Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  When she came from the piano teacher, we met on the landing between the first and second floors; their third-floor apartment opened from the rear staircase. After a while she stopped asking me to go with her to the third floor after my lesson.

  One time she said, I am so alone. But I couldn’t go with her, because anybody in the building would have seen my secret. After her lesson she went down to the mezzanine, crossed the courtyard, and from there went up to the third floor by the rear staircase.

  People also called the rear staircase the maids’ stairs.

  Another time she said I was callous, since I wouldn’t listen to her when she complained of loneliness.

  Szilvia claimed she would rather die than have to use the maids’ stairs to go home.

  She hadn’t finished saying what she wanted to say and Viola was already annoyed.

  Sure, you’d die; come off it, why this foolish talk. Why do you have to make such a tzimmes over the maids’ stairs.

  Szilvia began wailing that she didn’t know who was talking more foolishly, but if you really want to know, you’re making the bigger tzimmes.

  And would Viola talk so casually if she had to share a toilet with strangers.

  Of all the foolish nonsense; somebody, please hold me back. You’re only saying that to protect your sweet little Ilonka.

  They were talking as if each of them knew in advance what the other one wanted to say and lost interest the moment she said it.

  I don’t remember seeing maids in this building. One recognized maids from far away. I explained this maids’ stairs business to myself by thinking that Ilonka’s mother must have been a maid once, and the name somehow remained stuck to the stairs.

  When I told my grandmother about Ilonka’s existence, about the girl whom the piano teacher taught for free and let practice in her own apartment, my grandmother nodded and said that was a very decent thing to do and we too might help the girl by buying her sheet music.

  She’d write a letter about this to the piano teacher and give me the money to take to her when the time came.

  Somehow I tried to protest, saying that no one had asked us to do this.

  I was terribly ashamed of my grandmother’s eagerness and sorry I had told her about it. I told her the story only so I wouldn’t despise Ilonka Weisz as much as she despised me.

  Grandmother looked at me severely.

  She asked what sort of help I thought was help that had to be asked for. What makes help really help is when we give it without being asked.

  But I sensed this wasn’t going to turn out well. Ilonka would detest me even more because of this. And then I had better tell my grandmother what I did not want to tell her.

  I asked her if it mattered that Ilonka Weisz detested me.

  She said, why shouldn’t it matter, of course it did, it mattered very much.

  Then let’s not buy her sheet music.

  She did not reply for a long time; she was thinking. It’s impossible to buy someone’s empathy, I was right, we should not give the impression that that was our intention. However, we were talking about two different things and they could be separated sensibly. With this gift we would show our appreciation for Ilonka’s talent. Grandmama would solve this problem in such a way that Ilonka wouldn’t even know about it. And I should somehow make her stop detesting me; I should also think seriously about what I might have done to offend her.

  Still, I hoped Grandmother would forget about writing the letter. She and Grandfather always laughed at themselves for forgetting so many things.

  But she did not forget, and on her nice butter-yellow handmade letter paper she wrote to the piano teacher, to whom we should be very grateful for her decent behavior during the Hungarian Nazi era. Grandmother had said she would make an arrangement with the teacher in such a way that Ilonka would not know about it. She did not seal the envelope, because she didn’t have to hide the contents from me, but still I didn’t dare look at the words describing the terms of the arrangement she was making. Here was another word, another something I didn’t understand, which people sometimes used to specify what they had agreed, or how they had decided to leave things at that. The term they used was that that, but I could neither memorize nor understand it. I didn’t quite understand the word maids either. The piano teacher had a cleaning woman but she didn’t have a maid, though in her apartment there was a tiny maid’s room in which nobody lived. My grandparents had a maid, Rozália Török, but it would never occur to anybody to talk to her the way my aunt Irén in Damjanich Street and my aunt Erna on Teréz Boulevard talked about their maids, whom they often had to dismiss.

  Such a stinking beast, Szilvia would say, and despite our mother’s good intentions we couldn’t keep her on.

  And she made a haughty face that perhaps disturbed me more than the word beast.

  My grandmother always told me I should be attentive to Rozália. Or she would reprimand me in no uncertain terms for irritating Rozália and warn me not to do it again. I should be more considerate and polite to her than to anyone else because we owed her so very much.

  When with her friends they talked about their maids, she always said, well, Róza is a treasure.

  And one evening, looking up from the book she was reading, she told Grandfather that she was amazed not so much that we were still alive but that providence had chosen to guide such a soul to us, and it was because of her that we’d survived.

  Whenever they talked about this, tears welled up in Grandmother’s eyes.

  And she’d say that goodness always makes me shed a few tears.

  For a long time Róza went with me to my piano lessons so I wouldn’t have to cross dangerous Aréna Road by myself. When twice a week the time came to set out, I’d feel I was leaving my grandparents’ house forever. I did not protest, but the finality of the act hurt me in advance. Stefánia Boulevard vanished in City Park at the horizon of infinity. And how far away was the incredibly wide Aréna Road; I couldn’t even begin to imagine how far. As if on each occasion one were swallowed up by a foreboding: this can’t happen again, ever. My school on Hermina Street always seemed within reach even when I walked there alone, while Damjanich Street or Teréz Street seemed halfway around the globe. Yet we always managed to reach it. On the way the sun shone on our heads or it was cold, the wind blew, and the air had a certain quality that I had to overcome with every step but couldn’t. It was dense or too rough; we walked within it as though we were making no progress at all.

