11th District, 13th District by Zary Fekete
In Budapest, a teacher visits the home of one of his students and is struck by the contrasts in his city.
The 11th district has wide streets and trees so tall they nearly cover the tram wires. When we walk to the schools to talk about the virus and the blood, the air smells like lime blossoms. Balázs is a student who listens; he wears a sweater that is too thin for November, and he sits in the front row. He doesn't say much, but he looks at the diagrams of the cells with a focused, quiet intensity. Veins branch blue and red across the projector screen while the other students whisper to one another or stare out the windows toward the street below. Balázs watches as if the body is something he himself might someday need to repair.
One day I see him at the fruit stand near my house. He is stacking apples, making sure the bruised ones are at the bottom. The owner of the stand is my acquaintance; he tells me Balázs is a good worker, that a colleague gave him a "good word." Balázs smiles at me, but it is a small, professional smile. He is working for the apples and the coins. He lives in the 13th district, where the apartment blocks repeat for streets at a time, grey concrete darkened by rain and years of exhaust.
The next week, the discussion runs late. The students leave in groups, their voices echoing down the stairwell. Outside, the evening has already settled into that early November darkness that arrives before people are ready for it. I tell Balázs I will drive him home.
We cross the bridge from Buda to Pest. The river below is black except where the tram lights ripple across it. As we drive, the buildings lose their color. Small restaurants give way to shuttered kiosks and dim convenience stores with handwritten signs taped to the windows. The streetlights are dimmer here, or perhaps there are just fewer of them. A tram rattles beside us for part of the drive, sparks flashing blue overhead each time the wires shake loose against the arm above the car.
Balázs sits very still in the passenger seat. The heater clicks softly between us. He points once or twice to tell me where to turn, always a little too late, as if he is unused to giving directions to someone who owns a car. I realize I have never driven this far into the district before. The apartment blocks seem endless now, repeating one after another in the dark.
He points to a block that looks like a giant, dirty honeycomb.
He doesn't get out right away. He asks if I want to meet his father. He says if his father sees my face, it will be easier for him to come to the after-school meetings. He speaks as if my face is a passport. I say yes.
The elevator is broken. It has been broken for a long time; the buttons are pushed into the metal and stay there. We walk up eight flights. The stairwell smells like damp wool and old cigarettes. On the fourth floor, there is a puddle that never dried. Someone has placed flattened cardboard boxes beside it to step across. From somewhere above us comes the sound of a television turned too loud, followed by coughing that does not stop for a long time.
On the sixth floor, there are children's shoes lined against a wall beside a door with no handle.
On the eighth floor, we enter the apartment.
The hallway is narrow and crusted with dirt. It is not new dirt; it is the kind of dust that has become part of the floor, layers of past seasons that no one bothered to sweep away. The air is heavy with mildew and the smell of fried pork. Beneath it is another smell, something damp and mineral, like wet concrete after rain.
In the kitchen, his father is standing over the stove. He is wearing a tank top that was once white and boxers that are loose at the thighs. He is frying meat in a pan that is black with grease. He is friendly. He shakes my hand, and his palm is warm and slightly oily. We talk for a few minutes about the weather and the school. He seems satisfied that I am a real person with a car and a coat.
As we speak, I become aware of movement elsewhere in the apartment. A door opening softly. Water running through pipes. Someone laughing briefly, then stopping. The apartment feels larger than it first appeared and more crowded at the same time.
Balázs asks if I want to see his room. We walk down the dark hall. I have to turn sideways once to avoid a drying rack hung with clothes that brush against my coat sleeve.
In his room, two mattresses are propped against the wall. They are stained with yellow maps of old sleep. There is a pile of laundry in the center of the floor, a mountain of mismatched socks and stiff denim. Bookshelves hang from the walls, bowing under the weight of textbooks and plastic trinkets. Above the shelves, thin cracks spread through the ceiling in pale branching lines.
I look at the end of the hallway. It disappears into the shadows. I ask if there are more rooms.
"Yes," Balázs says. "But we can't go there. Two other families live there."
I stand in the middle of the room. I think about the curriculum and the diagrams of blood. I think about the lime blossoms in the 11th district. I look at the bowed shelves, the stained mattresses, the laundry stiff with old detergent. I realize I am still wearing my gloves because I do not know where to put them. I am doing very little.
Balázs is looking at me. He has a huge grin on his face. He is not embarrassed by the mattresses or the families behind the other doors. He is glad I am standing in his filth. He is proud that I am there.
A few months later, my son is in the hospital. He has an ear infection that will not go away. The hospital walls are a pale, sickly green, and the heaters hiss all night. Nurses move through the hall in soft shoes, checking temperatures and replacing clear bags of fluid that hang beside the beds. My son sleeps in short intervals, waking every hour flushed and disoriented before drifting off again.
One day the door opens, and it is Balázs.
He is the only student who comes. He doesn't have a gift or a card. He just stands there in his thin sweater, his hands in his pockets. He stays for ten minutes. He looks at my son, then he looks at me. He nods, as if confirming that I am still there, and then he leaves.
