Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  Protecting herself from my childish flood of words, she laughed. Then, slightly taken aback, she asked what Weisz family, what Ilonka, and she was sorry she’d made me wait so long but she’d thought I was sitting downstairs. They hadn’t lived here long enough to get to know everybody in the building.

  Of course, I continued, and I’d be happy to tell her about it one day, but now I had something more important to ask: how was it that she came out of the apartment on the second floor when they lived on the third floor.

  Because a friend of hers lives on the second. And was I a police detective. To interrogate her like this.

  She couldn’t have thought that seriously, and I asked if her friend was renting a room there.

  This really got her going. She protested, why should her friend rent just a room; she lives there, it’s her own apartment.

  But my old piano teacher lives in that apartment, Andria Lüttwitz.

  There were no more steps for her to take during these superfluous sentences, because now she was standing right next to me on the step above. She flooded me with her fragrance. I should have stepped back, but I could not make myself do that and stayed put like a dumb obstacle. Nor could I keep myself from touching her fur coat, at least with my fingers.

  I said, this is mink, as if voicing a professional opinion, and my hand remained where it was.

  She responded quite vehemently to my movement, as if she had been waiting for it; she put her gloved hand on my arm.

  Yes, it is certainly mink, she said quietly, as if revealing a secret, and how did I know about furs. She borrowed it from her friend because she’d seen that her spring coat had bothered me.

  Because of me, I asked, alarmed.

  You’re right, it’s not a very attractive coat.

  I asked how she had noticed, what sign of mine had she read, and I was ashamed—but she could not reply because suddenly I shouted out, now I know, now it was clear what had been so familiar.

  It was Andria who had done her hair.

  Yes, she did, but how did I know, and she asked me to go back to the second floor with her and bring the drink bottles she had left there.

  That’s what she said, the drink bottles.

  Only Inches from Each Other

  How did I know, how did I know that Andria also had that same hairdo. Nobody but Andria has hair like that.

  Not only that, I also remember, but exactly, how such a hairstyle is made. Because, I admit, I liked Andria’s hair a lot. First, the hair at the top of the head is combed and then backcombed in the other direction.

  Sometimes my cousins helped her because they loved digging their fingers into her hair. My role was to hand them the hairclips.

  Andria’s hair is really beautiful, she said evasively, as if she’d been suddenly interrupted. And did I know what had made her turn so gray.

  It felt so good talking to her that I impolitely ignored this question and kept on talking, saying that the girls, my cousins, also took lessons from her and were much more accomplished than I.

  I had to stop taking lessons, unfortunately.

  She was swaying her head, smiling at me as if she could see back into those strange times, and saying that I must have been a very peculiar boy.

  My hand, longing for a touch, was still sunk into the warmth of her fur coat; her gloved hand was still resting on my arm. It was as though we both were paying attention to this—how some strange power was flowing from one into the other—and noticing how reassuring it was. And as if we both were talking the meanwhile just to keep ourselves from noticing how important this was. At the same time signs of bewilderment and aversion were deepening on her face. She was glowing and smiling, yet she seemed to be receding. I spoke faster, hoping to stop the sun from setting.

  I asked why she thought I had been a peculiar boy. I didn’t remember that there had been anything peculiar about me.

  Because boys in general don’t notice or remember things like that, they rarely help out by handing hairclips to someone, and they don’t usually say they like gray-haired ladies.

  All right, I said, but Andria was different, and the whole thing is much simpler than this. I spent a lot of time among women, since my grandmother and our maid raised me. Grandfather would only take me for a walk, at best. By the way, he usually brought me here, to City Park. I have hardly any memories of men, had no chance to be with them. That’s why I observed things that other boys might not. Or I don’t know, I was always more interested in girls.

  She laughed at this; of course there’s this certain Ilonka Weisz. If I told her more about her, she could see better just what sort of boy I must have been.

  I got scared; this was an embarrassing subject. I would have liked to crawl onto her bare neck when she threw her head back as she laughed. Between her sparkling wet, beautiful teeth I would have crawled into the dark hollow of her mouth. She had teeth like a wild animal’s. But her laughter seemed more like an excuse to remove her gloved hand from my arm. I also had to withdraw my yearning hand; I spoke even faster, lest the mutual withdrawal become too conspicuous.

  I said I knew something about furs because my uncle had a salon downtown, furrier and fellmonger, that’s what people in the trade called the business, but since they took his salon away he’s been working at home.

  Fellmonger, she repeated the strange word.

  Furrier too, I explained, perhaps this mink is from his business. I explained that what Budapest parlance calls mink is in fact the name of an innocent animal. There is something inexplicable in this whole fur business, and I probably thought about it only because I had an aversion both to furs and also to this uncle of mine.

  So what should one think about when one says mink.

  Minks are living animals, and wearing a coat like that is like having committed a robbery and being proud of it.

  She interrupted to say that my uncle must have been a Jew.

  Indeed he was, I said. Actually, he still is, but that wasn’t the reason I couldn’t stand him.

