Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  A sober, bright morning; the baby is working on her swollen breast. Does she hope that the turgid body of the cock and the large mass of its head, taut to the point of explosion, will still reach the mouth of her womb; or that this senseless and humiliating pain will dissolve in the enormously grotesque mouth of this woman, and that her parts will never be pried open again.

  The first time they journeyed to the island of Capri was in the first year of their marriage, in the spring of 1924.

  They stayed in the Villa Filomena, in Anacapri, the quieter, less expensive side of the island. The villa, with its antique columns and decorated terraces built on the edge of cliffs, hovered about a hundred meters above the sea. That morning, they went down to the water on the narrow, ominously steep steps cut into the rocks. There was no end to them. She said not a word of complaint about the steps, though her knees were trembling, albeit not only from fear. The small boat with the men floated below them like a blown dry bay leaf fallen onto the back of the waves. She held on, moved step by step; the depths attracted her irresistibly, as though another being were breathing inside her, one she ought to fear because it was ready to fall and take her with it. A gentle breeze kept her light blue silk dress close against her skin.

  This provided enough pleasure to stifle complaints.

  Down below, the little boat rose, then dipped gracefully, and on the shady rocks the waves kept roaring and rumbling, the water foamed white.

  The woman who years later in the wintry light glimmering through the thick northerly fog watched the suckling was Geerte von Groot, daughter of the hotelier in Groningen. A peculiar creature, to whom she could not help returning in her mind because she never saw her again. Geerte was a few years older, herself a mother of two. After a few years of marriage, for reasons they would not talk about for a long time, she and her little ones moved back to her parents’ home. In a tall, narrow, Gothic house in Groningen, maybe the wallpaper changes, but otherwise everything stays the same for centuries. Geerte von Groot lived in the mansard apartment of the house adjacent to the hotel, in the same little room where she had lived as a little girl.

  A connection between the apartment house and the hotel was made by tearing down the wall between the two on the second floor.

  The baby slowly had its fill and grew tired. It stopped sucking, only kept munching on her breast, at times on empty air, though its little lips retained enough suction to not let go of the nipple completely. The small body sank into sleep, relaxed; there was a moment when it could be seen struggling against sleep. As if the approaching slumber were taking the milk away from her and she would get no more. What sleep had to offer had no taste, was unfamiliar and therefore was rejected. It would not satisfy the baby. The little face twisted in pain, the legs kicked a little. She almost cried out, then added two quick smacking sucks. All these tense efforts seemed to exhaust her completely.

  Well then, let sleep have its way. The baby’s open little mouth remained as it was, a bit of milk dripping from its corner.

  The mother used a damp rag to wipe off first the baby’s mouth and then her breast. Geerte von Groot sat opposite her on an identical hard-backed chair.

  This wasn’t a hotel room, but a veritable hall of knights with a row of tall square-grid windows that now stared into fog. Neither the bare crowns of trees in the palace garden on the other side of the small river nor, through the other row of windows, the red facades of houses on the old city’s narrow streets could be seen. The sun twinkled through the fog, wearily, with a silver sheen. In the hall, it was cool and dead silent. The fire in the fireplace barely flickered, crackling and fizzling now and then.

  Without a word Geerte took the baby from her and carried her into the adjacent bedroom.

  She should be burped.

  I’ll lay her on her stomach.

  And cover her well.

  Their words died away as if vanishing in cotton. The old floor creaked, almost cried, under Geerte’s steps, which echoed in the high-ceilinged hall under the blackened beams. She should get up. This has been nothing but a kind of extra suckle. She should have left long ago. But she didn’t have the heart because the baby cried so hard. The suckling had so loosened her body she was unable to rouse her sense of responsibility toward her own child. When Geerte returned after a few minutes, she found her in the same position. Including one breast hastily freed from her beige silk blouse: blazon of the ample body. She wore a long, close-fitting, dark, heavy silk skirt that opened into two wide inverted pleats above the knees. With her hands in her lap, she was sitting rather like an old person. Her heavy, dense chestnut hair, gathered in a chignon at the neck, had come somewhat undone.

  Geerte lowered herself on her chair, for only a minute, she thought, and scooted a bit closer; their knees almost touched. They were looking at each other, smiling imperceptibly. Their smiles softened the glances with which they grazed each other’s surfaces; they kept returning to each other’s eyes, spending more and more time, one might say lingering more and more impersonally, in them.

  I’d like to ask you something, Geerte, something rather personal.

  Go ahead, ask away, Erna, anything, replied the other woman quietly.

  If it’s too embarrassing, you don’t have to answer it, Geerte, that would be perfectly understandable.

  For a long time now, I’ve had the feeling that I have no great secrets from you, Erna. You can hardly have any questions I wouldn’t willingly answer.

  I’ve been meaning to ask you for days, how long after the second birth, or after the first one, after giving birth in general, when did you give yourself to your husband.

