I suppose it’s unlikely I’ll ever see him again. There was an air of dignity around him, sitting as he did each afternoon along Stefania Street back to the sun, almost always with a book in his hand. As I passed him on my daily bike ride home from school, his stare was inevitably downward, toward his book, or lost in thought. Going by, I’ve come to call out “Istvan,” — no doubt an interruption, and he looks up and offers something of a smile.

For months I had hoped to head to his bench with a student in tow to help me interview him. But one thing led to another. The students I had in mind were busy preparing to graduate. My focus shifted to my own departure from Hungary. But one day in early Spring, I stopped and using my phone’s translation app, asked him his name. “Istvan,” he responded. I smiled back, and said my name was also Istvan, “Steven” in Hungarian.

What, I wondered, was his story? Was he homeless? What were his struggles, his demons? What brought him to this bench on this street?

I’ve come to accept that these questions will go unanswered. And why not? As my time in Budapest drew to a close, I realized Istvan was a metaphor for my relationship with this place — the unasked and unanswered questions, the insights that resided just around the next corner, the cultural explanations that only make sense when one fully commits to a place over time. Istvan, it seems, is the Hungary I will never come to know.