“What shall we do?” they asked in a whisper.
Before them was a day, a new day, with its boundless freedom and opportunity.
For a start, they went downstairs and sat in the nearby restaurant, the dining room of a hotel.
There they were still themselves.
The dining room gleamed white. The mauve light of arc lamps rustled on the freshly laundered linen tablecloths, the untouched, undefiled altars at which no sacrifice had yet been made. Waiters bustled about, shirtfronts gleaming, fresh before work, like escorts at a ball. An elevator rattled between the walls of the hotel. The half-open door gave a glimpse of the foyer, leather armchairs, palms. A chambermaid yawning with the divine promise of a chance love affair. They reveled in the morning still life. They imagined that when there was no one there but them, all that was theirs, and as they imagined it, in fact it was all theirs.
Neither of them was hungry, but they decided to have lunch just to be done with it. On the strength of his new poem, which he could take to the office at three that afternoon, but without fail between six and seven, Sárkány asked for a loan of two koronas on his word of honor. They had rolled fillets of anchovy, mopping up the oil with bread, haunch of roe with cranberries, and vanilla creams. They drank spritzers and each smoked a green-speckled, light Média.
Noon was striking by the time they reached the Ring Road. Budapest, the youthful city, was glittering. The early September sun enveloped the facades of the houses in sheets of gold. Their heads baked in the hot sun. The sky was blue, a pristine blue, like the ceilings of newly painted flats, still tacky and smelling of paint. Everything around them was so new. This was the time when the new school term was starting. Primary school pupils were going around with satchels on their backs, clutching transfers they had been given at stationery shops.
Suddenly Esti and Sárkány stopped.
A young man was approaching them, his back to them, going backwards, crabwise, but with great skill, at a very swift pace.
On top of his head danced a cheap straw hat. He wore white trousers and a gray coat of thick material with flesh-colored rubber bands at the cuffs. He twirled an iron-tipped stick.
A moment later they too had turned round and were making for him in the same fashion, at a smart pace.
When they drew level with him they burst out laughing.
“Hello, you idiot!” they called to him, and embraced one another.
At last they were all three together, Kanicky, Sárkány and Esti, no one was missing, the circle was closed, the world was complete; the club was in session, the Balkan club, the prime objects of which included the free, courageous, and open practice of such eccentiricites.
The passersby looked ill-humoredly, with a certain contempt but also an undisguised interest, at these three cheerful young men, these three frivolous, immature boys. They didn't understand them, so they hated them.
Kanicky spat on the asphalt. His saliva was black. As black as ink.
He was chewing liquorice.
The liquorice was in his left pocket, and in the right was a medlar, in a paper bag.
They made for their favorite resort, the New York coffeehouse.
On the way Sárkány read his new poem to Kanicky. There was a bedroom in the window of a furniture shop, two wide poplar wood beds, made up, silk eiderdowns, pillows and night tables. In their thoughts they got into the beds wearing their shoes. They imagined at their sides putative spouses, as big as titanic china dolls, with bouffant hairstyles and eyebrows drawn in India ink. All that was so farfetched and improbable that they were ashamed of the fantastic idea and dismissed it as a subject for a poem. They went into a pet shop. They bargained for a monkey and inquired how much a lion would cost. The shopkeeper saw what kind of customers he had to deal with and showed them out.
“What about greeting people?” Kanicky proposed.
At that they greeted everyone who came along. The three hats swung low in unison as if by magic. Their eyes looked frankly into the eyes of the persons they saluted. These were sometimes pleased to be publicly acknowledged in that way, but sometimes were surprised, realized that it was a silly trick, looked them up and down, and went on their way. Out of fifteen, eleven returned the salute.
That too they gave up.
On the corner of Rákóczi út,* Esti bought two balloons. He fastened the strings in his buttonhole and hurried after his friends.
Not far from the coffeehouse a crowd had formed. It was said that two gentlemen were fighting, the one had bumped into the other and they had immediately begun to box each other's ears.
A heated exchange could be heard.