  Whenever I felt like this, it was no use holding on to Róza’s strong hand. But I tried not to let her notice any change in me.

  This was the last thing I wanted to talk about with anyone, the air, because I saw that the air did not hinder anyone else in any way, maybe they didn’t even feel the air resisting their progress.

  People were downright glad of it, positively cheerful, that they could be moving.

  Róza would simply grab her large kerchief and run.

  Grandfather would begin to whistle, the dog would start fooling around, scurry to get his leash, ready to go, and Grandmother would hail her cab as if going to conquer the city.

  Something was going to happen to us.

  I was afraid of everything that might happen beyond the high fence around our house.

  Things were a little better if we took the bus, which we did when making jam for the winter, cleaning windows, or doing the wash did not give Róza enough time to walk with me. Then the bus instead of me had to overcome infinity and all those things in the air that hindered me. Then it was easier to believe that I might soon return time.

  The bus was always crowded.

  This bus, the number 37, had one of its terminal stops at the corner of Kerepesi Road; it went to Erzsébet Square and from there over to Buda. It reached our stop jam-packed. In the evenings I saw it go by empty among the dark trees. Its passengers were from Kőbánya or country people from the train station. If we wanted to get on, we had to squeeze between strange legs and be
llies. The pressure increased at every stop. Everybody wanted to get on but nobody got off and the conductor never stopped yelling. Róza could not protect me from the pressure of strange bodies. Adults could hold on because they were tall enough to reach the straps, but I was being rattled, blind and deaf in the midst of living flesh and powerful odors.

  I also had to be sure people didn’t knock the sheet music out of my hands.

  Yet whenever we walked, I could not help telling Róza that it would be better on the bus.

  Getting off was simply impossible. We had to get off at the corner of István Road, but sometimes we couldn’t. Or getting off required merciless pushing and shoving forward, which I could not do without feeling ashamed of myself. People around us were yelling at the top of their voices, the conductor could not calm them down and Róza yelled back. They pushed and I had to push too because I couldn’t let Róza do the fighting alone, I used my elbows, stepped on feet, and kept kicking so that they couldn’t kick me.

  After fighting our way free at last, we stood on the empty sidewalk like agitated battle-weary animals, panting and exhausted, arranging our disheveled clothes. Our anger and agitation subsided slowly.

  I said next time we should come on foot.

  That was too much for Róza.

  She sputtered that I should make up my mind about what I’d like to do. One can’t do two things at the same time, and I was beginning to get on her nerves.

  I could never be cautious enough to avoid provoking somebody’s anger or dissatisfaction.

  Standing in the middle of the sidewalk she was yelling that hadn’t we had enough crazies for one day. She certainly had, and it was time I pulled myself together.

  I also noticed that the more cautiously I spoke or the more cunningly I phrased what I had to say, the more offended and irritated people became. They never had such problems with my cousins, even though everyone said I was a much better child because I wasn’t as impudent and violent as they were.

  It was hard to remain good if my best behavior wasn’t good enough.

  They had grown used to me as a child who did not look for excuses, was not obstinate, quickly acquiesced in whatever was asked of him. Perhaps my grandfather was the only one who did not want me to be better than I was. He was indifferent to my behavior, good or ill; he did not want anything from me. Sometimes I thought he also pretended that nothing touched or interested him. Just as I always had to pretend that I had no objection to anything. They always wanted more, demanded more. But there was someone inside me who made giving in very difficult; it was some sort of obstacle, I don’t know what or who it could have been.

  I wanted to give in, but because of this being I could not.

  Maybe that’s why my cousins accused me of being callous.

  Yet I could not remove this last obstacle from the path of my goodness.

  Because I was already too polite, too quiet, exceedingly considerate, and attentive. It was as if I were mocking them, and that made me feel insincere and wicked.

  Even if they were most satisfied with me at times like this. But I knew that no matter how much they praised me, how much they stroked me, I wasn’t like that. And I was often close to the brink: one more glance, one more word and I might have revealed that I couldn’t go on; I felt dizzy, as if I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything for a long time. Of course they noticed nothing, which made the play I was putting on for myself even sadder. I had no hopes that in the hereafter I would not be such a giddy person, since my fate would be less false; at least I’d be able to understand more of what I couldn’t understand now because of all the falsehoods. I feared the promised great punishment, namely that the only world I knew would one day either slip out from under my feet or come crashing down on my head. They would unveil my dishonesty or suddenly discover that I wasn’t satisfied with anything. Viola and Szilvia could do anything they wanted, and even Ilonka Weisz could go on with her roguery to her heart’s content.

  At least she had a mother who defended her when necessary, who lied and raised hell for her and then slapped her around.