  Never.

  There was silence for a while.

  What this means, continued the other woman, is that never after the second birth, never again.

  Erna had not expected this quick and unequivocal reply. And she thought, no, it’s not possible that this would be the end of her life. And that happiness would last such a short time. Geerte’s answer hit her as a well-aimed coup de grâce. And gone too was the confidence she had had in Geerte. Never again, that just isn’t possible.

  She looked at the strange woman with aversion and pity. One simply cannot be done with life at the age of twenty-eight. Involuntarily the next round of their glances set off in opposite directions. They had to avoid each other. As if to obey the dictates of decency.

  But maybe it is like that, after all, only no one ever told her. It seems that it’s indeed that way, in which case there’s no point in doubting or protesting. She must accept it.

  Geerte had on a light gray-and-white-striped housedress with a high collar. She had the air of a schoolgirl who had been deliberately dressed in uninteresting clothes and who had done nothing to make herself interesting.

  Yet she was very interesting.

  She showed no penchant for joking or lightheartedness; if she says this is the way it is, then this is the way it is. She kept her legs, in their coarse cotton stockings, pressed tightly together as if she had been ordered to behave decently.

  Just as she said.

  Her statement created such a tense silence that she was the one who had to break it.

  But don’t go away like that, Erna, one shouldn’t go outside like that, she said, her voice hoarse, and she pointed to Erna’s blouse to show where the milk had soaked through.

  She had to change clothes anyway.

  As though she had shouted, stay with me for a while, my love. Take no offense, no matter what I say. Each with her own strong accent spoke a kind of schoolroom German. Erna with her open vowels, Geerte with the consonants rolling from her throat. Nevertheless, Erna’s impression now was that she had misunderstood something; perhaps the other woman had said something the wrong way in the language that was foreign to them both. As though she understood a sentence that had not been uttered, or that had been said but had a very different meaning.

  Thanks for telling me, she responded, a little embarrassed, I’ve noticed it myself. My
bras, slips, my blouses, everything is full of milk all the time, she added, laughing a little and a little irritated. She took a deep breath. But if you don’t mind, I’m still interested, could you possibly tell me why you never let him come to you again. Please don’t be angry for my asking such a thing, you probably understand I’m asking this for my own sake.

  Which sounded like an unnecessary confession.

  As if assuming Geerte hadn’t understood why she asked.

  She simply wanted to compel the other woman to continue, to speak, to tell her everything. Not to let modesty hold her back. She felt she was entering unknown territory, violating all the rules of propriety. And that was exactly what she wanted. It helped that she was speaking a foreign language; that way she could go much further than in her own. And Geerte was turning her head this way and that, as if showing her willingness to speak; after all, her openness also had its selfish side. But she was still thinking; she opened her mouth as if in the next instant she’d find the right word, but then she merely nodded to what she thought to herself.

  She was struggling.

  She did not dare or could not say it.

  Erna found so much seriousness rather comical, even though she understood the hesitation.

  She struggled stubbornly with herself; she did not want to be false or vulnerable. She lowered her heavy eyelids, her large lips trembled several times. She was thinking, weighing things; and it was beautiful how she let it be seen that she had to reach back into the past for the answer. With her thoughts, she obviously grazed herself several times—while she was thinking, contemplating, and while Erna, in pleasurable anticipation, waited for her response. On every occasion, no matter what they talked about, Erna was moved to the depths of her soul by the seriousness and openness of this exceptionally structured pale face. Absentmindedly, she continued unbuttoning her blouse to free her other breast too, from which milk was visibly seeping. Under her blouse, she wore not a bra but a tight white camisole. Earlier, to free one breast quickly and pacify the baby, she had undone only its upper buttons.

  When she was done with the blouse, she had to continue with the buttons.

  I’d like to, I’d really like to tell you. Still, I’m not sure I can, said Geerte after a short while, drawing out her words, and as she spoke, her eyes absently focused on Erna’s ringed, nervously busy fingers as they looked for the tiny buttons sewn closely one below the other. The camisole was so tight that the base of each button, sewn with strong thread, stretched every buttonhole to the limit. The impression was that at any moment her strong, ample body would split the fine material and pop all the buttons. It’s also difficult to talk about something like this because I don’t know, I’ve no way of knowing, how you feel about it, Erna. Or anyone else. I believe people don’t talk much about this sort of thing. They think it’s such a simple matter it’s not worth talking about. And perhaps they’re right. I don’t know. A woman gets pregnant, gives birth, and that’s that. That’s the end of it. And then she suckles the baby. But it was never like this for me. For me it was never that simple, and that’s the reason I could never talk about it to anyone.

  Not even to my mother, least of all to her.

  My mother is the kind of woman, you can believe me, Erna, who gives everything, and I mean everything to her only son, and denies everything to her daughters.

  If she could, she’d take the food out of my mouth.

