Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  He wanted to force Bellardi; they should not yet give up hope, should not seal their fate by talking.

  Which the other man instantly understood, how could he not understand his friend’s insane and sober rejection, and he stopped talking.

  That is why Madzar loved him.

  No matter how insistent he was about something, for the sake of a little sensible love he could give it up. But it was hard for Bellardi to stick to the cavalier exchange. He could not quite understand what the other man had not understood. He could not accept his friend’s incomprehension because he could not explain to himself why, for the sake of his little son, he should remain all alone in life.

  They had not left town when, just past Gottlieb’s abandoned lumberyard, the paved road ended at Calvin Street. And then he’d have no choice but to kill his little boy before ending his own miserable life. The cloudless blue summer sky expanded above them with a flock of swallows preparing for evening. Madzar wanted to ask Bellardi what his view was on why he, Madzar, always had to fall in love with married women. What sort of weakness was this. That’s what they should be talking about. And he’d ask Bellardi to name this weakness of his, no matter how harsh his verdict might be. He should not be spared. But he did not ask Bellardi, and therefore Bellardi could not answer him. Why does he have to snatch these used-up ladies from their boring marriages. Why does he always fall into the same trap. And if this keeps happening because that’s his destiny, then why do these same women always destroy him instead of letting him pull them out of their predicaments. Why wouldn’t Mrs. Szemző go with him to America or anywhere else. And why wouldn’t she go as far as letting him fuck her at least once.

  Why don’t they let the new life find its voice in them.

  Wasn’t he worth at least that much.

  The screeching of the swallows above them overwhelmed the noise of the engine.

  Sweet Irma, it was the first time he addressed her like this when talking to himself, why can’t we.

  He did this, busied himself with this, so he would not have to grasp Bellardi by the shoulder.

  Could they possibly predict my inconstancy.

  Meanwhile the bright and vast vanishing greenness of Réti Lane filled their eyes as their ears were filled with the swallows’ evening screeches. Which drastically changed many things; it turned their mood around. Their mutual rejections made them finally turn to each other. With its enormous willows looking like uncombed heads of hair, the Cigányzátony, or Gypsy Shallows, lay before them, splitting the river into two channels; these shallows, obeying the force of currents over the centuries, had become a romantic island.

  Bellardi drove slowly along the high embankment.

  Their thoughts had retrieved so much from the past, immersed them so generously in the present, that there could be no room for talking about anything.

  But Bellardi felt once again that Madzar’s sheer presence had a calming effect on him.

  He looked for a place where they could drive off the embankment. On the dangerously damp soft grass he wouldn’t be able to get close to the willows on the shore. By the time they got out of the car, both of them were dazed and a bit woozy. Bellardi had had nothing to eat or drink since morning, but in his current giddiness he did not notice his hunger. They sank to the bottom of a green sea in their daze. High up in the blue sky, swallows went on twittering. Bellardi sought a physical antidote for giddiness by undressing hastily and provocatively; Madzar followed him hesitantly. Telling himself that Bellardi’s showing off had no effect on him. And in fact it didn’t, because he didn’t let it. Bellardi threw his things back into the car, his white shirt, his white linen pants; Madzar put his things, carefully folded, on a black-and-red leather seat. When Bellardi stepped out of his brightly striped white poplin underpants, Madzar took off his own. For a while they stood naked on either side of the car, both of them bashfully enjoying the warm air, laced with cool currents, on their nakedness.

  Because neither of them wanted to look at the other just yet.

  The sun’s disc glowed at the rim of the western sky.

  And the little Cabriolet remained at the vapor-filled bottom of the slowly graying green meadow, like a colorful insect at rest, wings spread wide.

  The willows on the shore swallowed up their figures. A little later they showed up on the sandy stretch near the water. But before they threw themselves in, after more than a decade’s absence, after many eventful years during which they’d barely thought of each other, they took a long moment to observe each other. They did this simultaneously and unreservedly. As people who couldn’t do without it. They did not stand too close together. They acknowledged with a certain satisfaction that during their adult years spent without each other everything had changed and yet nothing at all had happened to the other’s body. This was beyond comprehension yet its reality could not be denied.

  And from then on, everything happened the way it had happened so many times before in the heart of time.

  Bellardi hit the water first, snorted and splashed about a little, and then began to swim with large strokes toward the opposite shore; his crawl was impressive, his feet fluttered powerfully. Madzar followed him in a more deliberate clumsy manner. The lateral arm of the river had no significant current; still, at the deepest part its strength caught them and carried them along. Bellardi looked back occasionally; they both tried to keep up the tempo and stay on course.

  With his denser musculature, Madzar resisted the current more, but he was slower.

  Bellardi did not wait for him when he reached the other shore; he quickly disappeared into the island’s vegetation, flaming red in the advancing twilight. They did not see each other among the trees, where every year, because of repeated inundations, wild undergrowth sprang up in the sunny spots. They signaled to each other with hooting and ululating sounds; they signaled their belonging to each other. When Bellardi didn’t ululate for a long time, Madzar’s hoots sounded impatient. He had to be ready for Bellardi not replying on purpose.

