Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  Döhring really didn’t want to answer this question.

  If he did, he’d be in big trouble. Then he’d have surrendered to the shameless, calculating world of commonplaces, the world that now stared at him expectantly through the salesgirl’s eyes.

  He said to himself, so what if she’s beautiful, I don’t like her.

  To avoid dealing with this thought, he took the cellophane packet and walked behind the folding screen. He owed no explanation to this woman. It’s better to consider women of this kind as servants.

  During these moments the salesgirl indeed had to behave very cautiously. Some customers sometimes had to be left alone for a good space, while others, on the contrary, had to be kept continually busy, even above the folding screen.

  She stepped behind the counter again, pushed a button, and instantly a spotlight lit up the space behind the folding screen which Döhring had just entered. He saw a small table on which he could put the packet, and in the large mirror he could see himself. He saw a gray chair on whose backrest he could fold the items of clothing he would take off. He had no idea why, but the mirror immediately and absurdly distorted his image. It made a spool out of his head, unnaturally elongated his body to the point where neither his figure nor features were recognizable. His image in the mirror made him feel all alone. As though he had not even a body, only a bundle of sensations.

  Of course the music had a role in this impression, as did the silence and a few male voices in the distance.

  While absentmindedly unbuttoning his shirt, he looked around carefully for the first time. It felt pleasant to be standing on a carpet. He could look out from behind the folding screen with greater confidence. He was getting used to the spacious, soft dimness lined with black and gray. The store’s space was immense and very high; massive, solid, rectangular columns supported and divided it. In the depths of the store, behind the black-painted railing on a mezzanine balcony, a slender figure was bending in various directions among pulled-out and shoved-back drawers. The light barely touched these drawers, painted gray and neatly labeled, which filled the whole of the balcony’s back wall from floor to ceiling. The bending figure was hardly more than an outline. It would pull out a drawer, occasionally two at a time, thrusting them onto a ledge, where it would count something with lightning speed; it was probably making an inventory. Sometimes it jotted down something in an invisible ledger that must have been resting on the balcony railing too. Whenever this happened, the figure glanced down below. Döhring didn’t remove his shirt right away, he wasn’t sure it was appropriate; he began to undo his pants. He was beginning to feel that he had strayed in here by chance, yet here nothing happens by chance. That he was standing in the middle of a scrupulously planned, constantly supervised world.

  And he wasn’t alone with the salesgirl, either, as he’d thought at first.

  When he realized this, he saw that other people were also moving in the darkness, among the distant lights, other salespersons and other customers.

  Heads were hovering above folding screens just as his was, constant prattling, brief shouts and laughter could be heard over the soft music, or they may even have been part of the music, which pervaded and penetrated everything. When he threw his pants on the chair, he glanced at himself in the mirror again. All he could do was stare, he was so surprised. The mirror, which until then had absurdly distorted all his limbs, now gave not only a greatly sharpened but also a much enlarged view of the area between his navel and the top of his thighs. As though the world rising from the darkness and chaos had only one spot, a blurry-edged island. He had never seen the outline of his groin, the hairs curling out from his underpants, the hummock of his genitals so enlarged. He had lived in the same room with his twin kid sister for fifteen years. As if suddenly and unexpectedly he could see himself from closer up than he was really able to. He was bowled over like a child who sees things in a magic mirror. The moment he stepped closer or farther away from the mirror, his body either crawled away or stretched out of view, which is to say the loin area conformed to the general distortion, yet there remained a secure point in space, and when he found it precisely, he could feast his eyes on his mercilessly sharpened and greatly enlarged self.

  He enjoyed this, as if it were an unbelievable game returning him to his childhood. It was good to hit the precise point. The better to see what was happening to his body in the mirror, he threw off his shirt as well. The white shirt flew, flared out, and landed on the back of the chair, one billowing sleeve hanging down. This wasn’t the first time he had scrutinized himself so thoroughly, but never so close up. The salesgirl remained nearby, though he did not feel her gaze. And she couldn’t see anything more than the nape of his neck or his naked shoulders. And if people were watching him, well, let them watch. Without moving from his spot, he slowly swayed his hips in the mirror. He didn’t notice that he was doing it to the forever repeating rhythm of the music.

