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    Kiskutya: A Musician's Tale
    Kiskutya: A Musician's Tale
    Kiskutya: A Musician's Tale
    Ebook39 pages41 minutes

    Kiskutya: A Musician's Tale

    By Robert James Tootell

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    About this ebook

    Set within the 'corner-cafes' of Budapest and across the Great Hungarian Plain, a musician scores the preludes of loss in search of the woman who called herself 'atheist scorpion'...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert James Tootell
    Release dateFeb 7, 2012
    ISBN9780955694080
    Kiskutya: A Musician's Tale
    Author

    Robert James Tootell

    Welcome everyone,Here is a quick list of my literary efforts so far:A Cafe in Kazimierz and other stories (Paperback, 2002)Krakow Stories and Stranger Things Than This (Paperback, 2008)Krakow Stories and Stranger Things Than This (E-book, 2009)Stranger Things Than This (E-book, 2010)Selected Stories and Poems (E-book, 2011)Five Stories for Makers of Short Films (E-book, 2012)Luke (E-book, 2012)Clootie's Cover (E-book, 2012)Kiskutya (E-book, 2012)I'm currently studying for an MA in Scriptwriting at Glamorgan University, and recommend it for anyone and everyone who is interested in learning this craft - it's a brilliant course with brilliant tutors.Back to me! Here are some of my favourite stories and books:The Three Lilies by Jan Neruda;In a Far Distant Land, Light Breathing, In Paris, et al, by Ivan Bunin;The Bishop, The Artist's Story, Rothchild's Fiddle, by Anton Chekhov;Red Cavalry, The Tales of Odessa, by Isaac Babel;Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal;Gimpel the Fool, The Cabalist of East Broadway, by IB Singer;Klingsor's Last Summer by Hermann Hesse.Dark Avenues by Ivan Bunin;The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell;The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller;Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves;The Radetsky March by Joseph Roth;The Red and the Black by Stendhal;The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino;War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy;The Drowned and the Saved, Moments of Reprieve, by Primo Levi.Currently living in France and writing for radio.

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      Book preview

      Kiskutya - Robert James Tootell

      Kiskutya

      A Musician’s Tale

      Robert James Tootell

      ©2012 Robert James Tootell

      All rights reserved

      Published in 2012 by Robert James Tootell

      at Smashwords

      From the book: Krakow Stories

      Kiskutya - A Musician’s Tale

      i

      Klara from the restaurant translated the short, hand-written note which arrived in my garden post-box three weeks ago, it's an invite for the day, that's all, she said, astonished to see me again. She took my hand and picked something off my old summer jacket, giving it (for it is shabby and neglected) a glance of disapproval. He's around somewhere, she added in a lower tone, looking me in the eye, I'd better run. But she didn't run. She seemed to want to say something more, paused, shook my sleeve. But is it Hungary or Transylvania? I asked. She looked over to the glass doors that lead to the office. It's this side of the border. The doors opened, a barman came through carrying glasses on a tray. Listen, the new guy's awful, really awful. Imagine - she leant into me conspiratorially, I inhaled her sweet scent, felt her stumbling youthfulness all around me - he picks his nose between songs! Really! But she must then have recognised the clipped, measured step of one Lajos Hanzo, for she turned quickly, still squeezing my sleeve. I have to go. Don't get lost! She lightly touched the letter in my hand, kissed me on the neck, you'll need a good map to find it! And with a smile that was already breaking into a sullen frown, she ran off.

      Once outside I looked again at the note, though I had studied it a dozen times. The scrawling hand was not that of my friend; all I could think was that she had asked her parents to invite me, to make sure I came, to keep up the drama. But why? And why now, after a long season of silence?

      The city was burning up in the sun and teeming with visitors who were waiting for the ferryboat, taking snaps of Buda Castle and the sparkling Fisherman's Bastion, or else moping around the shaded areas of the quay studying city maps. I made my way back to Deak ter, thinking furiously, though at the back of my mind hovered the image of the lovely Klara, as bright and illusive as I'd ever seen her. My real thoughts, alas, were not with her, muddled angel that she was, but with another. only-child of October, atheist scorpion, tormentor and lover of wild, crazy-wild horses, stubborn enigma of the forests of Buda...

      I made up my mind whilst standing on the underground platform. I would let the summer go. I would chase her very absence all the way back to the mountains, reclaim the keys to my presence to this, her city. Or leave, once and for all, crushing the fly between my fingers, smashing this Magyar fly-jar that has tormented now for too long.

      * * *

      Before the sun had scattered its arrows across the edges of the city, before it had torched away the few brittle pins barely visible even in the darkest moments of these tangerine nights, I set off from my flat eastwards, towards the mountains of Transylvania. With the rosaries of sleep still dry in my eyes, I stole like a prayer out of the sleeping

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