Only the sometimes more, sometimes less quickly flowing time helped to get together. It required a lot of compromises by both of us to build, to continue and to deepen the relation, to work on it, to create a basic for a common future. Every day happened something new, something beautiful, some drama, some love. In the meantime I changed my jobs frequently, I worked for many polling agencies, sometimes I had five part time jobs simultaneously, but currently I only teached my native language. I was well qualified in spreading the secrets of a language, especially my own, the students were asking for me, so I got more and more teaching units, allthough my outfit didn’t fit implicit to the reach man’s world. I did some new colored printed graphics at the academy, they were exibited in Japan at a graphik biennal. U.B.’s study was sponsored by her parents, she had just a part time job two times a week, visiting old people. B.P. did the same job. /needless to say../ The baroness sold her house for a place in an old folks home, I had to vacate my room, and to find a new place to stay. U.B. said „you already have the keys to my apartment“ and she spontaneously offered that I could move into her flat, even if only temporarily. She was not very convinced about living together, as she didn’t want to give up her independency so quickly, but she wanted to help me. I thought, living together would be our only chance for staying together. But as the time came to move, I got more sceptic, although I was looking for being able to see her more often. On May thirteenth (1990) I moved into the tiny one kitchen-bath-bedroom student dig, which was comfortable for one person, but not for two. I brought most of my stuff back to Hungary, so one could hardly notice the presence of a second person in her apartment. I even tried to smoke less. I got one more job as a reprophotograph for an edition. I earned pretty much money with my jobs, I just hardly was at home. We didn’t meet often for days, beside the time we shared sleeping in her narrow bed. When I went to work early in the morning she was still sleeping, when I came home late at night, she was already sleeping. We just met on Sundays. That was our day. We went to a laundromat nearby to do our laundry, than we cooked together, sometimes we also played music together, she on the sax, I was on guitar, till B.P. came for a visit, or called on the phone (mostly during lunch time). Nevertheless to have me there was an unsolvable stress situation for U.B., her skin signaled that very soon. I was holding her hand for nights on end so she could not scratch herself. She cryed often due to her illness, it terrified her. I couldn’t relive that why, I loved her, the way she was, with the whole shebang, only my own helplessness, that I could not help her made me feel sad. But nobody and nothing could help her. Neither doctors nor drugs, nor cortison-bombs. My patience did cease sometimes, the constantly relapses were a nightmare. I tried to get to the ground of this deceitful disease and I realized, that U.B. actually used it, even though automatically, to hide herself behind the illness, like behind a shield. If she could not solve a problem, she used her skin for a blackmail. „Please, don’t hurt me! I’m sick.“ and sometimes (in spite of all my love) that made me sick too.
DAVE BRUBECK • TAKE FIVE