We called him Nikita and he did not like it. He wanted a fancy nickname, like everybody else. There was a Ringo in our class who wore three rings on his fingers like Ringo Starr. Nikita started to wear four rings, in vain. There were too many reasons to call him Nikita. First, he didn't like it. Second, already in high school, he started to lose his blond hair, and the most famous bald person around was Nikita Khrushchev. Third, his father worked at the Hungarian Embassy in Moscow.
Nikita's parents were not divorced although everybody knew that his father was screwing around all the time. But a divorce wasn't allowed for the comrades. It would have meant the immediate end of their reliability.
The old Nikita was a hard worker. Wherever he showed up, he had a lover. Or two. Nikita had a dozen stepbrothers and stepsisters all over the world. His father participated in most of wars and underground movements of the century, starting with the Spanish Civil War. He was an émigré in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Mexico, and a member of half a dozen underground Communist parties. He wound up in Moscow, and, during World War II, fought as an officer of the Red Army. Later, he became a press attaché in different countries, Argentina, Egypt, Algeria, Australia-one after the other.
When Nikita came to our class, his Dad had been in Moscow for years. There were rumors that the next assignment would be in a Latin American country, and Nikita hoped this would help him to change his nickname to Miguel. He played the guitar like everybody, but he started to play Latin American songs. Still, he remained Nikita. He then let his hair grow around his neck.
The principal rebuked him several time. "You look like a monkee. Like those American Beatles monkees."
"The Beatles are English, Sir."
"I don't care. Go and have your hair cut."
Nikita smiled but didn't go to the barbershop. He was rebuked again and again. In the end, he was summoned to the principal's office. When he came back, his head was bald. Like a billiard ball. He was real upset, and looked more Nikita then ever. He told us his father would turn on the heat when he informed him. And he called his father collect and complained. But his father agreed with the principal; he could not stand the Beatles hairdo either. "The close shave is healthy," he told his son.
"Some father," Nikita told us. "Such an asshole."
Actually, when it comes to fathers, old Nikita was not bad at all. He had access to the special shops set up for members of the diplomatic corps, and he was willing to buy almost anything Nikita wanted. Nikita was the first in the class who got a tape recorder. We went to his place and tried to catch Radio Free Europe; we wanted to record the new rock hits so we could listen to them again and again. Nikita liked The Beatles. We liked The Rolling Stones. He claimed Mick Jagger couldn't sing. We claimed that wasn't important; their music was great. "It can't be great if he can't sing, right?" he said. We disagreed. Then he added that Keith Richard could not play the guitar. We disagreed. There were long arguments to settle the dispute.
László Cseke, disc jockey of "Teenager Party," was an old Hungarian émigré with a weird accent and a third rate sense of humor. His jokes were painful, yet his program was more popular than all the broadcasts of both channels of Hungarian radio. Although the officials did everything they could against it. Radio Free Europe was almost always jammed by the famous Socialist interference; counter-radio waves were sent into the air to disrupt the short wave reception. The voice of the disk jockey sounded very often as if he were yodeling.
There was another disturbing factor, too: Nikita's grandmother. He lived with her in three huge rooms of an apartment on the top floor of an old-fashioned brown stone building, while his parents served Socialism abroad. He was left to his grandmother's guidance and surveillance. His grandmother was absolutely deaf, but she entered the room once every three minutes and shouted: "Hush! The neighbors! Turn down that damn thing right away!"
She had no idea about rock music and was afraid that the neighbors might turn us in for listening to the voice of the enemy. We weren't afraid of anybody. We were too young for that in the sixties. When she left the room, we turned the radio up. Rock has to be loud, right? Anyway, she was deaf. How the heck could she hear it? Later, Nikita realized that when we enjoyed a song we tapped the rhythm with our feet on the floor, and the pictures hanging against the wall in the other room started to shake. The old hag could measure the volume of by the vibrations. This would have interested the physicists.
Nikita was the first who could make a guitar, since his father sent him the tools, the plywood, the strings and other parts needed. Then he was the first who owned a real electric guitar, it was a red and gold "Futurama." He wired it into their modern radio set which looked like a big cupboard. The tunes he played hurt our ears. They probably hurt the radio's ears too; the set started letting out a dense, black smoke. We cursed Nikita; it took one and a half months for the radio to be repaired.
