Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  When occasionally, after awakening, she thought about it, she felt she’d be much happier without him, though she could not have known much about her possible happiness. Frankly, she’d spent the months of her unwanted pregnancy in anger and desperation about her new, unknown condition. Her misshapen body, the nausea and vomiting, made her restless. She could not deny that she felt nothing but hatred about her pregnancy. As if she’d been cheated out of her own body and punished too, since she couldn’t talk about it to anyone.

  Perhaps that is why Hans arrived in this world way ahead of time. Which filled the baroness with a sense of total disaster. There were two interdependent beings in the world, but knowledge of their mutuality caused her not one iota of joy. Within a few days, she went dry. She probably shouldn’t have had those thoughts. To pull the little kerchief over his head, or the light blue coverlet. Another reason why the baby had to be given to a wet nurse as soon as possible. Yet he starved on the stranger’s milk, turned blue crying each time he was fed, and screamed through entire nights, even when they fed him at regular intervals with both milk and the best food.

  Karla was weak; one morning, before going to the Auenberg estate, the baby unexpectedly fell silent after protracted screaming. It would have been good if he’d stopped breathing. Karla had the impression that the baby accepted his death. As if, together with her, he was waiting for his breathing to cease. She stood by the crib, silent and motionless, and wished along with him that he’d perish. Perish. But he did not. Even though she wished it, oh, how she had wished it.

  Nobody could talk to her about unconditional motherly love without making her laugh, even out loud.

  She knew precisely the enduring feeling with which the mother hates her son and does everything to kill in him at least the element alien to her because of his sex.

  Or else he should perish.

  But she did not go beyond thinking those thoughts, since she would have considered it beneath her to lose her dignity, notwithstanding her hatred for him.

  After a few summer days had passed, once the others started coming back, Hans no longer expected that the baroness would come for him and at least take him to their house in Annaberg. He probably was waiting not for his mother but for the house, or for the taste and sweet fragrance of the warm walnut-filled pastry she once had bought for him at the weekly fair in Annaberg. He could not forget the lightness of this pastry and the creamy texture of the filling.

  Nor forget that there was something in the world that his mother had once actually bought for him.

  When left alone, this was the feeling with which he viewed his body.

  As some kind of a test, he caught his penis and testicles between his thighs and showed himself like that to the others in the shower. They liked it, and laughed; Hendrik especially liked the idea that Hans might have a pussy, but only Kienast imitated him.

  Hans could be content that things were going well among the other boys without him. He consoled himself with all sorts of things. He found acting like this somewhat childish, but it was unavoidable and he needed hiding places for it. He also could keep in contact with them even during months of silence, and he did not have to relinquish his leadership. He was allegedly ostracized, which, along with the denial of summer vacation, was considered the most severe punishment, but it was made even more severe by an attempt to cast suspicion on Hendrik and to separate the two of them. That is why he put on the little monkey act with his pussy in the shower. Hendrik had not been punished, because they wanted to create the impression that he was the one who had betrayed their conspiracy. In the shower Hendrik well understood that Hans did not believe this.

  That is why he did not laugh along with the others and his eyes glittered with joy.

  There was no precedent for imposing a permanent ostracism on a boy or for expelling him. So theoretically they could do anything they wanted to, which Hans and Hendrik comprehended and, within certain limits, exploited. They even succeeded in exchanging letters that, after repeated readings, they both burned. Had they not enjoyed their heroism, they couldn’t have done it. Even so, it was hard to watch the pages of those letters shrivel and turn to ashes in the flames, pages on which Hendrik called Hans my dear friend and Hans called Hendrik his dearest brother. But they couldn’t have known that their instructors had information about most of these secret activities and the letters had not been undocumented. While the others were away and the service staff was busy with the major annual cleaning, painting, and whitewashing, Hans could get along without speaking to anyone. It was actually interesting to live without talking. Along with his friends subjected to similar punishment, he was mainly unsupervised for those summer weeks. Recalcitrant staff members gravely violated the strict rules and regulations so that others could observe and then write about the boys’ activities. And thus, at a given moment, all Schuer had to do was go to his desk and, while Baroness Thum zu Wolkenstein was still struggling with her first surprise, take out a paper listing the illegal activities that Hans von Wolkenstein had engaged in, in the company of another pupil named Hendrik Franke, the rules and regulations he had violated, and to what sort of sensual excesses he had yielded. How many times they had broken into Schultze’s office together, the papers they had taken from it and then destroyed, the content of the letters they had exchanged, and what sort of complicated relationship they had entangled themselves in with two trusted members of the service staff.

  Which put his mother in a very difficult situation; the baroness struggled with tears of anger. At the very same time, this disobedient child was crouching at the foot of the central pier of the viaduct arching seventy meters over the valley, with the rumbling noise of the waterfall rushing down from the craggy ledge of the mountain slope opposite, while his friends in the botanical garden discussed the situation in their own argot.

