Hello/Goodbye

Hello – Goodbye



         It was Anne’s third day in Budapest. Since she had arrived she had been doing the things tourists are expected to do when visiting a foreign country. Although she wasn’t a complete stranger in the city, as one of her oldest and best friends lived there and guided her wherever she wanted to go, she was still a foreigner with a foreigner’s perspective. She had already visited Budapest with her parents back in the 90’s when she was a little girl, that’s how she got to know Zsuzsi. They spent an unforgettable summer together, quickly became friends, and, lucky them, never lost contact since. Back then things were quite different in Hungary, as the aftermath of socialism was still in the air: funny-looking cars were running around the streets, people wore clothes that reflected on a fashion that for her was already outdated several years before, not to mention that hardly anybody spoke any English. Anne thought that life in general was much greyer in 90’s Hungary. Naturally, as she was only ten years old, she hadn’t noticed it back then; she simply enjoyed every new adventure that came across her way. However, looking back in a 12-year retrospect, she could clearly see the difference. People became more open, more European, she thought, and for some reason, they seemed younger. Those strange cars disappeared, too, as well as English grew more widely spoken.

         She was happy to be back in Budapest, or rather: she was relieved to be out of her ordinary life. She had been living under a tiny bell jar in the previous five years, and by this time she felt that she was running out of air. In fact, she was suffocating. She needed to break out of that bell jar, find new places, meet new people, and escape from all the things which have grown to be so ordinary during the previous years. She was dying to experience real life in the open air: she wanted to get to know a different culture from her own just as well as she wanted to get away from that very grey weather of theirs. People often criticize British weather: they make little mean remarks that it’s always foggy and rainy in London. Anne really hated this stereotyping, because, although she didn’t live in London, she knew well that there were just as many bright and shiny days in the city as rainy ones. However, if she thought honestly about the weather in Liverpool which she had experienced during the proceeding winter and spring, she had to admit that there hadn’t been many cloudless days. Maybe she could even count those on her fingers. So she was in need for some sunshine, too, but mostly she needed that endorphin which for her was the side effect of sunbathing. Plus, she thought, it would be so cool to pick up some tan by the time she was going to return home. Her friends would envy her for it so much.

         Most importantly, though, she came to Budapest to heal. On the very day of their graduation she broke up with her boyfriend of five years, without any real reason. They were one of those couples who went to the same university, they even had the same major; they met in a flat party during their first semester, fell in love in an instant, then stuck together all the way through until graduation. It’s a real cliché, isn’t it? They were, in fact. Most of their friends thought that they were the dream couple of the school. They were so perfect together that their friends would have hated them if they didn’t love them so much. They weren’t only lovers, though, with an always buzzing chemistry between them, but good friends, too. They shared the same opinion on the big questions of life, had identical political and religious views, almost same taste in movies, music, and books. They understood each other without words; they read each others’ minds only by the nod of the head. Nevertheless, at other times, they could lye on the bed in the dark and talk for hours. She was so grateful to have him talking to her that she was listening to him as closely as she possibly could. “It’s great to have somebody who’s willing to talk to you about all kinds of things and shares basically everything that pops into his head” she thought. Thus, she was just listening, and it didn’t even occur to her to interrupt him; in fact, she didn’t even need to nod her head. Still, he knew that she was listening to him and that she knew exactly what he was talking about. Because she was really, honestly listening to him. He said that he could talk to her for days about all kinds of issues. She wanted to listen to him for days. At the same time, when it came to making a decision, even the smallest ones, they always got into a long conversation, or rather argument, because Ben would never give in easily. They were just like that great old Beatles song, you know, the Hello Goodbye one - no wonder they were from Liverpool, too. She said yes, he said no, she said stop, he said go, go, go… When she said high, he said low, and when she said goodbye, he said hello. They were very funny from the point of an outsider; however, for Anne – although she did enjoy these little arguments – it felt like a tilt at windmills. She always needed to make such a great effort to convince Ben about anything, and it was very annoying at first, but later on she grew fond of even this habit of his. They were the round peg and the round hole, just perfect for each other. Some of their friends said that they were made for one another, and they would have bet a million dollars that they were going to get married right after graduation. Well, they didn’t. They won’t. Or, to be exact: she won’t. On her good days Anne said that Ben was the best thing that could possibly happen to her during university. On her bad days, though, she said that he’s the best and worst thing that could happen to her. Because he meant the world to her, but the problem was that she hardly had anybody else except for him. She was so addicted to him, that she forgot about the rest of the world. Then graduation came, and so did a wake-up call from God-knows where, which made her wanting to break out of that bell jar. She had had enough of being addicted to someone so badly, so she decided to cut him off.

