Story-How I met Myself

Like many British people, I thought I knew three things about Hungary: the Danube cuts the capital into two halves, Buda and Pest; the Hungarian football team had once beaten England 6 -

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# Cambridge University Press 2001

First published 2001

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3

Characters

John Taylor: an English computer programmer working for a multinational company in Budapest, Hungary Andrea Taylor: John's wife, and a teacher of Hungarian

Kati Taylor: John and Andrea's baby daughter

Zsolt: a man who has a bar in Budapest's Thirteenth District

Janos Szabo: John Taylor's doppelganger, a Hungarian man who died in the

1956 revolution

Mrs Fischer: an old lady who knew Janos Szabo

Paul Harris: an old friend of John Taylor's

As I walked I thought about what had happened at work I had argued with one of the Hungarians I worked with It was the first serious problem since I'd arrived I was trying to think what to do about it, and I was also hoping that my wife, Andrea, had made one of her nice hot soups for dinner

After about five minutes it started to snow heavily, so that the streets were soon completely white As I was walking along a very dark part of one street there was the noise of a door shutting loudly inside a building Then I heard the sound of someone running

Suddenly, the street door opened and a man came out of it and ran straight into me I fell over into the snow, shouting something like, 'Hey, watch

where you're going!' - my words were loud in the empty street The man turned to look at me for a moment 'Sorry,' he said very quietly, in

Hungarian, before walking quickly away

What I saw at that moment, in that dark winter street was very strange, and

I felt very afraid Because what I saw was me My face looking down at me

My mouth saying sorry

of work I was very pleased It was a better job in the company, and I

thought it would be really interesting to work in another country, one I'd never visited

Like many British people, I thought I knew three things about Hungary: the Danube cuts the capital into two halves, Buda and Pest; the Hungarian

football team had once beaten England 6 - 3 in London, and people eat hot goulash all the time

There was a lot to learn! And I learnt quickly

The company sent me to Hungarian language classes at a special school Hungarian is very different from English I had one-to-one lessons with a pretty teacher called Andrea

She was a lovely young woman, with dark brown hair, blue eyes and a

beautiful smile, and she seemed to understand me very well Our lessons

soon became lessons outside class hours, and slowly we fell in love

Eighteen months later we got married

Each day of the week I walk to work and back from our flat in the Thirteenth District I work in a new office on Vaci urca, and it takes me about thirty minutes to get there My usual working day is half past eight in the morning

to six in the evening I generally enjoy my work The offices are light and modern, and I like the people I work with

Andrea works at different times during the day, teaching Hungarian to

foreigners in a number of schools and companies She also teaches some students at home

We live on the Pest side of the city, not far from the Danube The old part of the Thirteenth District where we live is an area of narrow streets full of small shops, bars and restaurants It still feels like an old city And it was in one of these streets that I met myself

Chapter 3

A search

Now I'll continue my story

I lay there in the snow for a few moments, trying to understand what had just happened My first thought was, 'Where has the man gone?' I looked along the street, and was just in time to see him turning right at the next corner

I got up immediately, brushed the snow off my clothes and ran after him He crossed the road and went into another street When I got to the corner I saw him going into a doorway I walked quickly along the empty street, and found it was the entrance to a wine cellar It was under a block of flats, and you had to go down some steps to get in It was one of those Budapest

places where working men meet to drink, talk and smoke I looked down the steps There was the low noise of conversation and a smell of wine and

cigarettes coming up to meet me

I stood in the snow for a moment, deciding what to do and looking around

me I had a strange feeling about going down into the wine cellar I wasn't sure who I'd find there I looked at my footprints - the dark marks my feet had made in the new snow My footprints But only my footprints! Where were his? I looked back along the street There were only my footprints My mind was running round and round in circles trying to understand what was happening I stepped down into the wine cellar It was the first time I had been into that kind of bar

Inside, it was suddenly warm after the winter streets It was dark, and my eyes took a few moments to get used to the darkness I looked around me - there were a few men dressed in working clothes, standing in small groups, drinking their wine and talking I looked over to the bar where I expected to see my man buying a drink But there was just a young man with fair hair talking to the barman The place was not very big, and I walked around and looked at everyone carefully

