A Concetben

5:30 rolled around on a Monday night and in the middle of east Enders, my doorbell rang. It was one of my neighbors upstairs picking me up to go to a concert at the music school.

She introduced herself as Maria, and reminded me to shut off my lights, close my closet door and grab my jacket. We walked out into the pitch-black night, and there in front of the block of flats, was a tiny little car. My knees hit my chin as I squeezed myself into the front seat. Before I even had time to buckle up Maria, who by the way is well over 60, was off like a shot. Knees at my chin, and being pushed back against the seat by the velocity of our break neck speed, our conversation was stilted, mostly because I did not want to distract her, and restricted to my 6 or 7 pat phrases in Hungarian.

The concert was lovely, and the entire row I sat in consisted of more of my 60+-year-old neighbors, or as I am pretty sure I heard my private student, who had invited me, tell her director the “Kolozsvari crew.”

During one of the speeches by the Flutist the entire hall broke out into a beautiful folk song that showed off the pentatonic scale of the traditional Hungarian music. Throughout the concert, Maria would randomly turn to me and pat me on my thigh. Sometimes I think that there is a sign above my head that invites Hungarian-speaking women over a certain age to grab me. In Transylvania, my newly met elderly host mother walked home with her arm around my waist, and hand sliding around my lower back. One of the teachers at school routinely grabs and holds me by my waist whenever she wants to talk to me. Everywhere I go, I am petted and touched.

During this concert I also experienced what has been called the Hungarian clap. Simultaneous clapping in complete unison. It was a little bizarre.

Maria dropped me off at the front and went to park her car. I started making myself tea and changed into my jammies, when my doorbell rang. It was Maria, who jabbered something at me in rapid speed Hungarian. Seeing my lack of comprehension, she pushed past me, through my messy kitchen, and into my newly cleaned dining room and pointed out the window, repeating the word for rain.

I finally understood that she wanted me to take in my giant carpet, which I had flung over my balcony in an attempt to air it and get some of the dust out of it. The two of us struggled to pull my giant floor sized rug up from over my balcony and roll it back onto the floor. I thanked her, and she darted back out of my front door.