By the way, Nikita was the first who smoked. Who drank. Who told us he was no longer a virgin. He lied then; but later, it was really he who fucked Barbara Tóth, the tallest girl in our class. He gave us a detailed report. We never stopped teasing him about Barbara. We didn't forget his list. When we started the first year in high school, he had written on the door of the men's room:
I WANNA FUCK ÁGI SZLADEK
KATI SULYOK
MARIKA CSIK
JULI SZEGEDI
ERZSI KOVÁCS
Some one else added, AND A BLOW JOB WOULDN'T BE BAD EITHER! The principal ordered the door washed, and investigations were in progress to find the culprit. Everybody knew it had been Nikita, but nobody reported him. He was a nice guy.
Ági Szladek was a blond with blue eyes like the sky in spring. She reminded us of Brigitte Bardot. Kati Sulyok had bulb-shaped tits. We knew from peeping through the keyhole of the locker room several times. Marika Csik had a rocking walk that drove us crazy, and her legs were considered the best in Eastern Europe. Juli Szegedi had boyish short hair, a little snub nose, and forty snow-white teeth. Erzsi Kovács, with curly hair, didn't wear a bra; to top it all off, a famous Hungarian rock musician was her boyfriend. Several times he came to pick her up at the high school on his motorcycle.
Barbara Tóth was nothing but tall-and she hadn't been on the list of any of us. We called her "the giraffe." And Nikita went to bed with the giraffe. We laughed our heads off. But this was just a beginning, as he got down to work. Little by little, he checked off the items on his list. Except for Erzsi Kovács who left our school and country for Italy. Old Nikita would have been proud of his son if he had known about his success with girls, but by now Nikita wasn't on speaking terms with his father. They had had a falling out because of a few LPs the old man refused to order and send. He just didn't like rock music.
Nikita was the first-of course-who tried drugs. This was really something since in Hungary drugs were virtually unavailable in those days. We just heard and read about them as the main reason for the stupidity of Western youth. When some articles and TV programs described the impacts of drugs we started to be really interested. We wanted to fly. To get high. To see psychedelic colors. To hear the music of spheres. To feel wild flowers hanging out of our nose and ears. To have sex with different girls in a row. To sink into ourselves for days and forget everything.
We wanted him to get some drugs for us. He said it was too dangerous. We didn't leave him alone. We wanted marijuana. Or LSD. Or heroin. Or cocaine. Or Coca Cola. Everybody knew that the latter was the most popular drug of the American youth, a kind of brown liquid. We heard and read about it a lot. A couple of sips were enough to put you out of your mind. We wanted to try it.
But how to get hold of a serious drug, in the middle of Eastern Europe, behind the Iron Curtain? Ringo, our classmate, was invited by his aunt to Canada. He came back with nine Beatles disks and six porno magazines. The Hungarian customs officers confiscated everything. He appealed. In three months, he got back four of the disks. They were broken into tiny pieces. He appealed again. He never got an answer.
Old Nikita was the only ray of hope. With a diplomatic passport and immunity, a diplomat is not checked at the border. Nikita shook his head. "You don't need drugs-you are out of your mind without them. How could he get cocain or heroin in Moscow? Why don't you ask me to ask him to get a machine gun for you?"
We thought that if old Nikita had wanted, he could get one of those, too. A Soviet machine-gun. An Andrei Kalatshnikov Modern. But we stuck to marijunana or LSD or heroin or cocaine or Coca Cola.
Nikita was offended. He stopped inviting us. We didn't give a hoot and went to see him anyway, every afternoon. He was rehearsing with his new band. Ringo played the drums, Jóska, Béla, and Nikita the guitars. Ági Szladek would sing the female songs; she studied classical singing and sight reading. The group was called "The Futurama."
The principal didn't let them play in the school-club because of this name. "A Hungarian orchestra cannot have an English name."
"But Futurama is the name of my guitar," Nikita said, "and it is Czech."
"Don't talk back. A Hungarian orchestra has to have a Hungarian name."
So, they played at Nikita's place. The neighbors liked to called the police because of breach of the peace, and the patrol came up several times. Nikita's grandma was going crazy. But old Nikita's name sounded good enough, and the policemen were satisfied with our promise: we would turn it down. When they left, we turned it up. Rock music must be loud, right?
On a Sunday afternoon, out of the blue, Nikita called me. "Listen, I got it."
"What?"
"I got the stuff."
