Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  Still, I asked her about her boss, what problems did she have with her, because I thought it was better to talk about someone else instead of ourselves. And I used the informal address also, straight off. What’s your problem with the boss. Only I didn’t know what to do about the trembling of my legs. I was afraid my knees would knock against her and then I couldn’t hide the insane, humiliating shaking. What would she do with a shaky-kneed idiot like me. It was as if suddenly, with this trembling, my entire terrible former life had caught up with me and flooded me. She shrugged her shoulders again, and to see this third shrug wasn’t nice anymore. I don’t know how else to put it, but it seemed to indicate a pettiness in her character; it wasn’t that I had embarrassed her, she was embarrassed for herself. She turned her head away a little as if she preferred to look into the distance, and that once again evoked for me her unfathomable sorrow. Or maybe she turned away so our faces would not be so close. And again I felt she didn’t do this because of me, not because of my breath, but because of her. She was gauging her closeness to me; it wasn’t my closeness to her that bothered her. Or she wasn’t trying to avoid my closeness, anyway, but wanted to give herself time; she wanted to gain time to decide what to do or what she might do. And in the meantime she didn’t do what she might have done of course, and I didn’t do it either.

  We did not fall on each other or bite each other, as animals in heat would have done. My knees went on shaking uncontrollably.

  By the way, you’re wrong about me and my boss, she said, staring into the street, spotted with lights; actually, they got along pretty well. Only she didn’t want to spend her whole life in such a miserable shop. She hates candy and sweets anyway. She wanted to take evening courses at the university, since she can’t study during the day. But she hadn’t gotten a recommendation from her workplace, thanks to her boss, so she can’t go to night school.

  I can’t study anywhere.

  She must have been thinking of something else as she spoke, or else didn’t really want to talk about this. And then, pretty absentmindedly, she asked what I was studying and she glanced at me. Her expression remained serious; perhaps she envied me for being able to study. Maybe she was truly interested. Just as it really interested me why she couldn’t. I didn’t dare move my feet or do something, anything, to stop the shaking, in case the movement might disturb her closeness to me. And then she might retreat. As if there were a territory I’d already conquered and now mustn’t give up any part of. But I couldn’t understand how the words were coming out of me or what I was doing, because suddenly I lied and said I was going to the School of Physical Education. I don’t know why I said that. And as if I had just then decided that, despite my own well-understood interest, I could not expose myself to her. Maybe because she was a married woman and took it all seriously. As if to say, this can’t last more than two days, maybe today and tomorrow, or maybe only this hour, but definitely a short period, which she could end anytime, or I could; nothing more than a passing fancy. Because it wasn’t easy to extricate oneself from a lie like that. I probably wanted with my lie to keep control of a situation I no longer controlled. I could not escape my situation, yet I managed to let the dread make itself heard in it. And when she glanced at me, she no longer made her eyes flitter around mine but looked at my forehead only, or my hair. And maybe that’s why she believed my lie. It was a little disappointing and surprising, that she was someone I could deceive. She was grasping the strap of her shoulder bag with both hands. As if only something very little separated her from stroking my stubbly face. I don’t know. It was as though I didn’t want what I wanted. And as if I’d said what I’d said, resorting to an impossible lie like that, only because my hair was cut short, like a crew cut. Or I simply didn’t know why I did it.

  But that sentence again changed everything, turned things into a different direction, and it was irrevocable.

  One always feels clearly these turning points in one’s life, and nothing can be done about them.

  I quickly asked her what she wanted to study, just so she wouldn’t ask me more questions. But this was very strange, because the lie that had simply appeared in my mouth, independent of my will, now seemed to be erasing my embarrassment. As if I needed some ignoble advantage to collect strength for an attack of uncertain outcome, and the lie indeed gave me strength, and my legs were no longer shaking.

  Philosophy.

  I looked at her; this was not to be believed.

  Philosophy, I asked incredulously. What, I asked, as if I hadn’t heard well.

  As if I were hearing echoes of my own lie.

  And I didn’t even know what philosophy was. What had philosophy to do with a beauty like this woman. Philosophy was something my uncle talked about with his colleagues. I had the distinct impression that this branch of science was a means by which old professors could use one another in some dark business or trap one another. They fuss around in this language to disguise their true intentions and so as not to frighten others away before it’s time. It had never occurred to me that philosophy could be anything but the thieves’ Latin of these old fogies. When they invoked philosophy too frequently, Nínó would get up without a word and leave the men to themselves, or she’d chat with the ladies.

  But the woman didn’t even acknowledge my insulting shock, except now her anger opened up, her helplessness, and she pelted me with her bitterness.

  If her life is being ruined, it’s thanks to that miserable Jewess.

  She hit me with that word, which she may not have noticed, or perhaps she meant to hit me with it.

