Just Me Read online

  Rule number one: however long the journey, only ever take hand luggage, and of course it must have wheels. With careful selection and washable clothes you can manage, and thereby avert the check-in queue, and the heart-stopping vigil at baggage reclaim. They patiently waited whilst I alone checked in my unnecessarily large bag.

  Mike shepherded us on to the plane and by bus to the hotel. It was lovely to be looked after. The hotel was some distance from the centre of Budapest, and a bit like an airport lounge, with bags from all the groups staying there piled in the lobby. There was a mess-up over our rooms, but we had the luxury of having a drink while Mike sorted it out. The staff did not seem overly pleased to see us, but this onslaught of tourism is a relatively new experience for them.

  I knew almost nothing about the country beyond the Hungarian blouse I had as a child, which I wore for best. Whilst Mike fought a protracted battle with the hotel manager I sat on my case and leafed through my guidebook to find out more.

  It seems Hungary's past history is muddled and tempestuous. The land has been conquered and split up numerous times by various factions. Romans, Attila the Hun, Goths, Longobards (whoever they were), Avars, Magyars, Turks (they get everywhere), and the inevitable Habsburgs (as do they). You name them, they've been there, and left their mark. Poor little Hungary, right in the middle of mainland Europe, has been pushed and pulled hither and thither, usually managing to back the wrong side.

  I have never really understood why the shooting of some archduke by a Serb started World War One, but Hungary was right in there, fists flailing, siding with Germany. Wrong. After the war, the Treaty of Trianon punished them, reducing their territory by half, bits going to Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and Austria. As World War Two approached Hitler promised them a bit back if they supported Germany. So they did. Wrong again! They ended up with Budapest virtually destroyed, after a six-week siege between the Germans and Russians. The latter took over, and imposed a particularly nasty brand of socialism on Hungary. This continued until 1991, when the last Russian soldier left, trying to sell his uniform to buy a loaf of bread. A sorry tale all round.

  When eventually the rather rudimentary rooms were sorted out there was a panic to dump our bags in them and get aboard the coach for a tour of the city. We were introduced to our guide – a plump, rather dour little woman – who I hoped would fill in the gaps left in my sketchy knowledge. Unfortunately she had a voice that sent me to sleep. She explained that there were two parts of the city, Buda and Pest, on either side of the greyish yellow Danube, linked by several bridges. Sights flashed by outside the bus window as she droned on mechanically over the mike. I jerked awake at one point to hear her point out the Chain Bridge.

  'This bridge', she told us, 'was designed by the man who built Barnes Bridge in London, of which it is a copy.'

  'Excuse me,' I interrupted. 'Don't you mean Hammersmith Bridge?'

  'No, it is Barnes.'

  'Sorry, no. I live by Hammersmith Bridge and have a picture of the old one and it is exactly like that.'

  'No, it is Barnes. That is what I am told.'

  'By whom?'

  'The Authority.'

  'Well, tell the Authority they are wrong. Barnes is a railway bridge and quite different.'

  'It is Barnes,' she said implacably.

  By this time the rest of the group were shifting uneasily in their seats. They were quite prepared to take her word for it, not to mention that of the ominous Authority, and as far as they were concerned it didn't matter if she said it was like a flying elephant – they just wanted me to shut up.

  Which I did for a while as she maundered on about the crumbling grandeur we could glimpse briefly as we sped past in the coach. Many buildings looked badly neglected, and she pointed out bullet holes and blast damage, both from the war and the uprising against Soviet domination in 1956. I longed to hear more about that but I held my tongue because it seemed she had learnt the script given to her by the Authority, parrot fashion, and any divergence threw her into a flap. I even suppressed my curiosity about the wall she fleetingly pointed out as being part of the Jewish ghetto, before she quickly moved on to point out another obscure statue.

  I was glad when we were allowed to get out of the coach at the Hungarian National Museum, where we could go off on our own. Before we were released she told us, looking warily in my direction, 'This building is based on the famous British Museum in London.'

  'Yes, yes you're right. I can see that. Well done, the Authority,' I said over-enthusiastically, trying to make up for my previous indiscretion. Everyone looked relieved but I noticed no one offered to accompany me round the museum.