  He knew that if he took it off, he would irrevocably rebel against his own people. He’d be obeying alien rules. He could not resist it. In a totally strange place, totally without reason, he would take off his worthless underpants.

  The salesgirl still did not go away, did not leave the customer by himself, but she no longer kept him busy with words. She remained at the counter but did not even put her hands on it. Her posture indicated that she was ready to resume her work at any moment, but now it was the turn of the customer’s taste. She was not even watching Döhring, not the nape of his boyishly shaved neck, not his shapely shoulders, but rather she stared, skillfully, somewhere into the darkness. Which did not mean she wasn’t staying with him. She was paying attention to him; in reality, she did not leave him for a moment, and this too belonged to the high art of selling. She had to sense, to feel something very personal from the other human being that would allow her to keep him captive. At the same time she was not supposed to feel anything personal for him, which is to say she had to restrain all her possible feelings and value judgments, to the point where she’d evoke an impression of neutrality.

  Now I know, now I understand, Döhring was saying to himself as he turned around. But the moment he formed the words in his mind he no longer understood anything, nor did he see himself in the mirror. As though he had no idea just where he was in his continuous dream. He was staring at his shoes, at the rubberized floor of the phone booth, on which squashed cigarette butts were mixed, everywhere, among wet leaves; yet what he saw was the steamboat. He had no more time then, after all; he had nothing to think over, there were no more excuses, evasions, even if he understood nothing.

  At any rate, even two years later he frequently saw in himself this boat tilted on its side. Even if he were a boat run aground, he had to get going. He could see clearly what was happening at the moment and what he must do about it. Isolde runs across the long hallway, takes her coat, calls the elevator, impatiently runs down the stairs, bursts out the main gate, goes around the block. All this would take three or four minutes.

  He’d have three minutes in which to do it, no more.

  He can neither avoid nor suppress his elementary enjoyment; he has to leave it to his body, the same way stupid people must be left to their babbling.

  The boat tilted on its side in the narrow riverbed was the failure. This is the image that warns him he’s entering dangerous territory. Still, he can’t ward off the approaching detective. As if he were standing next to him, unwilling to budge. It is impossible, forbidden, one cannot live unpunished with murder, even if one is not familiar with the degree of criminality involved. And this means that chance is merely an illusion behind which two different necessities cross each other.

  The reality of their meeting is what’s behind the coincidence.

  The kind of crossroads where one cannot cross in two directions at the same time. It must be the almighty speaking to him this way, prompting him, explaining things to him because he’s a bit slow on the uptake, though in what he’s doing now no one can hinder
him. Wouldn’t it be odd if a cock, slipped below the waistband of one’s underpants and now rearing painfully, stopped the almighty from doing something. And something must be done, because if everything has at least two faces, and he can see them simultaneously all around him and also inside him, then it’d be impossible to endure them, even physically. He must do something, break out of this with some deed and return to the human condition.

  Only now did he let go of the telephone, which was already resting in the cradle, and quickly, as if he was ashamed of himself, reach into his pants. But his prick resisted, and the underpants were too small. The moment he freed the solid head stuck under the elastic and tried to pull back the foreskin, the cock, simply from being touched, reared up. From within his underpants, sperm was being smeared on his hastening fingers. He managed to shove it back, but realized how vulnerable he was. As though he had been exposed not only to himself but also to Dr. Kienast, from whom he no longer had anything to hide.

  He felt like laughing; the urge began as a strange laughter but ended up showing his entire situation in yet a different light.

