Budapest Prayer

 Budapest Prayer

So it happens that while travelling we were talking about travelling. Our taxi driver was winding through English village roads enclosed by evergreen hedges on sides, and tree arches of intertwined branches created Alice-in-Wonderland ambience on top. Quaint houses dressed in thatched roofs and white coats gave us the first embrace of a rural idyll while pubs´ signs carrying the common names such as The Red Lion, The Crown or The Plough lured us into a drinking blast.  

 Eavesdropping on us the chauffeur must have been, but he did not engage in our talk. Leaning my body towards him, I took the hand of my ginger bearded man, as he started to regale me with his tale. Long before I met him he packed his suitcase lightly like men are inclined to do, and got on board the plane to Cairo in Egypt. He sat next to a guy his age whose white cap divulge that he was a Jewish chap. Despite the fact that passengers were tied to their seats and considerably restricted in movement the vivacious, gregarious and thirst-for-adventure Jew fidgeted about. It might have been his elbow that poked the rib of my ginger-beard man equally adventurous, but slightly more reserved in his manners or just boredom that prompted the Jew to strike up a conversation with him. When the plane tilted towards the left and elevated the Jew above the ginger bearded man as if they were two boys playing on the seesaw, the Jew mentioned that he was going to Tel Aviv. Realising that they were both going to change at Budapest for a couple of hours, they agreed on spending the time together. The Jew, coming from Reading making him always ready, set his mind on finding the largest synagogue in Europe, and my ginger bearded man always being up to any fun readily obliged to accompany him. And that is how I first learnt about the largest synagogue in Europe. Apropos, I flushed then, and I do blush now at the lack of my knowledge, since I come from Pilsen, the home of the second largest synagogue in Europe. Right on my doorstep, yet I never traced where its rival stands.

The plane moved back, its wings levelled again, and the two mates raised their cans to cheer to a new adventure. Cheering quite loud to Budapest, to a spontaneous trip, to the synagogue they were that they infected two other passengers sitting across the aisle. While gulping down fizzy bubbles of beer and giving out burping puffs of air, the couple glimpsed at them curiously a few times without uttering a sound. During the rest of the journey they all sat in silence filled with deafening thoughts; and the air was heated by ginger bearded man´s intense research done by his flicking through a brochure about the Budapest traditional cuisine. Shortly after the plane touched down at the Hungarian capital town, Budapest, and the passengers began stretching their limbs and getting up from their seats, the couple approached the Jew and the ginger bearded man. They were, like the ginger man, heading towards Cairo and facing to the two-hour-void of waiting in Budapest. They were, like the two mates, keen on doing some sightseeing and turning tediousness into excitement. And that was how a group of four travel buddies consisting of the Reading Jew, the ginger bearded Manchester man and the Irish couple came into being. Free and young in spirit they high-fived on their mission.

Little did they imagine what they were going to witness on their travels because it seemed to be a smooth and tranquil break at first. Making the most of the ginger bearded man´s research, they soon found themselves seated in a restaurant and tasting the local specialities. While munching on chicken with paprika, the Jew spiced up the dinner by educating his companions. Whether true or not, they were all ears when he was saying that the river divided the city into two regions, Buda and Pest, which surprise surprise was altogether known as Budapest. They chuckled and giggled while absorbing the feelings and tastes and sounds, which were soon to be memories. As the food was sinking into their stomach and warming their digestive system up, they set off pressed by little time left to see the sight of their interest. It was getting dark, but it did not prevent them from spotting flashing lights drumming the splitting river and the shadows of magnificent buildings looming around them. Finally, with every step made they recognised the synagogue´s figure revealing itself like a celebrity in the spotlight, charming them by pointing its two lean towers with rounded cupolas up. However, late hours put security on guard, and the synagogue like the celebrity kept its admirers at bay by shielding itself from unsolicited visitors with a fence. Who would have thought that the Jew´s dogged determination to enter the synagogue was going to make him an athlete in an obstacle race, for running around he was without luck of bumping into an open door. Without hesitation, he jumped over the fence and disappeared in the archway so as to pray, leaving behind the trio of flabbergasted comrades. As everyone can imagine, the alarm went off, the spotlight was ominously oscillating as if trying to shoot the culprit and the police lying in wait for criminals and the scum of the earth darted towards the fence and inside. The wicked Jew defied the law without a pang of remorse, and those few seconds of prayer must have satisfied him, for he did not resist arrest. Being just or unjust the decision is yours, but the Jew hero was released BECAUSE he prayed and BECAUSE he was who he was. He was beaming at his accomplishment, and thus dissipating any remaining clouds of astonishment of his friends, who joined his laugh. It was time to part and say goodbye.

I was hooked on the story, and my gaze was fixed on my boyfriend´s eyes sparkling with reminiscence. He took me aback one more time when he went on finishing his story, which I thought was over.

As soon as he arrived in Cairo, his passport photo was checked against his real-3D face. The custom officer, as it is customary in Egypt, denied that it was him in the picture, and made the ginger bearded man to sit down on a bench. That is how I learnt what my man had learnt then that all people without exception have to smuggle some money into the pockets of Egyptian custom officers, so as to suddenly resemble their photos. Had it not been for a tour guard awaiting his holidaymakers, recognising the ginger one and paying off the country´s entrance fee of resemblance, my man would have gone grey on that bench.

            The story was as long as our journey from the airport, for the taxi driver just approached our terminal station, our sweet home, where incidents like these truly cannot happen. And guess what, after all those years my ginger bearded man googled the-Buda-and-Pest-river tale as to find out that it is the genuine truth.