The North Side of the Chain Bridge

Anita Harag

Translated from Hungarian by Marietta Morry and Walter Burgess

I don’t dare take his hand. My palms sweat. They sweat when I’m nervous. This time I’m nervous because I have to take his hand and my palms sweat. Whenever I held my mother's, my father's, or a friend’s hand they sweated even more. Once I noticed father wiping his hand on his trousers after having let go of mine. I didn’t know if it was on my account or because his palm was sweaty, too. We’re the same blood type, he is also AB. That’s the rarest, father said, yours is the same as mine.  That’s fine, it’s a father-daughter thing. Perhaps that’s why our hands sweat, that’s what I believed for a long time.  

I don’t dare take his hand. We’re walking up on Gellért Hill, he knows a place where there aren’t many people.  I’m a girl from the Pest side*, the last time I went to the Buda hills I was seven.  I don’t say this out loud.  We walk up along the winding path; I try to breathe calmly without panting.  At the playground, the kids are lining up to use the slide, their parents are holding their hands.  My buddies and I used to come here to smoke weed, he says, rather not exactly here, he corrects himself, but where we’re heading.  Three or four of us, there's not much room for any more.  I hope there aren’t too many people there.  I don’t know, it’s been a long time since I was here.  Even then it was dark, so I don’t know if we’re supposed to turn right now or a bit farther up.  He stops, looks around and leans over the railing.  Aha, that’s it, he says and jumps over it.  I also climb over it.  I’m careful not to let my leg get caught, afraid my pants would split.  We start down, he’s ahead of me on a narrow trail.  I try to avoid the branches.  I haven’t sprayed myself with insect repellent.  At home I’ll have to check my body for ticks, especially at the back of my knees where my skin is softer and thinner.  I don’t slip on the steep slope; he takes my hand to help me down from the last steeper section, and I only realize this afterwards.  

I took his hand for the first time yesterday.  We arranged to meet on the north side of the Chain Bridge.  At first I thought he meant the Buda side but he also mentioned that it would be in the middle.  In the middle of the north side.  That’s where he was waiting, I wanted to give him a peck on the cheek, but he extended his hand.  I was so nervous and didn’t pay attention to squeezing it hard and looking into his eyes.  I always pay attention to these things, looking into the eyes, squeezing.  I don’t pay much attention to names, neither first nor last.  I knew his name.  

A boy of twenty and a somewhat younger girl are drinking beer at the rampart when we arrive. He greets them, hello.  Hello, they greet him back.  Hello, I also say.  We sit down by the low stone barricade.  He puts one of his feet on it and leans on his knee.  I turn my back to the Pest side a bit so that I can see him.  I’m afraid of heights.  I look down carefully, but I can’t guess how high we are.  Twenty, thirty meters.  Both seem wrong.  We’re high up, we can see all of Pest, he points things out.  That’s the top of the basilica, can you see it, he asks.  That’s where the eastern railway station is, and over there the Arts Centre, although you can’t see it from here but it’s in that direction.  And I live that way, somewhere, not far from the station.  You can see the very top of my old school, over there, it’s reddish.  Do you see it?  I follow the direction in which he points but I don’t see it.  I see it, I answer.  Good God, all the crazy things we were up to! he says. The principal sent a note to my parents almost every month. Once we stole all the chalk from the classrooms.  Since then, they keep the doors locked.  Smoking in the toilets, I ask him.  Of course, every day.  That’s hardly worth mentioning, he answers.   I never had a smoke in the toilets, but pretend I did. I tried it once when I was thirteen, not at school but along the Rákos Brook.  I finished two cigs then told my mother about it.  She would have smelled it on me anyway.  For two weeks afterwards I thought I would get cancer of the tongue.  One of my classmates told me that even one cig can bring it about, and it’s much worse if you don’t inhale.  I didn’t inhale.  

