WHAT ABOUT FEELINGS?

Sometimes it's actually not such a bad thing if your father is a bus driver. Of course, this also involves creativity and careful stealth, which - if one is lucky - develops early and then becomes a natural reaction, just like in an emergency situation, in which case one travels mainly by bus, one always knows which one the best moment to sneak away in English before her father discovers she's on the bus.
At the bus stop on Dayka Gábor street, there were usually more people hanging around, worn-out, hippy-looking, dead-tired university students. They talked together, laughed at something, or just laughed and teased each other. When which one was next.
Man loved this area when there were still trees with crowns and emerald-green scales, medium-sized shrubs, and dense, almost impenetrable bushy boxwoods, because here he was able to hide almost imperceptibly and effectively from the searching eyes of the world.
When Antal Gelka wandered into this on a weekday that promised to be a bit crowded, but still deadly boring, in order to attend the mandatory physical education classes that earned him credit points, his favorite hobby was going to the dormitory's library, because he always knew that that day he would definitely new, hitherto unknown, unexpected cultural treasures will appear, and at an affordable price. He could usually buy at least seven or eight books for one thousand forints.
In the meantime, he made friends a little sooner than expected with the elderly, retired librarian wearing SZTK glasses, with short, dove hair, and a slight limp, who must have lived nearby, because he always opened the library precisely at a quarter past one in the afternoon, after the usual lunch break, and which also benefited Antal, provided he was able to get out of the university in time.
Antal saw himself as a modern-day Indiana Jones. Of course, without the whip and the pistol in the belt bag. He was even impressed by the fact that his shoulder bag was always slightly larger than usual, considering that it was well stuffed with books that he usually used.
"Good morning, young man!" Already this early? So what happened?! asked the librarian.
- Welcome! Well...unfortunately, it was better if I came first, because I don't want to make the gym teacher angry with me. These crazy credit points are included in the total point limits at the end of the year, and I don't want to carry physical education as an extra subject all year because of this.
- THE! I understand! the old man scratched his gray head. "Well, take it easy, just look around!" I selected the new books directly! They are there in the back row to find them! If you need help, you can find it here!
Antal was extremely grateful to this friendly, straightforward person, because in his childhood he could not really dream of a father figure or a serious role model, because Antal Gelka Sr. was anything but friendly or kind.
He was an arrogant, often hair-splitting, eternally dissatisfied person who also approached culture according to the principle of usefulness. If culture creates money, benefit, profit, then it makes sense! He testified. Otherwise, it's pathetic nonsense to be thrown away. Still, Antal was the only man in the family who could be rightly proud of him, since he went to university alone, while the majority had a high school diploma. Sluss pass.
He quickly ran back to the little reading nook right in front of the warehouse, where the old man used to discard the books in the cardboard boxes, to see if he would find some cultural treat in them again. He once read an essay to Sándor Márai, in which he told that if the writer wanders into a bookshop or an antiquarian, he should always try not to buy hit-list authors, but primarily unknown people, of whom most people have never heard, and then it will definitely benefit culture also, since even unknown people have the right to make their name known sooner or later to the general public.
He wondered a little about this. He still vividly remembered the mutilation that took place in the Őrmezei poets' park, when the bust of a well-known poet and writer was decapitated with a soldering iron, and then the word TRAITOR was scrawled on the plinth with red paint.
Antal has always thought that the professional performance had to be radically separated from the role played by the persons or thinkers in public life, but after a while he soon realized that this would be of no use, considering that in most cases they are the ones who turn the culture wheel, to whom one or two people are sympathetic.
From this point on, trying to prove that one or another popular writer in the 70s and 60s did indeed create fantastic things, even if his popular name was quickly forgotten, would be an almost ridiculous and absurd undertaking. Sooner or later, these forgotten thinkers will be resurfaced again thanks to an enthusiastic literary historian or an overzealous, zealous hobby writer, such as Antal.
