Six More Inches

Hungary is utterly and completely refusing to buy into the whole notion of spring. The locals insist that March is a delightfully warming time of year, but I have seen no evidence of that in my first, and last, analysis of a Hungarian March. A weekend ago it snowed three days in a row. Last week was cheerfully sunny, but strikingly cold. And after drizzly rain last night, it's back to snowing today. With each swirling snowflake, as pretty as they were back in November, I lose faith in the inevitability of spring, even if each morning the sun rises earlier and earlier. Maybe the weather is just waiting for me to take down my Christmas decorations. Regardless, I will commemorate the snow today with my usual Sunday plan -- not leaving the house a single time. Most of the time I feel guilty when I come to that conclusion, but it quickly passes when I realize that I am wearing only underwear.

Last Saturday, though, Heves decided to huddle indoors and prepare to shed winter with an annual Karnival celebration. The kids work all winter in the across-the-street-from-me Gyermekhaza planning dances and grand karaoke numbers. I was invited because I stopped to ask someone on the street where you could buy chicken breast on a Saturday in Heves.

I haven't seen little kids in a long time, it was fun to see them bounce around the room as their parents watched and smiled and clapped. The absolute best, though, was a little boy of perhaps eleven, tucked into the back row of one of the musical song-and-dances routines. His hair was a big ball of blond puff, a hap-hazard fro of closely wound curls. His glasses were big and metal and squarish in all the wrong ways. His plaid shirt was tucked into the jeans that were button at his belly button, far to high on his lanky body. His face showed morbid lethargy and vague disinterest. His head was always turned to the side, watching the dance steps and gestures of the boys to his right. His best attempts mimicking their motions were always a half-beat or so behind.

I laughed for hours.

Here in little Heves I had found an 11-year-old Hungarian Napoleon Dynamite.