  Even as a young child he had liked to toy with the idea of disappearing.

  At such moments, heavy with the other one’s sudden absence, the riparian woods suffused with light began ominously to close in on Madzar. But Bellardi always waited for him on the shore. Madzar could count on that.

  Where the world finally opened wide and the broader branch of the mighty river showed itself with its raw power and the colors that revealed its depth.

  Madzar was afraid of it, but Bellardi could not resist trusting it.

  Madzar was afraid that even after these many years Bellardi still knew no caution or self-restraint. For a while they traipsed around on the stony shore, letting the water dry on them, enjoying being naked, and with occasional glances trying to gauge what the other one was planning to do or how he was managing.

  The edge of the opposite riverbank and the woods reaching deep into Mohács Island were improbably red in the setting sun. In the empty sky, however, the moon was already shining hazily over the water. From far away, somewhere from the endless plain on the island, the low sound of a cowbell and sharp little yelps, the barking of nervous shepherd dogs, could be heard. But mainly they heard the plashing and lapping of water breaking on the shore in uneven thrusts. The creaking and grating of stones, pebbles, and shells under their feet. Occasionally a nearby splash made by a jumping fish; the brief flash of a slick body followed by a graceful downward arc back into the water. The current had a steady, uniform whisper, like a susurration of silks rubbed together, as varying masses of water of varying temperatures drifted and rolled over one another. The willows above them were quiet now except for an occasional solitary drip.

  The great summer heat remained motionless in the air, despite the proximity of the water.

  What madness had they got themselves into now; there was no other name for it, madness, insanity.

  Not even a childish or adolescent madness, because neither as children nor as adolescents would they have
started something like this so late in the day.

  And now it was Madzar who headed for the water first, Bellardi following him only when, fighting the strong current along the shore, Madzar popped up to the surface. Then Bellardi took off too. It had often happened like this in their childhood; Madzar would be first to throw himself into some madness that Bellardi had cooked up quietly and treacherously, just so he didn’t have to follow Bellardi.

  A good ten minutes must have gone by before they began to look for each other in the water. They were well into the middle of the river, where speed is speed and water is water. There is nothing but water and speed. One can feel how much energy is lost by a careless movement of the head or a searching look, and how the place of the lost energy is filled with the all-powerful force of the river. Which within a split second can change irreversibly, setting back one’s personal situation and chances. Though here, in the middle of the mighty water, the river is harmless.

  With its innocently smooth current, it can take one straight to eternity.

  In the middle of the river, where the enormous mass of water with its changing surface and refraction of light blinds everyone, Bellardi had to be careful that nothing he wanted to tell Madzar would reach his consciousness, especially Elisa’s dying.

  He had to keep himself on the surface of his consciousness and to continue with his strokes on the surface of the water.

  It seems that the opposite shore, bright red with the last rays of the sun, toward which you are heading with all your most efficiently dispensed strength and strictly controlled breathing, is being pulled away from you, taken farther and farther away with incredible alacrity. They wasted much energy, had no idea how much, did not find each other on the endless surface of the water for the longest time. It’s the vigorously changing mass of the surface water that blinds one. Eyes cannot cope with so many consecutive and overlapping changes. And the mind gapes vacantly when it has nothing to comprehend over the terrible depth below it. While in fact one should feel most secure in the middle of the river, where there is no whirlpool and seemingly nothing needs to be done in order to progress.

  One begins to fear and tremble.

  Theoretically one should not look around until one is close enough to the wildly retreating opposite shore, let alone think or rise out of the water.

  Not become paralyzed by the terror of existence.

  And then they both ascertained each other’s location. Madzar seemed to have risked more.

  If you break the rhythm of your strokes for even a second when swimming upstream, the current will begin to carry you back, and then it is very hard to reclaim your physical independence from the mass of water rising from the depths of the river.

  Not only are you afraid, you also begin to feel cold.

  When they looked around and acknowledged each other’s position and instantaneously gauged the necessary reference points on the impossibly reddish shore, still retreating, they both knew they had as much ahead of them as the distance they had already covered. Bellardi had always been faster, he was a little closer to the shore but affected more by the current, while Madzar with his stronger, more stubborn strokes remained more or less on the course he had set with his eyes; the current had not deflected him too much.

  It must have taken another eight minutes before they reached the shore. And there, in the heavy silt, they had to walk lifting their feet high.

  They felt happy when the warm air fully embraced their naked bodies.

  There they stood again, basking in the paradisiacal abundance of warmth and gentleness, jumping, hawking, spitting, shaking the water from their ears, wiping their eyes, their bodies shivering foolishly, of which they were ashamed before each other, they were slapping and rubbing themselves, both of them thickly covered with goose bumps, their teeth chattering.

  In their momentary condition, they did not seek each other’s closeness.