What were you like, he asks. My parents also got a note from the principal once, but I was mostly a straight A student, I participated in all the events, recited poems on national holidays, things like that.  You know, I was that typical good girl.  Uh-huh, I was the bad boy and always attracted to good girls.  And me, to bad boys.  He smiles.  I like it when someone smiles so that there are creases around the mouth.  He talks about all four years, he recalls in full detail, when and how he broke the principal’s window with a soccer ball, how he reported a bomb scare from a phone booth just to avoid writing a math test on functions.  I don’t listen to every word.  He often smiles when he talks and then I also smile automatically, but what I’m thinking of is what type of undershirt is beneath his pullover.   And what his chest must look like under that. Is the hair blond like on his head or is it darker?  Perhaps red.  

It’s slowly getting dark; I rub my arm.  He also rubs my arm and asks if I’d like to have his jacket.  I shake my head.  I can hardly make out the branches over the trail, one hits my face, he walks in front, I follow a few steps behind.  At the top he helps me over the railing.  He reaches for my hand again, and then doesn’t let it go.  I let him hold it.  His palm is a bit rough.  He accompanies me to the bus stop.  He hugs me to keep me warm.  He gives me a quick kiss on my mouth.  Four buses pass by before I get on one.

He’s taking pictures of me while I’m sleeping; it wakes me up.  What are you doing, I ask him.  Nothing, go back to sleep.  You know I don’t like it.  It’s only that the light caught you so nicely, he says.  He points out the specks cast on my belly and shoulder made by the light filtering through the blinds.  They glow.  He puts the camera on the night table, strokes my belly and kisses my shoulder.  Don’t go to work today!  Tell them that you’re sick.  That you’ve got the runs, or something like that.  Should I tell them that I’ve got the runs?  Tell them.  They can’t say anything to that.  He tries to persuade me; we could go back to sleep and stay in bed all day.  I text my boss that I’m not coming into work today.  Indigestion.  He keeps kissing my belly, satisfied, presses his ear to my bellybutton.  It’s gurgling, he says.  He slides up and puts his head on my chest.  When you take a breath, it beats faster.  I got arrhythmia.   Arrhythmia?  Yes, it means irregular beat, or that there is an extra beat between beats, I don’t know exactly.  My phone pings, my boss replies: get better.  I’ve a small cramp in my stomach.  I’ve never called in sick without being sick.  I’m sure they know.  They know that I’m not sick.  That’s what they’ll be talking about; yesterday I was perfectly fine; indigestion is like that; it always starts at night and there are no warning signs.  He gets up, opens the shutters, I cover my eyes against the light.  Let’s go out for breakfast, he says.  Aren’t we going to stay in bed all day?  We can lie down again after.  

He puts on his trousers, I’m looking for clean panties in the drawer, I don’t bother putting on a bra, we’re only going to corner coffee shop.  I close the door and check twice to see if it’s properly locked.  Don’t do that, he scolds, you’ve locked it.  OK, I only want to check, and I go back, put in the key and turn it until it stops.  Next time, I’m going to lock up, he says on the way down.  Do you trust me to lock up properly?  He lets me go ahead at the front door, puts his arm around my shoulders.  I’m in the habit of checking the light switches, he says.  Sometimes I get out of bed to check if I’ve turned off bathroom light.  

There’s a long line up at the coffee shop but no one is sitting at the tables.  Everyone is going to work.  I’m bed-ridden because of indigestion, I’m not going.  He doesn’t go either, he doesn’t work today, he’ll only have to take pictures the day after tomorrow.  They’ll go to an old outdoor pool in Lepence that’s been closed for fifteen years.  There’s nothing there except empty pools covered in leaves, condoms, and candy wrappers.  And an old hut where the food was sold.  It’s our turn next.  He orders a bacon wrap, me an omelet and coffee.  He an espresso lungo and me a latte.  I wouldn’t call that coffee; he says and sits down at a table near the window.  I would prefer to sit farther inside, it’s quieter and people at the bus stop wouldn’t see us. They wouldn’t see us drink coffee and stare back at them.  That’s just like some foamy sugary hot chocolate.  I like foamy sugary hot chocolate, I tell him.  Taste this, and he offers me his cup.  Taste this, this is the real thing.  I just shake my head but then he doesn’t take the cup away.  I taste it, the bitterness hurts my tongue.  This is too strong for me, I say.  It’s bitter.  Of course, it’s bitter, coffee is bitter.  This is real coffee.  It’s just an illusion that you sense bitterness and sweetness on different parts of the tongue, did you know?  He wipes his hand on a napkin, pushes away the empty plate and drinks up what’s left of his coffee.  I’m a slow eater, I say; he strokes my thigh.  But do you know why, he asks.  After you cut off a piece you transfer your fork from the left hand to the right.  I guess because you’re better with your right hand.  Haven’t you noticed that?  No, I answer.  It’s true, it’s what I always do.  But it only dawned on me now that that’s why it takes me twice as long.

