Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  I’m going to fuck it up; I’ll make a mess of things again.

  She sensed, of course, that she should have returned the touch, she should have squeezed Lady Erna’s gloved hand in return.

  Now she could no longer reach for it.

  That meant something irreparable.

  She was barely nineteen when on a winter morning she stepped out from the gate of the kindergarten teachers’ college in Szeged. A small suitcase in one hand, in the other a cardboard box tied with string. She started out on the wet street in the hazy December cold. In her coat pocket she had a slip of paper with an address where she could stay for a few nights. Ever since then, she had had to find a roof for every single night. This was not a figure of speech; it happened many times that she returned to her lodging only to find, in front of an office door or in a filthy stairwell, her hastily packed and discarded belongings, and she was out on the street again. Then there was only the streetcar, train, or train station, until the police chased her away. She had lived in workers’ hostels, abandoned farms; for months she slept on a folding cot in the locker room of a gym, and sometimes, for a single night or a few weeks, she would find shelter in the beds of pitiful, questionable, or revolting characters, about whom no one would ever know. In those places, her head held high, she had to let her hosts ejaculate into her body. She had been a night lodger, sleeping in beds rented by others for a day; when she had it a little better she became a real subtenant, first in Kecskemét and later in Budapest. From there, however, she had no place to go. Singing lessons were expensive. And her decision to marry a rich fellow made no difference. Either no sugar daddy presented himself or the men she managed to snare did not want to marry her.

  One man would have been ready to marry her anytime but she did not want to; she was disgusted by him even though he worshipped her.

  Slowly she outgrew the marriageable age.

  As soon as she got to know someone new, the familiar dread returned, and no matter whom she went to bed with, in what fashion, she felt she had an intestinal obstruction and should spend the trysts farting rather than making love. And whenever she broke up with someone, the destructive excitement went away.

  As if she had to wander down a wide, hopelessly dusty highway without end or beginning. But every cell in her body, her every hair remembered the paradisiacal state that she had left behind and to which, due entirely to her own clumsiness, she could not return. Still, secret little footpaths might cross the long wide highway even now.

  This promised a greater experience than if she had found her mother.

  When she had thoughts like these, there often appeared to her the image of that woman, now forever ten years her junior, who probably always traveled on this highway of despair.

  Now, however, she felt something that might be called an acquittal and it was close to happiness.

  She thought she should say thank you, she was happy.

  Oh, my, suddenly I am so happy. And if ephemera hadn’t entered her mind, she would have let those words spill out. But luckily she could not say them out loud because her enormous bitterness, the thin-aired plateau of her dissatisfaction, and her own grave self-rebukes filled her with ephemera. Suddenly she didn’t know how to address Ágost’s mother. Actually she had never known, and therefore avoided doing so. Hard as it was to accept that Lady Erna unceremoniously addressed her in the familiar form, there was nothing she could do about it, and she’d never dare do the same in return. Maybe after she had been discovered as a great singer. But now she did in fact want to use the familiar form with Lady Erna; having her hand squeezed by the older woman’s gloved hand not only paralyzed her sense of reality but gave free rein to her imagination and made her uncontrollable. She felt an unhindered flow of possibility, which Ágost had never given her completely nor completely withheld. She had been living with him in a state of constant agitation. The passion so unceremoniously unleashed by the mother may have been matched in every respect by the passion that alternately flared up and died away, though not completely, in the son. Gyöngyvér had to catch at the mother. And as a second, final possibility, even her early morning dream appeared. Perhaps to protect her from hope’s exaggerations.

  The enormous, murky river with its deep current, this is the familiar river, but familiar from where.

  Unfortunately, I have a singing lesson this afternoon, she said hoarsely after a little while, which was a quite ridiculous response from the other woman’s point of view, almost insulting and coming too late. If I could get to a phone and cancel with Margit Huber, she added hastily, as if hearing her own words had brought her to her senses, I would love to go downtown too.

  She felt she had extricated herself cleverly and just as cleverly managed to avoid addressing the older woman directly in the formal or familiar form.

  But now Lady Erna would not even look at her.

  The voice was false.

  It gave away that the singing lesson was more important. Lady Erna knew only two extremes. She either engulfed the other person, all but devouring her, not letting go, hugging the other to the point of suffocation, or she kept a proper distance, observing everything coolly and scornfully, picking at every little fault one by one. Every little mistake. Every last little weakness. As if explaining to herself why this relationship was beneath her. Don’t bother yourself, my dear, she said to herself while Gyöngyvér was going on about her singing lessons, complaining of the cost if she failed to call off a lesson in time.

  It was ridiculous, it was downright painful to listen to this.

  And where is this lesson, where does this Margit Huber of yours live, she asked in the same grating high tone she had used earlier to instruct the cabbie.

  In Hajós Street, right behind the Opera.

  I see, Lady Erna replied, as if with these two words the entire matter had been settled forever.

