I didn't wait until the deadline, I went back to the employment center in a few days. I decided nothing can upset me, if I have to, I will wait for eight hours straight, I'm taking something to read, sandwiches for a day. I had so many papers I couldn't fit them in my briefcase anymore, I had to put them in a separate plastic bag in a giant folder. In about half an hour I even got a seat, that made me almost optimistic. The calling numbers came in a complete mess, I couldn't find a system in it, try as I might. At least one would know how many are ahead, you could just go out for a walk, get a coffee, grab a bite to eat. Time would fly by. But system, no. They call the number ten lower, then twenty higher, then the one right before me. Then 17 after me. And I just sit there waiting, I can't even read, because I look up at every beep of the display. Maybe. But seems that my number is cursed, or just the computer forgot about it. Sophie sends me a comforting text every hour or so, at least that helps.
After three hours and thirty-seven minutes of wait, my time comes. I magically put on my sweetest smile over my worn face, and I step into the shrine of bureaucracy. I sit down at the clerk's desk, I spread out my miles of paperwork, this fact sheet, that application, another certification - she just keeps asking and asking, with no feeling in her voice whatsoever. I select the needed paperwork quickly, I don't want to waste their precious time. She pounces on the corporate papers like an attacking puma. Her experienced eyes point a mistake, she busts the verdict: not eligible. I try to argue, I ask her to show me the law, governmental order, anything. She's just shrugging and changes tone:
- If you really want it, we can put in the application...
A spark of hope shines up.
- ...but it will be rejected anyways.
My brain just explodes. When I was there for the first time I wanted to ask about that point that she doesn't want to accept now. After several hours of waiting I would've deserved at least the answer from the info desk clerk, but all she could say was that all cases are different, the appointed clerk will tell everything. Another several hours of wait gives me forty seconds of answer time.
When I mention this, she just shrugs, she can't do anything, it's the rule. I groan, that I'm not holding her responsible for the rules but for the humiliating and inhumane process of letting me know this.
I curse her. I wish her to be fired too and have to go begging for financial aid, just like I have to. Now all other clerks are watching us too. And me in particular, rather offensively.
Finally the released pressure is not sitting on my brain, I can change tones:
- Ladies, I have a simple favor to ask you! - I raise my voice.
I leave a pause of attention.
- More humanity! People who come here are in trouble, have been hurt, a lot of them have been humiliated. Please treat us like people too!
Air just froze.
- See you later, ladies – I say, storming out of the office.
I hear some groans of disrespect, but I don't react. I grab the door to slam it behind myself, but in the last moment I change my mind and just close it quietly.
At the information desk I stop for a second. It's the same lady staring at me the same stupidly who didn't answer me last time. Anger fills me, I would just love to smash her fat head into the counter.
Then I gather my strength and walk out without even saying goodbye.
Of what happened immediately after this, neither of them ever wrote anything. Sophie told me a lot later what happened.
She was in the middle of a super important meeting when Peter called her. She couldn't take the call, her phone was on silent mode, so she just hung up and tried to secretly write a text message that she will call him back ASAP after the meeting, but her husband's message broke it in half. "I was denied, I'm not even good enough to be unemployed." Roughly that's what it said. Sophie felt that she can't not talk to him. She excused herself out with a lot of awkward sorry's, but she couldn't reach Peter anymore, he turned her cell off. She sent her a text message and went back to the meeting. She was hanging on the edge of her seat, but her peers just couldn't finish their discussion. She got a new text message, but not from Peter but the bank: all their bonds have been freed. Her boss looked rather annoyed, but still she went out once again. Her husband was still not available. She sat back on her place, but in a moment came the next message. All money was withdrawn. Sophie lied that her kid got sick and ran away. She drove like a madman to the bank branch where the money was taken up, but Peter wasn't there anymore. She ran home, but no use, her husband wasn't there either. He just disappeared. She called all the friends and family, but nobody has seen him.
He only got home in the early morning, drunk out of his brain. He lost all the papers, but he did have the money, at least most of it. He spent seventy thousand forints. (translator's note: about 355 USD, roughly a month's minimum wage earnings) Sophie was yelling, but the words didn't even reach Peter's brain, he just collapsed into bed still in his clothes. He never told what he wanted to do with the money. She thought he wanted to take off abroad. That night, Sophie only wrote a single sentence into her diary:
That he makes no money, I will survive, I can bear his jealousy, if he cheated on me, I may even bear that too, but he sinned against his family and that is unforgivable.
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