  He was crouching on a yellow-brown rock, where the whimsically cascading, gurgling, and splashing water sometimes flowed over his feet. He was wearing his institutional uniform, a sailcloth shirt sewn in a military fashion with brown corduroy knee pants. On the banks of the stream he had taken off his high-quarter buttoned shoes and corkscrew-patterned socks and hidden them in the high sedge. Because the instructors often played tricks on the boys by taking away their scattered shoes or clothes.

  His bare soles clung firmly to the rough-surfaced rock, but making the slightest move caused it to wobble under him.

  He did not want to lose his balance.

  In this early afternoon hour, when above the high ridge of the Frauenholz gorge the last rays of the sun were disappearing, taking their warmth with them, the end-of-summer air in the valley acquired a sharp edge.

  The smell of resin and wild marjoram was everywhere.

  He leaned as far forward as the wobbly rock allowed, raised a stick over the clear water, concentrating on something in it, below its turbulent wild rushing. A strange, never-seen-before creature among the stones. Perhaps the corpse or torn-off limb of a creature; just then a new current shoved it under another stone. He would not leave it there; in a little while he’d pluck it out from under the stone and trusting to the current would ceremoniously put it back. He could just barely reach it with his stick. Just enough to turn it over. Whether it was a living creature or a dead one, he wanted to see its belly. The rock wobbled a little, the water splashed, and it wouldn’t be pleasant to fall in. A pale piece of flesh that had lost its color in the water. A shred of flesh from the body of one of the suicide boys ripped on the rocks as he was hurtling down. Or a drowned slug, or torn-off crabmeat. At this spot the current was so powerful that it washed away any telltale blood, and bits of clothes were thrown out on the grass or stones.

  He had not yet decided whether to consider his find an independent being, a dead body, or some kind of waterlogged piece of meat or flesh that couldn’t be dislodged from the stones, when from on high, a little above the waterfall, from the rim of the gorge hidden by the oaks, he heard the familiar rattle of rolling
stones.

  Someone was coming down off the Ochsensprung. And in the next moment he could make out that it was a female. The color of her skin and something red gave her away. Or multiples of red. A brief flash among the foliage as she continued lowering herself carefully, accompanied by the happy noise of the stones.

  Whoever undertook the neck-breaking stunt of coming down the dangerous and twisting trail—used mainly by deer—had to watch their step. And look out for what to hold on to next, assess which root, branch, or sapling would give support or hold one up for a split second while shifting weight for the next step.

  A simple slip might mean serious injury.

  Hans straightened up a little. To see the figure better, though he knew he should flee. He did not want simply to throw away his stick. To run, to flee as inconspicuously as possible, careful not to step on wobbly rocks so as not to fall into the frothing, ice-cold water. He cast a last look at the strange phenomenon he’d neither fished out nor managed to identify. With a few well-directed jumps he was off and away, looking back at the dark mountainside where the rustling in the bushes grew louder, which was encouraging. He clambered up the steep riverbank and felt a childlike joy at having escaped, then waded into the high grass, which benevolently swallowed him and covered him up. He went on listening, and panting, while he retrieved his buttoned shoes and thick knee socks. They had become damp with dew, and within moments he too felt damp as he lay in the grass. The approaching girl’s arms and legs and the red flashing of her skirt disappeared behind a group of rocks. On that stretch, the serpentine path lessened the steepness of the slope. When she clears it, the landscape will come upon her as if she were at a comfortable lookout point. Before that happened, he had time to stuff the socks into the shoes and, bending low, start off. Back to the protection of the railway viaduct’s enormous central pier.

  He had to step on stones. Barefoot, he quickly picked his way over the yellowish, body-colored stones.

  Every step made some noise and was painful.

  His plan was to use the cover of the pier to back into the woods. From there he could stroll along the riverbank without any danger of being discovered, over the rather prickly ground covered with pine needles under the hundred-year-old trees, so that at a more distant spot he could put on his socks and shoes.

  He looked back once more to see who this person was, what she might want. He did not know what he feared discovering or what kept him there despite his fear.

  She was a girl somewhat older than he; at the sight of her Hans grew a little uncertain. Her dark hair was in braids with bows at the end made of the same red material as her skirt. She was carrying a small basket, as if she were collecting berries or mushrooms.

  For that, she was too late in the valley.

  Where the serpentine section of the trail ended, the most dangerous stretch began.

  The trail continued downward, deepened by water-worn gullies and blocked with fallen stones. She could not help sliding, or grasping at shrubs, tendrils, roots, or dried-out stalks that would not break or be pulled off when she tugged at them; she was becoming flustered. The red-bowed braids now fell forward, now snapped back, her breasts quivered under her blouse, her little basket slipped up to her shoulder and almost slid off her wrist; everything was crackling and snapping. Which the valley and the viaduct echoed many times over. She was rushing headlong down the trail; her skirt kept flying up. Hans saw her long brown thighs and pink panties, and then the same series of pictures again.

  He was afraid she might have to cover this steepest stretch of the trail sliding on her bare bottom.

  Such a stupid girl.

  Who doesn’t know how to dig in with her heels and the outer edge of her shoes.

  How can a girl be so dumb.

  She was not in the least scared; the speed and danger made her rather determined.

