No Return Ticket: A Memoir - Softcover

Rety, Nicholas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1496955978 ISBN 13: 9781496955975

Verlag: AuthorHouse, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

This is a boy's firsthand account of the Second World War siege of Budapest and the trials of its aftermath, transitioning to an English private school and tough days in London on the way to medical school. Emerging as a urological surgeon, the journey continues to far-flung places, always keeping the human focus. A life lived to the full, it finds the author taking up flying at age fifty-six, something to rekindle the flying daydreams of the armchair pilot.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Born in Hungary in, 1930. High School education in Hungary and England. Qualified as G doctor in London, England, 1958. Spent three years as a regimental medical officer in the Canadian Army. Subsequently trained as a urological surgeon, graduating with FRCS (C) in 1967. Practiced urology in Vernon, British Columbia, Canada, till retirement in 1999. Published a number of articles in magazines and newspapers in Canada and in Bali, Indonesia. Privately printed a memoir for limited circulation (family and friends only), followed by a similar limited circulation book of photos (Latitude Eight, Life and Death in Bali). I have traveled the world widely, and my writings reflect my experiences while on the road. I took up flying at the age of fifty-six and have written in detail about that experience. Photography is one of my interests, and except for two pictures, all photos submitted in this book are my own. I live in Vernon, British Columbia, and until fairly recently, I was an avid skier, hiker, and tennis player. I play golf, but my talent falls short of my interest. I have three grown-up daughters and a small circle of close friends. I live life to the full.

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No Return Ticket

a memoir

By Nicholas Rety

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2015 Nicholas Rety
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5597-5

Contents

FIELD OF FIRE, 1, 
ALTAR EGO, 51, 
NIGHTWATCH, 61, 
IN GOES A BOY – OUT COMES A MAN, 67, 
ONE LAST LOOK, 73, 
EYE ON THE BALL, 77, 
THE TRUSTED MAN, 81, 
NIGHT CROSSING, 85, 
HOLIDAY FOR GREED, 89, 
THE CRUCIBLE, 93, 
OLD SALT, 107, 
MY HOME, MY CASTLE, 113, 
THE QUEUE – JUMPER, 125, 
JELLIED EELS FOR A PRINCE, 133, 
LEAD COLIC, 137, 
THE VIGIL, 141, 
MARMALADE WARS, 149, 
OFFICIAL SECRETS, 157, 
CENTRE OF THE WORLD, 167, 
LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ, 173, 
BERNIE'S WAR, 177, 
THE ART OF WARFARE, 185, 
MIRROR WITH NO IMAGE, 191, 
CURTAIN CALL, 199, 
DIRTY MONEY, 205, 
SANDCASTLES, 217, 
JANUARY RIVER, 227, 
LOVE BETWEEN TWO ISLANDS, 241, 
FAREWELL PARTY, 257, 
HASTY JUDGMENT, 261, 
HIDE AND SEEK, 263, 
SPRING CLEANING, 269, 
POSTMARK: TAKLAMAKAN, 277, 
LA DAMA BLANCA - A PILGRIMAGE, 283, 
PROPERTY RIGHTS, 291, 
STRIKE THE IRON, 295, 
EMERGENCY STOP, 299, 
CLOUDS FOR COMPANY, 301, 
TO AUSCHWITZ – AND BACK, 333, 
SCHWEITZER-DEUTSCH COULD HAVE SAVED THE WORLD, 343, 
CHINK IN MY ARMOUR, 347, 
LETTER FROM HONG KONG, 351, 
ORGANIC SOLUTIONS, 357, 
PERIMETERS, 365, 
LETTER FROM BALI, 369, 
THE PIRATES AND BEGGARS OF LAKE BATUR, 379, 
WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING, YET HAVE IT ALL, 384, 
BALI MORNING, 389, 
VILLAGE ON THE MOUNTAIN, 395, 
EPILOGUE, 401, 

CHAPTER 1

FIELD OF FIRE

City Under Siege

PRELUDE TO BATTLE

The events I am about to describe I would rather forget. They took place more than half a century ago. They should have found their way into the litter-box of my memory by now, along with the flotsam of a long life. Curiously, they won't go away. Unwanted baggage, they stay with me. Even if I try to lose them deliberately, shut them out, they turn up at the doorstep of my consciousness time and again. I even looked in the mirror, expecting to see "Budapest: 1944-45" emblazoned on my forehead but found no outward sign. Yet I know that what I am going to say is engraved somewhere within me and will accompany me, like a shadow, for the rest of my days.

