Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  Except that he could not have said what sort of water was bubbling up. Because it was not water but Gyöngyvér’s passionate voice bubbling in his ear. And there was that crumbling: the moment the precipice opened and there was no place to reach out to anymore, nothing to hold on to. Or he might be dreaming what the woman was dreaming because he had to urinate and could barely hold it in anymore, and the woman’s thirsty cunt, this slippery, pale-blood-colored, loosened, and boundless interior space that nevertheless might be too narrow for him, would not let him. After all, he couldn’t piss in her. He knew what he had to do with her. Such a perfect being cannot fall by the wayside. He had to open her up, awaken her with a few movements. Save her from destruction. He felt himself to be a magician capable of freeing the other person from all sorts of burdens. At the same time, his fear did not leave him. He could not shake the thought that his erection had become permanent, would never subside, the blood in his penis had clotted, he had to get medical help. Indeed, he did not desire her anymore. His imagination was increasingly taken over by the image of this clotted, thickened blood. What more could he have wished for after such a gigantic gratification but to piss, to eat and piss. He would continue to open up, shape, and mold this woman until nothing strange, nothing false remained in her.

  When you told me about the whirlpool just a moment ago, you know, he said too loudly, as if raising his voice over the volume of his inner monologue, I was just dreaming that water was bubbling up and coming to a boil. But I know, get this, I knew I wasn’t really dreaming this, that it was something that had happened to me before, that it was a memory. Maybe I told you about it yesterday, the crumbling, or maybe some other time. This was just a repetition.

  It was a memory for me too.

  But what kind of memory could this be for you if I am the one who’s telling about it, what kind of memory of yours is that, I don’t understand, said the man incredulously, as if Gyöngyvér was thwarting his plans. He was thinking, no, maybe I shouldn’t do this, I shouldn’t open anything. Maybe he should stop his stupid plans to reform people, because if he let the woman so close to him he’d be lost. This could work only if he were ready to reveal his secrets. Then I am lost. He could not have revealed his secrets retroactively to anyone. That was strictly forbidden. He could not do that even if he married her.

  That was just what I wanted to tell you, that I really don’t remember anything about this water business, said the woman, a little offended and unsuspecting, but I should remember something. Something’s there, in my mind, but its essence is gone.

  How do you know if it’s gone, asked the man, irritated, and knowing they were becoming entangled in a useless argument. After all, he couldn’t dispute what the other person did or did not remember.

  I don’t understand, why are you so irritated.

  I’m not in the least irritated.

  You must not be hearing yourself.

  That’s exactly why I’m telling you about this, Ágost continued, against his strongest conviction, because you don’t remember and I do. Maybe I’m irritated, but why aren’t you a little more patient.

  I’m completely patient.

  Well, I did tell you about the crumbling. I told you about it yesterday.

  I do remember precisely that I was supposed to remember something, Gyöngyvér said, continuing her own argument, undaunted. Something terrible happened. Something that was good for me. But I can’t get to it, I can’t reach it. Whenever I feel I’ve reached it, that’s a sure sign I haven’t. Don’t you understand, she shouted, growing uncertain, desperate, as if realizing that despite all her efforts, despite all her hopes, the other person would never understand her.

  Yet in the same instant that she pressed both her hands on the man’s chest, thrusting him away to show she didn’t need him if he was so incapable of understanding anything and instead kept bringing up his stupid memories, let him get the hell out of here, the man’s large hands grasped her shoulders and, evidently driven by a similar emotion, shook her angrily.

  But that’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you too, he cried in wild anger, that I am remembering. But you don’t listen to me. Isn’t it enough for you that I remember? Can’t your little brain take in that what I remember is your dream, or I don’t even know what I wanted to say, because I’m so angry I feel like exploding.

  Let go of me, shouted the woman, agitated.

  I will not. I’ll flatten you.

  If you don’t let me up I won’t be responsible for what I do.

  Then you don’t understand, really don’t understand why I’m telling you things and why I can’t let you up. You just don’t understand.

  Ágost was raging, like a child whose mother doesn’t understand him and whom only the act of murder can calm. Whenever he was upset, his accent grew stronger. He seemed to be speaking Hungarian words as if they were French. Not his senses but his awareness was running wild. He heard his own accent becoming more pronounced and he knew it was time to stop. He had gone too far. Coolly he asked his senses whether it was truly possible that this woman didn’t understand him and there was nothing left to do but to commit murder. Which, for him, was not a rhetorical question since he had already killed several people, though not in the heat of anger.

  What do you want from me? What?

  Gyöngyvér was shouting and shaking hysterically as if she were truly afraid of being murdered.

  They pulled themselves apart simultaneously, neither of them could remain intertwined for another second with so unforgivably insensitive a partner, and as they slipped out of each other they lost their balance and fell off the bed.

  Their bodies slammed together; with great thumps they fell on each other like sacks, and then they continued their tussle on the floor.