  Hans was whimpering and cheering her on. He clung to the base of the pier, craning his neck to see her better. As if for the first time in his life he was seeing a feminine being, fully exposed and with nothing held back, struggle with circumstances and the gravity of her body.

  She thrilled him, though he could not imagine what she was doing here.

  He would catch her.

  If they sent someone with an urgent message from Annaberg, that person would come on a bicycle. When relatives came on foot from Wiesa or Wiesenbad to look for some staff member, they came from the opposite direction, from the Bismarck tower.

  He will surprise her.

  This is just crazy, that someone should be such a clumsy bungler.

  But she reached the bottom without mishap, slamming against an uprooted tree. She grasped it, supported herself on it, and rested a little, panting and looking at the stream, which she still had to cross, and adjusted her skirt and blouse. Also her breasts, with a single movement under her blouse, which stunned Hans for a moment as he clung more tightly to the warmth of the pier.

  He was incredulous; this could not be happening.

  It was obvious that she’d have to take off her shoes to get across the shallows, which was not without dangers. For a second Hans imagined that in fact she was coming to see him. That she wanted to visit him in great secrecy. But this made no sense.

  As if she had been exchanged for someone else during the lapsed time, she had changed completely. The change, for which Hans was unprepared, aroused unpleasant feelings. How could he have known that such a change was possible in the world. What he saw was that Ingke Einbock had grown taller and heavier. She had grown out of her little girlhood, while Hans, despite his summer adventure, remained a little boy, which made him ashamed. The girl had the upper hand now; that was his definite impression.

  Which tortures every boy.

  Not wanting to feel what he was feeling.

  Not to think of what he perpetually thought about.

  She had always seemed above him somehow, and this had bound them together as their deepest shared secret.

  He watched eagerly to see what she was doing and how.

  Perhaps readying himself to help her if the need arose. If she slipped on the stones, which was a definite possibility. Tripping and plopping into the water with her stupid panties; and if she did, she’d never be able to get up again. Dumb Ingke Einbock, but why did she come here. This sort of thing had happened to him when they tested their adroitness and played with this danger. There was an obvious basic rule for crossing the shallows that it was inadvisable to ignore. The current there was very strong, and slippery colorless algae covered the underwater stones. The cold of the clear, rushing water penetrated him to the bone. It felt as if a blade wanted to slice off his feet. Anyone who dared to put two feet down on an algae-covered stone was a lost cause.

  His breath might stop, but he was already in the water and his limbs were bruised on the stones. Without anything to hold on to he might slip, because underwater everything was slipping along with him. As if the mouth of hell had sucked him in and he was about to slide down its gullet. Somebody, someone standing on a dry rock, would reach out and help him, that too had happened, or the current quickly pulled him away. He would still feel how pleasantly warm it was to live inside his flesh, but the cold of the water was already hurting. And to prevent the end, he would have to stay on a dry rock with at least one foot, and cling to it.

  But if he had already fallen in, there was no other way to escape except to give in to the insane current, to entrust his helpless body to the elemental force of the water.

  Which nobody really likes to do.

  He had to be careful not to wind up in the whirlpools at the waterfall or knock against the treacherous boulders. But the force of the current made this almost impossible to avoid. The frigid water had already numbed him, deprived him of his senses. He could not swim more than a few strokes. And it didn’t make any sense to try. At best, he could steer himself, have some control over his direction, to keep the whirlpools from taking him under the waterfall, because whoever was caugh
t there would not be disgorged without serious injuries. And when past this danger, where an increased volume of water widened and deepened the streambed, it was possible to wriggle his way to shore. He could check the blue spots and bruises on his body; hours later, his teeth were still chattering, his body still trembling and shivering.

  And the other boys were laughing inside their warm bodies.

  And there was no point in answering them, because no sound would come from his mouth and his teeth were chattering.

  Ingke was obviously familiar with the rules; she adroitly avoided the underwater boulders. Only when she reached the middle of the stream did one of them wobble under her. This was the moment when Kienast was summoned from the tree nursery, they were about to put the tools away, he should leave everything and report to Schultze’s office.

  Kienast was under the boys’ protection, but no power could cross Schultze’s wishes.

  There was but a short hour until dinnertime.

  And Ingke Einbock had come from Annaberg to see him; she did want to visit him.

  She laughed but did not answer questions.

  She took a small letter out of her blouse—a calling card in an envelope. And as Hans opened the envelope, which had not been glued shut, he right away recognized his father’s handwriting. His father did not write as Germans did.

  The important thing, Ingke Einbock said, is to keep your mouth shut.

  We’ll tear it into tiny pieces.

  There were altogether three sentences on the card. A peculiar dread seized Hans whenever he had to read his father’s letters written in Hungarian. And when he wrote in German, it was barely understandable because he made so many grammatical mistakes. Hans knew Hungarian, but since he had first learned to read and write in the Slovak school in Fánt, the visual image of Hungarian words remained alien to him. And how glad he had been to have managed to forget his father for good, along with dread of his language.

  He should prepare: his father was going to take him away from here.