Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife

by Brenda Wilhelmson

  A putska is a Hungarian cookout. I freshened up, changed into jeans, and Charlie changed into casual clothes. We walked down to the lobby and Charlie shepherded me toward some of his business buddies and their spouses, and we got on one of three enormous tour buses. Charlie leaned over me from his aisle seat and pointed out the window.

  “Look at that,” he said. Two police officers on BMW motorcycles had pulled up next to our bus. The cops blared their sirens and began stopping cars. The tour buses pulled out into heavy rush-hour traffic. More motorcycle cops were in front of and in back of our motorcade. They swooped around, stopped traffic, and pushed our buses through stoplights.

  “This is embarrassing,” Charlie said as we peered out the window at angry drivers stopped in their cars.

  The event planner, noticing our shocked faces, picked up a microphone and said, “You might notice we have a police escort to get us through rush-hour traffic. We were concerned we wouldn’t be able to meet our train in time.”

  “We’re getting on a train?” I asked.

  “I guess,” said Charlie, still looking out the window, thoroughly appalled. “I can’t believe they’re doing this.”

  “Oh, lighten up,” I said. “It’s obnoxious, but it’s kinda cool. This would never happen in the States. I wonder how many palms they had to grease to pull this off.”

  We traveled through the city and suburbs, and began driving through the countryside, which was dotted with clusters of shack-like homes. Eventually, the buses stopped in the middle of nowhere and parked. We got out and walked around the bus. There was a posh antique train and Charlie grabbed my hand and we entered one of the dining cars. Charlie’s friend, Lawrence, and his wife, Ann Marie, were already seated at a table covered with a white linen tablecloth, and Charlie and I joined them.

  “My grandfather used to live in one of those small country houses,” Ann Marie said.

  Waiters brought wine, mineral water, soda, and dense cheese biscuits to the tables. The train began clattering down the track. We heard music and, minutes later, accordion players were strolling down our aisle. Waiters brought party sandwiches to our table and a beer was plunked down in front of every passenger.

  “It would be rude to refuse,” Lawrence said and popped open his beer.

  My guidebook said Hungarians take offense if a man refuses a proffered alcoholic beverage, but if a woman graciously declines a hard drink in favor of a soft one, it’s okay. God help the alcoholic man trying to stay sober in this country. I pushed my beer in front of Charlie and drank mineral water.

  We rattled through more Hungarian countryside and rolled to a stop about an hour later. Horses and wagons were stationed alongside the track, waiting to take us to a ranch. I’d had my fill of mineral water. God, I was tired of drinking water. And I had to go to the bathroom. Ann Marie said she had to go, too, and we found a restroom at the end of a dining car.

  “Go ahead, you first,” I told her.

  As Ann Marie exited, she said, “I don’t know what you have to do, but I wouldn’t relieve myself of both things in this toilet. It goes straight outside.”

  I shot her a puzzled look and went into the bathroom. As I sat down, I noticed daylight shining through the bottom of the toilet. I looked down and saw train tracks. I took a quick pee, wiped, and walked off the train. Charlie, Lawrence, and Ann Marie were standing a few feet away laughing.

  “We saw it all come out,” Charlie laughed. I looked at the train and saw two wads of paper on the track below and urine dripping onto the tracks.

  “Oh my God!” I said, laughing.

  “I can’t believe it,” Ann Marie said. “You wouldn’t want to take a romantic walk along these tracks.”

  We walked toward the horses and wagons where men clad in Hungarian cowboy costumes were handing out shot glasses and filling them with apricot brandy. I avoided the cowboys and got on one of the wagons. Ann Marie, who’d been handed a shot glass, held one out to me.”

  “No. She doesn’t drink,” Charlie said urgently.

  “Yeah, I don’t drink,” I said, shrugging.

  Ann Marie looked at me quizzically and put her shot glass under her seat. I felt like kicking Charlie.

  After a short ride, we arrived at the ranch and the horse-drawn wagons dropped us off near a pavilion where an enormous ox was roasting on a spit. Several open bars were serving drinks and waiters roved with trays of more drinks. I was shocked that the alcohol swirling around wasn’t tweaking me. I was totally fine.