“Do you mind!”
“Impudent devil!”
“You're the impudent devil!”
Kanicky and Sárkány, pale of face, glared at each other. Kanicky raised his fist. A level-headed gentleman came between them.
“Really, gentlemen, for goodness' sake!”
Kanicky looked at the level-headed gentleman, and as usual on such occasions asked Sárkány:
“I say, who's this?”
“I don't know.”
“Well, come on, then.”
He linked arms with Sárkány as if nothing had happened, and to the astonishment of the onlookers went off with him. Esti joined them.
“Did anyone fall for it?” he asked.
“Yes,” they said with a grin.
They let one of the balloons go.
And so they came to the coffeehouse.
The coffeehouse—at lunchtime—was quiet, deserted. Cleaning ladies were going about with brooms and buckets, wiping the marble tabletops. Morning coffee drinkers who had lingered were paying. A slender acrobat passed through the ladies' room.
The afternoon coffee beans were being roasted. The aroma tickled their nostrils. Upstairs the balcony, with its twisting, gilded columns, like a Buddhist temple, seemed to be expecting something.
Here they settled down at their tribal table. First they tried to organize their material affairs. Kaniczky had sixteen fillér, Sárkány thirty. Esti had one korona and four fillér.* Not much on which to fight the battles of the day.
Sárkány, who had the best prospects that day since he had written a poem, beckoned to the morning headwaiter, got him to count out twenty Princeszász, ordered coffee, then showed him the manuscript which he would be able to sell to the Fületlen† at three that afternoon, but at the latest between six and seven, and asked him for a loan of ten koronas. The waiter resignedly advanced the sum. Esti ordered a double espresso. Kanicky called for bicarbonate of soda, water, and a “dog's tongue.”‡
The bicarbonate came. Slowly, absentmindedly, Kanicky sipped the three glasses of water that stood before him, even though Estitapped the ash from his cigarette into one of them. He began to write a sketch, so as to have some money. Suddenly he jumped up, clutched his head: he had to make an urgent telephone call. Nervous anxieties swarmed around his glistening brow. He asked his friends to go with him down to the telephone. He didn't like to be alone.
On the way to the ground floor they pushed, joked, met friends, and forgot what they actually wanted. Loathsome figures were hanging like leeches on the telephones, speaking German, old fellows, forty or fifty, who couldn't really last much longer. It took Kanicky half an hour to get through. He emerged from the booth triumphant. She was coming at three that afternoon. He borrowed five koronas from Sárkány on his word of honor, and then Esti got one of the two that he had lent him.
After organizing their material affairs, they lightheartedly went back to their places at the table. Kanicky wrote a couple of lines of his sketch. Again he left off writing. He called a messenger and sent a letter to the girl whom he had telephoned. They smoked and sighed, laughed and were sad in quick succession, and waved through the plateglass window to women passing in the street. When the waiter placed some fruit before them they gave each one a name: the apple was Károly, the grapes were Ilona, the plum had to be Ödön, the pear, becau
se of its softness and voluptuousness, Jolán, etc. A sort of restlessness stirred in them. They played party games with letters, colors, voices, mixing up, exaggerating, and patching together everything. They asked the oddest questions: what would happen if something were not as it was? No, they were not satisfied with Creation.
At three o'clock Sárkány hurried off for the money order. The coffeehouse was buzzing, the noise on the balcony was becoming louder and louder. In that raucous din they felt the pulse of their lives, felt that they were getting somewhere, making progress. Every table, every booth was occupied. Storm clouds of smoke towered in the air. It was good to relax in that vapor, in that warm pond, to think about nothing, to watch it seethe and bubble, and to know that those who were splashing in it were being slowly softened by it, steamed, cooked through, reduced into one single simmering ko-rhelyleves.* They could see the usual crowd strewn about at various tables, on velvet settees and chairs. Every single one had arrived.