  To my mother, I couldn’t either, interrupted Erna vehemently, not a word, never. Imagine, my mother didn’t even tell me, listen, my little girl, there will come a time when you’ll bleed.

  The deep resentment she had felt for her mother subsided as rapidly as it had awakened. Her vehemence had more to do with how much she understood Geerte, how closely she followed what she was saying about this difficult, painful matter. Not only did she want to identify with her, she was identical to her. No, this is indeed not simple, she added, a little confused. And quickly stopped talking because she did not want to catch herself in a lie.

  She fell silent because until now she too had thought that it was a very simple matter. More precisely, she did not understand why it wasn’t as simple as it should be.

  One feels, at least I always felt, that I could not be away from my child anymore, Geerte continued. And I don’t really like to put the blame only on my husband. The relationship between two people is difficult enough; how much more complicated are relations among three or four. Though I must say he behaved badly, what I’m saying is that he already became rough after the first one. He’d been rough before, but maybe I hadn’t noticed what kind of man he was.

  The feeling that even when we were alone together, I wasn’t there by myself anymore, as he was, that is what he wanted to extinguish in me. As if he wanted if to be just the two of us again.

  I’ve been ashamed ever since, or rather I’m ashamed for him. But the point is that one probably can’t break free of one’s child, not for a moment, because one is not a separate body. Or maybe one can’t break away from oneself, and the whole thing is nothing but terrible, animal selfishness. That you can’t give of yourself, or what you can give only your child deserves.

  Perhaps one shouldn’t say this, but maybe I’m not a good enough mother, said Erna quietly after a little while, because I don’t feel anything like this.

  She doesn’t.

  Believe me, I do not. And my husband is not rough with me, he is patient, considerate, cautious, and likes to show his happiness. He strokes me, calls me pet names, and wants to pamper me. I feel and I know he isn’t thinking only about himself when he wants us to be together again, just the two of us. Sometimes he’s quite touching. Once, we even cried together.

  They were both silent for a long time before Erna could speak again.

  That’s not it, no.

  It must be something else, then.

  Something else.

  I don’t know.

  It’s as if we have been split, broken up, for I don’t know how long, as if we’ve been hacked apart. And then how could I wish him to come inside me again the way he used to long ago. No, I couldn’t. I’d rather never do it again, ever. I am not whole. Well, at first, one thinks it’s because of the torn perineum. When I had the little girl maybe it didn’t tear as much as it had with the boy, or maybe it healed faster. Or I just don’t know, really, that’s why I’m asking you, because I really don’t know what’s happening, and I’m beginning to be afraid. And to be honest, what sort of thing is this breastfeeding. Don’t be angry that I’m talking about things like this. Now, with the little boy, it didn’t hurt as much, or maybe I knew what to expect and that’s why it didn’t. But since then my whole body has been a wreck, my whole system, my everything, and no matter what I do, it does not pass. Everything. Maybe I’m just impatient, but I don’t know, compared with what should I be more patient—with him, or with myself, or with whom.

  And you can see, I am literally flowing away, in all directions. All right, eventually that will stop, but sometimes it disgusts me so much. Is this what I have to put up with, every time.

  While I feed the baby from one, she said, laughing a little and raising her breast, I’m dripping from the other. And there are other things one doesn’t talk about. The other things one must endure in the meantime.

  Yes, I’m a wreck, I am devastated, all the time. And I don’t want to feel that it’s good to be like this. Yet it’s good to be this way, good, very good, this agitation, she cried out.

  She had to get hold of herself.

  Haven’t you felt, and this is what I want to ask, as if you’d been thrust out of your own body, that you can’t find your way back to the old one because in the meantime everything has changed. That’s what frightens me, that’s what I’m dreading. Where have I got to, where is the me I was before.

  Or who am I.

  That’s what I want to ask, is that what you feel.

  No, I never felt anything like that, answered Geerte dryly. Everybody must feel
it differently.

  You probably never got as fat as I have.

  No, I didn’t get fat at all. I was surprised by that myself, that I could breastfeed all right from these little breasts and that my child was very satisfied.

  Because you’re a good mother. And not unlucky with your body the way I am.

  Geerte did not reply, because she thought this sentence was offensive and unjustified. How can somebody so rich and beautiful be unlucky. It was hard for her to take her eyes off the other’s body, because she could not get enough of it. With a single movement of her wrist, she indicated that she was ready to take the blouse and camisole from Erna and have them washed.

  She may have been saved; she could leave now.

  For that to happen, Erna would first have to stand up, because while sitting she could not pull the blouse or camisole out from the waistband of her tight skirt. She knew she was pretending to get up to do just that, but that was not the reason. In her excitement, her knees were trembling a little, and, although she knew perfectly well what this excitement was all about, she could not believe it.

  As if she had but one impersonal passion, and what was happening now was only another, hitherto unknown variety of the same passion.