  Each of us was handed a piece of paper with a number on it, and an event organizer grabbed a microphone and announced that the numbers indicated which teams we were on and that we should get ready to play games. The first game was Find the Needles in the Haystack. Several tarps were spread out on the ground and on each was a large mound of hay full of sharp needles. The organizer yelled, “Go!” and each team swooped down on a haystack and began sifting madly for needles. I happened to be on a team of über-competitive Germans who were sifting as fast as they could. They periodically shot me dirty looks because I was sitting on the tarp laughing. “Look, look for the needles,” one of them yelled at me and motioned toward the stack. I started sifting and giggling. When our time was up, I’d contributed one measly needle.

  Next came a wagon race, where each team piled onto a wooden horse-drawn cart and four of the burliest most testosterone-pumped members acted as horses and began pulling and pushing the creaky hernia mobile toward the finish line. After that, six men on each team were strapped onto one pair of ridiculously long skis mounted on wheels. Then came the wheelbarrow race.

  I was the smallest woman on the team and was elected to sit in the wheelbarrow. I shifted uncomfortably as I prepared for each of the eleven members on my team to run me down the field, round a pole, and run back before handing me off to the next person in the relay. The first teammate to grab the handles of the wooden wheelbarrow was a large German dude. At the sound of “Go!” he ran down the field as fast as he could go, rounded the pole, and ran me back. I laughed good-naturedly as the wheelbarrow bumped and bounced over ruts and lumps loosening my kidneys. He handed me off to a female teammate who ran more gently around the field. The next guy to grab the wheelbarrow ran as fast as he could, didn’t slow up as he careened around the pole, lost control, and dumped me on the ground. I quickly got back into the wheelbarrow while he apologized profusely and ran me back. The next three guys in line whipped me as fast as they could up and down the field and I was thinking, fuck, fuck, fuck with every bump and hole I hit. A female teammate grabbed the wheelbarrow, ran me around the field, lost control at the pass-off point, and dumped me on the ground while swinging the wheelbarrow around to pass to the next person. Charlie was last in line. I got back into the wheelbarrow, and he wheeled me away, taking it easy, which caused us to come in second and disappoint our teammates, who saw me as nothing more than a pile of rocks.

  “You okay?” he asked, helping me out of the wheelbarrow.

  “I think so,” I said, rubbing my behind.

  We began walking to the last event, a bullwhip contest, to see who could crack the whip and knock a wine bottle off a stump in the fewest number of tries. As we watched the contestants and waited for our turn, one of our teammates leaned over and said, “Did you hear what happened to Hans?” Apparently Hans had bullwhipped the bottle, broke it, and a jagged piece of glass had flown back and sliced his hand open. He was on his way to a Budapest hospital to get stitched up.

  Charlie took a turn at the bullwhip and, like most people, kept missing the bottle. We walked off with a large group of people headed for a large corral where a cowboy show was about to start. A team of five horses—three in front, two in back—was led into the corral by a cowboy who climbed onto the two rear horses, stood with a foot on each of the horses’ behinds, and drove the team around the ring at breakneck speed. I looked at Ann Marie, who was sitting next to me. We stared at each other, our mouths hanging open.

  We headed to th
e pavilion for a dinner of goulash and roast ox, and as we ate, I noticed a little hut where a line of people were waiting.

  “What’s over there?” I asked Bobbie, one of Charlie’s co-workers.

  “A real gypsy fortune-teller,” she said.

  “Have you seen her?” I asked.

  “No, but he has,” she said motioning to her husband, Jonathan.

  “Was she any good?” I asked Jonathan.

  Jonathan shrugged and smiled. “She said some interesting things.”

  “Like what?”

  Jonathan shrugged and smiled and wouldn’t elaborate. “Go see for yourself.”

  I got in line and after a short wait entered the hut. A wizened old woman sat behind a table and an interpreter motioned for me to sit down next to him. The fortune-teller had me shuffle a deck of tarot cards and began reading them. Through the interpreter, the gypsy told me my writing career was going to go well. She said I had a very good marriage. Then she mumbled something to the interpreter.

