The invitation would act as a form of natural selection; the less eager being less likely to attend, it would be survival of the amorous. Determined to put his fist through his bad luck, Gyuri had also issued a third summons to another aspiring accountant, Ildikó, whom he had got to know in the library by fetching a book for her from a top shelf that she had been struggling to reach.
Standing outside the cinema, Gyuri congratulated himself on his blunderbussing his misfortune, overcoming his jinx by a concerted human wave attack. However, as the film started with no trace of the girls, so did his perplexity and the choking sensation that he had been stood up in triplicate. By trebling the odds, he had trebled his penalty. And he had had no chance to sell the other three tickets. He had been skint and although Gyurkovics owed him a hundred forints, it was exactly because he had been so hard up that he hadn’t been able to ask for it because it would have looked as if he had been extremely hard up which he didn’t want.
Gazing out the train window, through the snoring, Gyuri could see peasants engaged in doing something autumnally agricultural. Too stupid to find the road to the city, Gyuri chuckled, confidently conurbational. Still, someone had to grow potatoes. And someone had to film them. As part of his acolyteship at the College of Theatrical and Cinematic Arts, Pataki had been out in the countryside, acting as tripod carrier for a newsreel crew he had been assigned to study in action.
They had gone to the village of Zsámbék, the closest representative of hamletness and unabashed bucolicality to Budapest, only an hour’s drive away. The story the newsreel crew was covering was the fourth and a half anniversary of the collective farm which might have been connected with the need of the director, Gáti, to acquire some comradely crates of white wine for his garden parties.
Even in the artistic circles of Budapest, where the entry fee was egomania, Gáti had tantrummed his way to prominence. However, for some reason he had interpreted Pataki’s presence as homage, as a tribute from one eager to learn the secrets of documentary filming from a master, and Gáti warmly took him under his wing although Pataki would far sooner have been rowing. ‘It’s a shithole, this place,’ Gáti said, surveying Zsámbék. ‘I think I voted here in ’47. Mind you I voted everywhere in ’47. How many people can say they voted sixty times in a general election? These three-duck hovels all look the same though. Me and the Second District Communist Youth Committee, we spent the whole day driving around, voting. Bloody tiring, democracy.’ They were standing in the office of the collective farm. Feeling it was time to do some directing, Gáti shouted out of the window at the cameraman who was contemplating various angles: ‘Janos, I want you to capture that feeling of historic achievement, okay?’ Then he returned to glugging rows of local wines. ‘Rule number one: know what you want. Rule number two: good casting. Good casting does all the work for you. I’ve already got the centre character, Uncle Feri. He’s the village elder, as it were, who’s been through decades of suffering, hunger, exploitation etc., etc., but who in his contented old age can comfortably beam on the gains of the people, happy in the knowledge that future generations will never know want or hardship, thanks to the application of scientific socialism etc., etc.’ Gáti emptied the glasses of wine as if pouring them down a sink.
‘Uncle Feri’s the perfect candidate. I found him when I came down last week. Research… research is everything. This yokel is perfect. He’s got a moustache that must be half a metre long. He oozes earthy wit, rustic swagger. Everyone’s Uncle Feri. He thinks he doesn’t want to do it but I’ll make a star of him.’ There were only a couple of glasses left. ‘And remember, rule four: you can never talk too much to your cameraman.’ Gáti leaned out the window: ‘Janos, you finished?’ To Pataki: ‘You’ll go far. You know how to listen.’ To the chairman of the collective farm: ‘Great. We’ll take the lot.’
His arm avuncularly around Pataki, Gáti went out to the fields for key shots. ‘Where’s our Uncle Feri?’ he shouted.
‘Uncle Feri is gravely ill,’ explained the chairman. He had rounded up a selection of aged, gnarled peasants for Gáti to choose from. ‘You see,’ said Gáti to Pataki in what was probably a failed whisper, ‘people always interfere. They all think they know best. They all think they’re film directors. Come on, where’s the coy old bugger?’
The chairman, the mayor and the Party secretary all explained in succession, very apologetically, that old Feri really was very ill and wouldn’t he be satisfied with another, carefully approved, suitably decrepit codger? Gáti just laughed and ordered to be taken to Feri’s abode where the priest was timidly administering the last rites.
‘Cut that out, or we’ll have you nicked,’ said Gáti, who was joking, but it looked to Pataki as if the priest had shat himself. ‘How are you, Uncle Feri?’ said Gáti, giving him a hearty slap which produced no noticeable reaction since Feri was too busy dying. ‘He looks fine to me,’ Gáti pronounced, but the cameraman and Pataki had to laboriously carry Uncle Feri out because none of his body was in working order. Even if Uncle Feri had wanted to issue instructions to his legs, they wouldn’t have paid any attention.
Gáti strode on to find a good spot while Pataki, the cameraman and the chairman transported Uncle Feri who was light as peasants went but still an uncomfortable burden. ‘This is it,’ said Gáti, surrounded by burgeoning husks of corn. ‘This filmically says it all,’ he announced as the peasant-porters struggled up.
‘Yes,’ interposed the chairman, ‘but this doesn’t belong to the collective. This belongs to Levai. He jumped out of the window at the meeting when everyone had to sign over their land.’
Gáti wasn’t bothered. Fortunately, there was a wooden gate they could leave Uncle Feri leaning against, since his legs wouldn’t have supported him.
‘Okay, roll,’ called Gáti. ‘Now, Uncle Feri, how old are you?’
Uncle Feri didn’t say anything- he seemed to be concentrating on breathing.
‘How old is he?’ Gáti asked the chairman.
‘I don’t know. Seventy something.’
‘Okay, so, Uncle Feri,’ continued Gáti, ‘how does it feel to see the achievements of the new Hungary?’ Uncle Feri still failed to respond. Gáti tried another question: ‘Uncle Feri, how do you feel gazing on the wonderful changes that have taken place here in Zsámbék?’ Uncle Feri remained mute. Pataki had no doubt that if Uncle Feri had had the power of locomotion he would have walked off by now. But all he could manage to do was to cling onto the gate. Gáti patiently let the camera turn, waiting for Uncle Feri’s views. After a minute or so, Uncle Feri started to cry.
‘This is great,’ exclaimed Gáti, ‘he’s moved to tears by the successes of people’s democracy. Get a close-up. We can write into it.’ Pataki found Gáti’s explanation unconvincing and reasoned that Uncle Feri’s weeping was caused by his dying in a field, on camera.
According to Pataki, Uncle Feri survived his moment of posterity but not for long. Well-mannered, he waited till he was returned home before pegging out while Gáti loaded up the van with crates of wine, reiterating ‘Did you see that moustache?’