Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  Kienast did not want to reply to this question, it was simply not his business.

  Or why do I still have this penchant for remembering things despite everything. This cannot be understood, and we cannot forgive one another for it.

  He stopped suddenly and looked at Kienast as though he now saw or realized why he must kill his father or at least forsake his family.

  But I will ask you to leave God out of the game, don’t go on mentioning him to me, because I hate Jesus Christ with all my heart.

  Grave silence settled between them, silence of a quality that belonged to neither of them, and for a while neither dared break it.

  I despise him, if you’d rather hear it that way, Döhring shouted desperately.

  Your preferences are clear: you don’t care about the law, don’t bother with ethical questions, and hate God. However, I haven’t mentioned them, you’re wrong about that, neither Jesus Christ nor God.

  Of course you have. You are a blasphemer and so am I. You mentioned their holidays, that’s enough for me. You mentioned the Elevation of the Host, the sacrifice of the body, of course you did, all those flowery words.

  Again there was silence between them.

  Don’t mention him again, Döhring shouted, you’re probably Catholic, that’s why you mention him so loudly, but don’t mention him to me here, because I hate him, I hate him.

  Perhaps they were standing too close together; the poker protruded dangerously from Döhring’s hand. They were barely an arm’s length apart.

  Until now, I thought I could follow you without difficulty.

  The one they call Jesus Christ I cannot take seriously, I despise him.

  Kienast’s glass was still on the mantelpiece; he wanted to reach for it.

  But what does this have to do with what they’ve been talking about, and Döhring has to explain that.

  It’s probably not his fault, maybe he’s not the one to blame for not redeeming anyone’s sin, Döhring continued, as simply and smoothly as if they were talking of the beneficial effect on the world’s stock markets of the fall of the Berlin wall, which was also something factual, but perhaps it’s really impossible to comprehend or understand what sort of crime it is to let others delude themselves with false hopes of redemption. Why would that be a more forgivable nastiness or crime than murder. Why shouldn’t every person be able to end this ugliness of several thousand years, or one’s own life.

  You may be right, but not only am I not a Catholic, I’m not even a Protestant. I left the church, have nothing to do with it. The matter is much simpler than that. I’m thirsty, Kienast answered rather softly. I left my church, you understand, I’m hungry as a wolf, that’s how simple life is.

  He was not in the mood for a theological debate, did not want to discuss religious wars, would have no counterarguments. If only because he saw how great the adolescent confusion was in the other man’s head, and he did not believe it.

  Maybe you know a roadside place nearby that’s open now.

  Upon hearing such an indecent proposal, Döhring was not only taken aback but momentarily struck dumb.

  Man, oh man, he shouted after a brief silence, and then, flying into a passion, he laughed strangely, very strangely. Here I am, asking you about the existence of the deities and you come back with material things, your hunger and thirst.

  Perhaps his laugh was not even a laugh but the beginning of a convulsive dance of his facial muscles.

  But that’s what I’m talking to you about, your hunger and your thirst, which Christians can never appease or quench.

  He cried out as if he were deeply wounded.

  You can’t seriously imagine that anyone around here would dare spend Christmas Eve outside the family circle.

  How could there be anything open tonight. No, you won’t find such a depraved place here, not in our neck of the woods. The people who live here are all decent hypocrites.

  Isn’t there a different kind of place.

  You don’t understand what I’m talking about.

  Still, despite your theoretical resistance, I invite you to be my guest, Kienast replied relentlessly.

  Just this once, I ask you to sit down and listen to me. Hear me out.

  Come on, get your coat, stop groaning and moaning.

  I won’t leave the fire. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to leave the fire just because of you. I didn’t chop all that wood to let the fire go out now.

  I’ll relight it for you when we come back. That’s one thing I’m really good at, lighting fires in fireplaces.

  Go by yourself, I’ve no objection to your coming back.

  I didn’t see any food in your kitchen, have you had anything at all to eat today.

  The refrigerator is full.

  I didn’t ask whether the refrigerator was full but whether you’ve had anything to eat.

  What do you want from me, and so what if I haven’t eaten anything.

  Get your coat, we’ll go eat something and while we eat I’ll tell you what I want from you. We can also have a glass of something and talk about theology.

  You will not talk to me about the object of my hatred. You may not do that.

  What, are you preaching to me again, I understand you very well, but please stop these tasteless tirades.

  This God of yours has been torturing me all my life.

  I have nothing to do with him.

  I hate him.

  Stop shamming and get your coat. You think other people don’t suffer or other people have no god. I’m not suffering. You think you’re the only one who does.

  I don’t think that.

  You’ll live through it.

  That’s true.

  There, you see.

