Cafe Europa by Ed Ifkovic

conspiratorial, I thought—and amused.
    Endre was a beautiful man. His long lanky body moved with the grace of a man comfortable with himself. A sudden turn of his head, the languid shifting of a raised shoulder, a finger tapping his knee—a man who understood that women enjoyed looking at him. That shock of brilliant black hair, so dramatically swept back from his forehead, that elegant Roman nose over a wide fleshy mouth. The way he slowly sat up, arching his back like a roused cat, spreading his long arms across the table, one hand absently reaching for a glass. The eyes held you, mesmerized. An Hungarian matinee idol, I thought, an intrepid horseman of the windswept plains.
    Suddenly I realized what especially compelled: the lined, dark face was flawed—one eye was lazy, slightly closed, so that you were caught unawares. The exquisite Ming vase with a hairline crack that made you cherish it. I found myself staring, rudely, unabashedly, into that face. I couldn’t help it. That lazy eye gave his glance a raw intimacy, a sensual—almost feminine—softness that warred with the ruddy Wild West moustachioed countenance. I wanted to reach out to touch that face.
    Of course, I didn’t.
    Of course not.
    I only wanted to.
    Winifred was staring at me curiously. She’d glanced at Endre, dismissed him, and was content to glare unhappily at the rattling, chattering Harold.
    For a few seconds the two men spoke in Hungarian. Harold’s version was admittedly halting and scattered—Endre winced once or twice, though he found it amusing—but then Endre spoke in English, a precise British schoolboy English. “Mr. Gibbon is a fascinating man, yes?”
    â€œYour English, sir, is…”
    Harold broke in. “The result of being a student at Oxford.”
    â€œOf course,” Winifred said.
    â€œHe tells me I talk like an American cowboy,” Harold laughed. “A csikós , a horseman.”
    â€œMr. Gibbon,” Endre said directly to me, shaking his head at Harold, “wants me to tell him the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Finis Austriae .”
    â€œWhat?” I asked, startled.
    Harold made a face. “I’ve known Endre here for nearly a year—a friend, I’d call him. We seek each other out for late-night romps to the wine cellars in the Buda hills. He thinks my idea of the coming war is faulty. But I need to quote him in my reports—in researching my unwritten book. He’s a witness to the twilight of the gods. To tell you the truth, as a scion of the Zsolnay porcelain fortune down in Pécs, gold spilling out of his pockets”—he flicked his finger toward a smiling Endre—“drinks on him, of course, well, he understands the heart of the troubled economics of this land.”
    Endre shrugged. “Ah, yes, the Götterdämmerung so beloved of the decadent writers. My friend Harold Gibbon wants me to condemn our Emperor and King Franz Josef to oblivion.”
    Harold whispered loudly, “Endre is a proud Hungarian, a passionate Magyar. The moribund world of Vienna”—Harold pointed down the Danube—“is over, dead, weakened. Anemic. Franz Josef and his outdated army of horse regiments in an age of rat-a-tat machine guns. Lovely Budapest waits and waits for its moment in the sun. Remember that rebellion squashed in 1848. It’s been one thousand years since Árpád crossed into this land. The Habsburgs stole the land from oppressive Turkey, and then they oppressed. Franz Ferdinand speaks of the Hungarians as traitors. The Austrian army orders its Hungarian recruits around—in German.” Endre held up his hand but Harold rushed his words. “No, no, it is true, dear Endre Molnár. You know what I say about Vienna is true.”
    Endre looked embarrassed and lapsed into silence. Oblivious, Harold prattled on.
    â€œMr. Molnár,” I began, “why do you put up with this