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His restaurant there was called Mercur and it soon became the most popular restaurant in the city. It had a big courtyard and a garden where the guests could eat outside during summer. My grandfather told me that it happened one time – it was Hungary’s national holiday [20th August], an important holiday in Fagaras as back then it was under Austro-Hungarian rule – that the whole upper crust of Hungarian society in Fagaras came to celebrate this holiday in his restaurant, in the summer garden.
A band of musicians, gypsies, was brought in to sing the Hungarian anthem. Gypsies were very good musicians, they could play anything by ear, and of course they knew the Hungarian anthem as well. However, they weren’t extremely reliable, you couldn’t trust them not to drink too much at a party, so they were locked into two rooms: their instruments in one room, and the gypsies in the other, so that they wouldn’t get drunk before singing in front of the guests. But one of the gypsies was struck by terrible diarrhea, and desperate because there was no toilette, he rushed into the room with the instruments and relieved himself in the helicon, the big blowing brass instrument that keeps the rhythm. Of course the helicon was stopped up as a result. And when they came out to play, the poor gipsy who blew the helicon couldn’t make one sound come out of it. My grandfather told me that the conductor was all red with anger, his eyes were bulging out of his head, and he was waving his fists at the poor gipsy with the helicon who couldn’t keep the rhythm. So the gipsy blew as hard as he could, and blew the excrements on all the guests sitting in the first row! The scandal was terrible, terrible! Nobody knew who was responsible for that, except the gipsy of course who had used the helicon as a toilette, but he kept his mouth shut.
My grandfather found out later who it had been, but he said nothing. He didn’t have problems with the authorities, although the restaurant was his, because nothing against him could be proven. Moreover, Mano bacsi [Uncle Mano], as my grandfather was called, was a very witty, light-hearted man, and everybody in Fagaras loved him. Only after World War I, when Transylvania was returned to Romania [after the Trianon Peace Treaty] [2], did the guilty gipsy come out and said that it had been him, and he became a small-town hero for a while because he was responsible for that incident and most of the people in Fagaras didn’t sympathize with the Hungarians!
A band of musicians, gypsies, was brought in to sing the Hungarian anthem. Gypsies were very good musicians, they could play anything by ear, and of course they knew the Hungarian anthem as well. However, they weren’t extremely reliable, you couldn’t trust them not to drink too much at a party, so they were locked into two rooms: their instruments in one room, and the gypsies in the other, so that they wouldn’t get drunk before singing in front of the guests. But one of the gypsies was struck by terrible diarrhea, and desperate because there was no toilette, he rushed into the room with the instruments and relieved himself in the helicon, the big blowing brass instrument that keeps the rhythm. Of course the helicon was stopped up as a result. And when they came out to play, the poor gipsy who blew the helicon couldn’t make one sound come out of it. My grandfather told me that the conductor was all red with anger, his eyes were bulging out of his head, and he was waving his fists at the poor gipsy with the helicon who couldn’t keep the rhythm. So the gipsy blew as hard as he could, and blew the excrements on all the guests sitting in the first row! The scandal was terrible, terrible! Nobody knew who was responsible for that, except the gipsy of course who had used the helicon as a toilette, but he kept his mouth shut.
My grandfather found out later who it had been, but he said nothing. He didn’t have problems with the authorities, although the restaurant was his, because nothing against him could be proven. Moreover, Mano bacsi [Uncle Mano], as my grandfather was called, was a very witty, light-hearted man, and everybody in Fagaras loved him. Only after World War I, when Transylvania was returned to Romania [after the Trianon Peace Treaty] [2], did the guilty gipsy come out and said that it had been him, and he became a small-town hero for a while because he was responsible for that incident and most of the people in Fagaras didn’t sympathize with the Hungarians!
Period
Location
Fagaras
Romania
Interview
Stefan Guth