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

Velence (Venice)

The gondola weaving its way among the cars parked in a no parking zone moves slowly on the asphalt of Terézváros. It is with difficulty that we step off the wobbling planks into the interior. Red, green, yellow spheres on the walls in sensuous adhesion, casting a light within which the guests are engulfed by the pattern of the wallpaper and the table-cloths. The smoke is like dawn mist above the softly undulating hills of Somogy, settling above a counter that is held up by the customers leaning against it. Solitary males in leather jackets frequent this place, zip-bags dangling from their wrists. In the rooms enlarged by his echo machine the single musician lets loose the nostalgic notes of a trio upon the night about to awaken. The waitress mollycoddles the broken-hearted customers. Lacika’s head towers above the billows of smoke like a peak cutting through the clouds, while the splash of the gondola’s oars is smothered by the cheap rhymes of popular tunes.

36 SZONDI (JTCA, VI.