He suggests we go for a walk.  The weather is so nice, why shouldn’t we.  After all we haven’t got anything to do today.  I’d like to go upstairs to change first, and head for the building.  I’d like to put on a bra, but I don’t say that.  No, let’s not go upstairs, he insists and takes my hand, if we go upstairs, we’ll stay there.  He pulls me along.  I go.

We roam the streets, I follow him.  Sometimes he stops to take pictures, he always carries a camera, yet he doesn’t look like a tourist.  It’s how he holds it, a 700 Nikon, that’s what matters, that’s what’s different.  He stops in front of a run-down house; one of the panes of a huge double window is broken.  He takes pictures of the broken glass and the ivy growing on the side of the house.  It’ll be nice inside, too, he says, and goes over and pushes the gate; it doesn’t open.  He looks at me, he’d like to go inside.  I wouldn’t, stop fooling around.  He knows that I’d like to go in, I shouldn’t resist.  Don’t resist, let’s look inside.  He walks up and down along the fence; this is number twenty-four.  The lot at twenty-six is empty, the owner of twenty-two can’t see in because the area is overgrown with weeds.  There’s nobody here, we’d have no trouble getting in, we’ve got to go in, he repeats, and tries to push the gate again, this time with more force.  He succeeds.  We won’t do anything, just look around to see what it’s like in there.  I shouldn’t be scared, he’s entered a lot of abandoned houses before, nobody gives a damn.  

I follow him.  The gate squeaks, it’s hard to open and close.  He pushes it until it clicks.  He’s holding my hand; I pull back a bit to make him slow down.  He walks closer to the ivy to take photos.  He proceeds slowly into the back yard with his hands in his pockets as if inspecting how large the garden is, if there’s enough room for a pool, because if there isn’t, we won’t buy. I follow him slowly.  The house has a large garden, this could be in the ad.  I stop at the end of the house, as if hesitating at some boundary.  Even in the cemetery I always feel bad when I must cross some stranger’s plot among the graves.  Nobody has tended this garden for years, even though it was once well kept.  There are traces of cordoned-off flower beds, the weeds are somewhat higher here.  He checks everywhere, stops at the back of the garden and starts kicking something.  He bends down, rummages on the ground.  There’s something there.  He straightens up and comes back.  They haven’t been living here for quite a while, there’s a shed-like structure in the back but it has almost completely collapsed.  What do you think must have happened?  I don’t know, I answer.  It’s a one-story house but with huge double windows.  He walks over to the side entrance of the house.  It’s locked.  I stay in the garden, hesitating at that boundary.  He walks over to a back window, forms a visor over his eyes with his hands and looks inside.  There’s nobody here.  I think we can go in.  I don’t want to climb in through the window.  It’s not very high, he’ll go in and then help me.  But I don’t want to, I say.  Come on, why not, I don’t believe you’re behaving like this, he answers, he doesn’t understand why I’m so inflexible, why he can’t do any fun stuff with me.  I’m going in, I don’t care, he says.  He pushes the window open, lifts himself onto the ledge and climbs in.  I walk to the window; he reaches out his hand.  Well?  Now or never.  I take his hand and he helps me over the ledge.  I can do it from here, thanks.  I step inside, there’s dirt stuck to my palm and a few bits of wood from the ledge.  

