Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  She did not dare look at Schuer again, or say anything. Would not have dared ask him what had happened to his son, which for him seemed usual and routine. She couldn’t have said where their conversation had left off. She was deeply ashamed of having dared to compare this terrible father to Mihály Horthy for even a moment.

  How could I have done that.

  How lucky it was for her and her sisters that, when their mother had left them, fate saw to it that they had their kindly father, however defeated, with whom they could weep together.

  Shortly the maids returned.

  The countess found their zeal repulsive—and revealing too—the way the dining room with its very bourgeois furnishings exuded gloom, the way the maids carried away the superfluous settings, indicating their vast experience in removing traces of scandalous scenes. Quickly and tactfully. This practiced, easy behavior especially irritated her.

  What have I done, she was screaming to herself, what have I done. She had no idea what she could have wanted earlier from this strange man, and in what science she had wanted to stick her nose.

  She had enough social experience to know that accidents like these are usually followed by other accidents, and three days later everyone will have forgotten this one. She might have become unfaithful because of a man who is ready to cheat on his wife, no, not just that, who tortures his children, whom he cannot restrain.

  As if she were trying to calm down by claiming that a man like that was worth nothing and she didn’t even want him.

  No one broke the silence.

  Rather, the adults dutifully continued their meal, eating everything that remained on their plates in a very proper way. They smiled politely and preventively, clattering improperly with their knives and forks on the fine porcelain. They also had to listen to the noise of the others’ chewing and swallowing. Even as a little girl Countess Imola had found this maddening, she couldn’t understand how her kindly, tender father could chew so loudly. This was the only reason for them to speak, so they should not have to hear one another from such an intimate proximity.

  One cannot chew and swallow so politely that one’s jaw, teeth, and tongue won’t make champing and smacking sounds.

  Maddening.

  Yet in light of the receding minor family tension, it would have been considered just as inconsiderate to leave food on one’s plate. And cutlery cannot be used on porcelain without making a noise; no such fine porcelain exists.

  And there are no perfect manners either.

  They finished their meal quickly enough, though, and the maids took away their plates. Countess Auenberg could hear herself making her report to her woman friends of this visit. Charming people, but I have never sat on such an uncomfortable chair.

  At the Schuers, the serving tray was not carried around a second time. Everyone ate as much as he or she had taken or asked to be served the first time around. In the painful silence they did not have to wait long for the dessert, which slightly surprised, in fact irritated, the countess, accustomed to the French habit of pacing the courses. Done this way, the meal was not a repast but merely a hurried intake of nourishment. Luckily, dessert consisted of small portions of an excellent soufflé glacé au café, each portion ornamented with a single roasted coffee bean. Without being noticed, Countess Auenberg pushed aside the tiny coffee bean with its oily shine in the shell-shaped saucer; Karla Baroness von Thum zu Wolkenstein and Otmar Baron von der Schuer, however, dutifully took theirs into their mouths and loudly crunched them between their teeth.

  Schuer was first to speak once they had ended the long-lasting crunching in the frozen silence of the house, and once all three of them, ceremoniously and relieved, had touched their large damask napkins to their lips.

  With her permission he would accompany the countess to the living room, he said in English, probably by accident. He and the baroness had originally planned to withdraw for a brief conference and he didn’t want to alter their plan, but he was certain he could count on the countess’s understanding and patience.

  The countess, wearied by some strange distraction that might also be called coolness, neither answered nor looked at him.

  He sincerely hoped, Schuer continued, growing hesitant in the absence of a polite response or look from her, that the company of his wife would more than compensate the countess for their brief withdrawal.

  But the countess seemed unapproachable.

  Eventually they’d have coffee together, Schuer added, almost as if against his will. This remark managed to startle the countess and remind her of her obligations; she complied immediately.

  They left the dining room amid profuse polite murmurings.

  Von der Schuer lingered to issue some instructions to one of the maids, and then for some time, happily, Countess Auenberg remained alone in the smaller salon.

  The moment the door of the study closed behind them, Schuer and Baroness Karla ceased using each other’s first name.

  This was not a conscious decision, the switch happened instinctively. From familiarity they stepped back into the scientific hierarchy, which had nothing to do with their common birth prerogatives.

  I see that the Herr Professor intends to establish an institute in Budapest.

  I intend to appoint the Frau Professor to head it. And that means, beyond all the joy involved, that the institute should be organized there.

  They were standing awkwardly, halfway between the door and the desk.

  At first Schuer wanted to take his place behind his desk, with its four decorative lion’s feet. Then he decided otherwise, choosing a friendlier solution, and he pointed at the comfortable armchairs in front of the glass-covered bookcases.

  Strangely, neither of them reached the point of sitting down.

  Nor could they step free of the gravitational pull of each other’s proximity.

  At this point, it was also clear to Schuer that, given the baroness’s embarrassing surprise, he should not stop now; he must strike while the iron was hot; the baroness’s face visibly paled and then darkened with a rush of blood.

