Mandula

By Adrian Courage

People often ask about the title of this book and it doesn’t reveal too much about what is within these pages to explain why I chose it. Mandula is derived from ‘mandorla’, which is Italian not only for almond, but also for the almond-shaped frame often seen surrounding icons in churches. I have it tattood on my arm and it is also on the cover of this book.

The shape, also known as piscis vesica (Latin for the bladder of a fish) is created by the perfectly balanced intersection of two circles. Often, one signifies heaven and the other earth, but it can mean many things. Where the circles meet, such as when Christ came down to be among us, a mandorla is said to be created.

All good art finds the intersection between heaven and earth and this is what I sensed on my journey through this book. The great elation of heaven goes hand in hand with the crushing suffering that is life on earth so much of the time. And from this combination emerges something rich and at times beautiful. The divine spark, but also the highs and lows of life.

Such is the bipolar world we live in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Mar 30, 2022

Book preview

Chapter 1

You have to understand it all made perfect sense at the time. As far as I was concerned, the world as we knew it was coming to an end and I couldn’t let that fact pass by unnoticed. I was one of the chosen few who knew about The Great Awakening. And so here I was, the man who would come to herald the good news in all his glorious nakedness. I was the second coming. Not of Christ, but of Adam. Full disclosure, fig leaves be damned. I had exposed myself so you didn’t have to. The great cover-up had gone on long enough. What it all meant I couldn't say exactly. All I knew was that it was time. Things had run their course.

I stripped off everything and stepped out into the cold Budapest morning. No shoes, nothing. I took only my phone.

I was on my way to see my estranged wife, Mari. The previous day, I had agreed to go, first thing in the morning, to the house where she and my children still lived. We were to call the psychiatrist. Mari thought I had lost my mind and I was in no mood to argue. I couldn’t blame her, not any more.

It was a short walk, maybe 8 minutes, from the tower block in the leafy Buda Hills that I now called home. I stopped to take a selfie with the crucifix on the corner. Hungary is full of crucifixes, every village has at least one, standing alone as a painful reminder of the transcendent. This one was a rudimentary effort made from sheet metal. Christ had been painted on it and the silhouette cut out. Even in this rough and ready version, his head was cocked to the left, his face engulfed in sublime sorrow.

I was later told it was -8 degrees Celsius on the morning of 18 January 2021. The cold didn’t bother me though, I did not suffer. I remember being impervious even to the small stones on the pavement. I felt no need to skip or scurry like a man walking on the hot coals of hell, I strode forward with complete confidence. As I reached the busy roundabout, a man called out from a flatbed truck, Do you need any help?

Yes! I shouted. I, or rather we, were going to need all the help we could get.

I crossed the road so they could double back on the roundabout to pick me up, sling me in the back of the truck and take me who knows where. Thankfully, they never came. No one could help me now, and the house was just around the corner anyway.

The traffic was at a standstill. A father on the school run called out to me from his car.

What the hell are you doing? he asked.

I leaned into the open window, his young daughter was sitting on the passenger's side closest to me.

It's just a joke, I lied. Don't you get it? I looked at his little girl and she smiled an innocent smile.

No, not all all, he said.

I went on my way. Some people had no sense of humour, especially when it came to matters of enormous religious and spiritual significance, I mused to myself.

I didn't have far to go now, just past the pizza place on the corner and then across the road at the traffic lights. No one else honked or called out to me. It was as if people ran around naked all the time. I reached the house I had lived in with my family through good times and bad. Without catching my breath, I rang the doorbell.

Oh no, said Mari, the mother of my children, as she opened the door just wide enough for me to fit in. I knew she wouldn't understand, but it was all part of the plan. What plan God only knew.

*****

That was the end of the story. It all began on 18 November 2018, a Friday. Midnight was approaching unnoticed and the American-style cocktail bar was packed with the local midlife crisis crowd. Everyone has a story to tell.

I dumped my coat on a bench inside and gone outside to see my friends. Smoking indoors had long-since been banned in Hungary, so they were exiled to the street. It was mild for November, and I knew all hell would have to freeze over for them to come inside.

At some point, though, the cold began to bite and I went inside to fetch my jacket. It was in a large pile of discarded coats, scarves and bags now being guarded by a man who was ‘no longer thirsty’, as the Hungarians like to say. He sat slumped on a chair, legs splayed apart and arms folded. There was a blissful expression spread across his face. In other words, he was hammered.

