Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  The beams and wide trusses of the wood-framed main building must have been repainted recently.

  Kienast was laughing at himself a little; one tends, when nudged by an illusory feeling, to make daring discoveries regarding the inner nature or structure of the world that only a moment later may prove useless. In the silence of the foggy woods the noise of fine dripping could be heard. The air was still. And he could be truly content with what had happened in the previous two days. He had escaped, run ahead of himself, and everything was coming together very nicely. He reveled in the joy of discovery, though nothing was exactly new for him. As if he were someone arriving on this miserable muddy globe not for the first time and in all probability not the last either. It’s love again, that damned love, he sang the old song to himself.

  Always and again, love, he had sung to himself—and whistled the tune too, to escape the stupid lyrics while traipsing along, going about his dark little criminal cases among unsuspecting people in the city, which was preparing for the holiday and already decorated with electric garlands.

  And now he was standing before the unknown house, still whistling the same song, always the same song, and he will sing the same song tomorrow too. Although most of the things he was thinking about now he had not thought about before. Words like providence and muddy globe usually escaped his attention or failed to settle permanently in his consciousness. He had no penchant for rapture, no inclination toward mysticism, he found esotericism laughable, Nazi drivel, and he felt no special joy in secret correlations or in having exceptional thoughts. Neither his uplifting sentiments nor the volatile upheaval in his love life could make him smile happily. One really must not let signs of such things show. Still, he well remembered that just before his trip, when discussing the first test results in the lab and after he had handed over a few very promising pieces of new material to the lab technician, he had felt like heartily slapping the back of that gaunt, bespectacled man.

  Listen, pal, let me tell you what happened last night. Felt like doing it especially because something like that had obviously never happened to the other man. But in the end he didn’t; the man was not his pal. Even so, the lab technician gave him a certain look. What had got into him anyway; he knew it wasn’t quite proper to entrust the technician with the examination of materials that he, the detective, could not have obtained by legitimate means.

  When the first sketch of an investigation quickly comes together with almost no missing pieces, one must be especially careful. In the universe a strict logical net holds up not only great truths but also great errors, so it may often happen that one believes one is on the trail of a great truth when in fact one has only been taken in by a rather weak idea of one’s own.

  He did not continue under the neatly pruned fruit trees—mainly apple and pear trees, and plum trees farther off—and he did not step out onto the grass of the clearing.

  What petty things I investigate, what shitty little things I let myself brood on, and I make myself a laughingstock even with the little stuff; as if he needed bigger and bloodier cases, and much less diligence, for his well-being. He destroys everything with his ambition, as if he were doing the opposite in his life from what common sense required. Which meant that he stood on no firmer moral ground than criminals did.

  From behind the shed door he heard the dull thumps of wood being chopped, the banging and the splitting.

  A few moments earlier he had stopped his overheated car where on the map the paved road ended. He had hardly eaten or drunk all day, hence the feeling reminiscent of dizziness and a surprise about the twilight, which perhaps wasn’t real. Or he was driving not in today’s twilight but yesterday’s. To stuff something quickly into his belly, he had shouted to the sausage man through his lowered window. The man wasn’t surprised; for almost ten years he had been stationed at the edge of the city in his tin hut smelling of burned oil; he was accustomed to madmen locked in their cars; he made his living from them.

  He had to watch it, though, so that they wouldn’t beat him up or stab him and mainly so he’d get his money.

  Mustard or ketchup.

  Mustard.

  With one hand on the steering wheel, he had squeezed together the roll and the hot white sausage with the other and driven on, taking quick bites, aware that the mustard was dripping. Patting the seat next him, he realized that the napkin along with the paper tray must have slipped under the seat. I am empty, busying myself with other people’s shitty little affairs, I have lawful authorization to do stuff forbidden to others, but that doesn’t really get me anywhere. He was dissatisfied with himself for having nothing to fill his emptiness with, and just as dissatisfied with these recurring attacks of dissatisfaction. As if thinking that with such an awful profession as his, which makes him sticky all over even when he does his job properly, he probably wasn’t worthy of the woman, and not just her but anyone. And how should he do things properly. She’s an uncomplicated, fragrant, fragile being whom for years I didn’t even notice. He should honestly tell her, before disappointing her, that he’s not worthy of her and stop the whole thing. Bodily joy isn’t everything. But he could not reassure himself with this foolishness. Why shouldn’t it be everything. If he had a good fuck, he felt at home in the universe. Anyway, who in the world wants to separate fucking from spiritual joy or anything else. He wiped his greasy mustard-stained fingers on the seat and smeared the traces of grease and mustard at the corners of his mouth. As if he should instantly become someone because of a woman like that, or as if the lack of dignity in his life—the problematic relationship between his daily activities and his human compulsions or abilities—were becoming oppressive. He did not know exactly what was missing, but he was missing it very much. Now he’s stuffed full and, having assaulted his system, belching profusely, and certainly he’ll soon be hiccupping. If he didn’t have to sneak around, avoiding daylight, in the thick of humanity, he too might have noticed earlier that he had no one in this world, just like this wretched Döhring.