  Merely a fresh idea, he continued lightly and instructively, as if he’d never thought of keeping secret—and couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to—the very personal emotions that had nourished his idea. You won’t get the Rome institute, not while I’m alive, but you can help me get close to this young woman in Budapest. We both know, Frau Professor, that after a five-year hiatus it’s high time for us to open a new institute. We can delay no longer. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to the Frau Professor about now. I have two further subjects, both of them very urgent. One of them is personal, he said severely and dryly. It has to do with Hans’s misdeeds.

  In his self-consciousness he took care not to pause between words. The other has to do with the long-drawn-out question of ownership of the Wolkenstein house.

  I would like to settle these matters.

  Although he managed to finish what he wanted to say, the baroness barely acknowledged the second half of the sentence and was already weeping so threateningly and loudly that Baroness Erika, entering the adjacent small salon, and Countess Auenberg, hurrying toward her to inquire about the little boy, both heard it.

  What Hans, what misdeeds, what have you got up your sleeve.

  Look, I’m responsible for this situation, exceedingly embarrassing for both of us, Schuer continued, rather loudly. Actually, I received the documents about Hans last week, but I simply had no time to look at them until this morning.

  What house, what long-drawn-out question, what ownership would you like to settle, with whom, with whom, the baroness kept crying out, very rudely and harshly, and although her features hardened, her self-discipline kept them from becoming distorted.

  The timbre of her voice did not slide upward as it would have in simple anger, but because of excess blood became dark and ominous, deeper, taking on a masculine tone.

  The voices in the study could be heard in the small salon but not clearly, and the two women
, chatting animatedly, strained to listen.

  They were talking about childhood fainting spells, of the deep concern with which both parents had been following Siegfried’s development.

  Disgrace, the insulted baroness shouted again, which the women in the salon heard loud and clear, and though they had wanted to speak over her loud words, they fell silent, as if compelled by a magic wand.

  Please, Frau Professor, why don’t you sit down, please, let us talk sensibly about your son, the man continued, unemotionally, as one who knew neither fear nor mercy.

  Of course, I understand you are upset.

  Please, leave it to me whom I talk to, when, and about what subjects.

  Schuer could easily let this last sentence go by, since Karla Baroness von Thum zu Wolkenstein did not turn on her heel, did not move from her spot.

  This morning, however, I finally looked through the dossier, he said, and he pointed to his desk, where a hefty sheaf of papers did indeed lie. Believe me that I offer you my friendly services with the best of intentions.

  What are we talking about, what do you wish, please say clearly what you mean.

  I must inform you about details of your little son’s examination, details you obviously are not familiar with, but as to their consequences neither of us can have any doubts.

  The baroness, greatly agitated, wanted only to ask what kind of examination, what are you hinting at, what results and what consequences, damn it, and what has any of this to do with the estate in Wiesenbad; but she suddenly lost her voice or breath.

  Might Schuer be referring to sterilization.

  But she could not ask this question, because the awful suspicion gripped her that these swine might have not only ordered the procedure but also carried it out.

  That is why Schuer keeps excusing his procrastination.

  A strange moan left her throat.

  Nevertheless Schuer answered her unasked question.

  I’m afraid, Frau Professor, that the situation is even more serious than that.

  A Startling Gratification

  But we do have some kind of suppressed secret animal sense of which we are quite ashamed. It doesn’t say this is good or this is bad or ugly, because it has no conceptual language. It follows its sense of smell even though it has no nose. I simply wouldn’t have liked it if they’d taken the woman’s fragrance away from me; more precisely, I wouldn’t have liked it if it had been taken away from me too soon. If she’d left. If her husband or anyone else had taken her away in a closed car before I could taste this perfume to my heart’s content and roll it around under my tongue.

  Although this sense has no eyes either, it can see things I cannot see. After all, it was not her fragrance—put more correctly it was not only or merely her fragrance that I clung to, but everything the naked eye could see floating around and about her, what emanated from her or what she was waiting and longing for that she hadn’t had before. This something, which could have been her natural endowment, her need, her being, or her soul, had nothing to do with her beauty. I said, all right, let’s not shit around anymore, and it felt pleasant to be suddenly and for no reason so lighthearted and indulgent, but in fact I only said yes to this ungraspable, unfathomable something, invisible to the naked eye; in no circumstance could I have said no to it. My animal being, perhaps my soul, wanted to arrest, accept, and possess her soul or simply to stay in the company of her animal-like being.

  If she had said she’d now turn into a cat because she had to climb to the top of the church tower and I should turn into a cat too and follow her, I’d probably have said no. But at the same time I’d have thought to myself, all right, let’s.

  I hadn’t been following her because I hoped that being around her would make everything take a turn for the better.

  I followed her despite the possibility that my new situation might become unbearable at some point. Despite that, no matter what, I followed her. Later I might knock my head against a wall for my reckless decision, but I had to endure the pain. And I did, against all common sense, despite my upbringing, my sense of beauty, propriety, good taste, and proportion, despite everything that one carries in oneself as rules of behavior, despite the gold reserves of a good upbringing, despite everything one imagines about oneself.

