"Doctor Criminale" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Malcolm)6 Budapest is not one city but two . . .Budapest is, of course, really not one city at all, but two. Unlike Vienna, which has hidden the Danube away in a culvert on its fringes, Budapest allows the great river — brown, wide, and fast-flowing by now, as it floods on southward and eastward — to surge through its middle, dividing it into two refracting capitals, looped together by great bridges, which stare across its waters at each other. High old Buda looks down from its hilltops onto flat nineteenth-century Pest; lowdown Pest stares up at the castle, the battlements, the double hills and deep valleys of ancient Buda. But when my taxi reached the hotel that Lavinia had booked for me that morning back in Vienna, I discovered that I was staying in neither of these places. My hotel lay in the very centre of the river, on Margaret Island, reached by a zigzag bridge, a quiet green corner that made an excellent resort for lovers and joggers, summer walkers and playing children, and no doubt, in the older, darker times just behind us, colluding spies and conspirators. Back in the days of the Dual Monarchy and the I checked in and got my key in the hotel’s now smart lobby, and changed Austrian schillings for Hungarian forints. Then a slow sad elevator took me upstairs to the long, many-bedroomed corridor, smelling of sulphur and chlorine, on which I hunted for my room. I found it at the very end, one of the smaller suites; even at the former Grand Hotel of Budapest, Lavinia had done all she could to make sure I had not ended up in total luxury. Nonetheless it had a tiny balcony, a view over the fast-flowing Danube, and an enchanting misty glimpse of fairytale battlements on the hillside above. I could not complain. I unpacked a little, sat down at the desk, picked up the telephone, and called the number of Sandor Hollo, which Gerstenbacker had given me. There was a dull dragging sound, then a crackling answer-phone message in Hungarian, one of the world’s most obscure languages, with the exception of African Click, then a quick flourish of Bartok, then the dragging sound resumed. I tried for most of the afternoon. From what Gerstenbacker had told me, I had assumed that Sandor Hollo was a teacher of philosophy at the university, and so I imagined that he was even now closeted with his students, lecturing to his classes, sitting over books in the university library, or doing whatever university teachers do if they are not Professor Otto Codicil. Still, I kept on trying, on the half-hour, until I saw that November darkness had begun to fall over the river, and bright floodlights were now picking out the battlements and buildings on the high Buda bank. So now I gave up, made my way downstairs, and went over to the hotel bar for a drink. Here, on the barstools, I found myself surrounded by a group of Hungarian beauties, all of them wearing mini-dresses and leather boots that came up over their knees. They sat with their drinks and eyed me with the greatest curiosity. I quickly finished my beer, and went over to the maître d’ at the entrance to the dining-room, to ask for a table for dinner. The maître checked a plan that lay in front of him on his lectern-like desk. ‘I suppose you are with a film, sir, yes?’ he asked me. ‘Well, I am, that’s right,’ I said. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Well, sir, tonight we have BBC making That night I slept very peacefully (and also entirely singly) in my bed somewhere in the middle of the great River Danube. In the morning I woke early, and looked out of my window. There were sweatsuited joggers already jogging on the tracks outside, towelled bathers already on their way to their sulphurous pleasures. Fishermen fished, birds dipped and darted, long low Russian cruiseboats slid by on the river, to-ing and fro-ing between here and the Black Sea. I picked up the telephone and dialled my number again, and this time someone answered: ‘Hollo Sandor.’ ‘I believe you can help me,’ I said. ‘Yes, I think so,’ he said. ‘I haven’t explained what it is yet,’ I said. ‘No, but I can help you,’ said Hollo Sandor. A little mystified, I explained that I was a British television film-maker working on the subject of Bazlo Criminale, and that I should like to consult him. ‘A film?’ he said, ‘Everyone makes a film in Budapest now. We are so cheap, of course. Now we are Paris, now we are Moscow, now we are Nice, now we are London, now we are Sydney, Australia. Never of course Budapest, I think they make films about Budapest in Prague. Very well, you like us to meet about your film?’ ‘If you can give me the time,’ I said, ‘I imagine you’re very busy.’ ‘For you I find the time,’ Hollo said, ‘Let us meet at noon at the Petofi statue on the Danube prospect. He is our great poet, you know, so everyone will tell you where it is. By the way, you are on expenses?’ ‘Yes, I am,’ I said. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘Then I think we will go somewhere very nice. I know all the places. I will see you at Petofi.’ I went down to the lobby for breakfast, and found there young men from several different and competing film teams, who were packing into vans and trailers the actors and extras, the clapperboards and cameras, the blondes and redheads, that even I knew were the stuff of a television shoot. I imagined our own team coming out to do the same in a few weeks or months. Our Criminale project was not at all unusual. As Hollo had said, these days everyone was shooting films in Budapest. When I had taken breakfast, I caught the tram into Pest, and found myself walking round a city where, it was very clear, history had been changing very fast. Almost all the street names seemed to have been struck out with red lines, and new names set up either above or below. Karl Marx Square, where I got off the tram, was evidently no longer Karl Marx Square. 