Hungarian Rhapsody

by Wendy Teller

  Ella stopped next to them. "New to Budapest?"

  She used as few words as possible, not wanting to stretch her Croat knowledge too far.

  "No Hungarian?"

  The young man shook his head.

  "No German?" He wore a suit, new, but ill-fitting. The woman was in a dark dress, with her pretty black hair peeking from under a head scarf.

  He held his fingers up, indicating he had just a little.

  Ella switched to German "Where are you going?"

  The man pointed to a spot on the map.

  "Yes, yes." Ella nodded. "I see."

  "Walk?" The man asked, apparently asking whether their destination was near.

  Ella looked at their luggage. He carried a little case, she a carpet bag. The inn was not that far away and it was early afternoon.

  She nodded. "I will show you. I will walk with you."

  The man sighed and put his arm around the young woman. "Thank you."

  They started toward the terminal again.

  Ella scanned the crowd looking for the three nuns. There they were, walking ahead of them, some distance away, but walking slowly, looking this way and that.

  Ella swallowed. She didn't want to catch up with them, so she tried to walk a little slower, but the Croat couple kept up their pace and she wanted to stay with them.

  They were slowly gaining on the nuns.

  Now ten meters behind them, now five.

  Ella talked to the Croat couple, making herself not look in the direction of the nuns.

  "Where do you come from?"

  The man smiled. "Kiskanizsa."

  Kiskanizsa was really part of Nagykanizsa, the two towns having merged in the last decades, but this couple clearly thought of it as separate.

  "I have a new job in a brewery. I had a job at the Kanizsa Brewery and they needed people in Budapest, so I have come," the man said.

  Ella nodded. She wanted them to keep talking, so that the nuns would think they belonged together.

  "Where will you live?"

  "We will have to find a place. They say it is hard to find rooms in Budapest."

  Ella felt a hand on her shoulder.

  "Where are you going, French girl?"

  Names

  Ella swung around to face the Mother Superior. "How dare you!" Ella said in German, pushing the hand from her shoulder. She could see a flash of uncertainty in the nun's eyes.

  "Who are you?" Ella demanded.

  The Croat man stepped between Ella and the nun. Mother Superior squinted and backed away.

  "Who?" The Croat man asked.

  "I don't know." Ella shook her head and the three resumed their walk toward the exit.

  Ella resisted the urge to see if the nuns had retreated. Instead she talked to the couple stretching her knowledge of Croat to its limit. The woman smiled when Ella searched for the word for beer.

  Having been in Buda many times to visit her aunt, Ella knew where the inn was situated with respect to the train station, but she had never walked in this neighborhood. Her family always hired a coach and was driven into the Buda Hills, where her aunt lived. She hoped the route she chose would be safe. At least she was not walking alone.

  Trees lined the street outside the train station, but they were young and spindly and did not provide much shade. Ella wished she could remove the shawl, but didn't dare to, fearing the sisters might yet find her.

  She walked with the Croat couple, guiding them the several blocks to their destination. They thanked her profusely. She nodded and smiled.

  Once they had entered the inn, Ella looked around. She wanted to go to Pest, that part of the city on the East side of the Danube.

  She didn’t want to accidentally meet her aunt, though that was unlikely even if she stayed in Buda. Aunt Ilona rarely went out.

  Still, something drew her to Pest. It was the new side, the modern side, the place where the better Hungary that Ede talked about would be born. She had memorized the way when looking at the Croats' map.

  She headed down Krisztina körút toward the Danube. The short thin trees provided no protection from the summer sun and she was hot with her shawl draped about her.

  Looking around she noted fewer woman with covered heads, so she let the material fall to her shoulders. A slight breeze dried the moisture on her cheeks, cooling them. They felt gritty with dried sweat.

  Her stomach rumbled. She promised herself she would stop at a cafe, but only once she reached Pest.

  She thought about Therese as she walked. What was her last name? Somehow, now that she was dead, that she had died so terribly, it seemed wrong that Ella could not remember her last name.

  Biss... Bisset. She was Therese Bisset.

  That was better.

  What about Cook? She had a real name. Yes, of course, it was Maria.

  Why did she call Maria Cook? She thought back to when she was three. She had called her Cook because she was the cook.

  But there was another reason, if she could just remember.

  Yes, Maria was such a common name, and Mother had hired a maid called Maria. So Ella called Maria, the cook, Cook and Maria, the maid, Maid, so as not to confuse the two.

  Maria the maid hadn't stayed long. Maids never did in Mother's house, always being accused of being too slow, not thorough enough, or, worst of all, stealing.

  She wondered where all the maids went once Mother let them go without a reference. They couldn't take "a loan" from the money drawer, like she had. They didn't have the keys. And they didn't have her "market money" because they were not usually sent to market.

  What did they do?

  Did they manage to find another position? Or did they go home to their family?

  She remembered the letter to Therese, telling her not to bring more mouths to feed.

  Therese and the maids, Ella realized, had a tenuous hold on security.

  The intersection ahead was at an obtuse angle. That must be Alagút utca, where she had to turn to get to the Chain Bridge.

