“Yes,” I said, trying to think how many Hungarian words I knew. “Yes,” “no,” “good morning,” “good-bye,” “I am lost,” “help.”
“You are in the student games?”
“Were, not are,” I said. “I departed somewhat rapidly on Monday.”
“Because you were not rapid enough, perhaps?”
I laughed, again admiring his command of my first language.
“Why is your English so excellent?” I inquired.
“I’m afraid it’s a little neglected,” the old man replied. “But they still allow me to teach the subject at the university. I must confess to you that I have absolutely no interest in sports, but these occasions always afford me the opportunity to capture someone like yourself and oil the rusty machine, even if only for a few minutes.” He gave me a tired smile, but his eyes were now alight.
“What part of England do you hail from?” For the first time his pronunciation faltered, as “hail” came out as “heel.”
“Somerset,” I told him.
“Ah!” he said. “Perhaps the most beautiful county in England.” I smiled, as most foreigners never seem to travel much beyond Stratford-upon-Avon or Oxford. “To drive across the Mendips,” he continued, “through perpetually green hilly countryside and to stop at Cheddar to see Gough’s caves, at Wells to be amused by the black swans ringing the bell on the cathedral wall, or at Bath to admire the lifestyle of classical Rome, and then perhaps to go over the county border and on to Devon … Is Devon even more beautiful than Somerset, in your opinion?”
“Never,” said I.
“Perhaps you are a little prejudiced.” He laughed. “Now let me see if I can recall: ‘Of the western counties there are seven. But the most glorious is surely that of Devon.’ Perhaps Hardy, like you, was prejudiced and could think only of his beloved Exmoor, the village of Tiverton, and Drake’s Plymouth.”
“Which is your favorite county?” I asked.
“The North Riding of Yorkshire has always been underrated, in my opinion,” replied the old man. “When people talk of Yorkshire, I suspect Leeds, Sheffield, and Barnsley spring to mind. Coal mining and heavy industry. Visitors should travel and see the dales there; they will find them as different as chalk from cheese. Lincolnshire is too flat, and so much of the Midlands must now be spoiled by urban sprawl. The Birminghams of this world hold no appeal for me. But in the end I come down in favor of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, quaint old English villages nestling in the Cotswolds, and crowned by Stratford-upon-Avon. How I wish I could have been in England in 1959, while my countrymen were recovering from the scars of revolution: Olivier performing Coriolanus, another man who did not want to show his scars.”
“I saw the performance,” I said. “I went with a school group.”
“Lucky boy. I translated the play into Hungarian at the age of nineteen. Reading over my work again last year made me aware I must repeat the exercise before I die.”
“You have translated other Shakespeare plays?”
“All but three, I have been leaving Hamlet to last, and then I shall return to Coriolanus and start again. As you are a student, am I permitted to ask which university you attend?”
“Oxford.”
“And your college?”
“Brasenose.”
“Ah! BNC. How wonderful to be a few yards away from the Bodleian, the greatest library in the world. If I had been born in England I should have wanted to spend my days at All Souls. That is just opposite BNC, is it not?”
“That’s right.”
The professor stopped talking while we watched the next race, the first semifinal of the fifteen hundred meters. The winner was Anfras Patovich, a Hungarian, and the partisan crowd went wild with delight.
“That’s what I call support,” I said.
“Like Manchester United when they have scored the winning goal in the Cup Final. But my fellow countrymen do not cheer because the Hungarian was first,” said the old man.
“No?” I said, somewhat surprised.
“Oh, no. They cheer because he beat the Russian.”
“I hadn’t even noticed,” I said.
“There is no reason why you should, but their presence is always in the forefront of our minds, and we are rarely given the opportunity to see them beaten in public.”
I tried to steer him back to a happier subject. “And before you had been elected to All Souls, which college would you have wanted to attend?”
“As an undergraduate, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Undoubtedly Magdalen is the most beautiful college. It has the distinct advantage of being situated on the River Cherwell; and in any case I confess a weakness for perpendicular architecture and a love of Oscar Wilde.” The conversation was interrupted by the sound of a pistol, and we watched the second semifinal of the fifteen meters, which was won by Orentas of the USSR. The crowd showed its disapproval more obviously this time, clapping in such a way that left hands passed right without coming into contact. I found myself joining in on the side of the Hungarians. The scene made the old man lapse into a sad silence. The last race of the day was won by Tim Johnston of England, and I stood and cheered unashamedly. The Hungarian crowd clapped politely.
I turned to say good-bye to the professor, who had not spoken for some time.
“How long are you staying in Budapest?” he asked.
“The rest of the week. I return to England on Sunday”
“Could you spare the time to join an old man for dinner one night?”
“I should be delighted.”
“How considerate of you,” he said, and he wrote out his full name and address in capital letters on the back of my program and returned it to me. “Why don’t we say tomorrow at seven? And if you have any old newspapers or magazines, do bring them with you,” he said, looking a little sheepish. “And I shall quite understand if you have to change your plans.”
