This is from a set of linked stories.  The stories alternate between the narrator as a child in a small town in Hungary attending a private Roman Catholic school, and when she is living in Milan and working as a cashier in the famous cathedral. 

I was heading to get the change from the guard’s station but I carefully checked the job schedule to know where to find him, Raffaele.  That day he was working in the audio guide booth; I pictured him as he was sitting there with his beautiful profile and open, intelligent look, and I knew that the same thing would happen that had been happening whenever he was in my vicinity, my stomach kept moving up and down as if some heavy object was rising and falling inside me; I gasped for air, moved about awkwardly and couldn’t decide what to do, go up to him or not.  I decided not to approach him, only get near his booth and pass by him like someone on an important mission and not at all like someone who wanted to show herself in a dress that he hadn’t seen before, but when I got there and passed by him, he bent down for something and didn’t notice me and I had to go to pick up the change and couldn’t gauchely linger any longer.   

There must have been some panic connected with being thirty, it could be the quarter life crisis, at least some newspaper called it that, this ridiculous circumstance, that at the age of thirty I am in love with a twenty-two-year-old university student colleague in the booth.  Of course, I wasn’t in love, but I sweated and trembled when I spotted him, like in high school when I was in love with Dani, even though I wasn’t in love with him either, after all I had another love later I was faithful to, just like in Milan, I had my Italian boyfriend, my wonderful Italian boyfriend, who was to pick me up that evening, this splendid man who sent a message that he would pick me up to save me from taking the tram, because he didn’t want me to get on a tram or to walk, even though I assured him that day as well that I liked to take the tram, I liked to walk, and I liked to be by myself, then he replied that in that case he would pick me up take me to the tram station and would drive along the tram tracks and I could transfer into his car where I get off, and he would drive me home, he said, jokingly and amiably, that wonderful, funny, kind and patient Italian boyfriend of mine, because he didn’t understand that he didn’t need to pick me up, didn’t need to drive me home, he didn’t need to, he didn’t need to. 

When my mother and her girlfriend spent a few days at our place, I thought I would go crazy.  Ever since I had been living in Milan, my connection to those at home was limited to Skype calls and to the questions and replies that were familiar to the point of boredom, how I was, what I was doing, how was the job, when will I find another one, and, most importantly, how was my dear, dear, one and only, wonderful Italian boyfriend, but before I could answer, my dear, one and only, wonderful boyfriend appeared in the background and then my mother screamed, shouted his name, and almost in a trance, she summoned him to the screen.  My boyfriend obliged.  He came happily with his eyes shining so that they could greet each other filled with love, and while they were chirping there, I had the feeling that the computer, the speakers and the monitor were about to melt, then they looked at each other for a long time, my mother said something in Hungarian that my boyfriend didn’t understand so I translated it, then my boyfriend replied and I translated that, too, until they both started talking at the same time and I got up to pee and I could hear from the toilet, as my mother shouted in Hungarian and my boyfriend in Italian asking where I went, why I left them, and then I had to rush back to translate that extremely interesting conversation.  After the conversation my mother and my boyfriend exchanged emoticons through chat windows, little hearts, laughing and smiling benevolently, because my mother felt so happy.  Once I will be a mother, I, too, will understand how happy it makes a mother when someone loves her child so much, she said, and she asked me never, ever to hurt this man, this golden man who won over all my mother’s friends on her fiftieth birthday by barbecuing meat, serving it, then dancing, he was the highlight of the evening and I was the luckiest person in the world for having such a wonderful boyfriend, and my mother’s girlfriends asked if there was some older version of this man they could compete for, except that I couldn’t understand why I didn’t feel lucky, on the contrary, why this wonderful Italian boyfriend irritated me to death; what was the matter with me, what was the matter?  

I didn’t get days off and I didn’t ask for days off during my mother’s visit.  Those who don’t ask, don’t receive and I didn’t ask, although all I told my mother was that I didn’t get them, to which she told me, of course, even a mother can’t understand a child who doesn’t speak up, I should have asked for it and I would have gotten it.  

I didn’t understand why I wasn’t glad that my dear mother would visit me in Milan with her girlfriend and bring me túrórudi, and I loved that darn túrórudi, and loved my mother who brought me up, fed me, loved me, but I replied: Mother, please don’t come, I beg you, don’t come, you’re asking why, because I am not in the best of mood, my wonderful Italian boyfriend irritates me; yes it is possible because he is glued to me, because I can’t breathe because of him, and this is not attentiveness, mother, I am not being ridiculous, yes, I know that I used to love him, but that was a long time ago, and now he irritates me, his attentiveness, his caring, his devotion, once upon a time I used to love cotton candy and suckers, all right bring me some suckers, I will keep quiet, just come.  

There they were standing in front of the booth with my boyfriend, who had been dragging them to all the ice cream places, restaurants and clothing stores of this wonderful Italian city, and this made my wonderful Italian boyfriend even more wonderful, a good Samaritan, whose joy in life is to satisfy the wishes of others, he is indeed such a wonderful man.

I heard that my mother told the others, look the line is longest in front of her wicket and I saw, as she snuck over and took a picture of me and handed me the camera and asked me, in a whisper, to take a picture of them as they were standing in line in front of me, and I took a picture as they grinned while an odd looking man with his odd looking family was asking whose statue was standing at the top of the cathedral and who was the Virgin Mary, and who was Jesus Christ, and what should they know about them.  

