Thermal water

A crowd of foreigners of all colours laughs and drifts in circles. It's a moving map of mankind. The vapour elevates from the warm blue waters of Szechenyi bath in the freezing cold night and surrounds the sculpture of a woman.

***



I drift and laugh as well while the drift gets faster and faster. A fat Russian full of tattoos gets on my way and I end up hitting the mosaic wall head on.

***

The Szechenyi bath ondine smiles at me with her yellow eyes, grabs my hand and takes me through various tunnels of hot and cold water. We surface in the dark under the Szechenyi bridge. A group of cormorants stare at us. The ondine's skin is green. She has gills in her neck and scales in her feet. Her kisses taste like fish, I imagine.







‘I love to swim but am freezing’, I say, ‘how about a coffee?’. The ondine dives down taking me with her. There are creepy shadows in the Danube’s depths. We flow through murky waters and appear in the toilet of Müvesz Kafehaz.

***

We walk in the cafe discreetly, sit in front of a huge mirror and order a couple of melange coffee to a blonde and tanned waitress. The melange is too milky. Frankly, it sucks, as does the not so hot Glühwein we drink later walking down Vaci utca.

‘Budapest is neither Prague or Vienna’, the ondine explains. She invites me to a Langos in the Central Market. I eat the fried buttery and shapeless specialty while she steels fresh mackerel and salmon which she swallows at once.

We walk back to the river. The ondine chats with the daughter of the empress, dressed up like a clown, down in the river walk. ‘Let’s go back to the bath, I need to be there before they close or I’ll loose my job’, we jump again in the black waters of the Danube.

The big tattoed Russian looks with anger at me. I apologize and leave the pool.




It’s cold as hell.