The mermaid is waiting, watching and taking care of the Globe which she guards sadly at the corner of Vadász utca and Báthory utca in the fifth district of Budapest

You see, we have been wrong about this: around the turn of the century there were not only sturgeons swimming up the Danube from the Black Sea to Budapest but a few mermaids ventured up here, too. This beautiful ancient Greek specimen was so venturesome that she came ashore and curiositz drove her to the corner of Báthory Street and Vadász Street, where she fell agaze, having beheld a clean-shaven gentleman smoking a cigar in the third floor window. I hesitate to tell zou the rest – you can guess, I suppose. He promised her wonders, children and happiness. Having indulged in her faithfulness and the pleasures she could give, he threw her out like a secretary throws out the rest of some pickled fish. He threw the Globe after her, which he had bought in Rudolf Emmanuel Kagutowitz‘ school equipment store down the quay in a fit of youthful enthusiasm for the world, and with which, as with an oversized backside, he had also got bored. Mermaids, as is widelz known, do not fall in love lightly, but if they do, they remain faithful for a lifetime. The clean-shaven gentleman hasn’t been seen smoking his cigar in the window for ages now, yet his discarded lover adheres to the wall with buoyant energy, waiting, watching and taking care of the Globe which she guards sadly.
The house, which was curious, radiant and young on her arrival, has grown old since then. It has been a long time since the plaster-work on its body last held the lie it used to share with thousan others of its kind – the huge imitation ancient stone blocks. Only three of them are left, above her head. Its coat of plaster has been coming off in several pieces. The fresh, more naked-lookinh surface has not had the time to get stained yet. Its runner, are torn and frayed, the remnants of its flowers give sinister wheezes, its putti and angels are filled with grave fright of fall which left many others like them in dust lying on the pavement. The building holds on to the houses opposite by clutching at wires which are fastened to hooks, and all of them are quarded by the mermaid. Her stained wound, like all the marks left on Budapest buildings by shrapnels leaves us wondering whether it was inflicted in the World War or in 1956. That is something only the flocks of pigeons which used to shelter there from the storm could tell, had they not flown off to another world again.
The mermaid keeps standing there, guarding the house and true love, holding the Globe. The Globe, from which the wind has rubbed off, the rain washed off and filth gnawed away Asia, Europe and all the greens which once made it such a cheerfully magnificent show in the window of Emmanuel Kogutowitz‘ shop at the turn of the century. It is as if the Globe had had its atmosphere sniffed off by the Devil, as if it were crawling naked in space, held up by the mermaid angel in the dark for everyone to see. Not that her mature youthfulness and unbridled beauty have been left unspoilt by time. Her fish’s tail more or less retains its original marine covering and its frills are sometimes lit up by the sun. Yet her face is broken, her hand worn and her look deep like a mummy’s. Her female trunk is still beautiful, her breasts buoyant with eternal joy, and she listens to music coming through a heaven-lit channel, year in year out, as the water pours down from the sky above and, having bathed the streets, ascends in vapours again.

Szerző: Gyula Zeke
Fordító: Translated by Dezső Bánki
Nyelv: english
Megjelenés dátuma: 2007