Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  Ágost, however, did hear from the other end of the corridor the relentless ringing of the telephone call looking for him. He was quickly getting dressed in his cabin. He thought the Lukács cabins were disgusting, smelling of various bodily exhalations and of the insecticide scattered everywhere against cockroaches. He had no intention of waiting for the others; he wanted to decamp alone. He had had enough of them and of this morning. He’d had it up to here with their insipid political arguments. He did not understand why these men, so full of hostile sentiments, could be his friends. He felt anxious, though he knew he could not afford to. Their opinions did not differ, really, yet they could not be reconciled. He could not imagine what he would do with his unhappy life, which was probably unsuited for happiness. They should spare one another all this awkward strutting about. Waste of time. He was bored with everybody always having to have a different opinion, why does the world need different views. He had no sensible answer. And the wind was knocking about outside. They never got anywhere with their opinions. The wind raised the mist and blew it about; gusts of air continually lifted, perturbed, slid across, and bared the surface of the water.

  There was now no one in the men’s pool except two closely watched persons.

  Ágost was firmly convinced that man was not a political animal, that was too flattering a definition, but a chattering animal. And where politics are not made but only endured, as was the case in this cunt-size country, where only servants and gentry prattle, there’s no point in opening one’s mouth to debate political issues.

  How could they have suspended their argument if this conviction of his so infuriated both his two friends, albeit for different reasons.

  While the storm raged unabated above the pool André Rott tried to remain one stroke behind Karakas, who spoke to his subordinates only when he reached the end of the pool. On the opposite wall, the big hand of the electric clock impassively kept clicking away on its axis.

  Another hour went by; it now showed 11:20.

  Any number of people might accompany Karakas on his early- or late-morning wanderings between the steam bath and the pool. He could instruct his underlings as he pleased—to let him have a towel, not that wet one, the other, the dry one, to give him his swimming cap or take away his bathrobe or, after a few years of suspended activity, to renew the construction of the Budapest subway or to start an equally large project. With insiders like André he would discuss strictly confidential matters that in the life of every state belong in the category of destructive secrets. He would also see petitioners, at least those whom his always invisible security men allowed to meet him. And there was always—or there would have been—a procession of famous novelists, well-known radio reporters, eminent scientists, successful actors, and high-ranking officials who sometimes waited for long weeks to see him, here in the Lukács, for the hope-filled moment, for the great opportunity. They hoped to reach the influential man with their irregular requests outside his office, and they always held in reserve a small favor they could do for him in return. They would want a passport; a higher place, reserved for the more privileged, on the list of those permitted to purchase a car or be allocated an apartment; a starring role in a movie or a play; a reprint of their rightfully forgotten novels or a new publication of their selected poems; an appointment as an ambassador or clemency for someone in jail for life. Or they just wanted to gush and brownnose, to buzz around the influential man and fawn. Which is such a wonderful feeling that one could practically faint with joy. The lucky ones would shudder for hours afterward when they thought about what they had said and what the man had said to them, recalling their chance to talk with such a powerful personage. They would boast breathlessly to anyone they could collar, eager to strengthen their position with this exceptional bit of news.

  Karakas would not even listen to most of the insidious and cunning suggestions offered in exchange for favors. He despised these people, all of them, these worms, the choice bootlickers and ass kissers, though sometimes, mysteriously mimicking God knows what and making especially nasty remarks, he would be generous enough to accept a clumsy act of some service; he simply bought them.

  The lucky petitioners would be beside themselves with joy.

  And later, they could not recount these great acts of heroism, since betrayal and bootlicking had generally accepted limits. Yet keeping quiet about them was fearsome, as if they’d regressed to being bedwetting little boys, now with a little pleasure in their loins or anuses.

  Today, however, the powerful master had arrived at an unusual time and remained alone.

  Perhaps he needed André to avoid feeling so alone or to feel the privileged magnificence of his loneliness.

  Perhaps he wanted nothing from André.

  It was good to have a strong man by his side who was not an ass kisser.

  Karakas was a mysterious man, nobody could see his cards. It was impossible to tell whether he was siding with the inveterate dogmatists, the Stalinists, the Muscovites, or the dispersed but still vengeful hordes of ÁVH men—in which case his helping various nationalist groups was only an illusion—or the other way around. Perhaps with all these possibilities or despite them, he was trying to maintain, in his Anglophiliac way, some kind of political pragmatism, in which case his common sense was breathtaking. Except for his wife and children, no one thought he had any feelings or emotions, or wanted to share them with anyone in the cause of political action.

  He was a basically uneducated man, but once his glance strayed onto something he would note it for good and sense its essence; with lightning speed he would read everything and anything, and understand it.

