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

Mester (master)

In the centre of the eternally green-and-white Franzstadt everyone is listening to an English lesson, visually enriched, staring at the screen fixed up on the wall like a stereo loud-speaker. On the screen, a musclebound hunk is being cut up into little pices; some time later, our blood sugar level reaches unknown heights due to the improper conduct of the full-blooded Moorish heroine. In the back, a giant Alpine poster, with hydrologists and environmentalists wrestling behind the firs. Panelling in other places has been sheathed in plastic— another item for the list of motifs worth preserving. In the cave-like, cosy brown atmosphere, the disadvantaged enjoy the lilt of a pure accent together with the few remaining natives, old enough to have witnessed the Szabó-Dékány mid-field.

The yellow light of a neon coffee-cup is our companion on this late afternoon walk on the sociologist’s trail.

45 MESTER CITCA, IX.

MESTER

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