  “She asked me if she saw anything bad, should she tell you?” the interpreter asked me.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling anxious and worried.

  “Someone else is either in love with you or going to be in love with you,” she said. “You are going to have to choose who to be with.”

  “Really?” I said, relieved she didn’t say I was going to die. “Is there anything else you want to ask her?” the interpreter asked.

  “My father is ill,” I said. “Ask her how that’s going to turn out.”

  The gypsy said my father was going to be fine, that he didn’t have anything serious like cancer. Ha!

  I left the hut and the next person entered. A small group of people standing outside was discussing what the gypsy had told them. According to the gypsy, one guy was going to become seriously ill. Another man was told someone was trying to sabotage his job. A worried-looking woman said the gypsy told her that a brunette was after her husband. That gypsy was one little ray of sunshine.

  [Friday, September 19]

  I got up and took a long walk along the Danube down the Pest side, turned onto the Szabadság híd (Liberty Bridge), and crossed it to Buda. Two days earlier, I’d crossed the Széchenyi lánchid (Chain Bridge) and seen a very pathetic gypsy beggar. He was hunched over a tiny metal crutch that was only a foot long. As I walked past, he groaned, muttered something, and shook a cap full of change at me. I kept walking and felt guilty for not dropping a few forint in. As I crossed the bridge today, another beggar was pulling the exact same tiny-crutch act. I blew off the second beggar and crossed the bridge to the Hotel Gellert.

  The Hotel Gellert opened in 1918 as an enormous art nouveau hotel and renowned spa. It has a huge Greek-influenced swimming pool surrounded by ornate white columns. Sculptures and fountains rim the pool spilling water onto the backs and heads of bathers.

  I walked into the lobby of the once opulent and gorgeous Gellert, which is scruffily long in the tooth, and got in line to purchase spa services. There were mudpacks, salt baths, and various curative massages that require a doctor’s prescription. Across the lobby and down the stairs in a dingy little office was the staff doctor who did the prescribing. I got up to the counter and the cashier spoke no English. I pointed to the swimming pool/thermal bath/massage package because I was incapable of ordering à la carte. I left the counter, tickets in hand, with no idea of where to go. I wandered around for ten minutes, went up some stairs, and stumbled onto the women’s locker room. The cream-colored room was lit by overhead skylights and rows of dark-paneled lockers lined the walls. Stout older women were milling around naked or draped in white sheets. I stood near the doorway looking for someone who could tell me what to do. An attendant finally approached me and pointed to my receipt. I handed it to her. “Wait,” she told me and handed my receipt to an attendant who was sitting at an old high school desk reading a Hungarian celeb magazine. The attendant lowered her magazine and motioned for me to stand next to a couple of husky old women. She wiggled out from behind her desk and handed my receipt to a third attendant who motioned me over and walked me past many dark-paneled lockers before pointing me at a dressing room cubby. “Change,” she said, and pulled a curtain closed across the entrance of the cubby. I pulled a swimsuit out of my purse, changed into it, and emerged from behind the curtain.

  “Swimming pool first,” the attendant said. “Remember locker number.” She ripped off part of my receipt and handed me a small green square stamp. “For massage,” she said. “Put in locker.” I put the square in the locker. The attendant locked the locker with a key hanging from her wrist and handed me a numbered tag attached to a loop of string. The attendant led me to a door and pushed it open. We walked through a small bathroom to another door and the attendant pushed it open. She pointed to the right. “Swimming pool,” she said. She pointed to a doorbell next to the door. “Ring when done,” she told me and walked away.

  The pool, although showing its age, was still grand and impressive. Men and women were swimming and lounging along the sides chatting. I swam several laps and sat in the hot tub at the shallow end. I positioned myself under a water-cascading sculpture. The warm fresh water flowing over me felt wonderful. When I was done, I walked back to the door, rang the bell, and was taken back through the locker room to the women’s thermal bath room. Fifty percent of the women sitting in one of the two baths were naked. I kept my suit on and got into the warmest one. Back in the locker room, an attendant opened my locker, grabbed my green stamp, and said, “Massage.”