  He was uniformly characterless when it came to his face and his physique. Smooth as a well-sucked lemon drop, his enemies said behind his back, inside and out everything was licked down. He exuded the aroma of some strange soap or not too pleasant cologne that reminded one mostly of mothballs. He spoke to everyone in a conspicuously low tone, with a cordiality both threatening and threatened, frail and vulnerable; he never raised his voice. Perhaps he never lost his temper because in reality very few things interested or touched him.

  Although this morning he had received two pieces of terrible news.

  The one concerning the mass disaster reached him a little after 9:30. An overhead streetcar cable had snapped in front of the National Museum, killing a number of children—students being taken by their teachers to the celebration—who happened to be crossing the street. And that was not all. Because of some fatal fluke, the snapped cable did not trip the fuse at the big power station on Váci Street; in all probability the still-live cable made contact with the streetcar track, which hungrily conducted the electricity further, and the bodies of the victims had started to glow and smolder. The high-voltage current killed quite a few of the shocked teachers, fellow students, and passersby rushing to the aid of the children, before all the eyewitnesses realized there was absolutely nothing to be done, and they began sobbing and screaming at the top of their lungs in the stormy street where traffic stopped and became hopelessly congested.

  In response Karakas ordered a full military and police alert throughout the metropolitan area and a total news blackout; he caused all the roads leading out of the capital to be blocked, public offices and institutions closed, no trains were allowed into the railway stations and no trains were allowed to leave the city. To the president of the state radio, whom he had to treat with kid gloves because she was the only female member of the Political Committee and in that capacity under the personal protection of comrade Kádár,* he suggested maintaining calm and discipline.

  Considering the last days’ reports on internal affairs, provocation could not be excluded, he whispered in his most cordial voice over the telephone. He was talking to her on the special line that, at least in theory, was safe from any kind of tapping or interception, and told her that as the result of his consultation with comrades of the highest echelon only a little while ago, those were the proper guidelines,
calm and discipline, and everyone concerned should follow them.

  She should therefore recall her reporters; no radio personnel or vehicle could remain on the streets.

  This is a sabotage action.

  He can assure her that this is not his personal opinion.

  But not to worry, any possible disturbance will be nipped in the bud, that is the authoritative assessment.

  And then he hung up without saying good-bye. He had no time for this priggish hysterical female, about whom the generally accepted view in the highest circles was that she had already lost her head on the evening of October 23, 1956.

  She retreated to the space under her desk and issued her orders from there.

  Karakas mobilized larger forces to reestablish order at the critical site so that the official celebration could commence, if not exactly at the announced time at least with no more than a half-hour delay, precisely because of the planned radio broadcast. He reported again to the prime minister, who happened to have comrade Kádár in his office. The two men got along well, even though they came from very different social backgrounds and held diametrically opposed views.

  They were both slow and jovial, but while the thinking of one was very simple, bordering on simpleminded, that of the other was very convoluted. They listened to the secretary’s report attentively, and with a seriousness appropriate to the situation, and then comrade Kádár opined that comrade Karakas would need the help of a few comrades well trained in carrying out operational tasks, and all of them together should hasten to the scene of the disaster to aid the comrades there.

  Karakas had the swarming groups of onlookers and passersby first dispersed by these helpers, then followed and cleared from the nearby streets. He had the windows of buildings giving on the Museum Garden closed; he ordered superintendents to chase everyone away from behind the closed windows. He acknowledged the list of the dead and injured. He ordered the sound crew to play, at the highest possible volume, lively, energetic patriotic songs. While ambulances, firefighters, sanitation workers, and electricians were doing their best, cursing and getting in one another’s way, the entire area resounded with a medley of music—stately palotás dances, wild verbunkos or recruiting dances, and rowdy drinking songs.

  He made one mistake. He judged correctly that the schoolchildren, who had been brought from nearby schools and were now forced to wait behind ropes, might be upset by this feverish activity, the quickly spreading news and rumors, and would find it hard to endure quietly a ceremony scheduled to last an hour and a half. It would not be wise to add mass hysteria to the catastrophe. So he ordered that the children should be taken back to their schools but not sent home until further notice.

  They should be replaced with other children brought from other schools.

  The square had to be filled with celebrants; workers’ militiamen should also be ordered to the square, but in civilian clothes.

  The police officer to whom he gave the order did not dare remind Karakas that there were no other children available, since March 15 is a school holiday everywhere in Hungary.

  In the Spanish Civil War, Karakas had been adjutant to the current Hungarian prime minister, then the International Brigades’ dreaded commissar of political security. Before 1950, when the prime minister came home for good, they had carried out several well-coordinated cleansing operations together, though sometimes they were not even in the same country or city, and thanks to their mutual support they had managed to be left out of every cleansing campaign and operation since; this did not generate much confidence in them among their dearest friends and best comrades. They were friends, yes, if there were reason to make such a judgment. Yet the same comrades against whom the two had conducted these tough campaigns for decades were the ones who arrested them.

  This was no laughing matter. Karakas was nearly tortured to death during his interrogation.