  Just as she had not beaten about the bush with Kristóf either; if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. No betrayal fazed her, and this was a source of her strength. There was no empathy or love, nothing, there was nothing without a beginning, and in that case why shouldn’t everything have an end as well. There was perhaps one amorous exception in her life. Whenever she remembered it, she shuddered with joy and sorrow. Hatred is more persistent, unfortunately, but even that comes to an end one day. At the same time she realized that her nihilism was a strength only in the eyes of others, because at bottom she always had to choose it; that’s how it is when misanthropy is born of insult.

  If not for this weakness of hers, she might not have had heart problems. Now Gyöngyvér managed to say something that made Lady Erna turn around.

  At least I’d get to see some ready-made suits, she said pensively, and was happy that when talking about clothes she did not have to feel Ágost’s body inside hers, his face on her face. There’s no use looking for an English suit. Not only in black but in any color. Besides, the English style is too severe and not very feminine. If you ask me, it’s not worth having one made, either.

  While the taxi waited for the light to change and an almost empty trolley passed in front of them, the cabbie watched in the rearview mirror, hoping to understand what the women were talking about, in his concentration forgetting to take off when the light changed.

  But for god’s sake, exclaimed Lady Erna irritably, what makes you think I want a black English suit. I never said anything so asinine, and why would I.

  Please believe me, Gyöngyvér went on, any seamstress can come up with a nice little suit in two days. And it’s something that has many uses. You can wear it with a blouse or a thin turtleneck, which is very nice. The better the fabric, the greater one’s playing field with a suit like that.

  You may be right, Lady Erna replied, surprised.

  Why did she have to share these delicate matters with this woman. She wanted to withdraw, not let their shoulders touch.

  Yet there was something impressive and self-assured in what Gyöngyvér had said. And it was news t
o Lady Erna that the English suit was passé, démodé; she’d never heard English tailoring called overly severe. What idiocy. As if it did her any good to learn about English suits. Still, the contact of the shoulders felt good. Taking advantage, deviously, of what seemed accidental. What had been cut off between the gloved hands a moment ago now streamed through their coats and dresses. But, refusing to believe it might make her feel better about herself, she could not. And she let it happen for another reason: Gyöngyvér sat on the side of her heart, and her touch had a decidedly calming effect on the rhythm of her heartbeat.

  Her medication had largely resolved her two attacks that morning, and she had some satisfaction in having emptied her bowels properly; in the pericardial depression, however, there remained a certain amount of tension, a restlessness that had deepened with the news from the hospital and the ensuing haste.

  Very close to a fatal ventricular fibrillation.

  It seems I’ll be indisposed again, she thought suddenly and for good reason. What she felt was less than the usual forewarning of an attack but more than a mind set on self-preservation could ignore. She grimly monitored her body functions and could not arrest her rising fear. Her tension was eased somewhat by the involuntary contact with Gyöngyvér’s shoulder, though it communicated tension radiating from Gyöngyvér’s body, unhindered by any excess of weight or fat.

  Unexpected happiness radiated directly into the muscles of Lady Erna’s heart made tense by dread, and her pulse slowed, the auricles and ventricles working less convulsively. In proximity to the other woman, the cardiac tension she had been carrying around for weeks as a terrible ache of the soul was subsiding. Of course, she could not count on any lasting relief. Any feeling that originates in another human being, however pleasant, by necessity leads to new, possibly harmful stimulation. If you need me to calm you down, I’ll give you something, but you can be sure I shall take it back or make you work it off. And assaults of pain or pleasure are all the same to one’s system. It responds to both with agitation. Agitation raises the pulse rate, the pulse increases the blood pressure, pleasure and pain exact the same price. Young people hardly distinguish between the two payments: a young body takes joy in sensing the heart’s pursuit of either pleasure or danger.

  A damaged system will, however, after perfidious silence avenge emotional excess with an acute shortness of breath. Not when first stimulated to excitement but a little later, when the heart muscles can no longer meet the demands of rising blood pressure, speeding pulse, and localized hyperemia. Pressure and asphyxiation are warning signals when the shoulders or lips or loins, engorging with blood, are no longer points of stimulation, but the entire body is—from the hair on the head to the tops of the toes, when the very flesh of the heart labors under the spell of stimulation.

  It does not have the reserves to supply the system’s center and peripheries simultaneously.

  But by then it’s too late.

  Gyöngyvér, my little girl, said Lady Erna, her voice hoarse and reduced to a whisper by the sudden urge for self-preservation. She was loath to say aloud what she was about to say. It was exactly what she wanted to keep to herself. I don’t want to frighten you, but I haven’t been feeling well since early this morning, and I think I had better prepare you. If you see that I’m getting worse, my medicine is here, in my purse. If I become very weak or even faint, you should put it under my tongue.

  Yes, I know the medicine, Gyöngyvér answered dryly, as if she too wanted to move past this, wanted to get it behind her.

  Contrary to Lady Erna’s expectation, neither fear nor surprise showed on Gyöngyvér’s face. Indeed, her pretended empathy and genuine curiosity only grew.

