? ? ?
“Owen tells me you two bought an interesting book,” Peter said. I took The ESL Miscellany out of my bag.
“Selin saw it first,” Owen said.
“Can I borrow it?” Cheryl asked.
“Of course,” I said. “Would you like to take it now?”
“Oh, no—I’ll let you read it first.”
I was surprised to learn that Cheryl was twenty-three, she looked so young, with her curly hair and tiny peaked face. She was wearing a little striped shirt, white shorts, and white sandals, like Piglet, and carried a tiny purse with the strap across her chest. At first I felt an affinity toward Cheryl because she was the only one other than me who was really trying to learn Hungarian—she carried under her arm the very same edition of Teach Yourself Hungarian that I kept hidden in my suitcase. Whereas I shrouded my studies in secrecy and pretended not to understand anything, Cheryl did exercises in restaurants and constantly asked Peter questions. Sometimes she asked about inconsistencies in the book that had puzzled me, too, and then I felt very close to her.
It came as a blow to realize that, just as I was interested in Hungarian because of Ivan, Cheryl was interested because of Peter. We were just the same, except that we were also different, because when Ivan said idyllic things about plum and cherry trees I felt tense and mistrustful, whereas Cheryl seemed really into the bucolic stuff. She kept asking about the village where she would live—whether there would be mountains, a lake, and animals. Peter said that Hungary was full of beautiful mountains, ice-cold lakes, and frolicsome horses, and that maybe she would be able to borrow her host family’s bike, wear her bathing suit under her clothes, and ride to the lake to swim under the mountains among the rabbits and the deer.
Cheryl really wanted to be placed in a host family with lots of non-English-speaking children, so she could learn Hungarian. The third or fourth time she mentioned how she didn’t want anyone in her family to speak English, Peter said that there would likely be at least one English speaker in every household. The villagers would probably arrange it that way because they wanted to practice English, just as she wanted to practice Hungarian. Cheryl said they could surely change her assignment—they could find her a family with lots of children who didn’t know any English at all. “As long as there are beginning-English students and a lake and I can see a mountain, I will be perfectly happy,” she said, reminding me of how my grandfather used to say he was a simple man with simple tastes: “All I need is a little milk from a goat that has been fed for a month on wild green pears.”
? ? ?
We were all supposed to go to a jazz club to meet Gábor, the one who was trying to sell shoes. I had to drop my suitcase at the hostel first—it was still at Peter’s grandmother’s apartment. Peter said it was getting late, so I would have to go by myself and meet them later with a taxi. I wrote down the name of the club, and Peter carried my suitcase to the tram stop. Andrea came, too. The sun was setting and everything was mauve and gold and beautiful.
“I’m curious why you didn’t leave your luggage at the hostel yesterday, with everyone else’s,” Peter said.
“We did wait a bit for everyone else,” I said, thinking longingly about the future day when I would cease to be accountable for that suitcase. “But Ivan was in a rush. He had to meet his friends.”
“Yes, okay, but your things. Why didn’t you leave them at the hostel?”
“Ivan said I shouldn’t, because then other people would have to carry them upstairs.”
“It would have been less trouble than this, don’t you think? I mean, people still have to carry your things.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Oh, well,” Peter said, “I suppose it worked out for the best, since you ended up sleeping over at Ivan’s house, and this way you had your things with you. It would have been inconvenient if your bags were in the hostel.”
“Peti, I’ve been thinking,” Andrea said. “Why don’t I take her in my car? Then we’ll meet you at the club.”
“Oh, do you have a car?” Peter asked.
“Of course I have a car!”
“And does this car work?”
“Yes!” Then, derisively, “No, you have to push it.”
“Well, you used to!”
“That was a year ago!”
“Oh, naturally. I expect it couldn’t possibly be the same.”
“No!” she exclaimed.
“No,” he said.
“Don’t hurt my little car!”
“I won’t hurt your little car.”
Andrea took the top handle, I took the side handle, and we lugged the suitcase between us.
My room was on the fourth floor of the hostel. It had three beds, three desks, a washbasin, a wardrobe, and some math equations penciled on the wall. This was not the work of Dawn, eschewer of obfuscation. We deposited the suitcase and left.
? ? ?
The jazz club was in a basement. The saxophonist was doubled over, face contorted, gasping between phrases. The sounds seemed to come from outside of life. You felt not just sorry, but also afraid. I wondered where Ivan was.
Peter handed me a glass with a lime in it. “This is a gin and tonic,” he said.
They didn’t have cider, but the bartender mixed Dawn a drink with apple juice, Sprite, and vodka, and she said it was even better.
In a black room with orange lights and pounding Spanish music we stood in a big circle dancing. It reminded me of preschool, when you also had to stand in a circle and clap your hands. I began to intuit dimly why people drank when they went dancing, and it occurred to me that maybe the reason preschool had felt the way it had was that one had had to go through the whole thing sober.
When nobody was looking, I went back to the table where we’d left our things. I found my bag and lit a cigarette. After the first drag, a weak but perceptible energy gathered behind my eyes. Suddenly I noticed Cheryl sitting among the jackets and bags, her head drooping under its fluffy mane. When I said hi, she raised her melancholy eyes. She looked like a sick lapdog. “I don’t feel well,” she said. “I wish Peter would take us back.”
Feeling a wave of pity for us both, I suggested we split a cab back. “I saw some cabs outside before,” I said.
“You can go,” she said eventually, after a long silence. “I don’t think it would be polite to leave before Peter.”
There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that. I took another drag from the cigarette. “Peter tells me you’re from Turkey,” snapped a familiar voice.
“Oh—hi, Gábor,” I said.
“I’m very curious about the attitude of Turks regarding the collapse of the Ottoman Empire,” Gábor said. “One day you’re the largest empire in the world; the next, you’re a republic the size of Texas.”
“Ha, funny,” I said, looking for an ashtray.
“I’d be interested to learn the standard Turkish attitude,” he said.