I spent the next morning visiting St. Matthias Church and the ancient fortress, two of the buildings that showed no evidence of the revolution. I then took a short trip down the Danube before spending the afternoon supporting the swimmers at the Olympic pool. At six I left the pool and went back to my hotel. I changed into my team blazer and gray slacks, hoping I looked smart enough for my distinguished host. I locked my door, started toward the elevator, and then remembered. I returned to my room to pick up the pile of newspapers and magazines I had collected from the rest of the team.
Finding the professor’s home was not as easy as I had expected. After meandering around cobbled streets and waving the professor’s address at several passers-by, I was finally directed to an old apartment house. I ran up the three flights of the wooden staircase in a few leaps and bounds, wondering how long the climb took the professor every day. I stopped at the door that displayed his number and knocked.
The old man answered immediately, as if he had been standing there, waiting by the door. I noticed that he was wearing the same suit he had had on the previous day.
“I am sorry to be late,” I said.
“No matter, my own students also find me hard to find the first time,” he said, grasping my hand. He paused. “Bad to use the same word twice in the same sentence. “‘Locate’ would have been better, wouldn’t it?”
He trotted on ahead of me, not waiting for my reply, a man obviously used to living on his own. He led me down a small, dark corridor into his living room. I was shocked by its size. Three walls were covered with indifferent prints and watercolors, depicting English scenes, while the fourth was dominated by a large bookcase. I could spot Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Trollope, Hardy, even Waugh and Graham Greene. On the table was a faded copy of the New Statesman. I looked around to see if we were on our own, but there seemed to be no sign of a wife or child either in person or picture, and indeed the table was set for only two.
The old man turned and stared with childlike delight at my pile of newspapers and magazines.
“Punch, Ti
me, and The Observer—a veritable feast,” he declared, gathering them into his arms before placing them lovingly on the bed in the corner of the room.
The professor then opened a bottle of Szürkebarát and left me to look at the pictures while he prepared the meal. He slipped away into an alcove that was so small that I had not realized the room contained a kitchenette. He continued to bombard me with questions about England, many of which I was quite unable to answer.
A few minutes later he stepped back into the room, requesting me to take a seat. “Do be seated,” he said. “On reflection, I do not wish you to remove the seat. I wish you to sit on it.” He put a plate in front of me that had on it a leg of something that might have been a chicken, a piece of salami, and a tomato. I felt sad, not because the food was inadequate, but because he believed it to be plentiful.
After dinner, which despite my efforts to eat slowly and hold him in conversation, did not take up much time, the old man made some coffee, which tasted bitter, and then filled a pipe before we continued our discussion. We talked of Shakespeare and his views on A. L. Rowse, and then he turned to politics.
“Is it true,” the professor asked, “that England will soon have a Labour government?”
“The opinion polls seem to indicate as much,” I said.
“I suppose the British feel that Sir Alec Douglas-Home is not swinging enough for the sixties,” said the professor, now puffing vigorously away at his pipe. He paused and looked up at me through the smoke. “I did not offer you a pipe as I assumed after your premature exit in the first round of the competition that you would not be smoking.” I smiled. “But Sir Alec,” he continued, “is a man with long experience in politics, and it’s no bad thing for a country to be governed by an experienced gentleman.”
I would have laughed out loud had the same opinion been expressed by my own tutor.
“And what of the Labour leader?” I said, forbearing to mention his name.
“Molded in the white heat of a technological revolution,” he replied. “I am not so certain. I liked Gaitskell, an intelligent and shrewd man. An untimely death. Attlee, like Sir Alec, was a gentleman. But as for Mr. Wilson, I suspect that history will test his mettle—a pun which I had not intended—in that white heat and only then will we discover the truth.”
I could think of no reply.
“I was considering last night after we parted,” the old man continued, “the effect that Suez must have had on a nation which only ten years before had won a world war. The Americans should have backed you. Now we read in retrospect—always the historian’s privilege—that at the time Prime Minister Eden was tired and ill. The truth was he didn’t get the support from his closest allies when he most needed it.”
“Perhaps we should have supported you in 1956.”
“No, no, it was too late then for the West to shoulder Hungary’s problems. Churchill understood that in 1945. He wanted to advance beyond Berlin and to free all the nations that bordered Russia. But the West had had a bellyful of war by then and left Stalin to take advantage of that apathy. When Churchill coined the phrase ‘the Iron Curtain,’ he foresaw exactly what was going to happen in the East. Amazing to think that when that great man said, ‘If the British Empire should last a thousand years,’ it was in fact destined to survive for only twenty-five. How I wish he had still been around the corridors of power in 1956.”
“Did the revolution greatly affect your life?”
“I do not complain. It is a privilege to be the professor of English in a great university. They do not interfere with me in my department, and Shakespeare is not yet considered subversive literature.” He paused and took a luxuriant puff at his pipe. “And what will you do, young man, when you leave the university—as you have shown us that you won’t be making a living as a runner.”
“I want to be a writer.”
“Then travel, travel, travel,” he said. “You cannot hope to learn everything from books. You must see the world for yourself if you ever hope to paint a picture for others.”
