Fifty Pairs Of Silk Stockings

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Most Respected Advertiser!

I am a forty seven years old, divorced,
technical disability pensioner, who works anew now.
In exchange of your love I offer lodging and board.
I love music, excursions.
I am still a romantic soul, who doesn't always need sex,
but sometimes is enough to feel the Other.
My hobby is electronics.
I live near the City Park in a one room apartment with kitchen
and bathroom.
If you are interested in the mater you can write.

With respect:
Szikos Candor

Bp. 1997 April. 20.
1068. Bp. Rippl Ronai 78. grf 6.

P.S.
Maybe you could even visit me.
Particulars: 185 cm long, 75 kg, chestnut short hair, eyes gray.
Today I am just into weight lifting

This food and border exchange was located in a dreadful, dreadful district, according to Margo who had written him a puah! letter he answered eagerly ignoring the negatives and magnifying the positives.
Anyway at about 6:30 I considered leaving my spot in front of the church, after suspecting several men that were passing by or hanging around to be the one I had spoken to on the phone at Shadows&Security Ltd. when I asked for Mr. Sziko Candor and they said there isn't such a person working there, though there is a Szikos Candor. Whatever. He was the guy who offered, in his letter, to barter room and board for sex. He sounded deferential. He apologized in advance that he had to show up in work attire and assured me he would wait if I were late.
But a guy in his fifties with a huge shoulder bag approached me asking if I was Lea with whom he had a business meeting. "Business meeting, hm?!" I said shaking hands with the working class. On his white T-shirt with "Hooray! The World Of American Baseball!", on the chest, a dangling cross on a leather necklace, and youthful jeans ending with strikingly white sport shoes.
I wanted to say in joyous surprise, "You resemble my grandmother. She has the bluest eyes on earth. Your chin is sunken in like her toothless mouth!" but I restrained myself thinking this wouldn't make him happy.
Most of the time I looked at his impeccable shoes while he walked me up and down Vaci street in search of a pub where we could chat. He was telling me his memories on many spots, "Here it used to be a Fishermen Csarda, but it's closed now. This place here looks expensive. I know a beer garden down there where I installed the air-conditioning unit... Oh, they totally changed this street! It's been a long time since I've been here. Here is the city hall, I've been here to claim my rights. Isn't it great that after a life time she divorced me and kicked me out of my six room apartment and even today after five years we go to court for separation of our assets!"
He talked on and on with an air of a surviving martyr, smiling like: "Could you believe this enormity? Horrible situation. I've been persecuted and people are disgustingly evil but I sorted it out and I decided I am a model: admire me!"
I asked him politely if he wasn't cold, for it was windy and he only had a T-shirt. I was frozen in my jacket and mini dress. No, he was not cold for after he had been diagnosed with stomach ulcer he braced up and fought for his life: everyday running, swimming in the cold Danube, walking in the hills for hours. As a result he reestablished his health, he is not cold and he won the battle. "Am I not a wonder?" He smiled obliquely and pinned me with his gaze from his tallness.
He had been in this building and that building on this occasion and that occasion. Oh, the pub was not there anymore, let's see the other one, no, better the other one. But he remembered there was an Italian pub there, he installed the air-conditioning there too and they gave him a fat tip and now it is not there anymore!
Finally I protested. I was dead cold and unable to walk anymore, especially with the bouquet of limp flowers he had forced on me. We got into a small Hungarian pub, with a young gathering at one table and had a loud TV above us. I was hungry. He asked me if I wanted to have dinner and I said modestly, "Only a pogacsa." He went to negotiate with the bartender. There were no pogacsas. I was afraid he might put some sleeping dust on my food so I refused the seasoned minced meat-ball he suggested, and contented myself with an orange juice.
He asked me where I came from. I said Transylvania. "Oh, then you must be Hungarian, Swab and Romanian." "Almost," I didn't want to argue. He was loud. The waiter was listening to us, the young couples at the next table as well... I fought my embarrassment thinking, "This is the duty of undercover journalists." It didn't matter if acquaintances saw me with this block. This was a job.
He went on about how he was also a Jasz; a migratory people who had settled in Hungary long before the Huns showed up. About how he had donated something to the museum of Jasz, how he was horrified by the passivity of Hungarians and corruption of the Small Holders Party, how he had tried to establish a new party, Clear Heart, but was boycotted.
How he had writings fighting for freedom: manifestos and songs. He had sung downtown songs against the Intelligence Service, against the Trianon Treaty. How he was persecuted for his outspokenness. They had even broken into his apartment, that's why he carried around his tools bag now. How he had a water pipe sticking out in front of his apartment and he had turned it into a shower and all the green space in his neighborhood made his location a summer resort for free, and he smiled again, "Am I not beating up the system?!" And again about his divorce and the perfidy of his wife who didn't let his two daughters ever meet him, and his back which was slightly hunchbacked ached sometimes from the bag and how he had two kinds of working clothes: one ragged and another one even more ragged, depending on how dirty the work at hand was. For the clients liked to deal with workers who looked like workers so that they could feel like bosses. Also they liked to make sure it's a hard worker, good at his job, and not finicky about getting dirty, and he would show me the hills. I said softly, "I've been in the hills." But had I been in Fairy's Hills? In Janos Hills? "No," I acknowledged. "See?" he said triumphant. He said he would show me those hills, the fresh air, the magnificent nature. We would walk all those hills together.
