I stopped in the Spinoza Haz Restaurant on Dob u. in Budapest's Jewish Quarter for two reasons: 1) after having walked up and down Dob u. I couldn't locate the Synagogue Apartments where I was to spend my two-night stay (Nothing remotely like "Synagogue Apartments, enter here (Jerry)"); 2) Spinoza Haz was nearby when I threw in the towel to trying to find the Synagogue Apartments simply with my genetic gps, and Spinoza beckoning with free wifi so that I could check my email confirmation for the exact address.
(Turns out the apartment was right across the street, though set back off the road in a rather deep and famous maze of buildings known as Godzsu Court.)
Once inside the Spinoza and seated, I ordered a hosszú kávé, went online, and listened to the lunchtime chatter circling about. It was about 1 p.m.
Dividing my attention between my laptop and everything else going on around me, I successfully eavesdropped enough to learn that the Spinoza offers nightly piano music (except for Fridays, when it offers klezmer samples of klezmer). I have been kind of starved for live music since having come to Hungary, so this was a gift dropped in my lap. Free wifi and live music. I was growing fond of Spinoza.
And, as the restaurant was owned by an Israeli, and purported to serve "Jewish" food (not sure there is such a thing, but I'll save that for another time), I knew my eating there would tickle my two living sisters and bring approving nods from my countless dead relatives. So I decided the Spinoza was were I would have a Jewish dinner and live music.
The Israeli owner said, "Definitely, absolutely," when someone at a nearby table asked whether she should make reservations in order to get a table during the piano performance. I got the sense he was very business savvy and would have said definitely, absolutely regardless, but given that the restaurant -- more like an old cafe -- wasn't that big to begin with, I decided to play it safe and make a definite, absolute reservation for myself.
The waiter was thrilled -- a bit too thrilled -- when I told him I wanted to reserve a table, which signaled to me that few others have, or do. He asked, "Would you like smoking or no-smoking?" I told him no-smoking, but more important, I said, was that I would like to sit somewhere close to the music. "Where is the piano?" I asked. "Here!" he said, pointing right alongside us.
The rectangular table just inside the door that was host to menus, wine cards, and an assortment of tourist brochures (all of which, I later learned, had carefully dogeared Spinoza adpages; I told you the guy was business savvy) actually abutted the back of an upright piano. A burgundy velvet drape concealed its ribs. "Oh. Okay. Somewhere close by here, then. How about 8 o'clock?"
"Fine, sir. Thank you." He was very polite. Though the fact that he just scribbled down my name in a little red book with no other notes -- not even the time -- caused me some doubt. "I will remember you," he said with an enthusiastic smile.
I returned just before 8 and saw from the curb that the Spinoza wasn't full, but close. Perhaps the owner wasn't exaggerating definitely, absolutely after all.
When I entered, a different waiter than the one I had booked my table with approached, and when I told him that I had a reservation he said, "Very good, sir!" He fetched the red book and I pointed out my name. "Ah! Well, then -- where would you like to sit? We have smoking in the back room."
I was starting to wonder: what does "reservation" mean in Spinozese?
"Nonsmoking, please. Close to the piano."
The waiter and I both looked around the nonsmoking area close to the piano. There was one small table, for four, against the wall and directly across from the piano. It was unseated and had a foglalt sign on it, which I was pretty sure meant "reserved", which I was also pretty sure meant it was my table, saved for me by my prior waiter, he with the good memory.
Apparently my very affable current waiter didn't see it that way. "Would you like to sit upstairs? We have some very nice tables upstairs? Please, follow."
I hadn't known there was an upstairs, but, looking up, indeed there was, kind of a balcony perch from which to scope the piano and dining area (including my foglalt table).
The waiter had already taken off and was half-way up the stairs.
What the hell, I thought, so it's not front row. I'll live. I looked wistfully at my foglalt table, and headed up the wide staircase.
The table I was offered was right along the simple wrought-iron railing, offering me a clear, almost perpendicular view of the piano and its as yet untinkled keys. Better, actually. I agreed to take it -- though not without a snort of a hurrumph -- and ordered a glass of wine.
The wine arrived at about the same time as the tall, somewhat stooped piano player, whose jacket suggested he better filled it in earlier days. He lowered himself on the piano bench and I coveted his white hair, thick and soft. (As a friend of mine from college who was graying prematurely used to buck up, "Better gray than nay." That goes for white, too.)
He rested his hands on the keyboard, momentarily, long enough for me to look them over. They were long. Their knuckles knobby. Deep ravines separated their metacarpals. Thick, blue veins crisscrossed them. They were old.
And yet, shortly, when he began to play, they were nimble, like marionettes: lively and brisk now, slow and doleful then, hopping here, carefully stepping there. From my crow's nest, they were more than capable; they were surprisingly accomplished, and, I instantly imagined, quite sought after in their day. I had no doubt those hands had played in venues larger, and for audiences more focused, than that of the Spinoza.
And yet here they were. He, the piano man, played them effortlessly through a Gershwin medey, "The Blue Danube Waltz", and for the hometown crowd, the old Jewish chestnuts, "Ha Tikvah" (Israeli national anthem; Enrico Macias scmaltzing up Ha Tikvah) and the theme from the movie, Exodus (original soundtrack, with movie clips).
The restaurant was busy and my waiter not especially good, so my food was slow in coming. But that was fine. I was actually quite happy resting my chin on the railing and watching the piano man below.
About him swirled typical restaurant turbulence, and yet at his piano he was a sea of calm. With his eyes fixed on the keyboard, he was in a world of his own.
I watched with envy, but also with sadness, his hands float back and forth over the keys. I suspected that as he now looked down on his aged hands, as I was looking down on them, he felt some pangs of regret. Of loss. I guessed that as good as they were, still, they were not as good as they were, once. And I supposed that of all people in the world who knew that, he did.
And so, watching him, it struck me as sad: here was a man who spent the last forty, fifty, sixty years in a totally devoted relationship with his hands, a relationship stronger perhaps than any he'd had with a person, a relationship that was visibly, physically renewed on a daily basis: How many hours each day and how many days each week over the decades had he looked down upon those hands, and worked with them, a full collaboration between eye, ear, and digit, in the elusive pursuit of perfection? And does he sometimes look down on them now, surprised at how old they've grown, perhaps with feelings of betrayal; how once they were young and strong, fleet, maybe even tanned, but now, old, frail, grinding, chalky white?
I would have given anything to play like he was playing for me in the Spinoza. I wonder what he might give today to play like he did in his prime.
I mused, and muse still: Is there an actual moment in life pinpointing the beginning of our decline? Was there a moment twenty, thirty, forty years ago that passed unnoticed when this piano player had slowly and quietly reached his peak, from which he has been slowly, inexorably, descending since? And how long after that flash in time was it when he began to realize his diminishment, that he and his hands were no longer, and never again would be, capable of doing what they did when younger, despite their will to do so.
Others surely know what this feels like. Athletes. Surgeons. Barbers. Scholars. Writers. Perhaps even religious supplicants. Anyone who has committed themself, devoted themself, to pursuing excellence, personal excellence. There comes a day when you just can't do it like you used to. And you know it.
But then again, looking at this piano man past his prime, yes, he may not be able to do it like he once did, but he was able to do it quite fine for me and the others who listened, clapped, and put some forints in his tip jar. He may have known that he wasn't as excellent as he once was, but we, his audience could only have surmised that. For what we heard, or at least what I heard, was excellent. Period.
I suspect that when their playing was done and they pulled down the piano top for the night, he and his hands were pleased, at peace. At least for one more night.
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