"Alma" Means Apple

One story of Otto began in the kitchen of a groundfloor apartment in the Kazakh city, Almaty, formerly called Alma-Ata. During a previous trip to Almaty I learned that in Kazakh "alma" means "apple." Years later, standing in the kitchen of a house in Hungary, I noticed the word "alma" on a box of apple juice and remarked that in Kazakh "alma" means apple. Someone responded it means apple in Hungarian, too. My first impression, the one that preceeds an actual thought, was wonder at the coincidence. When I eventually realized that the word must have traveled, or spread like bands of wild horses, I broke into a long, satisfying smile. The story that began in that kitchen was called "My Hungarian Brother." Otto was then the Hungarian. As far as I remember, I stopped working on the story the moment it dawned on me, like a bone-chilling mist, that actually I was my Hungarian brother. But I was not Otto.