I said it was late and that I would like to go home. No, not before having a cake at the "Ice-Cream Buffet." "But it is closed, it's already seven, you see?!" No, it is still open because he fixed their fridge system and they gave him a cake as a tip and we should go there because it's on my way home anyway. Okay. I took my bunch of flowers and walked out saying only "Yes," or "No," which was not that needed anyway because he was talking on and on again about divorce, the situation of thermal water in Hungary; for he had proposed a project they didn't use because they are stupid. He told them with plans and figures, everything, that Hungary is on a cushion of thermal water. All they have to do is pierce the earth and capture the hot springs in a grill like pipe network. Then Hungarians would swim in hotness: hot water, the heating system, everything would be solved.
"See it is open. Let's eat a good cake," he said victorious in front of the "Ice-Cream Buffet"
It was awkward. What would the saleswomen think of me?! In the afternoon I had a cake there alone and now I showed up again with that scarecrow. I chose a simple Kremsnit but he insisted that I have more expensive cakes because it is common knowledge that women like these delicacies. "No thanks, I am fine with my Kremsnit." But those are butter. Very greasy! Wouldn't I at least want a French Kremsnit? "Okay, be it a French." I hoped Noel wouldn't see me. "And the child is at home, maybe I should take the cake home?!" I worried. He went and fetched sodas and napkins: "They don't have proper service here anymore."
He got back to his epoch-making inventions. How he had a second project on bio-gas, how he showed them that a family could have their energy supply covered by a cow, by using its feces and urine. There weren't that many customers at that time, but he spoke loud, this man! I gulped down my treat while he went on with how he sued the gas workers for charging his expenditure, how he had a high ranking nun (the sister of his wife) kicked out of her position because she had testified against him at his divorce. He wrote a letter to the abbey claiming that this very woman had made a pass at him so how could she be a virgin nun?! I got totally lost. His self-laudatory smile appeared periodically on his face as menstruation does when you hoped you were pregnant...
At the bus stop, he insisted on joining me for a while. He yelled about having to fix black and white TV sets he had bought from the Gypsy market and then selling them at a friendly price of 2,000 fts at the least. The girl with fastidious make-up, who looked vacantly at the Danube, turned towards us. Her romantic airs were sordid to the Candor's bragging. I smiled vacantly too, and tried not to listen to how he went to pubs with his buddies and did naughty things and then came back next day and covered the debts, for wasn't he a good boy also, from time to time?! I had no clue what he was talking about, but tried to figure out how to get rid of him, maybe jumping into a taxi, maybe going in a different direction? He asked me if I lived alone or with a family? With a family, I replied wearily. Here was the bus, I shook hands with him and promised to call him next day to meet and get those revolutionary verses he said he would give me. I jumped through the bus's last door so that he couldn't board without my noticing. He had a romantic mien! Oh, it was so good to hear the doors clashing and to get home without that voice nagging me and finally sit on the toilet. I had to drink a lot of juice that day.
Next day he called me twice and I called him back and told him I could meet him for half an hour at the French Institute. It was fine with him, he just wanted to give me the stuff. I was 35 minutes late but there he was, in front of the building. He came near me: a bouquet of long stem rosy flowers in his hand. He was in a tuxedo with a shining collar, white shirt, the cross dangling over his necktie, the bag dangling on his hunchbacked shoulder. He took my hand with his blackened hands and kissed it. I giggled hoping no one saw me. We went to a Fishermen Csarda because the Belgian pub was costly, you know. We were seated and he ordered a sweet wine in a slightly pretentious style. They only had dry. Be it, he said dismissingly. I asked for my orange juice because I told him I was invited to dinner at the Romanian embassy, just in case he would have followed me and saw that I would get into Noel's car, which has a blue plate number. I thrillered how this crazy guy tracking Noel down and blackmailing him and oh, what an embarrassment! I saw Noel yelling at me how indiscreet I was...
He insisted on my having dinner with him. I said, "Candor, I really can't, I planned this event weeks before and it is really important for my career."
The waitress came to look out of the window. Maybe she was scared also by this loud guy who took out of his bag a bunch of dirty papers and talked, showing me one, saying that it was his drama evaluation- he explained to me that he had written a historical play in 12 acts with 30 characters - saying it was full of merits, but the Radnoti Theater didn't have the broad-shoulders to stage it and he should try his luck at the Radio Drama section. I burst into laughter: we were colleagues! How sweet. 12 acts! Maybe I look as foolish as him, in the eyes of people, with my novels! It was touching, Margo had said that too. After all, few people write plays and sing. And on top of it make others join them. He had a cassette patched with black scotch tape. He said the Intelligence Service took it apart and erased some of his dangerous songs. He gave me some papers covered with verses as follows:

