Power

As I look out of the window, the evening is very dark. It is true that the clocks went back a few days ago, exacerbating the feelings of gloom – an event which thirty years ago, took place on the last weekend of September, and not October as it does now. But this is not the reason for the uncustomary blackness. It is that, yet again, the street lights are out along the entire length of the road on which we live. The traffic lights flash amber – giving, perhaps, a shred of hope for the poor souls left to attempt to traverse the road on the zebra. However, all else is blackness.

These occurrences in Budapest are far from rare. What is more, their duration can be days or weeks – especially in the case of traffic lights. I spent five consecutive mornings offering up prayers and sacrifices to the deities as I attempted to manoeuvre my way round a Hősök tere devoid of traffic lights. And when I still used to cross Moszkva tér by public transport I was frankly amazed at the number of instances of traffic-light failure at what must be one of the busiest and most complex road and transport intersections in the city.

In our modern homes full of electrical gadgetry, the frequent short power cuts - which would earlier have passed by unnoticed - are now witnessed by the flickering of time displays on DVD players, cookers and electric clock radios. Even stranger is the phenomenon totally unknown to me before coming to live in Hungary, of clocks gaining time!

One event, however, stands out from the rest. In 1985, Paul and I went to a performance of Puccini’s Tosca in the Erkel Szinház. Somewhere into the second act, the whole theatre was plunged into total darkness. A few gasps in the audience, and some subdued mutterings on stage were accompanied by the valiant resilience of the undaunted orchestral players, who devoid of both light and a conductor, continued to play. Rather as in Haydn’s Farewell Symphony (where the players depart the stage one by one, until only two violinists remain) the musicians ceased their unequal struggle, raggedly, in the middle of bars, until even the lead violinist was forced to surrender. Silence ensued. Footsteps then echoed off stage, and a man appeared holding a torch in front of his face – somewhat akin to a Hallowe’en Trick or Treater. He assured us that within fifteen minutes there would again be light, and so there was. Act II was resumed from the beginning, and Tosca was none the worse for its unscheduled interruption.
Maybe the urgency accorded to the resumption of an operatic performance outweighs the safety of motorists and pedestrians of the city’s unlit and un-traffic-lighted streets.….