Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  And then she became angry with this silly pitiable girl; despite all her understanding and forgiving she became angry with her. She wants to take this man away from her; for that, the little one would have the finesse, wouldn’t she. She became so angry she almost began to rage herself, her own family’s neurosis being characterized by a dangerous absence of an ability to relinquish tranquillity and discrimination.

  What a viper.

  She is trying with her words to ruin, to pulverize my attraction to him, which I need for my career if for nothing else.

  What a sharp little tongue she has. She is picking at me with her sharp little tongue.

  Although she still felt the weight of Schuer’s hand on her arm, she knew that beyond their common scientific interest she had no chance with him. This stupid uneducated socialite beauty would have plenty of chances, however.

  And she also had to acknowledge that no matter how many names she had called her—dizzy hen, silly goose, whatever—the woman was not stupid.

  Sometimes we women are frightened by significant symbols of raw vitality, she replied considerately, as if she were ready, despite her excessive emotion, to protect the younger though probably no longer untouched woman, but there’s no need to blame anyone for this. Think about it, whom can you blame for a certain kind of nose. Come, my dear, don’t be so childish.

  A veritable freak, the countess cried, hysterical and not to be calmed, as if with neurotic strength she would avenge the emotional injuries she had suffered a moment earlier.

  If you ask me, he probably has other bodily deformities too, he must have, believe me, this man is hiding something.

  And I know what it is, she exclaimed at last, enraged and almost desperate.

  They burst out laughing at this, which satisfied them both. They naturally laughed with the same malevolent little-girlish joy; after all, they were laughing about a showy, self-satisfied man, and behind his back.

  What a little devil you are, and you don’t even know what you’re talking about, my dear, said the Baroness Thum, laughing so hard that tears came to her eyes.

  And the little devilry bound them together with a special strength. They would never behave like this with other people.

  As usual you don’t know, how could you possibly, she said, and, clicking open the clasp of her wonderful little snakeskin handbag to take out her batiste handkerchief and blot her tears, she put on a deceitfully dreamy face to indicate that she was not ready to give away all her secrets.

  Believe me, the corner of her mouth seemed to say, there are plenty of them.

  In the meantime, her soul nearly froze with the pleasure-filled image. Her great scientific rival, at whose hands she had suffered defeat after defeat, might have on his body some carefully concealed and embarrassing abnormality. Because of which he should have had himself sterilized long ago instead of bestowing three children on the world.

  This had never occurred to her.

  He has three nipples. I will count his teeth. Maybe he’s got two sets of testicles.

  Which this ugly little witch feels or notices better than I do.

  Well, that’s wonderful, she cried.

  I know it’s not proper to talk about things like this with you, the countess continued, enjoying the way she could show her worst side to Karla. As a matter of fact, it’s not proper to do it with anyone, but I can’t help it.

  Fortunately Karla was able to cover her profile with the handkerchief while blotting tears from the corners of her eyes perhaps a little too carefully.

  On the contrary, she answered, charmed by the countess’s openness, our famous science, my dear, consists of nothing but our debating just such questions and proposing all sorts of dubious hypotheses. This is what we are certified for, my dear, if I may put it that way. God creates many deformities and bodily abnormalities, and we carefully collect them, categorize and label them. Of course God did not specify what the norms of perfection were and we have no way of knowing whether he deposited them somewhere. Maybe it won’t interest you, but Schuer wrote his postdoctoral thesis on this very subject, and our bloodiest arguments are over questions of pathology. Ever since then, he’s been publishing the same paper over and over in all the racial-biological textbooks, to the point of becoming ridiculous.

  Well, I shouldn’t burden you with this.

  But you can believe me that every person is a freak, deformed from birth. If you take a closer look at them, you can see it with your own eyes.

  Veritable monsters.

  You can’t be so innocent as not to have noticed.

  Only we are perfect and flawless, the two of us, cried the countess with painful pleasure, because she understood only too well what the other woman was talking about, and at this moment Baroness Thum indeed saw her as beautiful.

  Which instantly made her feel younger and more slender herself, despite her torments of neediness and guilt feelings. She wanted to shout and protest, no, no, alas, alas, we’re not more perfect or more flawless than other people; it was part of her scientific credo that inherited deformities were intrinsic to a person’s beauty and indispensable for truly exceptional talent, which is why she opposed the sterilization of flawed individuals that Schuer approved and encouraged. She thought the practice of selection on the basis of racial biology and genetics was a crime against the German people, its consequences unpredictably destructive for the entire Nordic race. At most she approved of euthanasia for a much smaller part of the population, and certainly the deformed and mentally ill were to be kept from reproducing.

  At most, making them disappear, putting them out of sight, which would eliminate superfluous expenses.

  But she kept quiet, gave no voice to her scientific arguments.

  Who else could be more beautiful, she cried with painful pleasure, as they gazed at each other, delighting in the reality of the person their eyes beheld.

  I wouldn’t allow myself to say something like this to anyone else, said the countess quietly, almost somberly.

  I believe you, I believe almost everything you say, my dear, said the baroness, though she was inexplicably irritated after their blissful harmony of the moment earlier. But I’d like to know how you came up with this foolishness.

