Gyula Krúdy - Life Is A Dream

The appearance of the old editor signalled for Fridolin that it was time to wind the clock after lunch. But the reason for setting the clock five minutes fast was known only to those who understand not only life, and times past, but the nature of human passions as well. The adjustment of the clock was a habit Fridolin had picked up when he was a young man with wavy-gravy hair and full of hopes, working as a billiards marker at a café. He would always charge the players for an extra five minutes when he saw that in the excitement of the game they forgot about the clock.

This tells us that our Fridolin had not always been a gawky, ageing waiter. There had been a time when Fridolin would rent a room by the month only if the landlady was skilled in ironing a tailcoat; a time when Fridolin had his locks crisped into curls both silly and daring, as befits a man of the world — whereas now he sat in a cane-backed chair placed fortuitously under the clock, his elbow cradling his weary head in the manner of travelling men accustomed to catching their forty winks in any position. On the wall opposite Fridolin hung a large pier glass, tilting forward at an accommodating angle that had something of the officiousness of tailors who invariably praise the smartness of each customer’s turnout. But Fridolin, through a longstanding acquaintance with the mendacious pier glass, was well aware that its fawning posture was worth about as much as the smile on the face of the cashier lady ensconced among her little bowls of candy and sweets. Therefore he made a series of furious faces at the mirror from behind his fingers, with sputtery flashes of the eyes, like sunny-side-up eggs frying in the kitchen.

He was indeed incensed, for the only time he could be angry was now, left all by himself in the small dining room. He was irked by his bald cranium, the same that had once been dubbed ‘bald as an aristocrat’ by ladies of the kitchen, who were always dreaming of barons. His lengthy side whiskers had been blond as a straw hat back in those days when Fridolin seemed to be just one step away from becoming a head waiter. Yes, once upon a time Fridolin had as a matter of course had his moustache shaved in the hope that he would be serving lords of the realm; now the barber’s art only added some faded tint to his prickly facial hair.

But only on Saturdays. Nor did he like his ears any more, after he had so many times tried out the head waiter’s long pencil tucked behind one ear, the way some bachelor longing for married bliss might try on a wedding band. For this reason he snapped an angry flick of the napkin at the offending ear as if to chase away a fly. Then he closed his eyes, to utilize the precious moments when the absence of guests allowed a working man to catch a few winks.

Let us see, what were the dream images that chased around in Fridolin’s head in this small diner that gave on to a courtyard, where only true Inner City locals found their way, locals who had long been familiar with the doorknob of the entrance pointed out by the eternal symbol of a copper hand holding a stein of foaming beer. Once upon a time, when Fridolin first appeared at this establishment, each spring-cleaning added a new layer of gilding to this hand, just to provide the regulars with something to talk about.

‘See that gilded hand? Watch out, it will smack your face before your wife does, when you’ve had one too many,’ a gentleman at the corner table would remark, back when three tables had to be pushed together for the company assembled there in honour of the noontime tap. And the guests would all stare out at the courtyard, where the golden hand glittered under the cool, draughty arcade that gave off an air reeking of janitorial ailments. Fridolin could still hear the regulars debating the cost of the gilding that had in fact never attracted a single new customer to the establishment.

‘Ah yes, if only our friend Lajos served decent beer,’ cried a tribal chieftain’s voice that always managed to out-roar the others, while the last remnants of beer were sloshed around in the glass with the kind of motion that allows not a drop of the yellow liquid to go to waste even though all beer drinkers know that these last drops provide only an illusion for the throat, barely enough to wet your whiskers, and merely serve to create a fresh new thirst besides endowing your voice with a certain hoarse, thumping resonance that resembles both the very first as well as the ultimate sounds emanating from a tapped keg. ‘Ah well, if our friend Lajos had the brains of that Toni Weisz on Kiraly Street, who had persuaded old man Dreher to grant him the exclusive rights in Pest to serve Schwechat lager, the world’s best beer!’ this same voice thumped out each and every day, just like the beer keg in the taproom.

But here came a new customer, a gentleman wearing a coffee-brown cape, his nose advertising the colours of old wines, whose progress towards the regulars’ table generated cheer on all sides, for the newcomer was notorious for always arriving on the scene when it was time to tap a new keg.

‘Bring out that flat brewski for our poet friend!’ went up the shout at the regulars’ table and Fridolin would spring to it merrily, although he himself could not quite fathom why.

Someone pulled out a pocket watch. ‘In five minutes a fresh keg will be tapped, that’s worth waiting for!’ he said, and pushed his glass next to the others in the middle of the table for Fridolin to gather up and take to be filled with a fresh draught.

Fridolin knew not why he looked back even in his dreams with a certain longing towards this period in his life. Experience, after all, had taught him that unless the customer had previously stuck a cigarette behind the barman’s ear, the latter would mix in the leftover beer with the fresh draught, for the owner’s interest was foremost. Could it be that a waiter’s life had been more amenable back then, when the beer steins still had their handles and gentlemen who were regular customers would abandon even the loveliest lady and leave her standing in the middle of Vaci Street in order to see when the next fresh draught was due ‘at our friend Lajos’s place’. If they happened to drop in when there was still some beer left in the bottom of the keg, out they would go for another spell of flirting on the banks of the Danube. How on earth did that ever benefit Fridolin? Yet it still felt good, in the midst of his afternoon reverie, to hear those invisible ones at the vanished table of regulars voicing their antiquated bon mots.

‘It’s lunchtime at the parish priest’s,’ they would chime in unison, hearing the noontime church bell, and the owners of pocket watches would consult their timepieces, while others cast apprehensive glances at the grandfather clock that was running five minutes fast …

On this particular afternoon, when the bespectacled old editor had once again consumed his two eggs in braised meat sauce and Fridolin had finished with the last of the lunch customers, while repeatedly reminding himself to wind up the clock — as ageing ballerinas will hum for themselves some melody to mark time while standing backstage waiting for their cue to sally forth — on this afternoon the last lunch guest (‘a gent from the ministry’, whom Fridolin had promoted to that rank on account of his pinstriped trousers) had said his goodbye in response to Fridolin’s bowing and scraping (for the proprietor doubled as head waiter and Fridolin, that ‘shiftless drone’, merely gathered up the tips) — on this afternoon the ageing waiter forgot about the warped billiard cue as well as the dangling strings of the grandfather clock and quickly ‘put himself to bed’, as he referred to his afternoon nap on the chair, with his elbow on a table’s edge. In fact he was so sleepy that he forgot his usual cigarette, even though several pinches of tobacco were waiting in his coat pocket to be rolled into a smoke by hand, an occupation that never failed to please Fridolin. He would blow out the bitter smoke of a cigarette rolled from butt remnants, in order to obscure his image in the mirror. Now he even forgot to make his usual faces at the pier glass, for his head drooped as if ambushed by an unusually mighty attack of weariness, and floated straight off to dreamland from this tavern called the Clock, on a side street named after a former mayor. His last conscious thought was, had he turned the key once or twice to lock a drawer in the cupboard (to which by rights only the head waiter had access), for Fridolin had secreted there a small plate of ham ravioli to be consumed by himself or else to be taken home as a present for the landlady’s daughter. But in the next instant the scent of ham ravioli was blown away by the draught from an opening door, just as visions of fairytale sausages fade upon awakening.