maniacal ballroom full of glistening black mirrors, spectral chandeliers, trick candelabras and sconces. The Turks on the street brandished long knives to cut meat for kebabs. A German who had lost his way, pulling a suitcase on wheels, muttered, "Scheisse, scheisse." And, wrapped in blankets, a Gypsy couple slept in a tunnel walkway beneath the street. A black hat lay beside his head; beside hers, a carefully folded, flower-patterned scarf.
We got on the train to NyÃregyháza, that being the farthest point east, and it would run until morning. Which was fine: we had to sleep somewhere. South and east, our plan. Somewhere near Hatvan the conductor appeared. I tried explaining that we didn't have tickets. He was over six feet, all smiles, and repeated, "Kein Problem." Then, with the aid of a piece of paper and a pen, he told us not to worry, we could stay on, he would return, maybe at Füzesabony or Tiszafüred, and sell us the tickets then, so they would be cheaper. He vanished, then reappeared in half an hour, apologetically, saying that it had to be now, there was someone onboard more important than he who might come through and check. With elaborate flourishes he wrote us a receipt. We also had some aszú with us but no corkscrew. Seeing the long-necked bottle, the conductor threw up his hands helplessly, but then disappeared and reappeared with a curious tool for locking compartments and punching ticket holes. We tried it, but the tool was too short, the cork came less than halfway out. Tremendous disappointment on the conductor's face. Again he disappeared, and all we could hear was the echo of his strides in the empty corridor. He returned in a few minutes, beaming, and pulled at my sleeve. The man is so invested in this Tokay, I thought; a pity that the bottle's only half a liter. He explained excitedly, pulling me to the john, pointing at the toilet-paper peg, which was thin, long enough, strong enough. We pushed the cork in. With a sigh of relief, I handed him the bottle. "Drink, brother," I said in Polish. He stood at attention and with solemnity pointed to his uniform, cap, all his officialdom, then clapped me on the shoulder and said something that must have meant "To your health." He appeared again at dawn. He was half asleep and repeated, "NyÃregyháza, NyÃregyhá za." He made sure we hadn't forgotten anything on the train, then waved from the window.
It was that way everywhere. That's how it was at Hidasnémeti at the border station half an hour from KoÅ¡ice, where we got off on a hot platform and the sun rolled in the west like a cut- off rooster's head trailing a ribbon of red. Nothing, as far as the eye could see. The black railway wires vanished in the vastness of burned fields and blowing wind. About the station, guards in Slovak and Hungarian uniforms milling. The borders at the edge of old Europe must have looked like this: emptiness, wind, and garrisons, where you wait for something, for the enemy perhaps, and when the years pass and the enemy doesn't show, you put a bullet through your head out of boredom. A man on a rusty bicycle approached, but I knew only one Hungarian wordâthe name of a town, Göncâso I repeated it over and over, until he finally squatted and wrote the departure time with his finger in the sand. He touched my backpack to tell me that the train would be red, raised a finger to tell me it would have only one car. He smelled of wine, beer, and cigarettes. He took off on his bicycle but returned in two hours to make sure we boarded the red car at the station.
It was that way also at Gönc, where in the middle of the night a Gypsy with a gold earring led us down dark lanes between vegetable plots and barking dogs, for several kilometers because he couldn't understand our request, and we followed till we reached a noisy pub where a man sat at a table: the only person in the neighborhood who spoke English. It was he who informed us, finally, that
We got on the train to NyÃregyháza, that being the farthest point east, and it would run until morning. Which was fine: we had to sleep somewhere. South and east, our plan. Somewhere near Hatvan the conductor appeared. I tried explaining that we didn't have tickets. He was over six feet, all smiles, and repeated, "Kein Problem." Then, with the aid of a piece of paper and a pen, he told us not to worry, we could stay on, he would return, maybe at Füzesabony or Tiszafüred, and sell us the tickets then, so they would be cheaper. He vanished, then reappeared in half an hour, apologetically, saying that it had to be now, there was someone onboard more important than he who might come through and check. With elaborate flourishes he wrote us a receipt. We also had some aszú with us but no corkscrew. Seeing the long-necked bottle, the conductor threw up his hands helplessly, but then disappeared and reappeared with a curious tool for locking compartments and punching ticket holes. We tried it, but the tool was too short, the cork came less than halfway out. Tremendous disappointment on the conductor's face. Again he disappeared, and all we could hear was the echo of his strides in the empty corridor. He returned in a few minutes, beaming, and pulled at my sleeve. The man is so invested in this Tokay, I thought; a pity that the bottle's only half a liter. He explained excitedly, pulling me to the john, pointing at the toilet-paper peg, which was thin, long enough, strong enough. We pushed the cork in. With a sigh of relief, I handed him the bottle. "Drink, brother," I said in Polish. He stood at attention and with solemnity pointed to his uniform, cap, all his officialdom, then clapped me on the shoulder and said something that must have meant "To your health." He appeared again at dawn. He was half asleep and repeated, "NyÃregyháza, NyÃregyhá za." He made sure we hadn't forgotten anything on the train, then waved from the window.
It was that way everywhere. That's how it was at Hidasnémeti at the border station half an hour from KoÅ¡ice, where we got off on a hot platform and the sun rolled in the west like a cut- off rooster's head trailing a ribbon of red. Nothing, as far as the eye could see. The black railway wires vanished in the vastness of burned fields and blowing wind. About the station, guards in Slovak and Hungarian uniforms milling. The borders at the edge of old Europe must have looked like this: emptiness, wind, and garrisons, where you wait for something, for the enemy perhaps, and when the years pass and the enemy doesn't show, you put a bullet through your head out of boredom. A man on a rusty bicycle approached, but I knew only one Hungarian wordâthe name of a town, Göncâso I repeated it over and over, until he finally squatted and wrote the departure time with his finger in the sand. He touched my backpack to tell me that the train would be red, raised a finger to tell me it would have only one car. He smelled of wine, beer, and cigarettes. He took off on his bicycle but returned in two hours to make sure we boarded the red car at the station.
It was that way also at Gönc, where in the middle of the night a Gypsy with a gold earring led us down dark lanes between vegetable plots and barking dogs, for several kilometers because he couldn't understand our request, and we followed till we reached a noisy pub where a man sat at a table: the only person in the neighborhood who spoke English. It was he who informed us, finally, that
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