Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  I’d get my satisfaction while he would take care of her.

  Gyöngyvér thrust him away with her tongue, as if she understood every one of his insidious thoughts; she shoved him out while at the same time clinging hard to him.

  Something important, I want to tell you something important, she whispered between the man’s lips, articulating clearly in synchrony with her trembles, while their lips and tongues touched again, went on the defense, tried to calm the other, and slurped about.

  At times like this, one depends on one’s pores and nerve endings to help understand the other person. And the voice of the other person reaches one more slowly than usual.

  It was occurring to him that he was only playing a role, only pretending to be impersonal while André really was impersonal. Soaping each other in the shower, he felt through his fingers no emotions emanating from that hard, stringy male body.

  The uric acid poisoned me, Gyöngyvér whispered, I’m sure that’s why I’m shaking, you understand, because the uric acid simply poisoned me.

  Where do you get such asinine, idiotic ideas.

  I should pee too, you know, take a leak, she added and laughed. Don’t get scared, I’m letting it out now.

  Her laughter was ugly, though she retained a warm timbre in her voice.

  No, don’t, you’ve gone mad, the man shouted, alarmed.

  He shouted as if he were unable to decide whether to give voice to admiration or to dread.

  But, but, the woman replied in her deepest register, why shouldn’t I, and the voice she used now needed no support at all.

  Don’t, the man protested, but he hadn’t finished saying the one word before he felt it on his thigh, spreading and warming his skin.

  You do it too, do it for me. She moaned with pleasure, I’m letting mine out already.

  They heard its strong trickle and flow, now hitting the hard floor, now piddling on the wrinkled bedcover tucked under them. With her spread loins on his thighs, she kept trembling and trembling. The man felt somewhat relieved; if it were this easy for him, he too would have let it out, but it was not that simple: nothing was coming.

  The bladder would have allowed this but the urine was stopped up because of the enduring mild erection in the urethra.

  Gyöngyvér reached in and got hold of his member.

  That’s how you do it for the little boys, eh, Ágost asked.

  Indeed, Gyöngyvér saw a strange boy whom she did not know, and Ágost saw his dead sister.

  When I want them to make peepee, Gyöngyvér replied, exactly like this, you’re right. Boys have to be taught.

  Every day.

  No. Several times a day.

  You take out their little weenies and give them instructions.

  I help them.

  With your nails you seduce them, ruin them for life.

  Their open, hot lips touched.

  Her lips were of the same temperature as her amply dribbling urine.

  You’re jealous of them, I can hear it in your voice.

  On the contrary, I’m happy to share you with them. You don’t yet know this side of me. I’d be happy to share you, he thought. I swear I’ll do it, he said out loud. As he thought to himself, the three of us might be able to satisfy you.

  Above their kiss, they did not let go of each other’s eyes.

  While they do it, I whisper to them, she whispered later into the man’s ear, when the dribbling continued intermittently, growing now weaker, now stronger; psh, psh, psh, my little one, that’s what I whisper to the little boys.

  Again, their lips had to make contact, this time more strongly and for a little longer.

  And what do you whisper into the ears of little girls, Ágost asked, excited by the sound of the dribbling urine.

  Just a few words.

  But what, how, what exactly.

  Well, that right now we’re tinkling, little one, tinkle, tinkle, that’s what I say, that’s all. That’s enough for little girls.

  I’m jealous of them, said the man and moaned deeply.

  There you are, shouted the woman.

  The urine spouted up as if from a fountain.

  And since with their foreheads touching they were gazing, bewitched, at what might be happening down below, it almost reached their faces.

  Instinctively they yanked their heads away.

  The yellow stream fell back into itself, flooded the penis’s bare bulb, as if an invisible hand had turned off a faucet.

  When in a short while it gushed forth again, bursting through the widened urethra, it reached the woman’s chin. She thrust her torso toward it; she wanted to feel it on her breasts. And she opened her mouth wide to swallow it, but this wish was frustrated. Let it soil the area between her breasts; she wanted to enjoy the warmth of the soiling, as if encountering something very precious.

