On the train back to Budapest, he had juggled two main thoughts. Firstly, that he didn’t care whether she was married or not and secondly (as a consolation prize for his floored morality) the conclusion that it was rather an odd sort of marriage, where you lived hundreds of kilometres, days of travel apart. It didn’t look like a thriving marriage at all, it was a marriage stretched so thin that you couldn’t really notice it.
He had determined to avoid Szeged for a fallow fortnight but the next weekend found himself dashing to the Nyugati station. He invented some nearby athletic activity to justify his presence and sought out Jadwiga. He found her dutiful in the library, asleep. He went out, bought a flower, and returned to leave it on her notebook and to wait for the study-fatigued student to rouse herself, which she did after ten minutes. She was surprised to see the flower and then, looking round, was surprised to see Gyuri. Despite the arguable propriety of the flower, she was pleased. ‘You are a very keen friend,’ she remarked.
This time supper was accepted and Gyuri didn’t regret having to sleep on Solyom Nagy’s floor although its embrace lingered on his back for the next twenty-four hours. The conversation had been agreeable and unremarkable but as with the walk it had been intensely pleasurable. If Pataki had known that his friend had spent the better part of two days travelling in order to have a so-so meal with a side-serving of jejune dialogue, he would have been shocked and incredulous, but Gyuri felt it was time well used. Jadwiga’s husband worked very hard, it turned out, though the admiration with which she wheeled out this information had been a trifle faltering, a little adulterated.
The next weekend saw Gyuri becoming a real expert on the Budapest-Szeged rail link. Individual haystacks and trees were recognised on the way down. Gyuri hadn’t let Elek in on the reason for his travelling down to Szeged but it was obvious that it wasn’t Gyuri’s passion for the local architecture. ‘Have fun,’ Elek had said in the way that parents do, convinced that their offspring were engrossed in incessant debauchery the moment they set foot outside the front door.
Jadwiga was again surprised to see him. ‘You take friendship very seriously indeed,’ she observed. They went to supper and the cinema which vacuumed Gyuri’s pockets clean. Posting a birthday card to her grandfather, Jadwiga asked Gyuri if his grandparents were still alive; this annoyed him slightly because she asked the same question during their first walk and thus it was obvious she didn’t store away everything he said in the way that he noted down her words for future examination, building up a dossier on her. ‘My grandfather was in what the Germans called Auschwitz. The Jews don’t like to mention how many Poles died there. My grandfather survived, I think, because he’s a persistent man: a very persistent man. He taught me the value of persistence too.’
Reviewing the proceedings, Gyuri was astonished how much pleasure could be had without taking off any clothes and with a moat of oxygen dividing him from the castle he wanted to storm. He had listened politely when she had made reference several times to her husband not writing dutifully enough to her, though this had been presented more as a general critique of men. The travel was a nuisance though. Gyuri wished they could provide a gymnasium in the train so he could do some athletic training. He opened an accountancy textbook and he and the print stared sullenly at each other for a while. The travel was eating up a lot of his time.
The next weekend he was spared the purgatory of hours of travel because Jadwiga came up to Budapest to visit some fellow Polish students, to whom in the end she barely said hello. It was an unusual situation for Gyuri. He had never shown anyone around Budapest before, indeed he had never had the inclination to do so. Jadwiga had only spent half-days in Budapest in transit to Szeged, so he had to shake his brains for an itinerary.
He took Jadwiga up to the Gellert Hill where there was the Statue of Liberty, a woman reaching out above herself with her arms at full stretch as if reaching for something on a top shelf. Into her grip had been lowered some amorphous burden, perhaps palm fronds, perhaps oversized laurels, certainly something of heavy significance weighing down on the sprightly dame, who nevertheless effected a transcendental expression.
You could see the statue from most parts of the city and from the statue’s foot you had a panoramic view of Budapest. The Statue of Liberty had been originally intended as a memorial to Admiral Horthy’s son, a fighter pilot who like most Hungarians of his age had died around the Don but before it had been erected there had been a change of government and of uniforms in the street. Purged of its dynastic and political past, charged up with the ideology of a new age, it had been stuck on top of the Gellert Hill to act as a spiritual beacon.
As a supplement to the Statue of Liberty, perhaps as an additional ideological boost to compensate for the statue’s ignominious beginnings, was a smaller, clumsier statue of a Soviet soldier, known locally, Gyuri explained, as the Unknown Watch-Thief.
Situated underneath the Statue of Liberty, less visible and not tampering with the skyline, the rather morose Soviet soldier, scowling from being left on duty for so many years, had an inscription: ‘From the grateful Hungarian people’.
‘I assure you the Poles are far more grateful,’ said Jadwiga.
Bánhegyi had, as always when he ran out of cash, dislocated his shoulder (he could dis-and relocate his joints at will), gone to the doctor, collected a cheque from the insurance company (despite the fact that he would be out on court bullying the ball the day after) and invited everyone to the restaurant at the Keleti railway station. Jadwiga impressed everyone with her Hungarian (Róka refused to believe she was Polish) and also with the way she dealt with an enormous plate of wienerschnitzel and a liberal portion of calf’s brains. Gyuri caught glances of admiration from the team and Róka in a state of extreme perturbation had to leave twice for ‘fresh air’.
Pataki had been quiet. His mutism amply expressed his high regard for Jadwiga. Gyuri would have been worried about the possibility of competition from Pataki were it not for his conviction that he was backed by destiny this time. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve drilled for the white oil yet?’ Pataki inquired. Gyuri snorted as an all-purpose reaction which contained amusement, denial, confirmation and contempt, hoping that Pataki would select whichever element would shut him up. Everyone else was evidently assuming that he had full access and this had been quite satisfying, since reputation is only one step away from the real thing. ‘I think you’re going to make it this time,’ Pataki appended.
As he railwayed down to Szeged the subsequent weekend, he tried to think of some good pretext to cover his trip, at the same time thanking providence that he worked for the railways which made such a long-distance liaison financially possible. Jadwiga didn’t seem surprised to see him nor did she bother to ask for any explanation of his presence in Szeged.
Gyuri had still not met Jadwiga’s room-mate Magda, but had developed a great affection for her solely on the strength of her absences. As they sat in the room, Gyuri wondered how to elegantly polevault from friendship into a more clasping form of love. He checked his watch. By six o’ clock, he resolved, he would be entangled in her garments or out. He had put in the miles. This deadline kept shifting steadily like the horizon as time progressed and he remained frozen in a posture of warm cordiality opposite her.