  Her silent admirer appeared to her in his physical reality, the one who with a certain regularity gratified her in the red-velvet room, while other men, total strangers emerging from the dimness, ran their fingers all over her spread legs and her bare arms raised above her head, but he never physically made her his own, never.

  Even though, judging by the signs, he was not impotent.

  The flavor of this dark adventure came from this insane lack.

  Lack filled her life and made preparation for the one enormous gratification more exciting.

  As if with her earlier comment, she had opened the gates and water was now rushing toward her uncontrollably.

  What she knew of the man were his lips and his tongue. She made their acquaintance on her vagina, held open by her fingers, or on her clitoris; and she was also familiar with the peculiar fragrance of his bald head, damp with perspiration, as it rose from her loins; that, and nothing more.

  Yet she penetrated the depth of the man’s passion; they shared their passion.

  She let him do anything, but she would never touch her admirer. As if she were afraid that he would crumble to dust in her fingers. Occasionally, she would grab the strange men in his stead, the men who in the red darkness offered her their services, their hands, lips and tongues, and also their penises.

  I’d be much obliged if you told me the sources of your information, she continued, still annoyed.

  What information do you have in mind.

  Where did you get it.

  Get what.

  Maybe I misunderstood you.

  I rather think that I do not understand you.

  But of course you do, you little beast.

  What you say surprises me, I find your choice of words unwarranted, but I g
uess you’re no less a monster than I am.

  They understood each other so well that they now, at this juncture of their conversation, faltered in enjoyable dread. Karla blushed—to her core, she felt—given the emotions and memories evoked by the loudly spoken words.

  Obviously neither of them knew where to go from here.

  You can’t be serious, said the countess, her voice gliding even higher than its usual high, sharp little-girl pitch, when you say you know him so intimately.

  What are you talking about, said the baroness, becoming more entangled in her own blushing, you’re the one who spoke as if you knew the secrets of his body.

  How could I, this is the first time I’ve ever seen him in my life.

  They stopped, simultaneously, on the shady side of the sunlit street.

  There was silence between them, the baroness did not respond or give any sign, and in the great Sunday serenity only the twittering of wrens could be heard in the distance.

  In fact, Countess Auenberg didn’t want to know the answer to the question she had asked or at least implied.

  Shameless, how can anyone be so shameless, grumbled Baroness Thum, rather enjoying the impasse.

  Yet Imola did want to ask the older woman what might happen to her in married life. In this regard, the previous day’s visit to the atelier had quite upset her. She was not very young anymore, twenty-two years old; she needed to know many things about the male sex in general. She needed objective information. If there was such a thing. Would Karla tell her in detail what Mihály might do to her. There is no way of knowing such things. How should a woman give herself to a man without seeming to be either cold or lascivious. She observed the sculptor with his thinning hair and his statues, those enormous male bodies, with this question in mind. The sculptor quite resembled Mihály. And what would this famous unfamiliar man do with her if she took off all her clothes and gave him free rein. Or would men just pull up her nightshirt to get to her. She hadn’t dared risk the question of what she would do with such a man.

  How should she give in to what she feels, when she’s never seen them naked and doesn’t even want to.

  Not anybody.

  Except, maybe Karla.

  What did Karla do when she gave in.

  What comes after a kiss, what should she do, she really needs to know. For her, letting another person’s tongue and saliva into her mouth was repulsive enough. Mihály behaved like a gentleman, kissing her only dryly at first, treating her gently, with consideration—only afterward. As if initiating her gradually. This made her almost explode with jealousy when she thought about it. It gnawed at her when she thought about what he had been doing. It was truly humiliating, disgraceful.

  Surely he must have learned from someone what he was teaching her.

  Or perhaps he too feared what the two of them would do together eventually.

  Could he have learned things from dissolute women; but then he can’t possibly teach them to her.

  Yet she was young enough—or, thanks to her flawless education, lacked enough practical experience and knowledge—to believe that she could tell her thoughts and doubts to someone, that these things could be talked about.

  Like telling a story.

  She came to have a secret hope that there might be a person with whom she could talk about such delicate matters—or anything else. She would talk it over with Karla. Slowly this notion evaporated. First she hadn’t formulated her questions. She did not get anywhere with that. The male nudes she had seen the day before, all of them ten feet tall or more, which Breker was making for the inner courtyard of the Reich Chancellery, depressed her so much she couldn’t have asked him anything. So this, then, is what a man is or would be like, she thought to herself as she looked at the sculptor, this man who occupied himself with these men who resembled one another and whom the sculptor resembled too. Her situation was complicated by the fact that she’d spent her entire childhood around stables and greenhouses; she was well versed in questions of animal breeding and plant cultivation, and knew almost everything about the reproduction of plants and animals and about their reproductive organs. She was truly interested in genetics, and it hurt her that Schuer considered her a silly woman. She hoped for a chance at lunch to show him that she knew about Mendelism. In the studio she had moved away from the group of women so that she wouldn’t have to stare at the monumental male nudes, which, by the way, did not differ from one another in the least. The experienced women she’d been with—Margret Speer, Maria von Below, and Magda Goebbels—were all married. She felt abandoned among them, and for a while she chose to look at the statues of horses decorating the fountain, but their rearing, too smoothly sculpted muscles failed to comfort her because they too seemed to be copies.

