Parallel Stories: A Novel

by Peter Nadas

  She had to take her life into her own hands, and, his eyes widening, the man enjoyed seeing how brave she was.

  They could not have managed without the detailed physical pampering that covered every inch of her body.

  Physical fights did not seem to be enough, though; they seemed, indeed, to increase their secretive silences.

  Sometimes she would hit back with the first object that came to hand, without thinking where the blow would land, crash it into his face, tearing his skin. They might well have feared eventual police involvement, because with this sort of fighting they were bound to need medical help.

  Simon had more reason to fear Klára than the other way around.

  But regardless of who secretly initiated these fights, their unruliness became so childish that they didn’t have to fear each other or anything.

  Simon could not count on Klára’s relieving his brutality with bouts of tenderness. He knew his way around her better than she did hers around him, and this particularly annoyed her. The man was always surprising her. Whereas Klára remained almost completely predictable for him. He did not let any manifestation of her life go by without commentary; that was his gratification.

  He wanted to be there even when she was on the toilet.

  You take me for a little girl, a baby.

  They would fight at the door of the toilet because he kept going after her to let him in so they could have a conversation. But she thought this was an impossibility, even if a rather nice one. She wanted a few minutes of quiet in the fucking apartment.

  Couldn’t we do it some other time. You want to have a conversation while I’m peeing.

  She wanted a little rest from him.

  Then Simon would plant himself by the door because, naturally, it wasn’t a conversation he wanted. He wanted to hear her little moans, wanted her little smells, her squeezes and tiny farts as the gas began to work or thrust the feces out of her.

  Are you making poo, my dove, he asked from outside.

  I’m taking a shit, you animal.

  In the meantime she carefully pressed down the door handle because she also wanted to surprise the man with something, and in her excitement she let out a fart, just a short, sharp little fart, like a nun’s, but she kicked the toilet door at him, it banged into his stupid head.

  That must have hurt him, but they laughed as they fought on, Simon yelling that that marquise was really doing it now, until Klára peed in her underpants, which she had just pulled back up into place.

  Now I peed in my pants because of you, you hairy animal.

  But Simon especially adored her for this; now finally the marquise had peed in her pants.

  To say nothing of his cultic adulation, offered up individually, of her lips, teeth, and nipples, and the ecstatic admiration for the nacreous-pink crimps of her vagina. Of course he wanted to see how and where urine and feces issued from her. And once he had experienced something, he instantly fitted it into one of his idiotic global theories. Simon thought constantly and passionately about everything. They thought aloud to each other; every day brought at least one epochal discovery, each one increasing their hope that no unexplored area or secret thought would remain in either of them. Simon wanted to know everything about her, to be reassured of everything he already knew, yet he remained gravely bashful with his own body and bodily functions.

  He would not show himself naked to anyone.

  If he could, he would have hidden from Klára his body’s manifestations and their possible irregularities. And with good reason too, since he suffered from sluggish bowel movements and digestive disorders, but he would never mention these. He would have rather died of an intestinal obstruction than break wind in his wife’s presence. Deadly earnest, in full awareness of his responsibility, he would hold back as though their family happiness depended on it. Occasionally, he had to use his fingers to pry out the hard cork of his stool.

  The harder he pushed, hissing with pain, the more the stool remained stuck.

  During lovemaking, his shirt had to be torn off him because he resisted, protecting himself, and even with his shirt off he still kept on his everlasting undershirt, which he would never take off, night or day, for anything in the world. When his slightly lopsided but not unattractive chest was uncovered, he felt especially defenseless. He only let go of his shirt shortly before the last act when his mounting pleasure left him hopelessly unguarded.

  And even then he would not part with his miserable underpants or idiotic undershirt.

  Klára had no more days of grace for her big rebellion.

  It slightly bothered her that Kristóf was deciding for her. Did not even hear what he asked or said; he made her nervous, definitely agitated. She was annoyed at being considered a silly country girl. She had a good mind to protest or to explain herself patiently.

  Simon’s constant admiration increased her hunger and impatience. She should have left him a long time ago or together they should have immediately killed someone.

  They had no other option, really.

  Only a few days ago, she had had to throw Simon off her because he’d hurt her tongue; the dumb animal had bit it.

  And not for the first time and not nearly by accident. In an instant, flavorful blood filled the hollow of her mouth, perhaps his too.

  As she yelled, what the hell was he thinking of, and as Simon yelled back at the top of his voice, what the hell did you do to me again, you slut, she saw that their screaming had spattered blood all over his face and chest.

  She could not believe her eyes.

  She wouldn’t ever talk about such a thing to anyone but a mature, real man like Simon. But then why did he have to be such a rotten character.

  True, although her childhood had been spent in senseless, forced wanderings, it hadn’t been as miserable as the childhood of this young man to whom she was now listening with a certain distaste. And she had become a country girl, the boy was right about that, even though she was born in Buda.

  She and her family were lucky that as undesirable elements of society they had only been relocated, and even as relocated persons hadn’t been too badly off.