  She walked around the corner and stopped.

  A tall stone archway, maybe 20 meters tall, stood half a block away. Had she taken a wrong turn?

  She walked more slowly as she approached the opening and looked through what was a tunnel. At the far end she could see the Chain Bridge, the one she had seen so often on postcards Aunt Ilona had sent.

  She was on the right path.

  But the tunnel looked forbidding.

  Might another fat man with sour breath lurk there?

  It was not that long, maybe three blocks.

  She swallowed her fears, entered, and walked along the pedestrian path to the side of the tunnel.

  It was hot and humid and it stank. Horses and other draft animals clearly did not curb their needs while in it.

  She quickened her pace and placed the end of her shawl over her nose and mouth, hoping to keep the wretched stench from her nostrils. Her steps echoed on the tiled walls.

  When she reached the end of the tunnel, she inhaled, savoring the little wind that cooled her and wafted away the acrid odors. The bridge towered before her, the famous bridge, guarded by two huge lions on either side. All Hungarian children were told that those lions had no tongues, but she was not going to investigate today. She wanted to get to Pest, to get to a cafe.

  She kept up her rapid pace, striding toward that goal.

  In the middle of the bridge she stopped for just a moment to admire the view of the Parliament building, standing grandly on the banks of the Danube. It was even larger than she had remembered. But then Budapest was the capitol of Hungary. Or at least it was the twin capitol, along with Vienna, of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

  Perhaps such an important city should have a large Parliament building.

  It looked prickly, like a dragon with many spikes.

  She thought it was more threatening than beautiful.

  She started walking again, her steps more confident. Just a few more minutes and she would be on the Pest side.


  Then all she had to do was find a cafe.

  The Café

  Ella felt her stomach gurgle. She had not eaten anything since yesterday.

  She wandered the streets of Pest, looking into cafes, in search of an appropriate place to eat. She didn't know where she could stay tonight, so she wanted to conserve her money.

  She gazed into one window, waiters moving from table to table, men in top hats and boys in caps, boys about her age or maybe a little younger, gymnasium boys, sitting at the tables, drinking coffee and eating rolls. The men were talking and smoking pipes and cigars.

  This place, with the gymnasium boys, could not be too expensive. She entered the half-full hall and looked around.

  Most of the women sat in one section along the wall opposite the door. She sat at a little table among the other women, feeling more comfortable there.

  A moment later a waiter appeared, an older man, lean with a long face. He looked her up and down, saying nothing.

  "Coffee, rolls, butter." She needed more than this, but it was a start.

  A long hand set a cup of steaming black coffee on the table. A small pot of cream followed. Ella poured as much cream into the coffee as the cup would hold. She sipped. The tan liquid filled her mouth with smooth rich flavor.

  It was the best coffee she had ever tasted.

  The long hand set a basket of rolls and a plate of butter on her table. She took one of the rolls and pulled it apart, tearing off a bite sized piece and spreading sunny yellow butter over it. She chewed the moist yeasty bread. The next bite, from the crusty outside of the roll, with the salty butter and the perfect crunch, was heaven.

  She scanned the room.

  A cluster of men and boys were seated at a large round table not far from her, talking with great emotion. All heads seemed turned to the man at the far side. Someone would make a comment and he would reply, wiping his forehead with a dingy handkerchief. An older man commented and everyone chuckled. Once the wave of humor passed, the man at the far side put on a serious face and said something, stuffing the handkerchief in his pocket. People nodded. Ella could not understand what was being said above the noise of the high-ceilinged room.

  Her eyes drifted. She noticed men sitting by themselves, reading newspapers. She saw one man pick up his paper and walk to the corner of the room where a rack stood. Many papers hanging on poles were arranged on the rack. The man replaced the paper he was reading and took another one.

  If he could read papers from the rack, so could she.

  Having negotiated her way to the corner, she sorted through the papers. She had never seen so many journals. Budapesti Szemle, Pesti Hirlap, Magyar Salon, and on and on. Her eye fell on a cream colored cover. The Twentieth Century. The journal Ede had shown her.

  Her heart beat faster as she picked up the little journal and took it back to her table. She noticed the address on the cover.

  Maybe they would need a translator.

  But wouldn't that be where Ede would go?

  She couldn't worry about that now. She needed money. She doubted she had enough money for a train ticket to Vienna. She needed to make money so she could go to Vienna.

  Maybe this journal would hire her. And if not this journal, maybe another.

  Ella flipped through the pages and then returned to the front page.

  The first article listed, "About Socialism," was written by Dr. Ervin Szabó.

  Had Ede mentioned his name? She wasn't sure.

  She turned to the page and read. Social science, the article explained, described how society was organized based on certain laws about something.

  She looked up without seeing anything, trying to comprehend what she had read. She skimmed the words again.

  "You're not from Budapest, are you?"

  Ella looked up. One of the gymnasium boys sat down across from her. His smile was warm. His bright brown eyes searched her face.

  "What makes you think so?"

  "To start, women of a certain sort sit here."

  "Oh?"

  "But you don't look like that sort."