  But she’d outsmart them. If she had wanted to enroll in the Academy of Commerce they’d have unconditionally supported her application. She should have taken them up on that offer. Dumb as she was, she refused it. And what was she jumping around for, she didn’t have a very good social background for the current regime. Downright terrible, undesirable. But if there was one thing that did not interest her, it was commerce, business. She’d leave that to the Jews. She laughed, and with her beautiful teeth laughing into the darkness, she cried out that they couldn’t defend their philosophy against her. With her mouth and teeth she was shining like a French chanteuse. And I should believe her, she’d prefer even the School of Physical Education to a business school.

  She had played basketball regularly in high school, they had a pretty good team, and sometimes they still got together to play, and she was a good short-distance runner but had to stop that too.

  As she talked, I tried to think how I could take back my insulting remarks. What can I say about philosophy when I know nothing about it; it seemed more urgent to distract her with something lighter. I could have asked her, but I didn’t, what distances she ran and what her best times were. I couldn’t have asked anything else about running; I knew almost as little about running as I did about philosophy. But I wasn’t afraid that my ignorance would give me away, all I could think was that the whole stupid conversation was going in the wrong direction. The longer we talked, the farther I drifted from where I wanted to be, and we were drifting farther away from each other. She was taking me into dangerous waters, or even thrusting me out of the main current. And I didn’t understand why she used the expression Jewess, which in Budapest parlance was definitely a pejorative.

  It was pretty clear to me that good manners required something other than what my mind needed and my mind was busy with something other than what my body desired. All three strong sources flowed simultaneously, but each was taking me to a different place.

  I should have rejected something in her, but it was impossible to do everything at once.

  We could not refuse to have this conversation, and I can’t say I wasn’t interested in what she said or might have said. I was carried along by a current of curiosity, and with her unfortunate expression she carried me even further, but while she spoke, my mind kept weighing something else and it felt as if I missed, individually, every one of her words. My mind was assessing what would be
better and more comfortable for my legs and hands. And if I didn’t know what to do with my limbs, then it was pointless for my mind to want this conversation, which could not be halted, if only out of politeness. The further she carried me along with her words, the more strongly I felt there was something I hadn’t done with my hands that would be more natural, actually more necessary, than all those superfluous, flawed, and insulting words. But neither politeness nor my mind allowed my hands to do anything—I just couldn’t touch someone who abuses Jews at the drop of a hat and whom I don’t even know. Perhaps she had made me talk to her so I could get to know her. Yet I didn’t want her to speak, so I interrupted her, spoke into her speaking. I had to extricate myself from the dangerous current of my lie, and I was deadly afraid that she would literally make me drift away in the current of her words, that I would miss or already had missed something important. I wanted to get back to the place where we’d started, where my legs and hands had been condemned to idleness and were busy either taking me toward her or trembling. In other words, I felt I must not lose time—not a place, not a conquered territory, but time; time was the possession I might lose. It was as if we had already enjoyed a brilliant golden age, and if she carried me further with her words it would be like accepting a paler, silver age. As if in the former it was possible to touch each other’s face with our hands but now it no longer was.

  I asked what she would have done if it had been a stranger who followed her.

  She saw it was me.

  When did she see that, and how did she.

  I saw on her face that she was reluctant to answer.

  Perhaps she preferred to go on drifting with the words.

  Her gaze was now circling in very different areas, around my eyes, gliding across my mouth, continually touching my forehead, where it lingered, as if it had found something there, and I liked that very much. Perhaps she wanted to continue talking so she could find what she was looking for and she wouldn’t have to touch my stubbled cheek, either gently or rudely. In fact, I was very curious to know what her touch would be like; I wanted her touch. We were standing very close; from below, she was looking up at a place she wasn’t reaching out to touch.

  She’d caught sight of me, she said reluctantly, when they were closing up the store.

  I didn’t notice that you did.

  Because she does this more adroitly than I do, she doesn’t stare so obviously and irresponsibly, and still she sees more than I do.

  But now she really must hurry.

  Where are you hurrying to at this time of day.

  If I wanted to I could wait for her. She motioned at the church, indicating that she would be going in to it. And then her husband was coming to collect her.

  This was like two blows of a cudgel, that’s what my face must have shown.

  She started to laugh, as if taking revenge for the earlier insult, though she seemed a bit ashamed. At the same time, I recovered from another daze, a deeper one that did not include her. And I fell into a helpless fury, which she had provoked yet was now only observing, coolly, innocently. Or was happy about. That was her revenge. I did not understand anything in the strictest meaning of the phrase: nothing. I did not understand how I’d gotten mixed up in this situation, and I didn’t know how I could get away from her quickly. What did she want or what did I want from her. Why am I still so careful not to turn my anger loose.

  What had we talked about, what subjects, what had I spoiled, with what, or why did I even exist.

  But then why did she say I should wait for her.

  Right away I heard the stifled rebuke that had found its way into my voice, which sounded like the shout of a quarreling man; hard as I tried, I couldn’t do much about it and saw her face turning cold as ice.

  No, she did not say I should wait for her, not at all. She asked me not to wait for her in front of the store.

