Since its opening in 1992, Kempinski Hotel Budapest has been passionately collecting Hungarian artworks to decorate the hotel’s common areas, rooms, and suites. The Corvinus Art Collection now consists of nearly 1,500 pieces. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, the hotel invited five popular contemporary Hungarian writers to spend a night in one of the Corvinus Art Collection Suites and write a short story inspired by the artwork in the suite. The stories have been published in the Kempinski Hotel Corvinus Budapest’s publication Storytelling Suites. Below is the story of Imre Bartók, inspired by Árpád Müller’s painting.
Imre Bartók: Jester
Glad you made it here. But before you ask anything, there’s something I have to tell you. There’s nothing that I know, except perhaps the fact that I know nothing. But you look familiar, yes, I think I know your face, in fact, I can see right through you. They say my smile isn’t genuine, and I’m more of a melancholy type. They say, and I’ll admit as much, my smile is only taken at face value by children, and they’re also the only ones to believe that glee could be pictured this way, even as my mottled heart overflows with grief. What could be further from the truth? Whoever knows about forms is exempt from sorrow. Whoever knows the shapes and forms of city and body is beyond all woe.
I’m not saying I know anything at all, it’s not knowledge as such, I simply became familiar with the city and myself, walking these streets, offering a curious child a rattle, ice cream to the women, and shackles to their husbands. They laugh, I smile, and everyone’s happy. My Parisian friends – not that I have friends, they’re quite imaginary -, so these friends from Paris wrote me a letter on cubism. Apparently you can slice up an image into bits.
Apparently, the whole world’s a great butcherblock. They say you can split time into seconds, and space into tiny but distinct blocks, like firewood, in fact even human figures can be hacked into a multitude of mutually reflecting mirror planes. At the center of this cubist labyrinth, I duck and hope and wait for you to find me. A cute young herald stands at the labyrinth gateway, waiting, and you can even ask for a ball of yarn, a nice little bundle, trail it along and see if it helps you find a way out. All the walls are mirrors, and there I am waiting for you at the center of this maze, a mirror myself, although different from all the rest, reflecting an image of you such as you have never seen. My face is a musical rapture, remember? Childhood’s own melody echoed, a memory that never had a present tense. I know nothing, only that I know you and see your secrets. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone, I don’t need to, when all of it is written on my face from this point on. My face is the music of your joy, all that’s left of your bygone wonder and awe. You see it in my eyes, don’t you? We don’t know nothing, but nothing knows all about us.
We came to this city to walk, and laugh, hand a kid a ball with a whisper: this is the world. I know there’s plenty you want to tell me, that’s what I’m here for, so now that you’ve found me, don’t hold back, talk. Don’t get disappointed if I’m not there for you, I can still hear your voice loud and clear. I’m not sorry, and you can’t make me sorry, no matter how hard you might try, though I might yet put a smile on your face. You know, for my Parisian friends’ sake. Look at the colors I’m wearing, it’s all for you.
We haven’t even started the show and so much has happened already. You’ve come such a long way. Perhaps you might rest a while. I know nothing about you, nobody told me you’d be coming, and yet you look so familiar. I bet you have secrets. Don’t be afraid, they’ll all be safe with me. Sit down, relax.
No, don’t sit down yet. Look out the window. You see that inquisitive child, that woman, her husband? They’re my family. Do you see what I see? Do I look sad to you? How could I be sad in this city, how could anyone be down when we’ve found one another? Sit down, lie back, stretch your tired limbs. Lie comfortably. Sleep, I can tell you could use some. Sleep, and dream something for me, something happy, if it’s not too much trouble.
Imre Bartók (Budapest, 1985 – ) is an author and critic who studied philosophy and aesthetics at ELTE University, and published his first novel in 2011. He is a known essayist and contributor to literary monographies. His latest novel Lovak a folyóban (Horses in the River, Jelenkor) was shortlisted for the 2022 Libri Literary Award.
