What lay inside was a small smart restaurant, the Restaurant Kiss. In a small tank beside the entrance black and silver fish of various edible species gasped tragically into our faces; a few neatly dressed diners sat at pleasant tables in small booths in the room beyond. Hollo tapped the side of the tank and said, ‘Fogas, from our lakes, you must try it. But first palinka.’ A waiter in an embroidered short jacket served us. ‘To your good health and your fine hospitality,’ said Hollo, proudly displaying his red braces and blue striped shirt, ‘May there be plenty more of both. So you make a film about Criminale Bazlo. How can I help?’ ‘Well, I have to tell you I was expecting to meet a philosopher,’ I said. ‘I was that once,’ said Hollo, ‘Not any more. Don’t you know philosophy is dead? Not a thought in the world. Marxism-Leninism killed it here, Deconstruction in the West. Here we had too much theory of reality, there you had not enough. Now I do not expect to think the world into shape. I am not like Hegel, you remember. “So much worse for the world if it does not follow my principles.” No, now I am a pragmatist and I do something else.’

‘What do you do?’ I asked. ‘I just told you about the Wende, the big change,’ said Hollo, ‘You know once, in the DDR, there was a very great academy. Hundreds of professors who were such fine thinkers and theorists they did not even have to teach any students at all. They wrote great works, Marxist aesthetics, Marxist economics. Now there is no DDR, no Marxist aesthetics, no Marxist economics. So what do we do with all these fine professors? Not much, you know. They must begin all over again, like children, thinking the world right from the beginning. They cannot even teach. That was the Wende, you see. And I am a Wendehals. A changer, I am a changer.’ ‘I see,’ I said, ‘And what do you change?’ ‘The world and myself,’ said Hollo, swirling the palinka in his glass, ‘How do I explain? I fix things.’ ‘What things do you fix?’ ‘When the world changes, it seems everyone needs something,’ said Hollo, ‘Do you like a nice apartment in the Valley of Roses, a little biscuit business in Szeged? Do you like a phoneline to the West, a fax machine from Vienna? Maybe you like a tram company from Csepel, or a small share in pornography business at Lake Balaton? I can fix. And when you make your film here, and you need back-ups, transports, locations, hotel rooms, contacts, I can fix that too.’

‘That could be useful,’ I said, ‘But before that you were a teacher of philosophy at the university, yes?’ ‘At Eötvös Lorand, yes,’ said Hollo, ‘I taught Marxist theory, socialist correctness.’ ‘So what you do now is very different,’ I said. ‘A bit, but not exactly,’ said Hollo, smiling, ‘You see, Marx believed in the great historic progress of materialism. Unfortunately he did not know how to make it work. I know a little bit how to make it work.’ ‘And Bazlo Criminale, wasn’t he at the university too?’ I asked. ‘Yes and no,’ said Hollo, ‘He taught a little, but he was famous member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, so we did not see him very much.’ ‘But you knew him well?’ ‘Not exactly,’ said Hollo, ‘In those days you knew nobody well. It was wise to know people only a bit.’ ‘So you taught here at the University but then you went to Vienna?’ I asked. ‘After Marxist theory, socialist correctness, wouldn’t you?’ asked Hollo. ‘So it was that easy?’ ‘Well, it was arranged,’ said Hollo, ‘With help and a little influence such things are often arranged.’

‘And then in Vienna you became Professor Codicil’s assistant and wrote his book on Criminale?’ I asked. Hollo stopped swirling his second brandy, and looked hard at me. ‘Why do you ask these questions? Are you some kind of policeman?’ ‘No, a journalist,’ I said, ‘I’m just researching Bazlo Criminale.’ ‘Only for your film?’ ‘Just for the film,’ I said, ‘But the trouble is, the man’s so elusive. None of the facts seem correct. That’s why I need to know who wrote the book.’ Hollo looked at me and said, ‘Well, I tell you, I did not.’ ‘Does that mean Codicil wrote it himself, after all?’ That old devil, you don’t think so?’ said Hollo, ‘No, Codicil did not write it either.’ ‘So there’s someone else,’ I said, ‘Who was it? Do you know?’ The waiter brought cutlery to the table, but Hollo said something to him, and he went away again without setting it down. ‘Well, of course I know,’ he said, after the waiter had moved away, ‘And you don’t guess?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘But of course,’ said Hollo, ‘It was Criminale Bazlo.’

