Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  Or anybody; I wanted no living being who might cause me pain because I’d fallen in love with him or her.

  Fallen in love, yes, I was able to love, no matter how hard I protested; I could fall in love in a minute, with any body or thing. I couldn’t get out of my head the marvelous giant who was probably illiterate. Or the odor of Szidónia Oltó’s armpits, Gyöngyvér Mózes’s fingernail polish, a little cloud in the sky, Ilona Bondor’s red freckles. And for this permanent weakness I despised myself.

  Why am I so weak and foolish.

  The rotten door closed tight enough for me to be sure the dog wouldn’t break out and follow me.

  In the old days, two awful hags used to clean the basement. They came from Pest on the streetcar; they weren’t from the country. Heavy, large-bodied women, they wore rubber aprons and rubber boots and dragged their red water hoses after them everywhere. Wherever they appeared, they’d attach the hoses to a faucet and the ice-cold water went streaming over everything.

  They hardly talked, but instead continually moaned and sighed, oh, Lord Jesus, oh, Virgin Mary, help me, save me now. If their bleach bucket tipped over or their thick, willow-twig brooms fell and splashed in spilled water, they would swear in long loops of curses.

  The things they told each other were certainly not meant for children’s ears.

  I was scared of these huge women. They did not return my greetings, and if I politely asked them something they looked through me as if I were made of air and neither of them replied. The hotel’s strict regulations that exhorted the staff from the ground floor up to politeness and familial courtesy did not reach to the basement. One could not count on them in the lower regions, and looking at things from down there, it seemed to me that what went on above ground level was not so much natural as, rather, exceptional. I had the impression that the world was one big basement with which I was not yet sufficiently familiar. Even in the kitchen one could count only on the personal favor of the cooks or scullery maids, or on the merciless indifference of the directress. The servants would not continue for very much longer to serve the masters on the floors above. And while the women in rubber aprons didn’t even look up from their work when I came near, as if they didn’t see or hear anything, they talked to each other loud and clear, and made sure I heard and understood what they were saying. The least of it was their calling me shitty little kid, snot-nose, little dwarf, and grumbling that I was always underfoot, always loitering. For a long time I did not understand this word loitering, just as I hadn’t understood bigamy, of which the drunken old woman in the rabbit-fur coat was supposed to have been guilty, or phrases like dirty Jew and filthy bourgeois, which referred directly to me and along with me to my entire tribe.

  Shove the little bourgeois dwarf into the barrel, what the fuck is he loitering around here for; let the garbage man take him away.

  The stokers weren’t exactly friendly either, but at least they didn’t mind if I stood at the top of the steel stairway and watched them work. Maybe they liked having at least one little boy in the world who truly admired their shiny bodies and the work they did.

  With the two cleaning women, I tried to pretend I was admiring them, but I failed to convince or deceive them with the seriousness of my interest.

  At the water fountain I first washed the wound and then drank a lot of water, I could hardly get enough of it. I had to balance on a brick because the fountain leaked, water trickling down even when no one pushed the release lever, and the drain in front was stopped up.

  Shapeless puddles of standing water marked the swamplike vicinity of the fountain.

  Bricks had been set down in some of the puddles so one could manage to approach the fountain, but from the wobbly bricks my feet slipped into the water several times. If I really wanted to walk home on the Árpád Bridge instead of taking the night tram, I had a hopelessly long and unpleasant trip ahead of me in wet shoes.

  Maybe it would be better to put an end to my life.

  The hard lump that had developed on my bruised shin was throbbing and turning blue, a tight pantleg was rubbing against the oozing wound, and I was limping badly.

  Once on the other shore, to reach Váci Road, I’d have to make my way across Vizafogó, a jungle of worthless little proletarian housing projects that keep sinking into the sand. From there, the only routes lay along tall fences and cheerless planks of factories all the way to Lehel Square, where, amid a constant noise of shunting and switching, I’d cross the Ferdinánd Bridge over the railway tracks and continue on the endless, sooty Szív Street until I reached Andrássy Road. There, I could choose to go under the plane trees on the promenade lined with salvia, forget-me-nots, pansies, and daisies, where I might be somewhat exposed, or, remaining in the maze of houses, to approach Grand Boulevard from the cover of little side streets.

  I hoped to find the main gate open and slip in without Balter’s noticing me.

  But in the end I set out on the long trek with two parallel sets of calculations at work in me. It was also possible that I would be unable to hobble home at all.

  Jumping off the Árpád Bridge, one could be much more certain of killing oneself than by jumping off the Margit Bridge.

  The span between the piers is much greater, the bridge is simple and unadorned, and there’s no chance that one would knock against the steel framework or that the piers would be a hindrance. I wanted to reach the water unharmed. I needed only a single glance to get an idea of the width and depth of the whirlpools and of the current’s strength.

  It would be nice this way; at any rate, this bridge was preferable.

  But even if I were to go through with it, first I had to urinate. I could barely hold it anymore; I was hurrying, limping, anxious to reach the mysterious darkness of the chestnut grove below the boulders of the Japanese Garden, where I could finally relieve myself.

