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

Györgyike

Györgyike, Margitka and Mr. Halász were once functionaries at a branch office in Herminamező until a catering unit was named after one of them in the shady, tunnel-like Telepes utca. A laundry van, a junk-yard and liquor store, the bullet- torn walls of endless proletarian buildings opening into gardens and fantastic stalls and lean-tos sprung up out of nowhere encircle the Györgyike. In its forecourt, oilcloth covers the little tables upon which rustic ashtrays repose. To one side, sparrows scratch about with oblivious enthusiasm in the dust. This place is an island of joy, geraniums bloom is troughs, the Coca-Cola is ice-cold, the men in their olive-green overalls are no more distrustful than the occasional stranger and allow one time to unbend. It is a pity that the panelled column inside is three-square and its fenestrated neon burned out; the window-lattice and the intimate proportions go a long way towards making up for it. It is a place that never causes disappointment; the neo-goo from the boulevards and the City has not yet reached this spot.

69 TELEPES (JTCA, XIV.

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