Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  This open door turned out to be his great luck.

  He figured that it wasn’t by chance they’d left the door open at night; they did it so they’d all walk into the trap.

  He’d barely had time to slap some water on his face, just enough to wash the filth of others’ pleasure off his face, rinse it out of his mouth before going home, when the quiet night was shattered by the engine noise of the assault van, the screeching of its wheels and its spotlights; the policemen were already yelling.

  To herd together so many shouting, whimpering men and then squeeze them into the open prison van waiting farther off can’t have been easy; if only because of the policemen’s quick, violent fury the job couldn’t be bloodless.

  Huddled behind the open steel door, he was out of danger for a few seconds. But he thought that before doing away with himself, he should take off his clothes soiled by urine and other human secretions.

  Should roll them up and make a bundle of them and his shoes, which later he could throw along with his shame into the depths before hurling there himself.

  That the water should swallow it up, make it vanish at the bottom of its terrific current.

  He would stand naked before his own death, with no way back, powerless to change his mind at the last moment.

  He had nothing to change his mind about.

  Ilona’s rice chicken crossed his mind, the leftovers waiting for him in the pot on the stove, nice and succulent, tasty with spices, unless Ágost had unexpectedly come home early, beaten him to it and eaten it right out of the pot. In this penultimate moment he was ready to develop a liking even for Ágost, whom he disdained because of his egocentric quirks, whom he could not bear, in fact, and who, with no consideration, would take for himself, and take away from Kristóf, every delicious morsel that Ilona put aside. Barely an arm’s length from his long-prepared death, he felt strongly the physical aversion that, given their shared family features, he experienced in his cousin’s company, the perplexing intimacy of familial aversion. On this night, however, Ágost had not come home unexpectedly early to eat his cousin’s supper but rather, lying on his stomach, one knee pulled almost to his chin, was sleeping peacefully and uncovered in the maid’s room of the seventh-floor flat.

  At the moment before perishing, Kristóf wanted to understand Ágost’s crippling strangeness, to learn to love it as his own. But what he understood at most was that one is not alone even in aversion to one’s own body, because in family systems this trait too thrives in profusion.

  He also remembered Ilona’s freckles and her pale little boy, whose fate would be no better than his had been. That’s what he thought about him. He felt sorry for the brooding, rebellious little boy and for his life to come. As if thinking that his own fate, which he was now leaving to these miserable survivors, might at least have someone in whom its cruelties would continue.

  This child flesh will remain here, their common fate can rage as it pleases.

  The idea that he might still have some of that rice chicken suddenly made him ravenous.

  And another idea: that he would pass on his fate to the defenseless child, along with the leftovers of the rice chicken. Mainly, he was thinking about food because of the drop in blood sugar that comes with sexual gratification. The desire to stuff himself, gorge himself one last time. The way Ágost does; after each of his loud climaxes he gets up to wolf down something fast, eat jam out of the jar, be as disgusting as he is. If he were to stay alive, stay in this only life of his, the most dreaded thing would be his infernal climax, which the giant and his mustached assistant might somehow cajole out of his cool, insensitive body; he’d be an exemplar, a model to follow, yes, this is what you should strive for.

  He should come back to them every night. Like two legendary heroes, outlaws, or highwaymen they had disappeared before the police arrived.

  Which aroused his suspicion. Could they have been the ones who brought on the police to take care of the others—that’s what he thought, but he knew well that he could no longer live without them even if they were police agents.

  He might even want them more if they were.

  Only a few more seconds and he’ll be at the right spot and then, luckily, that scandalous thought—that nothing matters so long as they are willing to do it with him—will no longer live in him. Still, it was precisely this scandalous thought that made it seem that he was celebrating a victory over fate. After all, for the first time in his life he’d succeeded in attaining this scandalous bliss, and without getting caught or beaten up by the cops, avoiding the risk that his aunt would have to bail him out of one of the detention centers; he shuddered at the thought.

  There is no punishment; there won’t be any. His last hour was becoming the best hour of his life; at least they could not humiliate him for it. His fate has no more time to invent and inflict new punishment. Death will not be a punishment for his innocent pleasure but, rather, a lavish present, a huge bonus, he told himself, and he did not fear it, not at all; he already loved it in advance, deeply desired it, desired nothing else. At least death knew how gravely fate had erred throughout his short life. He should have settled in another body because he was completely innocent, and he learned from his impending death that other people, when they were happy, were happy because of their damned offenses.

  Or what sort of hope of happiness is it when the hope that men pursue treacherously abandons them, when they cannot give it up but it runs ahead, away from them, on swift feet. Thirst had parched his lips and the hollow of his mouth; nausea made painful sores in the corners of his mouth and chapped his lips.

  It was uplifting—to be aware of what he had learned about himself and about other men for the first and last time in his life. And other men can just stay in this world with this knowledge if they want to.