  We’re not talking about suffering.

  Good, let’s keep it that way, because I can’t stand your mawkish gushing.

  But what can I do when my family is crawling with murderers.

  We can’t decide before supper which of our families offers the more meaningful example, because my family is crawling not only with murderers but also with suicides.

  That’s true.

  How would you know. Stop talking like an idiot.

  I know.

  You see.

  I know more than you can guess.

  Where’s your coat.

  The young man went upstairs and presently returned with the expensive Scottish windbreaker he had received from his aunt.

  Wait, he said when they both had their coats on, and he grabbed the poker again.

  First, he had to find the cat and chase it out of the house.

  Meanwhile it had grown dark outside.

  It’s a stray cat, he explained.

  He reached under the sofa with the poker. Sometimes it disappears for weeks or months, but it always turns up.

  He can’t stand seeing the cat slyly scurrying around, sneaking in and out. He so can’t stand the sight of it that once he managed to hit it twice in a row with the poker, on the spine, right above the rump, ready to destroy it.

  He saw the spine crack.

  There was snow on the ground that day, and he threw the cat out into the snow. It made no sound, as if he had done it in his sleep. The body sank into the snow.

  But the next day, in daylight, he could not find it.

  He didn’t tell the policeman the whole story, though he wanted to, but he could not forgive himself for it. He doesn’t feel sorry for people; he wouldn’t feel sorry for their brats either. If he killed a child, it would be like carrying out a verdict of acquittal. Whenever he found himself near a small child, he was afraid he might do it. Regarding children, he felt ready to do anything to save them from the life awaiting them. The cat, however, reappeared after a few weeks, sneaking, scurrying, alive, and he found no joy in this.

  The owl must have perched somewhere in the bare orchard, emitting a single sharp sound at regular intervals. It sounded like water drops plopping on metal.

  Another owl responded from a great d
istance.

  The car was still breathing warmly when they got in it. For a while they sat mutely side by side and actually had a cigarette. They did it so they could engage in at least this small activity without lying.

  Pardon me for asking again, the young man said after a while in the dark. I’m still curious to know your possible answer. In your opinion is there a god in this world or the universe, not the Christians’ but anybody’s, and I mean any kind of god.

  No.

  And in that case one is permitted to do anything.

  Yes.

  But how can a person coexist with this knowledge, he asked, and then suddenly he let the question dwindle. Is it even possible.

  Exactly the way you coexist with it, not any other way. Only people who are soft in the head can believe that freedom is a good thing that one should strive for. I’d say, instead, that freedom is necessary, you can’t get around it.

  You can’t be serious, or else you are cynical to the marrow of your bones. Even if it was so, how can it be acceptable to strive consciously for evil and do premeditated harm.

  Nobody accepts that, even when a person has done it. This is something everyone fears.

  Then maybe I wasn’t wrong after all, maybe murder is better.

  They would have liked to continue this, sitting in the dark; it would have been nice. To continue thinking about how they should mutually avoid the subject of murder, if for no other reason than that it didn’t get them anywhere. At best it would confirm their feeling of complete futility. But the detective, preferring to leave the question undecided, was willing to relinquish even the beauty of asking questions or engaging in a dialogue. As Humphrey Bogart would have, he stuck his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, turned on the ignition, and backed up, making the wheels screech as he turned his old car around and, pulverizing their intimacy with immense gusto, took off at great speed.

  He would have been annoyed at, and for practical reasons could not have approved of, their surrender to the sentimental spirit of theological contemplation.

  He wanted to talk about simpler things and did not want to stray from them. It was not so much hunger or thirst that urged him on; after all, he had had something to eat and drink and did not really care about the other man’s hunger or thirst, but now he simply had to find a restaurant that was open, since he had promised he’d find one. He thought a neutral location would be more appropriate for their conversation, which he had more or less planned out while driving to Döhring’s place, mapping out various possibilities, but until now he hadn’t even come close to sounding his themes in their natural tones. He had to get closer to the young man, to get even closer, to be dangerously close, and to obtain the most intimate pieces of information, and he could not afford to be taken in by the other’s playacting.

  He was wise to that, though. He saw through Döhring’s role playing. He didn’t grade the young man’s insanity as more than average; however, unlike others with this kind of insanity, Döhring played not a normal person but, oddly enough, an insane one. This is how he defended his real insanity, the points of his outburst. Everything he had committed until now was a mere taste of what he might commit in the future. And it made no difference whether all this was unintentional, unpremeditated, whether he played his role not consciously, for he performed what his real schizophrenia made him perform.

  His suffering could not absolve him. He might go completely berserk, this is what Kienast thought, but until that happened he could not legally be declared mentally unaccountable.