  The promenade along the shore and the thicket around the Dominican cloister had kept me captive for four whole nights, so I hadn’t wandered this far afield, and I had no idea to what sort of place my urge to urinate would bring me.

  But I knew the area from my childhood, and a few days earlier I had taken a stroll there with a slightly limping, very elegant young lady from Buda, who in her utter passivity mercifully wanted nothing from me. Whenever I joined her family for an opera or ballet performance at the open-air theater, or in the casino for five o’clock tea and a dance, before and after the event the two of us would go for a walk on the island to about this point. There was nothing interesting past the chestnut grove, except perhaps for the war-damaged ruins of the neoclassic Music Well, soiled and stinking of urine, and the barrenness of the paved ramp leading to the bridge.

  An artificial waterfall poured over romantic rocks into a calm little pond.

  This is how far we came.

  The bodies of plump goldfish glimmered among the water lilies, and one could gaze at the fish even if one had nothing worth saying to one’s companion. The point always arrived when I had nothing to say to girls, or when they didn’t want to talk about Edith Piaf, Simone de Beauvoir, or Camus. I was not enthusiastic about their favorite topics. What they wanted to talk about was the cooing voice of sweet little Ákos Németh, along with all the gossip about him, which was of very limited interest to me. If they’d wanted me to grasp their breasts and stroke them while gazing into their eyes, or if they’d let my fingers wander under their skirts, there’d have been no problem at all.

  But all they wanted was that I passionately return their kisses, nothing more, maybe put my arm around their waist but not slide my hand up the back of their sweater.

  You’re doing this only to get me excited, I know. Men do this to make women lose their self-control.

  Oh, how awful, how can you do a thing like that.

  They’d slap my hand no matter where it sought contact with their bare skin.

  Mean boy, they said sulkily; try as you might, I won’t let you do that.

  It was quiet now because the taps o
f the waterfall had been turned off at ten o’clock sharp at the power station, though the steeply rising rock garden with its footpaths remained illuminated by floodlights all night long to make patrolling easier for the police.

  Their aggressive lips desensitized mine, and I found no passion in aggressiveness. I wondered whether they had learned this aggressive kissing from one another, whether I should fall on them with the same aggressive vehemence.

  Hurrying toward the dark grove, I discovered that the light was on above the urinal and the door had been left wide open. Normally, this should have been closed when they turned off the waterfall.

  Inside it was dark.

  As I carefully entered the place, which smelled strongly of tar and urine, expecting to step into muck or bump into something unexpected, the beams of floodlights coming through the narrow windows high up on the walls temporarily blinded me and made me stop.

  A familiar stench and familiar human tension warmly pervaded the space.

  I should have realized immediately that I’d fallen into a trap and would not easily escape; I was in a snare. But from that moment on I was once again standing outside my own personality.

  I saw nothing, only heard and felt on my goose-bumped body that many men were standing in front of the tarred wall opposite me. Somehow they seemed to fill the place completely. It was as if the temperature had risen sharply, for it seemed feverishly hot. As if disturbed by my entrance, the men rustled their clothes and made little knocking and shuffling noises on the floor. I stared, opened my eyes wide, wanted to see what was happening, what they had so abruptly interrupted when I came in, but darkness and the light coming straight at me simultaneously blinded me. Then the dark silence became deeper and tenser, and I could hear in it, at arm’s length, directly behind the open door, the solitary dripping of a faucet.

  This is how water drips into a broken porcelain sink.

  I did not move from the doorway.

  This somebody, whom I was observing within me, did not turn on his heels and take off, as he should have. In his terror he did not run away, rather he stepped out of the harsh light and into the feverish darkness that had always tempted him. Dispassionately and almost omnisciently, he glanced around in the new space, though he could not have seen much of it.

  Tar and water formed a compound fragrance at once sharp, clear, deep, and dark; it devoured all other odors and threatened the sense of smell.

  All the while his abandoned persona could not swallow, and his entire body was trembling gently, mainly in the knees, because of his shaking soul.

  He found pleasure in this bodily fright.

  He heard the sound of his footsteps, which told him that with his entire being he had once again become like soft cat’s paws on which he would rush to his doom. Although in the empty shell of his persona someone was dissatisfied and sending out danger signals, whispering you cannot do this, you must not do this. As if somebody was still there who could be convinced to do something.

  The one now standing in the space abandoned by his corporeal reality was not strong enough to convince himself of anything.

  He made his move to do it, for the first time in his life, in any way possible, and with anyone.

  And if it is not I talking to myself in this way, to stop the other one inside from going on this risky adventure, and if I am not the other one either, who has already taken his first step, then what should this stranger be afraid of.

  There’s good reason to fear pleasure, because pleasure puts one at the mercy of the other person’s pleasure, leaving both personalities defenseless by entrusting them to each other; however, if there is no I, no self, then there is no need for any persuasion, no need for any restraint.

  Pleasure is probably one of God’s nicknames.