  We both laughed hard at this and our mingling laughs echoed for a while, but that did not please me much.

  My jocular mood began to dissipate. It seemed we were offending this miserable dark building with our echoing laughter.

  Our laughter probably disturbed her a little too. Hurt a little.

  Let’s go, she said, seeming disconcerted.

  All right if she wanted to, I replied, but I’d like to know why this was important or interesting, interesting from what point of view.

  Why wouldn’t it be interesting, she asked. Everything is interesting, so is this. Just as it is interesting that she is a Catholic apostate. That’s something of interest, isn’t it.

  Perhaps she’s right and everything is equally interesting. Still, it’s also interesting that she was interested in this in particular. Because she could have asked so many other questions. She could have asked what was the color of my uncle’s eyes and I would have willingly answered, black, my uncle has black eyes or brown, which is to say I don’t know, I don’t remember. Or she could have asked whether he had a mustache or was he bald, and I would have answered, yes, my uncle is bald, has a small trimmed mustache and a disgustingly hairy body, and he stinks from his furs and leathers.

  She doesn’t understand why I’m so irritated all of a sudden.

  I am not irritated at all.

  Then she doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say. She doesn’t understand what I am insinuating.

  She thinks I’m the one who should do the explaining.

  No, I don’t have to explain myself. She’d be happy to answer all my questions—but hopes this won’t keep us from starting out.

  Prevent or not, I replied sharply, that depends on what kind of explanation I get.

  This strong emotion that could not be concealed attacked us from the outside, and it paralyzed us both.

  Why is she asking me that, of all things.

  Out in the courtyard the wind was making loud
noises.

  We were both angry and agitated, and we looked at each other with alarm; actually we were looking out, searching for whatever it was in each other that was causing our inability to endure each other’s words for another moment. This was something neither she nor I could give up, let alone terminate.

  Let this business end right now, if it has no chance, if nothing good can come of it.

  I should forgive her, she said angrily, but she’d really like to go.

  I’m afraid it would hinder me in many ways if I don’t get an acceptable explanation.

  Right now I was the one hindering her, if I hadn’t noticed.

  In what way might I be hindering her.

  In my free movement, she answered with a little laugh. But, believe her, not for long.

  I laughed back. Only until I get the explanation. She should consider that the condition of her freedom to leave.

  She was afraid I had a persecution complex. She was afraid that I had to overcome it on my own. How could I have thought for even a moment that I’d be able to stop her, that I could be violent with her. Did I dare imagine dictating conditions to her.

  We were standing on the stairs in this cold, dim, filthy staircase, and the whole thing no longer had any sense, purpose, beauty, or charm. She wanted to go but she didn’t, because she didn’t want to offend me by pushing past me, leaving me high and dry. But I thought—for who knows how many times that evening—that I shouldn’t stay, despite the alluring promises of happiness, I shouldn’t stay with her, not even for a moment, no.

  If I stayed, I’d be engaging with an impossible and unpredictable monstrosity, I would seal my fate forever.

  Not for a single day could I endure that other man’s company.

  She had begun the same game with me that the two of them had been playing together for who knows how long.

  And even if I could put up with him, what would I do with my own lie. How could I correct it, make it right. Even if I confessed to her that I wasn’t studying at the School of Physical Education, what reason could I give for lying to her in the first place.

  A lie I couldn’t sustain. Yet I could not tear myself away from it either, and every moment, whether we were talking or not, pushed me into something or shoved me on to something that was mine and also belonged to her, and these two could not be separated.

  This something had no external signs; more correctly, I saw her looking for it in my face, on my forehead, my scalp. Her gaze rested on my shoulders as if at any moment someone might chase this something away. And I did the same in the same restless way on her naked neck, on her heavily painted lips, on the hillocks of her breast, on her shining knees and beautifully arched feet.

  Our glances ran on rapid courses but they did not find what they were looking for, always finding something else; they found the beauty of another, strange body. Why should I have to swallow her remark about Jews. And I grew even angrier because my cock was sticking to my underpants. There is always that one fat drop of seminal fluid that bubbles up, smeared at the top of the foreskin, and then it doesn’t matter that the erection subsides, the smeared drop acts like glue. I should reach for it, pull the underpants away from it. I can’t do that without drawing attention to it. And my anger at this frustration somehow linked up with my anger at her words about Jews.

  This is a Jewish neighborhood, yes, and this is a Jewish building, why did they move in here if they didn’t like it.

  What did I want from this insensitive young lady from the country.

  She should have swallowed my little insult of not letting her get past me, for I was acting with her exactly as her uncouth husband would have. There was something unpleasant in the parallel; I couldn’t tolerate it, and she couldn’t either. Selfishness was whimpering, I want to be left alone, to break off, to put an end to it. At moments like this one forgets one’s screaming, shrieking loneliness. I’d rather have no one. Our shared and desperate anger must have stemmed from this, because she was crying out against me and I against her. I was protesting that I very much wanted something of which I knew nothing. I wanted her but did not know who she was, and how is it possible to want a person; I didn’t know that either.

