Ferenc Karinthy - Metropole

He made no final decision but went down again and stood in front of the hotel, trusting to a moment of inspiration. He didn’t have to wait long for soon enough a policeman appeared pressing his way through the crowd at the edge of the pavement. Budai took a deep breath and hesitated three times to gather courage before worming his way over and choosing the most effective method of attracting the policeman’s attention. He gave the policeman a sharp jab in the ribs with his elbow. The policeman must have thought it was merely the normal bustle of traffic for he drew aside to let him pass, but Budai could not leave it at that. He was egging himself on by now and with one bold movement he knocked the policeman’s peaked cap right off his head. It exposed his low brow, shiny and red, lightly covered by a tight crop of hair. Once he realised what had happened the policeman blew angrily on his whistle then gave his assailant such a rap on the head with his rubber truncheon that Budai’s eyes misted over. A second thwack and he lost consciousness.

He woke in a small crowded place with faint light filtering through a small barred window. It must have been a police van. His head was ringing and his fingers felt two very painful bumps the size of nuts on his brow, but apart from that he felt a deep sense of satisfaction that he had achieved his aim, or in any case was well on the way to doing so. They were travelling for quite a long time, half an hour perhaps. He squatted on the low wooden seat still dizzy from the beating. It had begun to rain outside. He could hear it pattering on the roof of the van and this made him doze off again.

He woke suddenly to find they had stopped and the back doors being opened. Two policemen appeared, neither of them the one he had assaulted, and indicated that he should get off. They were in a large yard with high grey walls on all four sides where lots of uniformed and non-uniformed figures were moving to and fro. He was escorted from the van into the building and a long crowded corridor. He moved unresistingly between the two policemen, following wherever they led him but unwilling to engage in conversation with them since it would be hopeless anyway and soon there would certainly be far better opportunity to talk. It was very warm, the air heavy as in a greenhouse, stuffy and humid, not an open window in sight.

He was ushered into an office where a fat officer with a purple face and drooping moustache sat at a table covered with an ink-blotched green broadcloth. The officer’s tiny eyes were sunken and kept blinking. He was eating, cutting up a piece of gently dissolving, rank-smelling bacon that lay on a ragged sheet of paper soaked through with grease. It was unbearably hot here too and Budai couldn’t think why the place had to be kept at such a temperature and how the people who worked here could bear it. The officer gave him a sleepy look, wiped his mouth and his perspiration-covered face with a chequered handkerchief while the constables gave him a lazy salute and the one on the left babbled something, probably giving the reason for the arrest. The officer nodded slowly, audibly breathing, and without asking Budai anything, fixed his narrow, whey-coloured eyes on him, dried his greasy finger on the tablecloth then grunted something in an enquiring tone.

Now was the time, Budai judged, and took a small step forward — but stopped in his tracks. This was when he most needed his passport: it would have served as proof, as excuse and statement all at once and obviated the necessity for long explanations. He could have set it down before him and they’d know what to do… As things were, he was forced to try all the various languages and gestures he had already tried countless times before, such as pointing to himself, repeating his name, his nationality, his place of residence and requesting an interpreter. There was not the slightest glimmer of understanding in the officer’s eyes. The stuffy atmosphere was sapping Budai’s energy too. He was losing his earlier determination and the dressing on his hand, as he noticed in the heat, was soaked through with blood again, though that might have been a result of the tussle with the first policeman. The officer in the meantime had finished his bacon and had taken out a crumbling piece of rancid cheese that had already begun to sweat and melt. He set it down before him, gazed at it for a while then slowly began to consume that too. The telephone beside him was ringing but he waited before he reluctantly picked it up. His conversation consisted of a series of incomprehensible answers employing the minimum effort. Every so often he belched into the receiver while wiping his face and neck with his hankie. Once he was done with the call Budai had another go, this time a touch more insistently, beating the desk with his fist, demanding to be interrogated, to be allowed to give proof of his identity, to defend himself and explain his behaviour, and so forth… The officer simply stood up, strolled over in a leisurely fashion and with the same careless movement smacked him across the face as hard as he could, then returned to his chair, breathing hard. He slumped indifferently down again while continuing to eat. His palm was plump and soft but it must have been used to slapping people about since Budai could feel all five fingers complete with a broad signet ring. He was shocked and humiliated by this unexpected insult — the rubber truncheon had at least been expected — and fell completely silent, struck dumb by incomprehension. Nor did he put up any resistance when they handcuffed him and passed him on to another uniformed man who took away his tie, belt and shoe-laces then escorted him out of the presence of the cheese-and-perspiration-smelling officer who was presumably not only a policeman but a kind of magistrate too.

Down he went, down more endless corridors, just as crowded as the others had been to be met at a cage door near the crossing of two corridors by a tall black warder or guard. The man was dressed in the uniform he had seen about the streets: a brown jerkin, this time with a belt bearing a large ring full of keys. The policeman who passed Budai on to him must have told him he was drunk because the warder gave a laugh, showing his healthy white teeth and red gums, slapped Budai on the back in a friendly manner, removed his handcuffs and half-shoved, half-ushered him down a side passage. There was a whole row of cells here, all with the same steel doors, going a long way down. The black guard stopped at one of them, laughed again then bawled at him, indicating he should get in, helping him on his way with a push. He slammed the heavy door so hard the whole corridor was set echoing.

The cell was for two and was lit by a single bare bulb hanging from the high ceiling. One of the bunks was already occupied by a sleeping figure turned to the wall who didn’t bother to look up when Budai entered. This place too was overheated, the air damp and suffocating, the radiator constantly crackling with no means of turning it down. Budai had had a headache ever since they brought him in. It was the only thing he could think about now. Why it was so unbearably hot in here, why was there no ventilation, nor indeed any window? He lay down full length on the spare bunk, closed his eyes and waited for the shooting pains in his skull to stop.

He had probably dropped off for a while — he was feeling rather numb after the beatings — and woke to see his cellmate sitting up, watching him. He must have been another drunk; that must have been how he got here, having disturbed the peace one way or another. He was bearded, disreputable looking, middle-aged, his clothes dirty and torn, his face scarred and bruised with violet patches. He looked confused. When he noticed that Budai had opened his eyes he jabbed at him with his finger and addressed him in a deep, throaty voice, his breath stinking of alcohol.