  We didn't have very long to investigate, for our zealous Mike and my friend the guide were keeping us on the move. One interjection of mine that the group did come to appreciate was prompted by my need for regular shots of caffeine. They would urge me to bleat at regular intervals 'a cup of coffee wouldn't go amiss' or 'I need sustenance, my blood sugar is falling'. If I hadn't we would have dropped dead of thirst and starvation, so frantic was the schedule.

  Good restaurants were thin on the ground. Goulash and dumplings and stuffed cabbage, badly cooked, were the standard offering. That first night we went to a huge basement café, where only one man was eating – no surprise there, the food was dreadful. He had chosen to sit by the toilet, the door of which did not swing closed. Each time one of us came out he barked 'shut it', the only English phrase he knew, acquired, presumably, specially for his self-appointed doorman role. I doubt if he had learnt it from The Sweeney, but I made several visits to the toilet just to relish the incongruity and imagine how Jack Regan-Thaw would have laughed. I contemplated teaching him 'you're nicked' to add to his repertoire.

  Dinner gave me my first chance to talk properly to my fellow soloists. They were a fascinating lot, all with stories to tell. For several of them, Solo had provided life-changing opportunities. The pretty woman who had lost two husbands to cancer had made lasting friends. The neat, elderly spinster whose youth and middle age had been sacrificed to a demanding mother had found a new lease of life after her parent died. There were two solitary years before she plucked up the courage to embark on a weekend Solo trip, since when she had been on sixteen tours all over the world, to make up for lost time. I struck up a delightful friendship with a bluff northerner who reminded me of John's father, a good-looking man whose jokes about people from 'oop north' being more down-to-earth than us snotty southerners belied a person of sophisticated tastes in theatre and music. He kept himself to himself most of the time and it was difficult to tell if that stemmed from shyness or an independent spirit.

  I liked them all enough to brave an outing the following evening that, as described by Mike, did not bode well. In my impecunious early theatrical life I had worked as a serving wench at a medieval banquet junket attended by drunken businessmen, so an Authentic Hungarian Folk Evening sounded ominous.

  My worst fears were realised. Somewhere in the woods above Buda, we sat uncomfortably in a kitsch imitation hunting lodge, with girls in rumpled national costumes serving truly revolting watery goulash and disgusting wine, and things made 'with every part of goose'. One of the dancers was distressingly like Freddie Mercury, and I mused that all of them had seen better days, only to end up performing on a pocket-handkerchief stage to indifferent tourists, in a travesty of their folk history. There but for the grace of god . . . ? Except I would be hard pushed to think of an English folksong or dance that I could do. 'Green-sleeves'? 'Roll Out the Barrel'? 'The Lambeth Walk'? 'The Hokey Cokey'? A gruesome thought but better than sitting at home doing nothing, as I well knew.

  The next night a few of us went off on our own, finding a charming pavement restaurant near the Octagon. We were having a quiet chat when a familiar English sound assailed our ears. A party of baying English stags appeared, naked apart from togas made from bedsheets that they had presumably not brought from home. The locals watched in bewilderment as they reeled past, b
ellowing, unsuccessfully holding together their travesty of Roman nobility. We kept very quiet hoping nobody would know we were British. Et tu, Brute.

  Going around in coaches with a group of my fellow Brits meant that I was not coming into contact with any local people. Also being hurried around on pre-planned timed visits with the others meant I was tempted to gossip rather than really take things in as I had in Puglia when I was alone. So I decided to leave the group for a bit, to get my own take on this history-heavy city.

  Anyway I preferred the rattling trams to the soporific coach. The transport system is wonderful in Budapest. They have restored some of the original 1898 stations, which are charming to wait in. It is a chance to have a good peer at the residents. They are not ravishingly beautiful. Their diet does not make for lithe bodies and glowing skins. They look a bit glum, and many bear a striking resemblance to Les Dawson. Mind you, no one's at their best on a crowded tube train. Nor, as I discovered when I made it to one of Budapest's famous Turkish baths, are they much better naked.

