Ferenc Karinthy - Metropole

Budai seemed to have stumbled on one of the cells of the group in command of the district, possibly the whole city. The continual coming-and-going bore witness to that. Later people brought drinks too, some of them rolling a small barrel down the steps. It was received with cheers and whoops of joy. The barrel was immediately seized, a hole sprung and the contents emptied into jugs and bottles. He was invited to take a swig from the flask that was doing the rounds: it wasn’t the sweet-sickly swill that was measured from taps in the bars but a genuine, strong, head-splitting brandy.

Another group arrived at the same time as the barrel, among them a strange, bent-looking girl with a machine gun. Her posture was so bad she might have been genuinely crippled. Her neck was short, her brow low, her face flat and simian. She looked almost simple, her eyes shining with a peculiar light that looked as though she might be suffering from cataracts. She did not drink with the rest, nor did she speak or laugh, she just examined everything, sniffing around, in constant, slow, soft, mysterious motion, checking everybody with a sly look, as if she were seeking someone in particular or waiting for someone to arrive. Perhaps she felt that her hour had arrived now she had a rifle on her back. Where did they get her from?

Just as everyone was drinking and having a good time a blond young man entered, at first almost unnoticed. Silence settled around him: slowly all conversations stopped. He simply stood on the steps, without moving or saying a word until his eyes got used to the dim light. He might have been about twenty-five, with thin pale lips, his eyes were icy grey. He was wearing a tattered cap, stout boots and a dirty green tracksuit top with a gun belt. He rested his right hand on his holster. When everyone had fallen completely silent he descended a few steps and still without saying a word knocked the flask from the hand of a boy who was just about to drink from it. The brandy spilled on the floor. When the boy made a grab for his flask the newcomer slapped him across the face.

Strangely enough, the boy he had hit looked to be the stronger of the two and he too had a gun but he did not think to strike back or even defend himself. Nor did anyone else so much as mutter. The people in the alcove drew back and even the monkey-faced girl stood stock still… The blond youth tightened his belt a notch and said something to break the sudden silence. He spoke very quietly in a flat, passionless voice, breaking the words up so clearly that for once even Budai could almost make out what he was saying. It was something like this:

‘ Deperety glut ugyurumba? ’ He looked round questioningly. People did not look at him, in fact most of them lowered their eyes. ‘ Bezhetcsh alaulp atipatityapp? Atipatityapp? ’ The man with the droopy moustache and jaundiced face who was dispensing machineguns wanted to say something but the blond shut him up and calmly dismissed him. ‘ Je durunty…’

He spoke for two or three minutes in the same flat tone while everyone listened intently, standing in a circle round him, hardly breathing. He ended on a question, though even then his voice hardly rose.

‘ Eleégye kurupundu dibádi?… Dibádi, aka tereshe mutyu lolo dibádi? ’

‘ Dibádi! Dibádi! ’ they all roared back at him in high spirits.

No-one bothered with the drinks anymore. They swarmed into the street. Tanks happened to be passing at that moment, rumbling by, deafeningly loud. The turrets were open, uniformed men looking out of them. Those who had issued from the cellar store quickly surrounded the tanks and mounted them, led by the blond youth in the green track-suit top. There was a replay of the earlier scene: much debate with the civilians explaining matters with wide sweeping gestures. The uniformed troops were visibly confused by the sudden onslaught. The tanks came to a halt, the helmeted figures clambered out. One, who first removed his headphones, presumably the commanding officer, raised his arms for silence and asked something. He received a hundred replies, hats being waved everywhere, in response to which he ducked back down into the tank. After a short interval he stuck his head out again and simply said:

‘ Bugyurim. ’

The crowd burst into cries of joy, cheering and welcoming him. Someone produced a flag, the one Budai had seen before, with red and black stripes, and to more loud cheers fixed it on the leading tank. The tanks then set off again, rumbling on, now laden with troops and civilians all heading in one direction, back towards the grey building. Soon enough they reached the end house. There it had grown dense again: it seemed that attempts to clear the area had not been entirely successful or that others had since come along to join them. The windows of this building too were crammed with onlookers, once again a mixture of troops and civilians, much like outside. Budai tried to stay close to the blond youth and keep his green tracksuit top in sight. The bent-backed girl with the machine gun and idiot eyes seemed to be following Budai, sticking close to him, constantly pattering along behind him.

Now there were shots, a few stray volleys and some longer rounds. It was hard to tell from where Budai was whether it started from inside or outside the building. Perhaps there had been a few warning shots from within and the besiegers had replied with a show of force. Or it might have been the other way round. But it hardly mattered who started it. There were so many guns in the street and the mood was so tense that something was bound to happen. People might have been shooting from the roofs too. The rattling of guns was soon underscored by another deeper, more compact bass noise that sounded like thunder. It must have been the tanks firing. One section of the grey wall fell away and collapsed into the street, leaving a great gaping hole.

Automatic fire opened up from inside the building, spraying the street. Panic broke out. The crowd broke up again and people fled in terror, everyone seeking shelter wherever it could be found, in nearby doorways, behind advertising pillars, by parked cars, by dustbins or simply lying flat on their stomachs by the walls of locked shops. As the roadway cleared a good number remained lying on the ground, motionless or waving and crying out in pain, some rising and reeling about in search of shelter. A wounded woman was weeping and pleading for someone to help her but then another round of automatic fire from the floor above them swept across the street.

The small group Budai had joined sought cover by the blackened pillars of a ruined house. His whole body was shaking with a mixture of fury, frustration and helpless desire for vengeance. Hatred rose in his throat like a fist. He cursed and swore at the hidden enemy along with the rest, calling them ‘murderers, bloody murderers’. But after the next volley he felt so frightened he took to his heels, scrambling past the sooty, angular walls of the ruin, desperately looking for a way, any way, out. He needed to get as far as he could, somewhere he could no longer even hear the sound of gunfire.

It seemed an earlier catastrophe had overtaken the house. The ruins suggested that it was not simply fire, for the blackened plaster bore traces of bullet holes and shell fragments. It might have been destroyed by bombs, by heavy artillery and hand-to-hand combat, and only after that set on fire. But what was the occasion of the catastrophe? What had happened? Was it a siege? A war? A revolution? And who were the combatants? Who fought whom and why?

He had discovered a way out. There were just a few stairs he needed to run up and at the top there was an open corridor that surely led to freedom. But someone called him and snatched at his coat. It was the blond youth and when Budai turned around in fear the youth beckoned him with his finger. Budai stopped in his tracks, not knowing what to do, not understanding where he should go and why. The boy extended his hand, offering him a revolver and now that both of them were still, pressed it into Budai’s hand. He suddenly felt ashamed: that icy-grey gaze could clearly see straight through him. He would have liked to explain himself but how, and in any case there was no time. So he merely weighed the revolver in his palm and nodded in confusion as if to say, very well, I am with you.