Budapest

Abstract

Budapest John Fulton (bio) They met on the night train to Budapest and seemed drawn to each other by the fascination with how different they were—her from Brussels, a place he'd only seen on the map, and him from Draper, Utah, a place she'd clearly never imagined was on any map. That's why I wanted to get away from it, he told her, explaining that he was making his way across Europe with a Eurorail Pass. Budapest would be the first city he'd see to have recently emerged from Communism, though he planned to see many more. When he asked her what she was traveling for, she leaned down and tapped her fingers on the black case, like a little coffin, thrust beneath her seat. An audition, she said. Her first language, she told him, was French, though her father was English, which was why she spoke so fluently and with a precise accent that was foreign to him. As the night grew darker, the train seemed to pick up speed and hum through the thick black outside their window. They told each other their ages—they were both nineteen—and their names—his was Leland and hers began with an s and had a few elusive syllables that seemed to contain an l and an e or perhaps an i, and when he said it back to her, she smiled and corrected him, but he never quite got it. It means, she said, a young woman who sees the future. He wanted to smile then and say, So what do you see? But instead, he asked her about her audition, and she grew quiet before telling him that it was for the National Orchestra. She'd been invited to audition, but she wasn't sure she wanted to succeed. What she wanted to do instead was forget her appointment and go to the baths that were famous in Budapest. They were the reason the Romans had settled in the river valley in the first place. She could imagine sitting in the hot water and closing her eyes as she missed her audition and as her mother's ambitions for her melted away in the thermal heat. It was very late then, and most of the passengers around them had fallen asleep as the young woman told Leland that she loved music. But she could not be sure how she felt about the violin, which had been forced on her. Every time she picked up the instrument, she felt her mother's resentment for her father. He'd always been cold. The [End Page 40] English often are. But he had done something else, too. Years ago, he had taken a mistress whom he still had now. As a result, her mother—a very capable, ambitious woman, who had sacrificed a career in music herself to be a wife and raise a family—had become single-mindedly dedicated to her children. She shook her head and smiled apologetically. You mentioned you were escaping your home, she said now. What is it that you need to get away from? He told her that she'd have to see Draper to understand, and he described the arid mountain range that was half made of salt so that no trees and only the ugliest, spiniest plants and bushes could grow. And there was his church, the Mormon church—six hours of service every Sunday, the prayer meetings with the elders, the general discouragement of thinking and reading, both of which Leland liked to do. But finally, he also came to his mother: she had been left by his father before Leland could remember and she'd held onto a resentment and bitterness from which she never recovered and for which, one way or another, Leland had been trying to compensate ever since. He had come home to be with her every day after school. He had stayed in at night, not living like most teenagers would, even teenagers in Draper. If he were to be honest, he was really trying to escape her. We have that in common, then, the young woman said. And they sat quietly for...