  While we spoke, we could hear intermittently the sound of the organ from within the church. And the wind kept on roaring.

  Really, she didn’t have to tell me not to wait for her.

  Why should she, if this is what she wanted.

  Wanted or still wants, I asked, on the attack.

  Wants, she replied innocently.

  Her gentle impudence and the glitter of her huge eyes so enthralled me that I became even angrier with her—or with myself. But then how would I defend myself against her. I asked her why she hadn’t told me not to wait for her today but tomorrow, another time, the day after tomorrow or sometime when she didn’t have to go to church and her husband wasn’t coming to collect her.

  If she works the afternoon shift, her husband always comes for her.

  I had never seen him come for her.

  Because they always meet here. This is something she didn’t care to let her boss know, whether her husband or someone else comes for her. Her older brother is a deacon in this church.

  What this means, then, or what she means to say, is that this whole thing makes no sense or is completely hopeless.

  Even if I did wait for her.

  If that’s what she means, she would have told me not to wait but to get lost.

  But that’s not what she said.

  But then she could have told me to wait for her after the morning shift, because then she wouldn’t have to go to mass and her husband wouldn’t come to collect her, either.

  It seemed I kept repeating the same tune. I have said this before, it’s boring.

  What, am I here to amuse her.

  That’s how I vented my anger, that’s what I kept on insisting, incredibly and ridiculously, even in my own eyes, as if looking for a tiny crack where I could hide, probably making myself more ridiculous; but in fact I kept wasting time with my questions so I could leave with my dignity more or less intact.

  No, I shouldn’t be angry with her, things like this disgust her, it never occurred to her to say something like that—or ask for it. She might have said it, no doubt, but she’d never want to be entangled in dark little lies like this or entangle others in them. No, she loathes this type of secrecy with all her heart. I probably misunderstood her. She likes to talk openly about everything. She’d just told me why she hadn’t been able to talk about anything in the store. But she wouldn’t keep secrets from her husband, why should she. She didn’t understand why I didn’t understand.

  Because it’s not understandable.

  But what don’t I understand.

  Or maybe I do understand but don’t want to. Or I’m afraid I might misunderstand her.

  Now she must really go into the church because they are almost at the Elevation of the Host, but still, it would be better if I told her what I didn’t want to understand or why I didn’t.

  I don’t want to offend you. Please, do go in, and I’ll leave.

  I shouldn’t go away now.

  Not now, I’ll go once you are inside.

  Still, she asks me not to go.

  Leave it to me, all right.

  All right, then she won’t go in.

  I don’t want to offend you with anything, even if you stay out here.

  She really can’t imagine how I could offend her.

  By leaving, for example. Or if I didn’t tell her what I was thinking about. That’s already two examples. Everyone can be offended.

  My own words made it clear that this woman was playing a role and had assigned a role to me too—an unfamiliar but most intriguing role.

  And I could see how defenseless she was, precisely against this sort of thing. But she didn’t want to be protected by lies and self-deceptions. She did not like it when something was kept secret from her; true, she herself had no secrets. And she did not like things turning out unexpectedly, though she was fairly flexible.

  I told her it was just like that for me too.

  That makes two of us.

  I said this didn’t sound too good.

  What didn’t sound good, what was I objecting to, and what do I want anyway.

  I said i
t was very simple. Either I’d like to leave right away or I’d like to understand why I had come in the first place.

  Wonderful, she said, laughing, and asked if I always busied myself with such quintessential questions. As to this particular one, we can answer it very simply. In all probability, I came here to talk to her.

  I said, if she knew so well I wanted to talk to her and not someone else, and she didn’t mind, then why was she making my situation difficult. And frankly, I didn’t understand why she had to go to church and to confession. Or why she would need her husband for it.

  She didn’t have to go to church or confession at all, and usually didn’t, since she lived in sin consciously and inveterately. But for a few weeks she had been studying rituals, and the concept of sin interested her from a theological-historical point of view. But I should know that she does not exist without her husband. Anyone who wants to talk to her, it’s like talking to her husband.

  They tell each other everything, anyway. They grew up together. This has nothing to do with the Catholic Church, her brother, or confession.

  Still, I can’t expect her to keep it a secret from herself that she wanted to talk to me.

  Well, that’s all.

  That simple.

  But why would she think I’d like to talk to her husband, whom I don’t know. Or how on earth could I have known they’d grown up together.

  No, she hadn’t thought about that, and she leaves it up to me whether I feel like waiting for him.

  For God’s sake, what did she think the three of us would do together.

  She hadn’t thought of anything special, and she certainly didn’t want to alarm me with debauched thoughts. But since I asked, she could repeat that she must have thought of something like this: I would wait for her while she was in church, and afterward she and her husband were planning to go to someone’s house, to a party, and if I felt like it I could join them. She definitely did think of this, more precisely, such a thought did occur to her. But I kept asking so many senseless questions that she hadn’t had a chance to mention it.