Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  Even then, I saw that woman again.

  Only her eyes, actually, because she held her scarf against her face. That early morning she wore not a hat but a turban. The cashmere scarf and the turban had the same color and pattern. In those days, the sight of such finery was not conspicuous; not even a Persian lamb or mink coat was. People wore many things that earlier they’d kept hidden and wouldn’t have dared to wear. As if they were in the midst of a permanent celebration, though these fine items did not fit the occasion. But she had her arm looped through a basket handle and her hand on the basket just as she always had when going shopping. And while the rest of the people were discussing things, she must have said something from behind her scarf to the man next to her, which he did not seem to understand. This man was wearing riding boots, also an item one hadn’t seen earlier. Then the woman started forward on the sidewalk. The man took a few steps after her, glass and rubble squeaking under their feet, but he did not follow her. She didn’t care; she stepped off the sidewalk and walked on with her basket on her arm. She did not run, did not hurry, and leaned her torso forward just a little.

  Like someone going to a store.

  The man remained on the sidewalk, which was not very clever because right at that spot the sidewalk protruded and turned like a panhandle.

  He was standing on a panhandle with a dark sea of danger in front of him. He should have stepped back or started walking in one direction or other; he should have moved. The rest of us watched to see what he would do.

  The woman reached the lit area under the streetlamp with no trouble, but from there the going was harder because of the bodies and the piles of cobblestones. Streetcar tracks poked out from the pavement like dead spines. The city was full of objects that had lost their meaning. Nothing was happening. She stepped between the tracks, where a veritable ditch was gaping under her. This wasn’t bad since she could use it as protection and duck down into it. We did not hear anything suspicious from anywhere in the darkness. At least twenty of us were waiting to see where all this was leading and were not even aware of one another’s breath, or maybe we were just paying no attention to things like that. Once she was across the tracks and out of the area lit by the streetlamp, we could see her break into a run.

  If she has managed to get that far, we prayed, she shouldn’t perish now.

  During those days it was possible to understand why people did what they did. This woman was saving her life. We saw her next when she reached the side of the building on the corner.

  I saw her again at Glázner’s. By then it was light. She had gotten there much sooner than I, because she was already in line when I arrived. When I saw the line from afar, I felt I should just give up, but then where would I go for bread.

  The moment one saw a line, one began to figure. This line was so huge that any calculation was doomed. While I was procrastinating—I walked to the front to ascertain that the line indeed was as long as I thought and to see what was happening, and I had to walk all the way to József Katona Street—many more people joined it. But there were other procrastinators too, who also did not believe their eyes; they too walked to the front or looked at the line from afar, pondering what on earth to do. One’s saved life was becoming hopeless. Senseless even in retrospect, as if having survived until now was pointless.

  And the longer one weighed the situation, the more one’s chances dwindled, seeing others take the place one should have claimed by right of first arrival.

  The end of the heavily populated line coiled loosely from Sándor Fürst Street to Lipót Boulevard. That’s where I had to go to join it. But then it went completely around the entire block, turning back on Imre Sallai Street to reach the bakery entrance on the boulevard. And it wasn’t moving at all. There was no bread. No one knew when a new batch would be baked. Some people had brought small chairs or stools with them. Others just kept standing, shifting their weight from one cold foot to the other, resting now and again by leaning their backs against the building. I no longer had doubts. Going back to take my place, I wondered what would happen if I walked all the way to Petneházy Street, to the bread factory.

  Not that I had any forebodings.

  Here, at least, things were calm, and perhaps that’s what stopped me from becoming independent. After my very long delay, I took a place at the edge of the curb on the boulevard. The person who came after me had to stand in the street. We could shuffle and edge forward a little, not because they were finally starting to sell bread but because silent impatience somehow compacted the line.

  A half hour must have gone by when something happened in the store as a result of which things began to happen along the line too. At first only some restlessness, soft murmurs, people being pressed more tightly together. Everyone wanted to move forward, but there was no place to move to. Where would you like me to go, my dear madam.

  In situations like this, everybody has to say something.

  My dear sir, a little patience, please.

  Well, if you think you know what will happen.

  Then a helpless shuffling of feet and, in the hum of exasperation stretched to the limit, the first solitary shouts.

  Everybody looks down on the shouters, and for good reason.

  To push my way into the store, I’d first have to make way for those who happily, with their loaves in hand, were trying to leave it.