  Whimpering, she turned him over her.

  Now it was coming in a big thick stream, steadily, and now it wouldn’t stop.

  They looked at it, they whimpered, they moaned and gaped along with the spurt, biting each other’s lips. They felt they were experiencing a great, mutual victory.

  And then silently.

  They kept nibbling, biting each other’s lips and sliding them around on their flowing saliva.

  Until it stopped.

  This brought them to the other side of a barrier whose existence neither of them had known about before. They literally submerged themselves in the unfamiliar fragrance of fresh urine and, holding on to each other, spread out in it. As if the sweeter scent of the woman’s urine had overcome the man’s more pungent and bitter one.

  They remained lolling in it, awed and motionless, for a long time.

  Ilona’s Rice Chicken

  I felt nothing in the first few seconds, but then it hurt terribly, I was grabbing my leg, wriggling in the dark. The pain of the tibia reached my brain; I was writhing helplessly.

  It was blood, of course it was blood.

  And in that case, everything was perhaps over after all, and in a way other than I had planned, I’d bleed to death. Blood was smeared on my fingers, I was writhing, with my knee drawn up to my chest, my whole body swaying on the lawn, soaked wet with the night’s dew, as if I were swinging the pain on my spine.

  I still had the presence of mind to listen, from behind the pain, for any noise.

  Was somebody coming after me, should I continue to flee; I did hear some very strange clattering on the road.

  It seemed to be coming from a different direction, not the one from which I’d have expected the sailor if he had picked up my trail and followed me. But judging by the sounds, it had to be a monster. No human could make such noises. His stride was irregular and the footsteps kept unexpectedly breaking off. It sounded as if somebody were flinging pebbles into the night in short, quick, sharp bursts, then stopping for a while, then starting up again unpredictably.

  The black-haired giant had turned into a monster.

  I might as well give up hope of his following me, of all people.

  I had tumbled over the wrought-iron fence that separated the plane-tree-lined promenades from the enormous smooth lawn behind the Grand Hotel of Margit Island. How could I have forgotten it. The neo-Baroque fence imitated the tendrils, the winding, twisting stems, flowers, and huge round buds of plants. I had banged into the flower petals and the bud knobs with my shin. If only I could bleed to death quietly. I’d weaken and gradually lose consciousness, or blood poisoning would unceremoniously finish me off in a few days. This wasn’t a hopeless wish, since scales of rust were wedged into the leg wound; I felt their edges as my fingers groped around in the pain and slipped in blood.

  The ground-floor terraces were empty, the striped sunshades were folded above the tables, and all the windows were dark.

  Not a single hotel guest seemed to be awake.

  What a strange feeling—that it had to happen at this place. It was as if I were observing, with my old views, from behind the dark window of the co
rner room on the fourth floor, and saw myself writhing on the lawn in the deep shadow of the plane trees.

  Every year during the autumn housecleaning my grandparents would move here from Stefánia Boulevard, always renting the same suite.

  It was an exceptional place where nothing ever changed over the years. Always the same breeze in the loose foliage of the plane trees, bringing the smell of the river and carrying the wavering light of the gas lamps; and whenever a stronger wind blew, the branches banged and the heavily veined, five-pointed leaves noisily rubbed and slid over one another. Rain pattering on them sounded like drops falling on stretched leather.

  In those years, my grandmother’s women friends still thought that everything should be maintained and well preserved until the Americans came, when the Russians would clear out and life would return to its old routine.

  The white funnels of petunia blossoms hanging from the carved clay pots were swinging gently on the rain-beaten balustrades.

  Slowly the pain began to subside.

  The insane reflected light of the city fell from the cloudy sky like a fine yellow drizzle.

  With my writhing on the lawn, my black shirt and pants had gotten wet, but the coolness of the dew eased the pain somewhat. I no longer cared how I looked. I must have looked shocking, but that wouldn’t stop me from getting home somehow. If I hadn’t had to urinate and if I hadn’t been so thirsty, I might have lolled around on the lawn for a while. It was pleasant to hear again the city’s familiar noises and thuds, its closer or more distant shrieks. I felt protected by the night, as if lying under the giant shade of the plane trees I was invisible.