  Yes, she is undoubtedly less familiar with Pest.

  But he will never call her a slut again.

  What d’you mean I’ll never call you a slut again.

  You just won’t.

  You shoved me off you, you slut, you rub my nose in the dirt, so why shouldn’t I call you a stinking high-class slut.

  Your prole mother is a slut, you hear, you hairy bastard.

  Great, now you’re calling my mother a slut. You’ve got the brains for that but you don’t even know when you’re humiliating someone.

  I’m humiliating you, is that what you’re saying.

  You’re a goddamn fucked-up slut.

  You can’t even be humiliated.

  You don’t even notice when you do. That’s the most humiliating thing about you people.

  Don’t you-people me. I’m on my own, I’m telling you, I am not with my mother.

  You people humiliate me several times a day.

  How exactly do we do that, by not liking that you bit my tongue off.

  Why should stinking sluts from Buda like you and your stinking egomaniac slut of a mother notice little things like humiliating people. You don’t even notice, period.

  The man was simultaneously crying and screaming as he sat on the floor in front of the bed.

  Your mother will also tell me, won’t she, where I should put my napkin ring, he screamed, pounding on the floor.

  She would speak up about this much later—she thought about this in the dark car—but now she waded into her own life story at an entirely different place. And the man’s weeping never moved her, not for a second. If anything did, it was his entreaties, when he wanted her to forgive him and not move out. How could she not find him ridiculous when he lay there on the floor spattered with blood, screaming and crying, his undershirt pulled up to his armpits and his cock protru
ding from his ugly underpants, and whining about his napkin ring.

  Why wouldn’t she laugh at him.

  Two years ago you didn’t even know what a napkin ring was.

  With which she humiliated him the more.

  And now they were sitting here at the corner of Thököly Road, the faltering windshield wiper moving from side to side in front of them; she had forgotten to turn it off.

  How in the name of fucking hell could you forget it, how can you be such a birdbrain.

  And while talking to the young man, she remembered this about Simon, about how he had said these words; she watched the hollow clatter yet she would not turn off the wipers. Her lover would have had a fit of anger if he’d been sitting next to her. Why must a woman always forget everything, these birdbrained women. Every woman is a birdbrain. She felt a special gratification whenever Simon besmirched women in general by calling them sluts and idiots. With his weeping he tried to cover things up, but with his swearing and entreaties he exposed himself to her. That was the dumb prole’s speed; he couldn’t resist exposing his raw feelings.

  It was so obvious he hadn’t been brought up properly; she tried to make him realize that, to keep emotions at the right temperature.

  How could she not laugh at him, his ribs were sticking out and he looked stark naked with his continuous screaming, whether he was crying or raving.

  If you fuck it up, who in hell will fix this fucking piece of junk for me.

  No one.

  It didn’t occur to them to get out of the car. They were doing all right just as they were. A lit-up streetcar clunked across the intersection. It was as though they had forgotten where they had planned to go or why Klára had stopped to change her clothes and borrow the mink coat from Andria Lüttwitz.

  The wind was howling, cold rain was splashing, and in front of them the brightly lit yellow streetcar carried a few shivering passengers and a dozing conductor across the cold darkness.

  She did not beat around the bush, cut right to the chase, to what hurt most, his greatest dread.

  Now, at last, finally, she was pregnant.

  The word hit Kristóf like a bludgeon.

  Not that a single breath of Simon’s hadn’t been enough to make her pregnant, but now she was pregnant again.

  Although with his other self Kristóf remained anxious for a while longer, he kept listening to the woman while mulling over his own memories.

  She won’t be able to keep it.

  He was even ready to go on with his story for a while, the one he had started, the one that had proved to be endless.

  Sometimes it goes away in the sixth week. Sometimes she makes it to the third month but even then she can’t keep it. It’s just unbearable. She’s had at least four spontaneous abortions already.

  Kristóf responded in a very deep voice, as if rumbling from far away.

  What does she mean by at least four, doesn’t she know exactly what she’s talking about. And if she does, she should say how many.

  Four times.

  Then why does she say at least.

  Kristóf should stop picking on her.

  He is not picking on her.

  If she were to become pregnant by someone else, she could probably keep the baby, but not Simon’s.

