Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  Please don’t go on with these unbecoming statements, I beg you, my dove, said the prematurely gray Kovách, interrupting, wanting to pacify. András fears him more than he fears war.

  What you call competition is really only preparedness, desperate preparation, the third man continued more loudly, to override the other’s voice. He wouldn’t let interruptions stop him. You can’t possibly draw any far-reaching conclusions from that terribly boring, totally uninteresting paper. And in case you have, please then tell me what is the difference between my beloved father and you.

  None. None, he shouted, excited by his own thought. Neither of you can let go of your social utopia.

  I’d really like to know what you’re talking about.

  What he is trying to grab from the right, you grab from the left.

  Are you done, André Rott asked. The strength and edge of his voice were not part of their friendship.

  No, I’m not done yet, came Lippay’s quick, dry answer.

  But his unusually sharp tones alarmed all three of them and something upset their customary cheeriness; they became hesitant.

  Rott and Kovách often argued; they felt almost duty bound to go at each other; it would have been hard to imagine a reconciliation in their ways of thinking. Professor Lehr’s son, on the other hand, very rarely voiced an opinion about abstract political subjects. He’d rather listen and wait; sometimes, as an impartial moderator, he summarized aloud what had been said, thereby reducing the increased friction between the debating sides. Now he surprised them with his bitter combativeness. They sensed big trouble again if he resented their well-intentioned prank and could not forgive them for it. By criticizing the strictly confidential paper, Rott had probably gone too far in railing against the powerful, generally hated professor. He provoked something in the third man that he himself did not want to hear. The dying professor’s name was listed among the authors of the confidential document. Of course, he had gone as far as he did in his critique and taken the risks he had because on many previous occasions they had all slated the professor. Ágost Lippay lived under the same roof with him, but he left out the German part of his double family name in order to reduce the chances of being identified with Professor Lehr, whom oddly enough, despite his having Hungarianized his name in his youth, everyone referred to by his German name.

  Don’t be angry with him, little Ágo said, breaking the uneasy silence. Kovách, whose real name no one knew except his present company, said, this is what’s on Prince Andrei’s mind, this is his leftist leaning. His prick hangs to the left. Even his balls dangle well to the left, you can see for yourself.

  It’s not realistic to hold forth on great-power competition, Lippay continued in the same dry tone, as if he hadn’t heard Hans von Wolkenstein’s appeasing banter. The more realistic question is whether there’ll be any difference between the front and the home front and, if there won’t be, how supplies and reinforcements might be assured. If in the new kind of warfare everything is part of the battlefield, a no less vital question would be what sort of bunkers should be built for the civilian population, and where, how large and to be used for how long, for god’s sake. No government can build bunkers big enough. I don’t give it more than three weeks before they’ll announce the acceleration of work on the subway system.

  Is that so, responded Rott in his cabin, calmly and quietly. His reputation was inviolable; the other man knew less than he did and did not grasp his intentions; moreover, Lippay’s words indicated that in his desperation he’d probably given up. But at least he had done nothing irreparably stupid. As if to wipe his ears, Rott lifted the towel to cover his body because his bashfulness returned. You’re afraid of a nuclear war, eh kid, he added pensively; now he was thinking of something entirely different.

  For many long moments, they had been looking only into each other’s eyes and nowhere else; compared to this, nothing else had any meaning, neither what they were saying nor what they kept to themselves. They could not let go of each other. André Rott’s pitch-black wet hair fell on his forehead, he knitted his thick eyebrows almost distrustfully, and his dark eyes, adorned with lively long and curvy eyelashes with which he managed to convince and enthrall so many people, did not let go of Lippay’s always shining yet piercing countenance, radiating either wounded pride or rebuke, a look that usually frightened off the very people he hoped to win over to his cause.

  I have nothing to be afraid of, he answered quietly. I don’t even want to wait for the big experience. But even if I were afraid, that wouldn’t be such a big crime. You wouldn’t have to censure me for it. Anyway, it’s dangerous, I’d call it a professional mistake, to keep harboring a fear we don’t dare admit even to ourselves.

  Now they all grew gloomy and heavy, despite their efforts to be cheery.

  That’s what I think, András.

  Not a rare occurrence in men’s conversation. Once the obligatory ease is gone, when they have nothing to flaunt in front of one another, a mutual embarrassment arises, and if no one knows how to deal with it, conversation about more serious topics simply runs aground. Ágost justifiably felt that André was rebuking him, and he did the same in return. Peu à peu he understood what the other one was saying. He should not be surprised if he no longer wanted to protect him. No surprise if other people also feared his fickleness; the moment was not far off when in some official place they might ask whether this behavior hadn’t started to stink or even burn.

  Had he not swum to the other shore.

  During the last few weeks, Ágost had indeed played with the unavoidable thought that he should swim across, and that is why he felt André’s glance piercing his heart.

  But exposed to the rebuking glance of his friend and subordinate, André Rott should have felt that his views not only supported but actually prepared the annihilation threatening humankind.

  Or that he was the one who had initiated the investigation of Ágost, of which Ágost was certainly aware.