  I, on the other hand, had to be grateful to my grandparents and other relatives that I could stay with them at all. That they didn’t eject me from their lives. And I had to do my own lying. Occasionally my grandmother saw through me, took pity on me, and helped me lie to the others. But I also saw through her. She helped me with the lies simply to keep me from not loving her, and then she could be even stricter with me.

  I barely remember the two years that preceded Grandmother’s final success in reclaiming me from the boarding school on Rózsadomb. Yet the tribulations of those two years determined my so-called good behavior. Because they might always send me back there again—the hour of truth might arrive at any time—and then I’d once again cease to exist. If I don’t behave no one will protect me; I can’t be a burden to people. They’ll take away my name again, the name that my grandmother’s enormous efforts had managed to retrieve in some office where they did not treat her as well as she’d expected they would.

  And I remembered this situation clearly; it felt as if I were recuperating, as if the throbbing noise of a high fever had just subsided. The problem was not that my classmates and teachers—all the latter were women—had a hard time acknowledging my new name, but that frequently I myself didn’t know which one was the real name. My old name felt more familiar, felt more like mine, even though I knew it was only a name given to me by those gangsters who had dragged my father away from Aréna Road, my father whom nobody has ever seen again and of whose name they wanted to deprive the world.

  I remembered well that day on Aréna Road, because they let me watch from the window as they took him away.

  Grandmother got me back from them and retrieved our good name too; she said she’d paid a lot of money for it, a great deal of money, since she had to bribe many crooks and scoundrels. Still, the family name and my real first name lay on me like a curse. It was hard to accept that my new name was, in fact, my old original name, because I no longer remembered that in the boarding school on Rózsadomb they had given me a different one.

  I had to learn the old one again, that this was who I was, after all.

  I didn’t know how long I’d be allowed to remain as this one, or when it would be my fault that I’d have to be another one.

  I mixed up the two names frequently enough.

  Instead of my real old-new name, the old one kept popping into my mind, the one that wasn’t my name at all, regardless of how the others in school yelled at me and laughed, saying, this little idiot can’t even remember his own name.

  I suspected that besides that name of mine, I might have not remembered the boarding school because they had mixed me up with someone else, and in reality I wasn’t the person they or even I thought I was. By mistake my grandmother may have taken away another child, thinking she was taking me. I tried to feel who I was, whether I was really the person they thought I was. I had the definite suspicion I had been exchanged for someone else, I was someone else. But they mustn’t learn of this, so they won’t be disappointed in me, since they’ve accepted me so nicely. Or at least they pretend to have been taken in by this lie or sham. I must be on guard; I was terribly ashamed of the deliberate, premeditated deceit. Perhaps they knew what an enormous mistake my grandmother had made and they said nothing about it because they wanted to spare her.

  I must make myself unobtrusive or at least useful, if I can’t be completely unnoticed and useless.

  That’s why I didn’t care about the shooting, I was going to get bread. At last I could prove my usefulness. I saw how my aunt Erna feared my disgusting cousin and her famous husband, so I chose, unlike them, to behave as a grown man should and went to see about getting bread for all of us. They willingly believed that I was brave and self-sacrificing since that was safer and more comfortable for them.

  Ultimately, I was as self-seeking as they.

  That is why it hurt me whenever, on either Damjanich S
treet or Teréz Boulevard, either in the midst of huge quarrels or coldly and pitilessly, they dismissed a maid.

  They would say the maid had not proved worthy of their confidence.

  At times like that I felt it’d be better for me to find a fast-acting poison among the cleaning compounds and do away with myself. Or this was the reason that Grandmother’s words about Róza filled me with hope, since she was the great exception.

  I couldn’t imagine where those dismissed, unwanted maids would go.

  By the same token, where would I go, where would I find refuge for myself, or find a way to evade my pursuers.

  One day the adults were sitting on the balcony of the Damjanich Street apartment, under the white sunshade, and I was staring out among the flower boxes at the trees on Queen Vilma Road bathing in the sun.

  It was late afternoon and down in the Moszkva Garden the waiters were busy setting tables, dishes and utensils were clattering, the band was tuning up for the five o’clock tea. Large striped sunshades were lowered over the tables with hand-operated winches; they cranked them exactly as they did on Margit Island in the Grand Hotel or the casino.

  Five o’clock tea was a strange expression, because it did not mean that people had tea at five o’clock or that this was a salon de thé, as Grandmother and her lady friends called the pastry shop; it meant that dancing started at five o’clock.

  That’s what I waited for.

  At ten after five, when they had finished their second number and there were a few people still sitting at the tables, everyone started to clap and shout when Hedda Hiller appeared on the little stage, which was almost completely hidden from me by the leaves of the horse chestnuts. She began to coo, hum, drone, buzz, and purr into the microphone in her deep mellow voice, and occasionally she’d sing out a crude tune with unexpected force, and lots of twists and turns and halftones; and she appeared each time in ever more wondrous dresses.

  My aunt Irén was carrying on behind me about the girl she’d fired the day before, as if the scene she’d made the day before, which we had had to live through, was happening again.