         It was very weird for her to be free again: it almost felt like being naked in public. She was standing in the world on her own without anyone holding her hand. She was done with all her exams, all the hard work and suffering of the previous five years were over. All of a sudden, she became an all-grown-up in an all-grown-up world where she was supposed to take her next step. It’s such a pity she didn’t have the faintest idea what her next step would be.

“I guess I should look for a job” she thought. But she had just finished all that hard work at the university, and she didn’t want to get back on the spinning wheel yet. She also had to move out from her room in the dorm, as she wasn’t a student anymore. Where should she go? “No way I’m going back to my parents’ house” she protested. On the other hand, though, she could not afford a flat until she had a job with an actual wage. It was just like a vicious circle. There were so many questions to be answered, so many things to be done. She had a life to start, for goodness’ sake! But she wasn’t ready for it yet. In fact, starting living life on her own was the scariest thing she could imagine. So she decided to avoid LIFE and instead she did something that to her appeared as acting like an adult: she left not only Ben but England too.

         Exactly four hours after their break-up, as a spur-of-the-moment thing, she bought an air ticket to Hungary. She didn’t even mention it to her parents that she would leave, she only left a short and vague message on their answering machine that she was off for a few days and that they shouldn’t worry about her because she was fine. She didn’t mention her taking off to Ben either but that didn’t matter, as, after all, she had absolutely no obligations towards him anymore.

         Less than 72 hours later she was already standing in front of an old and beautiful building which had been her favorite so far in Budapest. It was the synagogue just two minutes away from Astoria metro station. Although she was a Greek-Catholic, she had always been interested in different religions, not to mention her never-ending love for architecture. She was dying to get in and take a look around in the synagogue. She had grown very interested in Hungarian culture, especially how it had changed in the pervious twelve years. She was also very interested in the Hungarian Jews in particular: she had learned that they went through incredibly difficult times during the Second World War and the following years. She had also heard somebody mention that religion wasn’t really allowed during socialism. Several questions had arose in her: had religion completely disappeared? Did it reappear in the 1990’s? Will it ever be the same as it used to be before the war? And what about the Jews? How had Hungarian history formed their identity? Were they different from the Jewish people who lived in other parts of the world?  She was hoping to get answers to at least some of her questions. Moreover, she was a fan of photography, and it would have been such a great opportunity to take a few shots. However, it wasn’t Anne’s lucky day as the synagogue was closed for visitors.

“We will open only on Friday,” said one of the guards, “It’s a Jewish holiday now, that’s why it’s closed.” That was all Zsuzsi could squeeze out of the man. He wasn’t a very friendly and worn-hearted person, to say the least.

The disappointment was well-visible in Anne’s eyes as Zsuzsi translated the piece of information she had just gathered. She kept peeking through the wrought-iron fence, longing to go in.

“Let’s do something else, then,” offered Zsuzsi.

“What?” asked Anne.

“I don’t know. What do you fancy?”

“Let’s go to this place,” what Anne was pointing at, was a word on a black and white flier she had just picked up from the ground a moment earlier. The name of the place was SOTUG which was shorter for Sound of the Underground, a hip club in the center of Budapest, mostly visited by university students in their early twenties. What really grabbed Anne’s attention on the flier was the picture of The Beatles. On that very night a tribute band was playing at SOTUG.

