Lajos Parti Nagy

...

Bella Wrights makes no bones about the fact that, at first sight, she mistook them for a women's basketball team, a none-too-pretty but strong team, except that there were a fair number of handsome males as well, or how could she put it, bull-ostriches, and anyway they themselves had passed themselves off as that in response to her enquiring look.
And would I be so kind as not to shake my head, that's not the sort of thing one could make up, that a person is an ostrich, unless it was so. Anyway, this is the plume, be my guest, proof, he plucked it out in secret from the tail of one of the females, because ordinarily that sort of thing, plucking out, was right off limits for them, plus the feathers could fetch money too, quite a tidy sum at that. A domesticated ostrich was no joke, a breeding pair would cost at least twenty thousand euros-plus VAT, naturally.
Yes, indeed, they had explained everything to her, one after the other, they must have sensed in her the bond they had in common that bridges over appearances. They had the time, they were standing around sipping coke in the park in Hévíz, the younger ones were on the swings; they were waiting for the bus and for some reason that loosened their tongues. They span a yarn about their different types, the blue-necks and the red-necks, also the African blacks, to say nothing of those who were not purebreeds, so they were uniform only in outward appearance. To their eyes everybody in this here Europe looked the dead spit of Bella Wrights, at least to begin with.
No one should get away with the idea that it was easy for them to overcome the fear they generally evoked with their unfortunate size, though, for they were decidedly docile, having only a one-pound brain in their heads-exactly the same as a Hungarian hen, only it came with a body a hundred times bigger, like. So they weren't too bright when it came down to it, which was why they couldn't do much in the way of making statements to every Tom, Dick and Harry-that's what they had Joe Kasznár for, their spokesman or agent, who runs the farm to everyone's satisfaction, it was just that right now he was off looking for a driver for them.
So, you live on a farm, do you?
Right, a farm or commune. You can pay a visit, with an omelette shindig, ostrich hootenanny and video thrown in.
They had it made here, near Lake Balaton, most of them were agreed on that, the climate was to some extent like that in Kenya-they happened to be Kenyan settlers, by the way, if anyone wanted to know. Their flesh was entirely cholesterol-free. It had the colour of beef but a taste closer to that of veal, says one of the younger layers, sitting on the swing, and blushingly adds that the West has gone quite crazy for them.
Oh, but then that means you get the chop here, the simple and logical statement slips from Bella Wrights's lips in the Hévíz park.
That's right, they replied, and they weren't the least bit put out about it being raised, they just nodded that, too right, they would be getting it in the neck, much as with a pig killing, at least as far as the technology goes, with ostrich liver sausages, ostrich knackwurst, ostrich saveloys, or whatever they were called, only not trotters-oh, and not brawn either.
But there were ostrich-killing feasts, for instance, which were celebrated rain or shine.
To be frank, this new home of theirs, here in Europe, was still a tiny bit new to them, but they had heard that it was new to us too, to Hungarians. The main thing was that the native kitchen culture was the same, at least as far as cuts go, though they were basically here for breeding: as trailblazers they were not being kept for their meat, although if anything should happen to them, of course, no two ways about it, they would be turned to good account. But barring accidents they had a chance of living out their threescore years and ten, which is more than could be said of the natives hereabouts, because ostriches don't smoke, are vegetarians and teetotallers, and don't destroy themselves like humans do.
Bella, Bella, you've dreamed all this up.
No chance, honest to God, and see here, just look at this feather, the dead spit of the one on Pál Tomori's alleged battle cap in the Balaton Museum at Keszthely. It's antistatic, dancing girls and charwomen kill for them, and without them, without ostrich plumes, the Carnival in Rio wouldn't be worth a crock of sheep pellets.
Apart from which, just bear this in mind, if you please, every egg of mine will fetch one thousand two hundred US dollars, this Mrs Tomori whispers into Bella Wrights's ear, and with her being a layer, if it is not unseemly to talk about such things, over the course of forty years she would lay anything from thirty up to seventy eggs. Each one weighs over three pounds and her omelettes were the dead spit of those made from hen's eggs.
Our omelettes, an uptight male chips in, but they are all pretty disciplined, proper military even, they all carry these knapsacks with their fodder, then white trainers and a golf cap. They had come to make a coach excursion, off via Nagyvázsony to Balatonfüred, to take a look at the Tagore promenade there, then on to Badacsony, where they had also taken their turn in the chorus line with a little Kenyan Swan Lake, as they were a dance group just by the by, and this was their reward, a few days taking the thermal waters at Hévíz, along with the family.
They weren't sure if the nice lady happened to know that each rooster among them has two layers, and even so, as she could well imagine, it was necessary to keep the families separate or there would be too much having it on the side. The ostriches had picked that up here, that European expression, anyway there would be too much merry hell being caught, and if one bears in mind that an ostrich cockerel is eight feet tall and weighs over three hundred pounds, well, you can understand that two of them clashing make belling stags look like child's play by comparison.
To say nothing of the fact that brawling simply did not pay. They had roughly ten square feet of skin that could be processed, so it was not a good idea to rip that to shreds, because one of those, freshly skinned off, would fetch at least eight hundred euros. It yielded the sort of leather that leading fashion houses, the Guccis and Hermes', would turn into motorcycle jackets.

Lajos Parti Nagy
(1953), poet, writer and playwright, is one of the most influential innovators in Hungarian writing today. The short story above was published in A fagyott kutya lába (Leg of a Frozen Dog, 2006), a collection of short stories written over the last ten years and reviewed by Miklós Györffy in this issue on pp. 122-126.