There was Bogár the young novelist, Pataki, and Dániel Ürögi. There was Arácsy the painter, who had had himself photographed dressed as a Florentine knight, rapier at his side, as he played the piano. There was Beleznay the famous art collector, personal acquaintance of Wilde and Rodin. There was Szilvás the “marquis,” with his bone-handled walking stick, the incomparable conversationalist, who mischievously and masterfully blended the very latest Hungarian slang with the esoteric expressions of up-to-date dictionaries, antiquarians, and academic lectures. There was Elián the psychiatrist, Gólya the industrial artist, Sóti the scholar, who had studied in Berlin, and Kopunovits the youthful tragic actor. There was Dayka, blond son of a big landowner, who read the Neo-Kantians avidly and talked about epistemology. There was Kovács, who never spoke, collected stamps, and smiled sardonically. There was Mokosay, who had been to Paris and quoted Verlaine and Baudelaire in the original French with great enthusiasm and a terrible accent. There was Belényes the “chartered chemist,” who had lost his job on account of some irregularity and now hung about newspaper offices, obtaining information for investigative articles. There was Kotra the playwright, who demanded pure literature on the stage, and wanted to put on the as yet unfinished drama Waiting for Death by his friend Géza, Géza who was sitting beside him, in which no people performed, only objects, and the key held a long and profound metaphysical discussion with the keyhole. There was Rex the art dealer, who flouted public opinion, praised Rippl-Rónai and criticized Benczúr. There were Ikrin-szky the astronomer, Christian the conference organizer, Magass the composer. There was Pirnik the international social democrat. There was Scartabelli the aesthetic polyhistorian, explaining in his warm bass now Wundt and his experimental psychology, now the back streets of Buda, very sentimentally, while insisting that he wasn't sentimental. There was Exner, who everyone knew had syphilis. There was Bolta, who didn't regard Petôfi as a poet, because Jenô Komjáthy was the poet. There was Spitzer, who maintained that Max Nordau was the greatest brain in the world. There was Wesselényi, a highbrow chemist's assistant. There was Sebes, two of whose stories had appeared in the dailies and one had been accepted for publication. There was Moldvai the lyric poet. There was Czakó, another. There was Erdôdy-Erlauer, a third. There was Valér V. Vándor the literary translator, who translated from every language but didn't know any, including his native one. There was Specht, the son of wealthy parents, a modest, laconic young man, who hadn't written anything but had been treated for two years in a mental institution and always had in his pocket the certificate, signed and sealed by three doctors, to the effect that he was compos mentis. Absolutely everyone was there.
They were all talking at once. About whether man had free will, what was the shape of the plague bacterium, how much wages were in England, how far away Sirius was, what Nietzsche had meant by “eternal reversion,” whether homosexuality was lawful, and whether Anatole France was Jewish. Everyone wanted to have their say, quickly and profoundly, because although they were all very young, scarcely more than twenty, they felt that they had little time left.
Esti knew this company vaguely. He wasn't always certain who was who, but that didn't really matter, they themselves weren't sure who they were because their individuality, their characters, were taking shape right there and right then. On one occasion he confused a photographer with a poet, and was mistaken for a photographer himself. This caused no mutual embarrassment. They talked about their lives, their memories, their previous loves, their plans, and then, if it seemed right, they introduced themselves for the sake of politeness and sometimes made a note of one another's names.
He sat there among them, listened to the buzz of their conversation. He was captivated by them. In that racket every voice touched a key in his soul. He didn't understand life. He had no conception of why he had been born into the world. As he saw it, anyone to whose lot fell this adventure, the purpose of which was unknown but the end of which was annihilation, that person was absolved from all responsibility and had the right to do as he pleased—for example, to lie full length in the street and begin to moan without any reason—without deserving the slightest censure. But precisely because he considered his life as a whole an incomprehensible thing, he understood its little details individually—every person without exception, every elevated and lowly point of view, every concept—and those he assimilated at once. If anyone spoke to him sensibly for five minutes about converting to the Muslim faith, he would convert, on condition that he would be spared the bother of action, would be taken at his word, and would not be given time later, nevertheless, to retract.
