Free Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy Page B

hand, particularly those on the ground floor, were relatively large, high and wide, some extending the whole width of the building. In every one of them there sat a woman wearing heavy make-up and an evening dress with deep décolletage or else some other item of clothing that revealed her shoulders and curves, drawing attention to her breasts. The women winked at the men and beckoned them in. Budai, of course, could tell what kind of quarter he had stumbled into even without the invitation. And though he had not frequented such places since his own student days – they tended to repel him now and he would avoid such streets at home – it occurred to him that here at last he might establish some contact, speak to someone, ask them a question that they might be able to answer, or that he could at least try to explain if only there was someone prepared to listen ... Suddenly he felt so excited the sweat soaked through his shirt. He stopped at the next bar and stood in a queue again for a drink to work up courage and overcome his shyness.
    There were as many kinds of women on display as there were colours of houses: honey blondes, young girls, women with slant eyes and combs in their hair like Japanese geishas, even one coal-black beauty wearing a heavy silver necklace. There was a woman dressed in white tulle who had a heart-shaped face and long dark lashes and gave a lingering Madonna-like smile, who did not invite anyone but just sat there looking out on the street. She attracted Budai’s attention. He walked to and fro in front of her window so she was bound to have noticed him but still she did not beckon him, only followed his movements with the same modest and happy half smile ... Making a sudden decision, with heart in mouth, he rang her bell like a guilty schoolboy. An answering buzz told him he could enter.
    He found himself in a dim-lit hall with an old woman sitting at a table. As he passed her she gave him a tiny slip of paper with the number 174 on it. He didn’t understand what this was for and handed it back to her enquiringly, but the old woman just muttered a complaint of some sort, and pointed upwards. He had to go up to the first floor where a bald, withered old man stood by the door, his face red and wrinkled as a baked apple. He asked for Budai’s ticket, punched a hole in it, then tore a ticket from a book of tickets and handed it to him. Not being able to understand each other it took a while to establish that there was something to pay here, a note bearing the number 10. Budai felt this was expensive and didn’t even know whether it was an entrance fee or whether it covered everything. He was already regretting having come in.
    He was ushered into a circular room with four doors beside the one he had come in by opening off it. There were chairs and benches arranged around the wall, all of them occupied by some twenty to twenty-five men waiting as if at the dentist’s so there was nowhere for him to sit down. A speaker was playing waltzes, guests were chattering and laughing. Budai felt no inclination to engage in the usual sign language, suspecting it would be pointless in any case: he doubted that he could explain his presence. Once we are face to face, he thought ... From time to time one of the doors opened and a lightly-clad woman turned around and flicked up her dress. This was what the guests had been waiting for – they had got to number 148 so far – and one of them would go off and disappear with her. But there were occasions when no one came forward, in which case the possessor of the next number accompanied the woman while the first man waited for one of the others. Eventually the whole range of women had made an appearance but the one with the Madonna face was not among them. Perhaps she was just for window-display?
    Business was pretty brisk, doors opened and closed with great regularity: the women would spend between ten and fifteen minutes with each guest, sometimes less, while all