         The Beatles was Anne’s favorite band since she was two years old, as far as she could remember. Her father was also a huge Beatles fan: he not only owned all of their records on vinyl, but listened to them too, eight days a week. Thus, there was no way Anne wouldn’t fall for their music. All her life she was dreaming about going to a Beatles concert, just like her dad did when he was a teenager, but this dream of Anne’s was never going to become true. She was born in a wrong age to love The Beatles this much, she thought. However, she started looking for a substitution of the original, hoping that some other band might play her favorite songs almost as well as Ringo and his mates.  Thus, every time she heard about a Beatles tribute band, she would always find out when and where they would play, and then she went to their concert. Although most of the time she left these concerts disappointed – because deep in her heart she knew that no band can ever be as great as The Beatles - , she never gave up. She was always hoping that some day a better tribute band would come across her way. The case wasn’t different this time either: the moment she read the flier she started hoping that this band would be better then the ones she had seen playing before.

         Zsuzsi had quite the same taste in music as Anne, so it was easy to convince her about their going to SOTUG. However, as it was just a little after noon and the concert was starting only at 8 P.M., they had plenty of time to fiddle. Zsuzsi suggested that they should walk over to Csendes which was a unique café just across ELTE, the university she attended. It was Zsuzsi’s favorite place in Budapest; not only because it was cheap and it was literally two minutes away from her school, but because it was a coffee shop that you probably cannot find anywhere else in the world. Csendes was part of a historical building that had tall windows opening to a charming, narrow street and a large door with the doorknob placed so high that some shorter people might have problems reaching it. If you walked into this café, at first its dimness and brownness might have hit you, and you may even thought that it was dusty and unbearably worn down. If you were a really strict person, you even wanted to have it shot down by public sanitation. But then you sat down, took a look around, and you realized that you were surrounded by something out of ordinary. Because this café was most certainly not one of those franchised ones which offered you nothing more but the same standard coffee regardless of the country you were in. There was only one Csendes on the earth with its not-so-antique but rather old furniture and forty-year old tablecloths which looked like they had come from your grandparents’ attic. Not to mention the unusually decorated walls, with all kinds of weird drawings, or rather, scribbling on it which was probably done by bored teenagers or six-year old immature artists. The chandeliers must be mentioned too, as they weren’t the kind that you could pick up at any IKEA: from one of them a bunch of plastic dolls hung with a couple of limbs missing here and there. Then there was the toilet. Where else in the world would you find such a funny and colorful toilet seat with smiling ladybirds painted on it than in the ladies’ room at Csendes?

         Zsuzsi was simply in love the place. She was already considered a regular costumer as she popped in every day to have her usual but awesome mélange while she stared out of the window and wondered about the people’s lives who passed by the place. The moment Anne arrived at Budapest, Zsuzsi knew that she was going to take her to her cafe. Finally, the girls had the chance, as they were only five minutes away from the place. They walked over to its building, went in, and then took the table Zsuzsi usually sat at. At first, as most foreigners, Anne found the place very weird. Nevertheless, a moment later she was charmed by it, and her eyes kept wondering around on the walls, the tables, and the ceiling as there were so many details to see.

         Without even asking what Anne would like to have, Zsuzsi ordered themselves two mélanges. “Ann must try their famous mélange!” she thought.

This time of the day the place was fairly quiet because the morning rush was over, and the afternoon peak was yet to arrive. After two days of constant rushing – going here and visiting that – they could finally sit down and have a quiet hour as well as a little heart-to-heart talk. Zsuzsi knew well that something wasn’t okay with her friend. Anne was always the girl who planned everything at least a few months in advance, who had a strict schedule to which she always stuck to, no matter what. Doing spur-of-the-moment things never even crossed Anne’s mind. She just wasn’t the spontaneous kind, and she was okay that way. So when Anne called Zsuzsi to tell her that she was landing at Budapest a few hours later, Zsuzsi was sure that something had happened. Then Anne arrived, and she told Zsuzsi only the short version of the story of the previous days. She mentioned that she had graduated, and that she needed some time off on her own, so she took off without Ben. Zsuzsi had known Anne for too long not to notice that there was more in that story than that. However, she didn’t want to push Anne because she was also well aware of the fact that she always needed a lot of time to face her issues – more time than people usually did. Moreover, she hated to be pushed, so Zsuzsi just had to wait, otherwise Anne would close up even more. She did try to be patient; still, she was dying to know what had really happened. It wasn’t Zsuzsi’s lucky day, though, as Anne had no intention whatsoever to talk about Ben and their breakup. Instead, she went on and on about the concert that they were going to attend that evening.