  Then you’d better go. I finally stepped out of her way, let her go.

  At the same time she must have reached the opposite conclusion. She’d rather surrender; she’d give up the game, whatever happened.

  She said I shouldn’t be angry but she couldn’t tell me everything in one go. However much she wanted me to know, there was a terrible sense of decency that would not let her, or maybe it was her terrible Catholic upbringing. She is a good Christian girl from a good family, and this should never be forgotten. She admits that her question was unguarded or inconsiderate, and she understands my sensitivity, believe her.

  I cut in, saying that we weren’t talking about sensitivity.

  All right, so it’s not sensitivity, it doesn’t matter. There’s really no need for us to talk like this. If there’s one person I shouldn’t be afraid of, it’s her.

  I’m sorry I spoke so harshly—and I heard my voice sounding more frightened than I actually was.

  What surprised me was that I didn’t accept a single one of her sentences as true; I gave her more time, but in fact I wanted to challenge every one of her words.

  Come on, she called back quietly. We can’t do everything all at once, let’s take our time. We can tell each other everything calmly, without getting upset. She gave the impression that in our deadly embarrassment she thought we were simply striking out in all directions.

  That was true.

  For lack of anything better to do, we took off; we had become like a defeated army. Her glitter was gone, her heels pounded hard on the stone stairs. I let her walk in front of me; as she was going down I saw her a little from above in the pale-yellow light; she moved as if she were being made to drag her discouraged limbs across an infinite desert of grief and mourning. All this was familiar, streaming into me like blood and aching, aching terribly. As if, with waning strength, she had to make her way from one place, where despite her hopes she had found not a mite of goodness, to another unknown place, and to do this without knowing what was in store. I didn’t understand where we were going or why in hell we were going anywhere. No, she is not hoping for anything, but I felt as if that too was my fault. If I didn’t go with her, if I didn’t accompany her, if I didn’t protect her, I would suffer damnation.

  Yet what I felt was not empathy for but frantic curiosity about her.

  Her beauty was gone, though I wouldn’t say that her being was any the less touching and engaging. As if the pores of her skin had suddenly shed the powder covering them, the lipstick had turned into foreign matter on her lips, the borrowed fur coat was hanging from her shoulders as from a hanger, and her stupendous hairdo showed mainly an effort to be eccentric. She became gray and crude, bare and undistinguished, depleted and needy. When she had first appeared in Andria Lüttwitz’s fur coat at the top of the stairs, she had shown how dazzling she could be. Now I could see how empty and futile her attempts at strutting and showing off were.

  I also noticed that the leather on the heel of one of her shoes was torn and crinkled. That often happens when the high heel of a shoe like that gets stuck in a damn grating, hole, or crack. Her body was emitting rebuke. And I kept staring reproachfully at her shoes. She was waiting for something, she was hoping very much for something, and again she did not receive it. It was as if I had to sniff the air to learn her desires. Her fragrance was the only thing that had really changed.

  I followed her and despised myself for this.

  I became her servant. Ten minutes earlier I hadn’t been her servant. Why do I wind up serving everyone I meet.

  We were inundating each other with blame and rebuke; we almost drowned in them.

  I asked if she’d noticed that she had already used the word deadly twice this evening.

  She did not reply but made a tiny movement that gene
rated a series of other movements with which she once again managed to dazzle me. She just barely shrugged her shoulders and looked back at me with a single sharp glance. I’m talking nonsense. Then she grasped the coat collar with her gloved hands and raised it a little, maybe so from that moment on I’d see nothing but absolutely nothing of her neck, nothing uncovered, and she quickened her steps. That was her reply. That is how we crossed the stinking entrance to the building; that’s how she stepped out ahead of me onto the street, where the wind was raging even more strongly.

  She clasped her arms above her head to protect her hair. The long fur coat opened and as she took off its two wings fluttered lazily behind her. Much as I disliked furs, I had to admit I was enthralled by how the soft, uniform longitudinal patterns rippled down her back. That’s how her own body became the image of an animal’s body. Then suddenly she stopped at the curb, turned to face me, I almost bumped into her, and we found ourselves only inches apart in the lashing wind. I had the feeling she was completely naked. I hadn’t counted on taking the car; I thought she’d lock it and we’d get on the bus. Her full, powerful, yet somehow still little-girlish body was straining toward me as from an opened shell.

  It was straining forth from the opened shell of animality. I couldn’t tell how many transformations she had gone through that night.

  The wind blew her fragrance into me with renewed strength, her new indecipherable fragrance.

  Almost nothing kept me from slipping my arms under the shiny lining of the shiny fur coat and pulling her body against mine. Now she was flirting with me, inviting me, luring me, opening herself up like a seashell, like a deep-brown chestnut.

  We were shouting and screaming in the wind, which felt especially good because it was as if we were throwing sounds into each other’s laughing mouth.

  Not to let the wind blow them away.

  She asked, actually she screamed whether I’d dare trust her with my life.

  Not willingly, but without hesitation, I screamed back at her.