My man was nowhere to be seen I walked over to the bar

'Where did the man go?' I asked the barman

'What man?' he asked back

'Just before I came in,' I said, 'there was another man who came in Where

'See for yourself,' said the barman, showing me the men in the room

'But is there no other room here?' I asked

'Only the toilet,' said the barman, looking at the corner I went over and opened the door It was cold and dirty

And empty

I didn't know what to do I decided to stay and see what happened

'A glass of dry red wine, please,' I said to the barman when I got back to the bar

He gave it to me I paid, and then I moved over to an empty place

There were no chairs, so I stood up against a high narrow table A television was on in the corner of the room I watched the news and waited Andrea didn't know where I was Nobody came in or went out I drank another glass

of wine After an hour, I left I didn't understand anything, and it was not just because I had drunk too much wine on an empty stomach

***

'You smell of wine and smoke!' said Andrea, as I was standing by the front door, taking off my coat and boots 'What have you been doing?'

'Oh, I just went for a drink with Peter,' I said 'We argued at work today, and

I wanted to talk about it because there is an important meeting tomorrow.' Don't think badly of me - I usually tell my wife the truth! It was just that as

I walked home, I had decided it would be better not to say anything about what had happened When I thought about it, it all sounded so stupid

Someone ran out of a building and knocked me down into the snow When

he turned back to say sorry, I saw that he looked just like me And then when I followed him he left no footprints And he wasn't in the wine cellar I saw him go into It really was all too stupid So I told her the story about Peter and kept the truth - if it was the truth - to myself

By now, I wasn't sure if I really had seen someone who looked the same as me! But when I went into the bathroom to wash before dinner, and I looked

at my face in the mirror, I knew that I was right It wasn't just someone who looked a bit like me, it was me that I'd seen

That night, in bed, I couldn't sleep I kept thinking about what had happened over and over again Andrea knew something was not right She moved across the bed and put her arm around me

'What is it, love?' she asked quietly

'Oh, nothing,' I replied 'Just those problems at work again Don't worry.' And I kissed her

Until I met myself, I had always thought myself to be a normal, intelligent

person I thought I understood more or less how the world around me

worked, even my new world in Budapest But what happened that night in the street had changed something inside me, and I couldn't get it out of my mind I kept seeing myself on the ground in that dark, snowy street, looking

up at myself I felt terribly afraid

Chapter 4

7 Felka utca

As I walked to work the next day - Tuesday - I planned my evening I had decided that last night the man had come out of the building at about five to seven I had just been in time to see the start of the seven o'clock news on television in the wine bar, and only a few minutes had passed between him knocking me over and the news I wanted to go back there that evening at the same time

The day seemed to take a long time to pass At work, I had the meeting with Peter to talk about the difficulty of the day before We talked about our

problems and came to a friendly agreement I had lunch in the office

restaurant as usual, but didn't say more than a few words to anyone In fact, during the day, two or three people asked me if I was feeling ill I said that I was fine, just thinking about a difficult work problem That evening I left the office at six o’clock I walked quickly to the street where I had first seen the man Soon I found the door; it was number 7 Felka utca While I waited, I looked at the street carefully It was short and dark, and there was still a lot of snow around from yesterday On either side of the street were blocks of flats which had been built in the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries Most of them were dirty and in bad condition On many

of them you could still see the holes the gunshots had made during the

fighting in World War II or the 1956 revolution The blocks were all five

floors high with big front doors At this time on a winter evening only one or two kitchen windows were lit as people made their evening meals

I waited, walking slowly up and down It was cold I felt a bit like a private detective in an American film A few people walked along the street, but mainly it was as quiet as it had been the night before As the time got near,

I stood opposite the entrance to number 7 with the wall behind my back Nothing happened At seven o'clock, a woman with a small dog came along the street and went in through the door, but then there was nothing to see And there was certainly nobody like myself there

I went over to the door of number 7, and looked at the names beside the bells for each flat I don't know what I expected to find But there were just the usual Hungarian family names, and a couple of small companies that had offices on the ground floor of the building

Then I walked to the bar where I'd gone the night before I walked along Felka utca, crossed the road and went into Gergely utca I found the bar, and went down the steps and into the smoky room I ordered a red wine The barman looked at me

'Did you find your friend, then?' he asked

I was surprised 'I'm sorry?' I replied, coughing into my wine

'The man you were looking for last night,' he said 'Did you find him?'