  People unfamiliar with the psychology of a queue would think this the most natural thing; after all, it would be in my best interest. If people can’t come out, nobody can go in either. However, everybody has to put up with a number of different pressures simultaneously, and this simply cannot be done in a crowd no matter how well intentioned a person may be. Rationality, a sense of justice, and crowd pressure must fight it out, and no individual has control over these forces. Rationality becomes the most fragile of the three because the farther back one is in the line, and ignorant of what is happening at the head of the line, the greater the urge to move forward, that’s what one’s animal instinct dictates. But a move of even a few centimeters or millimeters unavoidably creates tension. Whether instinctively or deliberately, you shuffle forward, because if you don’t, someone else will, or others will goad you on impatiently, and then your sense of justice will suffer. No matter that one cherishes one’s rationality and sense of justice, there is no way to hold off with one’s back the will of so many people, just as one cannot stay balanced against the pressing weight of others. Suddenly everyone tries to resist and push back against some of the pressure, people in general being well intentioned and sensible, but no one can overcome the treacherous designs of his own animal selfishness. One can’t help it if one is weak and lacks the strength to withstand the beast who has climbed on one’s back, but if people don’t have the strength to close ranks and uniformly resist the pressure at their backs, then the small gap I can create with my own strength can become an opening for the weak and swept-away or, just as easily, for petty self-seekers, cunning foxes, leeches, and greedy profiteers.

  Some people wait for just such moment. People differ in their physical as in their mental strength and their consideration for others. A person may have the necessary strength and can bravely stand up to any pressure applied to his back, but all he wants is to hold off the other person, keep him from getting what he wants for himself.

  And everyone can find a reason for wanting this tiny advantage. He’s been standing here for two hours. It’s cold. He should be able to go to the toilet at last. His child hasn’t had anything to eat for two days. And if he can’t get into the store, if they run out of the last batch of baked bread just before he gets there, he’ll have to wait at least another hour. He can’t put up with that. It’s possible that indeed he truly can’t; after all, his blood pressure is high, he has cancer or heart trouble.

  And what if they run out of flour.

  Or the store gets a direct hit.

  Or he is trampled by these crazy mean people.

  Anybody can see that s
ense is no longer the master here.

  With tooth and nail, he is groping for justice, yet all he really wants is that no one should be unfair to him.

  And everybody is screaming and yelling.

  He can’t help it, he is screaming too.

  The ones who don’t even open their mouths are also screaming. The one who always knew that people were like this, but only now feels it necessary to liberate this knowledge. The one who’s surprised that people are like this and now screams his discovery to the whole wide world. This one didn’t know that his neighbor, with whom he’d been talking just a minute ago, was a wild beast. That one screams because he’s been jammed up against the store window. This one because he has been pushed out of the line. That one’s been stepped on; this one was kicked. There are children and elderly people. There are those who want to come out and those who are being shoved in; there are professional hysterics, and there are those who are truly suffocating. And there are many who can’t believe this is happening to them. Their souls scream, and even the ones who do not do this with their mouths have a peculiar fever wracking their bodies because they can’t resist the others’ yelling and screaming.

  A very thin membrane is ruptured.

  Most likely, I screamed too; everyone was screaming. At times like this, nothing remains but the grace of fate, luck, and chance. You are no longer responsible, nobody is, for yourself or for the other people, and even if you make it through the mess unscathed, you wouldn’t know who should get the credit. It’s also odd how quickly such a turmoil can subside in a crowd.

  I don’t know what happened.

  At any rate, the store’s window glass did not break. With bread loaves raised above their heads, the first few customers forced their way out. The crowd pressed against the entrance could not make way for them, yet they managed to push and shove themselves out.

  One could see only straining shoulders, backs piled on backs in front of them; in situations like this people have no faces, memory has nothing to preserve.

  I saw everything.

  I was standing ten meters from them and still don’t know what happened. Backs, shoulders, the white patches of faces.

  My hearing remembers.

  Shrieking hovered over the congested human mass, but, standing at the very end of the line that went around the entire block yet no more than ten meters from where the bread was being handed out, where at any moment something terrible could happen, we did nothing but scream. As if screaming could remind us of the vestiges of rationality, of a rationality that was still possible.

  That they should not be doing this.

  Not like this.

  And there was anger in this screaming pitted against the shrieking. The anger of self-interest and plain selfishness. If at the head of the line the inevitable happens, then I, here at the very end, won’t get my bread either.

  The line in the street went crazy. As far as the eye could see. No one was leaning against walls anymore, people jumped up from their chairs and stools. They had no idea what might be happening, they were turning around, making noises, hoping to move forward. Maybe it happened in the cacophony, in the air, between angry screams and insane shrieks where the opposing currents of helplessness and willfulness clashed.

  When the first customers with their bread finally pushed clear of the crowd and stood dazed and happy, or quickly hurried away before someone tore the warm loaves from their hands, the nerve-racking cacophony reached a peak. It couldn’t go on like this. It could not get any louder. Everyone could see that people were coming out of the store, and everyone strove to be among the ones to fill their places. And now they really didn’t let anybody out. Lava must feel like this when it has to crack the crust of the earth and the crust wants to stay at the edge of the crack but still caves in.

  Later, an eyewitness could say only that the inner pressure had become stronger, though the outer one hadn’t weakened.

  The loaves of bread exhaled hot fragrances.

  And if someone inside had been so favored by fate as to get a loaf of bread at last, that person wanted to break out, while the fate of one who wanted to break in trembled in uncertainty. The latter acted so as to get bread. The one hoping to emerge safely with his hot bread acted to save his life. Although nothing had been sorted out properly, the shrieking and screaming somewhat diminished. The line began to move. Which did not reduce the cacophony, now a clamor of agitated indignation. No one was shouting but everyone was swearing wildly, imploring, explaining.

