BUDAPEST LETTER
451
The town's ice-bar ,on the left, a fam.ous old church .opposite, a record
shop, a big st.ore, a cinema, a posh h.otel, the insurance c.ompany's
clock. It's all there. Yet it's imp.ossible that I sh.ould be there too. I
must be driving d.own my .own mind, the street in my mem.ory. This
can't be real pavement. I alm.ost drive through the red lights.
Because of rec.onstructi.ons, I'm channeled through back streets.
Strangely empty, paint flaking from the walls everywhere. A ghost
t.own. Then a square, brighter, then suddenly I'm passing my .old
grammar school, the gate cl.osed, .only the caretaker's wind.ow lit. Then
.our street. I can c.ount the c.orners in my mind but can't identify them
with the .ones I'm crossing. Then .our h.ouse. Six stories built around
the well .of the c.ourtyard. In the d.o.orway a smell .of bread fr.om the
bakery next d.o.or. Then a smell .of garbage. The walls .of the stair–
case as I left them, with the h.oles I'd made, screwing our key into
the plaster. Must be fifteen years, twenty perhaps. And everything s.o
small, I'm taking two-three stairs at a time, .our flat too, s.o cr,.owded,
I never knew we had s.o much furniture, so many pictures and so little
room. But m.other's happy, and so am I.
F.or days Budapest remains a film set. And film people who take
the set seri.ously. S.ome parts .of Pest (the flat, civic, half) look like the
L.ower East Side .of New Y.ork, .only m.ore decrepit and without all the
huge cars parked. And without the dirt and the beggars. It's all very
gray. Especially dull after the fresh reds and greens and yell.ows in
merry Austria. Sh.ops signs are small, hardly n.oticeable for a visit.or
used
to
Western eye-catching. And .once put up, they stay there f.or
years (Dr decades?) in the care .only .of God. S.ome ,of them are t.otally
illegible, but there's n.o competition, and the locals know anyway where
t.o g.o f.or a haircut or meat or shoes. Then I too become a local
and the whole thing ceases t.o matter.
And then I see the town, .one of the l.oveliest in the w.orld, :and I
begin t.o understand what visit.ors rave ab.out. It's my birthplace, yet
I see it .only n.ow with eyes able to appreciate it, comparing. From the
hills and by the river, its pools and squares and avenues, .open spaces
ten minutes by car. It's much smaller than New York or Lond.on,
and people all seem to know each other, at least within circles of six
or eight th.ousand, s.ocial villages spreading acr.oss the city and pr.ofes–
si.ons, and even acr.oss the country which itself is small. And yet Buda–
pest is also a capital, a political and cultural center, that aff.ords its
people their self-respect, and its sn.obs, .of wh.om there's God's plenty,
their conceit. It has vigor and a spirit that's irrepressible, if not al–
ways apparent. By daytime, its people look tired, their faces drawn.