  He was wary of hiccupping, he had vowed many times not to stuff himself with those lousy rolls and sausages and mainly not to top everything off with all sorts of cola.

  When he had to hiccup, he had to hiccup, no matter how many well-known anti-hiccupping methods he tried.

  Although Kienast was one of those cops who, endowed with great strength of mind and fortitude, did not lose their composure at the sight of even the most horrendous crimes, he was alarmed by even the slightest physical irregularity or the most banal pain of his own. Either his daily activities had dulled his natural good faith, which was why he could not engage himself with another human being, or he had chosen this profession in the first place so that he could experience the affirmation of his natural bad faith every day and thus keep from finding anyone to share his life with.

  No one with whom he could be as naughty as he liked.

  He went to the doctor with impossible complaints, sometimes to be reassured that the symptoms were harmless, sometimes to hear the fatal news he always expected. A toothache, pinprick, nosebleed, bee sting, blister, or splinter was enough for him to see his approaching end, which he was ready to forget the moment the inconvenience passed; after all, he was busy with nothing else but the deaths of others. Now, against his good judgment, he popped open the Coca-Cola can and drank in almost uninterrupted gulps. He quickly tried to let the carbon dioxide out of his body, opened his mouth wide, stuck out his tongue, sort of burping himself. A little later he raised his bottom, firing away cautiously, not pressing too hard lest he soil his underpants. Which temporarily made a considerable stink in the car. But he rather enjoyed this, sniffing eagerly, not to lose the familiar smell before it dispersed.

  Occasionally, no matter how dissatisfied he was with himself, he protected what belonged to his body, pampered it, and found it enjoyable.

  The old car, pulled over by the woods, was gasping for air, its overheated red body steaming and knocking in the reddening twilight.

>   The sky was blue over the low pine forest, light blue, the air mild for the season, somewhat misty, and the weather report did not call for snow during the night.

  According to the map the farm was five hundred meters from here but a locked barrier blocked the trail-like dirt driveway leading to it. He had to jump high to hurdle it. He noted that the owners maintained the road but must not be using it much for vehicles. He saw no fresh wheel tracks among the old ones. He observed and carefully registered everything that might be important professionally, but in the meantime he was also daydreaming about his sweetheart, and he especially enjoyed his thoughts running on parallel tracks. Of course, it was enough for his happiness that he was walking here in the forest dressed in Christmas silence, breathing and moving his limbs, stiff from the long drive. As one coming home at last, body and soul rising to an unknown level of reality, excited yet relaxed. In his amorous daydreams, this was the definite impression he had of himself. As if he had found his own life’s unknown basic rhythm in someone else. The ground was soft in the woods, springy, sandy; he noticed no fresh footprints. As to the smells, he could choose between two kinds of pleasant sourness, and he became even happier because he was thinking of such trivial matters.

  In the vaporous air he experienced differently the resin trickling down the rubescent trunks and the juniper crawling everywhere in great profusion, its berries ripened to a downy blue, sprinkling the rust-colored carpet of pine needles.

  Later he waited patiently and a little insecurely at the edge of the woods. Everything that had led him to this point had something to do with smells, but smells were hardly palpable. He had a tendency to overdo little things; at least his intuition often told him something about a case that differed from what his factual knowledge and experience claimed. Döhring had to be alone; he hoped he was. The two locations from which Döhring had telephoned had been successfully identified, and before Kienast had set out he had listened to the recordings again. The call from Düsseldorf had been made in hysterical haste and the second call, made from the telephone of a solitary gas station somewhere near here, gave evidence of obvious panic. A person not in control of his conscience is unlikely to call the police right away, though Kienast realized that Döhring had meant the call for him, personally, more than for the police in general. And he did not seriously think Döhring was contemplating or preparing to commit suicide, though he was not a harmless boy, indeed was a serious threat to others.

  Solitude has a tendency to magnify things that hardly have any perceptible significance for others.

  Professionally there was no justification for him to set out from Berlin because of those insignificant phone calls. He could have said to himself, knowing what he already knew, that Döhring, given his mental tendencies, was not going to run away and would not even hang himself. And what if he did. Or if he chalked up another victim. That would make the case neither more valuable nor more complicated. Let him go on his insane way; let him go to hell. It’s just a shitty little case anyway. It would have been more sensible and more comfortable that way, if only because his mother was expecting him for Christmas Eve dinner. Although he had not become cynical in the midst of so much sorrow and dread, he never deceived himself or others that an individual life had any special value. He had a personal reason for not wanting to dismiss his unexpected idea. At least he wouldn’t be spending the next night with the woman: that was the most important thing. Give the suddenly turbulent emotion of love a little breathing space, retrieve from her a little bit of his freedom before any fateful turn of events and only then decide. Because he felt more strongly than anything else that it had already come to pass; at best he could give his conscience a belated blessing for what had already taken place in his senses and the higher regions of reality; he was still defending himself. His freedom was at stake, and he was not ready to part with it. I’ll fuck up Mother’s holy night, that’s true, I’m getting into irresponsible professional adventures because of a woman, that’s also true, but by the time I get to him, this unfortunate boy will have softened up and then I’ll kill two birds with one stone.