The tall chestnut tree in the garden blocks out the sun, it must be cool here in the summer, now it’s dark and musty.  The house is completely empty, on the ceiling there is a moldy stain in the shape of Lake Velence. During geography class, our teacher, Karola, hung a huge topographical map of Hungary over the blackboard.  When it was my turn to answer, I had to point out where the different minor lakes and hills were located and how tall the hills were.  She never asked me about the major lakes like Balaton or Velence.  Once she caught me using a cheat sheet.  The patterned wallpaper below the stain is blistered, by the window it is completely detached.  There is filthy greyish white plaster underneath.  A large room, a small room with a narrow corridor between, a bathroom, a toilet and a kitchen.  A small jewel box close to the heart of the city.  The toilet is separate from the bathroom, the latter has a tub with a hole in it, the bottom covered in scale.  It just needs to be cleaned, he says, a thorough cleaning with vinegar plus a coat of paint and you could move in.  I like it that the toilet is separate from the bathroom.  What do you think, dear, he asks.  Yes, sweetheart, and having a window in the bathroom is also an advantage.  You grew up in one of those apartments from the ’70's, he says, breaking character.  He walks through the rooms, presses the torn wallpaper back onto the wall, but as soon as he lets go, it separates again.  He says they must have emigrated.  Why emigrated?  That he doesn’t know.  I don’t think so, it’s more like the last generation died here.  Then their children must have emigrated, that’s why they didn’t do anything with the house.  Or, simply, the last living Szebenyei must have died, or Kovács, or Balogh.  That’s why the house is deserted, because it belongs to no one.  Perhaps, but it sounds better that they emigrated, he insists.  They have emigrated, it’s much more interesting, where they emigrated to and why.  Perhaps, I answer, it’s more interesting to me if they died out.  If there’s no child or grandchild left in the family.  The grandchildren will remain grandchildren, they’ll never become parents or grandparents.  They’re old yet not grandfathers or grandmothers.  I find it hard to imagine an old lady in her seventies who’s not someone’s grandmother.  He closes the window, are you afraid of the dark, he asks.  No, not of the dark, only of water.  For a long time, he used to be afraid of the dark.  Of complete darkness when the venetian blinds are closed and not even the streetlights filter through from the outside.  The time he was most scared was when the power went out in their building when he was eleven.  The streetlights were out, as well.  He was alone at home, perhaps his mother was at the hairdresser’s, his father at the pub or was working late, he no longer knows.  He was alone in the dark.  He’d never been as scared as at that moment.  Because he couldn’t see a fucking thing.  He thought he’d gone blind.  The clock on the stove was off.  He switched the light on and off, but nothing happened.  That’s it, there’s nothing more, he’ll never know how white their fridge is, where his father used to slide the Mona Lisa magnet to the side because he hated the way it looked at him, and his mother used to push it back to its place.  He was not going to see the crack on the wall in his room that he always stared at in the semi-darkness before going to sleep.  He walked over to the window, pulled up the venetian blinds and there was a tiny bit of light reflecting from a spade in the garden.  He kept looking around to see if there really was light there.  The power was out for twenty-six minutes.  Do you know where else it’s so damned dark?  In caves.  When he was nineteen, he went on an excursion to the Caves of Aggtelek.  He hasn’t been scared ever since.  He just closed his eyes and felt around, and after a while he knew how to feel around to avoid falling.  Using his feet and hands.  Somehow, he felt more secure in the pitch dark if he closed his eyes. 

We should go for walks more often; he says as we leave the house.  He holds my waist and helps me climb through the window.  It was good, wasn’t it?  It wasn’t at all risky, he could tell I liked it.  

Every evening, we go for a walk to the island and then back.  It takes an hour, sometimes only fifty-eight minutes, sometimes seventy-three.  My pace depends on my mood, that’s what he thinks.  If I’m nervous, I go faster, at such times he can tell that my right foot is turned in.  He watches how I walk, I didn’t even notice, did I.  He knows that I used to do gymnastics.  That was eleven years ago, I should try to do some exercise again.  It would help my back; I sit in front of a computer all day.  That’s also the reason my neck hurts.  The island is a fine place, he and his friends used to come here a lot to drink; that was a while ago.  They would open the beer cans, which hissed in the silence, the water carried the sound to the opposite bank.  Nobody used to come here.  Now all the benches are occupied, you can’t be alone here.  We must come late at night when there are fewer people.  That’s why we come here on weekday nights.  He knows a place past the Musical Fountain, you need to climb over a fence, only those who know about the trail go there. 