  He was taking with him the taste and smell of strange men’s lips, gums, teeth, saliva, and cocks; he cherished this, as he did his own imminent death, for which he had to take only a few more, possibly painful steps. He will take everything with him; he won’t share anything with anybody. And with the thought that he’d have nothing to relinquish in the new world, he wished that feeling would come back to his parched mouth, despite his nausea, yes, they should kiss it, thrust their muscular tongues into it, these other men, anybody. More than for the depth of the swirling water, more than for its surface made silky by the churned-up mud, he longed for the thick lips of the mustached man, the taste of his heavy sweat, the strange smells left by his spritzers, meat stew, and perpetual cigarettes. With his stinking mouth he should kiss the rest of his life to pieces, fuck him to smithereens. Gobble up every last bit of leftovers, wipe the juicy bottom of the pot with a piece of bread, chew clean every little bone and bite through every bit of gristle.

  This somebody who temporarily was still himself was taking with him the stale odor of tar and urine in his pores, on his skin, on the fuzz in his nostrils, and on his wet clothes.

  Only a few seconds are left, all he has to do is get to the middle of the bridge with this miserable creature. Nothing is more clearly known than this and never will be.

  Joining these sensations was the silt-filled, all-pervasive smell of the water intermingled with the bitterness of smoke from nearby factories and, separately, the sweet breeze of jasmine.

  On his short-cropped blond hair, a mixture of strangers’ sperm was drying.

  And while she kept on trying, once, twice, even five times in one instant, because she didn’t want, just this once she really didn’t want to fudge it, she was really trying to put this fucking F sharp in its proper place as required by the sense and style of the phrase, treating it as objectively as Margit Huber, this Médike, demanded of her, and why shouldn’t she be able to treat it as a technician would, since after all she does have a brain in her head and knows I can hold back a little here and let go a bit there; still, defying all her good intentions, her shoulders trembled with suppressed tears.

  Much pain and happiness interse
cted during this exceptional moment.

  When Kristóf again broke into a run on the bridge, he was fleeing to safeguard the sweet and childish images of his own death from the images of Ilona’s rice chicken and innocent freckles.

  Which would like to keep him here for his life and for his future.

  He was the only one making a noise on the dully resonant sidewalk of the bridge with his running steps, and yet he acknowledged, with some delay, the sound of trotting coming close behind him. And he envied Ilona’s pale little boy, in advance, for his terrible fate. He was fully prepared to hurdle over the railing. Quick little taps like those made by a dog’s feet reached his consciousness first. The nails tapped more rapidly than he himself was running. His heart skipped a beat; the black dog was going to catch up with him, his black dog.

  It had gotten free, broken out, or the night watchman must have heard its echoing, persistent barking. And now the dog was coming after him on the bridge so he would have to continue to live his life for its sake, for a dog.

  No, this was too much.

  He had to figure out something; he could not run any faster.

  As if he could not decide where he was in time and space, what had happened to him earlier or later.

  Good Lord, she sighed, and I reproached this sweet dear man, telling him he was working inside me like a stupid little technician.

  Without a soul.

  Cheeky person that I am.

  It was Margit Huber again, speaking out of me.

  She was surprised in any case by her delayed realization that this Médike had managed to get inside her and reach every part of her with her words so insidiously meted out.

  What the hell was I talking about, that he was a technician, what a dumb thing to say.

  Next thing I know she’ll decide what I should tell my lover; that’s all I need.

  I can’t let that happen.

  As if she had suddenly realized the intoxicating beauty and horror of the osmosis, the exchange of personality, the symbiosis that occurs between people.

  This woman had moved inside her with her entire being, not only her stupid singing lessons; she had wormed her way into Gyöngyvér’s every sentence and every thought. In the end she’ll be telling me what I should say to whom in every situation. As if Médike, with her relentless smile, had expropriated Gyöngyvér for herself. Let the devil be happy with her, not me, let the devil shine and glitter, what I need is a man, not her artistic glittering. Or maybe Gyöngyvér had expropriated Médike’s being along with her smile, I’ve robbed her of her smile, though she still didn’t understand how a permanent smile like that worked, the one she had stolen. Such an illuminating, multifaceted smile—which displayed myriad colors and levels of emotional intensity, which flickered, wavered, and fluttered on Margit Hubert’s lips as she taught, and with which she compelled no one to do anything—was not calculated into Gyöngyvér Mózes’s dark and difficult life, only, at most, into her tuition. Not enough that I’m paying for my lessons, I’m supposed to be happy too. Let your damn mother be happy, that Swabian. Gyöngyvér was amazed, where does this Médike get the strength for her constant smiles. And as she imitated Médike, Gyöngyvér began to comprehend that the airily sustained smile indeed contained something cool, treacherous, and obsessively persistent that would prove indispensable to singing and that she could not do without.

  And she hated Margit Huber for this.

  These people allow themselves to do even this.

  Sometimes, while talking to herself, she addressed Margit Huber’s smile as if it were not a single characteristic of a single person but the cause of her having to wage war simultaneously against the collective experience of several persons.

  If something slipped out all right, if she succeeded with one of her phrases and Margit Huber praised her, beaming, yes, that’s it, Gyöngyvér, that’s how you should do it, this is what we’ve been waiting for, then of course she instantly felt her heart beat faster and she adored her teacher.

  She was grateful to her for her earlier wickedness.