'No, I'm afraid I didn't,' I answered 'That's why I'm here, really I was

hoping I might see him tonight.'

'What's he like then, this friend of yours?' asked the barman

'Well, he's er he's ' I stopped The barman looked at me, waiting 'He looks very much like me, actually '

'I can't say that I've seen anyone like you here,' he said 'But then I only bought the place six weeks ago, so I don't really know everyone who comes

in here yet Just the usual people who are in here now.'

A man came up to the bar, and I moved away, watching the end of the news

on the television and drinking my wine I looked at the people in the room - they all looked just like those I'd seen the night before But there was no-one like me I decided to leave

When I got home I was pleased to find a note from Andrea on the kitchen table It said that she was out teaching a new student - so I didn't have to make up any more stories about where I'd been

***

That night I had a strange dream In my dream, I heard the noise of a door shutting loudly I was running out of a building and I ran into someone A man He fell down I turned to say sorry I saw that it was me lying on the ground I woke up feeling afraid and cold in the dark, although the bedroom was nice and warm The strange thing was that it was as if the dream had changed everything round: because in the dream it was me who ran out of the building, not the man, and when I looked at the man on the ground it was myself

Suddenly, Andrea woke up

'What's the matter, love?' she asked sleepily, turning on the light

I couldn't speak at first She sat up and looked at me 'You look bad,' she said She sounded worried 'Do you feel ill?'

'No,' I started 'No It was just just a dream.' 'Poor darling,' she said, holding my head and kissing me on the cheek 'Come on, let's try and get some sleep.'

I lay down again She turned off the light and soon went back to sleep But I lay there in bed, looking at the four walls in the dark, watching the dream over and over again in the cinema inside my head

I felt afraid, but I didn't really understand what it was that I was afraid of

Chapter 5

I tell Andrea

And so my new life began Every day that week I went to work, every night I waited outside the house at number 7 Felka utca, and then I spent time in the bar And every night I had the same dream and woke up feeling afraid in the dark And if I went back to sleep, I had the dream again And if I didn't

go back to sleep, I lay in bed in the dark trying to understand what was

happening to me Apd every morning I was more and more tired, and I

wasn't nice to Andrea I felt terrible because of the dreams and because I was so tired And I felt worse because Andrea didn't know why I was

arriving late every evening, and I didn't tell her the truth

Things at work became difficult I couldn't think about the important things I had to do And even worse, the next day I argued with Andrea She couldn't understand why I had to go to the Gergely utca bar every night, and of

course I felt I couldn't tell her And then because I didn't feel good, I started drinking more than the two glasses of wine I had had the first two nights

I started staying in the bar much longer because I was afraid to go home and try to sleep I was afraid to dream the same dream On Thursday, when

I came home very late after drinking too much, Andrea had already gone to bed

On Friday, I was late home again, but when I got in Andrea was waiting up for me She looked very unhappy Her face was white and her pretty blue eyes were red She had been crying

'John,' she said, as I got some bread and cheese to eat, 'what is the matter?'

I said nothing as I ate

'John,' she tried again, 'you must tell me what happened You've changed completely Please …talk to me.’

I looked up at her, this wonderful woman I loved so much, and saw how much I was hurting her I felt so terrible that I started crying

She put her arms around me and talked to me quietly, as if I were a little child Then she took my face between her hands

'Tell me, darling,' she said quietly 'I want to help you.'

And so I told her everything The words came out quickly, and when I'd finished she suddenly laughed and laughed

'It's not funny,' I said angrily

'No, darling,' she answered 'It's not funny at all, but I feel so happy.' She stopped laughing, and continued in a serious voice 'You see, I thought you'd found somebody else Another woman.'