  She took me to a waiting area, handed me a white sheet to wrap myself in, and left. I took off my wet bathing suit and wrapped myself in the sheet. A plump old woman sitting at another high school desk motioned for me to sit in a chair around the corner. A sheet-clad woman, like myself, was sitting in one of several chairs lining the wall. I sat down near her and we faced a massage room that looked like it came out of a black and white horror movie about hydrotherapy treatments in a mental institution. Hoses, white tile, grubby grout, and a gurney were partitioned off from us by a hospital curtain. I could see a masseuse kneading oil into the fat shiny thighs of a client through an opening. After about ten minutes, the attendant walked over and said something in Magyar. The other sheet-clad woman got up and followed her. The attendant turned and motioned for me to follow, too.

  We walked into a long, narrow room where I could see the legs of five or six masseuses poking out from under hospital curtains as they massaged clients on gurneys. A long line of chairs ran along the wall facing the curtained massage chambers, and the other sheet-clad woman and I sat down and waited some more. For fifteen or twenty minutes we watched feet shuffling behind the curtains and listened to groans and American songs sung in Magyar from a portable radio. An oil-slicked woman emerged from behind a curtain and the woman I was waiting with was taken behind it. A few minutes later, my masseuse came and got me and walked me back to the freaky hydrotherapy room. The masseuse, an attractive redhead about my age, took a sheet, laid it on the gurney, and I lay down on top of it. She sprinkled me with talcum powder and went to work gently kneading my muscles.

  I walked out of the Gellert feeling like a million bucks.

  I hiked up to the citadel and eventually made my way to Szilagyi Dezso ter, a neo-gothic Calvinist church dating back to the end of the nineteenth century. The Danube bank near the church was where the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian Nazis, massacred thousands of Jews in 1944 to 1945 by tying them together in small groups and throwing them into the icy river. Today, the church has stained-glass windows adorned with stars of David in remembrance.

  I slowly walked back to the hotel and began getting ready for dinner. I put on an evening gown, Charlie dressed in a suit, and we joined other elegantly clad conference couples in the lobby of the hotel. Conference organizers directed us outside to a train, and the train dropped us off near the Néprajzi Múzeum (Ethnographical Museum).

  “Wow,” I said as Charlie and I strode up a tall fligh
t of red-carpeted stairs leading to the front doors of the museum. Uniformed men were holding tall pillar candles along the stairway’s edges. Inside, the magnificent hall was lit by thousands of candles. Linen-covered tables were topped with gorgeous floral arrangements dripping with blossoms and tea light candles. When everyone was seated, a Cirque du Soleil-like entertainer entered the room wearing a harlequin suit covered in diamond-shaped mirrors. The human glitter ball threw sparks all over the room as he pranced about making music by rubbing the rims of water glasses and playing the flute. A waiter came to our table with a bottle of sherry, and Charlie’s hand shot up over my glass as the waiter was about to pour. “No,” he said too loudly.

  “I can handle it,” I hissed. “You’re so damned conspicuous.”

  Appetizer plates of foie gras and bottles of white wine were set on the table. I held my hand over my white-wine glass as waiters frequently tried to fill it. Salads were brought out with red wine. Our very attentive waiters attempted to fill my red-wine glass constantly, and if my hand didn’t shoot over it quickly enough, Charlie shot his over the rim of my glass. Other couples seated at our table looked at us quizzically.

  “Let the next waiter fill my damned glass,” I muttered to Charlie, “Then we won’t have to keep telling them no.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Charlie said, looking a little uneasy.

  The next time a waiter came by, I let him fill my glasses with both red and white wines and let them sit there. They didn’t bother me one bit.

  When the dinner ended, everyone went back to the hotel bar. Charlie got a scotch and a club soda with lime for me. Charlie’s co-worker, Bobbie, who’d been seated at our dinner table earlier, said, “I hope it doesn’t offend you that we’re drinking. I noticed you don’t drink, and I hope it doesn’t bother you.”

  “I used to drink but I don’t anymore,” I said, shooting her a get-my-drift look. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind if you drink, it’s just better that I don’t.”