“Now too, he sits by the window, and stares stiffly into the dark night. A little later he gets up, waddles out into the hall. He groans as he takes off the small coat from the rack. His hands tremle as he gets dressed.  He opens the door, with the walking stick in his left hand, with which he pushes out the outer door with remnants of the flyscreen on it. He goes down slowly on the stairs, taking one step at a time. He passes a rusty little bike. He fumbles with the garage door. He opens it with difficulty, pens it up fully, then goes for the other wing. He turns on the light, which can only produce  blind semi-darkness at best. He feels better next to the car, he puts his left hand on the indented, matted fender, above the rusty lamp-frame. He leans on the car, the dust just flies off it. Under the trace of his hands the remnants of the once black spraying. He opens the door, it obeys with a creak, though the sealing rubber visibly adhered to the door. He touches the worn, faded steering wheel with one hand, the car’s door with the other, and sits down on the worn away seat. He strokes the cracked wheel, the chrome circle and the emblem in its middle. He reaches up, turns the visor down, the ignition key falls into his lap. He takes it up and puts it in the ignition slot. He stares a little in front of him, then turns the key. The self starter screams once, then there is silence. He waits a little, then tries again. He grinds and turns the engine a few times, it coughs a couple of times, gives out a huge bang, and then there is silence again. He is third time lucky, it coughs once or twice, shots back, then the great V8 mechanism revs up. As it warms up it gets into the trustworthily humming light running, though this creaks rather with the half broken off exhaust pipe which has a hole in it. He turns on the radio and the sounds of “All I Have to Do is Dream” can be heard. The car gets the D-grade, the lamps light up, – with the exception of the right rear lamp , and out it goes of the garage already, on its semi-worn out and run down tyres. It goes slowly along the dusty earth road – dust flies through ists broken windscreen, then as it turns onto the main road the common, desperate yelling of the semi-dead sound muffling drum stops. The brilliant hub caps are encased in snow white frames by the beautiful, brand new tyres with  white inlay. There is no trace of dust on the black sheen. No worn out seats, rust or decay  can be seen anywhere, – an immaculate, old piece of iron with black spraying glides through the night with confidence. Behind the wheel is a man of forty to fifty years of age, who is handsome, and smiles in his nice black tuxedo, white shirt, a hat, and with a cigar in the corner of his mouth. He turns up the volume, and this time it is Ritchie Valens who belts out “La Bamba” into the world. The man pulls the window down, and goes full steam ahead.  The Caddy of ’49 races into the starry pitch black night. The trembling light of the rear lights are still visible for a while, then these too, are swallowed by the darkness.”

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Every man is born into his own Garden of Eden. We awaken, and we simply find ourselves there. Oh, those are just the really wonderful years. Our childhood years. Yes, really everything is different then. The days are incredibly long, and we know for certain that we cannot be possibly disappointed in Mum and Dad, they do not hurt us, and they are always there for us. Friends are friends and promises are agreenments. The sandbox is always filled with sand and there is always food on our plates. Playing is never ending and holidays are a thousand miles long. We believe in people. We believe that no-one wants to take from us what is ours, we believe that people tell the truth, and that the rivers do not run dry, that the sun always rises, and that the starts always shine down on us. Then all of a sudden the loud slamming of the door of our private little garden of Eden indicates that we have grown up.

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“In the meantime, there was already no transmission on the Tv, the appliance quietly and evenly hissed. For a while. Because with a soft pop the picture went dark, and the appliance which was fixed to the ceiling turned off. It went off just like that, all by itself. It cracked  a few times as the tube cooled off. This was followed by silent silence for a few moments. It was the silence of the movies: hard and scary. The music started to play at about the same time. It was playing softly, but it was playing still. He looked around, as if he had just woken from a bad dream. He blinked a few times, of course, he did not know where he was all of a sudden. Then he came to. He really did come to his senses! His heart was jumping up and down in his stomach, then it started to beat in his throat, when he realized what is happening. A drop of sweat started to drip down from his forehead. He smoothed back his hair, and slowly got up from the sofa. The remote control of the tv fell to the floor with a soft click. He gave it just a cursory glance, then headed towards the door. His hand stood still on the door’s handle. Yes, the music was clearly audible, just like before. The only difference was that these these are the  typical guitar sounds of “Sleepwalk”. Unmistakeable. He had heard it a thousand times over, and of course he had played it as well. He cannot possibly mix it up with anything else. He turned on the lights in the hall with a trembling hand, and opened the door at the same time. The minute the door opened, the music stopped too. The last sound of the guitar played for a second still with the silence of the hall, but then this was lost too. Jack let go of the door’s handle, straightened himself, and stepped out into the storage room. He glanced back into the office, then looked back at his car, and he started to walk ahead, right under the light of the highly placed middle row of lamps. The gave everything the once-over, but everything was still and quiet. Only his footsteps clicked, a mixture of age-old oil mud and fine dust creaked under his shoes. He went past the small Gremlin, the Chrysler, the plane, the Impala, the bus, all the other cars, the packages, boxes and all other things stood in front of him, all disciplined and ranked like soldiers. Nothing happened here, and nothing is going to happen here at all. He stood in the hall and shook his head in a funny way as a lamp cast full light on it, throwing a funny shadow next to him, and he laughed out loud. He put his hands in his pocket, and started to walk back to the office. He smiled as he once again looked at the machines resting in the storage room. No music, and nothing else either, this is all it was. His stupid dreams, and his soaring imagination, nothing more. This is a desolate storage room, nothing else, and and”…

