New Friends
On my way to the station my main concern was incorrectly pronouncing the name of the town I wanted to go to and ending up somewhere else. I’d seen ‘Banská Bytsrica’ written a few times but worried that my inability to speak Slovak might send me to ‘Banská Stiavnica’ or ‘Banská Belá’ instead. I usually caught the bus for long journeys, especially in eastern Europe, but I thought the train might be a nicer, albeit slower, way of seeing the countryside. So when I arrived at the station I headed to the ticket office and managed to get a ticket on the right train. I noticed that I had been assigned a seat. I wasn’t sure exactly how to read the ticket but I couldn’t find the conductor to ask. So I boarded the train car that I thought I was assigned to and sat down on seat number sixty-six, as prescribed on my ticket.
A few moments later seat sixty-five, directly facing seat sixty-six, was filled. In it sat a round man, wider than he was tall with a mole on the end of his nose and leering eyes. He had about as much hair on his head as he had sex appeal. He was wrapped in a pair of grey jeans, striped t-shirt and runners that had had little wear. The smell of cigarettes and body odour wafted in with him.
Through limited English he soon introduced himself to me. He was a seventy-seven year old Hungarian man. He either had been a police officer for twenty years but had had to retire because of a knee injury or was attacked by the police twenty years ago and they broke his leg. It was hard to tell exactly which one it was because all he did was hold up his phone to me with a picture of him standing in front of a police car whilst pointing to his knee and saying “twenty year.”
“You eat?” He asked, producing an oil-soaked white paper bag from his reusable plastic shopping bag. “You eat. Russian speciality.” It was no longer a question but a command. He gestured the almost translucent bag towards me. I knew that I shouldn’t take food from strangers, but I didn’t want to receive the wrath of either a former Hungarian police officer or a former Hungarian criminal. I couldn’t deny the offer so I reached in and tore a small amount off of a cylindrical, doughnut-like pastry inside the bag. “No, no,” he said, reaching into the bag and handing me the remainder of the doughnut I had torn. He took the other doughnut out of the bag and we ate a doughnut each. It was oily and filled with sweet cheese. After a few bites I nodded approvingly at the man to indicate my gratitude and fondness of the pastry. He nodded back and pointed at the pastry laughing and enthusiastically shouting “Putin! Putin! Putin!” I didn’t think it tasted particularly Russian but apparently he did.
With a new forced friendship forged over fried foods, the man reached for his mobile phone. Scrolling through his images on his camera roll and then his Facebook feed, he tapped me on the knee each time he saw something he thought I’d find of interest. “This, my dog,” he proclaimed pointing at the grey terrier on the screen. “This grosse son,” his grandson. “Car,” a shiny black car which at first I thought he owned but then doubted given he was travelling midweek on the Slovakian railway. “This, my wife.” Despite having no rings on either of his fingers he claimed that the woman, who he said was twenty or thirty years younger than him, was his partner. He showed me recent and old pictures of the woman. I said “Ok.”
He continued scrolling through the feed. He stopped at a black and white image of some men raising a Soviet flag. He said something disapprovingly in Hungarian which ended with “Americans.” He also showed off some pictures of tanks. I don’t know exactly what he expected the Australian kid to make of this.
When he started showing me videos of children in eastern European versions of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ I became less enthused (and yet, not during the Russian propaganda). He thrust his phone into my hand as the sound of a young boy singing out of tune in a Slavic language filled the carriage. The eyes of the train gazed at me. I took this opportunity to turn the volume down on the man’s phone. I might not have been able to get out of the conversation myself but I could spare other travellers the trouble. I promptly handed the phone back to the man who was now confused as to why he couldn’t hear his phone anymore. “Tinnitus,” he explained, pointing to his ears. I said I could still hear the low-volume screeching of the Slavic kid, aware I had unfortunately compromised my friend’s ability to listen to Russian propaganda at full volume for the remainder of the journey.
To round off the proceedings he showed me a picture of a woman in her underwear. Having recently visited Capri I noticed the picture had been taken on the Italian island. However, I didn’t think the scenic location was why he was showing me the picture. I was surprised to see the picture because up until that point the man had come across as such a feminist. I was expecting he’d want to talk about Susan Sontag and gender pronouns next, but it was not to be. I handed the phone back to him before he could put it in my hand. Only then did the train leave the station and so began the four hour train journey to Banská Bytsrica, opposite my new Hungarian friend.
