The master arrived exactly on time. He wore a blue, open-necked shirt, white cotton trousers and white sneakers. He was taller than I’d imagined him and looked much younger than his years. He brought with him the fresh air and ample sunshine of his Pittwater home.

Our meeting was at his tailor's where he arrived for a fitting. I did not ambush him and I am not claiming a coup for tracking him down. When his tailor, a friend of mine, told me that the master would visit him, I asked if he would tell him that I am writing a novel and that a twenty minutes audience to ask his advice would be of great value to me.

"Just come. He is very friendly. He won't mind," said my friend, but I respected the master too much for that.

" Please ask him, tell him that it would mean a lot to an apprentice writer." 

The following week I received the answer. "He doesn't mind. I told you so," added my friend.

After ten to fifteen minutes the fitting was over and another ten minutes of  leisurely discussion of finances followed. The tailor was humble though expensive, and the master showed no interest in the figures whatsoever.

He didn't look in my direction at all, and was standing between the tailor and the exit door. I was worried. What if he should turn and leave? Does he remember my humble request and his gallant promise?

I felt like clearing my throat, but swallowed instead, lest the great man take it for urging. I wanted to take out my notebook but changed my mind. It might look as if I were preparing to interview him.

Minutes passed, my palm became moist.  

He shook hands with his tailor, then turned. I jumped up.

"Good morning, sir. I am the person my friend told you about. I'm writing a book. It would be a great help and honor if you would give me twenty minutes of your time. I'd like to ask for your help with a few problems I am having with this manuscript. I’ve read all your books and I’m greatly impressed by your writing."

"I give you ten minutes," said the Master with a twinkle in his blue eyes and sat on the other side of the small table covered with fabric samples.

In my book, I am trying to present Gorbachev's true role in a novel. I think he is falsely presented by the western media as a positive hero. Bush and Kohl supported him because they needed him for their own purposes. Opinions to the contrary are suppressed. I wrote a letter to TIME about him. It was returned, unpublished.

He said nothing so I continued.

"What do you think, is it worthwhile to spend one or two years writing this book to report something I think the public should know about, even though the media has flooded people's minds with misleading information

"Do you think it is worthwhile for 'you', to spend two years on it? That is the question," said the master.

"I am confused," I confessed. "I am getting contradicting advice. Some people tell me that the readers are not interested in information, only in characters in action and I have a tendency to go on a crusade when I see something I consider unjust. But should I spend years explaining Gorbachev's real role, or would it be wiser to write about something else, something happening here in Australia, now?"

He smiled lightly.

"You have to be the judge of that. If you listen to everybody you will never write anything worthwhile. When I went to London for the first time, I got a minor job at the BBC. I was working there with established people, big names. Every evening we went to this pub opposite the BBC and I just listened to them. 'I'm going to India and will interview Gandhi and will write a book about India.' 'I will go to China, interview Mao and will write a book about China', they kept saying. I was impressed.

"After a few months I left London and returned a year later. My first book was published by then. In the evening we went to the pub again and I listened to them telling the same stories. I'll go to India, I'll go to China and so forth. They haven't done anything, they just talked about it." 

"You always have a message in your books and it is always topical," I pressed on. "I will never forget what you wrote in the AMBASSADOR. 'Would you kill the cuckoo if it doesn't sing for you?' To me it meant to probe the question, whether the end could justify the means."
 
"No, that meant more than that.” He leaned back. “The question was "What will you do when they ask you to kill the cuckoo?" The meaning is that no one knows until the time comes and he’s in a certain situation what will he do. I elaborated on this in the Devil's Advocate, ...’It was his profession to prepare other men for death; it shocked him to be so unready for his own, when he learned that he had cancer.’
 
"All classical dramas are in three parts. Act I. Put the characters on the tree. Act II. Throw stones at them. Act III. Get them off the tree."  

He tapped the table with his finger.
 
"There has to be a moral conflict in the protagonist's life and he has to be compassionate. The story has to have logic to keep the reader's interest. The writer has to communicate to the reader directly, that he cares about the problem. I am very conscious of the reader when I am writing." 
 
He lectured off the cuff eloquently. He spoke to me freely, in a friendly manner. Thirty minutes had passed. 
 
As I listened and watched, I thought of the words of Francois Villon describing his godfather who "caught pearls of wisdom in the air and threw them to him by the handful." 

Born in Budapest, Hungary, Tim migrated to Australia in 1956, distinguishing himself in the field of Oral Implants and Biomedical Engineering. Between 1969 and 1993, he had 29 scientific publications to his credit and lectured in Australia, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, England, Germany, the U.S. and other countries. For the past seven years he has been writing full-time, and is the author of short stories and interviews which appeared in publications such as Sydney Life, an annual anthology of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW), and News-Write, a monthly journal of the New South Wales Writers' Centre. Another story was also featured in the Summer 1999 issue of The Rose & Thorn.

Tim and his wife Eva have been married for 55 years and have a daughter, Agi, and son, John. Tim's autobiography, Hope Dies Last, was released by Scribe Publications earlier this year. It is available at Australian bookstores under his full name, Tibor Timothy Vajda, or contact the publisher directly.  Hope Dies Last is Tim's first published book. His second, Blood Red Moon, is currently being prepared for publication in the United States.