["It's too lovely for it not to end in tears..."
"What, the summer...?"]

["This is where Gyurcsány belongs"]

Avagy a középosztálybeli élet kis vigaszai…

The heat haze shimmered ahead, tantalisingly out of reach like the rainbow’s end as the Hungarian expertly dodged the potholes, the uneven road testing the suspension more effectively than any manufacturer-devised simulation.  The yellow trams trundled sedately along their parallel tracks, even the prefabricated high rises seemed benign as they observed the frantic scurry below with their grey, unblinking satellite dish eyes. 

Past the melon stands, the plump wares of which were described without poetic licence as honey sweet.  Beyond the suburbs to the green-clad hills, away from the buildings which still bear the scars of the longing for freedom.  Pilisvörösvár, Pilisszentiván, heart-shaped black granite headstones on display in the gravel-strewn yards waiting patiently for the inscriptions to give them purpose.  Past the gleaming-eyed tramp foraging in the orange bins for any scraps of food near the pancake kiosk, stuffing half rotted hamburger discards into his mouth with the voracity of desperation, poignant symbol of the shift from the insidious cosseting of Állam Bácsi, the state that provided a modicum of existential security for the masses in return for ideological conformity and the obscene prospering of a small elite to capitalism in its most brutal and unalloyed manifestation where the elderly and the vulnerable are faced with the stark choice between eating or paying the utility bills.  Where many look back on oppression with the fond glow of nostalgia (at least they can complain without fear of reprisal), when the forint went further, when only the work-shy were ostracised, when the Party told you whom to applaud and who to turn away from, when you were expected to go through the motions.  Now the prevailing mood is envy and (justified) suspicion, the nouveau riche merely the most conspicuously successful asset-strippers in their unapologetic vulgarity and contempt for the less unscrupulous.  This is the country where a bank robber demanded the modest amount of five million (about £13,000) before being shot down like a dog.  His motive was not personal gain: the money was to have been spent on paying off his disabled father’s debts and preventing his forcible eviction.  One of the officers at the crime scene opportunistically pocketed 200,000 forints (about £500) of the would-be haul.  This is the country where a woman driving home alone in the small hours was pulled over on the pretext of allegedly not having fastened her seatbelt.  She was ordered down a side street and raped by two of the policemen whilst the remaining three looked on.  Having accompanied her back to her flat they threatened her with dire retribution if she dared to open her mouth (nobody will believe you anyway, you slut, it’s your word against ours), stealing 20,000 forint (£50) into the bargain (the equivalent of half a month’s worth of old age pension payments).  The incident has already become embedded in the public consciousness as demonstrated by the joke: A woman is hurrying down the street in a rough area, clutching her handbag defensively when a tall, burly man steps out of the shadows blocking her path.  “Madam, please allow me to escort you home.  This is a very dangerous part of town; it’s crawling with police”.

The streets softened by lime-green acacia drifts, a moth’s tongue sipping nectar.  Neighbours who know each other’s business, the seasonal abundance of vegetable patches and branches laden with cherries, apricots, peaches, plums, a church tower in the distance.  I notice my sun-sleeves in the shower, where the rays have conspired to join the dots, blurring one freckle into another.  I discard the duvet and the blankets, aware of the perspiration on the back of my neck and drift into oblivion to the soothing sound of his snores.

 View from the terrace

 The garden

 Garden fence

Swapping the gale force air-conditioning and sun-loungers draped with orange pool-side towels for the rocky bay and the caress of the sea breeze, transient status on display in the glisten of factor 45 on pale flesh and the wide-brimmed hat purchased moments earlier we wove our way sedately through groups of teenagers in beach attire, short skirts (the boys bare-chested) and flip-flops.

Beneath the gaze of the posters for the local brew we attempted to cross the road with no apparent crossings or traffic lights to check the anarchic progress of the buses from a different era, Leyland proudly emblazoned across their fronts, transplanted from the drizzle and the fertile green to the unremitting urban sprawl and cloudless blue.

The waitress unwrapped my sea bass from the foil in which it had been baked, excavating it expertly from the salt crust before arranging the moist fillets aesthetically on the plate. Not that the service was perfect. Her colleague, looking down his nose at us as if we were flotsam washed up on the shore had not bothered to listen to Lisa’s order in her flawless Italian (the dishes being somewhat pretentiously listed in that melodic tongue), placing a medium rare slab of meat in front of her instead of the red mullet with succulent olives. With her enviable line in steely politeness, she turned it away, forcing him to look her in the eye as he apologised (not that this redeemed him – as he was clearing away the main course, he knocked over an entire glass of white straight into the lap of our companion, MS with such force that his shirt was liberally spattered and the tablecloth soaked).