1 did, though, discover one more enduring monument. Here in the square was Gustave Eiffel’s splendid little West railway station, as fine as I had hoped. I had not come into it because its trains went east, into the Puszta and to Transylvanian mystery. It was probably from here that Bram Stoker’s innocent Jonathan Harker started, when he chose to take his unfortunate summer holiday in the land of Vlad the Impaler, in the book whose hundredth anniversary was due, like so much else, very shortly. What he would not have seen in those days was the new addition that had been made to the building. Tucked onto Eiffel’s station was the emporium of McDonald’s Hamburgers, a handy meat dish that might have saved Count Dracula a lot of trouble. I turned and walked along the fine boulevard of the Lenin Ring, now no longer called the Lenin Ring, but Terez Korut. Here the stucco and balconies were pitted with bullet holes, perhaps from the war, perhaps from the Hungarian uprising; the shops below sold Sony Walkmen and Mannesmann computers, as well as stamps, marzipan, and flaky pastry. In a mahogany and marble café of perfect style, where nothing — not even the contents of the sugar bowl — seemed to have changed since the turn of the century, I sat down among lovers and old ladies in big fur hats and had good coffee and ice-cream, in a world where it seemed Marx, Lenin and their friends had never been. Then it was time to make my way down to the Petofi statue on the Danube prospect, evidently one of the few surviving statues in Eastern Europe, and wait for Sandor Hollo. When I found him at last, he was not at all what I expected. I had imagined a small, intense philosopher, probably carrying a worn leather briefcase and engaged in abstruse thought. Instead a young man in a dashing white raincoat, blonde highlights tinted into his dark hair, passed me by three times, glancing over significantly in what I assumed was erotic invitation. Finally he walked directly over to me and held out his hand. ‘You are Franz Kay?’ he asked. ‘No, it’s Francis Jay, actually,’ I said. ‘Jay or Kay, it makes no different,’ he said, ‘Unless you are Kafka. I am to me Hollo Sandor, to you Sandor Hollo. It makes no different either. What is a name? And so you like to talk to me about your film.’ ‘I was told you could help me,’ I said. ‘I think not here,’ he said, glancing at the crowd, ‘Excuse me, but old habits die hard. In any case I know a very nice place over in Buda for your expenses. Don’t worry, I have a good car, by the way.’ ‘Fine, then, let’s go,’ I said. ‘One moment,’ he said, ‘Before we leave our excellent Petofi, one small lesson in Hungarian. Look across the river. Do you see those two hills?’ Yes, I did indeed. ‘On Gellert Hill, on the left, do you see the monument with the winged victory on the top? That is our monument of grateful thanks to the Russian soldiers who liberated us so kindly. Put up, of course, by those Russian soldiers. And now, on Castle Hill, to the right, do you also see a great white building?’ I did. ‘That is our monument of grateful thanks to the American people who sent us so much of their precious Coca-Cola,’ said Hollo, ‘Put up, of course, by those same American people. It is the Budapest Hilton. In Hungary we have learned one thing very well History is either one of these, or the other. This year we are all for the Hilton. Why not? Hollo nodded gravely to me and led me over to his car, a shiny red BMW with racing stripes and rear spoiler, which he had parked flamboyantly right across the pavement. ‘Ultimate Driving Machine,’ he said, ‘Please get in. By the way, you can smoke in here. This is not the West, it is a free country.’ I sat in the low front seat, and Hollo scorched off, round the square and up over the Elizabeth Bridge, dodging between clanging yellow trams and slow chugging Trabants. Over on the further bank of the river, he pointed to a large decorated piece of concrete that stood among the trees. ‘Piece of the Berlin Wall,’ he said, ‘They sent it to us because we opened our borders and let out the Germans. You know here was where the great change started. The He looked at me and laughed. ‘Believe me, if I drive this, I don’t do that,’ he said, ‘Do you know how much a university teacher gets in my country, maybe one-sixth of what you would make in the West. No, I am a juppie.’ ‘What is a juppie?’ I asked. ‘You don’t know?’ he said, ‘Very mobile young businessman.’ ‘Oh, a yuppie,’ I said. ‘You didn’t notice my red braces?’ he asked, and began patting items in the car, ‘CD player, equalizer, central lockings, even Filofax. We have seen on television here your “Capital City” and know how it is done.’ ‘Well, very nice,’ I said. ‘And how is your Iron Lady?’ he asked, ‘Very well, I hope. Still for the free market?’ ‘She resigned from office a couple of days ago,’ I said, ‘I just read about it on the train.’ ‘You get rid of her?’ he asked, ‘No, I don’t believe it.’ ‘It’s been eleven years,’ I said. ‘Nothing,’ said Hollo, ‘Okay, please, send her here quick. We love her, we need her. Better than these ones we have here, with twenty heads and only half a brain.’ ‘Unfortunately I don’t think it’s allowed,’ I said. ‘Of course not, national treasure, not for export,’ said Hollo, ‘Now here we get out.’ We had driven up to the top of the hill, through tree-lined streets past fine merchants’ houses, and now we stopped somewhere between the Saint Matthias church and the Budapest Hilton, which between them dominated the heights. ‘Over here, Fisherman’s Bastion, you have heard of it?’ asked Hollo, ‘It is what everyone remembers of Budapest.’ Fisherman’s Bastion was the delightful concoction of battlemented walls and fairytale turrets I had been looking up at from my hotel window below. From it you had, in turn, a fine view over Margaret Island, the traffic of the flowing Danube, the spread of Pest, the Parliament Building, the power station, the high ugly workers’ highrise blocks in the distance, and then the plain stretching out beyond. Near us, artists and potters, embroiderers and woodcarvers, sold their wares, and a moustached Magyar musician in baggy white trousers played his pipes. ‘Ah, yes,’ I said, ‘It’s called one of the great views of Europe, and it is.’ ‘Charming, yes,’ said Hollo, lighting a cigarette, ‘And now you see our trick. Here we have built a great European city, two in fact, one old and one new. Our only problem is our European cities are not in Europe at all. Budapest is Buenos Aires on the Danube, all a pretend.’ ‘How is it a pretend?’ I asked. ‘First, nearly all these buildings were not designed for here at all,’ said Hollo, ‘See there our lovely Parliament, down by the river, which hardly meets, by the way. The architect loved your House of Commons, so he made us one. The Chain Bridge, built by a Scotsman in a kilt. Eiffel from France made the railway station. Our boulevards are from Paris, our coffee houses from Vienna, our banks are English, the Hilton American. You see why they make films here, ewe are everything. And this old castle, Fisherman’s Bastion, from which nobody has ever fished, by the way, was built as a fantasy at the turn of the century. So you see it is Disneyland, and we are Mickey Mouse.’ ‘I think it’s a magnificent city,’ I said. ‘I too,’ said Hollo, ‘A great unreal city. You know two million people live in Budapest, and every one is a European, when they are not being Magyar nationalists. All are artists, intellectuals, actors, dancers, filmmakers, great athletes, fine musicians. Unfortunately just for the moment, they drive a taxi, but one day . . . Then go out into the Puszta, and you will see Europe has stopped. The peasants have carts with horses, there are men in sheepskins herding flocks of ducks. Or look down the Danube a little, you will find great marshes and old women squatting by the river, washing clothes in the mud. That is Hungary. Two million intellectuals, eight million peasants, and only one thing in common. Barak palinka, peach brandy. So let us go and have some palinka, and you can explain me your film.’ Hollo led me down from our viewpoint and back between the Cathedral and the Hilton, into a smart square beyond. Fine merchants’ houses with great rounded coachdoors surrounded the square, and Hollo went into the courtyard of one of these. Then he opened a door, drew aside a curtain, and ushered me inside. What lay inside was a small smart restaurant, the Restaurant Kiss. In a small tank beside the entrance black and silver fish of various edible species gasped tragically into our faces; a few neatly dressed diners sat at pleasant tables in small booths in the room beyond. Hollo tapped the side of the tank and said, ‘Fogas, from our lakes, you must try it. But first palinka.’ A waiter in an embroidered short jacket served us. ‘To your good health and your fine hospitality,’ said Hollo, proudly displaying his red braces and blue striped shirt, ‘May there be plenty more of both. So you make a film about Criminale Bazlo. How can I help?’ ‘Well, I have to tell you I was expecting to meet a philosopher,’ I said. ‘I was that once,’ said Hollo, ‘Not any more. Don’t you know philosophy is dead? Not a thought in the world. Marxism-Leninism killed it here, Deconstruction in the West. Here we had too much theory of reality, there you had not enough. Now I do not expect to think the world into shape. I am not like Hegel, you remember. “So much worse for the world if it does not follow my principles.” No, now I am a pragmatist and I do something else.’ ‘What do you do?’ I asked. ‘I just told you about the ‘That could be useful,’ I said, ‘But before that you were a teacher of philosophy at the university, yes?’ ‘At Eötvös Lorand, yes,’ said Hollo, ‘I taught Marxist theory, socialist correctness.’ ‘So what you do now is very different,’ I said. ‘A bit, but not exactly,’ said Hollo, smiling, ‘You see, Marx believed in the great historic progress of materialism. Unfortunately he did not know how to make it work. I know a little bit how to make it work.’ ‘And Bazlo Criminale, wasn’t he at the university too?’ I asked. ‘Yes and no,’ said Hollo, ‘He taught a little, but he was famous member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, so we did not see him very much.’ ‘But you knew him well?’ ‘Not exactly,’ said Hollo, ‘In those days you knew nobody well. It was wise to know people only a bit.’ ‘So you taught here at the University but then you went to Vienna?’ I asked. ‘After Marxist theory, socialist correctness, wouldn’t you?’ asked Hollo. ‘So it was that easy?’ ‘Well, it was arranged,’ said Hollo, ‘With help and a little influence such things are often arranged.’ ‘And then in Vienna you became Professor Codicil’s assistant and wrote his book on Criminale?’ I asked. Hollo stopped swirling his second brandy, and looked hard at me. ‘Why do you ask these questions? Are you some kind of policeman?’ ‘No, a journalist,’ I said, ‘I’m just researching Bazlo Criminale.’ ‘Only for your film?’ ‘Just for the film,’ I said, ‘But the trouble is, the man’s so elusive. None of the facts seem correct. That’s why I need to know who wrote the book.’ Hollo looked at me and said, ‘Well, I tell you, I did not.’ ‘Does that mean Codicil wrote it himself, after all?’ That old devil, you don’t think so?’ said Hollo, ‘No, Codicil did not write it either.’ ‘So there’s someone else,’ I said, ‘Who was it? Do you know?’ The waiter brought cutlery to the table, but Hollo said something to him, and he went away again without setting it down. ‘Well, of course I know,’ he said, after the waiter had moved away, ‘And you don’t guess?