I interrupted his reverie and asked him to pass my jacket forward. It was a well worn black thing I should have replaced long ago. As I watched him fumble around, I noticed a blond head of hair drift into my peripheral vision. Its owner had also come for her coat. It was red and black leather, she said. Yes, that one.

I thought nothing of her sudden arrival on the scene – until the self-appointed cloakroom attendant popped the question.

Are you two going home together? he asked. Who knows why? Maybe he just wanted to make us uncomfortable, to get a reaction.

I turned to the young lady for the first time. "Are we going home together?"

I’m just going for a smoke, she replied nonchalantly, unfazed by the indecent proposal.

Okay, let’s have a cigarette then, I said offhandedly. It wouldn’t hurt to get to know each other first, I joked to myself.

If I had flirted with young women like this all the time, I might have been embarrassed to admit it. For a start, I was married. I had been faithful to my wife Mari for 13 years, we had been married for 11. We had two children, Hannah, aged 10, and Lucy, 7. However, while I had not given up on my marriage entirely, things were not going well: I was sick of it. And, perhaps even more importantly, so was she. That much, at least, we could agree on. Things had got so bad that several months previously I had made a conscious decision that if an opportunity came along, I would not turn it down. ‘Not turning it down’ is different to propositioning a stranger, of course, but still, something told me the time had come.

As my new smoking companion strode confidently through the crowd and outside into the cool Budapest air, all I could see was her long blond hair draped over her jacket. Out of force of masculine habit, I held back a little to check out her figure, but the bar was too dark and busy to make any kind of assessment. This was the sum total of my first impression: blonde hair, medium height, leather jacket.

In all honesty, I didn’t much care what she looked like. I had had a few drinks, and it was still just a bit of harmless flirting. She was certainly younger than my 42 years, but I didn’t even think to speculate about her age. It was already a good sign – of something – that she had taken the question, are we going home together, seriously.

Neither of us actually had cigarettes, so I had to bum a couple from a pal. I had not yet taken up smoking seriously enough to carry my own fags on a night out. That would come later. As is customary in Hungary, we introduced ourselves, in reverse name order, and shook hands as we did so.

Gray Ádám.

Tóth Éva.

She was attractive, of that there could be no doubt. She had sharp blue eyes, slender lips and flawless skin to go with the straight blond hair. As we made some small talk, I quickly realised something wasn’t quite right. The street was on a steep incline and I was nearer the top of the hill, which meant I towered over Éva.

Wait, I interrupted. I put my hands on her shoulders and guided her up the hill. The height differential was neutralised.

She approved, That’s better, I’m short enough as it is. But she wasn’t short, I found her perfectly woman-sized.

It may not have been a tender moment, but I could tell she appreciated it. I was in control, yet I had also relinquished a position of dominance. We rebooted the conversation. She filled me in on her career. She had held a high-profile position for someone her age; I guessed now she was in her late twenties.

I told her I was born in London, but had lived in Budapest for 16 years. My dad is English but my mum is Hungarian. She complimented me on my Hungarian, which I had picked up the easy way, as a child. After working as a translator for so many years, it’s almost perfect. When I mentioned I was married with two children, I detected a hint of disappointment. Nothing more than a poker tell on her part, but still, a boost to the ego.

She told me she was now looking to become a ‘motivational coach’. I pricked up my ears. My first thought was, I could do with one of those, but I bit my tongue.

That’s great, I said instead. There are so many messed up people in the world, and all they need is a little encouragement. She nodded enthusiastically.

I suggested we leave the cold air behind and continue talking inside. We didn’t even bother to get a drink at the crowded bar, I just ushered her to a table. It was a dark spot, right by the entrance. I hoped the smokers wouldn’t see us if they ever decided to come inside. I was a married man, remember.

Éva told me she was interested in providing career advice to men; boosting their confidence and self-belief. It sounded interesting, and I was certainly bursting with thoughts of my own to share.

*****

I had only recently attended what I like to call an ‘anarchist’ retreat at a countryside conference venue not far from Budapest. I say ‘anarchist’ because ‘libertarian’ just sounds lame, and Austrian School of Economics is so obscure as to be almost meaningless.