He noticed it and stopped. His smile froze. Slowly, very slowly his smile changed to a curve. He pulled out his hands from his pockets, and started to wring his fingers in an embarrassed way, then wiped his perspiring hands on the back pocket of his trousers. He pressed  his mouth together, and tried to stay calm, as calm as it was possible to be in this situation. He took uncertain steps towards the plane. He stood in front of it and he just stared at the old Beech Bonanza. His hands started to shake more and more. He began to sweat profusely, he began to feel the cold drops of sweat dripping dowm his spine. His wide-open eyes targeted the plane. Barely visibly he shook his head, and said softly, almost in a whisper: no, this cannot be. Impossible. I was here not so long ago. It was covered up to its neck in dust. The key word in the story was the word “was”. Because the plane, the Beech Bonanza left here since ages, or  which suddenly appeared here out of the blue,  is now anything but dusty, it was glitzy and shiny. Its orange, red and white coat of paint almost shone in the light of the lamps. It was a wonderful sight. Or rather, it could have been a wonderful sight in a different situation. The windows of the plane were so clean, that he tended to believe that they weren’t even there.

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Everyone should hear at least once in a lifetime, as the train whistles at Verőce train station in the quiet, smoke-smelling, brilliant winter morning. The first, melancholic, frozen-through toll of the church bells should be heard, as they swim across the sky above the village which is just starting to wake up. It should be heard how Mr Szabó pulls up the shutters of the shop amid the fresh flower scents of spring. The  gleamingly fresh sound of the horses, hooves, the thin cracking sound of the whip. The cool ageless flow of the Danube, the ringing sound of its waves as they reach the shore. Early autumn evening get togethers when the old ladies gathered in the former “Imre”-Park to talk about the worry-filled present, the very short future, and the endless past. It can be seen how Mr Imre Pallmann plays cards with Mr. Boross in that very same place. I can still hear the slamming sounds of the cards from the distance of thirty years onwards.

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Many years have flown by since my childhood. The sky above me has turned from smiling blue to unhappy grey. Nearly forty years of dust is sleeping on the ever more ragged shoe of my life, which who knows how long will be kept on in the dry reality of the shadow world. So off I went again to my old little village, to find the blue sky and my lonely, wandering dreams in the hazy mist of Time.

I know very well when the time comes and my legs worn out from the paths of life will finally stop, and everything I was turns to dust my home will be the meadow  resounding with memories of the trans-Danubian region with its raibows, versatile, thousand faces, filled with the cuckoo’s song. There I will fall on the precious ground, fall into it for all eternity, the silence will swallow me too, I can put my pen down, I can rest my head on the dear, lovely heart of Szőlőhegy.

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Our dreams come to us like midnight visitors. On moonlight nights they softly knock on the star-lit window and they are inside already. They don’t even awaken us, they step right into the middle of our dreams and live their gentle world thus.  They stroke us gently, and whisper stories of long ago to us, in these stories we can run like children again, we can see dear, old familiar faces, and we can re-live our secret dreams again  which were lost in the mist of Time. At dawn they will collect our scattered pieces of memories, hold each other by the hand and slip through the window, out into the cool, starry, finite night – these dear visitors by moonlight leave smiling memories behind them. I am nothing other than a breathing memory. I look for the trace of passing thoughts above the wood dancing in moonlight, and  slowly pull to me the memories of time which are swimming in stardust and are  never again to return?

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The most beautiful memories of our childhood are those, which burn into us, which we never forget, and which even at a ripe old age are remembered as vividly as at the time when they happened. These memories are more valuable than anything else. These are the memories which no-one can take from us. They are ours only. For all of us, there will come a time, when on cold autumn evenings we would love nothing more then sit by the fireplace in an armchair, and just remember.  This is when the memories will come to visit us all. With their soft hands they will leaf through the yellowed pages of our lives, and will softly whisper the word “remember” into our ear.

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It is easy to identify with the story teller who narrates in the first person singular in Oliver’s work, despite the slightly confusing, yet still mercilessly honest style. The novel is a spellbinding description of the journey of reincarnation experienced by the author, it is about his authentic and touching relationship with his grandad, and the people he is surrounded by. The work grabs the reader already from the first word of the introduction, and holds the readers attention. The enjoyable experience goes way beyond the last page of the novel. I recommend Without Wings to everyone, who is open to embracing a new kind of way of vision, and is willing to see beyond the materialistic world which surrounds us.

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Memoirs of my relative, Charles Puffy, a former Hollywood movie star, his perception of Hollywood.
His autobiography in my re-edited version.

The tales of a fat man penned by Charles Puffy. He had several memorable adventures in the US at the time when silent films were all the sensation. Chaplin, Keaton and the likes were the stars of the silver screen in the evening. The moguls and film stars of his time were his friends, his receptions, held in the garden of his Hollywood mansion were widely known and very popular. Few people can claim that his goulash burnt the mouth of Harold Lloyd, and that he poured black coffee on Adolf Zukor. Károly Huszár (Károly Hochstein), or Charles H. Puffy as he was known in the United States, was the great comedian of his time. This book gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of the Hollywood of the 1920’s, and also we get to know the theories of the famous layered cabbage and cottage cheese pasta á la Puffy.

I thought that the 70th anniversary of the death of my forgotten relative Charles Puffy, now is the time to intruduce this unjustly forgotten man again and the self-published memoirs called The tales of a fat man written in Verőce (Hungary) in 1935 should be made available to all.

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