No fear is as great as the fear of exile. The sentinels, in their glossy red armor, knocking on your door with the staff of authority, sealed documents of High Damnation in hand…it is a terrifying image. But I have been exiled, and I confide that I enjoy my new life.
Exile is more honorable than you think, and more bearable. Our parents threaten us constantly with loss of title and disinheritance, but still many fear exile from these wasted shores. Fear not, friends.
I myself reside now in the far-fabled land of Hungary, called Magyarorszag by the wise, where a dark-eyed people invented insane new geometries and accursed puzzle cubes.
I love it, and I never intend to return, and the damned scandal sheets can print what they like. Every day outstrips the last: In the morning, the ancient Jewish quarter beckons with its mournful synagogue and plentiful seltzer, while in the afternoon a thousand landmarks crowd my schedule.
In the old Soviet bloc, you will find every imaginable amenity. The fabled absinthe faucets have fallen into disuse, but there still many diversions. All possible plans dissolve before the quantity of options: My laundry can wait, the Slovakian circus is in town!
Old men will whisper the identities of traitors and heroes as they sleep on the metro. Bullet holes everywhere pock the faces of Ronald McDonald and Will Smith. Retired lingerie models put cigarettes out on their tongues to prove their mettle.
In bars, you can discover whole belief systems drowned in liquor: Shots, deciliters, fruit brandy and all the other mysteries of faith conspire to blur vision and speed dance.
The bartenders, either terrifying and suspiciously injured or beautiful and unreasonably perky, will grin and pour.
You can walk through parks littered with plaques bearing the names of fallen heroes. Poets who defended ramparts and soldiers who divided particles cast bronzed and brilliant shadows on the dying weeds.
It is impossible to cast a whole people into words: even a single blinking child confounds the ablest pen. But it is possible to find out how others regard America, the vast petulant salesman of Tomorrow.
Besides the front line of bouncers, tobacconists and whores, who all have steady contact with Americans, many citizens of Budapest have a confused image of the United States. Our film industry makes out as robbers and sex addicts, impossibly witty and wasteful. The ramen-eating, earth-tone-wearing student of our campus has little place in this fevered imagination.
I am not a wealthy man: My factories all closed when the bottom fell out of the Robo-Gladiator industry three years ago. Still, the assumption is that I can afford any amount of drinks and bridge repairs. I make no complaints:
My forgeries are skillful and respectful towards the original artists.
Still, I came here to drowse over the cold science of form, not enjoy myself, and I damn well deserve that much. If I had wanted to have a good time, I would have said as much on my visa application.
I haven’t found the bright, burning anti-U.S. hatred that foreigners apparently reserve for CNN cameras, but there is some contempt, swimming underneath the surface.
The security detail at “Szex Shop & Sztriptiz,” a local gift and novelty store, was less than polite during my last visit, even if I was as hammered as a railroad spike.
Even my normally chipper languages teacher was put off when I asked how to say: “Halt, great-horned dweller of the blasted land, for I am a son of the lineage of Washington and Lincoln!”
These minor faults aside, the people of Eastern Europe are very kind and well-disposed towards Americans, particularly in light of their decades long training in our demise under the Soviet Union.
Indeed, in their desire to escape that terrible and astonishing tyranny, the Eastern states have embraced our unceasing creed of action films and tubed potato chips with ease and enthusiasm.
Western Europe may be more iconic and garish, Asia may boast a landmass greater than all the planets in the solar system, and Africa may boast the soaring strains of “Bright lights, Big city!” but Eastern Europe remains the jeweled trigger on the pearl-handled Luger of Earth.
Withheld • Aug 5, 2008 at 10:01 pm
This man is wanted for questioning in connection to acts of sedition, sabotage, and disturbing the peace in a place of worship. If you have any information with regards to his whereabouts, please contact your local Masonic lodge immediately.
JM • Jun 21, 2008 at 11:20 am
Danny, Danny Wray… You so cray-zay.