Free Under Budapest by Ailsa Kay Page A

the guy who never gets the girl.”
    Peter is sardonic and depressive and hilariously fun. Spontaneous and sincere and worn out. “I hate that Hungarian-loser rhetoric,” Peter says.
    â€œBecause it’s true?”
    â€œBecause it breeds monsters like Jobbik and the Magyar Garda.”
    â€œYou know what I hate? I hate that I’m on vacation with my mother.”
    â€œYou really are Hungarian.”
    Tibor feels younger by the minute, but it’s their fourth romkocsma, his sixth beer, and it must be getting late. He checks his watch: only eleven-thirty. “Fuckit. Jet lag.”
    â€œI’ll call you a cab,” says Peter.
    It’s 4:12 a.m. The room hums. His comforter itches. He scratches his ankles, his rib cage. Fibreglass? Crackers.
    Christ.
    Tibor sits. Heaves one leg after the other over the side of the bed.
    In the bathroom, he flicks on the light, sheltering his eyes (too late) from the glare. Bleary-eyed, he fills the tumbler with water and drinks with his eyes closed. He fills it again, trying not to see himself in the very large mirror. When did he get that sag above his hipbone? My God, it’s not just the hip either. It starts from his spine, then overflows. Putting down his water glass, Tibor grabs his rolls, one in each fist. Holy Christ. How could he ever have believed that Rafaela might have loved this? This pale, wistfully slack waist. These insufficient arms.
    Tibor turns his back on the mirror and stands over the toilet, watching his urine hit the glossy toilet bowl and pool.
    He could try to go back to sleep, but he knows from experi­ence that trying to go back to sleep is the worst thing to do. He’d just lie there rehearsing his talk and audience reactions to his talk. He’d get nervous. He kept the anxiety at bay all yesterday, and all yesterday evening with Peter. I am not worried, he says, sternly. I’ve always excelled at conference papers.
    The street at 4:25 a.m. is empty. Streetlights, strung from overhead wires between buildings, cast watery, meagre light on ice-frosted asphalt. He steps out. Enjoys the first slap of cold on his face, in his lungs, and heads off toward Gellert. Eight years ago, he ran Gellert Hegy twice a week. He could jog all the way to the top and over, without stopping. He isn’t as fit as he was then, but he could try. And if he could get there by sunrise, he’d get some great photos. He carries his Canon digital in his jacket pocket.
    At the foot of the hill, Tibor checks his watch: 5:00 a.m. and still no dawn, no stars either. The clouds and the city lights together conspire to turn the sky an even purplish blue. He jogs on the spot, to keep his heart rate up, looks up the stairs that lead to the paths through the wooded hill. Poorly lit. Deserted.
    So what are you afraid of?
    Tibor feels the rush of adrenalin. A flood of endorphins. Exactly: what am I afraid of? A lonely hill? Bad guys lurking in caves? Those are just phantasms, irrational night terrors, as are all fears when it comes down to it. It’s all in your head. It can be mastered. Yes, mastered. Master it, Tibor. Master your fear. Run up that ancient hill, and show your fears who’s boss. Who will deliver a resoundingly perfect paper? Who will soon publish an article that will revise dominant thinking about post-communist Hungary? Who kicks ass? And with that thought, Tibor leaps up Szent Gellert’s stairs, three at a time.
    He stops not quite halfway. Above him, the statue of Hungary’s first Christian, Szent Gellert, floodlit and white. He pulls the camera from the pocket of his windbreaker. He loves this camera—the size of a cigarette case but also capable of shooting video. Also gives him an excuse to catch his breath, which plumes in gusts. To be fair, he used to run the hill from the other side where the slope was less steep. He hears a loud creak. Likely just a tree in the wind. No reason to linger, though. At the top of