The exclusive group of 30 or so present had been brought together by three closed Facebook groups. Needless to say, not a single Molotov cocktail was thrown all weekend. This was no revolutionary movement, just a very cerebral get-together attended by various Hungarian journalists, political scientists, economists and computer programmers, as well as a handful of significant others. There was a discussion on Carl Menger, one of the fathers of the Austrian school of economics, a lecture on the history of cryptocurrencies delivered by a Hungarian programmer who had been mining Bitcoin from the very start (and must therefore be very, very rich), and a video call with the anarcho-capitalist theorist Walter Block. One talk, however, had really piqued my interest. It was given by our host, Philippe, a Frenchman who had married a Hungarian lady and poured his inheritance into turning the village ‘castle’ into a conference venue. Inspired by the group, he had volunteered to give a talk on the late 20th-century French ‘Christian philosopher’ René Girard. The lecture was delivered in the broken Hungarian of a Frenchman more used to casual conversation, but I got the gist and was eager to learn more.

After watching a number of YouTube videos on Girard and his ground-breaking philosophy, I could see why no one else in the group of Hungarian libertarians had ever heard of him: religion just isn’t sexy any more – we worship at the altar of GDP now.

As Girard said about his work: I naively thought that everyone would agree with my theory immediately, because I saw it as so obvious and overpowering. Girard’s theories seemed so ‘obvious and overpowering’ to me, I felt compelled to share them with my new motivational coach. Yes, I was about to serve up a little-known theory from some obscure professor, but somehow I had a feeling she would be interested.

My sermon went something like this:

As humans, we instinctively mimic those around us. This is how we learn. When you feed a baby, you teach it to open its mouth by opening yours. Watch someone doing this and it looks ridiculous, but they can’t help themselves. Nor can the baby. The sight of your mouth opening causes her to open wide and accept the food.

I had been gazing into the crowd as I held forth, but now I looked to my right. Éva’s eyes had not glazed over.

It is not only our behaviour that is mimetic. The principle can also be applied to our desires.

I glanced around the bar at the drinks on the tables.

If I order an Aperol spritz, my friend will want one too. Even in November. I covet a Ferrari not because it is a practical car offering great fuel economy, but because others desire one too. Girard called this ‘mimetic desire’.

I noticed Éva had crossed her legs. The tip of her shoe was now touching my trouser leg, just below the knee. It appeared she was interested in more ways than one. Why? I guess some girls just really dig obscure French philosophy. I moved on to step three of Girard’s mimetic theory: the escalation of violence.

When the objects of desire are scarce, costly or difficult to obtain, like Ferraris or beautiful women, mimetic desire results in jealousy and conflict.

I had an example ready to go to explain how this works.

Imagine two buckets on the children’s playground, one blue, one red. If one toddler is playing with the blue bucket, the others want to play with it too. Suddenly, only the blue bucket will do, the red one simply isn’t good enough. So Toddler B attempts to grapple the blue bucket from Toddler A. Before you know it, the conflict escalates into a cycle of vengeful violence. Toddler A protects his recently acquired ‘property’, angry words are exchanged, sand is thrown. Parents and grandparents rush to get involved. Before long, no one can remember who started it and why.

Girard found countless examples of ‘mimetic rivalry’ in classic literature like Don Quixote and Hamlet, but I left it at the buckets in the playground. I wanted to get to the main point.

According to Girard, there are only two ways to resolve the escalation of violence. Either one party must back down and renounce its unconscious, herd-like desires, or the warring factions must unite in directing their pent-up anger elsewhere. Girard recognised the latter as the ‘scapegoat mechanism’, the process of collectively murdering – either symbolically or literally – a blameless third party or object in order to break the cycle of violence. ‘Scapegoat’ is a Biblical term, but it appears as a conscious method of conflict resolution in most primitive cultures. In ancient Egypt, animals and even children were ritually sacrificed to ‘appease the gods’. In the Middle Ages, innocent women were tried and burned as witches. It’s all the same thing, a sacrificial act of violence to restore peace.

Éva said nothing, but her foot was burning my calf. I was surprised, I didn’t know what had got hold of me. Talking to women seemed so easy and fun all of a sudden. But what kind of woman would actually want to listen to this at midnight in a heaving bar? I went on.

Girard, a university professor, did not become a Christian until he started finding the same patterns in the scriptures. Most people understand that Christ suffered on the cross to absolve us of our sins. In Girard’s thinking, it’s not that simple. Christ was the ultimate scapegoat, slain by the mob. The Romans and Jews united to murder Christ and restore peace. He was a willing victim, and it was God’s bidding that He should die as a martyr, to bust the myth of the scapegoat.

I finished my little sermon with the kicker. Three days later, Jesus returned. It was a miracle and everyone felt terrible about what they had done. Christ preached forgiveness, proclaiming ‘The kingdom of God is within you.’ Whichever way you look at it, I told Éva, Love is the only answer.

Éva nodded, but then paused for a moment, before cutting straight to the point. So why is your marriage on the rocks?