He used to have a girlfriend, he won’t give me her name, not because he wants to keep it a secret, I mustn’t think that, but if he gives it, I’ll associate a face and a personality with it, and she doesn’t need a face or a personality.  She wasn’t that important.  I tend to overthink and overblow things, I mustn’t deny it, he knows it.  He took this girl, who doesn’t have a name, to this public building on their second date.  The windows were broken, it was easy to climb over the gate, no one guarded it.  He’d been there several times before and was curious if the girl would go inside with him.  He didn’t tell her where they were going, they just kept going and the girl, who doesn’t have a name, didn’t know the place.  He didn’t think she would go in, she was always very quiet, hardly spoke with strangers.  Yet, she went in OK.  The quietest girls surprise you the most, that’s been his experience on several occasions.  

We walk over to the island and back, the trip takes longer on the way there.  He holds my hand, he always holds it, he takes it when we come out of a store.  He’s noticed by now that I prefer him on my left side.  My right hand is more skillful, that’s what I use for everything, that may be the reason. That’s because my right hand is steadier than the left.  That’s what I use to open everything, to write on Messenger, to support myself on the bus.  His left hand is also weaker, but that’s because of a skiing accident.  He still can’t completely bend one of his fingers, he has no sensation in the phalanges.  He doesn’t know if I had noticed it.  

I shouldn’t pick up the phone, it doesn’t matter who it is, he is the one present.  I always have my phone at hand, I should really get out of the habit when we’re together, I shouldn’t be available to others.  I feel bad because he’s hit on a sensitive issue, he can tell, he says.  I knit my eyebrows, my nose wrinkles a bit, I should see myself now, I would see how right he is.  He strokes my face; his palm is rough.  He used to row, that’s why it’s like sandpaper.  Once he had a date with a girl who was not willing to take his hand because of that.  It bothered her, he said, she’s the one who said it was like sandpaper.

The forecast for tonight is -4°C, it might break a record; the last time it went down to -3° on this date was in 1971. He read in an article that two people froze to death that night. Once he and his buddies went into the Danube when it was -13°, that was the coldest. They took bets whether they would dare to go in the water on the coldest night of the year.  That was on January 22.  They stepped on the ice flows, but that was different, they didn’t have to go into the water, just step on the ice.  One time the ice cracked under him, he’s the tallest and heaviest.  A thin opening formed from his right foot toward the other bank.  He and his two buddies had been doing this since the age of seventeen.  Misu and Bandit, that’s what he calls them, he hasn’t yet given their real names.  Bandit’s name is András, but his father has the same name and so he hated it.  It’s stupid that when sons are named after their fathers.  These days he simply goes by the name Bandi; the usual nickname for András, they haven’t met for two years.  Before that they went into the water every winter.  They stripped naked, left their clothes on the bank beside the blankets they brought along.  Misu had curly black hair between his legs, you could hardly see his cock, that gave us a good laugh.   He had a short haircut, that’s why you couldn’t tell how curly it was.  They had a rule to stay in the water at least five minutes.  On the coldest day, Bandit didn’t want to go in.  This is crazy, he said, why don’t they just have a beer and then go to his place.  He’s chicken, his balls almost froze, and he got scared.  Then he came to his senses, after all this was a tradition.  They must go in.  They took off their clothes and ran to the river and dove into the water, then ran out, the pebbles hurting their feet.  They wrapped the blankets around themselves and jumped up and down like idiots, to warm up.  The cold hurt, first it burned then caused dull aches and a kind of numbness.  Bandit lost it, imbecile, imbecile, imbecile, he kept repeating while banging the pebbles by his feet with his fist.  The skin tore on his hand.  He claimed he did it to have a different kind of pain.  The next year they didn’t want to go in, just sat on the bank in their coats.  At one point he suggested that they go in, but neither Misu nor Bandit wanted to.  We’re too old for that, they said, or something like that.  It was around that time that Misu’s girlfriend got pregnant, two months before that, he was going to break up with her.  It was also when Bandit started not showing up, he doesn’t know what happened to him, they haven’t talked for two years.  From that time, he went by the name of Bandi.  