After that we held each other and kissed for a very long time Then she

made me tell her the story again, very slowly She kept asking questions,

trying to get all the information about every part of it

'Right,' she said 'Tomorrow is Saturday, and neither of us is working We'll

go round to number 7 Felka utca and start asking some questions I'm sure there's a very easy answer to this story.'

I felt so happy She was so sweet and good and I was sure that everything was going to be all right

Chapter 6

Talking to the housekeepers

The next day was very sunny, though still very cold The strong sunshine made me feel more hopeful about the future, now that I had told Andrea about what had happened I finally felt good after an excellent night's sleep

- it was the first time I hadn't dreamt about meeting myself for nearly a week

At ten o'clock we walked round to Felka utca I was really pleased that

Andrea was with me; although my Hungarian was good, she would be able

to talk to people much more easily than me

The first person we spoke to was the housekeeper - the lady who had the small ground-floor flat near the door in return for doing jobs in the building, such as cleaning the stairs and checking the lift and the lights

We asked her a lot of questions When we asked if there was anybody who looked like me living in the flats she looked at me for a long time, and then said there wasn't Andrea next asked her how long she'd worked there; the answer was twenty-one years And did she know everybody? She did And were there any new families? There weren't And were there any men

looking like me who'd lived here and then moved away lately? There

weren't We thanked her, and left

Out in the street, we looked at each other I was starting to think I must be imagining everything 'Perhaps it was a visitor,' said Andrea, realising how bad I felt

'Or perhaps,' I said, 'perhaps he lives in the other building, where the bar is,

and I didn't see where he went.'

'Maybe,' said Andrea 'Let's go and try.'

We walked round to Gergely utca and stopped outside the bar

'So,' she said, looking down the steps to the cellar, 'this is where you've been spending your evenings!'

My face went red 'Sorry,' I said

'I'm joking, love!' she said laughing 'Look - the main entrance to the block

of flats is next door It would have been easy for you to mistake which one

he went into in the dark and snow.'

'Yes, you're right,' I answered

But I kept thinking about the fact that there had been no footprints in the snow

Inside the building we met another housekeeper This time it was a man in his fifties who'd worked there for twelve years We asked the same

questions as we had asked before, and got the same answers He'd never seen anyone there who looked like me

I felt very bad after these second answers I thought that Andrea would think there was something wrong with me Andrea took my hand

'Come on,' she said, laughing 'Let's go and have a drink in your famous bar!'

I was so surprised that I didn't have time to say anything as I followed her down the steps

The barman welcomed me with a friendly smile and a joke about good

friends bringing more friends I introduced him to Andrea, then we took our wine and stood in a corner and talked about what had happened

'There is one important thing about all of this, Andrea,' I said when we

seemed to have talked about it all 'And I know it sounds very strange, but I don't think this person just looked like me I think it was me.'

I'd said this to her before when I'd told her the first time, and she'd laughed and said it was impossible But I had a feeling deep inside me that I was right

'But, John,' she asked, 'how could that be?'

'I don't know, love,' I replied 'I just feel it So perhaps we shouldn't be

looking for someone who, lives in these buildings now Perhaps we should be looking for someone who, well er someone who's dead And who I

am, now

Andrea looked at me very hard

'John,' she said, 'I've never heard you say anything like this before What do you mean?'

'I wish I knew what I meant,' I said with difficulty 'All I know is that I have

a strange idea inside my head that tells me these things are possible.'

We finished our drink without speaking and left

'Andrea,' I said as we walked home, 'you must believe me I need your help

to try and understand what's happened to me.'

'I'm trying to believe you, love,' she answered, turning to look at me 'It's just that it's very difficult to understand.'