  We shuffled slowly forward. In the soles of our feet we felt there was still hope.

  And then I saw the woman. Sometimes only her turban, sometimes the vague profile of her burned face. Slowly the sun came out and we started to move quite rapidly. The light felt warm, and the smell of the nearby river was in the air. Nobody talked about what had just happened or what might have happened. Because, after all, nothing had really happened, and if we kept walking at this rate, very soon we’d have our bread. Within a few minutes we reached the corner of Sándor Fürst Street. The happy ones were coming out one after the other. As you moved forward, you paid attention to every little shuffle. Your situation changed drastically. You were no longer at the end of the line but well in the middle of it. You were alert, making sure that no one gained an unmerited advantage, and you were careful not to give the impression that you might jockey for one. The line is moving, everybody’s fine nerve endings are atremble, and everybody keeps their stings at the ready. Everybody is out to gain an advantage, even if only a centimeter or so, and everybody is trying to keep everyone else from gaining the same.

  As if each person had put reins of morality on others while the reins holding him were in the others’ hands.

  People restrain their own selfishness in one another. If I can’t get ahead of them, into a more advantageous position, at least I shouldn’t fall behind them. When the line moves, there’s no time for argument, and once it stops no one can change his position for a better one. Only now, while still moving. That centimeter and a half must be gained now. And it must be gained not as if I were driven by the dark intentions of selfishness, but as if other people’s slowness or clumsiness made my position more favorable than theirs.

  When we reached the corner, the line came to a halt. It was still dark and cold in the narrow street. Only from the roofs did some sunshine drip down to us. And that little warmth and light hit only that small side street that connects Sándor Fürst Street with Pozsonyi Road.

  When the line stops, it is a magical moment. Everyone has to acknowledge, alert as they might have been and hard as they might have tried, that they are not next to the people they started out with and not quite in the same relative position to them. Everybody’s efforts were directed to not letting anything change, yet everything did. The familiar coats and familiar faces are the enemy, because many of them are now in front of you. In the next few seconds, you have to establish new alliances with strangers. A bitter moment. This is when quarrels erupt and often become physical. Or suddenly a deadly silence prevails; there is no more hopeful feet-shuffling. In the silence chairs and stools make small noises; sighs are heard. Someone says something, somebody responds. Once again one has to set up residence forever on this one and only spot.

  Trouble occurs only when one does not accept one’s place in the universe. Actually, this is not my place, you say to yourself, and, unguardedly, you give voice to your indignation. Most people are wary of this trouble.

  Sometimes a common fear even stifles a quarrel that has already started.

  Not rationality.

  There was silence.

  Everybody is afraid.

  This could have been the silence of an ordinary autumn morning. There were no sounds of gunfire anywhere.

  I got lucky and could lean my back against a wall. Of course, I did a bit of manipulative navigation to reach this position. One could still see on the building wall the damage left from the Second World War. Bullet pockmarks in the pla
ster had been blackened by soot. I grew up in this city and never thought that this should not be so. But our silence now was not a real silence, because it was touched by a uniform rumbling sound coming from far away.

  By then I knew that in the bakery three ovens were working simultaneously, producing a new batch of fresh bread every thirty-five minutes. We figured that we could progress about thirty meters with each new batch. Provided the ovens could keep up the pace. If there was enough firewood and they didn’t run out of flour or received a fresh shipment in time. If they could manage the kneading and leavening as fast as the ovens did the baking.

  This was not likely.

  We also knew that as of last night, all the ground-floor apartments in this building had been taken over for the purpose of leavening the bread dough. Some people figured out that at such a pace we needed to wait for twenty-five baking sessions and we’d be done in the late afternoon. The question was not whether we could stick it out but whether we’d get our bread before nightfall. Or, if we didn’t reach the entrance by then, would they lift the curfew, giving us more time.

  To violate the curfew was harder in the evening than at dawn. It was virtually impossible in the evenings because the city then swarmed with various patrols. The fighting always died down by dawn.

  The rumbling steadily grew louder. After a certain point no one had any doubt that it came from an approaching column of tanks. Columns of tanks were not especially frightening. Tanks turned up from somewhere and then moved on to someplace else. Unless they stopped, there’d be no trouble. And it was unlikely that they would choose to come through this narrow street. They preferred the wider streets and avenues, moving at the edge of the road so it would not be easy to throw Molotov cocktails at them from the buildings. The rumbling came from the direction of Angyalföld, and we could guess from the noise that the tanks would have to pass through either Pozsonyi Road or Pannónia Street. And when in this maddening rumbling we could also hear the squeaking of caterpillar tracks, it was clear that they were rolling on the yellow ceramic pavement of Pozsonyi Road, on which every squeak sounded harsher and was more amplified than on regular asphalt. First, only the rumbling filled with squeaks took up the space between the buildings, and then, in the sunny junction of the small side street, we saw the tanks.