cannibalistic fervour. Gyuri had considered, before setting out that
morning, pocketing a knife on account of Angyalföld’s notoriety but as he
turned the corner into Jasz utca, he couldn’t help noticing two men fighting
with what could only be described as cutlasses, long heavy swords of the type
favoured by Hollywood pirates. A semi-circle of barefoot spectators were
monitoring, not greatly impressed by the quality of the hacking. Carrying a
knife wouldn’t have helped, the result would have been that he would have had
his knife stolen as a supplement to getting stabbed, and a good knife like
everything else was hard to get in those days.
Gyuri
had lots of time to ruminate on how his untimely, unremarked demise on the
streets of the Angyalföld would be due to his yearning to let his gaze ski down
Katalin’s smooth slopes, killed by curiosity about a bald cat. He had also
ruminated on his way up to the fifth floor, how people he visited always lived
on the fifth floor of liftless buildings. The dressmaker, a sprightly lady of
eighty plus, clearly of the work-twelve-hours-a-day-till-you-drop variety, and
who was cosily unaware of what went on in the rest of Angyalföld, congratulated
Gyuri on the cut of his trousers. The trousers were the last pair of Elek’s
Savile Row trousers, indeed the only fully-qualified trousers that Elek had
left, lent to Gyuri since Elek had come to the conclusion that he wasn’t
getting out of bed that day, or that should he rise, he wouldn’t be progressing
beyond the armchair. The dressmaker bustled away to prepare the dress for its
journey while Gyuri reflected how sad it was that she couldn’t bequeath her
industry to him.
It was
as he rushed back to the tram that he chanced on Ladányi talking with some of
the Angyalföld’s denizens patiently listening to him. They patently considered
Ladányi as someone who had stepped down from the moon. Ladányi seemed slightly
peeved at being caught in the act of doing good, but he accompanied Gyuri to
the tram and reluctantly disclosed that he haunted Angyalföld before the first
mass of the day. It was the sheer lunacy of his faith, Gyuri thought, that
enabled Ladányi to leave with all his physical workings intact. Greatly
relieved at having emerged from Angyalföld with his functions uninhibited,
Gyuri was waiting outside the Nyugati
station to change trams to deliver the dress, when a group of five youths his
age came up and one, without any preamble, with a pair of scissors, swiftly cut
the tie Gyuri was wearing, the last of Elek’s silk ties, the last of Elek’s
ties and the only tie then residing in the Fischer household. The trimmer then
handed over the snipped sections to Gyuri with the invocation: ‘Cerulean’.
At that
point Gyuri recalled there was a vogue in Budapest, particularly amongst those
who went round in fists of five, for prowling the boulevards with a pair of
scissors to amputate ties and then to say ‘cerulean’. The tie hadn’t been a
great tie, the design hadn’t really been to Gyuri’s taste and there had been of
late a painfully visible soup stain on it, but the desire to punch the
scissor-operator in the mouth had been quite breathtaking in its intensity,
especially since he was clearly expecting Gyuri to have a laugh over the
dividing of his tie. Gyuri thought how much he would enjoy punching him in the
mouth, then he thought how much he wouldn’t enjoy getting it back as a fivefold
minimum. He resorted to what he hoped was a look of contempt. The five got on
the next tram remarking
how some people had no sense of humour.
* * *
When,
at Faragó’s suggestion, they switched to chocolate ice cream, Gyuri knew it was
all over.
Ladányi
and Faragó had warmed up with a couple of litres of bean soup before moving on
to the main course – fried chicken – its consumption meticulously measured on the
scales. ‘We in Hálás have always been famous for our fried chicken,’ Faragó
rambled
morning, pocketing a knife on account of Angyalföld’s notoriety but as he
turned the corner into Jasz utca, he couldn’t help noticing two men fighting
with what could only be described as cutlasses, long heavy swords of the type
favoured by Hollywood pirates. A semi-circle of barefoot spectators were
monitoring, not greatly impressed by the quality of the hacking. Carrying a
knife wouldn’t have helped, the result would have been that he would have had
his knife stolen as a supplement to getting stabbed, and a good knife like
everything else was hard to get in those days.
Gyuri
had lots of time to ruminate on how his untimely, unremarked demise on the
streets of the Angyalföld would be due to his yearning to let his gaze ski down
Katalin’s smooth slopes, killed by curiosity about a bald cat. He had also
ruminated on his way up to the fifth floor, how people he visited always lived
on the fifth floor of liftless buildings. The dressmaker, a sprightly lady of
eighty plus, clearly of the work-twelve-hours-a-day-till-you-drop variety, and
who was cosily unaware of what went on in the rest of Angyalföld, congratulated
Gyuri on the cut of his trousers. The trousers were the last pair of Elek’s
Savile Row trousers, indeed the only fully-qualified trousers that Elek had
left, lent to Gyuri since Elek had come to the conclusion that he wasn’t
getting out of bed that day, or that should he rise, he wouldn’t be progressing
beyond the armchair. The dressmaker bustled away to prepare the dress for its
journey while Gyuri reflected how sad it was that she couldn’t bequeath her
industry to him.
It was
as he rushed back to the tram that he chanced on Ladányi talking with some of
the Angyalföld’s denizens patiently listening to him. They patently considered
Ladányi as someone who had stepped down from the moon. Ladányi seemed slightly
peeved at being caught in the act of doing good, but he accompanied Gyuri to
the tram and reluctantly disclosed that he haunted Angyalföld before the first
mass of the day. It was the sheer lunacy of his faith, Gyuri thought, that
enabled Ladányi to leave with all his physical workings intact. Greatly
relieved at having emerged from Angyalföld with his functions uninhibited,
Gyuri was waiting outside the Nyugati
station to change trams to deliver the dress, when a group of five youths his
age came up and one, without any preamble, with a pair of scissors, swiftly cut
the tie Gyuri was wearing, the last of Elek’s silk ties, the last of Elek’s
ties and the only tie then residing in the Fischer household. The trimmer then
handed over the snipped sections to Gyuri with the invocation: ‘Cerulean’.
At that
point Gyuri recalled there was a vogue in Budapest, particularly amongst those
who went round in fists of five, for prowling the boulevards with a pair of
scissors to amputate ties and then to say ‘cerulean’. The tie hadn’t been a
great tie, the design hadn’t really been to Gyuri’s taste and there had been of
late a painfully visible soup stain on it, but the desire to punch the
scissor-operator in the mouth had been quite breathtaking in its intensity,
especially since he was clearly expecting Gyuri to have a laugh over the
dividing of his tie. Gyuri thought how much he would enjoy punching him in the
mouth, then he thought how much he wouldn’t enjoy getting it back as a fivefold
minimum. He resorted to what he hoped was a look of contempt. The five got on
the next tram remarking
how some people had no sense of humour.
* * *
When,
at Faragó’s suggestion, they switched to chocolate ice cream, Gyuri knew it was
all over.
Ladányi
and Faragó had warmed up with a couple of litres of bean soup before moving on
to the main course – fried chicken – its consumption meticulously measured on the
scales. ‘We in Hálás have always been famous for our fried chicken,’ Faragó
rambled
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