  And personality is nothing more than a bundle of traits whose rich offering is to be used freely according to one’s needs and fancies. And in that case, it could not possibly have anything to do with that senseless struggle with which the stupid petite bourgeoisie, squeezed between prohibitions and obligations, try to ensure their existence, thereby expelling a certain amount of permanence, stability, and security from their bodies’ archaic reality.

  I don’t want and do not need such false security.

  As if he were saying that he did not need the rough, uncouth proletarian girls or the prim, lisping young ladies teetering on high heels around whom he had made his obligatory reputation as a skirt chaser. And he needed even less the experience-seeking school and college girls, though they permitted everything and in their great curiosity did many things themselves.

  I don’t need them either.

  I had no idea what was waiting for me at the bottom of this peculiar dark muteness.

  With their interrupted frozen movements, the men stood close to one another.

  In a solid line they stood, like somber Roman warriors.

  Only their shoulders were visible, the lighter spots of their backs, maybe the arcs of their necks a little bit.

  Ordine stat.

  For the most part, the deep darkness of the pissoir’s tarred wall swallowed their shapes.

  He belonged with them.

  They all turn in his direction, heads tugged as if by strings, because they want to see him, who it is who’s come, is he really one of them, perhaps it’s someone whose leaving they’ll have to wait out silently and motionless. But they did not turn away from the tarred wall either, because they were not ready to give up their hard-earned privileged places. First the newcomer had to give evidence of where he belonged. He had to take his place among them. The darkness conveyed something of their movements and intentions but very little of their bodies and faces.

  At most, the reflected light from above illuminated the edge of their profiles or skulls.

  It wasn’t that there were no barriers between these somber, ready-for-anything men, that they had no inhibitions. On the contrary, at the sight of the newcomer they literally froze into their own inhibitions.

  Yet they seemed to have been waiting for him as they would for no one but the Messiah.

  Their hungry attention and wild imagination converged on the body of the newcomer. They waited for somebody to free them from their inhibitions so that in their mutual muteness they might make a first move. If at a time like this someone had urinated loudly into the common silence, with his clumsy dribbling he’d have had little hope to claim he belonged among these men. They all pretended they had just finished their business and were only shaking the last drops off their pricks so as not to wet their underpants.

  Directly opposite the entrance there was a free space in the otherwise solid lineup.

  He could step into it if he had the courage.

  That spot had the most light, which is perhaps why it remained empty. The two ends of the lineup vanished in the deep darkness stinking of urine and tar.

  That’s where he headed, straight into the darkness where, in the very depth of the night, water was dripping on enamel. He chose the more dangerous place, where he could disappear with the personal shame he felt before men but with his impersonal desires could appear before God.

  He hoped that the warm darkness would protect him and in his pleasure he would not have to throw himself on the mercy of others, of anyone.

  And then he noticed the giant’s mustached assistant in the lineup, with his big head and tousled hair among the other heads turning toward him. Unlike the others, the assistant turned somewhat with his body too, simultaneously presenting, as it were, the emblem of his cock.

  The assistant had no doubt he belonged among these men.

  He considered his cock as the last argument, in case I still hadn’t made up my mind. After all, one must decide how to shape one’s life. To see the emblem was like seeing an old friend.

  And seeing it, icy, fiery dread coursed through him like homesickness; if things were going this well, then the tar-smelling giant with his hammerlike head and the high bare nape of his neck must also b
e in here somewhere.

  The man with whom, he still hoped, he might spend the rest of his life.

  He’d fallen in love with this man and was ready to do anything for this love, to step across the boundaries of his own person if need be, or even across the shadow of the gods.

  It does not take long for one’s eyes to get used to darkness. He now noticed for the first time that the giant was indeed there, his legs spread casually apart in his insanely relaxed mood, his loosened worker’s pants fallen over his ankles, right next to the vacant spot in the lineup that would be so easy to step into.

  The vacant place is his.

  He had never been granted such good fortune. As if after long and arduous research he had just discovered an unknown element that, look at the miracle, people, fit perfectly into Mendeleyev’s periodic table. The marvelous giant’s suddenly flashing smile with his wetly glittering teeth illuminated the stinking darkness.

  It was a summons, come on, a raw, animal promise of his goodness, a down payment, but at the same time he was exuding an ominous cold, the icy breeze of madness, because the summons meant that you could not avoid your fate in this snare.

  Just by looking at this man, I knew I’d walked into a trap. That this was indeed predestined. One place in this dismal universe had been left vacant, entrusted to this marvelous giant, that he should guard it, keep it for me, and not only is it unavoidable, but his goodness and solicitude positively compel me to occupy it.

  He listened, wanted to remain cautious, but no one inside him protested this compulsion. He knew he’d give in; still he looked about coolly to see if there were any signs of a conspiracy. A liquid does not protest either, when it slowly fills the cracks and depressions in a vessel, but it fills them slowly. He was afraid that these two were setting a trap for him or would simply make him a laughingstock, or even beat him up when he took their bait.

  While his hesitation stemmed rather from the obligatory anxiety of a man in love.