporting for work, I thought.

I landed at the Zurich airport in a snowstorm. I was surprised to see that winter was not over yet in that part of the world and by the time I arrived in the center of the city by train, I was wondering whether I should have waited about a month with my departure from pleasantly sunny and warm California. Walking on the platform from the train to the terminal I was shivering, the temperature was below freezing. No wonder the first thing that caught my eyes walking by a newsstand was a deep orange colored picture of the sun on the front page of a local daily newspaper. I stopped and looked at that picture with curiosity just to find out that it was part of the weather forecast for the whole of Switzerland. Sunny, mild, with temperature maxing at 22 C during the day. No, not in Zurich. It was the forecast for the city of Lugano in the tiny Italian speaking canton of Ticino, south of the Alps. No problem, I thought, and walked to the cashier to purchase a ticket to Lugano. A few hours later, when our train emerged from the long tunnel under the Alps, the gray cloud cover was gone. Looking out the window I saw the bright blue sky, the glowing sun, and spring flowers all over. And when I saw palm trees I immediately felt at easy.

At the Lugano train station I placed my two suitcases - one of them full of my clothes – into coin-op storage boxes, and with my knapsack on my back I left the station.

I was going to the site of the international chess tournament I read about in Zurich on that newspaper front page, right under the weather report.

The tournament was about a week-long event, if remember well, and when I arrived it was almost over. I met players I knew from Hungary, and I was able to have a conversation with one of the organizers. After I told him about my plan to stay in Switzerland for a while, find work if possible, he advised me to go to Basel. My degree was in Chemistry so he thought my chances of finding work in Basel at one of the three giant pharmaceutical companies was pretty good. And play chess in Allschwil, he said.

I found a reasonably priced hotel room and stayed in Lugano for four days, enjoying the warm spring weather, taking walks by the beautiful lake, and sipping drinks on open terraces of cozy coffee shops while hoping that spring would arrive in Basel by the time I got there.

Well, spring was not quite in full swing yet when I got off the train at the central station in Basel. Once again, I stuffed my belongings into storage boxes and then I walked to a newsstand to purchase the local daily paper. I wanted to study the real estate section to see if furnished rooms or inexpensive apartments for rent were advertised.

After looking at the map of the local public transportation system, I took the tram to Allschwil where I found Hotel Roessli at the end station. I booked a room and started reading the ads in the paper. My knowledge of the German language was adequate, still I think I had luck with the very first number I called mainly because the woman who answered the phone spoke excellent English. It was a nicely furnished room in a 2-bedroom flat on Wasgenring not far from the Kannenfeld park. A nice lady, somewhat older than me, lived in the other room, the kitchen and the bathroom were shared.

After the owner and I agreed that I would stay there for about half a year, I paid first and last month rent and then I hauled my belongings from the railway station storage to make myself comfortable in my new room. The following day, the landlady invited me to have a cup of tea with her and her husband on an upper floor where they lived. Her husband and the older of their two daughters who was about fifteen years younger than me also spoke English well. The couple were not typical Swiss as I later learned. They were very open minded and, as much as I could judge from our very first conversation, I thought they were extremely intelligent. We quickly found common ground when we started talking about living and eating healthy. They seemed impressed when I told them about how I improved both my physical and mental health shortly after moving back to California. They were glad to hear that I fasted for five days and then had been on a vegetarian diet for quite some time. I also proudly told them about reading the little book from Lew Miller, Your Divine Connection, that made me a really positive thinker and entirely changed my outlook on life. They, being followers of Rudolf Steiner, encouraged me to visit the Goetheanum in Dornach and learn about the anthroposophical movement.

Soon it was real spring and I enjoyed my stay in Switzerland.

The first contact I made was at the Allschwil chess club that had its meetings in Hotel Roessli. The club president who financed the participation of the team in the top league was a successful businessman. He was very friendly when I approached him with the question whether he could help me in any way to remain in Switzerland. My American passport without a visa was good only for a 3-month stay. He promised he would talk to a childhood friend of his at the police department that controlled foreigners living in that part of Switzerland, the canton of Basel-Land.

