Just Like a Prayer

After a meandering Friday night with the teachers and Noemi, I started to weave my way through the 6th district, homeward bound, about 2. A block from Szinyei Street, I was surprised to hear Madonna pulsating through the empty streets. The closer I got, the more I started to wonder what kocsma was played the song. How had I missed a neighborhood bar, at first glance, that would have been willing to blast Like a Prayer late on a Friday night?

I debated investigating the sound, but decided against it, resigned to tiredness after a long day of work/play. Instead, I slipped the blue key into the keyhole of the big double door that guards the 3 Szinyei courtyard. A funny thing happened, though, when I opened that door: the music got louder.

At first I was worried, disconcerted that a neighborhood bar could be so loud that the sound would permeate the walls and invade my tranquil little courtyard. Two sides ivy, two sides balconies. But as I walked up the steps, the music only got louder. That’s when I saw the young man passed out on the stairs, that’s when I knew for sure: I have young neighbors and they were having a party in my little building!

Momentum was pushing me toward bed, but I figured I had to take advantage of the opportunity to meet my neighbors. I started in Hungarian to the first person I met when I walked into the open door. But I quickly switched to an English “Who lives here?”

The man pointed to a couch in the corner with an accusatory “Andras.” I introduced myself. Under the threat of German, he admitted to knowing English, and quickly apologized for being too loud. I laughed and promised I hadn’t come to complain. He brought another neighbor into the conversation, and a bottle of homemade wine. They both were artists of sorts in their spare time. I never learned what their jobs are, but they were both out of school.

We talked a while, then the police knocked on the door, telling Andras to be quieter. People across the street had complained. He obliged and I went home not long after, still amazed at having young neighbors in what had seemed to be such an inactive, almost elderly, building.

I also am proud to report that my room is beginning to smell less like old woman, a fragrance that had begun to suffocate me in a sort of asaematic clenching of the lungs. A Glade Plug-In, or however they brand it in these parts, was the culprit, injecting its rotting stench into my precious 14 square meters (an approximation) of living quarters. Now that it’s been removed, I’m starting to breath a little better, and apologizing less to myself and visitors.