Ouch. It was a good question, and I had no real answer. We barely talk, I said. I can’t get through to her. She’s blocked me out. There was nothing more to say. I had known it for years. But I don’t want to speak about that, there’s no point, I said. I’m tired of it; I don’t want to fight any more. I never fight with anyone – except my wife. It was the sad truth.

We will never fight, Éva replied. Though we had only just met, I somehow knew she was right. You are whole, she said. ‘Whole’ was a word I had really never considered before, and for Éva it seemed to have some mystical meaning I wasn’t aware of. All the men I work with, they have no idea, she continued. They are completely unsuited to life.

Hungarian has words like ‘életképtelen’ we would never dream of saying in English. It was like she was describing some freak of evolution, a strange creature that has survived against all odds. Yet this wasn’t the duck-billed platypus or some flightless bird she was referring to, but homo sapiens, the good-for-nothing human male.

At that moment, an older man appeared from the crowd with a woman of Éva’s age at his side. They exchanged glances and waves with Éva on their way past to the exit.

That’s my dad, she said. And one of my friends.

Are they together? I asked.

No, but I hope they go home and fuck, Éva said candidly. It would do them both good.

Talking and fucking. The solution to everything, I said, half-joking. It had been a while.

Peace and love, she replied, like a wizened old hippie.

Who could argue with that? I hesitated, but only for a split second. Once you’ve looked a beautiful girl you’ve just met in the eye and agreed that talking and fucking will solve everything, what else is there to discuss? Let’s go, I said. She nodded. It had barely been half an hour and I had done most of the talking – about René bloody Girard. Now what? I thought. Fucking? Already?

*****

We quietly made our way past our friends to Éva’s apartment, just a short walk away. It all seemed strangely natural. She was hot, though not with that intimidating air of the classic bar room femme fatale. Just a nice girl with a knowing glint in her eye that drew me in. I wanted to get to know her better, is that such a crime? As for my wife, I was pretty sure she no longer cared what I was up to. She never asked where I had been and with whom. When she wasn’t picking a fight, she generally kept her distance and didn’t ask too many questions. I was sure I could get away with it.

We entered a reasonably sized pad, perfect for a bachelorette or a young couple. Éva offered me a drink. I opted for a glass of tap water to try and stave off the next day’s hangover. The flat was tidy and clean, but she apologised for the mess. The laundry was still hanging on the rack, that kind of thing.

I’m a really tidy person, she laughed, Just not right now.

Aren’t we all, I thought. That’s alright, you can prove it to me next time, I said.

Again, she didn’t flinch. I could tell she liked what she was hearing. There might be a next time – if she played her cards right.

I feel at home here, I said. Actually, my home was nothing like this. Here I felt comfortable, without the guilt of a million little things I should have done better.

Éva went into the bedroom and changed into something more comfortable. A long, thick black T-shirt/dress that hung off the shoulder and down to the tops of her thighs. Casual but revealing loungewear, exactly what I imagined a hot girlfriend would laze around in on a Sunday morning. There was some important slogan scrawled across the front too, an inspirational girly message like Do Small Things with Great Love.

This was the first time I had really been able to check out her body. I was more than impressed by her shapely legs and toned arms. I was also pleasantly surprised to be able to tell even beneath her baggy top she appeared to have a flat stomach and full breasts. Promising, I thought, though you never really know what you’re getting until all the clothes come off.

She fired up YouTube on the TV and started playing a concert by some Belgian guy I had never heard of. Stromae. He had a jerky, robotic motion as he danced to hard techno beats and asked the question: Peace or Violence? The crowd danced like they just didn’t care. Éva knew how to entertain. Some slightly edgy music, but no questions asked, nothing awkward. YouTube and chill. I drew her closer and she rested her head on my shoulder as we watched, mainly in silence. When we did talk, it didn’t feel forced, even as we discussed work and travel and marriage and kids and all the peace and violence in the world.

Why can’t it always be this simple?

This must be what men always ask themselves when they are betraying their wives, or visiting whores. And what women experience in those moments when they lie on a man’s shoulder and feel at peace. I sighed contentedly and allowed my hand to wander, enjoying the softness of Éva’s back and shoulders. She did not resist, so I pulled her leg over mine. It was a more natural position for a man and a woman on their way to becoming intertwined. We talked a little more, then I leaned up on one elbow and kissed her for the first time.