I’m cold, I’m cold again, even though he reminded me to put on another pullover.   He knows I get cold easily, as soon as the temperature gets below 3° I shiver and my lips turn purple. They’re purple now, too, the lip balm I put on doesn’t help, he can see.  I should give him my hand, my left one, he slips it in his pocket.  It might have used tissues in it.  It doesn’t matter, he isn’t put off by my snot. Then I’m not put off by his either.  A cloth coat isn’t enough, it looks good, a nice yellow and all, but I’m shivering in it.  He gives me his coat, he’s not cold.  The cold doesn’t bother him, my nose gets all red, this time, too, it’s getting red.  He kisses me, I ‘m always the first to open my eyes, he’s only noticed that recently.  He finds it strange to be kissing while I’m looking at him, that’s why he opens his eyes, too.  We look at each other for a while, then we start laughing while still kissing.  He already knows that I like watching him during sex, too, he digs that I watch him; anyone looking on can tell that I love him.  It’s in my eyes, the way I look at him, that I’m totally into him.  It’s going to be very cold this evening, it was already -4° when we left. It’s going to be a record cold at night.  I’ll see that in a couple of days there’ll be ice flows on the Danube.  We’re about to reach the place where he and his buddies used to go.  Yes, they need to go this way.  I should also climb over the railing.  See, here’s the trail, we’ve been here a couple of times before, he asks if I remember.  I used to like it here, just like I used to like it in the house, it was me who wanted to go back.  I got to like the garden, the patterned wallpaper, the tub with the hole.  There was a hole beside the living room door, I always put my finger into it; it left white dust on it.  I tried to imagine what could have been there.  You could see the traces of pictures near the other holes, the wall was lighter there but not there, perhaps there used to be a lamp or something hanging from a nail.  A talisman.  Some of the pictures had disappeared but others remained.  He knows that my favorite is the photo of a woman with curly black hair, not looking into the camera but away, as if out through the window of the living room.  Photos didn’t use to be digital; can I tell the difference?  He has an analogue camera at home, it requires a whole different approach.  I’m curious why they took away some of pictures but not others, I always asked him that when we went there.  For example, why did they leave the picture of the curly haired woman.  He thinks I should take it, nobody needs it, but I don’t want to, it belongs to the house.  I don’t even know her name.  That bothers me, he can tell.  I want to know her name, her job, when she died and when she was born.  Whether she remained young, around twenty, or grew old, her back aching from all the gardening, but even at age eighty, she would still plant and weed.  I tried to guess her name, Éva, Berta, neither suits her, Gréta, perhaps, or Katinka.  Not Katinka, more like Gréta.  I always give her a different name.  Then one day, there was a man walking in the garden and we couldn’t go in.  That ended it.  We never went back again.  

There are no ice flows on the Danube yet, today we can still go into the water.  I should look how the streetlamps on the opposite shore reflect on the water’s surface.  The water should be around four or five degrees, that’s still bearable.  We’ll get undressed, leave our clothes on the shore; no one ever comes this way.  We could pile everything on this rock, they wouldn’t get wet.  Let’s go in, it’ll feel good after.  Everyone has to try this once.  Just to know that they can do it.  Me, too, he’ll come in with me.  It shouldn’t be just five seconds, there should be some challenge in it.  Let’s swim over to the other bank.  OK, that’s really crazy, not to the other bank, let’s just see who can swim farther.  It will be good, I’ll see.  He knows I‘d like to do it but that I’m afraid, but there’s no need to be.  I became really fond of that house, too.  It’s only the beginning that’s difficult, after it’s easier.  Shall we go?  We must sink under fast then it only hurts for a couple of seconds.  I mustn’t think, let’s just run.  To the count of three.  One, two, three.

*Buda and Pest were once separate cities.  The Danube flows southward with flat Pest to the east and hilly Buda to the west.  The Chain Bridge, the oldest connecting the two, is suspended from chains.