  I was now in my element. Especially in the glorious baths adjoining the Art Nouveau or Secession Gellert Hotel, all stained glass and wrought iron, one time haunt of rich Jazz Age clients in the twenties. The dumplings had done no favours to the bodies of the present-day bathers; I felt positively svelte in comparison. They took their pleasure rather morosely but I wallowed in the hot steam, cold plunges, bubble pools and mock-Roman swimming-pool. My enjoyment was only slightly marred by the martial attendants, who huffed and puffed in frustration when I didn't immediately understand their complicated orders about towels and cubicles. Their native tongue seems to bear no resemblance to any other language on the planet and most Hungarians do not speak English and are reluctant to speak German. I was disconcerted when, having explicitly described with my hands my request for a massage, a very large man with a bald head led me to a hard bench and ordered me to strip and lie down. This gentle giant proceeded to give me one of the most soothing massages I have ever had. That'll teach me to judge by appearances. And his name was George. Perfect.

  Refreshed, I went up the nearby funicular railway to Castle Hill, to visit the Royal Palace. All of this area was ruined when the German army holed up there during the siege, hiding in caves and starving. This fascinated me more than all the rebuilt glories of the churches and palaces that our tour guide favoured.

  The Liberation statue, high up on Gellert Hill, intrigued me too. My guidebook told me that the statue was in the process of being sculpted as a memorial to the regent Horthy's son when the Russians invaded. They commandeered it, slapped a massive figure of a Soviet soldier holding a red flag in front, and lo – a memorial to their great victory in 1945. The soldier was toppled during the 1956 uprising, then recast and replaced, only to disappear again when the Russians left in 1991.

  There are statues and monuments everywhere in Budapest. I usually had no idea who or what they were because even if there was an explanatory plaque – which there frequently wasn't – it was in Hungarian and therefore completely incomprehensible to me. It was frustrating: I felt I could only skim the surface of the complex history they commemorated.

  On the day the group was going to Heroes' Square, which I knew to be full of statues, I decided that even the guide's dull explanation would be better than nothing. Anyway I didn't want to appear stand-offish, so I went along, determined to behave well and not ask too many questions. So I was silent as she reeled off all the worthies that were, or had been, depicted in the square. It seemed that once a hero not always a hero in Budapest. The omnipresent Habsburgs had been there – but they were turfed off by the Communists in 1946. Stalin made an appearance and was of course now gone. The unknown soldier was the only person with any staying power – better to be anonymous than put yourself about too much in this country.

  Our guide explained that the impressive space had been created in 1896 to celebrate the millennium, 1,000 years since a gentleman called Árpád led the Magyars to defeat the Hungarians, which someone decided is when Hungary proper started. Here we are on shaky ground again. They aren't really certain of the date. Scholars say it was either 893 or 895 but they couldn't finish all the statues in time, so they changed the date to 896. I couldn't stop myself. I blurted out that I had read somewhere that a Hungarian professor had said, 'We Hungarians like to celebrate the 51st, the 101st and the 1,001st national anniversaries.'

  To which the guide said, 'No, it was built in 1896.'

  I tried to explain, 'Yes, I know – that was a joke.'

  Suddenly she was Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell. 'A joke?'

  Clearly the concept was entirely foreign to her.

  She continued her spiel, pointing out the magnificent group of Árpád and his warriors on over-excited horses.

  'Very butch,' I muttered.

  Ignoring me she identified Rydwan, the god of war, who was stark naked, in an iron chariot, drawn by two open-mouthed horses scandalised by Mr Rydwan's prettily raised arm.

  'Very camp,' I said, having become the horrid naughty girl in the class who taunts the teacher.

  'What is this camp?' she snapped.

  I demonstrated the pose. 'He looks as if he is saying, "Get me, ducky".'

  To which she replied po-faced, 'This is a statue. It does not talk.'

  There was no answer to that.

  By this time everyone was really fed up with me. I have always been bad at being in a group. I don't like doing what I am told. I am opinionated and argumentative – altogether a thorough nuisance. I would not like to be in a group with me. So for everyone's sake I decided to go off on my own again, along Andrássy út.

