Bíborka

Bíbor is the color magenta in Hungarian. Bíborka is a Hungarian feminine name. This is a romantic story about queerness and gender identity inspired by the name and color.

I’ve known Bíborka since I was six years old. When I first fell on the playground, she was there to laugh at me. When I first stuck my toes in the sand, she was there at the beach with me. When I failed my first exam, she was there to console me.

She’s all I’ve ever known, really. And now we’re sitting side by side on this bench, like it’s the first time that she’s there with me.

“Hand.” She says.

I lift my right hand and she gently takes it.

“Eyes.” She says, and snaps her finger in the air. I close them.

I feel a soft small object in my palm, and look down at it.

“A bracelet.”

I examine it. It has a nice blue color to it.

“It’s the color bíbor. So it can remind you of me." She smiles at me.

“It’s blue.” I laughed a little. “But it’s really pretty.”

“You must be colorblind then.”

She never gave me gifts. It was below her. Rather, she would help me with my homework, with groceries or by giving biking lessons every Sunday. ‘This means a lot to me, thank you’ I want to say, but words just never really worked for me. Instead, I share a look with her. Her smile is soft, and her cheeks are a shade of red. She must be proud of this gift.

She was going to leave at the start of the school year. We’re both carrying the pain of the upcoming separation, but never say a word to each other about it. It will be the first time ever that we wouldn’t be suffering together in this town, with these people. She was given an opportunity to study in a bigger city, five hours from home.

She was always smarter than me in school. Sometimes I hated her for it. She did homework with ease, and would spend her time watching a lot of TV. When I was little, and wasn’t allowed to watch TV on weekdays, she would catch me up on my favorite shows.

“I like it. I might wear it sometimes.” I say.

She pats me on the back and turns her head to look at the river.

The Tisza never ceases to fascinate me. The water just sways and sways until I get dizzy and can’t keep looking at it anymore. That is when I turn to the sky and bask in the shower of sunshine. We are having an extraordinary day. For a moment, I think no day could ever be this fine.

This summer is the emptiest we’ve ever had. She comes over and we play video games or stare at each other’s face for long minutes without doing anything. She says it’s so she doesn’t forget my face.

Sometimes I read my books loud enough so she can hear them while doing yoga in my room. When she does a funny pose, I look and smile, and she throws a pillow in my face.

“Keep reading!” She says, so I laugh and continue.

On a rainy day my mom and I make a chocolate cake, and I bike to her house with a box in my basket. The fog after the rain doesn’t bother me. It reminds me of the bathroom after a fresh shower. She is ecstatic to see me, and we spend the evening eating the cake slices in her room, while examining her figurine collection. Some of them are Barbie dolls, but I just smile and compliment them anyway.

And when the fog goes away, she drags me out into their garden to play football. She always enjoys this more than me, so we never play for longer than half an hour at a time. She scores goals easily, and her little brother gets excited to play too, so it’s me and him against her. Then, I think I have an advantage, but she still wins and it turns into an argument with her young brother. And soon, I have to go home, because her parents scold her for the game.

“You have to take care of that bracelet.” She tells me on one of our trips to the library.

Teenagers don’t really come around here. It’s quiet and peaceful, which is why we like it so much.

“I will. I’m going to wash it with soap every day.” I joke and she laughs.

“So it will keep its beautiful bíbor color?” She peeks at me through a hole created between two books on the shelf.

I put the book I’ve been examining back to its place, and go around the bookshelf to approach her.

“Your jokes are getting old, you know.” I tell her.

“I really think you should see a doctor about it.” She responds. “You know, color blindness.”

“You should see one about your terrible humor.”

When my parents worked a long night, we would help out. We started this tradition last year, and Bíbor was always eager to work with me. Tonight, the 20th of August, the pub is filled with people leaving Tisza's beach after a long day of concerts and celebration, so there’s a lot to do.

“I can imagine myself doing this every day for the rest of my life.” She says. We are in the kitchen, washing dishes.

“How so?” I’m sort of confused by this. “You’re really smart, you could do a lot of things. Lot less boring and monotonous things such as washing dishes.”

“No, I think that’s for you.”

“For me?”

“Yes. To do fun things, be expressive and be an artist. I’d rather just do this.”

“I’m good for nothing.” I reply, so she splashes me with water. “Ow!”

She smiles and for a bit we just keep washing the glasses and plates. The loud noise of singing and talking leaks into the kitchen from the bar.

“How about this: I do the work, and you do the art? And you just be yourself, and do what you love, and I will be there for you?”

I do not like that. I always thought she was the amazing one, and I would just be there. So I don’t say anything. She keeps staring at me, and continues.

“We would run away, the two of us. I would drive a van and you would wear the dress and braid your hair every day? And we would be free, and maybe we could even - “

A loud smash and clattering of glass interrupts her. A dish slipped from my hand, as she was speaking. I can’t look at her.

“I can’t, Bíbor.”

When she leaves, I feel empty inside. I want to cry. Instead, I braid my hair and sit in a tub of hot water for an hour or two.

I never really cared for what my hair looked like. She liked when I let it grow, so I decided to do exactly that. She taught me how to braid hers, so I could braid mine. It was sort of a ritual between us. She would complain about boys, and I would braid her hair or she would mine. After a while, I think she became jealous that my blonde hair was longer than her brown curls.

“Long hair just isn’t for boys.” She told me sometimes, but would never mean it. “No, don’t get rid of it.” She would protest. So I sort of grew to like it.

The first day of school without her feels lonely. I look to my right and do not see her sitting next to me.

Usually, when I did that, she would be scribbling in her notebook. She could still pay attention while doing so, which I never understood how. She wasn’t much of an artist though, which is why she was jealous of me when I would draw sketches in front of her. These sketches would include Bíborka sitting at her desk reading, Bíborka riding her blue sports bicycle, or Bíborka sitting quietly, gazing out the window, with melancholy eyes. Pictures, I found, spoke clearer sentences than words could.

She probably wouldn’t agree with me on that. She loved talking. Sometimes way too much for some people. But I never minded, and wouldn’t mind especially now, walking the lonely street by myself.

On the way home from school, there is no sidewalk - only the road, the old houses, some of which have been abandoned decades ago, and some beautiful wild bushes growing at the side of the road.

So the next day I go to see the school nurse. And I ask for one of those books with the pictures and numbers in it. I find out that it’s deuteranopia. A color blindness where you can’t see the color red.

I will never be able to see Bíbor. And then I never did.