  What he really wanted to let his friend know was that the investigative process had already been put into motion; it was time to lie low.

  They should have made a decision about something they had debated artfully every day for years but could never resolve. The pangs of conscience provoked by rebuking glances were linked not to what they said or did not say, but to something they wouldn’t have dared communicate even with secret signals: it had to do with the essence of their profession, with the question of whether there was, would be, or might be any palpable meaning and explanation for everything they had done with their lives until now. If they had been mistaken, after all, and there was nothing in the future to justify the necessary and accidental crimes of the past, then à quoi bon vivre, was it worth their while to stay alive, or, alternatively, what should they do with what was left of their lives. After all, being a socialist or a Communist in Geneva or London, and happy that the dictatorship of the proletariat had finally been established in distant lands, was very different from returning, with the same frame of mind and awareness, to a Budapest where the world had been shut off for good like a dripping faucet.

  Still, Kovách thought these two were good boys, though they didn’t really understand anything.

  They chatted on, discussing abstract questions, most of which he himself didn’t understand.

  The practical question he kept asking himself was whether they would be left alive; whether the managers of the firm hadn’t been trying to figure out a way to get to them, and how long that would take.

  The long shadow of obligatory and inviolable silence, which they had been able to avoid only at exceptional moments, still tarried in their midst.

  Ágost was struggling with his recurrent attacks of melancholy, for which neither he nor his friends had any balm. The danger was not imaginary but real. It had become his determined, cherished, and probably unalterable intention to kill himself; this was not a secret because once before they had collectively yanked him back to life.

  It h
ad happened about two years ago and since then their conversations had come to resemble a hopeless hurdle race. They should have somehow risen above the memory of that brutal experience, but because they could not, each of them heard, at different times, a false ring in Ágost’s sentences. Something had opened up and, precisely because it had brought them closer, could not be closed again. At the same time, all three of them knew that in case of an investigation it would be impossible not to acknowledge the matter and also, since so much time had elapsed, it would also be impossible to do so. At this point, embarrassing for all of them, André Rott usually grew weak and, to keep tears of helpless fury from erupting or, worse, to keep from pouncing on the other man with frustrated and insane hysterics, he felt compelled to defend himself frantically.

  And at just such a juncture, Hansi usually ran out of his charged jests about parts of the lower body.

  But André admitted his friend’s anguish of unknown origin as he stood in front of him, and he did it in a way that made it painful to himself.

  He preferred to make amends. Even though in the depths of his soul he reproached and accused his friend, he also hated him. He had to hate him for weakening him with his attacks of melancholy. The other two had been waiting for the investigation that always preceded harsher measures, but André knew that the investigation of Lippay was already under way. And that at a certain stage they would haul Lippay over the coals. He envied Lippay, was even jealous of him; why hadn’t they started the investigations with him; he’d either choose friendship and lie, or stick to his convictions and profession and therefore betray his friend; and he would, too. But that would also mean betraying himself. He had a third choice: to inform on his friend, to accuse him gravely and baselessly. He could not even lower his eyes. Perhaps he was too craven; perhaps his ethical-religious upbringing was still more powerful than his principles. He did not dare commit such a betrayal, though he knew from experience that the greater the betrayal, the greater its success, which would greatly increase his pleasure.

  But he could not decide what would give him greater pleasure, because he loved him.

  Come on, you’re talking nonsense, he said very quietly, disconcertedly, as, driven by the instinct to flee, he took a step backward and with a swift movement of his foot kicked his cabin door shut before their noses.

  At the very same instant Hansi’s head rose, as if hesitating whether to abandon his comfortable position on Ágost’s smooth and hairless thigh. Unlike André, he always knew what to do with Lippay. He well understood that one could suffer from something that could not be named accurately and even physicians called depression for lack of a better label. André did not understand this, became angry because of it, considered it all nothing but feminine fancy. Not only did he brush it aside, he was unaware of his own true condition and, as a result, in the well-developed man’s body there remained the little boy. Kovách couldn’t have described or explained it, but he saw its depth; the bottomless pit was there, gaping inside him as well, though for quite some time he wouldn’t acknowledge that what he saw was nothingness itself.

  Void.

  One senses that at this place one should see or feel something.

  He must tear himself away from his pleasurable selfishness. These were not things of great consequence, only a patch of raw warmth of skin, or another body’s fine vaporous fragrance.

  He sat up.

  Kovách exuded rough goodness, and somehow it was also his nature greedily to collect all bodily pleasures, to hoard them senselessly, as if one could store enough warmth of female and male bodies or scents of male and female pubic hair and stockpile them for leaner times.

  Really, what nonsense, he mumbled, just to say something, using the darkly warm overtones of his voice to calm the other man, and with his meaty hand he ruffled the chestnut-brown tuft of hair that had fallen on Ágost’s forehead, and in his next move grabbed him by the hair and started doing all sorts of things to him. He enjoyed this jostling, squeezing, and ruffling perhaps more than Ágost did. He shook him gently; for a moment, with an arm around his neck, he drew him to himself and shoved him under the armpit.