  Whatever happens, let things be. Everything, I said to myself, will take a turn for the better in a moment. Or next week.

  My misery continued when I crawled into the backseat of their car. What gives me the right to crawl into a strange man’s car. We had not been introduced. And sure enough, I knocked my head on the door frame and my shin on the back of the front seat. I said hello, but he kept looking out in the darkness and did not return my greeting. Did he think that to all appearances I was crawling into a stranger’s car to seduce his wife. As a motive it wasn’t too convincing, as a procedure not very distinguished or imaginative, not to mention that it was true only as an illusion. I didn’t want to seduce anyone; I had never seduced anyone. I cried out, moaned, and huffed with pain and laughed, wanting to indicate politely that I knew how laughable I was, how ridiculously I was behaving.

  I’m clambering after a woman who doesn’t even know my name, yet I had already lied to her. Again I tried to say hello to this strange man but again he pretended not to hear me. I deeply despised myself, with all the contempt I could muster, for being so indulgent. And it was for this reason, while I was crawling in, fumbling and blundering and knocking around, that I took a good hard look at this man in the darkness, the way one animal looks at another. Who is the person who, like me, has been so weakened by this woman. The rival was a handsome, large, well-developed, razor-thin dark specimen. Despite his raw beauty, there was something frightening about him. It’s also possible that at that very first moment I discovered a trait in him, or became frightened by a feature, that he didn’t even possess.

  After all, I was not in control of myself at that point and I accepted the situation, against all reason, because of the woman. How else could the man look back at me if not with an awareness of rivalry. As if, with our rising animal repugnance, we were already searching for a hold on each other, figuring which of us was the readier for the struggle, was stronger and more flexible. Everything could be decided by the first glance. And decided it was. In this case, the body was more important, his body, mine, his strength, his adroitness, nothing else. He was nimbler than I, more cunning, tougher, more open and more direct, better prepared for repeated clashes. But not stronger in the psychological sense of the word. It was animal instinct that made me see that I would have to clash with a body that was hardly more than skin and bones, tense and taut with sinews and exasperation.

  About which my civilized self, of course, kept quiet.

  The feeling was physical, a shared physical feeling, mutual, since he looked back at me in the same way; he recognized me; he sized me up. I knew more about men than he did. And I’d also spent my early years in a boarding school; the bases of my experiences had been the struggle for food and, even more grimly, for the attention of the women taking care of us.

  But it was impossible to determine which of us was more provocative. His lack of knowledge, or the insincerity of his knowledge, made him vulnerable. His physical attributes made him seem ready to attack, yet in our situation I was the attacker. On the surface his behavior was not hostile, of course, though at first I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t return my hello. But he had hastened to help me, tipping the front seat forward; go ahead and crawl in if that’s what his wife wants. He was sorry about my head bumping the door. And then, following my moans, he chided himself for letting me hurt my shin too. His countenance made it instantly clear why he wore that suspiciously threatening leather coat. He wanted to appear larger, stronger, and more severe than he was. Such leather coats were not sold in regular stores. Men in the secret service wore leather coats—not the lousy little secret agents, of course, but the bosses. And high-ranking cops. One had to be a privileged character to get one�
�s hands on stuff like that. Party bosses in the villages, nachalniks as they called themselves, also wore leather coats. At least twice a week they’d have themselves driven out in their huge black cars to the territory, as they disdainfully and arrogantly called the countryside, and when they emerged from their cars with a great hullabaloo they wanted to look like bailiffs of the old landowners, now hounded out, or like Bolshevik commissars in movies from faraway Soviet Russia. This man was more than ten years older than I, around thirty, but in his scrawny features he preserved the look of a vulnerable adolescent who always invites attacks, always smells enemies everywhere, and always wants to quash resistance.

  I pretended to approach him in a friendly way, as if hoping to bridge the embarrassing situation with affable behavior. No one with decent bourgeois manners finds it hard to put on an amiable face no matter how embarrassing the situation or how rotten the mood. Which is not dissembling but a basic navigational rule guided by common sense. Once I was out of my apartment, I thought I ought never to be a burden to anyone, either with the miseries of physical existence or with encumbrances of the soul. I no longer look at myself in the mirror or arrange my clothes; I am decisive and satisfied with myself. So despite the awkward situation and the repeated rejections, I was happy to extend my hand for the obligatory how-do-you-do. To which he again responded only with a cool look. He did not want it, did not desire it, or simply would not waste time on it.

  Obviously he hadn’t been brought up as I had. He seemed to be not from the country but from the outskirts of the city. In fact, this contributed to our clash, though he probably didn’t notice it, given the nature of the thing. He couldn’t have known what I saw as missing in his conduct. At most, he might have sensed that I did not acknowledge his signals of rejection, while I had to pretend even to myself that nothing was amiss and I didn’t take the rejection too seriously either, given that bourgeois etiquette rules were not applicable. Not only because officially they were no longer considered valid, but also because I myself liked to disregard them when in certain local situations I sometimes found them still being followed. But I thought his eyes were beautiful, deep and penetrating; he seemed to protect himself with their coldness.