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 Rita Halász, inspired by Péter Ujházi’s painting.
Rita Halász: Zoom
There’s no mistaking the woman I see, it’s me, but I’m not sure what age. Only I know, full well, but I’m playing my mother’s old game here. Cut three minutes from the present. Any three minutes, anytime, it really makes no difference, any that comes to mind. Imagine watching yourself in that scene ten years before, imagine how you might interpret what you see, and what conclusions you might draw. Five years, ten years, twenty years back. Pick a time. I pretend to see myself from fifteen years ago as I’m sitting on this couch flipping through a Henri-Cartier Bresson catalog. Fifteen years back, András and I had gotten married, and were just back from our honeymoon. That’s my vantage point.
Zoom in.
Faint horizontal creases cross my forehead, and two deeper vertical lines between my eyebrows, one broader furrow beneath my eyes, and a faint one that extends outward from the lower eyelids. Not so bad. I might be thirty-five or so. My hair wound in a loose haystack bun on top, like it usually is. No earrings, but pierced holes are still visible on the lobes, not quite closed up yet. Let’s go to the back. My hair, I can see now, is dyed, only slightly exposed at the roots but you can still tell. So I’m one of those dye-job women now. I used to be all about natural looks, and ignoring public expectations. I flip through the catalog page by page, stopping to look at certain pictures, taking my phone out to shoot a pic. So we’ll have photo-phones, that’s neat, very practical. My hands, however, look older, veiny. I might be forty, perhaps even older. My boobs look bigger, tighter. Did I get those done? Me, who swore never to succumb to the knife? But then I also said I wouldn’t dye my hair.
Where am I? Let’s pull back. Elegant interior, afternoon sunlight pouring in the apartment window. No TV blare, no music. I still go for quiet. What am I doing here? Am I alone? Where’s András? Let’s see a close-up of my hand. Wedding ring still on. Good. Let’s pan full circle. Men’s bag on the couch. Must be his. It’s all too tidy looking, too clean. A hotel. Maybe a foreign business trip. András made the big time, and brought me along. Why can’t I be the success story? Maybe I brought us here, but then that would mean my dad got his way. Legal career instead of art.
Pull back. Look out the window. Somewhere in Europe. This could even be Budapest, the street looks familiar, those houses, trees, vaguely homelike, except for the Ferris wheel there. But this is Budapest, I can see the Basilica from here, even the dome of the Parliament. So Budapest got a giant wheel too, like the London Eye. We took a ride on that with András on our honeymoon, that’s how we found out he’s scared of heights; he just sat real still hiding his face in his hands, I patted his back. Have we got any kids? Apparently I’m not browsing through their pictures on my phone, but that’s not much to go on. If I’m forty here, they would be teenagers. Two teenage girls, glad to have their parents out of the house, like we’re glad to take a break from their teenage angst.
Finally, I get up at last. I’m going up to the big desk, to look at the bronze statue beside the window. It’s an apple core. I gently feel out the apple’s curve, then the bite marks on its robust heart. Adam and Eve’s, a last memento of paradise lost. Will I be the kind of person reminded of original sin when I see this, or will my thoughts take an entirely different direction?
Well, how do you like it? A male voice. Not András. A man in a bathrobe emerges from the bathroom. Tall, blonde, pushing forty. Bespectacled. Is this my lover? What else could he be? I go up to him, kiss his lips, give him a hug. No passionate lip- wrestling, no sex. If he’s my lover, it’s a long standing arrangement. But who knows what I might have witnessed an hour before. I’m digging this sculpture, I tell him. I didn’t mean the sculpture, he says. I know, but I really like having it here. I like your paintings a lot better, he says.
So my father didn’t win after all, I’m no lawyer, I’m a painter. And this too, he fondles my belly. My belly. Now that I notice it. And the breasts. I didn’t get a boob job, I’m pregnant! But where’s András? Zoom in on the hand. That’s not my wedding band, it’s got a stone in it. We always wanted to keep everything simple with András. Wedding with just the two witnesses, white summer dress, plain wedding band. So we must be through with András, and this is my new husband, I’m dyeing my hair, there’s a stone in my wedding ring and I’m pregnant at over forty. How did all this happen?
Well come on, let’s take another look! The man, my husband and father of my unborn child, puts his arm around me as I hold my belly, and we walk over to the bedroom, stopping to look at a blue painting. Stand right there, let me take a photo, he says, and I stop beside the painting, look into the camera, turn my head slightly to the left and smile. Did I paint that? My paintings used to be all dark, figurative, unsmiling women wearing heavy makeup, lonely girls staring far into space, hints of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, dreary color palette. Is my hair okay? It’s fine. Do I need to touch it up? No really, you’re great, it’s spontaneous. What do I do with my hands? Cross your arms. Isn’t that kind of aloof? Then hold your belly. But isn’t that too pregnant? Well, but you are pregnant, aren’t you? Yeah, but I don’t have to spell it out for a painting like that. I won’t show your hands then, okay?
The scene disperses, three minutes are up. I’m eating an apple, my husband has his arm around me. We watch the night lights of Budapest.
Rita Halász (Budapest, 1980 – ) is an author, art historian and teacher. Her first novel, Mély levegő (Deep Breath), came out in October 2020 with JelenkorPress, and won the Margó Award before being shortlisted for the Libri Literary Award. The book is being adapted as a television series. Halász is now working on her second novel.