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

Operett

Ciao! You would say nonchalantly upon walking in here, but the place is empty, nobody answers. Yet this is a real, authentic coffee-bar. Metal-legged chairs are aligned like so many beetles ready to jump. Later, ageing men troop in, several small groups wearing Burberries or camel-hair coats and Tyrolese hats, with newspapers like Népszava, Kacsa and Népsport sticking out of their pockets. Who are they? Perhaps choristers grown too old to sing from the theatre of the same name, or perhaps the best friends of the primadonnas and leading men slowly going out of fashion on the walls. The Mezőkes, Gyuszis, Rezsős and Dódis? Or perhaps cultural propagandists grown weary of theatrical tiffs? A fan club of Listener’s Requests? The regular customers of the Tarka-Barka? The great guffawers? There is no answer. Wilted wisps of musical overtures waver in the air, fragments of remembrances gone sour. Memories of touring the country in rickety buses coat the floor; sharp-eared guests can still hear the coquettish laughter of the soubrettes. In the summer, the just-like-Broad- way atmosphere of Nagymező utca can be enjoyed from the terrace.

19 NAGYMEZŐ CJTCA, VI.

OPERETT— without romantic leads

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