  Ella had to smile. At least this young boy realized, even if everyone else in the world didn't – the conductor, sour-breath, the old nun – she was just trying to.... What was she trying to do? She was just trying to be her own person.

  But this young man, with his sweet smile, seemed sympathetic.

  "How do you know I'm not that sort?" She bit her lip. Maybe she shouldn't have said that. Maybe he would think she was "that sort."

  "For one thing, you aren't dressed like a...." He let the sentence hang.

  Ella sighed with relief. He didn't seem to have been swayed from his opinion about what sort she was.

  "And those women don't spend their time reading The Twentieth Century."

  "Oh." She wondered what sort of woman did read it.

  "And, finally," He grinned as he nodded to her satchel, "that sort doesn't come with their luggage."

  She laughed.

  "So, I thought, you are a stranger here and must be an interesting stranger."

  She nodded. His hair, straight, shiny, parted on the side, was perfectly groomed. His peachy cheeks didn't have a hint of a beard.

  "And I thought maybe you could use some help?"

  She nodded again. She could use some help. And this youth with his high white collar and tie, with his vest and jacket, seemed kind.

  And maybe even safe.

  "What are you doing here, Lady of Another Sort?"

  She smiled now. "I've run away from home."

  His brows raised but his sweet smile remained. "Really?"

  She nodded.

  His brown eyes held her gaze. "Why?"

  "I was to be married."

  He nodded, as if he understood everything. "To an ugly fat old man."

  Ella thought of Ede. This young fellow resembled Ede, with his earnest eyes and his kind smile.

  "No. He is young, handsome and quite... fit."

  The boy squinted. "So he was mean? Or nasty? Or cruel?"

  "No." She touched the necklace under her blouse. "He is my only friend."

  The boy's brows furrowed and he shook his head. "So why did you run away?"

  She swallowed. She had already said too much. She could not tell this stranger more, no matter how young he was or how kind his eyes.

  "I ask too many questions." He glanced around the room. "But Lady of Another Sort, this is not the place for you."

  His gaze came back to her.

  "People will get the wrong idea." He stared at her, his smile gone.

  "You'd best come home with me."

  She shook her head. She should not have told him all this.

  At least he did not know her name.

  She pushed back her chair to leave.

  The Walk to Cecile's Home

  The boy touched her hand. "No, no. Don't think I mean anything of the wrong sort." His smile had returned. "I mean come to my home to meet my mother. She will be able to help you."

  Ella hesitated. Should she trust this boy? Right now it seemed an appealing option. She was tired and hungry. She didn't know where she would sleep tonight or how to find a room or how much it would cost. This boy's offer was very appealing.

  As the young man held the door for Ella, he said, "I'm Mihály."

  Lying had gotten Ella in trouble. She would only tell him the truth, or nothing at all. She tilted her head and smiled. "Ella."

  The heat of the day had descended on the city. They walked along Váci utca, a narrow street that could barely accommodate the carriages traveling it. The walkways were crowded too, people stopping here and there to look into store windows. Some of the shops had awnings, but they provided little shade and almost no relief from the sun's heat.

  "And what were you reading, Ella?"

  "Something called 'On Socialism'."

  "You are interested in socialism?"

  "My friend," she bit her lip, not wanting to say too much about Ede. "He
talked about it and I wanted to understand what he had said."

  "Your friend who you are not going to marry?"

  She looked at Mihály. An impish grin had spread across his lips. She shouldn't have said that. She didn't want this inquisitive boy to know more, so she ignored his question.

  "The trouble is, reading that article was like reading a different language. It had words I don't know."

  "Yes, well, I'm not surprised," the boy said. "Probably they don't speak much about socialism outside of Budapest."

  "They speak of it in Budapest?"

  "Oh, in Budapest, yes." He smiled. "In Paris and Berlin, in Moscow and London and New York. In most cities. But not in the Hungarian countryside so much, I would guess. And maybe not among your people."

  She was miffed by his condescension, but he was right. In Nagykanizsa she had not heard of socialism, except that one time Ede had discussed it.

  "Can you explain it to me?"

  "I'm not sure I can. I think it might mean different things to different people."

  They stepped into the street to navigate around a crowd of slower moving pedestrians, dodging carriages as they went.

  "Who wrote the article?"

  "Dr. Ervin Szabó."

  The boy nodded, as if this was an important piece of information.

  "So he must have mentioned Marx."

  "Yes. Karl Marx and Friedrick Engels." She looked at him, hoping for some clarification. "What does it mean if he mentioned Marx?"

  "I'm not sure that I can reproduce what they say," Mihály said. "But they have a theory of the way society will evolve, that it will change over time; that with the industrial revolution, which changes society, the proletariat will end up rebelling against the bourgeoisie."

  Ella needed to understand this new vocabulary. "What's the proletariat?"

  "The workers, more or less."

  "Like the peasants?"

  "Yes, the peasants perhaps. But I think Marx was thinking of the people who work in factories."

  She thought of the Croat couple. The man had come to work in a factory. Was he a proletariat? Proletariat. Where did that word come from? "Like proletarius?"