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

Gyöngyszem (gem)

This is perhaps the most ill-fated of all the city’s cafés. It could be famous a place of pilgrimage, a tourists’ haven —instead, it offers assorted cold meats and fancy cakes between the Nagyvásárcsarnok (Market hall) and Lónyai utca. “Have two trays of cold cuts ready for me,” Mrs Eperjesi would say, “I’m having guests for supper, and don’t be sparing with the mayonnaise. I’ll be along later to pick them up.” Let us try to glide over the obstacles, the strange, bunched-up group of standing guests practically tribal in character, and keeping our heads down low to evade the rainbow arch of smells wafting from the direction of the lavatories, emerge at the end of a corridor, for behind a closed door is concealed the most magical and mysterious, deserted garden of Budapest. Enclosed by ivy- clad walls is the silence of shady trees. Decay, weeds, death. Yet it could be idyllic, with kindly, chirpy waitresses, disputatious archivists around the tables, retired professors of law, and lovers hidden behind the trellis in the back. In the corner a venturesome young lady could dance for Turkish truck drivers. From the open gallery above a parrot would softly hiss. But the counter is crumbling, the garden is deserted. “The garden is not is use, it isn’t worth our while opening it,” says a surly waiter not overfond of his profession. Thus this hidden, unknown haven is doomed to remain a wasteland, victim to the sad decline in Budapest catering. By the time we reach Vámház körút, Mrs Eperjesi has disappeared with her trays.

15 VÁMHÁZ KÖRÚT, IX.

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