  Helpless fury drove them both to the brink of tears, of childish bawling. Neither of them could accept defeat, or, more precisely, the strength of their rage rose in direct proportion to their urge to weep. The energy spent on suppressing their tears was terribly painful, and their need hurt them greatly as it gaped open with all the devastating experiences of their lost, horror-filled childhoods, compared with which the physical pain caused by falling out of bed was hardly noticeable; it only created incredible physical chaos—a head banging against the door, the warmth and softness of the blanket they yanked around them, hiding the treacherous cracks and splinters in the uneven floor, where skin grazed under the weight and pressure of the other’s body, jabs of salient body parts, hard angles of elbows, chins, and knees. No doubt something had happened, but it could scarcely reach consciousness via the senses. Compared to the pain of the soul, physical pain is but a sobering realization, calming in its simplicity. Its sobriety is short-lived. They both felt and sensed the blows and bruises, that is to say, they both comprehended instantly the complete senselessness of their attraction and their scuffle, summed up in the question, what am I doing.

  Naked in the sunshine.

  Yet they continued to scuffle because they didn’t know what to do with their feelings for each other. They wanted both to stay where they were and to peel away from the other one.

  They could have gotten up; why not let go of each other; why not give up the insane attempts at uniting; why not just continue on with their lives where they had left off a few hours or days earlier. Ágost should really go home, or at least telephone his mother, so they wouldn’t wait for him in vain or look for him at his friends’, there was nothing to worry about, he had something to do. Again, he had gone out to do some senseless fucking; he’d be coming home soon.

  The strictly confidential text he had been translating from the Italian remained by his typewriter just as he had left it when four days ago he got up and went to the swimming pool. To comply with regulations, he should have locked it up. And Gyöngyvér should go to sleep, she must sleep, because she had to get up at five in the morning to begin her work at the kindergarten at six. It would have been a lie to claim they didn’t see the sober, gray
workaday life ahead of them. But they couldn’t deal with it correctly. To get up now because I have to make a phone call. Or to say, oh, I think I’d better get some sleep. When either of them said or did something, it was impossible for the other to abandon the rhythm created by the first one. Even though their physical proximity no longer had a calming effect but, rather, frighteningly increased their sense of frustration. And this indefinable something had no arms for hugging or lips for kissing. Nothing with which to soothe the raw pain of emptiness.

  While busy with these thoughts, he felt the strange female body shivering in his arms; someone he had nothing to do with, whom he did not know and with whom he had no reason to become acquainted. It was as if he were pressing to or thrusting away from himself a helpless being, trembling from head to toe. He could not possibly do that. Now that he had ruined her. But if he did not thrust her away, his own muscles would take on the strange trembling. And he did not let that happen. Such gentleness would make him falter. He set his protective armor in place.

  It wasn’t the first time that Gyöngyvér had trembled during that evening and night.

  It seemed, rather, that the trembling kept sending her back to her more treacherous and unpredictable ways, squeezing barely audible little whimpers out of her.

  My sweet, my darling, what have I done, I’ve ruined you.

  As he uttered these tender and emotional words, surprising himself with them, and as he put his arms around the woman’s strong shoulders, he broke into a sob.

  No, don’t mind me, he said, choking. I don’t know what this is.

  The words came from the very depths of his chest, one might say from an unknown, primal time.

  It was like two consecutive bellows from an animal. He didn’t hold back; he had neither the time nor the presence of mind for that. Perhaps his back muscles, or his tautening abdominal muscles, didn’t let it break free. The invisible armor under his skin would not let it out, would not allow others to penetrate him with their superfluous emotions, but also would no longer let him out. He must live and die locked into himself. Which, to his shame and without producing another sound, made tears burst from his eyes and flow down his face.

  Which felt good.

  Mortified, he felt he had to be ashamed of his muscles holding him back. He had had, once, a more vulnerable life, and that was the reason he’d told the woman so much about those ancient times, which he himself did not remember, no matter how much he looked for them, and which, even if he’d found them, he could never get close to. His hardness and much forgetting would not let him.

  And this hurt more than anything else. He shuddered, but did not want to allow himself even that.

  As if he were saying, no, I won’t allow anything.

  Which made Gyöngyvér break down too, bubble over. As when at the sight of one another’s trembling shoulders, every girl in a boarding-school dormitory cries, under the covers.

  She had never seen a man cry, and now, of all men, to see this one cry.

  In her joy she accompanied him with tiny bursts of laughter, which is what brings on hysterical, happiness-filled bawling in a dormitory. She was grateful to him—after all, he was crying because of her—but this also frightened her. Her entire body trembled and her teeth chattered, as if she had a high fever. She mourned someone while laughing at her own sorrow. She mourned someone unknown who should have perished long ago. I will destroy my mother.

  To tell the truth, you know, I have a twin, she said, sobbing inconsolably.

  She had just invented this so as to have something to say.

  Where is this sibling, how would I know you had one. You’ve never mentioned it, sniffled the man.

  She invented the twin to avoid thinking of her mother. Who, truth to tell, should have perished long ago in her daughter. Otherwise the daughter cannot love this man either. Her mother was the deceased twin. These things were as clear to her as given elements in a formula.