  It turned out that nobody was coming down the promenade, neither human nor beast; my ears must have deceived me earlier.

  I should have decided to leave as soon as possible and, because of Pisti, never come back again. I’d seen what he was up to; he was indeed at home here. I couldn’t get over this, because he was certainly the darling of girls and women if anyone was. And having seen him here, and not only that other boy, Königer, and I did see him with my own eyes, then I’d never understand anything about what was happening around me, and who knows whom I might meet here tomorrow.

  Just about everybody is doing it.

  I never imagined that in the nocturnal multitude I’d run into somebody I knew.

  I couldn’t tell him that I had wound up here by chance and opened my fly by accident.

  But the threatening image of this never come back again, which took hold immediately, was like a hardly feasible self-mutilation.

  How can I restrain myself when I see that what I hardly dare dream about, others extravagantly indulge in every night.

  Something had revealed itself: a realm of unfamiliar activities and secret compulsions that for the sake of rationality I should have locked up in the world of unfamiliarity forever. It’s over, that’s what I should have yelled. I shall ignore it. Since until now I had had no idea what men did under the cloak of night, I could easily forget it or pretend to know nothing of it.

  Nobody’s presence should ever remind me of this again during the day. I’ll walk back to Pest not on the Margit but on the Árpád Bridge, and that way I might get away with it without being exposed.

  Never again, never, I kept promising to myself. Maybe one last time I might still get away with it.

  That would be the only reward for my self-punishment: that I’d get away with it. A reward one does not receive physically. If somehow one received it in one’s hands and carefully unwrapped the fine rustling paper, one would find something threatening and ominous, something one had managed to avoid or that had avoided one only by accident.

  The worst did not happen.

  And what sense would it make to wind up in an embarrassing situation because of such a loathsome adventure. Now I knew about Pisti, but maybe he didn’t yet know about me. I couldn’t risk more than that. And not only I but he couldn’t explain this away; nobody could. I went on lying in the cool darkness, full of warm currents. I closed my eyes to listen to the mysterious rustling of leaves and to recall something of the night’s emotion-filled occurrences, which I should have loathed. And to make my escape a certainty, in my imagination I made my crossing between the blackened facades of tenements on the poorly lit, deserted side streets of Pest. Nobody I knew should see me in such a state, especially not Pisti. I quickly planned my route and directions.

  It was as if I were constantly crossing to another side of the street, even though the street had only two sides.

  I was wading into the deserted jungle of the city, and there was no way back. Because I ardently wished that there would be no way back.

  And I probably dozed off as the pain eased, because I awoke to the sound of its stinking panting and the distinct feeling of its presence next to me.

  It is panting and puffing right into my face.

  I see its black mug with its long, dangling, rhythmically slipping-and-sliding tongue as it stares at me. Its eyes were flashing as it stood above me, dark and colossal.

  My first thought was that the black-haired giant had metamorphosed into a black dog, Satan’s dog, which would mean I had gone mad indeed.

  Its polite and patient waiting showed that it presumed I’d wake up.

  Not much time could have gone by, I told myself, alarmed. I felt I had to account for the wasted time, but at least I knew where I was, which made me crash back into my real life. The period of summer exams had begun, the first two exams toward my doctorate were behind me, and I did not think that, once awake, I owed an explanation to anyone about anything. But somebody inside me kept shouting that for days now I’d been doing nothing but useless things.

  It was a smooth-haired stray dog.

  Quickly it sniffed into my ear and my hair, all four feet stamping with excitement; then the panting suddenly stopped as it rushed to my feet, its short tail joyfully wagging very fast as if to say, at last I’ve found my master in the empty night, the one I’ve been looking for; it smelled my shoes for a long time, found them familiar, then licked my wound and, if I hadn’t yanked my leg away, it would have lapped up the blood; it sniffed all around my groin very thoroughly, then my hair; I let it, though its long, dangling ears and mustache tickled me. It would have sniffed my eyes too, and the prospect seemed to make it very happy. With a motion of my hand, I shoved it away. It wouldn’t back off, wanted to sniff my mouth, which made me laugh, and I shoved it again, harder than before.