Having been forewarned the evening before that one of her periodic bouts of catharsis was imminent I had prepared myself mentally. Her appearance of strength conceals a perpetual insecurity, a self-destructive streak which impels her to test the boundaries with those who call themselves her friends, lashing out viciously with a smile (a tendency that coincides with alcohol consumption, the wine functioning as an alibi to absolve her of the excesses committed should she discover that she really has gone too far), asserting her domination. Love, even in its manifestation through friendship’s powerful affection, must be entirely on her terms. She takes pride in being untamed, yet longs for stability. Perfectly capable of filling in the forms on time she chooses not to in order to maintain her reputation as chaotic and anarchical, her protest against the superfluous irritations of excessive bureaucracy sadly detrimental to her career. An embodiment of the contradictions of longing for the consolations of a more traditional model of femininity in the full knowledge that adherence to its demands would stifle her. Like my older self, she takes great pleasure in shocking the listener, MS with his (at least projected) relative guilelessness the perfect audience.

She presented us with the dilemma tearing her apart: should she dump Patrick, with whose doe-eyed adoration she has become thoroughly bored? The question is more complicated than it might at first seem, as she claims to spend every waking moment wishing she was with her previous – married – lover, the alcoholic Michael who had messed with her head by predicting eighteen months previously that she would find herself in her current tortured state. More succinctly, the choice between settling down and pursuing a potentially dangerous passion, risking losing both. “I am not quite ready to become a mad woman with a cat,” she pronounced with complete conviction.

I patiently explained that long-term relationships require the ability to compromise and make sacrifices (specifically fidelity, though I had no need to make that explicit). MS concurred. Ultimately, Lisa was not seeking our approval, as I pointed out. What she really wanted was to know that when she emerges from the candle flame, wings singed from the heat, we will support her unconditionally without indulging in churlish “I told you sos”.

Patrick shied away from making decisions, whereas what infuriated her about Michael when still involved with him was his habit of deciding on everything without consulting her or taking her preferences into account (as shown by his restaurant bookings where he would automatically reserve a table at the Thai whereas she loathes that coconut milk drenched cuisine). Unpalatable though I knew it would be I warned her that Michael would not abandon his wife, as this would be equivalent to relinquishing the hold he had over her, a voluntary renunciation of power in a game where he desperately wanted to remain in control. Lisa’s voracious desire to “beat” her rival and exalt in her prize kept her in his thrall, in constant frustration, compliant, determined to please him, to prove that she is better, that they are made for each other. That, should she actually succeed in her objective, she would in some other Mediterranean port a few months on, pour out her woes again, about how she had made the wrong choice, how their attraction had turned sour.

Michael is a squat, ugly man with boyish curls and an air of insufferable arrogance quite typical of the suited administrators who delight in throwing their literal and metaphorical weight around. He is well-educated, but entirely self-absorbed like the addict that he is. I remember how she had to take an afternoon off work to drag him to the clinic when he poisoned himself with the booze. I have no sympathy for him, yet she feels a deep empathy that comes from having peered into the hypnotic depths of the abyss herself (Lisa drinks an average of two and a half bottles of wine a day, yet resents the reputation she has acquired amongst her colleagues as a result).

Patrick is the consummate bullshitter, applying for job after job for which he is patently not qualified, anything in order to impress her, his soft, half-mumbling voice, striking blue eyes and battered face in absolute contrast to his rival’s brashness. It is precisely his worship of Lisa that endears me to him, although I possess a certain scepticism about how long such complete besottedness can last. I agree with her that Patrick is not in her league intellectually (she lamented her own snobbery about how his children’s talents lie in music and art as opposed to more academic subjects and her amazement that his ex-wife firmly steered them away from university in order to leech off their wages). He admires her wildness, failing to understand that she occasionally wants him to admonish her gently, to keep her in check before too much damage has been done.

“But what do you want, Lisa?” MS enquired, exasperated.

“I want it all!”

She wants reassurance, the freedom to surrender her fiercely asserted autonomy, to be weak instead of in charge, to rely on the emotional resources of a partner for respite, however brief. To be cherished without her independence being fatally compromised. Neither of these men can offer her this. And I know that she will inflict pain upon herself both through succumbing to guilt over Patrick who has done nothing to deserve being cast aside and striving to assuage her restlessness with a man infinitely more selfish and needy than her (according to her, Patrick is the needy one, she refuses to see how Michael will absorb every ounce of her energy in an unfair exchange for the insubstantial convulsions of thwarted desire, the illusion of scorning convention furnished by sentiments on an allegedly grander scale).