He tried so carefully to open the top of the cardboard box, which looked a bit old and weathered, as if it actually contained priceless treasures. As soon as he touched the spines of the books with his thick hands, it was as if he found himself in an imaginary time travel. Literature lived, existed, and breathed more alive than anything he had ever noticed from the outside world.
He immediately caught his eye on a hefty poetry anthology of at least five hundred pages. He flipped to the end of the volume with quick greed and already found what he was looking for. A completely unknown poet appeared before his eyes. "I wonder why it is not possible to talk about unknown authors in literature classes?" he just asked himself the question. He had long known the answer, that forty-five minutes was simply not enough for anything.
He searched further and further in the somewhat dusty, dirty pile of books until he finally found his childhood favorite book, Giraffe Window. And although it broke his heart that he couldn't take this precious volume with him, just like Grimm's or all Andersen's fairy tales, if he thought about how difficult, difficult, and at the cost of many tears he had to learn to read with understanding, he would have been a little proud of himself, that that's all he achieved.
At least until you have to go to class, you can comfortably read your favorite books here. He comfortably took off his autumn-like jacket, which - thanks - to the heating, slowly started to warm him, and then he sat his shoulder bag close to him on the chair, as if it were his best friend; he took the box in front of him and started a research action.
If he found a book that was very dear to his heart, or was just unknown to him, he immediately looked at the back page, where he wrote the price thickly with the old graphite pencil. It was lucky that he slowly became friends with him, so the old man was always available for a little haggling.
As the minutes passed, he realized that something was missing in his life, which even his favorite paper-based brothers could not replace.
Her life lacked the love and happiness that can be found, which can only appear in the most unexpected situations for everyone. When he thought about this, a doe-eyed university lady appeared in his memory, who - despite the fact that her physical features were not exactly a jackpot - he could still see and feel something in her, because she could smile flirtatiously and lovingly, that was the Garden of Eden for someone like that for those who had not yet had a relationship, or were simply too half-hearted and defenseless to address ladies.
"What will Annamari think of me? Besides, he's going with that little Mithrags Miklós!"- he drew his conclusions, since he had enough opportunities to see that the prettier, more stylish girls at school do not initiate acquaintances or friendships with average or just not very attractive boys.
He tried to continue reading, taking notes, and writing lessons, because he always liked to be a precise and accurate person, so he always worked in advance with regard to each course material.
I wish there weren't those cursed linguistics subjects, which are just a problem even for the best eminences, in addition to literature. First, he got into trouble with the type of words, and then, when he got rid of that for good, came syntagmatics and, of course, sentence theory. In fact, the associate professor kicked him out of the lecture because he did not pass the universal test of the language history summary, and this was considered a capital offense at the Faculty of Arts, for which there was a serious penalty. Among his group mates, only one lady teacher stood up and rose to his defense, while the audience of nearly five hundred people deliberately flattened themselves and remained silent in silence.
,,Oh well"he stoically concluded. "One is no longer sure that one can always count on one's own friends!" - as he opened a thick book of poems, which he loved much more than the usual little notebook-sized books that were sold at an exorbitant price in the windows of Rákóczi út bookstores, he always found a striking, topical or just appropriate thought or quote for that day, which he could use later, and which temporarily, of course, he successfully tried to get out of the hellish monotony of everyday life.
"I wonder what it's like to fall in love with Annamarie? A romantic kiss would be enough, as he'll do anything, and he's not a picky eater!"�" but rather he tried to view the world around him more realistically, as he had always heard from his theatrical, preachy father.
"My son! Learn that nothing is free! Nothing on earth! The world is a bunch of swindlers, and it's unfair to the core, because it always favors those who didn't serve it!"he listened to the wise lesson as a child and as a mature thirty-year-old adult.
"I wrote him a poem! Not true?! What else do you want?!”- he wondered, although he was perfectly clear with the answer. Unfortunately, most modern women need money, and not a lot of it, but when she thought that Annamarie had to make out with Miklós, she felt jealous and nauseous.