  With the excuse of having to look for her medicine, Lady Erna turned and shifted away on the seat with a small laugh. As if to apologize for clinging to her miserable life. Which is truly laughable. Common sense told her it would be more pleasant to slip into the hereafter in a state of unconsciousness than to continue wide awake, trembling for her wretched life. And if that was how it was going to be, and it could hardly be otherwise, why bring her back with the help of medication, why couldn’t she be content to simply faint away. No matter how hard she tried to find her instinct for self-preservation ridiculous, her fear of death won out. There was another creature within her, too terrified to be amused—in the hope of overcoming fear—at being terrified. Efforts to master her fear had never been successful, yet she never gave up. Exactly the opposite happened. Laughter did not help overcome the dread, and the elemental fear, much stronger than she, deeply humiliated her and repeatedly made a mockery of her faith in common sense.

  Common sense failed to stop the symptoms; her hands shook visibly. The telltale spots caused by afflictions of the nervous system, going from flushed to pale, made their appearance, along with imperceptible dewdrops of fear gathering along the rim of her upper lip. And there was no good reason why she was unable to click open the latch of her handbag.

  Even if I confide in this woman, I can’t expect anything from her but hypocrisy. In her restrained fury, she practically tore the gloves off her hands. She didn’t regret this. She had noticed earlier that at times Gyöngyvér’s eyes were glued to her. At least her hands had not yet lost their shapeliness. The young woman had something to envy. Leaning back from the edge of her consciousness, she somehow gathered that what she was doing now had nothing to do with her heart; false alarm, a lot of hysterics, no threat of another attack. But her inner tensions, with their various origins and vectors, were raging so furiously that she genuinely feared being unable to control herself.

  Then it must be death I am so afraid of, after all. No matter how I’ve tried to deceive myself, telling myself that he’s been dead to me for so long that no matter what happens the actual death won’t be a shock.

  She finally managed to undo the clasp with her trembling fingers. She glanced up to assess their progress. She did not want to be shocked. She saw they were still far from their destination. God, help me have him sign it. We’re only on the ramp to the Margit Bridge. She did not understand herself. Why is her body producing such absurd hysteria in front of this young woman, and also because of her. What need does she have of anyone’s empathy, why make a stranger feel sorry for her. She couldn’t say.

  And she couldn’t even thrust her hand haphazardly into the bag the way she wanted to; first she had to take out the copies of the sale contract.

  I’ve been having such a migraine since early this morning, said Gyöngyvér dolefully, I’m nauseated, my head is about to explode.

  The handbag was the kind in which one could never find anything. Just let your head explode, my dear, there’s nothing in it anyway, said Lady Erna to herself; she was furious that instead of empathizing, the young woman was looking for pity. What a stupid hen you are. What a primitive soul. A decorated pouch of a handbag on a strong metal frame. Just recently very fashionable, and particularly to her liking because it reminded her of the sporranlike pouches her mother carried to soirées and balls. And now the two of them in the taxi were holding two all but identical handbags on their laps. This also annoyed her.

  Lady Erna’s purse was made of soft, dark gray calfskin, just like her shoes; Gyöngyvér’s was so-called Negro brown, a fashionable hue that also matched her shoes, but it was made of imitation leather. Which, at the time, was considered more chic than real leather. This insignificant little difference made Lady Erna feel the light-years of distance that separated them. The rage for successful imitations had shattered her image of the world. She could not conceive of owning a purse or anything else made of artificial material. The whole world, as it was, must now be considered one big forgery. Still, one should spare no effort to curb the display of falsehoods, or at least one should hide one’s own.

  For heaven’s sake, how would you know about this miserable medicine, she asked irritably when she found it at last and lifted out the antique silver etui. What problems can your heart have.

  Y
ou are young, strong.

  Silent for a moment, the young woman pressed her hands to her temples, squeezed and kneaded them, moaned and whimpered.

  Nobody can get trinitroglycerin except people with serious heart problems, though as a medication it’s not dangerous.

  Lady Erna’s hand in the meantime also found her handkerchief of snow-white, lightly starched lawn. The absentminded movement with which she put it to use was among the imperceptible supreme achievements of her upbringing. Looking deep into Gyöngyvér’s eyes—and it was these apparently incidental gestures that Gyöngyvér absorbed and internalized most eagerly—she dabbed and blotted up the pearls of perspiration under her nose without either the immaculate kerchief or her fingers touching her lips. The lipstick was not smeared and the movement was not in the least conspicuous. This was the trick of the proper use of a handkerchief. The gesture must be rapid and restrained but not fussy.

  In her other hand, she was still holding the little silver box.

  Explosive, I know, believe me, nitroglycerine. Gyöngyvér’s words tumbled out. By the way, I have what they call an athletic heart, really, it’s like steel. She felt she was making no headway with her headache. But I did have an old lady colleague with very serious heart problems. I liked her a lot and helped her often, believe me. I lived at her place for months, and while she was telling this story she blushed and her face showed signs that it might be painful for her to remember this friend.

  The little chameleon has finally betrayed herself. The pained artificial little smile, which she had built on a true headache, might have been provoked by a memory of real pain, but she had buried it under the unceasing pain she felt because of Ágost, which filled out her skin and made her face beautiful, even though her soul was filled with scab-encrusted injuries, purulent sores, and open wounds.

  While her gaze wandered elsewhere. Unblinking, with an all but shameless lack of empathy, they kept looking into each other’s eyes.