  Médike was redeemed and Gyöngyvér adored her.

  She wanted to get rid of this painful, newly acquired habit of hers, the relentless full-mouthed smiling when speaking or singing. The moment she eked out a good result from her many fiascos, she wanted to thrust Médike from her and quickly forget everything she had learned from her. What has this Médike accomplished in life with all her great knowledge, nothing. If she’d been able to make something of herself, she wouldn’t be teaching Gyöngyvér for fifty-seven forints an hour, she’d be singing. Others shouldn’t see who it was who had taught her to make her voice glow like that. This is a shameful betrayal. And though it would be painful to betray Médike immediately because, despite all her hatred, Gyöngyvér actually thought she loved her, I love her, the temptation for a quick all-out betrayal was greater.

  And from whom can a natural talent really learn anything; from nobody.

  She couldn’t have real pangs of conscience about the betrayal.

  In Médike, she discovered a teacher’s unconditional humility toward her profession and her pupil. She’s a dumb slut. Which in Gyöngyvér’s language meant that in the soul of this elusive and merciless female was a spot where she’d left herself exposed. This entire teaching strategy was an impersonal passion that she too had experienced with the children in the kindergarten and throughout her whole singing history, and no less profoundly. She knew perfectly well that without children she too was vulnerable. Her own body gave her the insight into the other person’s passion for teaching; and she saw how vulnerable it had made her too.

  If it was possible, she wanted to exploit her even more.

  She can’t do without her.

  The sheer thought that she would wring the last drop of knowledge from the old hag filled her with gratitude; she’d wring every bit of knowledge out of her. Then she’d toss her aside like a dirty dishrag.

  Passions cannot be tamed without a cool smile; she must make every sacrifice for this knowledge. The woman must be squeezed like a lemon. So that Gyöngyvér could acquire a little protection, this little common secret of theirs, a bit of this cunning little advantage.

  Even then, she won’t have as many fine expensive things as these people do who are always inheriting things from other people or family members.

  It was as if she were learning not to sing but to smile superciliously and cheerfully in a hostilely indifferent universe.

  Why should I be the one who never inherits anything from anybody. Well, I shall take things for myself, I’ll rob them and I’ll smash everything.

  But out loud she couldn’t even say how grateful she would be to Médike; she could say nothing out loud. Because there was no sentiment in the world that this old bitch didn’t reject. And let Gyöngyvér drown in her own sentimentality.

  Let’s not become personal, Gyöngyvér, please. We’re busy with something else now. We do not put our personal feelings on display, we look upon them as the object of our labors.

  When will you be able to pay the overdue tuition, if I may ask.

  And Gyöngyvér should be drowning in her love and gratitude, since she was not allowed to be free of these feelings. Just once, though, she’d like to tell the merciless bitch that she feels her gratitude in her loins. It hurts my stomach, in my cunt I feel my gratitude, you old idiot, you hag, in my twat, you understand.

  How would this Médike know how one should sing onstage if she has never actually taken a cunt into her mouth.

  Let me teach you, then, you old bitch.

  Cunt.

  Say after me.

  Sopranos, of course, can throw hysterical fits for you, making their fine town houses resonate.

  Oh, she understood the old bitch, she did indeed, very well.

  As a contralto, Gyöngyvér, one should know one’s place in the hierarchy of the art of singing.

  If only the old idiot would make an exception with someone, with me, for examp
le, with me. She should make me her general heir. Anyway, she hasn’t got anyone. Mrs. Szemző doesn’t either; these women have no one and still I won’t be inheriting anything from them. Why doesn’t Médike understand her: that she loves her so much for her knowledge; that she wants her.

  In my pain and embarrassment I’ll say to you out loud, I want you.

  Why doesn’t she love me, what would it take for her to make an exception just once; after all, her drawers are full of jewelry and her apartment’s got nothing but expensive paintings and carpets; what more does she want, why isn’t she more tender with me.

  She would like to be a male dog; then Médike would let her climb on top of her.

  She couldn’t have many students who respect her this much.

  At most, she could call her Médike, and the wicked witch couldn’t object to that. Those pampered ladies, those posh women friends of hers, they called her Médike.

  Well, I’ll give you plenty of Médike, to have your fill.

  Out of pride, Médike had to pretend not to have grasped how much Gyöngyvér adored and disdained her whenever she called her Médike.

  I’d kill myself if I had huge, wrinkled, freckled breasts like hers. Médike was one mean-spirited bitch and because of her Gyöngyvér had to suffer so much. I shouldn’t have breasts larger than a boy’s. She had paid a lot to be able to suffer from Médike, true, but she also hadn’t learned so much from anyone as she had from this dear woman. A slut of a Swabian woman like this could be so damn stingy and with her an hour was only fifty minutes. And even after the lesson one couldn’t chat with her for free, oh no. For five minutes of yakking she charged a whole hour, and on top of that she pretended not to understand your indignation.

  Gyöngyvér would have liked to sink a good long knife into her for such pettiness.

  Or, good Lord, to fall on the harridan with her bare hands.

  Good Lord, imagine that once upon a time a man must have loved this ugly woman.

  And properly strangle her.