Strange but true tales from a communist childhood

I’d been in Budapest for a week, and I was running out of things to do, so I decided to check out a free walking tour.

Usually with these, you walk around with a local person who tells you random things: some local history, a little trivia, maybe a famous war they fought in 1832 that you’ve never heard of.

The Japanese girls became confused. And frustrated. Sofia tried to explain. Under communism, you were constantly denied things. Sometimes the leaders did this on purpose.

Often these tours were not very good. Often, they were so bad you had to sneak off in the middle of them.

This tour met up in a downtown park. I got there a little early and sat on a bench nearby. That way, I could escape if the tour group didn’t look promising.

People started to show up. Three college-age Japanese girls. A young American couple (newlyweds?). A German woman and her daughter. Other random tourists. About a dozen in all.

But I still kept my distance. I wanted to see what the tour guide looked like before I committed.

Punk perambulator

Finally, the guide showed up. It was a woman. 50-ish? Her name was Sofia. She was dressed all in black. She looked like the “cool” gender studies professor at your local community college. Short, dyed-black hair in an ’80s, punkish style.

In Budapest, it was often difficult to size people up by their fashion choices or their appearance. The city was still struggling style-wise because of its long history under Soviet rule. There were still a lot of babushka ladies wandering around.

But Sofia was at least trying to look like a chic European intellectual. That seemed like a positive sign.

I got off my bench. I joined the group

Nice revolution — when’s lunch?

She started us off with some normal stuff. The park we were standing in once held a famous rock concert. Pink Floyd? Metallica? Rock Against Racism? Something like that.

She told us some basic Budapest history. Lots of wars. Lots of violence and political upheaval.

She must have mentioned the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which is a huge deal in Hungary. The people rose up against their communist rulers, and for a brief moment — a week or two — it appeared they might free themselves from Soviet rule.

But the communists regained control and of course executed anyone even remotely associated with the rebellion. I don’t remember how much Sofia said about this. And even if she did, our little tour group would probably not absorb it.

That is the nature of tours like this. You tell ordinary tourists about wars and brutality and horrific events, and they just nod and ask about lunch.

Hungary heart

About half way through the tour, Sofia began to talk about her family. By now, everyone liked Sofia, myself included. She was engaging. She was easy to listen to. Her English wasn’t the greatest, but that added to her appeal.

She told us about growing up in Budapest. She talked about her parents and siblings. Her father was educated and had a good job. Her mother was a teacher. They lived not far from where we were walking.

She described her childhood. For one thing, they didn’t have toys. They had other things to play with. But you couldn’t just go to the store and buy a Barbie doll. They didn’t have things like that.

Wait for it

Then she explained how her mother had to stand in breadlines. And sometimes her father would have to buy food on the black market. It was illegal to do this, but everyone did it. Sometimes you had no choice.

When Sofia got older, she only had two dresses and very uncomfortable shoes. The shoes were so stiff and badly made that by the time they stopped giving you blisters, you’d outgrown them.

Everyone listened without comment as she described these hardships. Nobody asked any questions. Sofia explained how frustrating it was to stand in a two-hour line, twice a week, to get bread. The tour group nodded their heads.

Droog, where’s my car?

Then she explained about the car. Her father had ordered a car when she was a child, maybe 6 years old. So she was excited that they were going to get a car. The whole family was.

But as Sofia got older, the car didn’t come. And this wasn’t the 1930s when cars were rare. This was the 1980s, when everyone in Western Europe had a car. Sofia and her friends could see on TV how common cars were in the rest of the world. But they were still waiting for her father’s car to come.

Eventually, Sofia turned 12. Still no car. And then her family stopped talking about it. Sofia continued to get older. She got well into her teens. The dream of riding in a car with her family was eventually forgotten.

The cheating classes

This was the point when one of the Japanese girls raised her hand. She didn’t understand about the car. Why didn’t her family get their car? Did Hungary not have factories to build cars?

Yes, said Sofia. They did build cars, but you had to wait to get one.

The Japanese girls didn’t understand. Why did they have to wait? Did her father not have the money for the car?

Yes, Sofia assured her, he had the money, but the car was like the bread. The government had the bread. They just made you wait for it. And sometimes, even if you waited a long time, you still couldn’t get it.

The Japanese girls became confused. And frustrated. Sofia tried to explain. Under communism, you were constantly denied things. Sometimes the leaders did this on purpose, to maintain control of the people.

Other times it happened because the leaders didn’t know how to run the country. The factory would break down. Or someone in the government would steal your car.

Beggaring belief

Everyone in our tour group thought this was very bad. The newlywed couple shook their heads. This wasn’t right. They didn’t like hearing about this.

Sofia explained that there was nothing you could do. You couldn’t leave the country. That wasn’t allowed. You couldn’t move to a different town. You couldn’t even move to a different apartment without permission. And then you had to bribe someone.

The Japanese girls looked at each other. There was a kind of rebellion in the tour group. Like, surely, it couldn’t have been that bad. Surely, Sofia was exaggerating.

I could feel Sofia getting upset on her side. How could these young people not know about this? This was history. Sofia thought everyone knew.

As I looked around, I saw that I might be the only one who fully believed Sofia’s story.

RELATED: What moving my family to Budapest has taught me about America

  nedomacki/Getty Images

Cruel summer

I had visited several communist countries in the 1980s. I was shocked by how poor they were, how hopeless the people seemed, how cruel everyone was to each other. It was illegal to criticize the government, so they turned on each other.

But the nice Japanese girls couldn’t imagine that. It seemed impossible to them that a person could not have a car if he had the money to buy a car.

The other young people were also incredulous. Sofia’s father had a good job, but she couldn’t have toys? How was that possible?

And breadlines? You could tell people had heard of “breadlines.” But that couldn’t have happened to people in a modern society. How could there not be bread? That was the cheapest thing in the supermarket where they lived.

Tour’s end

When the tour officially ended, our group shifted back into docile tourist mode. Everyone thanked Sofia and gave her generous tips. Most people seemed happy and genuinely impressed by her, despite those few tense moments near the end.

And now they felt sorry for her. Having no toys as a child? And no car for her family? How sad!

The Japanese girls were especially polite and gracious. They were sorry if they had offended her. Sofia would get their highest ratings on Yelp, or whatever the equivalent was in Japan.

I hung back and waited for everyone else to leave. I had a big tip for Sofia. Also, I wanted to ask her to lunch. Or coffee. I liked her. I thought she was cool.

When it was just her and me, I quickly told her that I had been in Eastern Europe myself. Back in the 1980s. And I knew she was right. I had seen it myself.

On the other hand, I could understand how younger people had trouble believing it. It must seem like another age to them.

She agreed and thanked me. She took my money. But she never really made eye contact. She seemed wary of me. And suspicious in general. So I didn’t ask her to lunch.

Trust fall

Instead, I watched her hurry away. And then I had a weird thought: What if she did exaggerate the communist stuff? Probably that would get her bigger tips.

And what if she didn’t even live under communism? I couldn’t tell how old she was. 40? 50?

Maybe she was just repeating stories she’d heard from older people. What if she wasn’t even from Budapest?

I turned and headed back to my hotel. That’s how it is in cities like Budapest. A lot of strange stuff goes on. You never knew who was telling the truth, who you could trust, what the reality of the situation was.

And this was 30 years after communism fell. And it was still like that.