There’s chemistry, she said after we eventually separated. I knew it too; I had felt it in her touch and seen it in her eyes and now I could smell her feminine scent suddenly rising up as we kissed. A rush of hormones beyond her control. Impossible to resist. I had her at my mercy, and it was as sexy as hell.

But we had also reached the stage where it could get awkward. The moment she might suddenly pull back and exclaim, What are you doing to me? or I’m not ready for this. I felt like I had to take stock: Let’s not do something we might regret. I didn’t want her to think I was taking advantage. We needed to set the boundaries, establish the rules of the game.

*****

I took a trip to the toilet to reflect and returned with a grin. I had it all worked out. I was thinking while peeing, I said, The toilet is where I do my best work.

You’re mad! she laughed. I took it as a compliment.

So, there are two alternatives, I laid it out. A) we sleep together now and never see each other again, or B) we don’t sleep together, but you give me your phone number and we meet again soon.

We kissed again. I could sense she was conflicted. The middle ground of kissing and cuddling was comfortable, of course, but I had forced her hand.

I’m really not that kind of girl, she protested, but it was already too late.

Well, there’s always option C, I replied. You know, in case of emergencies.

Chapter 2

I returned home from Éva’s place around five and woke up in my own bed late the next morning. I was tired and slightly hungover, but had a spring in my step. Mari had gone out with the kids, but she had left a note instructing me to make lunch: ‘rakott krumpli’, a simple Hungarian meal of potatoes, spicy sausage, boiled egg and sour cream, layered and baked in a casserole dish. Not only was it one of my favourites, it was also one of the few meals my wife trusted me to make – she usually complained that I never followed the recipe. This much was true: I tend to make things up as I go along and it was a constant bone of contention. Still, I went about my cooking assignment with great gusto. I had got laid!

For once, I genuinely felt like I couldn’t give a shit about her inevitable complaints. Or as Mari would say, I could give a shit. Thing is, we represent two nations divided by a common language. Mari had grown up in the US to Hungarian immigrants, and had come to Budapest on a scholarship. We met at a party in 2005 hosted by a mutual friend, yet another ‘repat’. Despite the economic disadvantages, I know dozens of people who have moved back to their parents’ former home in the East. Yet people are constantly asking why I am here. My simple answer: It’s the only place they speak Hungarian.

I do love the unique and strangely impenetrable language, but also the genuinely multicultural history of the Hungarian capital. For centuries, the country was overrun by the Tatars and then the Ottoman Turks, before Budapest eventually rose to become the joint capital of a vast, wealthy and powerful empire. The glorious architecture bears testimony to the prosperity the Austro-Hungarian Empire enjoyed in the 20 or so golden years in the run up to the outbreak of World War I. It is a legacy that has persisted, even though the country was ravaged throughout the 20th century. First, it lost two-thirds of its territory after the World War I, then Hungary succumbed to Nazism, before the Soviet ‘liberators’ seized power shortly after the second World War. Now, after the fall of Communism, we had come to live here as Hungarian-speaking returnees brought together by a common heritage and love of all things Magyar. Outsiders on the inside.

*****

The rakott krumpli proved to be a roaring success. That evening, we went to a party hosted by a lively bluegrass band, a bunch of Budapest-based expats and repats like us. There were plenty of familiar faces, among them some who had washed up in Hungary after falling in love, others brought here by work, and some who just got sucked in for reasons not even they can explain. Budapest has that effect on people from all over the world; it is a place of beauty and adventure. Freedom, you could say.

Early in the evening, I ran into Kata, another American-Hungarian. Mari knew her from the Hungarian Scouts network in the States, but we had only met once. I knew her boyfriend István (Steve) well, we had become close friends before he moved back to L.A. They had made a nice couple, but their long-distance relationship was always doomed to fail. Kata told me he had broken it off a week earlier and I could see her ego was bruised. I bought her a gin and tonic and told her in a terribly exaggerated American accent that my friend was an asshole. She saw the funny side. He was indeed an asshole, but she was very fond of him. We took a selfie together and I sent it to him on Messenger. She thanked me and said it gave her ‘closure’.

Meanwhile, I was still on a high and didn’t care who knew it. I went over to Mari and we made our way to the band at the end of the long bar and cleared a space to dance. Neither of us held back as we twirled and twisted. Instead of any formal training, we had a couple of drinks and rock ‘n’ roll in our blood. Mari was in the mood to dance and make merry – it was one of the things she did best. This was what had brought us together when we were young, our shared Anglo-Saxon culture of partying and drinking like there’s no tomorrow. Now, and for one night only, it was back to the good old days.

Mari had an effervescent spirit that would come out on