Malcolm Bradbury - Doctor Criminale

He looked at me and laughed. ‘Believe me, if I drive this, I don’t do that,’ he said, ‘Do you know how much a university teacher gets in my country, maybe one-sixth of what you would make in the West. No, I am a juppie.’ ‘What is a juppie?’ I asked. ‘You don’t know?’ he said, ‘Very mobile young businessman.’ ‘Oh, a yuppie,’ I said. ‘You didn’t notice my red braces?’ he asked, and began patting items in the car, ‘CD player, equalizer, central lockings, even Filofax. We have seen on television here your “Capital City” and know how it is done.’ ‘Well, very nice,’ I said. ‘And how is your Iron Lady?’ he asked, ‘Very well, I hope. Still for the free market?’ ‘She resigned from office a couple of days ago,’ I said, ‘I just read about it on the train.’ ‘You get rid of her?’ he asked, ‘No, I don’t believe it.’ ‘It’s been eleven years,’ I said. ‘Nothing,’ said Hollo, ‘Okay, please, send her here quick. We love her, we need her. Better than these ones we have here, with twenty heads and only half a brain.’ ‘Unfortunately I don’t think it’s allowed,’ I said. ‘Of course not, national treasure, not for export,’ said Hollo, ‘Now here we get out.’

We had driven up to the top of the hill, through tree-lined streets past fine merchants’ houses, and now we stopped some­where between the Saint Matthias church and the Budapest Hilton, which between them dominated the heights. ‘Over here, Fisherman’s Bastion, you have heard of it?’ asked Hollo, ‘It is what everyone remembers of Budapest.’ Fisherman’s Bastion was the delightful concoction of battlemented walls and fairytale turrets I had been looking up at from my hotel window below. From it you had, in turn, a fine view over Margaret Island, the traffic of the flowing Danube, the spread of Pest, the Parliament Building, the power station, the high ugly workers’ highrise blocks in the distance, and then the plain stretching out beyond. Near us, artists and potters, embroiderers and woodcarvers, sold their wares, and a moustached Magyar musician in baggy white trousers played his pipes. ‘Ah, yes,’ I said, ‘It’s called one of the great views of Europe, and it is.’

‘Charming, yes,’ said Hollo, lighting a cigarette, ‘And now you see our trick. Here we have built a great European city, two in fact, one old and one new. Our only problem is our European cities are not in Europe at all. Budapest is Buenos Aires on the Danube, all a pretend.’ ‘How is it a pretend?’ I asked. ‘First, nearly all these buildings were not designed for here at all,’ said Hollo, ‘See there our lovely Parliament, down by the river, which hardly meets, by the way. The architect loved your House of Commons, so he made us one. The Chain Bridge, built by a Scotsman in a kilt. Eiffel from France made the railway station. Our boulevards are from Paris, our coffee houses from Vienna, our banks are English, the Hilton American. You see why they make films here, ewe are everything. And this old castle, Fisherman’s Bastion, from which nobody has ever fished, by the way, was built as a fantasy at the turn of the century. So you see it is Disneyland, and we are Mickey Mouse.’

‘I think it’s a magnificent city,’ I said. ‘I too,’ said Hollo, ‘A great unreal city. You know two million people live in Budapest, and every one is a European, when they are not being Magyar nationalists. All are artists, intellectuals, actors, dancers, film­makers, great athletes, fine musicians. Unfortunately just for the moment, they drive a taxi, but one day . . . Then go out into the Puszta, and you will see Europe has stopped. The peasants have carts with horses, there are men in sheepskins herding flocks of ducks. Or look down the Danube a little, you will find great marshes and old women squatting by the river, washing clothes in the mud. That is Hungary. Two million intellectuals, eight million peasants, and only one thing in common. Barak palinka, peach brandy. So let us go and have some palinka, and you can explain me your film.’ Hollo led me down from our viewpoint and back between the Cathedral and the Hilton, into a smart square beyond. Fine merchants’ houses with great rounded coachdoors surrounded the square, and Hollo went into the courtyard of one of these. Then he opened a door, drew aside a curtain, and ushered me inside.

What lay inside was a small smart restaurant, the Restaurant Kiss. In a small tank beside the entrance black and silver fish of various edible species gasped tragically into our faces; a few neatly dressed diners sat at pleasant tables in small booths in the room beyond. Hollo tapped the side of the tank and said, ‘Fogas, from our lakes, you must try it. But first palinka.’ A waiter in an embroidered short jacket served us. ‘To your good health and your fine hospitality,’ said Hollo, proudly displaying his red braces and blue striped shirt, ‘May there be plenty more of both. So you make a film about Criminale Bazlo. How can I help?’ ‘Well, I have to tell you I was expecting to meet a philosopher,’ I said. ‘I was that once,’ said Hollo, ‘Not any more. Don’t you know philosophy is dead? Not a thought in the world. Marxism-Leninism killed it here, Deconstruction in the West. Here we had too much theory of reality, there you had not enough. Now I do not expect to think the world into shape. I am not like Hegel, you remember. “So much worse for the world if it does not follow my principles.” No, now I am a pragmatist and I do something else.’

‘What do you do?’ I asked. ‘I just told you about the Wende , the big change,’ said Hollo, ‘You know once, in the DDR, there was a very great academy. Hundreds of professors who were such fine thinkers and theorists they did not even have to teach any students at all. They wrote great works, Marxist aesthetics, Marxist economics. Now there is no DDR, no Marxist aesthetics, no Marxist economics. So what do we do with all these fine professors? Not much, you know. They must begin all over again, like children, thinking the world right from the beginning. They cannot even teach. That was the Wende , you see. And I am a Wendehals . A changer, I am a changer.’ ‘I see,’ I said, ‘And what do you change?’ ‘The world and myself,’ said Hollo, swirling the palinka in his glass, ‘How do I explain? I fix things.’ ‘What things do you fix?’ ‘When the world changes, it seems everyone needs something,’ said Hollo, ‘Do you like a nice apartment in the Valley of Roses, a little biscuit business in Szeged? Do you like a phoneline to the West, a fax machine from Vienna? Maybe you like a tram company from Csepel, or a small share in pornography business at Lake Balaton? I can fix. And when you make your film here, and you need back-ups, transports, locations, hotel rooms, contacts, I can fix that too.’

‘That could be useful,’ I said, ‘But before that you were a teacher of philosophy at the university, yes?’ ‘At Eötvös Lorand, yes,’ said Hollo, ‘I taught Marxist theory, socialist correctness.’ ‘So what you do now is very different,’ I said. ‘A bit, but not exactly,’ said Hollo, smiling, ‘You see, Marx believed in the great historic progress of materialism. Unfortunately he did not know how to make it work. I know a little bit how to make it work.’ ‘And Bazlo Criminale, wasn’t he at the university too?’ I asked. ‘Yes and no,’ said Hollo, ‘He taught a little, but he was famous member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, so we did not see him very much.’ ‘But you knew him well?’ ‘Not exactly,’ said Hollo, ‘In those days you knew nobody well. It was wise to know people only a bit.’ ‘So you taught here at the University but then you went to Vienna?’ I asked. ‘After Marxist theory, socialist correctness, wouldn’t you?’ asked Hollo. ‘So it was that easy?’ ‘Well, it was arranged,’ said Hollo, ‘With help and a little influence such things are often arranged.’