  He didn’t understand what she was talking about; he didn’t want to understand. This statement brought the woman close to him, like a sister, with her amazingly unabashed indecency, but he did not want this, did not tolerate it, and did not desire it. She mesmerized him with her proximity, leaving nothing hidden between them. It would disgust him to make her pregnant, even if the situation was as she said. He’d do anything but that. And he did not want to know these things about her. What do I care, what business is this of mine, this is something between the two of you. He shuddered at the thought, wanted to back out, had a premonition, no, a realization that the woman had actually picked him out for this. He should protest because this would turn into a misunderstanding between them; but he kept silent. Waiting for further developments. Because his greediness was greater. To impregnate the woman, quickly and successfully, though he could not imagine anything more absurd. The most he wanted was to go to bed with her because she attracted him a bit, but now he’d happily give that up too. To hold her by the ass and yank her into himself, but nothing else, a little writhing together, and then to twitter happily with her in a huge sunny bed on a nice summer morning. But frankly, he gave up very quickly on this fancy, because, his excessive desires and colorful imagination notwithstanding, he had accumulated very painful and bitter experiences of himself. He always reached his climax very quickly, and a trait like that has no sunny mornings. His sensitivity became his nemesis; he could not control his sensitivity. He’d be done before they’d even start. In the end he didn’t exactly know what they had meant to start. Perhaps the sheer fact of penetration shocked him, the other body’s resistance, perhaps the rhythm of their common search for the proper position, the wildness of the search, the warmth of the place, its smoothness—or, sometimes, the absence of all these. He did not understand what it was. What was expected of him. If it hadn’t happened with Ilona that morning, and not in some other way, he’d never have learned what it was. Until then he had no idea what he could expect of himself. He was most ashamed—that after such a night he could put Ilona into such a situation, could create the illusion that they might have something to do with each other, and then do it.

  And after that, what further vileness might he expect of himself.

  Hearing Klára’s story, he quickly forgot the last word of his own infantile inner monologue, and in his mind he picked up the thread here, with Ilona.

  There was no place to return to in the deplorably mendacious story of his life; this was the only pure spot, where the darkness was thickest, and he had no more reasonable questions.

  It would have been futile to resist, he could not have deflected the other person’s story, and so for the first time in his life he was ready for anything.

  It felt like being drawn into a whirlpool, Kristóf should believe her, and forgive her, but she simply must tell somebody about it, she can’t keep it inside any longer. If only she had a girlfriend, but she didn’t, not a single girlfriend. After a spontaneous abortion, the world was empty, as if true-blue British Darwinists had invented it. She loathes the whole business of girlfriends. Determinism takes over everything, and there’s nothing more disgusting or destructive.

  Come on, get off it, what does determinism have to do with this, Kristóf snapped in the dark. Rattling off your priggish texts as though they could be of any help to you.

  How should I help myself, then.

  How should I know.

  And for weeks after an abortion like that they can’t even think about having intercourse, at least that.

  She had the nerve to use that expression, having intercourse, and again this rotten at least. It really annoyed him. Why such scorn for the world. Kristóf had to catch his breath because of this woman or because of his reverence for Creation.

  Why is she using such words, what’s the good of such a fixed idea, she should tell him that.

  No matter how much they’d want to, what fixed idea, the woman asked back innocently.

  Doesn’t matter, why does she use such rude words.

  What sort of words should she use, for the sake of that son-of-a-bitch fucked-up God, if Kristóf won’t hear her out. If he isn’t interested, just say so.

  He’s interested, of course he is.

  Then what do you want.

  He’ll be quiet.

  She’d lost count of how many times they’d scraped her out. Have they ever scraped you out, she yelled, and that made her mean, really mean.

  It was beyond understanding how she could grant herself so much meanness.

  One of her periods lasts into the next, and if Kristóf really wants to know, she can tell him that once she had an extrauterine pregnancy, and that’s why she said, earlier, at least
four times. And if one day he has an extrauterine pregnancy, then he’ll understand what she’s talking about. And then she screamed at him, do you understand. One period lasts into the next. Impossible to know whether she’s bleeding because of the scraping or it’s her regular period.

  Who knows what’s irregular, anyway.

  If she doesn’t seep for two days, they’re very happy.

  She barely manages to scrape Simon back from his dumb drinking sprees, she said it like that, scrape him back. Not to mention his stupid womanizing; to spoon him back. He leaves me there, in my blood, and goes off to his women, he still feels like it, and I’m supposed to be the understanding one. Their life became one big running amok; why am I saying became, that’s what it had been from the start. She can barely stand on her feet because of the scrapings, but that’s the only way they can reduce the bleeding. Kristóf may laugh. The hormone treatment stopped her menstruation, not a drop of blood came out of her body, but hair grew between her breasts, and a mustache and beard, she was tearing at them, rubbing resin on them, thinking she’d go out of her mind. And they can’t get to the bottom of it, they have no new ideas, sooner or later her womb will become cancerous, that’s how she said it, my womb will become cancerous, so it has to be scraped.

  Then why talk about it so much, why don’t you shut your trap.

  Kristóf was beside himself as he yelled, though he was pleading with her, against all his earlier vows; he wanted quiet and wanted the woman not to tell him about these things.

  Why aren’t you happy that you’re pregnant at last. And let’s be quiet about it.

  Yes, and I can keep standing at the counter all day, dreading whether I’m bleeding or not. And she’s aware that she shouldn’t be so scared. But she is immoderate in everything, in case Kristóf hadn’t yet noticed. What the hell does she need a baby for, what is this big fuss about a baby, she has no answer to this question either.

  Why this fucking mushiness.

  Don’t talk like that, please don’t.

  If Kristóf is so smart, if he knows what she should do now and how she should talk, then let him answer the question. Or if she loses the child, why can’t she be happy about that, let it go if it has to go, it’s probably for the best.