‘But it’s not an autobiographical book,’ I said, ‘In fact it’s very critical.’ ‘This is true, of course,’ said Hollo, ‘But still it was Bazlo.’ ‘You’re telling me he wrote a book that was deeply critical of himself?’ I asked. ‘Yes, why not?’ asked Hollo. This all seemed too difficult; I switched to something else. ‘All right, why didn’t he publish it here? Why did it have to come out in the West, in Vienna?’ ‘If you call that the West,’ said Hollo, ‘It is also Mittel-Europa.’ ‘That’s true,’ I said, ‘But why didn’t he use his own name? What made him use Codicil’s?’ ‘I see you know a few things,’ said Hollo, ‘Maybe you know a famous essay by the Frenchman Roland Barthes, called “The Death of the Author”?’ ‘Yes, I like it,’ I said, ‘The death of the author is what permits the  birth of writing. But what’s that got to do with it?’

‘You know, I would like to write a better essay, called “The Hiding Away of the Author”,’ said Hollo, lighting up another cigarette, ‘About the author who is here and not here. About the book that exists, and does not. About the reader who is present in one place and not in another. About the text that says and does not say. Do you know Lukacs?’ The great Marxist intellectual,’ I said. ‘If you say so,’ said Hollo, ‘I call him the danger artist. You know he would write a preface to one of his books in the third person, to show he was not the same Lukacs who had written it, and it was only by some curious misfortune the book had appeared at all. Here we know all about the art of the danger artist.’

A small girl appeared by the table, selling roses wrapped in Cellophane. Hollo waved her away. ‘She mistakes us for lovers,’ he said. ‘So you’re saying Criminale wanted the book to appear, but he didn’t want certain people to know it had appeared?’ ‘No,’ said Hollo, ‘Criminale didn’t want the book to appear in case it did him harm, but he wanted it to appear in case it did him good. He made it appear that he did not want it to appear. But when it appeared he made it appear that he could do nothing.’ ‘You’re beginning to lose me,’ I said, ‘Are you telling me that Criminale sat here in Budapest and wrote a book critical of himself, got you to take it to Vienna, and then Codicil allowed it to come out under his name?’ ‘Not exactly,’ said Hollo. ‘Then what?’ I asked. ‘I am telling you that a certain Criminale, at a certain time, wrote a book about another certain Criminale,’ said Hollo. ‘I see,’ I said, though I didn’t.

‘And then that book went somehow to Vienna, don’t let us discuss how,’ said Hollo, ‘He often went there himself, after all, and difficult papers and other things were crossing those frontiers all the time. Even the regime permitted it in certain cases, when it suited them. Of course in Vienna some changes were made. When times change books must change. So it became a book about another Criminale.’ ‘And you made the changes?’ I asked. ‘I think I updated things by just a little,’ said Hollo. ‘And so where did Codicil come into all this?’ I asked. ‘Oh, Codicil,’ said Hollo, ‘He was the big man, always talking to ministers and financiers, another fixer of a different kind. He went everywhere, to lodges and clubs. Vienna is full of those important people. So of course he had no time for any of it.’ ‘Yet the book came out under his name,’ I said, ‘Why was that?’ ‘Many reasons,’ said Hollo, ‘He knew Criminale, they had some links. I was his assistant. And this was the right way to get it published.’ ‘You mean he did it to help a friend?’ I asked. Hollo laughed. ‘I see you do not know Codicil,’ he said, ‘Maybe rather to hurt an enemy.’ ‘What enemy?’ I asked. ‘How do I know?’ asked Hollo vaguely, ‘This man had so many. Oh, look, wonderful, she is here!’