(Mississippi, USA/Hungary)... The tourist brochures state that Robert Johnson, the King of the Delta Blues Guitarists, is “buried” in two places. After driving several kilometres west of Greenwood, Mississippi, I reached a small road that passes through the tiny town of Itta Bena. Long lines of fields ploughed in parallel lines permit the imagination to picture gangly, stooped cotton pickers; after another eight kilometres the road crosses a flat concrete bridge spanning an algae-covered pond full of snapping turtles.
A dirt track to the right leads to the Payne Baptist Chapel, behind which is a large patch of grass with 30 or so graves. After some searching, a flat tombstone marking Robert Johnson's final resting place was found beneath wind-blown straw. A simple epitaph reads: “Resting in the Blues.” Deserted, remote, poor, magical — some adjectives that could well describe Quito, Mississippi, a hamlet so small that on most maps it is not marked.
On the other side of the bridge is a run-down shack, and from this a motley family emerged, the young children wearing nothing from the waist down. This shack was formerly the Three Forks general store, where a jealous husband poisoned Johnson for supposedly cheating with his wife. That was in August 1938, when Johnson was 27 years old. Since that murderous day, the store has been physically moved to the main road — such as it is, dust and all, some three kilometres from its original spot. The original store sign is now in the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, 150 kilometres to the north, which also changed location some five years ago.
There is some dispute amongst Blues historians as to whether Quito or the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Morgan City, five kilometres farther south on the same road, is the actual burial site of Robert Johnson. This church, though in better condition than the chapel, is equally remote. Commissioned by Robert Johnson's record company — which, with other labels, must have made millions of dollars from the record sales of numerous Blues legends, without, in most cases, paying their estates much in the way of recompense — the memorial lists his complete discography, which was recorded in only three sessions. Romantics will prefer Robert Johnson buried at Quito, I feel, but both sites give a fair impression of his resting at the edge of the world. I was listening to Robert Johnson as I travelled through Hungary two years ago.
I had no Hungarian music with me, save for an album by Musikas, featuring the voice of Marta Sebestyen, performing interpretations of Béla Bartók compositions. I'd played that one several times, so I went back to Johnson as I drove along the Danube Bend, where a certain something reminded me of the Mississippi. Communities along these two great rivers almost appear as though they do not fully exist. The rivers dominate, the villages and towns beg permission daily to be there. The castle at Visegrád overlooks a broad sweep of the river, but more than that I enjoyed the huge forests behind that dwarfed this imposing edifice. Built in the 13th century, the castle reached its height during the reign of Hungary's King Matthias Corvinus, and a pleasant museum — the papier-mâché peasants were very tacky — exists in its central tower. For a hundred years in the 15th and 16th centuries, the castle was in Turkish hands, but I think I would have preferred my luck with them, rather than the spa attendants I met at the nearby Hotel Silvanus.
It is interesting to note that Visegrád lent its name to a political movement set up to foster improved relationships between Central European countries. Formed in 1991, the Visegrád Group involved the leaders of Hungary, József Antall; the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, and of Poland, Lech Walesa. The ceremony marking this friendship was conducted at the castle and mirrored a similar pact held in 1335 that was attended by Antall, Václav and Walesa's predecessors, Charles Robert, King of Hungary; John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, and Casimir III, King of Poland.