Bad night at the pizzeria

We had our first miserable night grown out of the kind of habits that shift from one house to another. This one involves keys.

The last two days have been relentless, though not taxing.

Yesterday Kata Horvath accompanied me to Budapest for a meeting with the Fulbright exchange teachers and their mentors; and because of certain geographical necessities, this meant riding a bus for five hours for a five hour meeting and riding home for five hours (first bus at 5:01 am, returning at 10:30 pm). But highlights of this day actually occurred on the bus (statistically speaking, not an impressive statement). I really enjoyed getting to know Kata better, and the trip also gave us time to hammer out some details of my assignment. During a one hour layover in Kaposvar, I also met her husband, who lives and works there during the week. Aside from a moment when a group of boys demonstrated their knowledge of English in the most vulgar ways possible, walking with the two of them was very pleasant.

Additionally, Franky sat with me up through Kaposvar, and we were two loud Americans for three hours. And, man, I like this guy. His dedication to his teaching of art is inspiring, but more than this, his full-bore engagement with life is something to behold. We talked about teaching and art, philosophy and love, and about music. He made me name my top five favorite musicians. None of you try it. I won't give it up for just anyone.

We also shared further observations about Hungary, something started when we ate lunch with all the Americans. Kent, teaching in Debrecen, asked us if anyone else had the medieval keys. I feel like the Sheriff of Nottingham, he said. Everyone pulled out skeleton keys. But he pulled out a monster. Why, someone wondered, if it's supposed to be so safe here, does every door have three locks? Someone else suggested maybe that's why it's so safe. On the bus, Franky and I further mused about aggression in queues (that Y-shaped experience described in an earlier blog turns out to be nothing unique -- we've been outmaneuvered by little old ladies and tiny men); about the very strangely high density of beautiful women in Kaposvar per capita; about the intense public displays of affection and displays of other things too, corporeally speaking; and about the level of cleanliness that has left me with blisters on both hands.

Every piece of today was full, too. I gave myself 15 minutes first thing this morning to reach the trees in the back of the fields I'd spotted from the water tower, but it took me a half an hour to get there. That's a lot of field. Another notable piece of the day was going with Gabor and Amelia to Zoe's horseback riding lesson, which turned out not to be a horseback riding lesson at all, but an incredibly personalized instruction that had everything to do with personal growth and joy: while two women led Zoe on a horse around a circle, they had her stretch, catch balls, answer questions and solve math problems... I'd never seen anything like it; Gabor said this was not an unusual thing. Amelia was invited to sit on the horse in front of Zoe, and, for a half hour, Amelia was absolutely entranced.

But perhaps the highlight of the day was crowding into Kinga's study, our bellies full of plum cake of which Amelia had four scoops, Kinga playing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the piano while Stephanie and I and especially Stephanie tried to sing the lyrics.

Here's the end of the story. Maybe I'll edit it tomorrow and capture the panic of it all better and maybe I won't, because now it's 10:30 and I'm exhausted. After the piano, we all split up, Kinga and Stephanie to meet a painter at Kinga's grandmother's house, the girls and I to grab a pizza here at Club 101, where Kinga and Stephanie would soon meet us. We bought a pizza, we ate it, the kids started getting cold because we were outside, we waited a little longer, we went inside, waited a while, and then we decided to try to go find Stephanie, because Kinga had once pointed down a street and said, That's where my granny lived, and the children were cold. By this time, the wind was rattling the trees, a couple heavy drops were starting to fall in isolated places, Sophie and Amelia were running back and forth in front of the pizza place to keep warm, and it was entirely dark. So dark, in fact, that we were stopped by the police who tried to communicate that we couldn't be biking around in the dark without lights. I wanted to say, I know that, but I need to find my wife, who has the key to our house, and the only other house I've been to here is Kinga's house and it's also locked, and our kids are starting to get very cold. We biked on, looked in all the yards down the street Kinga had once pointed to for two familiar bikes, found nothing, decided to go back to our house and hope that Stephanie might be waiting for us there. But in the dark, and the wind, Sophie's handlebars started wobbling and she started screaming, and I jumped off my bike trying not to kick Maisie in the face as she sat in the seat behind mine and saw that, indeed, Sophie's handlebars are working themselves out of the headset, and I couldn't push them back in. They didn't come out when I yanked, though, which is what I told her, and we turned east and tried to head home, though two direct routes turned into dark dead ends; and the entire time, Sophie was bravely talking herself through it, her bars looking like they were peddling themselves, saying, It's not scary; it's not scary; this isn't scary; and Amelia was doing 200 rpm's on her tiny little bike; and the wind was still coming; and we didn't know what was waiting for us at the house: which turned out to be absolute blackness. We piled into the bicycle garage and I pulled out some chairs and closed the door to keep in the warmth, while I went around the outside of the house, looking for a way in and failing, though I did find a front porch light to signal Stephanie. The kids talked each other through it and put such a good face on things, going back to their survival stories; imagining that they could last so long because of all the grapes and plums and pears in the orchard; and they said they would wait for me while I went back out into the night to find Stephanie.

She and Kinga were just pulling into our street when I had gone 100 meters; and I biked toward them, said a couple words and dashed back to the kids, grateful, angry, tired.

From now on, I'm going to do like I did in Seattle: take a house key with me everywhere.

But those are some awesome kids I have, let me say that, because they showed grace, fortitude, generosity, and courage, and they used it to close the beams of panic that every once in a while shattered the night.