Gyula Krúdy - Life Is A Dream

So Fridolin listened with polite attention, for he was a cosmopolitan waiter.

‘Not one man in a thousand would guess that I am an undertaker by profession.’

‘Upon my word of honour, I would never have guessed, judging by your appetite, sir,’ said Fridolin, exultant that he had at last found out something about his guest’s private life. He had had few opportunities to meet undertakers who, because of their solemn profession, rarely appeared at restaurants and coffee houses. He had heard about a restaurant near the cemetery where all the undertakers of the city gathered on a certain day of the week to discuss recent and upcoming funerals. Now Fridolin understood the reason for the dignified bearing of his guest. His business had to do with the dead, whom one handled with grave respect: you do not slap a dead man around, because if he hits back, you are a goner.

But Fridolin was after all a waiter and as such the financial aspects of the undertaking business fascinated him. ‘Tell me, sir, is it true that dead people leave all sorts of jewellery behind? Rings that cannot be pulled off a swollen finger, amulets that the dead person wore around her neck all her life, and the family members did not dare remove? And other such tchachkas , that end up in the undertaker’s hands?’

‘Oh certainly, we end up with elderly widows on our hands, women we are expected to marry off!’ the customer replied, raising his voice. ‘In truth, I am the last friend of the deceased, the others having all abandoned him as he lay dying. No one else remains by the dead man’s side except the unfortunate undertaker, who has to shed tears along with the orphans and widows, and must comfort them, take them by the hand. Once I even had to act as godfather to a child born after the father died. Oh, mine is a difficult occupation, my friend, no wonder we look for a bit of cheer on days when there are no funerals. The only thing that helps in my profession is good manners. You can’t imagine how much coaxing it takes to persuade a family member to permit the dearly beloved’s belly opened in order to fit him into a coffin.’

‘His belly?’ Fridolin echoed, shaken. To his amazement the guest continued to wreak havoc among the toothpicks. They all kept breaking between his teeth, and another had to be used to push the broken piece through the ramparts of his teeth. This man clearly knew how to keep busy after lunch.

‘My dear friend,’ the customer continued solemnly, ‘you are quite mistaken if you think that these blood sausages, rump steaks and pork chops you serve to the citizens of Budapest are carried by your customers to the underworld, just so they can discuss the food served at the Clock. No, sir. We must slit open the bellies of fat people to fit them into the wooden box that carpenters refuse to make in larger sizes, no matter how many fat men one sees running around in the city. Carpenters are a stubborn lot. They do not change the rules inherited from their fathers and grandfathers regarding the dimensions of their clients in Budapest. That is why we must have some acquaintance with the medical profession, so that we can improve on the carpenter’s botched job. A dead man must be laid to rest gently — as if he were asleep.’

Without giving Fridolin a chance to put in a word edgewise, the guest, like some professor, went on with his lecture. ‘But we are left with the widows, helpless women who, after a successful funeral, and especially if people they like are attending, will remain in a corner of the funeral parlour to discuss each and every detail of the ceremony that took place and expect comforting words just the same as when the departed lay in state.’

‘I have heard, my good sir, that jewellery is usually hocked at the time of a funeral, and that undertakers tend to be the pawnbrokers,’ said Fridolin, exercising the impertinent wit of old-time waiters, but this was to be the last flicker of his brilliance.

The duplicitous patron went on at such lengths about those widows who relied on him to find them a new husband in Buda or Pest that Fridolin truly began to think great prospects awaited him if he got to meet one of these helpless widows.

‘All you need is a photograph, and a fifty-kreuzer tax stamp!’ the guest advised.

‘I have the photograph, although it is ten years old. But why do I need a tax stamp?’ Fridolin inquired, barely hiding his excitement.

‘Well, my friend, you know how these widows are … They don’t believe anything unless the paper has an official stamp on it. So accommodate them. Go buy a stamp at the tobacconist’s.’

While Fridolin had gone to buy a stamp, the customer naturally skipped out without paying the bill. Which way did he go? How could he have disappeared like that? Who knows?

At this moment Fridolin awoke from his afternoon dream and found himself in the darkening nook of the diner. He glanced at the mirror. His flushed face was streaming sweat, as if he had just returned from the netherworld. He was certain he would lose his job at the Clock.

As soon as he was himself again, Fridolin noticed that the clock above his head had stopped running.

That damned clock is the cause of it all, because I forgot to wind it, he thought, with the bitter self-reproach of ageing men, and rushed off to get the billiard cue. But for days after he had the lingering feeling of a man who had been cheated.

(1927)

Being the wife of an innkeeper, Aranka was acquainted with all kinds of men.

As she approached forty, she had gotten into the habit of scrutinizing a man the way she would a goose or rooster, just short of actually hoisting him up to estimate his weight.

One acquaintance of hers at this hostelry not far from the Central Terminal happened to be a certain Mr Paszmati, who had introduced himself as a dealer in hogs. Mr Paszmati always arrived very early on one of those trains scheduled so that provincials from distant parts could go about their business in the city without wasting an hour. These trains brought passengers with mud-encrusted boots rarely seen in the capital, enormous crooked staffs for warding off stray dogs, fur coats that had been on the road for a hundred years, and suitcases that had grown old after many a long night at some godforsaken train-stop listening to the jingling bell of the telegraph office. And of course there came wallets stuffed with every kind of banknote, bills that were wrinkled, greasy and rancid enough to have passed through the hands of every citizen in the land.

‘Anything ready to eat in your kitchen?’ inquired Paszmati as he came in from the winter fog through the glassed front door of the restaurant.

The glass panes were steamed over, the floor already bore the tracks of snowy boots, and the guests sitting at the tables covered with colorful cloths had their overcoats and knapsacks by their side, this being only a taproom.

But sitting at the cash till was Aranka herself, hair freshly curled, cheeks recently rouged, arrayed in silk like some Balkan princess, for she had struck a deal with her husband: the takings from the taproom in the morning hours were to be hers. Therefore Aranka did not mind sitting in at the till where at other times a wilting manageress sat wearily handling the bills. Aranka needed the money — as we shall see, she needed it quite badly. So she made a show of special delight when receiving the hog dealer as he removed his fur coat and scarf.

‘So, lovely lady, what’s cooking in your kitchen?’ Mr Paszmati inquired again, approaching her with the waggish crow-like steps of a faithful old regular. (There are men who, other than shaving and twirling their moustaches, disdain showing off for the benefit of the female sex but will display a preening strut. The hog dealer’s crow-steps were meant to convey calm confidence backed by a stuffed wallet.)