creature sitting in a cage, motionless and glassy-eyed, stiff as death. A huge, red-faced man wearing a chequered jacket with a threadbare velvet collar – his enormous hands and feet reminiscent of Patagonians in travellers’ tales – was demonstrating some cleaning fluid, pouring ink, oil and tomato juice over a pair of light-coloured trousers brought out for the purpose, then making the stains disappear while continually jabbering on in patois. A little further off a fishmonger in a blood-stained apron took Budai, who had just glanced at him, for a customer, grabbed hold of him and was pulling at his coat, trying to sell something that might have been a fair-sized sturgeon, waving his cleaver, explaining, persuading, drawing the blade across the fish’s delicate skin to show how fresh it was, dangling it before his nose, gesticulating, demanding, practically throwing the fish at him ... But in most instances it was a case of Budai addressing others, trying first oriental, then Slavonic languages and then again English, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese. The answers he received were once again incomprehensible: some people simply stared at him in a puzzled, faintly foolish fashion, while others paid him no attention at all, or shoved him out of the way, clearly regarding him as a nuisance, possibly even as a beggar. Unable to take any more of this Budai relapsed into awkwardness and confusion.
Nor could he see any sign of a railway station whichever way he looked. There was a big, grey building of glass and steel near the market but as he approached it turned out to be a covered market-hall that was temporarily closed. Only at the side entrances was there any sign of activity: packages were being stacked, empty crates and piles of sacks were being thrown onto waiting trucks while, behind them, incoming goods were arriving on conveyor belts with cranes to lift the heavier bales and hoppers while workers carried on heaving barrels, vats packed in straw, blocks of ice and lard and frozen meat. Then a new truck appeared loaded with vegetables – leeks or some such thing – and the stout, blue-overalled driver got out. Seeing Budai standing and staring at the ramp, he grabbed Budai’s arm and pulled at him, indicating the loading area beyond, saying something that sounded like:
‘Duhmuche bruedimruechuere! Kluett!’
The man had taken him for a tramp thinking that was why he was hanging about here. Had he been looking for amusement he would have found this amusing but as it was he made his way back to the underground station to continue his investigations in the queue as he made a note of the stations that might turn out to be railway terminals.
According to the map he should follow the purple line, then change to the green one. The carriages were no less full than before. He made a brief anthropological survey of his fellow travellers to see what was the most common skin colour, type and shape of face. There was a wide variety even in this narrow sample from coal black through brown to the extremely pale, though pure racial types were, as he noted, quite rare, few at least that might be considered pure European, African or Far Eastern. Not that any part of the world was likely to be ethnically homogenous, since larger cities, such as ports, for example, would expect to have mixed populations. Whatever the case, the majority of people here seemed to be of mixed race or at some transitional point between various races like that Japanese-looking, slant-eyed, young woman with light blonde hair and slightly Negroid lips who had just stepped from the carriage alongside him carrying a handbag and so many shopping bags that they got tangled up with each other. Budai seized the opportunity to turn to her and since speaking proved useless to imitate an engine with his arms in order to communicate his request. The woman smiled as if she understood him and even said something, then hurried on nodding to him to follow her. At last
Nor could he see any sign of a railway station whichever way he looked. There was a big, grey building of glass and steel near the market but as he approached it turned out to be a covered market-hall that was temporarily closed. Only at the side entrances was there any sign of activity: packages were being stacked, empty crates and piles of sacks were being thrown onto waiting trucks while, behind them, incoming goods were arriving on conveyor belts with cranes to lift the heavier bales and hoppers while workers carried on heaving barrels, vats packed in straw, blocks of ice and lard and frozen meat. Then a new truck appeared loaded with vegetables – leeks or some such thing – and the stout, blue-overalled driver got out. Seeing Budai standing and staring at the ramp, he grabbed Budai’s arm and pulled at him, indicating the loading area beyond, saying something that sounded like:
‘Duhmuche bruedimruechuere! Kluett!’
The man had taken him for a tramp thinking that was why he was hanging about here. Had he been looking for amusement he would have found this amusing but as it was he made his way back to the underground station to continue his investigations in the queue as he made a note of the stations that might turn out to be railway terminals.
According to the map he should follow the purple line, then change to the green one. The carriages were no less full than before. He made a brief anthropological survey of his fellow travellers to see what was the most common skin colour, type and shape of face. There was a wide variety even in this narrow sample from coal black through brown to the extremely pale, though pure racial types were, as he noted, quite rare, few at least that might be considered pure European, African or Far Eastern. Not that any part of the world was likely to be ethnically homogenous, since larger cities, such as ports, for example, would expect to have mixed populations. Whatever the case, the majority of people here seemed to be of mixed race or at some transitional point between various races like that Japanese-looking, slant-eyed, young woman with light blonde hair and slightly Negroid lips who had just stepped from the carriage alongside him carrying a handbag and so many shopping bags that they got tangled up with each other. Budai seized the opportunity to turn to her and since speaking proved useless to imitate an engine with his arms in order to communicate his request. The woman smiled as if she understood him and even said something, then hurried on nodding to him to follow her. At last
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