  As if he were being whispered to by that other self he had not destroyed in himself—at different times it had taken on the shapes of his aunt, the detective, or the salesgirl, while sometimes it had no physical shape at all, no existence, only an essence; but when that happened he had to think of either the savior or the steamboat tilted on its side; in short, this other self whispered to him to relax, not to ruin things by being hasty, there was plenty of time for everything. At any rate, he gave up the struggle in his pants because he was thinking of the savior whom he had not known until then, and in the brief time of their acquaintance he’d failed to learn what he was like. He kept staring at the reflection of undulating bare tree branches in the glass. The street was still deserted. His three minutes reached comfortably into infinity, and he kept on taking more time from it. He no longer saw the telephone number he had etched into the soft yellow cover of the telephone book.

  This was more like a memory; he remembered this too, as he simultaneously remembered everything. The police station was busy, and then he was switched to an automatic call center. He waited a little longer; the number remained busy with a bit of Brahms playing for him in the background.

  He leaned his shoulder against the glass of the phone booth, to keep an eye on the corner where his aunt had to appear.

  The wind was howling, lashing at everything.

  When he tried to call again, a female voice answered, and that surprised him so much that instead of saying hello he said who he was, Döhring. Which the woman did not understand and he had to repeat. He knew this was going to be recorded, and that would determine his fate for good. While he was saying who he was looking for, and the woman replied that Dr. Kienast was unavailable at the moment, across the street a garage door began slowly to rise. Döhring wanted to say thank you for the information so he could hang up as quickly as possible, but the woman was quicker than he; she wanted to keep him talking. She was after a generous pool of voice patterns and wanted to identify the location of the caller’s phone booth. She had a soft, experienced voice; she was practically singing with kindness. By all means, she said, she’d be more than happy to help Döhring in any matter whatsoever.

  The maw of the garage yawned darkly for a moment.

  No, thank you, Döhring replied impatiently, he’d call back.

  Then the shiny, silvery front of the car appeared in the deep, dark gullet of the garage and sped out onto the street as if indifferent to whether there was any traffic. Döhring realized what was happening only when among the lights of the windbreak he recognized Isolde’s black turban and severe features. As if she were ready to drive to the park, dragging the whole phone booth with her.

  Maybe he just stepped out for a few minutes, said the woman on the telephone; unfortunately she could not tell when Dr. Kienast would be available, but if Mr. Döhring wanted to leave a message or had a number where he could be reached, she’d be happy to convey that to Dr. Kienast, who would return his call shortly.

  And if he was speaking from a telephone booth, said the woman, who by then must have known that this was the case, he could in all confidence give her that number as well.

  It was like the palest beam of hope; he no longer dared count on it.

  Through the Entrance to His Secret Life

  For a moment she thought Ágost had gone mad. That he’d really lost his mind. What are you doing here, she shouted, coming in from the bathroom. Not even in the taxi could she dismiss this image from the night before.

  She couldn’t because for weeks she had been yearning for him more and more strongly, more and more hopelessly, and especially in the last few days. But her yearning filled her with dread. She was trying to tell herself it was not his naked body she desired so much. She felt ashamed of that. Then what did she desire so much. Could it be his soul. Which he did not possess; he did not. Just look at him, standing in front of her. She could not cling to him enough, take him inside her enough, kiss him, caress him, sink into his flesh deeply enough, tear at him, plow his skin with her nails enough, to assuage her yearning. She would seize it, hold it, stare into it as it spurted upward. Ágost wouldn’t let her swallow it, because he wanted to see it himself. What will become of her without him. This also occurred to her in the tobacco-smelling taxi.