  That is when the last red trace of twilight vanished from the shore, though an orange reflection turning into hues of lilac remained, which made the moon shine more brightly and show its outline more brightly in the blueness.

  They looked at each other from a distance, only to see if the other was there, all of him. That’s all they wanted to see; though, a little bit, this was like mutually acknowledging their physical condition that had let them run aground in their mad adventure.

  To see if there was still a way back.

  The water must have carried them about a kilometer and a half from the tip of Cigányzátony. On foot they would have to cover twice that distance to be back again at their starting point.

  But it was better not to think about it.

  It would be dark soon. There would be hardly any reference points in the water. And when they happily reached the other shore, they would still have to swim across the river’s smaller channel.

  Now, however, they must warm up. They should not jump and run around too much; it was important to preserve energy and keep from cutting their feet on shells.

  When their teeth stopped chattering they lay down at a respectable distance from each other. They did warm up a little on the slowly cooling sand, and Madzar even dozed off after a while. He opened his eyes to see Bellardi squatting at his head. The world around them was somewhat cooler and full of stars; he felt the warmth emanating from the other’s body. That he was lying on the sand in the heat emanating from his friend. Stars now penetrated the still-blue sky.

  He sat up. Down here, on earth, it was dark enough for them to start out.

  For a while though, he observed what this male image of his own soul was looking at.

  In truth, already in April I wanted to tell you, Bellardi repeated, his words heavy, that Elisa left me for good, and you’ll be surprised to know that she did it because of Mária Szapáry.

  Madzar said not a word; he would not have had the strength to breathe enough air to form the words.

  They looked at the moon together, not daring to look into each other’s eyes, at the glowing of its cold outline above the water.

  She called me at dawn yesterday to tell me Elisa had had a cerebral hemorrhage. That I should hurry if I still wanted to see her.

  Madzar cried out involuntarily, or rather he moaned.

  Bellardi had to get up in response to this so the other one would get up too.

  Now they looked at each other, also held each other somehow, but their nakedness stopped them. They could not have known what the other one was thinking; no one could ever know. They were standing in the warmth of each other’s skin, and Madzar felt very fortunate, though he tried to talk himself out of this feeling because it was inappropriate just then. The movement begun could not be completed. There was so little chance of completing it that he thought it better to get away from the place.

  He thought that regardless of the occasion, regardless of Elisa’s death, touching each other should be repeated at least every ten years, so that his life, despite all the misfortunes, would be a fortunate one. Bellardi, however, thought he should continue what he had started.

  And then, as they were, they set off, up on the darkening riverbank.

  Neither of them could squeeze out a word.

  As Bellardi followed Madzar, who was finding his stride, and could see nothing but the powerful thighs, large buttocks, and stooping back with its slabs of muscles, he felt that, yes, this was when he should continue his story about Elisa. Because of the enormous happiness that was his now, he could no longer keep his secrets locked within himself, the terrible suffering he had to endure in the last months.

  Gyöngyvér sat sunk into herself, pale, sucking in her lips, abandoned for long minutes, motionless.

  It would have to happen differently because he could not speak. He could not surrender himself to someone who probably knew everything about him. He walked in the footsteps of the beloved being, and that seemed satisfactory for some time. On a summer evening like this, it grows dark very slowly and tactfully. And they had to hurry. Th
ey would not have had time for a detailed confession. Neither of them had ever learned from anyone, perhaps they should have learned from each other, how to talk about their feelings. Suffering has no language, and its muteness only deepens it. Later they lost their way in the darkness, for a long time they lost track of each other, they could not find the tip of the island and the water carried them both past it. They each had to swim alone in the night.

  Although the moon lit up a riverbank opposite them, it was as though they could no longer be sure which bank was pulling away from them so rapidly. They swam, worked their lungs and muscles, swam on, alone and abandoned, and they did not reach it, did not reach the far shore.

  It probably couldn’t have happened otherwise, though it would have been impossible to give up what happened.

  Perhaps he should have taken Bellardi into his arms, right there on the riverbank.

  Gyöngyvér in the cab could think of nothing else either; she was continuously compelled to think of that one thing, never again.

  And if she could think of nothing else, how could she free herself from all the various senses of never-again. Her body filled with all the sensations contained in never-again. There were many kinds of pain, suffering, each according to its kind, and much pleasure, much lightness, and joy.

  It would have been impossible to distinguish among them.

  And she could not possibly live by his side, in his icy apathy.

  Could not live without him.

  And, because of her self-respect, she was the one who should initiate their breakup, she must take the first step.

  I’ll move out.

  They will humiliate her.

  If she doesn’t go away, these Lehrs will humiliate her more than anyone ever had, anywhere and at any time. If she doesn’t manage to say tonight, I’m moving out.

  It’s over.

  If he does it again in front of her, if he dares, and won’t let her close to him.

  You must be a pig if you can beat your meat in front of me and not even look at me. But at least I had the chance to see what men do with themselves. Now I know everything about you pigs, you lousy wretches.