  The dog stank; it must have eaten human shit.

  Ever since my childhood, the proximity of animals has always set my gums and palate on edge, so that for long minutes I couldn’t swallow properly.

  The dog did not wait for the end of my shove; it jumped back instead, its body taut, ready to attack.

  I jumped up too, but not because I was afraid of it. Perhaps I felt secure with animals precisely because I could never lower myself to their level.

  It was a nice young male, a black, skinny but large-bodied vizsla, probably a crossbreed; under his filthy short hair, his skin was full of sores new and old. Though he bared his teeth, I told him it was all right and patted his hard head, which he let me do, though not the way a dog used to kindness would but resignedly, neutrally attentive. In the meantime I tested my injured leg to see if it would function; the dog put his forelegs on the ground, raised his butt playfully in the air, shook it, and this time showed me not only his full set of teeth, his two terrible fangs, but also his naked frightening gums. Emitting short, angry, and, I’d like to say, ironic grunts, he seemed eager to tell me something that I did not understand.

  Truth to tell, I needed this dog more than he needed me, but I did not realize that then.

  I set out with him toward the service entrance of the hotel, limping heavily, with the dog snapping at my ankles. Thus we crossed the enormous, dense, close-cropped lawn.

  I started in that direction because I thought that with a bit of luck I could feed the starving dog.

  An
d as if he knew what my plan was, he kept running ahead and coming back to me.

  There was a big lump on his skull where he must once have been badly hit on the head. His snarling was his laughter; he demonstrated his great joy and trust in me by showing his fangs, though he mightn’t have minded taking a bite out of my ankle. Nevertheless, I couldn’t be sure of what I was doing, so I told him right away to be still, let’s see how things turn out, just come quietly with me but don’t count on anything.

  I found the waste bins in exactly the same place they had been ten years earlier. The old system was still working.

  The steps leading down to the service entrance were at the end of the left wing of the large building. Garbage collectors or delivery people had to get off the road and back down a fairly steep, ribbed platform all the way to the cellar level. This was the staff’s turf, where produce was carried in and bales and bundles were taken out through strictly separated openings, and where garbage was taken outside. Not only my shoes but also the dog’s feet and toenails made noises on the ramp, noises that echoed between the walls. Occasionally I stopped and the dog did too, raising his head; we both listened and watched, and he stayed at my side.

  It became incredibly quiet in the night, all life and labor had fallen silent. In the cool breath of the river I could feel more strongly the sweet scent of the petunias and the smell of gasoline trapped between the walls by the entrance.

  There was very little chance of someone noticing us or asking me what I was up to.

  Although the lamp above the service entrance was lit, the glass-paned revolving door behind the iron grating had been secured in a safe, entrance-blocking position, and this entrance had no night porter.

  It would be opened at exactly 5:30 in the morning for the scullery maids’ noisy arrival.

  They’ll be coming from Dömös, Kisoroszi, and Tahitótfalu with the first produce-carrying steamer, getting off on the Buda shore under the Margit Bridge, bringing along all sorts of delicacies and sweet tidbits in small baskets, jars or kerchiefs tied smartly at the corners. They’ll bring sweet cream, strawberries, tarragon, raspberries in little baskets woven from dry corn husk, curd cheese, small bunches of thyme, mushrooms of the season, and everything else the forests and fields can provide, fragrant wild strawberries in enameled containers, quail eggs in crates lined with willow, blackberries, dogwood, rose-hip jam in glazed jars, elder blossoms and chamomile wrapped in kerchiefs. They will hand all this in at the storeroom, the directress will count or weigh each item, enter the data in the large ledger, so that each week, in addition to their salaries, the scullery maids will be paid for what they have brought.