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

MEDIKÜS (MEDICAL STUDENT)

The wind brings a smell of medicine from all the hospitals in the vicinity, mingled with the smell of boutiques, into the Medikus café. Many years ago the place was all the rage, today it is a quiet trysting place for whitecoated bakers disguised as medical students and young female meds discussing good matches in hushed voices. Those inhabitants of Ferencváros queue up for fancy cakes at the counter. The curtains and the upholstery of the chairs is green, all other surfaces have acquired a mellow brown colour in the course of time. The counter is embossed with inn scenes that date back to the era of the brass maffia in the style of medieval etchings. On the espresso machine the Hungarian arms with the Holy Crown are featured side by side with the Transylvanian arms and advertisements for Eduscho coffee and for City Taxi. In the yellow light couples walking up to the gallery as if they were aristocrats mounting the scaffold look even paler, crushed in the pincers of eternal devotion, breaking and making up.

89/C ÜLLŐI ÚT, IX.

Queen of the bar counter in the MEDIKUS

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