  Kienast already knew what brand of cologne Döhring used, and that cologne in all probability matched the one smeared on the dead man’s belly and pubic hair. He knew that the brands of the two men’s special-quality underpants also matched, and he also knew that both these matches could be mere coincidence. He was grateful to Döhring for this information and would probably have called himself not only cynical but also perverse if he had admitted to himself that he had come here to express his gratitude. He felt the most humble gratitude toward criminals, because when he finally discovered something, when he managed to penetrate the details of details, he could not help enjoying his profession; he always drank the cup of poison to the last drop. There was a moment when his moral superiority and professional expertise met in the joy of crime. He had been to the special store where those tight underpants had been sold to both men; he had been to the bar adjacent to the store and in the infamous cellars under the bar where, with choice and expensive instruments of torture, men surrendered themselves to other men.

  It was only a question of hours before he would obtain photographs of both men and then it would be possible to determine whether they had been seen together at this notorious place.

  Had it not been for this case, if chance or his fate had been slightly different, if the young man had not behaved so peculiarly, then Kienast would not have met his sweetheart. This was now unimaginable, though he feared that his gratitude toward the young man might just as unexpectedly turn into profound hatred. He had dived into the pool of love too many times, for episodes that were all too brief, and he was therefore wary of sobering disappointments. Not to mention false trails. Or the painful realization that she might not be the one, again not the right one, and perhaps there was no such being. He already dreaded the moment when he’d have to move out of an apartment once again. Or start on a different trail because he had gone astray on this one. Or that somebody once again would leave the key on his table, throw it in the mailbox after having locked the door, and another one of his crazy hopes would go up in smoke.

  Better not to start a relationship at all, but then it is very difficult to maintain human contact with anyone.

  If it hadn’t occurred to him that the cologne he’d smelled on the corpse’s stomach and pubic hair might not be the dead man’s own; that on other parts, on the limbs and in the crooks of the body, he detected another very different cologne, and yet a third one, the banally intrusive fragrance of some aftershave on the shirt and underpants—he would not have remembered Annick van Bruck and her enormous collection piled up in her much-larger-than-average bathroom.

  And that she could tell which one was which.

  He had to forget this absurd idea quickly.

  The moment he closed the file on the unknown corpse, he’d gone about his business.

  But about ten minutes later he stopped absentmindedly in front of the decorated and illuminated window of a perfume store.

  For good business reasons, the door of the establishment was left open not only to let fragrances emanate outward, but also because now and again an assistant, hair plastered down, would saunter out to arrange and rearrange the quality merchandise in the two baskets on either side of the door now being offered for sale at rock-bottom prices, and at the same time to spray a frightfully expensive fragrance into the air from an old-fashioned atomizer. For this purpose there were large bottles of Chanel and Guerlain lined up in a row. Strange as it may sound, vaporized perfume tends to intermingle with particles of steam and soot already in the air whose relatively greater weight means that the perfume rides on them, as it were, is carried into the currents of air that passersby produce.

  With a made-up story that he had not bought any Christmas presents for his sister and mother, he entered the store.

  He was looking for a fragrance that was familiar to him from somewhere.

  It took only a glance at the shelves for him to realize he had undertaken an impossible task. The salesgirls, faces made up to the smoothness of porcelain, followed him as he moved among the other shoppers. He hesitated a long time about whether to search among the fragrances meant for women or for men. What the salesgirls were interested in was whether he was a sneak thief.

  Döhring spoke after a while, to remind Kienast that soon they’d be at the border.

  A salesgirl asked Kienast if he needed any help.

  He was looking for a particular scent—not too surprising in a place like this.
>
  They both had a good laugh, and she was already leading him toward the fragrances for men.

  Do you have any specific idea of the scent.

  Of course.

  The salesgirl looked at him expectantly, but at this moment it became clear to Kienast that Annick was unavoidable; he didn’t have the words for characterizing the scent. To his surprise, when he telephoned he found Annick at home, and she eventually agreed that Kienast could pick her up and bring her into the city. He promised to take her home too. She had to help him identify a scent if such a thing was possible.

  Why would it not be.

  He did not reveal the circumstances in which she would have to carry out the identification, however, and then everything got complicated. He fumbled some of the official details. He had to go back to his car. To write an authorization for consulting an expert, which required a little cheating and fudging. To have it signed so he could bring Annick into the building.

  Annick finally became very curious on their long ride in. He told her what she’d have to do, and she did not panic or wonder. When the corpse was pulled out of its compartment and lay there before her, she looked at it and said they had better wait until it warmed up a little. Then, looking around, she remarked that they surely did not heat the place much.