I owe my colleague some compensation for the fun he bestowed on me. I will guard his incognito, for safety reasons.
These pages were written in the beautiful handwriting of Candor Jr. Szikos, poet.

1. Hungarian Slave Song *

Oh jajj jajj, woe is me
All our life is misery
Year in, year out we work like slaves
Until we wind up in our graves
Joy, delight, we haven't any
What's worse we have not saved a penny.

Oh-oh-oh jajj, jajj, jajj pray for us
Sing a sad requiem in your chorus
Famished and thirsty, we'll soon die
Oh jajj, jajj, jajj, jaj, jaj jajj jaj!
All our nights are filled with fright
Never do we see the light
Who will venture to release us
From a bondage that never ceases
Oh-oh-oh jajj, jajj, jajj pray for us
We have no rights and no vacations,
We cannot go to other nations
No cheeseburgers or fashion jeans,
No rock and roll, no rice or beans
Oh jajj, jajj, jaj, jaj, jajj jajj!

2. Oh! Secret Police**

Oh! Secret Police Oh! Secret Police
You creep in every corner of my life
I am utterly weary of you!
You sell your fathers
You sell your children
You sell your future
For a plate of lentils everything you have
Oh! Secret Police Oh! Secret Police
Kiss my ass.
I am utterly weary of you!
You go in and out my house!
You break [destroy] my everything
You catch [watch]
My letters, my telephone
Kiss my ass.
Rotten Villains [Rascals]

3. The lyrics of The Trianon Song ***

Oh Trianon! World Powers! Hungary!
They slashed you to pieces!
And on the part they stole
They humbled our nephews and neices
And now just to visit requires a toll!
Oh on our sacred, ancient soil
Where another people now guzzles and farts
It is enough to make our blood boil,
Such desecration by puny upstarts!
Oh God why do you permit such shame?
How and why do you betray us?
Surely soon you will recall our name
And show that you are for us.
We know that this will come to pass
Our shameful loss will be redeemed!
Chorus:
Then every Magyar lad and lass
Shall smile upon our fulfilled dream
But should Trianon's curse persists
One thing I'm sure is certain
We'll fight on and on with just our fists
Until the final curtain
Ha-ha-ha!

* His, criss crossed/ killed, note: Broadcasted on Hungarian Television
**His note: Original! I regularly played also this on the City Park, propagated mainly by pro Hungary nazis.
B. 1997 April 30
***His note: With love to Lea from Szikos Candor Jr. "per sona non grata"

He insisted that I take the large envelope with the Copy General header on it so that I would remember that he had been in high places too.
He showed me receipts from letters he had sent to the prime minister which he said were proof of some persecutions and how after singing in Freedom Square they had called the ambulance and put him in the madhouse, as revenge.
I left him all smiles saying I would begin traveling on the First of May and we should keep in touch. I imagine he didn't get out of the pub that soon, for it was payday. Alas for the poor waitresses who had to watch him sipping his classy wines. I saw them kicking him out while he was crushing plates or God knows what, singing "Down with Gyula Horn!". That is the prime minister.

Aftermath: His Pager Buzzes

97-05-05 Mo 15:34	With respect I ask you to call me on the phone because I would like to give you something. Szikos Candor
97-05-05 Mo 16:37	With honesty I wait for your call, I, Szikos Candor, and I would like very much to give you something. Greetings, Szikos Candor
97-05-06 Tu 16:55	With honesty I wait for your call, I, Szikos Candor, and I would like very much to give her something. Greetings, Szikos Candor
97-05-08 Th 06:45	I was born a human, and not an animal. From all my lovers up to now I said good bye in a humanistic style. In this scope I ask respectfully for an appointment. Szikos Candor

[Summary] [Fragment]

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