Name: Eszter Vas

Current occupation: prostitute

Formerly: student, groupie

We are meeting at an apartment, red curtains, tissues, lubricants, a mirror above the bed. Curly, chestnut hair, God, those eyes.

…

B: For sure you don’t remember, but we . . .

E: I remember. Balázs. Peterfy. You were two years younger than me. You always smiled very kindly at me.

B: Uhm . . .

E: I was always waiting for you to finally approach me, but you didn’t. You were cute. Never came to any parties, though. Sorry to hear about your parents.

B: . . .

E: You’re cute still.

B: You . . . too.

E: (laughs) This is wonderful! So good that you came to visit, I haven’t had such a great time in a while.

. . .

B: I heard that you had a friend, her name was Y.

E: Yes, I did.

B: Were you two close?

E: We had our ups and downs. We had sex a few times. We were experimenting. She dated Nazis for fun, that really impressed me. She made complete fools out of them. She was a tough girl. She wanted to write a book about her Nazi boyfriends and their sex lives. Most of them are impotent, did you know that? It was all just a prank, but I had so much fun. It’s a shame she never wrote that book.

B: What happened to her?

E: She said she had to leave. That was the last time we spoke. She was very upset, she said she had to leave, and that we would meet again someday, later. Then she was gone. I guess she went to Israel with her parents, or somewhere abroad.

B: When did this happen?

E: Three years ago, on August 27th, at 4:38 pm.

B: Do you remember it that well?

E: I remember everything. Literally everything.

. . .

B: They say she was a big fan of the band Fogtown.

E: Yes, she was.

B: Have you by chance been to any of their concerts?

E: No. I only heard them once. They were playing at a school party, without previous announcement, like usual. I’d been dying to go to one of their shows. You know, everyone whispered about them, but nobody had ever seen them. Maybe there will be a show here, someone would say, maybe there, according to somebody else. But you could never know whether they would actually go on stage. But those who went to one of their concerts were not the same afterwards.

B: What do you mean?

E: I don’t know. I can’t explain it.

B: How come you only heard them? Why didn’t you see them?

E: Because I was in a classroom. Me and a boyfriend sneaked in to have sex. He was older than me, he already had a tattoo. He almost got suspended for it. Of course, they couldn’t suspend him because he was the principal’s nephew. No, not at our school, this happened at —— High. Four bands were announced, the Fruits of Kaboom, the Ocean, the Old Spaceships, and the Intestinal Worms. They were all pretty bad. Do you know them?