In his opinion, living like that, in great folly among lesser degrees of folly, was not so foolish, but was indeed perhaps the most correct, most natural way of life. Furthermore, he needed that wild disorder, that piquant sauce! He wanted to write. He was waiting for the moment when he would reach such a pitch of despair and loathing that he would have to lash out, and then everything important and essential would pour out of him, not just the superfluous and incidental. That moment, however, hadn't yet arrived. He didn't yet feel badly enough about things to be able to write. He sucked in the nicotine and ordered another double espresso to flog his heart, further to torture his ever inquisitive, clownish, and playful mind, and he feverishly felt the internal throbbing within him; he took his pulse, which was a hundred and thirty, and took it happily, as a usurer does his money.
Women surrounded him. The “woman from Csongrád,” * who every fortnight took a trip away from her husband and spent her free time among writers, literary girls, semi-demons, a pale lady acrobat who must have been ill, and a yellow-faced, bloated woman, as large and terrible as Clytamnestra. They would sit there in white, blue, and black, blossoming in the hot swamp like water lilies at Hévíz.† He longed for every one of them. His eye hesitantly, uneasily, darted from one to another. He enjoyed his sudden ambushes and deathly caprices, which at any moment could change his life or become his doom. He noted the Csongrád woman's hands, the nails at the ends of the soft fingers, which she polished pink and trimmed to points, he imagined that perhaps that woman could be his fate, but was repelled by her alien talons, which scratched gently like rose-thorns, and dismissed the thought in alarm. The Csongrád woman asked him what he was thinking at that moment. Esti gave a superior smile and told some lie so that she could make what she liked of what he was thinking.
Kanicky was resting his head on his friend's chest. He was not waiting for just any woman, only the one who, through some misunderstanding, had not appeared, though it was well past three o'clock. The messenger whom he had sent at noon with the important message had not returned. He charged another with looking for the first. He had looked across into the coffeehouse opposite and the small restaurant named Rabló. Returning to the telephone, he had spent a whole hour calling various places, without result. He ordered a kis-irodalmi,* which he dispatched with a hearty appetite, then had another bicarbonate of soda.
Toward seven Sárkány arrived, having been off somew
here since three. He was radiant with pleasure. He told them that a new period in his life had begun. He had met that supposed kindergarten teacher, about whom he had said so much to his friends that they perhaps knew her better than he did, he had made it up with her, and now everything was at long last coming together, once and for all. Esti and Kanicky heard every day that a new period was beginning in Sárkány's life, and that he had met the woman. They were more interested in the money order. Sárkány's face fell. Firstly, he informed them that he'd spent all his money. As for the money order, what had happened was that he'd called on the publisher at three, as was correct, but he'd been in a bad mood and had called over his shoulder at him to come back between six and seven. So he'd done that, modestly and quietly handed over his poem, and requested payment, at which the publisher, that wretched and sour-tempered villain who rather resembled Herod, took it with unspeakable vulgarities, spat on the manuscript, stamped on it, and in the full sense of the word, kicked him out. His friends couldn't really imagine, on the basis of his personal description, quite how this scene had transpired, but they were indignant at the publisher's lack of delicacy.
So there they were, the three of them, penniless, with all those espressos, cigarettes, and messengers to pay for, not to mention the kis-irodalmi, and ahead of them the empty night with no prospects. Something had to be done. Things were not going well. Scartabelli talked to them about the Bhagavad Gita and Nirvana without getting their full attention. Valér V. Vándory was translating a French novel. In that connection he inquired of those present the meaning of derechef. Mokosay took exception to his pronunciation. Asked him for the book. It was his opinion that it was the name of a flower that didn't grow in Hungary. Others suspected an obscenity. Most advised him to leave it out, at which Valér V. Vándory cut the whole paragraph and worked on. Then up came Hannibal, the night hawker, with his poker face, a frozen grin on his lips, offering dirty picture postcards and immediately after that contraceptives, as if the mere sight of those postcards would damage their health.
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