'It's difficult for me, too,' I said

Chapter 7

Doppelganger

After that Saturday my life returned to what it had been, in one way I went back to work on Monday and I was my old self, and things went well I didn't have the dreams at night any more And I didn't visit Felka utca and the bar every night either, although I still went in once or twice a week

But there were also big changes The next Wednesday Andrea came home from a visit to the doctor's with big news: she was expecting a baby! We were extremely happy We had often talked about starting a family, but hadn't thought it would happen quite so soon And then the day after that she lost her biggest teaching job - fifteen hours a week with an international bank They didn't want to pay for Hungarian lessons for the people who worked there any more The ups and downs of life!

A week or so later I told Zsolt - the wine cellar barman - that Andrea had lost her most important job He said he was looking for someone to help him

in the bar He said it wasn't a job for an 'intelligent lady' like my wife, but he

also said he could offer her good money, and he felt the place needed a woman's touch to make it better

I talked about the offer with Andrea, and in the end she took the job The pay wasn't as good as for teaching, but the bar was very close to home Also, she didn't have to spend hours working on her lessons like she did for teaching And she soon made quite a difference to the bar.When I went in the week after she'd started it looked much better - there were flowers on the bar, and pictures on the walls

'I've asked Zsolt if we can make one side of the bar into a sitting area with tables and chairs,' Andrea told me over dinner one evening, 'and he's

agreed.'

'Why do you want to do that?' I asked

'Well, I thought more people might want to come in,' she said 'And women might like it, too.'

And she was right Soon after that women started going to the bar as well as men Zsolt was very pleased

However, between all these new things in our life, I didn't forget my strange meeting with 'myself' I started doing lots of reading about life after death

It was a completely new thing for me, and I found it very interesting I

learnt many things I didn't know Perhaps the most interesting thing I found out was that what had happened to me has a name:

DOPPELGANGER: A German word which is used in English It means

something like 'double-walker' or 'doublegoer' - a ghostly double of a living person, who comes to give messages about danger or to offer advice It can only be seen by its owner_ (This was why there were no footprints, and why Zsolt had seen nothing in the bar, I thought.)

However, it can sometimes be seen by somebody close if it has an important message It is usually thought to bring bad luck, and is often believed to show that there will soon be a serious problem or a death

I showed Andrea the page from the book I was reading

'And so is this what you think you saw?' she asked looking surprised

'Well, it sounds like it, doesn't it?' I answered

So now I knew - I had met my doppelganger The next question was why?

Chapter 8

A holiday

In August Andrea gave up working for Zsolt We spent my summer holiday happily painting a small room in our flat so that it was ready for the baby, and on 16 September our daughter was born We gave her the name Kati After that, things changed even more as we got used to all the differences a new baby makes to her parents' lives It was hard work, but we were very happy And I was so busy that for a while I forgot about what had happened

in Felka utca

We decided to go to England at Christmas We wanted my parents and

family to meet Kati, and this was a good chance We soon learnt how

difficult it is to go on holiday with a small baby You need to take so many things! It took us a very long time to get ready

We flew from Budapest to London Heathrow on 22 December My parents met us and drove us to their house in a village near Swindon, about an hour from the airport Everyone was very happy It was only the third time that Andrea had visited my parents' place, and only her second English

Christmas And this time we had a new baby in the Family with us Of

course, Kati was the centre of everyone's attention The next day, my

mother said she would look after Kati so that Andrea and I could go into Swindon to do some Christmas shopping The town was very colourful, with lights and Christmas trees everywhere And it was very busy, with all the shops full of people buying Christmas presents We enjoyed ourselves, and got some more presents to add to the special Hungarian Christmas things

we had brought with us

That evening, my father was out at his office Christmas dinner and Andrea

was tired after our day in town, so I decided to go down to the village pub and see if any of my old friends were there I saw one or two neighbours and talked to them for, a while, but none of my good friends were there I was just going to leave when in walked Paul Harris

Paul had been one of my closest friends at school, but he hadn't been in the village the last few times I'd visited my parents He was a journalist and had lived in many different places since we'd left school

'Paul!' I called, as he walked into the bar

'John!' he said 'How good to see you!'

'Good to see you, too,' I replied 'I was just leaving None of our old friends are here.'

'No,' he said sadly 'Most of them have left - gone to other places for work or wives!'