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘But of course,’ said Hollo, ‘It was Criminale Bazlo.’ ‘But it’s not an autobiographical book,’ I said, ‘In fact it’s very critical.’ ‘This is true, of course,’ said Hollo, ‘But still it was Bazlo.’ ‘You’re telling me he wrote a book that was deeply critical of himself?’ I asked. ‘Yes, why not?’ asked Hollo. This all seemed too difficult; I switched to something else. ‘All right, why didn’t he publish it here? Why did it have to come out in the West, in Vienna?’ ‘If you call that the West,’ said Hollo, ‘It is also Mittel-Europa.’ ‘That’s true,’ I said, ‘But why didn’t he use his own name? What made him use Codicil’s?’ ‘I see you know a few things,’ said Hollo, ‘Maybe you know a famous essay by the Frenchman Roland Barthes, called “The Death of the Author”?’ ‘Yes, I like it,’ I said, ‘The death of the author is what permits the birth of writing. But what’s that got to do with it?’ ‘You know, I would like to write a better essay, called “The Hiding Away of the Author”,’ said Hollo, lighting up another cigarette, ‘About the author who is here and not here. About the book that exists, and does not. About the reader who is present in one place and not in another. About the text that says and does not say. Do you know Lukacs?’ The great Marxist intellectual,’ I said. ‘If you say so,’ said Hollo, ‘I call him the danger artist. You know he would write a preface to one of his books in the third person, to show he was not the same Lukacs who had written it, and it was only by some curious misfortune the book had appeared at all. Here we know all about the art of the danger artist.’ A small girl appeared by the table, selling roses wrapped in Cellophane. Hollo waved her away. ‘She mistakes us for lovers,’ he said. ‘So you’re saying Criminale wanted the book to appear, but he didn’t want certain people to know it had appeared?’ ‘No,’ said Hollo, ‘Criminale didn’t want the book to appear in case it did him harm, but he wanted it to appear in case it did him good. He made it appear that he did not want it to appear. But when it appeared he made it appear that he could do nothing.’ ‘You’re beginning to lose me,’ I said, ‘Are you telling me that Criminale sat here in Budapest and wrote a book critical of himself, got you to take it to Vienna, and then Codicil allowed it to come out under his name?’ ‘Not exactly,’ said Hollo. ‘Then what?’ I asked. ‘I am telling you that a certain Criminale, at a certain time, wrote a book about another certain Criminale,’ said Hollo. ‘I see,’ I said, though I didn’t. ‘And then that book went somehow to Vienna, don’t let us discuss how,’ said Hollo, ‘He often went there himself, after all, and difficult papers and other things were crossing those frontiers all the time. Even the regime permitted it in certain cases, when it suited them. Of course in Vienna some changes were made. When times change books must change. So it became a book about another Criminale.’ ‘And you made the changes?’ I asked. ‘I think I updated things by just a little,’ said Hollo. ‘And so where did Codicil come into all this?’ I asked. ‘Oh, Codicil,’ said Hollo, ‘He was the big man, always talking to ministers and financiers, another fixer of a different kind. He went everywhere, to lodges and clubs. Vienna is full of those important people. So of course he had no time for any of it.’ ‘Yet the book came out under his name,’ I said, ‘Why was that?’ ‘Many reasons,’ said Hollo, ‘He knew Criminale, they had some links. I was his assistant. And this was the right way to get it published.’ ‘You mean he did it to help a friend?’ I asked. Hollo laughed. ‘I see you do not know Codicil,’ he said, ‘Maybe rather to hurt an enemy.’ ‘What enemy?’ I asked. ‘How do I know?’ asked Hollo vaguely, ‘This man had so many. Oh, look, wonderful, she is here!’ I turned round, to see what he had seen. The door curtain to the restaurant had lifted; in the entrance, a slim tall girl stood, looking around. She was blonde, blue-eyed, a Hungarian beauty; she wore a short furry topcoat over a blue mini-dress. Hollo waved at her; she waved back. ‘Oh, I just forgot to mention,’ he said, ‘I told a friend of mine you would buy her lunch. You don’t mind, I hope?’ I looked over at the girl, who was taking off her coat and hanging it; she was very attractive. ‘I don’t mind at all,’ I said. The girl walked through the tables towards us; first she embraced Sandor Hollo, then she turned and smiled at me. ‘So how are you?’ she said. Hollo leapt up: This is Mr Jay or Kay, I don’t remember.’ ‘Francis,’ I said. ‘And this Hazy Ildiko,’ he said, ‘You are late, darling, always late. And this man is asking me such questions about Criminale Bazlo.’ ‘Oh, really, Criminale Bazlo, do you really like him?’ she asked me, sitting down. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said, ‘I’m just trying to find out about him.’ ‘Another,’ said Ildiko. ‘He makes a film and asks so many questions,’ said Hollo, ‘I will go to the waiter and order some food and wine, yes?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said Ildiko. ‘The best of course,’ said Hollo, ‘You know our friend is a very rich man?’ ‘Not exactly,’ I said. ‘Talk to her,’ said Hollo, patting my shoulder, ‘By the way, Ildiko is the editor who publishes the books of Criminale.’ Ildiko looked at me from the other side of the booth and laughed. ‘So you know Sandor,’ she said, ‘What a rogue, don’t you think? You mustn’t believe a thing. He is always in trouble, no one knows what to think about him.’ ‘Criminale’s publisher,’ I said, ‘Are you really?’ ‘Yes, this is almost true, I am a bit,’ said Ildiko, ‘But for my little house he is already too famous. Today-he writes in German or English. His books come out first in Stuttgart or New York.’ ‘But some of his books?’ I asked. ‘Yes, we published him early, when he was not so great, so he lets us make the Hungarian translation. We think he is a Hungarian, even if he does not. Of course now in the free market it is very-hard for us. Luckily we have our impossible language.’ ‘Does that mean you know him well?’ I asked. ‘Please, do you talk all the time about Criminale?’ asked Ildiko, ‘What about football, the weather?’ ‘Do you know what he’s doing now?’ I asked. ‘I think he makes a big book, but he does not like to talk to me about it,’ said Ildiko. ‘You mean you’ve seen him lately?’ ‘Of course,’ said Ildiko. ‘About two weeks.’ ‘Two weeks ago?’ I asked, ‘Where, here in Budapest?’ ‘Yes, he keeps an apartment here,’ said Ildiko, ‘If you are so interested, why don’t you meet him?’ ‘Is that possible?’ I ask. ‘I think so,’ said Ildiko, ‘And then you don’t have to ask me so many questions.’ When Hollo came back to the table, he was followed by the waiter, who set the table for a meal as we talked. ‘I ordered the perfect meal,’ said Hollo, sitting down in his red braces, ‘Goose livers, followed by fogas. Best Balaton wine, no expenses spared.’ ‘Very good,’ said Ildiko, ‘Sandor, your friend says he would very much like to meet Criminale. Why don’t we have this lunch and then go there in the Ultimate Driving Machine?’ As she said this, she looked over at me and smiled. Hollo frowned. ‘No, not such a good idea,’ he said. ‘Why not?’ asked Ildiko, glancing again at me. ‘You know very well,’ said Hollo, ‘Criminale does not like me any more.’ ‘He doesn’t trust you any more,’ said Ildiko, ‘But if you come with an important foreign visitor . . .’ ‘How do you even know he would like that?’ said Hollo, ‘If you insist to go, I will wait outside, in the car. I do not want to meet him. Besides, he will be away, he is always away.’ ‘You see?’ said Ildiko, smiling at me, ‘In Hungary a student never loves his teacher. That is because the best way to succeed is to denounce him.’ ‘I did not denounce him,’ said Hollo, ‘Only I disputed his grasp on correct historical reality.’ ‘It’s the same,’ said Ildiko, ‘Never mind, everyone does it.’ ‘He does not forgive me,’ said Hollo. ‘He will have forgotten, darling, of course,’ said Ildiko, ‘He is a big man and has more things to think of than little Hollo Sandor.’ ‘Bitch!’ said Hollo. ‘Pig!’ said Ildiko, looking delighted. ‘Wonderful fish,’ I said, uneasy. ‘You are making a scene in front of our host,’ said Hollo, ‘Didn’t I fix you up a nice lunch?’ ‘You are a beautiful boy,’ said Ildiko, reaching out and stroking his cheek, ‘Just, nobody trusts you!’ ‘Okay, okay, we will go after,’ said Hollo very grudgingly, ‘I just know he will not be there anyway.’ ‘You see, I knew he really wanted to take you,’ said Ildiko, smiling brightly at me, ‘Now, is it true you are making a film? I would love to make a film, especially a film with travel.’ ‘So far it’s been no film and all travel,’ I said. ‘Maybe I can help you,’ said Ildiko. ‘Maybe we both can help you,’ said Hollo. ‘This one, who thinks he knows everything,’ said Ildiko. And so we talked on, through a long and excellent meal. At the end of it, the bill came, and I suddenly thought of Lavinia. I checked the paper, and saw with relief that by Lavinia’s lavish West End standards it must have come to no more than the price of a first-rate after-the-opera snack. We went outside, into the square. Here Ildiko stopped on the pavement, and stuck her arm through mine. ‘We will just wait here, and you can bring to us your Ultimate Driving Machine,’ she said to Hollo, who walked off, his coat collar turned up, toward the Saint Matthias church. This fine philosopher, you know how he lives now?’ asked Ildiko. ‘Fixing things,’ I said. ‘He talks to German and American businessmen in the bars and cafes, and promises he will find them some investment,’ said Ildiko, ‘Next he goes to some more bars and cafes, and talks to the government officials, telling them he can find them hard currency and takeovers. So a little bit here, a little bit there, and everyone has something. Be a little cautious.’ ‘I am,’ I said, ‘But he’s very helpful.’ ‘You know, once he believed in the heroic future of the people, the great progress of history,’ said Ildiko, ‘Now what does he believe in? Video-recorder, mobile phone, fashion suit, the Ultimate Driving Machine.’ ‘What does he call himself, a ‘I’m sure he is,’ I said, ‘So what happened?’ ‘Oh, the student accuses the master,’ said Ildiko, ‘He is not reliable, not politically is in some troubles, but these things are always difficult. People take sides, there are battles everywhere. Then someone wins, someone loses. Sandor thought he had won, he always thinks that. Criminale came to him and said these things are not nice, let us make some peace, I find you a very nice job in Vienna. But when Sandor came back again to Budapest, he found his post here was no more. Now you see why he does not want to go to Criminale, they have this bad history together. But Sandor likes to do anything for me. Oh look, here it is, Ultimate Machine. I go in the front and show him the way, if he has forgotten. And I think you get in the back and shut your eyes, you know how he drives.’ So I sat in the back of Hollo’s car as it raced in a zigzag back down the streets of the hillside, then through a tunnel under the castle, then across the Chain Bridge over the Danube and into Pest. Hollo and Ildiko bickered in the front: were they lovers, old student friends, just useful contacts for each other? It occurred to me that, now I was in their Hungarian world, the whole story of Criminale, which had bothered me so much in London, was perhaps nowhere near as obscure and mystifying as I’d thought. Here too was a world where history was always changing, where old battles and allegiances had played, where people were always having to remember and handle and reconstruct the past. Gerstenbacker had given me a fine word for that — Talking at the Restaurant Kiss, Hollo had reminded me of Lukacs’s prefaces. Now I remembered one that had been written at the time of the Hungarian Uprising, when Lukacs had joined the new liberal regime, resigned in good time, been exiled by the Russian invaders to Romania, survived, come back to partial Party rehabilitation, and turned back with the tide. Perhaps it was no wonder that it seemed the most devious preface of them all. It attacked the dogmatists for not being revisionists, since revisionism was needed to put Stalin’s positive achievement in true perspective. It also attacked the revisionists for not being dogmatists, because revisionism was ‘the greatest present danger for Marxism’. As for the book it introduced, it spoke of the need for ‘critical’ realism, but refused to criticize socialist realism itself. Lukacs’s busy philosophical mind moved back and forth, but always ended up frozen in its mental prison. But the prison he chose to call reality itself, and he tried to argue his fellow human beings inside it with him. Doubting dogma and making it, Lukacs survived as a philosopher, a tainted hero to the end. If Lukacs, why not Criminale? Well, perhaps I would soon find out, at his apartment. Our car stopped at last, in some great boulevard of large, late-nineteenth-century apartment blocks, not far from the Square of the Heroes, which once, they told me, held a statue of Stalin, long gone. Ildiko got out, and we followed her, I gladly, Hollo reluctantly. We went into a courtyard hung about with washing and filled with the noise of radio folk music from the windows above. There was an entrance with a grilled doorway, and beside it a set of name cards, with some of the names scrawled over and replaced. None of the names was that of Bazlo Criminale. Ildiko rang a bell; we waited, a long time. In a society of functionaries, the person who holds the key or controls a door evidently has, if only for a moment, true power; no wonder a door takes so long to get through, a key so long to find. But at last a small elderly woman, clad in a blue nylon overall above dirty black trousers, unlocked the door slowly and pulled it cautiously back. Ildiko began to speak to her, and then Hollo turned triumphantly to me: ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘He is gone away.’ I turned to leave, but suddenly the old woman came over to me and seized me firmly by the arm. ‘She says wait,’ said Ildiko, ‘If you have come all this way from Europe, at least you must see his apartment. If you give her time, she will let us in.’ The woman smiled and nodded at me. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘I would like to.’ The woman disappeared into a small office, and hunted through more keys. Then she returned and took us to an old slow lift, with open grille sides. We rose, past dusty stairwells, dirty concrete landings, blackened old apartment doors. On the top floor, we got out, more keys were turned, and then we were in the apartment of Bazlo Criminale; large, airy, and fine, with big french windows and a view of the park on one side and the Buda hills on the other, a world away from the world outside. There was old furniture, good pictures, a grand piano. On the piano were many silver-framed photographs: of children, adults, young women, older women, and a good many of Criminale himself, with this person or that. ‘Criminale and Brecht,’ said Hollo, pointing. ‘Criminale and Stalin,’ said Ildiko, ‘Criminale and Nixon.’ ‘Criminale and Madonna!’ cried Hollo. ‘And these are his wives,’ said Ildiko, picking up some of the photographs, ‘You see he had quite a few of them.’ She showed me a picture of a small slim waif: ‘Pia, the first wife, German, I think, very nice,’ she said. ‘Of course she died quite a long time ago,’ said Hollo. ‘And this is Gertla,’ said Ildiko, showing me a fair-haired, strong-faced woman, ‘She was the second, I think, yes.’ ‘Yes, the second,’ said Hollo, ‘And she helped him a very big lot.’ ‘One I don’t know,’ said Ildiko, picking up a street portrait, a snapshot, on the hop, of a tall, fair-haired and fur-hatted young girl. ‘Remember somewhere there was another one, Irini, no?’ asked Hollo. ‘Another wife?’ I asked. ‘Not exactly wife, but important,’ said Hollo, ‘She died also, I am afraid he was not so lucky.’ Then Ildiko showed me a large photo of a big beautiful woman: ‘Here, look, this one is Sepulchra, his wife now, when she was younger.’ ‘Quite a lot younger,’ said Hollo, ‘And over here, see she is again. Such thighs, yes?’ He pointed to the wall. On it, hung between great shelves filled with books in French, Russian and German, English and Hungarian, were many photographs I now recognized; they were Criminale’s famous erotic nudes. ‘Are all these his wives too?’ I asked. ‘Well, some I don’t recognize,’ said Ildiko, ‘Maybe with clothes on I would. But yes, look, there is Gertla, see.’ There is Irini,’ said Hollo, ‘Very nice, ja?’ ‘And here Sepulchra, there and there and again,’ said Ildiko. I looked along the row, at the sequence of amazing, oily-looking bodies, angled and shaped. Some looked plainly at the camera, some hid their faces, some had no faces in view at all. Criminale’s tastes were certainly frank, and much of a kind; there were many models, but most were young and blonde. One even looked a little like Ildiko. ‘Quite something, yes?’ said Hollo, leaning over my shoulder, ‘Now you see Criminale did not only spend his time thinking. He liked to do some things as well.’ Then the old woman took me by the arm again, and led me through into another room. ‘His study,’ said Ildiko, ‘Oh, by the way, do not think we all live like this. Criminale is a famous academician and has a special arrangement.’ Here many more books, of art, philosophy, economics, mathematics, science, stood on the shelves. Everything was tidy and neat, like the room of a monk in a monastery. There was a locked glass case with loose-leaf folders inside. Hollo glanced in; ‘His stamp collection,’ he said, ‘Everyone in Hungary likes to collect stamps.’ Then there was a wide bookcase filled to capacity with the works — originals and translations, some in Western hardback, others in loose East European bindings — of Criminale’s own indefatigable industry: the Goethe life and The desk was tidy too, with everything put away except for some scattered papers covered in handwriting, and looking like an unfinished student essay. Perhaps it was something he had been working on, only to be interrupted when he went away. I moved closer to try and read; the old lady waved her finger at me. ‘She says you may look, but you may not touch,’ Ildiko said. ‘Would you ask her for me where he’s gone, whether there’s any way I could find him?’ I asked her. Ildiko and the old lady began a long and excited conversation. Meanwhile Hollo opened another door, and summoned me over with his finger. ‘His boudoir,’ he said. There was a large bedroom, in it a big bed with wooden head and foot. The walls were all covered either with modern paintings or erotic line drawings; there were also more of his photographs. ‘Quite something,’ said Hollo, ‘You know for one who thinks he lives a little well. Not quite a monk in a cloister, I think.’ ‘She know nothing,’ said Ildiko, coming over, ‘He is gone away for a long time on some projects. Well, you will not see him, but at least you see what he sees.’ She pointed out of the window: at the park, the Buda hills, the long boulevard below, running back toward Pest. ‘In 1956 he would see the Russian tanks come up this street. Then the times after, good and bad, the times of compromise, as Kadar called them. And always when he was here he slept at this bed, and wrote at that desk. So now you have not seen him, but nearly.’ ‘I certainly feel I know him a bit better,’ I said. ‘Okay, enough,’ said Hollo, ‘Let’s go. I think maybe you give that lady a little something. Money, cigarettes, I don’t know.’ I held out some money, but the old lady sharply refused. ‘She doesn’t take anything,’ said Ildiko, ‘She says she is proud to show you the home of a great man from our country. She hopes you have learned a little.’ ‘I have,’ I said. Not much later, the Ultimate Driving Machine zigzagged across the bridge to Margaret Island and dropped me at my hotel. I thanked Sandor Hollo and said I hoped we would use his services one day; I said goodbye, with an embrace, to Ildiko Hazy. Back in my room, I picked up the phone and rang Lavinia in Vienna. ‘I was just eating almond tart in the shower,’ she said, ‘You missed a brilliant opera. All the Japanese were there, recording it so they could actually listen to it when they got back home.’ ‘You found someone to go with?’ I asked. ‘Yes, of course, Franz-Josef Gerstenbacker,’ said Lavinia, ‘He’s quite a little raver, isn’t he, that one. So how’s wherever you are now?’ ‘I’m in Budapest,’ I said, ‘And listen, I almost met Doctor Criminale.’ ‘You did what?’ asked Lavinia, ‘You mean you’ve found him at last?’ ‘Not quite,’ I said, ‘He’s been here, he has an apartment, but he’s gone again.’ ‘Then find him, Francis,’ said Lavinia, ‘And when you do, nestle in his bosom like a viper.’ ‘I tried,’ I said, ‘He’s gone abroad again, on some project. His caretaker doesn’t know where, he could be anywhere.’ ‘Now look, there must be someone who knows where he is,’ said Lavinia, ‘His mother, his mistress, the man at the post office. Don’t lose him now. Leave no stone unturned.’ ‘You’d like me to take another couple of days?’ I asked. ‘Why not?’ said Lavinia, ‘You’re not doing anything else. Oh, by the way, you must have really upset old Codicil. Gerstenbacker says he’s told everyone in Vienna not to talk to you. And he cabled the London office and now his lawyer’s slapping some injunction on the programme.’ ‘So what happened?’ I asked. ‘Ros cabled back and told him to go to hell. He’s talking through his professorial hat. How’s your room in Bucharest?’ ‘Budapest,’ I said, ‘Oh, it’s great, a glorious view over the Danube.’ ‘Really?’ said Lavinia, ‘That means it’s costing too much.’ ‘It’s where all the film companies stay,’ I said. ‘What?’ said Lavinia, ‘That means it really 15 costing too much. Don’t eat any more meals, Francis, just have snacks. We’re on a very tight budget.’ ‘Sorry, Lavinia, I’m just on my way down to dinner,’ I said. ‘Now darling . . .’ Lavinia began, but I put down the phone. I went down to the bar and ordered a drink. The Hungarian beauties were there again, perched up on their barstools, chatting excitedly and looking over at me. I went across to the maître d’ and asked for a table. ‘I have tables for Peat Marwick,’ he said, running his finger down the list, ‘Also Dun and Bradstreet, Price Waterhorse, Cooper Lybrand. Or perhaps you are Adam Smith Institute?’ Evidently the film companies were out on the town tonight. ‘No, I’m not with a party, I’m on my own,’ I said. ‘No one should have to eat all on his own, it is too sad,’ said . the Hungarian beauty from last night, joining me again, ‘You have dollars tonight? If you have dollars I will love you really.’ ‘For two, sir,’ said the maître d’. ‘No, I’d like to eat on my own,’ I said. ‘Are you a queer person?’ asked the Hungarian beauty. ‘No, a philosopher,’ I said, ‘I just want to do some thinking.’ ‘Very well,’ said the girl, ‘You can always find me later, if you change your mind.’ So I went and sat alone in the dining-room, watching the other tables fill up with laughing accountants from London and New York, gaily spreading the delights of the free market and the international marketplace ever further eastward, even as their colleagues were beginning to feel the pinch of recession, retreat and redundancy back home. I had just ordered the goulasch I had been avoiding for two days when another Hungarian beauty in a miniskirt came over to the table and said, ‘Oh dear, are you all alone?’ ‘Yes, I rather prefer it,’ I said. ‘Really, I didn’t think so,’ she said. I looked up, and saw that she was Ildiko Hazy, standing there in her blue dress, smiling at me. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘Please sit down.’ ‘You thought I was one of those who would charge you something?’ she asked, sitting down, ‘Well, I am not.’ ‘Of course not,’ I said, ‘Have dinner with me.’ ‘I hate to interrupt you, when you are so happy at yourself,’ she said. ‘No, I’m not,’ I said, handing her the menu, ‘Have something, please.’ ‘Lunch, and now dinner,’ said Ildiko Hazy, taking the menu and looking at it, ‘You know, it is just like an affair. Do you like to know why I came?’ ‘Because you thought you’d like to see me again,’ I suggested. ‘Because I know where is Criminale,’ said Ildiko, ‘Now, what shall I have? I think anything but goulasch.’ I stared at her; she smiled back at me. ‘Say that again,’ I said, ‘You know where is Criminale?’ ‘This old lady at the apartment, she told me everything,’ said Ildiko, ‘But I didn’t like to explain it to you while Hollo Sandor was there. I do not trust him.’ ‘But you’re going to tell me now?’ I asked. ‘Well, I have first a condition,’ said Ildiko, ‘That means, if you don’t accept, then I don’t tell you, yes?’ ‘What’s the condition?’ I asked. ‘When you go there to find him, I want to go with you,’ said Ildiko, ‘I also want to find him for myself.’ ‘Do you?’ I asked, ‘Why?’ ‘Because I want him to make me a contract for his new book before he sells it to some other house here,’ said Ildiko, ‘You know it is very hard for us now, here in the free market. Once we belonged to the state, now we must try to be more private. But you know how is capitalism. Everything is money, then money and more money. Nothing is friendship, nothing is trust. But I promise if you say yes I will trust you. You will buy me a ticket, and we will both go there. Is it yes?’ I looked at her, at her blonde hair and her bright smiling face. I had to admit the idea was seriously tempting. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said, ‘It depends how far we have to go.’ ‘You are a very rich man,’ she said. ‘I am not a very rich man,’ I said, ‘I’m a television researcher on a very tight budget. I have this really mean producer.’ ‘I think I will have the smoked salmon,’ said Ildiko to the waiter, looking at me defiantly, ‘I did not think you were mean.’ ‘I’m not,’ I said, ‘I’m just like everyone else in the free market. I have to satisfy my employer.’ ‘Yes, everyone has something to keep them in place,’ said Ildiko, ‘Sometimes the secret policemen, sometimes a boss and a mortgage. Well, okay, don’t worry. It’s not so far really.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘It is not Japan, not South America,’ said Ildiko, ‘So is that all right? Don’t you love to take me?’ ‘It’s outside Hungary?’ I asked. Ildiko nodded. ‘In the West?’ She nodded again. ‘How far west?’ I asked. ‘Okay, I tell you this,’ said Ildiko, ‘It is in north Italy, not so very far at all. You know, Hollo Sandor would love to take me there, in his Ultimate Machine. And he can get me Western currency easy, with all his fixes. Don’t you feel a bit lucky I like better to go there with you?’ ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘Okay, north Italy, that’s not so bad. Let’s go! We’ll eat our dinner and then I’ll call Vienna and get them to cable us some money.’ The West, the West, he takes me to the West,’ said Ildiko, delighted, ‘Oh, by the way, just one little problem. How to get invited. He is at the Villa Barolo on Lake Cano. Maybe you know it, they say it is the best place in the world to go and write. But it belongs to an American foundation, with some great heiress.’ ‘What’s Criminale doing there?’ I asked. ‘Oh, they are holding some great international congress there, on literature and power,’ said Ildiko, ‘Of course they need Criminale.’ ‘Then how could we get in?’ I asked. ‘They would not invite me, of course,’ said Ildiko, ‘But you are an important British journalist, yes? You work on a newspaper?’ ‘Well, I did,’ I said, ‘But the newspaper I work for just closed down.’ Ildiko looked at me. ‘But do they know that at Barolo?’ she asked. ‘Come to think of it, they probably don’t,’ I said. That’s right,’ said Ildiko, approvingly, ‘Just think a little Hungarian. Say you are writing an important piece about it, send them a cable, yes?’ ‘All right, I will,’ I said, ‘When we’ve eaten this.’ Ildiko looked at the plate in front of me. ‘Ugh, goulasch,’ she said, ‘Do you know what it is made of? Dead bodies from the Danube.’ ‘I don’t believe it,’ I said. ‘Well, I lie sometimes, but only with my closest friends,’ said Ildiko, ‘Now listen, I think we must go tomorrow, or we miss the congress start. Do you like me to go later and get us some tickets for the train?’ ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘If they say we can attend.’ ‘You have dollar?’ asked Ildiko, ‘It is best in dollar. If you have dollar I will love you.’ ‘I do have dollar,’ I said, ‘But later.’ ‘But you will definitely take me to the West? Where they have all these shops?’ ‘Yes, I will,’ I said. Then it’s wonderful,’ said Ildiko. And that, as it happened, and that is most of what happened, is how Ildiko Hazy and I found ourselves the next day on another international train, from Budapest to Milan, on our way to the Barolo Congress and, we hoped, to Bazlo Criminale. |
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