BUDAPEST LETTER
449
BMW's I think, c.oming the .other way. S.ome club fr.om Budapest, on
a trip, runners across the front .of each car. The r.oad thr.ough n.o
man's land is j.oined by a line .of barbed wire, watcht.owers looming.
Ridicul.oUS when pe.ople can c.ome and g.o with passports. Still they're
there, just t.o make sure. Make sure what?
At the Hungarian border they're p.olite. They talk in English,
leaving it
to
me t.o change int.o Hungarian, which I d.o, watching my
accent. They c.ontinue t.o call me Sir, and give me a map, explaining
about the best road
to
take. Walkie-talkies hang fr.om their sh.oulders.
The car is examined, they look at my camera, my radi.o and the
presents I'm taking, then I'm .off.
R.oad. Grass. Trees. St.ones. Telegraph poles. Haystacks. H.orses.
A I.orry c.oming the .other way. Driving it, people. It's all
S.o
un–
believable, f.or such a I.ong time it has been just talk, and mem.ory.
A mile inside the c.ountry
tw.o
guards with machine guns signal me
to
stop, then as I sl.oW d.own they scrutinize the car and wave it ,.on. They
too are real, gun and unif.orms.
The first village, h.ouses all yell.ow, .or seem yell.ow, the paint
sunbaked and flaking. Pe.ople's cl.othes tO.o sunbaked s.omehow, thread–
bare. Faces set. Yet healthy, and the children are playing. And there
are geese in the roadway, cropping weeds from the bank .or flatfooting
across in a hurry. I haven't seen geese in the r.oadway f.or ten years.
Past the village, a hitchhiker hails me. I'm m.ore pleased t.o pick
him
up than he can kn.ow. He mutters something, I answer in
Hungarian and soon we're talking. He's twenty, a mas.on, takes classes
in the evening, wants t.o be a building technician, eventually an archi–
tect. Seems quite happy. Planning a cycling trip thr.ough P.oland and
Czech.osI.ovakia. Says nothing about wanting t.o m.ove
t.o
the West,
th.ough he has relatives across the b.order and kn.ows that they're better
.off. Asks me ab.out the British. Is Wils.on a real socialist, a radical?
I try t.o explain that a British radical is a c.ontradiction in terms, but
all I manage is t.o give the impressi.on that I'm evading the point. "I
think socialism is like marriage," he sums up, apropos .of Wilson, and
Cuba too. "Y.oU keep dreaming ab.out it, y.oU want it, then when y.ou've
got it,
y.oU
want t.o get .out .of it." S.ound practical wisdom. On a
fact.ory wall we're passing, a slogan in letters eight feet tall faces the
W.orld. "VADOLJUK AZ IMPERIALIZMUST!" (We blame im–
perialism!) I suppose they mean Vietnam, but there's n.o indicati.on
and the words are left t.o assume a blanket permanence.
We have a drink bef.ore saying goodbye. The h.otel, the best
in t.own, is called Red Star. I hear Hungarian spoken behind me-
