Laszlo Alexandru

 

IMPRESSIONS FROM HUNGARY

“Enormous sense and monstrous eyesight.”

(I.L. Caragiale)

english version by Axel H. Lenn

            I was already indisposed with my lack of sleep. Summer had passed unnoticed. I had been working exhaustingly, then my vacation ended much too soon. The idea of spending two days in Budapest seemed a good solution to cast away dark thoughts. Romanian reality was overfilled with alarming news concerning the economic crisis, salary reductions, unemployment, or scandals fabricated by the press or by politicians. I felt the need to leave all these behind and relax.

The weather appeared beautiful, the car rolled smoothly on the asphalt highway. After crossing the border, local radio stations aired. That sounded like a good opportunity to get familiarized with the reality there. The news informed us that a commando unit had been arrested because, during the past couple of months, they had engaged in night attacks, using rifles and Molotov cocktails, burning down Roma houses and settlements. These attacks involved human losses, numerous possessions destroyed, and a 13 year old girl who had witnessed the events, was severely injured and hospitalised under close police supervision. This commando unit was headed by two brothers, one of whom had fought as a volunteer in Bosnia, while the other was an ex-policeman. When special troops descended, a real arsenal was uncovered, including guns and operational maps that strategically planned the following targets. In spite of all this evidence, three of the arrested suspects were contesting the pretrial arrest order. If this order was not confirmed by a superior court order, the suspects would walk free.

            We stopped in front of a supermarket to purchase small yet necessary items. I was stunned by the looks of a neighbourhood gang parked at the entrance. Teenagers wearing shaved heads, soiled and patched jeans, nose and lip piercings. Though we passed them by with sheer indifference, they followed us for a while with hateful and disdainful stares. Fortunately, we made it to our destination – a quiet and green neighbourhood. We unpacked, then parked the car just opposite a window, beneath a street lamp.

            The following morning, we were about to take a ride through Hungary’s capital. As we came down to the car, we found a bucket of spit on the right windows. We assumed this might have been a somewhat proletarian revenge, similar to the rough sanctions back home, for example in Mănăştur, where one risks nasty consequences for occupying someone else’s parking spot. However, that parking spot was not taken by anyone else, there were other free spots next to ours – whom exactly had we offended?

            We visited our relatives, in Budapest’s opposite side – a rather small tourist town. There we found out that, the day before, the whole area had been overfilled with police forces and antiterrorist fighters attempting to supervise a meeting of the Hungarian Guard, a fairly well known right wing extremist organization, proclaimed illegal by court order, confirmed by the Appeal Court in Budapest. However, thousands of individuals wearing black uniforms and leather boots, displaying the tricolour on their chest and the previously encountered fanaticism in their eyes, shaking flags and barking nervous speeches. They promised to defend Hungary from a “physical, moral and intellectual” point of view. Young supporters marched and pledged passionate oaths. Television cameras followed them vividly. Police officers – who were supposed to break up the unauthorized gathering of this banned political organization – stood there utterly confused since the whole procession took place on private property and, therefore, their legal authority was limited.

            That same evening, we saw a talk-show broadcast by a television network in Budapest. A former Constitutional Court judge, now retired, next to a young specialist in constitutional law firmly condemn the abusive intervention of the police, whom had been watching the whole spectacle for afar, quite scared. The journalist “mediating” the show coarsely derides those politicians who mobilized police force against an illegal meeting thus allegedly discrediting the public authorities’ image and wasting public money in an unjustified manner.

            We were determined to leave the following day. We took out our luggage, but when opening the car boot I note the purchase made a day earlier was missing, along with my spare wheel. My car had been broken into. I consoled myself thinking I was going to buy a new spare wheel; then, I tried to start the engine. I noticed that, beneath the steering wheel, the thieves had drilled a fist-large hole, had wrenched the starting system away and replaced it with their counterfeit device, had tried to connect a laptop to the on-board computer in an attempt to steal the car. Fortunately, the safety system had intervened and cut ignition off completely.

            Sunday morning. The police moved slow. Crime lab even slower. Completing police formalities took half a day. Ultimately, we found a car mechanic, for a special price, who came down to acknowledge there was nothing to be done: the car has to be transported on a platform to an authorized service centre. Monday, car specialists informed me there are no repairing options in such a case. Missing components must be replaced with new ones, custom made at the station in Germany, which produces them as “one of a kind” items and ships them within a week.

            I left Hungary onboard a passenger bus. I was looking forward to getting a breath of fresh air, to rediscover with much enthusiasm the economic crisis, the salary reductions, the unemployment perspective, or the scandals fabricated by the press or by Romanian politicians.

(August 2009)