  Ever since I was born, she said aloud, I’ve been carrying this other one inside me. She’s the only one I love, nobody else. There are such things, you know, you can wonder all you want.

  Forgive me, but you’re talking drivel, you’ve gone out of your mind.

  One can feel this, believe me, I am never alone. It’s been proven scientifically that in the womb one ovum can absorb, digest the other one.

  Oh right, that means I’m here not with one woman but with two, obvious, isn’t it, the only thing is I can’t see the other one with the naked eye.

  Never, I am always two women; with me, you can never be with one woman, for that you must look for somebody else.

  She alternated between using the thread-thin voice of a mischievous, affected little girl bent on embellishing her flowery text, and her natural register, the warm mournful alto; it was as her latter self that she giggled.

  This reminds me, you’ll have to meet my two good friends, the man continued, sniffling with a pleasure that surprised him. You’ll love them, at least I’d like you to love them because they’re really good boys.

  As if he were consoling the woman by saying, don’t be so afraid of yourself, I am not alone either; the three of us are one. Even though this time he felt that he’d never had and could never have anyone, and that made him feel sorry for himself. His self-pity became his sole consolation.

  They both understood themselves; to some extent, they even saw themselves from the outside, but they did not understand each other.

  They stared at each other; it would have been good to understand truly and profoundly the subject of their admiration and aversion.

  Gyöngyvér instantly tried to lick and with her tongue spoon into her mouth the tears rolling down the man’s face.

  To lower her tongue to their source.

  At the same time, she saw how distorted, frightening, and coarse the man’s beautiful head had become.

  But why are you crying now, really, please tell me.

  I don’t know.

  Then she began to cry too, she felt so sorry for the man.

  At the same time she thought to herself, why did I lie to him, why do I have to lie to him, why must I be such a rotten whore.

  I don’t know either, she wailed aloud, maybe because of you, maybe I am lying and I’m really crying for myself, because of me, but I can’t express anything either, nothing, believe me.

  Her trembling made it hard for her tongue to find the tears rolling down the man’s distorted face.

  Her tongue fluttered, slurped around on his velvety skin pierced with new stubble; she kept on licking, searching for tears.

  They were sitting on the wrinkled bedcover, tucked in many layers under their limbs. They yanked at each other but could not budge. Ágost was sitting on his pulled-up legs so as to support the woman with his tight thigh muscles, while his arms were around her shoulders; she had her arms around his neck.

  Their torsos did not touch, the woman was trembling and shaking and her breasts with their gigantic nipples shook. Tears and mainly the inner expansion that came with the flow of tears seemed to have loosened up the man a little.

  He loosened up enough to try with his tight-skinned full lips to catch the tongue hovering in front of his nose or at least the woman’s trembling lips.

  Their bodies slipped over each other; they sought support with their tongues in the hot hollows of each other’s mouth.

  The heat, the smoothness, the delicately nuanced aroma of the strange hollow opened another entrance before them.

  As the woman kept on trembling and did nothing but tremble, all of her being, everything, trembling with her, evenly and unstoppably.

  The man understood the trembling to mean that he could never satisfy this woman; perhaps it was impossible. Parallel to this realization, there appeared to him André Rott’s thin body with its hard long slabs of muscle and sinew, with the dark fountains of hair on his belly and chest. Because Ágost was convinced that with André no woman could ever wind up in such an embarrassing situa
tion. André was the only man Ágost considered better than himself, and therefore wanted to make love to him or at least to find a woman as good as he. No matter how carefully and tenderly he tried to absorb the woman’s frightful trembling with his lips on hers, they could not gain new entrance. Or maybe for once he’ d like to be a woman so he could try out a man like his friend.

  They collided painfully; the edges of their teeth clicked comically.

  Which would mean that they were trying in vain. They’ll never get to the end of anything.

  Maybe if I licked it for her.

  André would have done it a long time ago, for sure.

  Not in this order either; he would have started with that.

  That’s how I’ll do it, I’ll work on her clit. I’d have gotten further if I hadn’t always tried to stick my rotten prick in. André is better because he doesn’t need women at all. He doesn’t need anybody, and every woman is hooked by his indifference.

  He doesn’t need to pay attention to himself, André needs no self-discipline, he has no reason to gratify himself.

  He held the woman while considering whether he needed the whole circus that would come about with a new relationship, with the proximity of a complete stranger like this.

  But no, he could not let the trembling in, just as his musculature would not allow him out anymore. As if he were experiencing the other person’s pains only with his soul.

  What does anymore mean.

  Never, he thought suddenly.

  Women, however voracious or hungry they may be, can sometimes be satisfied. I am one of these satisfying machines, but nobody has ever satisfied me. No reason not to confess that the only time I get a little bit of it is when I make these stupid women scream. That’s the truth. I am sitting in my own jail and I can count, at most, on the fingers of one hand. He found this thought very amusing, but it made him feel even sorrier for himself. As if he realized that not the other person but he was the greatest obstacle to his own existence. He was deeply moved by the thought that he was at the mercy of his own body and, as if this had given him a new idea, perhaps he should share this woman with André.