Inside dingy darkish office which one suspects doubles for money exchange, credit and clerical services of another financial era, unimaginable to a present-day New Yorker, a sad and ferreted face greets her in the most courteous Hungarian. Her request, in the friendliest English, for Hungarian travel folders, brings color to the yellow cheekbones. Lady wishes to travel! “The owner will be back shortly,” he promises excitedly. “The manager will be delighted to...” The lady, fearful that “shortly” may mean any length of time which she would rather not spend in company of seedy clerk whose eyebrows are too mobile, even more fearful of meeting the manager; she imagines a two-hundred-pound Hungarian who might actually persuade her to book for a real trip—the lady regrets but she is in a hurry. Once more she inquires if by chance he has a folder —The manager knows where everything is, the clerk cries in despair. Just a folder with a map of Budapest, she pleads. He withdraws to back room where other people are working. Communists? Anarchists? she wonders. Fund-raisers for regaining the Crown of St. Stephen? The clerk returns with two travel folders, one pink, the other, an old photograph green. The colors remotely relating to dominant colors of Hungarian flag. Apologetic and downcast, beseeching to be reassured that she will return when manager is in the office, he hands them to her. She will drop by later, she promises noncommittally, as clerk holds the door and she walks out on Second Avenue.
“Visit Budapest, the Pearl of the Danube,” the green travel folder invites the American traveler. “With its history spanning a period of two thousand years, the city has preserved a number of historical monuments and artistic relics...” The pink folder, issued by Ibusz (what the Ugric tongue has retained from the Latin omnibus), offers “WINGED HUNGARIAN HOSPITALITY” aboard Malev planes scheduled to twenty-three European and Near Eastern cities. For information, ticketing, booking: 3 Vaci Utca, Budapest, V. Telephone: 134–034. It lists under its sightseeing program a tour of Buda castle twice a week at 10:45 every Wednesday: “The motor-coach will leave Roosevelt ter and make for the Parliament, accompanied by a guide. The visit to the interior of the Parliament is accompanied by special guide. From here, the coach will go over Margaret Bridge, Martirok utja, Moszkva ter up to Castle Hill, to the terminus of the microbus. Here the visitors change over to the microbus, the guide takes his seat at the microphone, and explains the interesting spots on Castle Hill on the route that takes about forty-five minutes. From here the visitors will be taken back to Roosevelt ter, crossing the Danube on the Chain Bridge.”
There is a small Hungarian bookstore across the street that might have a map. The front is cluttered with souvenirs, shepherd dolls, peasant lace, pipes, embroidery, folk-song records. The tastefully dressed lady in her fifties, by a small table, writing on stationery paper, is presumably the owner. She could be a friend, neighbor, relation of the owner, she has such a pleasant air of indifference, of coming from somewhere else, of being at home anywhere. She gives Sophie a brief look, a friendly nod of acknowledgment, it could be to her sister or daughter coming home from work, to whom it is not necessary to speak. A map of Budapest? She thinks she has one upstairs. The customer isn’t in a hurry, is she? There are some Hungarian books in the back, she is welcome to browse around. She must go upstairs anyway in a little while to put the roast in the oven, she’ll look for it then.
Foreign novels—American, German, French—translated into Hungarian fill most of the shelves. But there are some items of interest. A bound volume of the weekly illustrated Vilag, or World, the Hungarian counterpart of Life or Paris Match for the years 1921–1922, catches her eye—unfortunately buried under a huge, dusty and precarious jumble of journals, pamphlets, as well as heavier untitled volumes. That’s just as well. Now is not the moment to look into the twenties. It’s the volume of the First World War years Sophie would like to see, that she leafed through so often as a child. There was one in her father’s waiting room and at her grandmother’s. Almost every house had it. It was a big book bound in red, with the picture of the Assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo on the first page, followed by pictures of members of the Hapsburg family, beautiful young men and women, the sad old Kaiser Franz Josef and Kaiser Wilhelm in his pointed helmet. The next page showed jubilant crowds dancing in the street, hats thrown in the air, hands waving bottles: the crowds celebrating the news of the outbreak of the war in Paris, London, Vienna, Berlin, Budapest. The rest of the book was war pictures. The same pictures, page