         At 8 P.M. sharp, the tribute band called Hey Jude! started to play at SOTUG; and, although Anne expected them to be a little bit better than they actually were, the music was quite enjoyable. The club had a special atmosphere, too: it was pretty small, as it could not hold more than a thousand people, and the interior was designed according to the 60’s fashion, thus, it suited perfectly Hey Jude!’s concert.

         For some people it was inconceivable to dance to The Beatles’ songs, but Anne and Zsuzsi most certainly weren’t two of those. The opening song was Love me do, and as the girls heard the first chords of the song, they could not sit still anymore at their table. When the singer hit the second line of the lyrics, they were already on the dance floor, dancing their butts off. The band was getting the hung of it, and they became better song by song: From Me to You, She Loves You, and A Hard Day’s Night were the following numbers. During the fifth song, a tall, handsome guy walked up to Anne and told her something that she could not understand.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Hungarian,” she answered.

“Oh, I see,” and, thus, the guy immediately switched to a language that Anne could understand. She was satisfied with his English: although he spoke with an accent, he was confident and spoke fluently.

“Can I buy you a drink?” repeated his earlier question, this time he said it in English.

“Why not?” replied Anne. They walked to the bar and sat down. The guy, who on their way introduced himself as Andris Nagy, bought themselves two gin-tonics. Anne liked how confident he was, but still, he made her feel very important. Then they started talking about basically everything as Andris was very interested in Anne, and he kept asking her questions. “How long have you been here?” “How do you like it?” “For how long will you stay?” “Do you know this band?” “Do you like The Beatles?” “Where do you live in England?” “What do you do?” “What will you do now, after university?” He had so many questions, and she felt that for some of them she was unable to give an answer. To other ones, she simply didn’t want to answer. However, she was in a good mood, and she wanted to give the impression of a nice person, so she replied something to all of Andris’s questions. In fact, she even enjoyed herself while talking. She couldn’t take her eyes off his handsome face, his blue eyes, long eyelashes, and his thin lips that curled upwards in the corner of his mouth as though he was always smiling. Plus, the blondish stubble made him really hot. She also liked his build: his being so tall, wide-shouldered with narrow hips. He was exactly her type regarding the way he looked. At the same time, she had trouble listening to Andris when he was talking. Although he said what she wanted to hear, and they saw eye to eye with each other; she had to admit that he was boring her. It felt too easy: the other one not objecting anything. She could just simply enjoy herself for the night, she told herself. But she became more and more annoyed and upset second by second. All of a sudden the air felt very heavy, and she had difficulty breathing. She rushed out of the building with Andris following her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Anne just shrugged her shoulders, and then hopped down onto the nearest bench that wasn’t taken. She took a few deep breaths, and then looked around. She liked the little square in front of the club: she found it especially charming. It was a lovely, warm summer night when the grass was still as green as it had been on the first days of spring, and the scent of flowers hadn’t disappeared from the air yet. A group of tourists were walking back to their hotel in the narrow street next to the building, staring at the facades that had just been renovated. A couple was sitting on a bench holding each others’ hands and listening to Hey Jude!’s concert, or, at least, to what filtered through the walls of the club.

“What should I do next?” Anne was meant to answer Andris’s question, but this was what came out instead of that.  Right after she pronounced her question, a familiar-sounding song started to play in the club: it’s was the Hello Goodbye song.

         That was the very moment when it occurred to Anne that she shouldn’t be in Hungary, and, at last, she realized that she must go back to England to say hello to Ben. She hoped, more than she had ever hoped before, that he won’t say goodbye when she’ll say hello.