The Honest Truth

My first night in Budapest I get a too-warm welcome.

“How did you find this place?” asks the man sitting at the bar. “It took me ten years.”

It’s quite simple: I arrived just hours ago in Budapest and my enthousiastic 22-year-old hostel owner sat me down with a map and pointed out his favourite spots. He said it’s strange this bar advertised on a tourist map, as it’s always filled with local people.

After walking around in the dark, mist-shrouded Budapest, it started to rain. I took out my map and went in search of that warm, local place to rest my tourist ass.

When I arrive, Kiadó (which means for rent in Hungarian) is exactly what I expected: a cozy, basement bar with wooden tables and tall glasses of beer. I walk up a couple stairs to where a  man in a black t-shirt and ponytail leans against the bar, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer.

“You speak some english?” I ask, stuffing my map in my pocket.

“A little,” he says, disinterestedly.

“Can I still eat?” I say, making the international motion for eating.

“Yes,” he says, and I sit down on a big, padded chair in front of the bar.

On the chairs beside me sits a couple, glued to eachothers’ faces. The girl, who looks like Scarlett Johansson, has red, puffy eyes. Whatever happened, the baby-faced guy looks happy to enjoy the “making-up”.

To my right a group of friends take up a couch and some chairs and in front of me a few regulars warm their barstools.

I stare at the paper menu written in Hungarian. Salat must be salad, Goulash I know, Leves? Kolbasz? Bab?

The pony-tailed man comes over I say shyly I’d like something to eat, but…(the international symbol for “I don’t understand this menu”).

“It’s possible,” he says, not answering the question. “Drink?”

I say a glass of white wine and he nods.

After slowly sipping my wine, I realize my fantasy  of the bartender bringing me a myriad of Hungarian delicacies isn’t happening. It was lost in translation.

I try to make eye contact and hold up my menu, the international sign for “I’d like to order.” He seems more interested in drinking his beer.

Finally, I wave him over. “Maybe you can choose something for me?” I say, pointing to the menu.

He shrugs like he doesn’t understand, and then, as if everything is suddenly clear, he flips the menu over to the english side.

Koszonom,” I say. Thank you, in Hungarian.

I order a big bowl of an interesting sounding soup: deer ragout with red noodles. I slurp it down, order another glass of wine and sink back in the comfy chair.

The man at the bar with slightly graying hair and a blue zip-up sweater keeps looking over. He’s drinking red wine. My bartender is rolling a cigarette, and feeling confident from the wine, I go up to ask if I can have one.

“Do you know how to roll?” says the blue shirt man who I’m now standing beside.

“Yes,” I say, defiantly, thanking god I taught myself to roll a joint.

The bartender nods towards his tobacco, I take a paper and roll a cigarette.

“Where are you from?” the man asks me.

I tell him.

“A Canadian on her first night in Budapest, ends up here,” he says. “That’s so strange. It’s a very special place.”

The man is from Budapest and his English is a little rusty.  He now lives outside of the city, but has two businesses here. He comes in every Tuesday to check up on them, and Tuesday night you can find him on this very barstool.

“Do you want something to drink?” he says, rightly sensing I’m preparing to go.

Okay.

“Two rums,” he tells the lanky bartender with a long beard sitting behind the bar. “Sit down,” he says, motioning to the stool beside him.

The bartender brings three shots and joins in on the cheers. I down the whole thing, and after putting the empty glass on the table, realize they’ve only drank half.

“You didn’t know,” says the man laughing, after I point this out.

He has a dimpled smile, confidence with women, and in his tastes.

We talk a bit about my trip, and he tells me he’s spent some time in Italy. I tell him I love the language, and he says he doesn’t like it very much. To him, Italians don’t sound like native speakers of their own language.

?!?!?!?

I ask him about life in Budapest and he says he loves it here, but not to live. Too many cars with crazy drivers, too much theft and backwards people.

He order us another rum and writes down his perfect day in Budapest: a thermal bath at one of the many bath houses, a turkish dinner at a restaurant near my hostel, and a drink at a bar near the opera house. He titles it “Sunday menu.”

Feeling tipsy, and noticing that most people have cleared out, I thank him and try for a second time to leave.

“You’re going?” he says, surprised.

“They’re closing.”

“It’s flexible,” he says, smiling.

He insists I try a liquor called Palinka, a type of Hungarian Schnapps. I choose the  plum favour and ask him if he’s having on too. He says no. It hurts his stomach too much.

Well no shit. If there was any plum in there I’m too distracted by my burning windpipe to notice.

There’s nobody left in the bar and the bartenders are packing up their things. We both stand up to go, and the bearded bartender hands the man a rose. It’s his daughter’s second birthday, tomorrow.

The man walks me to the corner I have to turn down to get home. Then he says the garage where his car’s parked is nearby, and he’ll give me a ride.

When we get to the parking complex, the man can’t find his car. He curses his driver for telling him the wrong floor, and we ride the elevator to the next one up.

To make small talk, and to clarify some questions floating around in my head, I ask him if he lives with his daughter. He says yes. I ask him where his daughter’s mother lives. “We live outside of Budapest,” he repeats, confusedly.

Right. You, your daughter, and your wife.

I don’t mind that he’s older, but I’m not up for helping him have some good ol’ fashioned extra-marital fun.

Once we arrive on the fifth floor, he still can’t find his car.

He tells me to wait while he looks on the floor above.

I say I think I’ll just walk.

“Why? You have to wait here just a few minutes.”

“Trust me,” I say.  “It’s better if I walk.”

“Is this because my car is lost, or because I have a wife…” he asks.

I tell him the latter.

“So what? I drive you to your hostel, we kiss, and you leave for Canada.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head.  “I can’t do that.”

He gives a half-laugh, like he can’t believe what I’m saying.

“Alright,” he says, and walks away.

I walk quickly in the other direction, and once outside of the parking garage, find my spot on the map. I start in what I think is the right direction, but stop at the next corner to be sure.

“Need some help,” asks a young guy in perfect English, walking a dog.

I show him my spot on the map.

“You have to go this way,” he says, pointing to the opposite direction I’m going. “I’m sure, I used to live there.”

“Where are you from?” I say.

He looks at me suspiciously. “Seattle,” he says, pausing, then adding: “But I’ve lived here for ten years. Do you live in Budapest?”

“I wouldn’t be holding a map if I did,” I say, and thank him for his help.

Walking away I think maybe I should’ve said yes, and told him about a little bar where all the locals go…