  Guided by her physical desires and repugnance, she could well imagine the act of mating. It was clear that the world of plants and animals must have a structural connection with the human world, so there could be no great difference in the essence of the reproductive practices. But she persistently overimagined what propriety demanded that she underimagine. She could not correlate her wild adolescent ideas about reproduction with her own objectivity-seeking personality and with her upbringing built on appearances and formalities, just as it would have been hard to imagine Mihály Horthy without his impeccably tailored suits and neighing with pleasure like a horse.

  They looked into each other’s eyes and smiled amiably.

  Each smiled to herself, the two smiles unavoidably touched, and although the smiles meant something different for each of them, they could not know that. They felt that with their smiles they were stepping into a long-desired mutual space.

  The really big question is, said the unflappable Baroness Thum, what am I going to wear for that luncheon.

  I too thought about what it should be, a deux-pièces or possibly trois-pièces.

  I’d been counting on a nice quiet meal for the two of us—comfortable and easy.

  And I have the greatest need to have a long conversation with you.

  My sweet little one, I understand, I too was looking forward to it so much.

  I’d like to ask your advice about so many things, answers to questions that really go beyond accepted propriety.

  If I may put it that way.

  Believe me, there’s no question I wouldn’t love to answer for you, provided I have an answer.

  Hearing this reply, Imola’s heart began to beat harder; yes, in that case she could ask Karla, and she would too.

  She did not know what.

  But the tone of her voice alarmed the baroness a little. Good Lord, what does this ignorant little creature want from me.

  In the absence of mutual trust, they again laughed.

  Ever since our engagement, no, I don’t want to lie to you, from the mere announcement of our engagement, our life has been nothing but fulfillment of duties. As if I were being given a taste of what is waiting for me in the future when it comes to public appearances.

  And on top of that, I’m also burdening you with my own heavy obligations.

  These people’s problem is not that they are monsters, believe me, but I’d never have thought that so many wonderful people walk around with bad breath.

  Come, come, let’s not exaggerate.

  I can’t help longing for the good old days.

  What good old days, you’re still a child practically.

  When on a beautiful summer morning she innocently got out of bed, walked out on the terrace, down the sunny steps, and kept walking barefoot in the dewy grass.

  I am truly sorry to rob you of your free hours.

  Oh, don’t make it into a reproach, this is only a bit of complaining, who else may I complain to if not to you. I am full of complaints, and you may have an explanation for my constant state of irritation, but I feel I shall be happy, I can feel it, very happy and satisfied. Mihály is a wonderful man, believe me.

  I do have one saving idea, if you don’t mind my mentioning it, said Baro
ness Thum, somewhat dampening the other woman’s enthusiasm, and at this moment they stopped by a low ivy-covered fence. You can have a migraine at any time for any reason, and you need not feel an obligation or duty about anything on my account. Erika is a simple soul, you should know she was born a Vierort and because of dear Otmar she has accustomed herself to all sorts of bad habits.

  If I am a burden to you at this lunch, I’d just as soon stay away, of course.

  How could you be a burden to me, on the contrary.

  What kind of family are these Vierorts, tell me, asked the countess evasively—she was somewhat irritated—it seems I’ve not been well informed.

  Nothing special, bourgeois, said the baroness in a tone indicating that while she understood someone might marry below his rank, to do so far from a natural act.

  With her, I can make any excuse for you, no problem at all, she added.

  A long moment passed during which no discernable feeling showed on Countess Auenberg’s symmetrical face. Perhaps the surprise made her indifferent, but what surprised her was not that Schuer had married below his rank, but that her friend was willing to play devious games to keep her away from this fetching man. Imola could have continued her earlier thought by saying that she kept walking in the dewy grass until she reached the tiny lake hidden among old willows where, blinded by morning light, she had caught sight of Karla in the water up to her thighs. She had arrived only the day before, in the afternoon, but her dubious reputation had preceded her by years.

  The Auenberg girls were dying to see this fallen woman at last, related to the Wolkensteins on the Tyrolean branch of the family, whose illegitimate child, only a few weeks after its birth and with the mediation of the girls’ stepmother, was placed with a wet nurse in a village on their estate in Fánt. They wanted to see the innocent baby as soon as possible. At supper the evening before, however, the fallen female relative had disappointed and surprised them. She was everything but a jolly debauched female. A serious, severely beautiful, not too well dressed student, pale from the difficulties in seeing her baby again, on whom nothing could be seen of a fast life. Still, for long minutes, standing in the lake, she seemed quite unlike her well-behaved self of the previous evening; and she did not notice the young girl spying on her. With her arms held out tautly, she was slapping the surface of the water around her like a child. Yet she was stark naked under the open sky where any of the servants or the gardener could have surprised her; she was so deeply immersed in herself that she seemed unaware of her brilliant nakedness.