  The view of this boulevard from Heroes' Square is breathtaking. It has at various times been called Stalin, Hungarian Youth, and People's Republic Avenue. It is a spectacular vista, wider and longer than the Champs-Élysées, and dare I say, potentially more impressive. Many buildings are in a terrible state, but work is going on and I watched mature trees being planted to restore its avenue character. A walk along it sums up the cultural life of Budapest. There are embassies, book shops, cafés, that have long been meeting places of intellectuals, the magnificent Opera House, which rivals that of Vienna, opposite which is the erstwhile home of the state ballet company. There are art galleries and an art college, the homes of Kodály and Liszt. Nearby is the academy where they, and Bartók and Solti, handed on their skills to others. Along this road have walked people who care about and contribute to the elevation and joy of the spirit. They represent everything that makes homo sapiens sapient. I marvelled at how far that grunting ape has evolved, as I walked along Andrássy út.

  Until.

  On this same road, I discovered evidence of the very worst of human endeavour. I looked up at one of the splendid houses that line the avenue, and saw the word TERROR reflected on the wall by the sun, from a canopy attached to the roof, with those letters cut out. Shocked, I went into the house, number 60, and was confronted by an art installation involving a huge Russian tank and a wall reaching to the roof, covered in black-and-white reliefs of hundreds of faces, headed by the word 'victims'. There was no reference to this museum – for that is what it was – in any guidebooks I saw, nor had it been mentioned by Mike or our Hungarian guide.

  This building had been the headquarters of the police of the Hungarian Nazi Party, the Arrow Cross, who called it the House of Loyalty – that much-maligned word, debased nowadays by loyalty cards to Tesco and such like. Though perhaps it is good that it should be trivialised, or reassessed as a virtue, if it leads to such malign vendettas as those pursued here against anyone not 'loyal' to their group. When the Arrow Cross vacated the premises after Germany was defeated, the Communist secret police, the ÁVO, later renamed the ÁVH, enthusiastically took over the interrogation, torture and killing facilities. And now, in recognition of the building's terrible history, it has become the House of Terror Museum.

  I was not sure whether I was comforted or troubled by the museum managing to te
ll its sordid story with such artistry. All is atmospherically lit and soundscaped. Thus suffering is transformed into something beautiful. It made me uneasy to swing between admiration and revulsion. Perhaps that was the idea.

  There is one brilliantly conceived room containing 800 of the dossiers compiled by ÁVO on their fellow citizens. They are stacked on shelves, they paper the floor, the walls, the benches. The warped bureaucratic nightmare swallows you up, whilst you watch a film of the so-called trial of Imre Nagy. Although I could not understand what they were saying, I was mesmerised by this example of a travesty of justice. People shouting and vindictive, with this bewildered man seeming to have no one on his side. It was reminiscent of McCarthyism and the House (that cosy word again) Committee on Un-American Activities, when people in the United States, particularly in the film world, were bullied into admitting they were in, or had been involved with, the Communist Party. But in the US, although some people were imprisoned for their beliefs and their refusal to betray their friends, and although careers were ruined and lives blighted, no one was actually hanged or shot. In Hungary, at the same time, you were. For not being a Communist. 'Lord, what fools these mortals be!'

  If the film of Nagy's chaotic trial shocked me, the lift into the basement was even more chilling. Here is no attempt to beautify. The re-creation of the coal cellars used to imprison, torture and kill is graphic and squalid. The solitary-confinement cell, the floor space 60 × 50 cm and only 180 cm high, with two light bulbs to shine in the prisoner's eyes, day and night. The wet cell, where they were forced to sit in freezing water. The foxhole, a pitch-black concrete hole, where curling up in a ball, for days on end, was the only option. The treatment room equipped with instruments of torture that defy the belief that they were being used during my lifetime, beneath this street of culture. That is the crux. During my lifetime. And the gallows, a primitive noose imported from another prison in Kozra út that was still in use in 1985.

  I was shaking when I surfaced. As a Quaker, I want to believe that 'there is that of God in everyone'. Looking at the faces of the men in the gallery of victimisers, I found it hard. How could this happen? I had some sympathy with a curt comment from a fellow countryman in the visitors' book: 'It should be in English.' Maybe he was as uncomprehending as I. He got short shrift from the next entry. Someone, obviously equally upset, wrote, 'It is, you prat. Leaflets in every room. We are not the master race you know.'