Bodor Ferenc: Coffee-Houses - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1992)

Santos

In the adjacent building now housing the Agricultural Book Shop once stood the Unió coffee-house, which Santos of Vécsey utca unconsciously imitates.

Arched doorways partition the interior, the tiles on the floor could have come from the bathrooms of well-to-do greengrocers. There is a taste of Mystic lipstick and the fragrance of Fa deodorant in the air. From the direction of the counter the rock group Napoleon Boulevard floats out from among the bottles. The plastic seats in the front room screech metallically whenever a loving couple bends closer to each other. Snatches of erotic conversation drift like wisps of mist above the tables. The predatory male walks into the back room with his head held high and sharp nose cautiously sniffing the air; two steps behind him, obediently hanging back is his office paramour. They seat themselves on marzipan cup-cakes turned upside down. The piquant waitress sports a pussy-tail on her bottom—what you have is a downtown fancy-dress ball in the mist. The green neon letters envelop the flowerstands strewn with cigarette-butts in jungle-green twilight.

5 VÉCSEY (JTCA, V.

SATiTOS

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