The next day, I go to the fruit stand. I buy a kilo of apples. I look for the ones with the bruises at the bottom, but the display is perfect. Balázs is not there today.
I pay the owner and walk back toward the 11th district, where the trees are tall and the air is clear. I carry the bag of apples, and count the steps until I reach the bridge.
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One day I see him at the fruit stand near my house. He is stacking apples, making sure the bruised ones are at the bottom. The owner of the stand is my acquaintance; he tells me Balázs is a good worker, that a colleague gave him a "good word." Balázs smiles at me, but it is a small, professional smile. He is working for the apples and the coins. He lives in the 13th district, where the apartment blocks repeat for streets at a time, grey concrete darkened by rain and years of exhaust.
The next week, the discussion runs late. The students leave in groups, their voices echoing down the stairwell. Outside, the evening has already settled into that early November darkness that arrives before people are ready for it. I tell Balázs I will drive him home.
We cross the bridge from Buda to Pest. The river below is black except where the tram lights ripple across it. As we drive, the buildings lose their color. Small restaurants give way to shuttered kiosks and dim convenience stores with handwritten signs taped to the windows. The streetlights are dimmer here, or perhaps there are just fewer of them. A tram rattles beside us for part of the drive, sparks flashing blue overhead each time the wires shake loose against the arm above the car.
Balázs sits very still in the passenger seat. The heater clicks softly between us. He points once or twice to tell me where to turn, always a little too late, as if he is unused to giving directions to someone who owns a car. I realize I have never driven this far into the district before. The apartment blocks seem endless now, repeating one after another in the dark.
He points to a block that looks like a giant, dirty honeycomb.
He doesn't get out right away. He asks if I want to meet his father. He says if his father sees my face, it will be easier for him to come to the after-school meetings. He speaks as if my face is a passport. I say yes.
The elevator is broken. It has been broken for a long time; the buttons are pushed into the metal and stay there. We walk up eight flights. The stairwell smells like damp wool and old cigarettes. On the fourth floor, there is a puddle that never dried. Someone has placed flattened cardboard boxes beside it to step across. From somewhere above us comes the sound of a television turned too loud, followed by coughing that does not stop for a long time.
On the sixth floor, there are children's shoes lined against a wall beside a door with no handle.
On the eighth floor, we enter the apartment.
The hallway is narrow and crusted with dirt. It is not new dirt; it is the kind of dust that has become part of the floor, layers of past seasons that no one bothered to sweep away. The air is heavy with mildew and the smell of fried pork. Beneath it is another smell, something damp and mineral, like wet concrete after rain.
In the kitchen, his father is standing over the stove. He is wearing a tank top that was once white and boxers that are loose at the thighs. He is frying meat in a pan that is black with grease. He is friendly. He shakes my hand, and his palm is warm and slightly oily. We talk for a few minutes about the weather and the school. He seems satisfied that I am a real person with a car and a coat.
As we speak, I become aware of movement elsewhere in the apartment. A door opening softly. Water running through pipes. Someone laughing briefly, then stopping. The apartment feels larger than it first appeared and more crowded at the same time.
Balázs asks if I want to see his room. We walk down the dark hall. I have to turn sideways once to avoid a drying rack hung with clothes that brush against my coat sleeve.
In his room, two mattresses are propped against the wall. They are stained with yellow maps of old sleep. There is a pile of laundry in the center of the floor, a mountain of mismatched socks and stiff denim. Bookshelves hang from the walls, bowing under the weight of textbooks and plastic trinkets. Above the shelves, thin cracks spread through the ceiling in pale branching lines.
I look at the end of the hallway. It disappears into the shadows. I ask if there are more rooms.
"Yes," Balázs says. "But we can't go there. Two other families live there."
I stand in the middle of the room. I think about the curriculum and the diagrams of blood. I think about the lime blossoms in the 11th district. I look at the bowed shelves, the stained mattresses, the laundry stiff with old detergent. I realize I am still wearing my gloves because I do not know where to put them. I am doing very little.
Balázs is looking at me. He has a huge grin on his face. He is not embarrassed by the mattresses or the families behind the other doors. He is glad I am standing in his filth. He is proud that I am there.
A few months later, my son is in the hospital. He has an ear infection that will not go away. The hospital walls are a pale, sickly green, and the heaters hiss all night. Nurses move through the hall in soft shoes, checking temperatures and replacing clear bags of fluid that hang beside the beds. My son sleeps in short intervals, waking every hour flushed and disoriented before drifting off again.
One day the door opens, and it is Balázs.
He is the only student who comes. He doesn't have a gift or a card. He just stands there in his thin sweater, his hands in his pockets. He stays for ten minutes. He looks at my son, then he looks at me. He nods, as if confirming that I am still there, and then he leaves.
The next day, I go to the fruit stand. I buy a kilo of apples. I look for the ones with the bruises at the bottom, but the display is perfect. Balázs is not there today.
I pay the owner and walk back toward the 11th district, where the trees are tall and the air is clear. I carry the bag of apples, and count the steps until I reach the bridge.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/Tb5NHjg
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