Looking for Katalin Street

It was January in Budapest and I don’t speak Hungarian. The cab driver had grey hair, grey eyes and a GPS mounted on the dashboard. I pulled Magda Szabo’s novel, Katalin Street, out of my bag to show him the title. I had practiced how to pronounce it: “Kat” pronounced like “salt,” not “cat,” and “usca“ instead of “street.” “Kawtalin Usca,” I tried, pointing at the book. He nodded and typed the name into his tablet. Three Katalin Uscas appeared. He asked me something I couldn’t understand, tried his few words of English, and invited me to sit up front in the passenger seat, closer to the map. Two of the streets looked fairly close to the Danube, one did not. In the novel, the three families with shared backyards on Katalin Street have a view of the river, at least, they did before new buildings blocked the view, and everyone grew up, was killed, or escaped.

I try to explain to the driver that it must be the street closest to the Danube, since the characters in the book lived near the river. Another cab driver is summoned. I point at the author’s name on the cover and try out my pronunciation again. “Magda Szabo?” They’ve never heard of her. But I can tell that my driver is enjoying my interest in Hungarian literature, and with