  She would moan and whimper, but not aloud, because the faintest sensual expression aroused aversion in the man. Not only would he suffer no passion but he would also reject as exaggeration the slightest manifestation of emotion. And she would have loved to love—no, worship—his ankles, his wrists, his every part, his cock, and every little bone in his body, even impalpable things like the curve of the arches of his feet. She adored him. More precisely, she convinced herself that she did, that she could not live without him, because she dreaded losing him. She had lost him already. She gave more than she had, showed more than she felt so as not to admit the latest defeat. Of course, when thinking about it sensibly, she saw that this was not a problem of right proportion or right quantity; their characters were no longer compatible. And who could think about this sensibly. Sometimes she tried to satisfy herself as she hoped to be satisfied by him, but she failed. She expected more of her body than it could provide, and it was precisely this something which could never take on bodily form that she failed to figure out; she did not know what it was. But to take a long knife from the kitchen and thrust it deep into the man’s chest, for that she did not have the courage. What was carrying her along, she wanted to know, what was pursuing her. Even though she knew nothing else would help. Except killing him. Now her helplessness, now her emotional outbursts tortured her. When she watched him, and when she recalled the scene in the taxi the next day, she saw him even farther from her than ever. This was something Ágost had never done, at least not while she was looking on.

  She saw her own loneliness reflected in the naked male body. The hopelessness of her own secret attempts at gratification. She was disgusted by this, or by herself; it aroused her self-contempt. But nor could she turn away, her curiosity wouldn’t let her; she wanted to see how men do it. She suspected that he might have done it in front of others. But not in front of me. Because he doesn’t trust me that much. Instantly she became jealous of others. The shouting was muted enough not to be heard in the other room.

  Luckily she could somewhat restrain herself. She would gladly have shared all her joys with Kristóf, but she’d have been reluctant to tell him about her torments.

  There was hardly an hour, a minute, in which she gave free rein to her emotions or feelings. She could never find out in advance from Kristóf whether he would be sleeping at home or staying away again for days. She envied him too; he probably had a good life. She envied everyone; her entire soul, all her goodness, was consumed by envy, behind which lurked amorous greed. I’m the only one who feels bad. It made a difference whether she could shout and yell freely or whether she had to rest
rain herself when in the throes of pleasure. Something of her pleasure always remained stuck in her. Ágost could not, probably did not want to crash through the barrier. One of them wanted to give too much, the other held it back. That is why they were not compatible, and this was impossible to understand.

  Already in their second week she had begged him, please, let’s get out of here.

  We can’t do it here. I can’t bear it. You look at me as if I were saying something insane. I’m whispering even now; I can’t stand this constant whispering.

  Then speak more loudly.

  How can I talk more loudly when that little idiot is behind the door.

  You’ll get used to it.

  Sometimes she thought this was a family trait; after all, Kristóf also had this indifferent way of answering her. She wasn’t sure. Maybe he’d be out of the house. At other times she thought this was so because these people were Jews. Very cold, passionless people who keep to themselves.

  On her skin and in the strands of her hair she would sense Kristóf’s presence in the adjacent room. Or his absence, because that irritated her too. She sensed when he was asleep, because silence had a different quality then. Or that he wanted to be asleep but was awake, tossing and turning, and torturing her with his little noises. Yet no response ever came from the adjacent room. Although she couldn’t have said what response she expected from its darkness. She would have liked to see Kristóf lose his superior airs.

  Forlorn and unapproachable, Ágost was standing in the almost empty room, quite near the tall door connecting it to Kristóf’s room. On this occasion too they did not know whether he was at home or not.

  The nightlight, from under its wax-paper shade, illuminated Ágost from below and threw on the wall a long tilting shadow of his naked figure. Its contours would swing out and then back as he moved his hands, elbows, and arms; the shadow would tremble. Behind him the door to the living room was wide open. He hadn’t even closed the shutters on the two tall windows. Engrossed, he was slowly stroking himself with odd, broken movements. Showing and at the same time withholding something. Every one of his practiced movements proved that he knew what he was doing, to what purpose, and needed no one’s help. His smile seemed to hover independent of his face. Gyöngyvér found it especially painful that the smile was not meant for her; it was meant for no one. Anyone on the gallery, or people from any of the apartments facing the courtyard, could see in.