Notes from Budapest

As I was making my last steps towards the top of Castle Hill, she followed my every move and was looking at me right in the eyes without lowering her own. I looked back and she just stood there nonchalantly, her eyes still on me, checking me out, smiling the most irresistible and tempting smile she could garner. I’m not sure, of course, what happened more recently: me forgetting it or she reading it, but by her looks, I’ll bet the latter is probably the more recent event. And if in fact she never read Nabokov, she should have.

Now you could have never guessed from her tall posture that she was less then half my age-- only when she stood next to her classmates in the late afternoon sun, just like them only half-listening with clear disinterest to the giddy teacher’s lecture on Hungarian architecture, did it become obvious that none of them had crossed fourteen. The boys’ faces have evidently never seen a razor, and the girls, most of them higher than the boys, were all dressed in tank-tops and t-shirts that were at one and the same time both fashionable and childish. Only she stood out from the crowd, with a colorful striped tee that left her tanned belly uncovered, white caprice pants, and an orange knitted bag that ran across her shoulder, over her long straight hair, down to her thigh. I looked back at her, letting my eyes rest on her body and catch her bright eyesight for a few seconds beyond what social convention permits men of my age. Now both mine and her faces were sanguine. Mine from the climb, hers from my undivided attention. Meanwhile, her teacher hurried the group down the site, urging them to look at one or another architectural element of the nearby cathedral. The pack started flowing down but she lingered behind, regally, still looking at me in what now became a smile of a victory foretold. I was still looking at her.
She won, like she knew she would. Like we both knew she would. A sense of worth was added to her charming smile, but as guilty as I felt I slowed down my pace and couldn’t take my eyes off her until she was out of sight. I finally neared the wall and looked beyond it from the observation deck. Both banks of the Danube opened up a few hundred feet beneath me. Welcome to Budapest, the city that blurs the lines.
In the distance, I could easily see the building of the Central European University which hosted the conference I came to attend. A conference on social economics, or was it economic sociology? Neither econ or soc are my home fields, so by corollary their intersection is far from home, both socially and economically. The CEU website describes Budapest as a varied city that can please the quiet scholar as well as the pleasure seeker. I guess that what they mean is that it works for those who want to indulge in an academic pursuit within an Austro-Hungrian style Art-Nuevo surrounding, as well as for the hedonists who are drawn to the nightlife of a generation that came of age after communism died and were prepared to make up for what their parents lost, or rather never had. In spite of my lineage that can be traced back to a family of doctors in the Keiser’s court, personally I never had much sympathy for or the Hapsburgs. Three hours after I got to town, I already finished my packed-room presentation (I always believed in tight time-schedules and popular jokes at America’s expense in the presence of Europeans). What is more, confusing the zero-abundant local currency by a factor of ten, I accidentally drew $800 in Florins out of the airport ATM. I could still feel the bundle of notes in my pocket. In a city in which the local beer costs one dollar a pint, nightlife never looked more promising.
Walking down the hill I tried to explain to myself why, beyond this Lolita, the city seemed so enticing, so electrifying in its bitter-sweet dangerousness. Partly, I reckoned, it was a feeling induced by the tensions exhibited everywhere, partly because it was a city whose chastity belt was already broken. The trains ran too close to the cars and the people, the main road to the airport amounted to what would be a cheap country road in the States. Even when brought together, the two single beds in my modest conference center room were not as wide as the bed in which I was used to sleep at home. Public transportation worked on an honor system. For most young (but honor-less) Hungarians I met this meant it was practically free. For the two American girls with whom I traveled the next day it meant a big fine from a tall high cheeked blond girl wearing a red inspector armband and conducting surprise checks on the tram.
But beyond all these were two characteristics that caught my eye and arrested my imagination. Save for a few churches and the parliament house, almost all the architectural landmark buildings downtown carried huge neon signs announcing brands of Western or South-Asian products; save for the extra busty women, many of the girls found it unnecessary to wear bras. Capitalism has spoken in central Europe of the Nineties: the Wall came down, the signs went up, the bras came off. I wasn’t sure what seemed more unreal: an enormous Toyota sign in Moskva Plaza, or the scent of unrestrained, natural sexuality in the summery streets.
