"I'll do the away mixers," I volunteered.
The Key Society was a junior-class service group whose role was to provide activity leadership for the student body. Each member had to take on a project, so I volunteered to organize several out-of-Hanover mixers: promote the event, sell the tickets, rent the bus, keep order to and from the women's college, and make sure everyone got back safely.
The third mixer, in February, to Simmons College in Boston, was routine except that I met a terrific girl and nearly missed the bus.
Livinia was one of the Simmons chaperones for the mixer. She was sitting off to the side, keeping an eye on the hall in general and on the punch bowl in particular (to make sure no one spiked it). We talked about how much fun it was to people-watch eager freshmen at mixers.
She was a library science major, a junior like me, with aspirations to travel. She was 12 when her family fled Hungry after the 1956 revolution. Her family now lived on an estate outside Boston where her father was the caretaker.
My suburban upbringing was pretty white-bread. The most exotic people I knew were Seventh-Day Adventists and Jews, while the largest land tracts were country clubs. My attraction was both to her and to her story.
I asked if I could see her next week when I was coming to Boston (that is, I wanted to see her and would come to Boston to do so). She said yes and gave me her telephone number. I found a ride to Boston and made arrangements with a friend at Harvard to stay there on Saturday night. Livi and I would meet for dinner in Harvard Square at 7.
I got to the restaurant first and told the waiter that there would be a girl looking for me. Livi came through the door about 10 minutes later, dressed in the uniform of the era — full skirt, boots, and puffy parka. She turned heads with her full head of long hair that trailed down her back outside her parka.
We sparked immediately. She was full of reading Diderot's Encyclopedie in the original. Livi took the ideals of the Enlightenment seriously and found the reading was greatly improving her French.
We were so engaged with each other that the waiter twice had to made it clear that he wanted the table for the next customers and that we should take our conversation elsewhere.
I paid the bill and we went to a coffee house on Brattle Street. It was early and the room was pretty empty, so we got a cozy spot and kept on talking. As the place filled up and the din got overwhelming, Livi suggested we go back to her house.
She lived in a cooperative house with 5 other women students, not all from Simmons. Meals were cooked in a common kitchen and everyone took a role in maintaining the place. The living room furniture was broken-down couches, floor lamps, and threadbare rugs, but it was clean.
We made tea and talked and suddenly it was 1 a.m. I got a good-night handshake and headed back to Cambridge with an invitation to breakfast at 8 the next morning.
Like most college students at that hour, the breakfasters were glassy-eyed and drowsy. Not Livi. She presided over the kitchen with fresh-baked sweet rolls, strong coffee and stronger tea, cold cereal and warm milk. Only the early riser knew that I hadn't spent the night with Livi, so there was some wariness between me and them.
After breakfast Livi and I went over to Simmons and she showed me around. She took me to the library where she had the two volumes of the Encyclopedie that she was reading in a locked study room. They were in pretty good shape for 200-year old books, though the binding was shaken. She turned the pages, showing me some of the typographic elements that were new in that era's printing.
I took her hand and raised it to my lips and kissed it.
"Oh, Peter, do not do that, please," she said.
"Why?"
"My parents are very old-fashioned. I must go home every weekend to visit and they want to know what I am doing. I have got to tell them about our meeting. I like you but they are suspicious of American college men."
"So take me to meet them."
"You would meet my parents?!"
"Would they hurt me?" I teased.
"Not unless you hurt me first," she deadpanned.
And then we kissed. She hesitated as I moved close to her but didn't resist. The smell of the breakfast rolls was in her hair.
"I have not much experience with kissing, Peter."
"I will teach you. But first I should meet your parents."
"And tell them?!" she said, apprehensively.
"Not about this, but yes, I would like to show them that I like their daughter. Will that be okay? I can come to Boston in two weeks."
She checked her calendar. "That would be good. There is a mixer on that Saturday and I am the chaperone for the first half. We can meet in the morning and go to Braintree."
"Okay." Then I said "May I kiss you again?"
"Yes," she said, "that would be nice."
We necked for an hour. Livi insisted we be very quiet and she broke off regularly to listen for anyone nearby. At first she kissed tentatively and was very hesitant when I started something new. Since there was only one chair and the room was small, we either stood or she sat on my lap. She had a delicious smell close up, one I had never experienced. My erection must have been obvious but she never acknowledged it.
After we kissed on the mouth for a while, I kissed up her arm and had her roll up my sleeve to do the same. Livi followed my lead in using her tongue but would not initiate anything else. I didn't even consider going for her breasts.
I had to meet my ride at noon, so I asked if she was hungry. "I am from Hungry, but I am a Hungarian," she said. Family joke, I thought to myself.
We walked back to Harvard Square and she introduced me to a small café where we had a light meal. I got a peck on the cheek and shortly was on the road.
I had only ridden the T around the Harvard area, so the excursion to Braintree was a revelation. As the trackside scenery changed from urban to suburban to exurban, Livi pointed out Revolutionary War locations and several homes of historical figures.
Her family lived in the caretaker's house on a once-grand estate. Now it was only about 20 acres, but the owner wanted it kept up. Livi's older brother Henrik had gone to California for college and now lived in San Francisco.
The other brother, Vilmus, had been a member of the 1960 U.S. Olympic team in the shot put and had been selected for the 1964 squad. He was an intimidating man to look at but up close was warm and very funny. He was a graduate student at Northeastern and lived at home.
We ate a hot lunch and her mother fussed over Livi and her "beau." Her father showed me around, noting particularly the many outbuildings that no longer were needed, like the 12-stall stable and the massive greenhouse. The swimming pool was constructed of round stones and, this being winter, had a log in the water to keep it from cracking. The main house was in the Greek Revival style and Mr. Kalocsai said it needed more attention than he could give it.
As we walked I asked him how he had come to the estate. He said that a cousin who worked there was in need of a helper. Since there were two Kalocsai teenage boys to help as well, he was hired. The cousin got a better job, so within two years he was in charge of the whole place.
"My daughter is an American," he said. "We keep the old values here, but she wants to be like Henrik and move away. I do not want her to do so, but what can you do?" He shrugged. "Her mother and I do what we can to keep her close. I am glad she brought you to meet us."
We parted when we got back to Boston: Livi to her house to change for the mixer, me to the room at a hotel near the college that I had taken for the night, to change into a coat and tie. The mixer started on time and by 9, when her replacement chaperone arrived, we were free to leave.
"Would you like to get dinner?" I asked, as we walked from the building.