  As he sat up, it could be seen what a robust well-built man he was, though Ágost wasn’t small either. He shoved Ágost away but kept muttering and grunting, come on, come on, my dear, my little pigeon, why go on like this.

  Prince Andrei, our own Andryosha, is indeed a wild blockhead, but you’re talking impossible drivel.

  There was so much mutual affection between these two men, looking for a legal outlet, that no matter how they kept measuring it out, slowly and leisurely, alternately withholding it and letting it out in small doses, they each feared it might burst and drown the other one. Ágost did not reciprocate, never gave anything in return, but at least he did not resist; he endured the onslaught of the other man’s affections and the rudeness that stemmed from them. André, however, was beset by shame the moment his cabin door closed; he was ashamed of his urge to escape. And he had to be on guard against his ambition for control; he could not risk his friends’ turning against him again.

  Without them he could easily remain alone and become the loneliest being on earth. A kicked-in door, no more, was enough for him to feel the weight of such a possibility, a careless move of his foot.

  André did not bear solitude easily, though of the three he was the least aware of this or, rather, his awareness of it was always in direct proportion to the increase in his daily consumption of whiskey, which was both expensive and hard to obtain. He had to go to sleep somehow. At this rate, though, he would become an alcoholic before his next assignment.

  He tried to keep down the daily dose.

  I really am a wild blockhead, he thought, and allowed himself only as much time for reflection as it took to slap his wet towel down on the bench in his cabin and slip into his bathrobe.

  He felt a little cold.

  Despite the unexpected turn to the dark side, the scene in the corridor had had its humorous touches. For one thing, the new cabin attendant’s mouth had been wide open with wonder for a long time. He had understood nothing. A silent witness, he sat only a few steps away from the three men and honestly did not know what to make of their nonsense. Back in the Gellért he would have known, of course, he would have taken the thick red hose and let them have it with an ice-cold jet of water, gentlemen, please move along, sorry but he must now hose down this bench. And he would let go a spurt at their feet or asses.

  Here he couldn’t do it.

  He jumped up from his table and, without knowing why or where to, ran out of his booth. Even if he had known that these men not only could get away with pawing one another in public and talking as they did, but in Budapest’s best circles were considered enviable, dreaded lady-killers, he still could not have understood what was waiting for him in adult life.

  The three men were thought of as merry, happy-go-lucky, amusing fellows whom people should not take too seriously and who did their best to live up to their reputations.

  Their games were very entertaining.

  It was to their advantage that around this time the dominant tones of the city were given not by strong personalities but rather by friendly societies, clans, tribes, associations, and secret professional alliances, all of them blessed with leaders of dubious character and, for that reason, bent on cultivating and strengthening their common reputations. As if there was not a single significant and independent personality left in the city, as if everyone had lost the last vestige of former prestige and had no more use for self-esteem. People lost their reputations because of petty betrayals, or they were bought very cheaply and used as servants. Still, life went on because what people lost in personal authority or dignity they cleverly cobbled together in a smaller circle or society they assumed to be private and safe, and which they joined to fit their interests and where, according to the momentary requirements of self-esteem, they could flatter one another a little. The inner tension of each group was great and that
helped give it strength, at times sufficient not only for defense but also for offense or even for a bloody showdown with other groups.

  The three men’s enviable and despised light-mindedness, their foreignness and outsider position, was their trademark. They were lounge lizards. This sobriquet gave them status, while their strength and rigor provided protection. Ágost’s own mother did not know or understand him well enough to explain his nerve-racking indifference to her. She disparaged him and constantly disapproved of him; weekly she tried to cast him out of her heart, hoping to make it less painful to acknowledge what had become of her son. Even though she really didn’t know what he had become. A ne’er-do-well, a nobody, a parasite. At the same time, she secretly consoled her anxious maternal heart that, on the principle of birds of a feather, at least those other similarly overgrown good-for-nothings took her son seriously. When they showed up in her apartment with their awful women, it was as if a benevolent wind were sweeping through the large rooms; when they disappeared again, Mrs. Lehr, née Erna Demén, against her better judgment, saw all her well-tended furniture as dead, her life as a desert, her miserable ambitions as meaningless.

  What am I talking about, why am I grumbling so much against him, I haven’t been able to succeed in anything either, she kept telling herself. At best, I keep up the illusion of a meaningful life, but not its meaning, and I know the price I’m paying.

  Why should my son live a life like this.

  Except for the men themselves, nobody knew the richer, more refined, or more tragic and noble sides of their conspicuous traits.

  At the next moment, when the irritated cabin attendant looked back from the far end of the corridor, the graying man was grabbing and hugging his apathetic friend huddling on the bench, and the other man was crouching in front of him, his bathrobe barely held closed in the front. They made no movements that didn’t upset the cabin boy. He really must scatter them somehow. Now with both hands André grabbed Ágost’s spread knees as if they were two strange objects and in desperate anger slammed them together, and when the two kneecaps clapped together hard, probably causing pain, he kept shouting in a choked, threatening voice.