"What stuff?"
"I can't talk on the phone, come over. It's important that you come alone, you understand?"
"Alone?"
"Yes. No girls, no friends. I called everybody I want to have over." And he hung up.
It turned out, that he had called everyone with the same enigmatic words.
Ági Szladek answered the door. Kati Sulyok was fixing sandwiches in the kitchen. Marika Csik tried to tune in some good music on the radio and the tape recorder. Juli Szegedi was dancing on top of the huge dining table. Barbara Tóth was giving a lecture about Sartre and Existentialism. Nobody paid attention, but she seemingly didn't mind.
"He said no girls," Jóska said and laughed. He liked to mix beer with vodka, and he was already drunk.
Nikita was walking up and down in the apartment like a chief commander on the eve of the showdown. He didn't answer any questions. "All in good time," he repeated this sentence one hundred times with a mysterious smile.
Béla was tuning his guitar. "What the hell is going on? Don't we play today?"
"All in good time," said Nikita.
"You tell me this one more time and you're dead!" Ringo said. He started to hammer a complicated rhythm on Nikita's shoulder with his drumsticks.
Nikita pushed him aside. "I don't get it. You all wanted me to get some for you, and when it's here at last, you all behave like kindergarten pupils."
Now we understood. Nikita had acquired some marijuana. Or LSD. Or heroin. Or cocaine. Or Coca Cola. We stopped talking and were looking at him admiringly. Even Barbara left her lecture on Sartre and Existentialism unfinished. This was very nice of Nikita. It might have been tough, yet he did it for us. He was a real pal, and we were really moved. Although we had no idea how we could do anything since his grandmother was there, shuttling among the three rooms to keep an eye on us. "I won't tolerate any indecency here," she told everybody.
Ringo suggested we might go over to his place with the stuff. Nikita shook his head and said that all in good time.
"What's fine?" his grandma asked.
"Nothing!" Nikita hollered.
"Why are you shouting at me? I'm not deaf!" she said. Then she passed out.
"Ooops!" Ringo caught her. He and Béla laid her on the couch. Barbara picked up the phone and dialed the ambulance. Nikita put back the receiver. "She doesn't need the ambulance. "She's just sleeping."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. I gave her sleeping pills."
"How many?"
"Ten. Or twelve, maybe."
"Are you crazy?" said Béla. "She can die from twelve!"
"No. It was only ten. Don't worry, she's strong enough. Anyway, mind your own business. It's my grandma."
The stuff was under Nikita's bed, in a cardboard box. Jóska opened it. There were six bottles, containing a dark brown liquid. It looked like a cough syrup called Fagifor.
"What is this?"
"Coca Cola."
"Whooop!"
We examined the bottles with trembling fingers. Their shape was interesting; lots of vertical grooves. We had never seen bottles like these.
"Wait a minuite," Ringo said. "This is not Coca Cola!"
"What's that?" asked Nikita.
"It reads 'Pepsi Cola,' you see," Ringo pointed to the red letters on the botle.
He was right. It was not Coca Cola but Pepsi Cola. Nikita was destroyed. "I told him I wanted to get Coca Cola! Why on earth did he send Pepsi Cola?"
"Maybe it's the same," said Barbara Tóth. "I mean, like white wine or red wine."
There was a helpless silence, except for the snoring of Nikita's grandmother. Béla was rummaging in the empty cardboard box and found a colorful Pepsi commercial in it. "Who can speak English?"
Everybody was looking at me. I was blushing. You stupid idiot, I told myself. Why did you have to tell them your English was pretty good? But there was nothing to do. They handed me that piece of paper and I started reading them words which didn't mean a shit to me. Perspiration was running down the groove of my back.
"Do you understand?" asked Ági Szladek. Her smile made my situation even more hopeless.
"Oh yes," I said. I was flustered. I sighed and began to translate. "Dear comrades... I mean, citizens, this is the brand new drug of the Coca Cola company. Highly recommended for the younger generations and for those who... I don't understand the next word here... Directions: take one tablespoon of Pepsi Cola right after dinner... meal, I mean..."
But this was overlapped by the general outburst of joy. "Yes-yes-yes!" shouted Nikita and his right forearm was in the air.
The bottles could be opened like ordinary beer. The famous drug which ruined the youth of America was right there. It looked sort of foamy and smelled somewhat sweet.