  Although he limped because of an injury received in Spain, he suffered from several organic diseases as the result of the later beatings and torture in Hungary. About these he spoke with no one except physicians at Kútvölgyi Hospital; thus no one knew which of his inner organs had been smashed. A number of people knew that Vladimir Farkas had personally urinated into his mouth, as he had done to comrade Kádár too.* But others reacted to this by saying, no, that’s simply unbelievable.

  He was considered a communist who could not and indeed did not have any personal grievances. Today, however, he remained conspicuously quiet, almost fearful; he did not say a single word to André Rott in the stormy pool. Neither did he look at him when, having reached the end of the pool, he turned around. As if he had forgotten him or changed his mind, and then his silence or fear acquired a diplomatic character.

  He must have a reason for softening up Rott.

  But in fact he was enjoying the water, the storm, and it gave him a special pleasure that he was enjoying it after a double ordeal and shock. Anyway, Karakas was a man who was content with small amounts of enjoyment; a few spirited movements were enough for him, he was satisfied and done.

  They swam like this for about six minutes, from one end of the pool to the other and then back again. This was no small torture for Rott. Being an excellent swimmer, he found it very hard to swim slowly. But Karakas swam as if his fear of drowning at each stroke was not completely baseless. And then, unexpectedly, after a turn, he waited for André. While both of them trod water and held on to the railing, he said to the younger man that yesterday the Political Committee put an end to the matter.

  The Jews are not allowed to study the Eichmann papers we have.*

  Surprising.

  We prefer not to have Israeli detectives around who are charged with special missions.

  Obviously.

  Let them give us the date for when the trial begins, and a few days before that they’ll get the necessary papers.

  Or at least copies of the necessary papers.

  That would mean, André remarked, to give himself time to think, that the memorandum about the extradition is also canceled.

  The Hungarian government will not request Eichmann’s extradition, because rejection of such a memorandum would not be desirable. At the moment Moscow does not want to make a big deal out of the Jewish question.

  But we shall offer them appropriate documents that may be important to the Jews, and in exchange they should keep quiet.

  Maybe not just any documents, and mainly not all of them.

  Then they swam for another four minutes.

  Which, this time, was not part of the obligatory theatrics of male power play.

  André wondered what this powerful man’s intentions were for sharing this confidential information with him.

  At this late morning hour, Karakas gave no sign of special anxiety or perturbation, and Rott could not have heard of the terrible accident.

  When Karakas, cold and wet but very content, had returned to the parliament from the garden of the National Museum, he first made his report, which was received with satisfaction. But the moment he stepped out of the prime minister’s office he was given some news that had no official significance, but from which he had to sort and rearrange documents on his shiny desk for long minutes to recover.

  Finally he got up, very irritated, and in unusually harsh tones told his secretary that he’d be back in forty minutes; until then he could be found in the Lukács.

  The secretary’s concerned look followed him out.

  He had ten minutes left for the steam bath.

  André Rott accompanied him there too.

  In the dim hall, dating from the Turkish era, there were only a few naked figures.

  Karakas and Rott took their place in the farthest corner of the hot-water pool, sitting on underwater stone armchairs pitted by sulfides and mineral deposits. Simultaneously, security men appeared between the columns and then withdrew discreetly, which unavoidably made for much slipping and knocking noise in the hall. Karakas, holding on to the carved armrests, absentmindedly
floated his paralyzed leg for a while, staring in front of him, but not at his pencil-thin penis peeking out from under his apron or his little testicles floating in long folds of skin, at nothing in particular, perhaps nothing at all, and then suddenly he immersed himself completely in the water. When he surfaced, seeking André’s face, he said, so far as I know, comrade Rott’s friends are not involved in any bad-smelling business.

  One expects that much from one’s good friends, comrade Karakas, replied André Rott quickly, though with some reserve, considering the powerful man’s surprising statement.

  It would be embarrassing if an ugly mole dug up the ground somewhere.

  André added, without thinking, that he was afraid Lippay might be growing prematurely rusty.

  Don’t be.

  Luckily, Jancsi Wolkenstein is more patient.

  I believe we’ll have to entrust him with a dangerous task, Karakas said, and as was the wont of powerful comrades, he made it seem as if he had not heard the warning about Lippay and the recommendation regarding Wolkenstein.

  What’s your view, he asked quickly and sarcastically.

  He appeared genuinely curious as he observed André’s features, now motionless with surprise. Of course he did not fail to notice that André feigned this surprise.

  For once, two pros were talking to each other in this town. In the meantime they had both sunk into the rust-brown water up to their lips and were floating their bodies. It would have been impossible to talk more quietly or intimately. Which was necessary both because of the subject matter and because of the echoing bathing hall. Occasionally a splash could be heard from a neighboring pool when someone was getting into or out of the water.

  The more dangerous the task, comrade Karakas, the more responsible one must be.