In April when I visited another chess club that was much closer to where I lived, I met another businessman who was managing the team of Reichenstein that played in a lower league. He was immediately interested in me playing for his team. He said if I keep it confidential, I can have a job in his company working with the movers. I accepted his offer. He made it clear that he can not get me a working permit that would entitle me to live legally in Switzerland, and he could not assure me as to how long the job would be available. I was okay with that. The work was hard, not something I had been used to. Most of the time, with two other men who were full of muscles, much stronger than me, we moved electrical appliances into completed apartment buildings. Washing machines, huge refrigerators and other furnishing had to be carried up the stairs to every floor usually in four-story buildings. My co-workers probably figured I was not in the position to be choosy so they always gave me the hardest part of the work. Moving up on narrow stairways it was always me on the bottom lifting the appliances while they were guiding them to make sure the walls would not get damaged. It was very tough on my back during the first few days but then I got used to it. In fact, after a couple of weeks when I began to feel my muscle-strength reaching never before experienced levels, I was glad I had the chance to do physical labor.

I played for the chess team only during the last few rounds of the competition and then the summer break began. The manager probably appreciated my contribution to the success of the team, so he sent me to two major individual competitions during the summer. The first one was the Swiss National Open, played in Celerina, right next to the famous holiday resort, Saint Moritz, while the other one, immediately after the National Open finished, was the Biel International Master Tournament. Both lasted for two weeks and my expenses were fully paid by the manager.

One day during that summer I received a telegram from my mother. She informed me that my father passed away and that the funeral would be held in a few days. I called the Hungarian Embassy in Bern to inquire about visa requirements for US citizens. After I explained my situation, without mentioning my name, I was told that I could obtain the necessary visa at the border when I enter Hungary from Austria. I did not even think of the warning my father sent me soon after I was sentenced to jail for illegally escaping from Hungary in September of 1977. That sentence was enforceable for five years. I just got on the train and traveled to Vienna from where I boarded a bus to Budapest. The bus arrived at the crossing station in Hegyeshalom where members of the Hungarian military, border control agents, looked at everyone's documents. When I showed my US passport and explained my situation, I was taken to an office. After they checked my identity, I was told I am under arrest. I could see through the window that one of the soldiers waved to the driver of the bus to continue without me. I was then taken to another office where a civilian, holding my passport in his hand, read details from it to someone on the telephone. After his conversation on the phone was over, he left the room with my passport still open in his hand, and sent in a soldier who guarded me with a machine gun hanging from his shoulder.

I began to have all sorts of awful visions about rotting in a communist jail somewhere in Hungary and I was not at all happy with myself for not remembering my father's letter.

The civilian was gone for close to a half an hour. He returned with a uniformed military officer. He handed my passport to the officer, whispered something into his ear and then left. The officer waved me to follow him. He took me to a taxi cab that had an Austrian license plate.

“Here”, he said giving me back my passport. “Your request for a visa to enter Hungary at this time is denied. This taxi can take you back to Vienna”. He even opened the door for me.

I had a sigh of relief only after the taxi left the crossing station and was already on the highway leading to Vienna.

I quickly asked the driver about the fare. As I expected, it was too expensive for my pocket so I told him to take me to the train station when we reached the first village. Luckily, I did not have to wait too long for a train to arrive from Hungary and since it was not a rapid Inter-City train, it stopped at that small station.

Close to the end of summer, the Allschwil team manager told me he had no luck trying to convince his friend at the police station that I should be granted a residence permit. “Your best bet is finding employment where a Swiss can not perform the job,” he said.

Without work permit I did not even attempt to find a position at the pharmaceutical companies.

After the two major tournaments, perhaps because I did not have very good results, the manager of the Reichenstein team told me he could not continue employing me illegally. Now I was on my own. My money, which I had in large denomination travelers' checks, was running out. I had to start thinking about moving back to the States if unable find a solution soon. I had about a couple thousand dollars left. Enough to buy a used Ford Pinto wagon and rent a furnished room. Since I was a fairly good producer, I thought I would have no difficulties getting my job back as a sales rep.

Getting off the tram one day at the Heuwaage tram stop I saw the sign of a language school on a building.

'A language school! Why not? Let's give it a try!'

I was lucky to find the director in the office. I introduced myself and told him I wanted to work teaching English.

He looked at me curiously for some time before he replied in English:

“What did you say your name is?”

I repeated my name.

“So you're Hungarian, right?”

I nodded.

“You also have a fairly strong accent.”

I nodded again.

“And… if I understand you correctly, you want to teach English in my school?”

“Correct,” I replied.

“Interesting…” He paused and briefly scratched his forehead with his index finger. “May I ask where you have learned English?” 

...

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