I looked up at the old clock on his mantelpiece only to realize how quickly the time had passed.
“I must leave you, I’m afraid; they expect us all to be back in the hotel by ten.”
“Of course,” he said smiling at the English public school mentality. “I will accompany you to Kossuth Square, and then you will be able to see your hotel on the hill.”
As we left the apartment, I noticed that he didn’t bother to lock the door. Life had left him little to lose. He led me quickly through the myriad of narrow streets that I had found so impossible to navigate earlier in the evening, chatting about this building and that, an endless fund of knowledge about his own country as well as mine. When we reached Kossuth Square he took my hand and held on to it, reluctant to let go, as lonely people often will.
“Thank you for allowing an old man to indulge himself by chattering on about his favorite subject.”
“Thank you for your hospitality,” I said. “And when you are next in Somerset you must come to Lympsham and meet my family.”
“Lympsham? I cannot place it,” he said, looking worried.
“I’m not surprised. The village has a population of only twenty-two.”
“Enough for two cricket teams,” remarked the professor. “A game, I confess, with which I have never come to grips.”
“Don’t worry,” I said “Neither have half the English.”
“Ah, but I should like to. What is a ‘gully,’ a ‘no-ball,’ a ‘night watchman’? The terms have always intrigued me.”
“Then remember to get in touch when you’re next in England, and I’ll take you to Lord’s and see if I can teach you something.”
“How kind,” he said, and then he hesitated before adding: “But I don’t think we shall meet again.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Well, you see, I have never been outside Hungary in my whole life. When I was young I couldn’t afford to, and now I don’t imagine that those in authority would allow me to see your beloved England.”
He released my hand, turned, and shuffled back into the shadows of the side streets of Budapest.
I read his obituary in The Times once again, as well as the headlines about Afghanistan and its effect on the Moscow Olympics.
He was right. We never met again.
THE STEAL
Christopher and Margaret Roberts always spent their summer vacation as far away from England as they could possibly afford. However, as Christopher was the classics teacher at St. Cuthbert’s, a small preparatory school just north of Yeovil, and Margaret was the school matron, their experience of four of the five continents was largely confined to periodicals such as National Geographic and Time.
The Robertses’ annual vacation each August was nevertheless sacrosanct, and they spent eleven months of the year saving, planning, and preparing for their one extravagant luxury. The following eleven months were then spent passing on their discoveries to the “offspring”: The Robertses, without children of their own, looked on all the pupils of St. Cuthbert’s as “offspring.”
During the long evenings when the “offspring” were meant to be asleep in their dormitories, the Robertses would pore over maps, analyze expert opinion, and then finally come up with a shortlist to consider. In recent expeditions they had been as far afield as Norway, northern Italy, and Yugoslavia, ending up the previous year exploring Achilles’ island, Skyros, off the east coast of Greece.
“It has to be Turkey this year,” said Christopher after much soul-searching. A week later Margaret came to the same conclusion, and so they were able to move on to phase two. Every book on Turkey in the local library was borrowed, consulted, re-borrowed, and reconsulted. Every brochure obtainable from the Turkish Embassy or local travel agents received the same relentless scrutiny.
By the first day of the summer term, charter tickets had been paid for, a car hired, reservations made, and everything that could be insured comprehensively covered
. Their plans lacked only one final detail.
“So what will be our steal’ this year?” asked Christopher.
“A carpet,” Margaret said, without hesitation. “It has to be. For over a thousand years Turkey has produced the most sought-after carpets in the world. We’d be foolish to consider anything else.”
“How much shall we spend on it?”
“Five hundred pounds,’ said Margaret, feeling very extravagant.
Having agreed, they once again swapped memories about the “steals” they had made over the years. In Norway, it had been a whale’s tooth carved in the shape of a galleon by a local artist who soon after had been taken up by Steuben. In Tuscany, it had been a ceramic bowl found in a small village where they cast and fired them to be sold in Rome at exorbitant prices: A small blemish only an expert would have noticed made it a “steal.” Just outside Skopje the Robertses had visited a local glass factory and acquired a water jug moments after it had been blown in front of their eyes, and in Skyros they had picked up their greatest triumph to date, a fragment of an urn they discovered near an old excavation site. The Robertses reported their find immediately to the authorities, but the Greek officials had not considered the fragment important enough to prevent it being exported to St. Cuthbert’s.
On returning to England, Christopher couldn’t resist just checking with the senior classics don at his old alma mater. He confirmed the piece was probably twelfth century. This latest “steal” now stood, carefully mounted, on their living room mantelpiece.
“Yes, a carpet would be perfect,” Margaret mused. “The trouble is, everyone goes to Turkey with the idea of picking up a carpet cheaply. So to find a really good one …”
She knelt and began to measure the small space in front of their living room fireplace.
“Seven by three should do it,” she said.
Within a few days of term ending, the Robertses traveled by bus to Heathrow. The journey took a little longer than by rail but at half the cost. “Money saved is money that can be spent on the carpet,” Margaret reminded her husband.
The Collected Short Stories Page 22