Shooting the Tiger in the Mouth
“When I’d barely turned twenty and won a scholarship at the University of Nice – no, I didn’t win it in a game of chance called Macau, on account of which card sharps still steer clear of me – I walked into the port a number of times and saw a thing or two. A couple of times, I sat on the very steps to the Palais Royal, where I met people of all sorts. I roamed the halls of Lafayette, where I had the good fortune to make all kinds of acquaintances. I concluded that no international spa can base its business model on people of sound mind. I opened up the novel Fourteen-Carat Car and decided to make this loud-mouthed guy from Budapest my friend for good. And the legacy that we know of is more than enough for us to turn into a hundred evenings, plays, comics and movies. What’s more, it is my duty to speak of my friend whom I never met in person and of whom the bearers of mainstream culture know so little. In other words, I look forward to getting a better idea about the answer to the following question.
Who on earth is this mysterious Jenő Rejtő?”