  Kienast’s mother lived alone; his father had ended his miserable life by his own hand. In the family no one ever talked about the father’s depressions and manias, and since his death they never uttered those words or mentioned epilepsy or the father’s profession, which the father had given up prematurely so as to keep as far away as possible from his own father’s career—the latter being something that Kienast came near to, given the profession he had chosen. Although he did not dissect bodies, he knew as well as a well-trained dissector or renowned forensic specialist did what to find where, or what biophysical processes occur in the human system after death.

  He could not have said in what area or how Döhring would soften up, but his mind was feeling its way in that direction. The morning of the day before, he had found significant clues and therefore could not forbid himself a few suppositions about the student. Even if there was something irrational in his interest and suspicion. Deep in his heart he pitied the young man more than was necessary. No investigation can be carried out without empathy, but this was too much warmheartedness; psychologically speaking, it was transference. As if he were unable to override his professional responsibility with the imperative of his love and was now asking himself, why have I come here, what am I looking for, why don’t I let him go, why am I messing up my evening and my night. One doesn’t do this kind of thing out of sheer pity, or rather, one should ask what trick of the soul does one’s pity conceal. He could not seriously imagine he had often disappointed his mother. Yet the belated rebellion gave him pleasure, that he had not even called and she might worry. This means that no matter how long a man lives he can never outgrow being a boy, which keeps him from coping independently with his life. Where is the big freedom then. Kienast was positively a good boy; he had been one even as an adolescent; the tragedy cooled off slowly in the family, though its narrative dimensions were so vast that it could never cool off completely. He got along with his older sister, something of a prankster, or at least he had managed to live up to the male role, not perfectly tailored for him, between the two women. And that was the very reason he could not forget that epilepsy in their family was hereditary on the male side.

  This remained with him as a secret threat for both possibilities: that neither as boy nor as man had he behaved properly, or fulfilled his duties.

  It lurked out there somewhere, it would not be wise to awaken it with intemperance. But he knew he was scaring himself in vain. The yellowed final report prepared by the racial biology service’s expert was included among the family papers, and he had gone over it in great secrecy even before his father’s death. It set his mind at ease because according to strict genetic estimations, in his family at worst only a male grandchild of his would be in danger. And one reason he feared engaging in a deeper, more serious relationship was because he did not want to have children. He considered both the world and himself unsuitable for raising children, and was unwilling to discuss even whether it was worth discussing such a possibility. Or whether there was a suitable world. It even occurred to him that he might comply with the verdict of Nazi science and have himself sterilized, which his father for inexplicable reasons had not done despite expert medical opinion.

  Which meant that his children could thank this happenstance for their being born, which was not very encouraging.

  And Kienast for once in his life could allow himself to break a promise to his mother.

  He did not expect this complete illumination. The solitary house with all those lights on might be full of members of Döhring’s family preparing for the holidays, but there was nobody to be seen behind the windows or in the clearing. He saw no garage door, there was no ramp leading up to a garage or old-fashioned carriage shed, and he did not see any car parked outdoors.

  Was he at the right place; he knew he could not be mistaken about that. When the basket was filled Döhring put the
short-handled axe among the freshly cut wood, lifted the basket as high up against his side as he could.

  He had to kick the shed door open with his knee.

  His grandfather had taught Döhring that the devil tends to disguise himself and never sleeps deeply. And even if he sometimes dozes off, a careful peasant never leaves an unguarded axe, hatchet, knife, pitchfork, sickle, or scythe near him, because that’s the first thing the devil reaches for when he awakens from his brief slumber. Yet now he headed unwarily toward the house, carrying his basket. He didn’t even look back, the door still worked on the old spring, he heard it slam closed properly behind his back.

  For the moment Kienast did nothing, let the poor boy go; within himself, though, he was jubilant to see how things were coming together, how damn lucky he was, and maybe his future wouldn’t be so miserable after all. He can’t afford to fuck it up now. He called to the student from the edge of the woods but not until the student with his basket of firewood reached the middle of the clearing and became defenseless. He greeted him with a loud friendly good evening, called him by his name, and addressed him as mister, all in compliance with police regulations. However, in his surprise, Döhring’s body was shaking from head to toe, which the detective could also see clearly.

  Döhring immediately recognized the voice. He thought it best to put the basket on the ground, nice and slow.

  His bodily response dissipated the specters and alien beings that had been gathering around him; they vanished, evaporated in the light evening mist, so that he could consciously attend to the presence of the other man. He couldn’t utter a word, let alone return the greeting. He stood with his head bowed, and as his gaze fell and lingered on the old axe on the cut wood—because very clearly it did linger there if only for a moment, and his defensive posture could not escape Dr. Kienast’s eyes—he thought of one thing only, that he would not cease his activities.