Ferenc Karinthy - Metropole

There was a faint knocking at his door. He stopped to listen in case he was mistaken but then somebody carefully opened the door. He must have forgotten to turn the key when he checked the corridor. Whoever it was stepped in, quietly closed the door and stopped, breathing quietly. It was only now that Budai realised he had actually been expecting this, that this might have been why he had unconsciously left the door unlocked, why he felt so awake and alive despite a day of hard work. Even if he hadn’t thought it through, some part of his brain must have been aware that if there was no electricity anywhere the lift wouldn’t be working either… Simply to confirm then, and before the other had a chance to speak, he whispered:

‘ Bebebe? ’

The girl answered with an embarrassed giggle showing that she too felt a little confused. She corrected his pronunciation:

‘ Djedje… ’

Or it might have been Dede or Tyetyetye or Tete or even Tchetche because he still couldn’t quite tell what it was supposed to be. The girl did not come further into the room but continued standing by the door. It was of course perfectly understandable that she should feel awkward having entered at all. Budai had enough sensitivity to recognise this despite his own confused feelings. He got out of bed and made his way over to her in the dark. He was wearing his only pair of pyjamas, the ones he kept washing, but it was dark now and they couldn’t see each other. He bumped into her as he felt his way forward, his hand just happening to land on her breast. He quickly snatched it away, terrified that she would think him too forward. but at the same time a hot flush ran through him. It was as if the heat of Pepe’s body had transmitted itself through her bra. Her breast was firm and pert as a girl’s. It was as if he could feel her heart beating in it.

They found themselves by the bed. Where else was there to go in this tiny single hotel room, after all? She lit a cigarette and sat down beside him, her face illuminated for a moment and all the stranger for that, her hair brushed differently, neatly smoothed down. She was turned away from him, not looking at him. Suddenly she snapped the lighter shut. Maybe she thought the dark more appropriate. From that time on it was only the red glow of the cigarette that brightened as she drew on it, her outline barely visible in the glimmer. The room was slowly filling with smoke.

But the girl can’t have smoked her cigarette right down to the end. She fumbled a little and ran into the bathroom in her stockings. He could hear her moving in there as she found the tap then came the bubbling stream of water. In the meantime he locked the outside door and got back into bed.

Edede smelled of fresh soap and cologne as she got in beside him, her skin cold from the water, her whole body slightly shivering. Budai tried to warm her, grasping her frozen feet between his thighs and embracing her shoulders. Then he did all that a man should do in the circumstances, all his instincts and experience guided him to do. Veve did not resist or argue but only slowly relaxed and then not entirely. She clearly took pleasure in the act but it was as if for her too it was more important to give pleasure than to receive it. Budai was, however, the sort of person who required the full participation of the other and took little pleasure in solitary satisfaction. And he did finish a little soon. Having spent so much time alone he couldn’t contain himself.

He felt a touch ashamed as he lay beside her in the darkness. The girl broke the silence asking something as she propped herself up on her elbows and, strangely enough, he guessed immediately what she was saying: she was asking him if he did not mind her smoking. She drew the covers over herself before lighting up: she was still embarrassed by her nakedness.

And then she began speaking again, quietly, with periods of silence, timid and halting, stopping every so often to tap the ashes from her cigarette into the ashtray that Budai fetched for her from the table. Her speech became more confident as she went on. She was telling him some extended story that she might long have been wanting to tell him, something about herself or her circumstances, though she, if anyone, must have known how little he understood of her language. She became ever more animated and emotional, ever more broken, though she retained the gentle refinement of her normal voice. No sooner had she finished her cigarette than she took out a new one and lit it: whatever she was talking about must have been of a highly personal nature. Might she be talking about some specific person? But who could it be who so upset her and why did she choose to tell him now? Might it have been her husband?

Budai sought out Epepe’s hands in the darkness, first the left, then the right, tapping at her long fingers to see whether she wore a wedding ring. There was nothing there of course. He would have noticed it in the lift if she had one. She too must have guessed what he was thinking because she flicked her lighter on and reached into the handbag she had left on the bedside table. There was the ring.

Now he too asked for a light and in so far as it allowed he examined the ring, turning it this way and that. It looked to be made of gold in the usual round shape though there was no inscription inside it. The outside was engraved with thin blue lines, which was unusual for a wedding ring though it might have been one for all that. He thought he might have seen rings like this as fashionable accessories. But if that was what it really was why did she carry it about in her handbag?

Or could it be that this was the chief clue to interpreting her strange behaviour, the reason why she was so patient and willing to answer all his difficult questions, that is, apart from those that pertained to herself, meaning where she lived and her family circumstances? It might be a bad marriage that she now resented. Maybe she wanted a divorce. Was that why she did not wear the ring on her finger?

He tried to bear all this in mind as she was speaking now and, sure enough, the words suddenly seemed clearer. He could almost follow her speech, the rough drift of it anyway, the rest of it — the details — probably being pretty commonplace… It was all coming out now: her life at home, how unbearable it was, how crowded the place with relatives, dependants, uncles and aunts, not to mention the two children from the husband’s first marriage. Then the co-tenants and sub-tenants, and the invalids of whom one could never be free, those helpless sickly widows and widowers, the screaming neurotics, the filthy and intolerable drunkards, the women with their shady occupations as well as all their kids too, all of them crammed together in a tiny flat. The eternal noise, the fuss, the bickering and the chaos with not a moment’s rest — but then where to go, where else was there? The block was already full to overflowing just like every other block, there being no better flats available, only those at prices no one could afford or through some exceptional personal contact, and even if it were possible to move away, what would happen to all those invalids and old people? No marriage could survive such diabolical circumstances. Few did. Then he starts drinking, seeking consolation in liquor. He becomes ever more impossible; soon the relationship goes cold, they hardly spend any time together and are separated in all but name. She too looks to escape because even working in this madhouse, in that narrow, ugly, airless lift, is better than being at home. That is why she does not wear her wedding ring, it is why she has never wanted to talk about herself. Even now she feels guilty for betraying her husband. Nevertheless, she would like to explain to Budai what she is doing in his room because she would not want him to think of her as some loose woman of easy virtue, which she most certainly is not. But she just had to tell someone eventually. That is, if that was what she was saying and not something completely different.