'What would you like to drink?' I asked

'I'll have a pint of bitter, please, John,' he replied

We took our beer to a quiet corner of the pub and started to tell each other our news

'Just back to have Christmas with the family,' he explained

'On your own?' I said, asking myself what had happened to his wife, Liz 'I'm afraid so,' he said, looking down at his beer 'Liz left me last summer.' 'I'm sorry, Paul,' I replied 'I had no idea '

'Don't worry,' he said 'The worst part is over So tell me about you My mother told me there's a baby now ‘

And so I told him all about Kati, and Andrea, and life in Budapest And after

a couple more beers I told him about meeting myself

Paul was one of my oldest and best friends, and I knew he would take the story seriously

'That's very interesting, John,' he said when I'd finished He didn't laugh or tell me I was stupid He seemed to be thinking about something 'There was

a story about the same thing - doppelgangers, and people meeting

themselves - in one of the magazines I write for.'

'Did you read it?' I asked, hoping he might have some more information 'Only the first part,' he said 'But I remember it said that this happens to

quite a lot of people everywhere.'

'Well, that's good news,' I replied 'I thought I was going crazy or

something!'

'No, John, you're not,' he said, smiling 'But you should be careful I

remember that it also said that bad things had happened to many people after seeing a doppelganger.'

'Yes, I read that, too,' I said 'In a book in Budapest But anyway, it's good

to know I'm not alone.'

'Yes, that may help you to feel happier,' he said seriously But I remember one story from the magazine where the Doppelganger was trying to tell a woman not to drive her son to school one day She didn't understand and that same day they had a car accident and her son was killed.'

'Oh, really!' I said, surprised

'So perhaps you should be careful,' said Paul

'I will, don't worry,' I answered

In one way I felt much happier knowing that what had happened to me was not so unusual, but I started trying to understand what kind of message my doppelganger was trying to bring me Thinking about it made me feel

uncomfortable, so I tried to forget it and enjoy Christmas But it wasn't very easy

The rest of the Christmas holiday in England passed quickly We ate lots of nice food, played family games, visited friends and family' in other places, and really enjoyed ourselves Soon it was time to go back to Hungary

We flew back on 29 December, returning to spend New Year with Andrea's family in the snowy Hungarian countryside Perhaps it was because we

couldn't go out much and there wasn't much to do except sit around the house, but I started thinking about my doppelganger story more and more I was trying to decide what the meeting with myself had meant Andrea said that I wasn't joining in with family things much But when I told her why, she got angry with me, and we argued

'I thought you'd forgotten about that stupid story,' she said

'I've tried to, Andrea,' I answered, 'but it keeps coming back to me.'

'Well, it had better go away from you very quickly!' she answered 'I want a

man who looks after his family, talks to his wife and plays with his daughter

I don't want someone who sits around the house all day looking into space.' And she walked out of the room

I understood that Andrea was tired and wanted me to pay more attention to

my family, and I tried to be better, but then two days later we went home I went back to work as usual on Monday 5 January

Chapter 9

The date gets closer again

At three 0' clock in the morning on 11 January I suddenly sat up in bed I listened Kati wasn't crying (in fact, she usually slept all through the night by then)

But I was cold and afraid in the dark

Suddenly, I realised what had happened I had had the dream again The street The door Me running out The man on the ground Me Meeting

myself

I felt terrible Since little Kati had entered my life, I hadn't had the bad

dreams I thought they were a thing of the past, but here they were again,

as big and black as before

I couldn't sleep, so I went into the kitchen and made myself some tea Then

I went to the bookshelf in the living room and took down last year's diary You see, I always keep a diary where I write down what happens each day Monday 18 January was when I'd had the strange meeting last year It was seven days until that date now

Then suddenly, a new idea came into my head: it was the date that was important! It all seemed so dear! It was not surprising that I'd never met myself again on all those evenings I'd waited in Felka utca! I needed to be there on 18 January Next Sunday evening And I'd had the dream again to make me remember!

I walked up and down again and again, with thoughts running quickly