The notion that I was somehow enriched by these events is called into question by the circumstances in which they took place. Yet I cannot deny that the lessons I learned from their passing have shaped my thinking for life.

I recognized that life as a force is more difficult to extinguish than I had thought. I came to realize that, no matter how tenuous your hold on life, it is worth hanging on. Most of the time things will work out in a way to leave you with some choice at least.

I now know that when you are in uncharted territory, when all support is gone, when there is no script to tell you how to act, which way to go, you must trust your instincts. The unrecognized, often unexplored or even considered inner self has resources in plenty to see you through events to which you might otherwise have surrendered.

At the end, whether you emerge as a survivor or victim is up to you.

* * *

I grew up in Budapest, a city renowned for its beauty, its music, its gaiety. As a child, I believed that the Danube was blue and that the day would last forever. I took comfort from knowing that if only I did my homework, the future would take care of itself.

A growing child needs a sense of security. This is found in a stable home where there is no threat, where events take place in a predictable pattern, where there is love, food and warmth.

Such insecurities as I did have, all related to our lack of money. Luxuries, such as family holidays, we did not know. We travelled by streetcar and only occasionally did I enjoy the thrill of a ride on the bus. The end of the streetcar line, for all intents and purposes, was the end of the world.

My first journey on a train is memorable for the fact that I sat on the hard, wooden bench of a third-class compartment on the way and when the train stopped, my very best friend, alighting from the adjacent plush second-class carriage, pretended not to know me.

As a boy grows older he needs to widen his perimeter. I longed to own a bicycle but rode one only in my daydreams. As for a family car, I knew we would never own one, so the folding window pane became my windshield and I took it for long rides to places that existed only in my imagination.

At dinners with the greater family present the children always sat at the lower end of the table. From the conversation of the adults we learned that a war was going on somewhere but did not know what that meant. In time, such talk became more serious and for the first time we had an approaching sense of threat. Still, it was all in the abstract.

The door burst open in 1944 and the threat was abstract no more. Bombs rained from the sky. I very quickly understood the fear of imminent death and my inability to do anything about it. German soldiers were seen everywhere and were deadly serious about taking control. Threatening posters appeared, people, some our friends, vanished overnight. Martial law was declared. Bursts of gunfire were heard in the night. The light of morning often revealed rows of dead bodies in a nearby park. People began to talk in whispers as it was no longer safe to speak out loud.

Then, one afternoon, I heard the rumble of a distant thunderstorm. Unlike other storms, this one did not end but continued into the night. The lightning bolts lit up the sky in the east for hours on end. Slowly I realized that this was no thunderstorm at all: a great battle was being fought close enough to visit our senses. The war, the distant threat of dinner table talk a few years before, had reached the far outskirts of the city. The fury of the sound of guns filled me with awe.

I was almost fourteen.

* * *

BAPTISM OF FIRE

A watermelon is an innocuous fruit, almost comical when it grows to a certain size. As I was taking generous helpings from it one hot August afternoon in 1944, I did not know it would put my life at risk.

The village of Csömör (translates as "surfeit") lies some 16 kilometres outside Budapest to the northeast. We rented a room in a house made of mud bricks along Andrassy Street. The street led to an intersection with the main road leading into town and continued straight on as a tree-lined avenue through farmed fields. At the intersection stood a tavern, notable for two things. The owner had a pathological fear of bombing. He also had a lovely daughter, pursued, alas, by the son of a wealthy farmer.

We moved to Csömör to get away from the bombing, a good decision, as in the event our house received a direct hit and other severe damage besides. What we did not know was that the army also looked at the village as a haven and that every time there was an air raid in the night, they would drive a whole column of armoured cars from a depot some distance away to the shelter of the avenue of trees in line with our house.

In the late summer of 1944 the Russians took care of night bombing. You could tell by the sounds of the airplanes and by the bits and pieces such as bomb fragments and unexploded bombs they left behind.

There was a Russian air raid the night I consumed all that watermelon. This time, however, the planes flew quite...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: AuthorHouse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1496955978
• ISBN 13: 9781496955975
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 416
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: KreGa Onlinehandel GmbH; 4950000000000; info@krega-onlinehandel.de; ; Birkenweg 31; Brakel; 33034; Deutschland