My mother and company were waiting patiently for their turn, they got their tickets and from that point on they did exactly what everyone does except they may not have asked who the Virgin Mary was, and what she was doing on the top of the cathedral.  While still in front of my wicket, my mother opined that it was not normal to ask money to visit a church and, to make things worse, in such a demeaning way, selling tickets from such a decrepit booth, one of which could not even be found because it was hidden on the other side of the cathedral, but she also added that she was sure they would not change a system that was working, albeit in a clumsy sort of way, but was profitable.  I saw them snickering at the main entrance, but, in front of the Porta Santa in a dignified pose with their hands clutched together, and then taking pictures while standing in line to go up to the terrace or go the toilet.  In the evening they showed me these pictures while my wonderful boyfriend was transporting his cousin around in the city, because it was pouring rain, and although he didn’t feel like driving to the other end of Milan at midnight for that idiot Alessandro, as he told me at the door, he did it because he was a wonderful man who could be asked to do anything, any time, who would do everything for his family, and while he was driving around in the city, my mother was in seventh heaven because I had a boyfriend who could be asked to do anything, but I didn’t understand that if he can be asked to do anything, why can’t I ask him to leave me alone for a second and why doesn’t he do what he feels like doing.  And me, why don’t I do the same?  Why do we agree to do things we do not feel at all like doing?  If he doesn’t feel like picking up that idiot Alessandro, why does he go?  If he doesn’t want to go around taking pictures with my mother all day long, why does he grin on the photos?  If I don’t want to be part of this, what should I do?  Who directs all this, for whom do we play these roles?  Love will come to an end, but marriage is forever, but if you marry a good looking guy, he will even cheat on you, my mother said, and to that I really didn’t know what to reply, and, even a mother cannot understand a child who doesn’t speak up, especially because my boyfriend was good looking, but so was everyone else, the Pakistani selling roses around the cathedral, the soldiers guarding it, the street sweepers, the ticket controllers, everyone in the world, and it made me crazy that with the exception of my wonderful, good looking boyfriend, I found everyone attractive, and I was not the least bit concerned that love would come to an end during marriage, because it has stopped before our marriage.  

I didn’t know whom to turn to with my problem, how to help myself, whom to tell that the most decent man in the world drove me over the bend, because if I tried to talk candidly with the most decent man in the world and tell him that I found it excessive that he calls me twelve times in the period of an hour, that he wanted to pick me up every day after work so that we would drive home together, then he either laughed and said I was cute, or got hurt because, after all, he only wanted to help.  One day when I went to get the change and passed by the sacristy and I saw that the priest was in the confession booth, I contemplated entering to tell him,  padre mio, the thing is that his attentiveness and sweetness make me climb the walls, it drives me nuts that every morning when I open my eyes, I see my boyfriend looking at me and waiting for me to tell him what I wished for and that I can’t prepare my coffee in peace in the tiny kitchenette because he comes in and takes the spoon out of my hand, and I cannot drink the coffee by myself on the balcony because he comes and sits down beside me and smiles happily.  Padre mio, tell me, how can he be so happy?  If you don’t happen to know the answer, I will tell you because I asked him and his reply, this will come as a surprise, was that I was the source of his happiness, he is happy strictly because of me and for me, and these days, when he is at home and is eager to hear my wishes and doesn’t let me make my coffee, sit by myself on the balcony and think, he usually asks what we should be doing on this wonderful day and if I answer “nothing” then, father, padre, that is what we do, nothing, because we always do what I want.  Both of us.  Always.  If I cook, he cooks, too, if I go to the market, so does he, if I watch a movie, he also watches a movie, if I read, he also reads, if he is away at work and knows that it is my day off, he worries about me, wants to know when I can join him, he calls me all day to find out if I am bored without him.  I tell you, padre, I am not the least bored without him, what’s more he drives me crazy, it drives me crazy that he follows me so that I wouldn’t be alone, when I get up at night and leave the room with the exact purpose to be alone at last, padre; why don’t I want what everyone else wants, to get married, have children, do you know where he is at this moment, he is transporting my mother around in the city, eating pizza and taking pictures even though he doesn’t feel like it at all, I see his imbecilic forced smile, and he only does it to please me, then soon he will arrive in front of the booth with flowers in his hand and I, out of gratitude, want to check the schedule to find out where little Raffaele is working today and make plans to take his picture, yes, padre, when my boyfriend falls asleep or I manage to escape to the toilet, I will look at the picture, that happy radiating young face of a man who does what he feels like doing, instead of looking at the picture I took in the morning of my mother, her friend and my wonderful Italian boyfriend as they were smiling in front of my wicket.  I am a creature of God, padre, a kind sweet, good little girl who doesn’t want to hurt anyone and is only looking for happiness, I only implore you to intercede and help me that this happiness won’t be looking for me. 

Marietta Morry and Walter Burgess are Canadian and translate contemporary fiction from Hungarian.  In addition to stories by Zsófia Czakó, they have translated works by Gábor T. Szántó, Péter Moesko, Anita Harag, Anna Gáspár-Singer and András Pungor. Many of their translated stories by these authors, including five by Zsófia Czakó, have appeared in magazines in five countries, including in the New England Review, the Southern Review and Ploughshares.  Gábor Szántó’s book 1945 and Other Stories (six of its eight stories translated by them) was published in August 2024.  (Headshot credit: Péter Moesko)