"Who wants to go firts?" asked Nikita.
The answer was a deep silence. We were all very excited and, at the same time, apprehensive. We knew this is a dangerous drug that kills the brain cells. We knew we might become Coca (Pepsi?) Cola addicts. Then we would face a serious problem: it was impossible to get drugs in Hungary since, as was well-known, drug abuse didn't exist under Socialism. Still, we all were positive that we wanted to try it because it was banned for us like so many other things, and it was just unfair. We wanted to try everything.
Ági Szladek started to distribute Pepsi (Coca?) Cola, using the same tablespoon. We were sitting or lying on the floor, and she walked around like she was passing out the Holy Wafer in a Catholic church.
It was as sweet as it smelled, and... yes, its taste reminded me of a cough syrup called Fagifor. But I wouldn't have admitted it for anything. I laid on my back and closed my eyes. I was waiting for the hallucinations, the psychedelic colors and everything. I was trembling from head to toe.
When I opened my eyes it was dark. I wondered if this had been caused by the drug, but someone just asked behind me: "Why did you turn off the light?"
"I didn't." My teeth were chattering.
"Easy, folks," said Nikita.
I reached out my hand. Somebody grabbed it. Warm, fragile fingers. It put me at ease to hold them tight. And this was it. I saw two big blazing circles approaching. I closed my eyes, but they didn't disappear. They were growing and revolving. I was hearing some sounds, too, heavy rock music. It reminded me of a Rolling Stones song. "I kent getno setiz fiction." Oh my God. And then-and then-little drops of ice were falling on my forehead. I was cold, real cold, and I caught sight of snow behind the blazing circles.
I had to get up. A heavy object was hanging on my arm; I pulled it after me. I just had to go toward the crests covered by soft snow. "I kent getno setiz fiction, no-no, no!" The guitars were screaming, and I realized that it was The Rolling Stones: I reached the other room, where the tape recorder was playing and Juli Szegedi was dancing with Jóska. Nikita was down on all fours scurrying around like a dog; somebody else was clapping. The heavy object I pulled turned out to be Barbara Tóth. Her eyes were turned inside out and her mouth covered by foamy saliva.
"Sit down, man, just sit down," said somebody. I obeyed. Barbara Tóth remained standing. Her body was waving like a tree in the wind. I wanted to free my hand but I couldn't, Barbara Tóth was stronger than I.
"I'm fly-ing! I'm fly-ing!" said Juli Szegedi in her sparkling voice. "I'm flying in the air! I can touch the ceiling!"
"Take out the cobwebs, then," asked Nikita.
I had to lie down, I had to-I had to-just for awhile.
Then-then-someone was tapping on my forehead. "Hey!"
I awoke and I was cold. "What's that?"
"It's your turn."
"Hm?"
I was pushed somewhere. I thought maybe I was still sleeping. I stumbled; there were bodies lying on the floor.
I wound up in another room, although I wasn't sure in which one and didn't know quite what to do. I heard a weird, creaking noise: grrr-krrr. I was standing there, near the wall which was vibrated sheer cold.
"Are you coming, or what?" somebody whispered. It was a girl's voice.
I was lost. As I wanted to move toward her, my hand bumped into something on the icy wall. It was the switch. It turned on the lights as I touched it.
There was Nikita's grandmother sleeping on the couch, covered by a red tablecloth. She was snoring. On the carpet, Marika Csik was laying, naked from the waist down. Her legs, considered the best in Eastern Europe, looked so white and fragile; the hair on her sex looked so childish and tousled-I started to cry.
I had dreamed about her for months. I had imagined her in my arms ten thousand times. I wrote her name on the walls with chalk ten thousand times. I was head over heels in love with her, but I was afraid to tell her. Now she was lying there, and I couldn't do anything but cry. I turned off the light.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing." I was coping with my crying. I bit my tongue.
"Are you all right?"
"Oh, yes... no. It's the drug, I guess."
"It tasted like Fagifor," she said.
"Yes, just cough syrup," I said. I thought this might be the beginning of a nice love story. But I was wrong.
"So, will you come or won't you?" she said in a voice she might have learned from films.
I couldn't say a word. I ran away.
And since that night, Ladies and Gentlemen, I've been a sworn enemy of drugs-and cokes.


(Written in English in 1989, while the Hungarian author was living in the USA as guest professor at Yale School of Drama.)