Back in a conference reception dinner, I had a chance to experience Hungarian cuisine. The key ingredient in starters, entrées and deserts alike was, not less, whipped cream in various forms. It actually perfectly matched my meatless carbless diet, but left most low-fat carnivores astounded and hungry. As a result, a large group of us decided to go for an early after party a few blocks away. Few situations in life offer a better demonstration of the problematic concept known as ‘collective action’ more than selecting a restaurant with twenty of your not-closest friends. The sociologists soon took a step back to observe the economists who rapidly suggested to split the group so that we can lower the transaction costs. Naturally, none of them could suggest an appropriate division criteria, and the group just stood there in the touristy Vaci Utca, where all the venues seemed equally plausible to rip us off. Finally a Frenchman made a move, and took a table at a random location. It could have been a diplomatic affair lest the combined brain, brawn and Chutspa of three of the younger scholars (including yours truly) who didn’t wait for the waiter to ask if they could move the rest of the tables outside to form one long banquet. Finally, when the entire group which now grew to become twenty five member strong sat down, we discovered that the kitchen was closed so we preceded without any further pause to drinking cheap Hungarian Champaign on an empty stomach. I must confess, the too-sweet bubbly wine works quite nicely with the whipped cream inside ones abdomen; the combined effect is a light-headedness of the most pleasant kind without the need for repeat visits to the men’s room that would be the common outcome should one try to achieve the same by drinking beer.
By the end of several bottles of this bubbly stuff, Vaclev joined the table, a friend of a friend of Landen, one of the other grad students who used to live in Buda back in the day. It has also started raining by then, so he wasn’t hard to convince to take pity on four of us and his old buddy, and he invited us to join him to a real local hotspot on the other side of town. The six of us crammed into his small Fiat, and Vaclev maneuvered our motley crew to a place called Simplaza. When we got there, it was still raining, so the usual summer crowd was all jam-packed into the indoor space of a club that takes pride in its patio. Inside, I observed the unlikely combination of twenty-somethings chain-smoking and playing fussball for money right next to more high-cheeked slavik girls in mini-skirts that were drinking tea--for god’s sake--from white Russian cups. A few shots of local peach-schnapps later, it all looked much less weird. By that time, Patrick joined us, another one of Landen’s friends from back in the day. A good looking Corsican by origin, through his thick Southern-French accent I couldn’t figure out whether he was still living in this city or not, but it was obvious that he knew the night scene well. It was two am and time to move on. Patrick came with two local friends, both of which didn’t speak any English or German but were friendly enough to suggest in a series of translations that we all go to a party at some outdoor club in another part of town. Since their car was full, we had to take a taxi, and Patrick briefed the driver where to go. Half an hour later, still in the cab, Landen, Malcolm and I found ourselves disbelieving the unforgiving early July rain which was still pouring outside. A few minutes later we finally found ourselves at the entrance of a huge mega club called Bed Beach. When the rain suddenly ceased, and the fog cleared, I saw we were on bank of the Danube, apparently quite far from the city since it was very dark outside. We went in past three huge Igors, and saw that the complex had three dance floors, two of which were some version of floating docks, and the third, a huge tent in which were several bars, a big DJ booth, and several hundred ravers. The music was good. A vibrant combination of top 40 hits, remixed with local rock. The bar prices would make you think you were in the hip meat packing district in NYC. Madonna: meet George Sorus.
Light was coming up and the rain which earlier went away started again. I was feeling those peach-schnapps shots just right now. After several hours of dancing, my adrenaline level was so high, that I ignored Malcolm’s signs of fatigue and didn’t want to stop. Just like him though, I was getting hot. A few vodka-tonics later I found myself dancing in the rain, on a side dance floor, with Katlin, a dark movie producer, who smelled marvelously of the ocean and could teach me a move or two. As my new found friends with whom I came dragged me off the dance floor, eager to go home, Katlin kissed me good night and gave me her business card which had an engraving of a schooner on it, and swore me to call her the next night over, proclaiming she goes out every night to a different club. Little did both of us know that in the next day in Budapest my imagination would be captured by someone else.
… to be continued…