What the hell does that jerk see in Miklós that isn't in him?! - he pondered, and the more intense and more determined the honest realization that you. he still had to do something with his relationship with Annamarie, which was just beginning to form, he didn't even notice that in less than ten minutes it would be three in the afternoon, so he had a dog's duty to immediately change into gym clothes and report to the gym, like all the other university students, who were also alone they undertook physical pressure for credit points, even though they had better things to do.
As quickly as he could, Antal arranged in his mind which books he wanted to buy, so he immediately paid at the old librarian's lending desk, then said goodbye and ran away with a red face.
It's lucky that he started dressing immediately in the big rush. He quickly took off the worn, retro, gray sweater from his upper body, which looked as if it had been pulled out of a dog's mouth, then came the usual dark blue shorts, which he inherited from high school, and by the time he reached the front of the gym, he only had time , to put the rest of his street clothes in the locker room next to the gymnasium, and after the locker rooms were locked, he successfully planted the faint hope of trust in his soul, according to which; no one will rob you for this barely forty-five minute exercise.
"Look!" The noble knight also unexpectedly stomped in! the girls giggled at him. There, too, the more determined, more grounded ones, who went everywhere in threes, just like the ancient Graces.
"I'm very happy for you too!" - he returned the greeting, and when the stern, piercing-eyed gym teacher appeared in the distance, he immediately hurried to meet him, because he knew exactly that he was going to ask her for a favor. He wasn't wrong. He immediately went to the gymnasium and grabbed two big, stout and heavy dirty white steel poles, which he had to stretch out along with a net, and place them exactly on the center colored line of the room. This operation can be performed in just five minutes for those who have a routine, but Antal had just met him for the first time.
Annamari suddenly appeared. In her simple, snow-white gym shirt and long, black pants, she was the embodiment of charm and beauty. Like an angel landed on earth. From her girlfriend's protective ring, she watched, of course, sometimes with a chuckle, sometimes with a smile, what Antal was having trouble with the large, long net, then she must have gotten tired of fiddling, because she went over to him and kindly helped him.
"Hello, I'm sorry, but I'd rather help you if you let me!" �" it was the sweetest, ear-piercing sound of Antal's violently beating heart. He thought that at that moment his heart would beat fatally. He didn't dare to look at her or maintain the budding eye contact, instead he calmly worked to keep both columns at an equal distance from each other.
Fortunately, they were already ready with a top record of just under eight minutes.
The group of ladies numbered eight people plus two boys, one of whom left as soon as the grumpy gym teacher gave out the physical exercise tasks, while the lanky student immediately took out a cigarette box and casually lit it, then puffed out the smoke with such comical freedom as if he would just be a chain smoker who has been chain smoking for years.
"Ladies!" Who wants a sniff?! he teased them. The braver young girls already took a cigarette each and bravely lit up, taking the tingling risk and the danger of falling down.
Annamari and Antal were in a couple. How novel, how special and at the same time a rare occasion it was. Annamari began to give smaller blows with the quill to Antal, who was standing at the other end of the net, who could only stare, almost spellbound, at the movements of this down-to-earth, real goddess.
The way her ponytailed hair fluttered around her exotic, doe-eyed face, the way her tiny, almost childlike arms reached out to touch the great ceiling.
Antal would much rather train with someone he liked and loved very much than with the kind of perpetually nagging, insufferable ladies who can only criticize everything and of course everyone. After a while, he just felt his eternally restless soul dissolve and calm down in the joy of the physical movement and the beginning of the flame. he could not yet know how Annamari might actually feel about him, only that this unforgettable, immortal experience would be forever, organically integrated into his further memories.
By the time the physical education class was over, they were like two good friends for whom the mocking and hurtful outside world had ceased to exist. They only paid attention to each other's attentive, kind, direct gestures. Antal helped to put away Annamari's slightly heavier tour bag, which, in addition to the usual books, also contained plenty of laundry.
And Annamari wrapped her arms around Antal's stout arms, and while the loud girlfriends teased and waited for the weekly bus, which was usually always late, they talked and shared the stories of their lives with each other.