Sometimes he sees Ödön there. On one such occasion, when he’s drunk, Ödön tells him that he thinks it’s heroin in the bags they pick up. He says that one of the main heroin routes into Europe is through the Balkans, and that this might be part of it.
After they’ve had a few drinks they talk about taking one of the bags and selling the stuff themselves, if it is heroin.
They never do that, though.
They never even look in the bags.
They’re too scared of the man in the house, and also they’re satisfied with the money he pays them for delivering the stuff to him, whatever it is. It seems like a lot to them.
Then Ödön suddenly disappears and István is poor again.
He has struggled, since leaving the young offenders’ institution, to find legitimate work. It’s a time of economic depression and there aren’t many jobs available.
He spends a lot of time just hanging around in the apartment.
He watches daytime TV, sits on the balcony smoking cigarettes.
Sometimes the probation people find him a day’s work, unloading stuff from a truck or something like that, and when he does have money he still spends it in Jungle. It’s not unusual for him to see Noémi there. She’s his uncle’s stepdaughter.
They hang out together quite a lot that spring and summer. He likes talking to her. She’s one of the few people he’s talked to about what happened, about why he was in the institution and what it was like there.
She works at the new Tex-Mex place near the main square of the town and sometimes, when he has nothing else to do during the day, he hangs out there, talking to her and drinking coffee.
As the summer wears on he spends more and more time there.
He seems drawn to the place and he starts to wonder what that’s about.
Then he understands.
He’s sort of in love with her.
He thinks she might feel something similar, the way she looks at him sometimes.
It’s awkward, though, to make any kind of move, what with them being friends and everything. Even family in a way.
He sits on a tall stool at the bar and she asks him what he wants.
He says he wants coffee.
She turns to the machine, and he watches her while she makes him an espresso.
There’s a single, sad-looking shelf of spirits on the wall behind the bar. Most of the bottles are empty, they’re just there to fill it out. There’s a particularly large number of empty tequila bottles with tops that look like Mexican hats or cactuses.
“So what are you up to?” she asks him.
“Today?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t know,” he says, helping himself to one of her Marlboros and then dipping his head to light it. He’s not sure how she affords Western cigarettes. She won’t be paid much for working here.
She takes one as well.
He’s still holding her lighter. He only notices that he has it when he sees her looking for it. Without saying anything he lights the cigarette for her. He looks at her face while he does that, while her attention is focused on the cigarette in her mouth.
“Thanks,” she says, lifting her head and exhaling smoke.
“Sure.”
He puts the lighter down on the bar and tells her that his friend Riki is thinking of joining the army.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It’s a job, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she agrees.
“He says you get everything—food, a place to live. You save all your pay.”
“Okay.”
They talk about that for a few minutes and then he fans himself with a laminated cocktail menu while she deals with some people who have finished their lunch and want to settle up.
When they have left the place is empty.
He should probably leave soon himself, he thinks.
He’s been there for nearly an hour.
“Do you want another coffee?” she asks, putting the money in the till.
He doesn’t want another coffee.
“Yeah, okay,” he says.
While she makes it he starts to tell her about this date he had the other night. It’s the sort of thing they talk to each other about these days. Over the summer they’ve increasingly talked about stuff like that.
“Oh yeah?” she says, working the machine. “Anything happen?”
“Not much.”
Still facing away from him, she laughs. “Not much? What does that mean?”
“We kissed,” he says.
“You kissed?” she says.
“Yes.”
“Where did it happen, this kissing?” she asks. She’s a few years older than him and sometimes talks to him like he’s still just a kid.
“At her place,” he says.
She turns to him, holding the coffee. It’s on the house, that’s understood. She knows that he doesn’t have any money. “You went back to her place?”
“Yes.”
“And you only kissed?”
“Yes.”
“You surprise me,” she says, throwing a few sachets of sugar onto the bar.
“Why’s that?” he asks.
“I thought you were more of an operator than that.”
“You thought that, did you?”
“Yes, I did,” she says.
“Well, you’re wrong,” he says.
She raises an eyebrow.
“You’re wrong,” he says again, and drinks some of the coffee even though his heart’s already going faster than it should be.
She has a drag on her cigarette and looks at him slyly through the smoke.
“Don’t pretend to be a nice person,” she says, smiling at him.
“I am a nice person.”
She laughs again.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing,” she says. “How many poor girls have you… bedded this summer?” she asks.
“Don’t know,” he says.
“Yes, you do. How many?”
“Five or something. I don’t know. Depends what you mean.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Not exactly. What about you?” he says.
“What about me?”
“How many? This summer.” When she doesn’t say anything, when she just looks at him with a narrow expression, he says, “You’ve lost count?”
Still looking straight at him, she laughs.
“So?”
“Less than you,” she says, turning away.
“I doubt that.”
“I’m not like you. I’m a romantic,” she says. She’s washing the empty coffee cup in the small stainless-steel sink.
“Yeah, right.” He knows that since she split up with Gábor, nearly a year ago, after they’d been together since they were at school, she’s been “making up for lost time,” as she put it herself once when he asked her why she slept with so many guys. She’s starting to get a reputation, in the small world of the town’s nightlife, as a bit of a slut.
“A romantic?” he says.
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I don’t care what you think,” she says.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”
“Yeah, it’s like that.”
“Okay,” he says.
With his arm he wipes the sweat off his forehead. His arm, after he has done that, is surprisingly wet. “A fan or something might be an idea,” he says.
She shrugs.
She’s also sweating. He hasn’t failed to notice the sheen of sweat hanging above her upper lip and shining in the hollow of her throat.
“It’s not up to me,” she says, stubbing out her cigarette.
“Have a word with Péter, then,” he says.
“He’s too tight.”
“It’d be an investment.”
“He won’t do it.”
“Won’t buy a fan?”
“He’d be a pain in the ass about it.”
“Can I have some water?”
She fills a glass and puts it on the bar.
“So will you see her again?” she asks, while he thirstily drinks.
“Who?”
“This girl you kissed or whatever.”
“Don’t know.”
“Do you want to?”
He shrugs.
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“It means—” He shrugs again.
“Don’t you like her?”
“She’s a bit boring.”
“Still kissed her.”