Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

The symmetry and simultaneity became clear, unequivocal, and at the same time comical, because what we saw was real, though it also allowed us a glimpse into the workings of our senses, into the almost impassive mechanism of our instincts: forehead bumped into forehead because we turned away so quickly and simultaneously, as if suddenly discovered or exposed by someone, and then we burst out laughing — again at the same time.

Judging by the sound of it, it wasn't just a plain laugh but a guffaw.

An eruption of joy and coarseness, a burst of joy over the coarseness that a stiff penis, by its very nature, provides in any and all situations, the joy of "See, I'm a man," the joy of a living organism expanding, the ancient joy of belonging to the community of males, the joy of life's continuity; and it was also laughing at the coarse mechanism of exposed archaic instincts, which is called culture and which leads to doubling the enjoyment of raw instincts, because I feel what I feel in spite of the fact that I know what I feel — and thus I feel more than what I can possibly know.

With our guffaw we transformed into sounds the coarseness and violence inherent in joy, especially in shared joy, a form of communication which, transmuted by humor, promised a more powerful pleasure than the prospect of consummating the act — and one always grabs for the larger chunk of pleasure, or at least tries to, so I roughly pulled him to myself, and he just as roughly pushed me away; like two crazed animals, we began fighting on the couch.

In reality there's no such thing as perfect symmetry or total sameness; a transitional balance between dissimilarities is the most we can hope for; although our scuffle wasn't at all serious, it did not turn into an embrace, for the same reason that he had pushed me away: up to that point, wishing to keep up the pretense of perfect symmetry, I had accepted the less comfortable position so he could rest comfortably in my arms, but that was like telling him he was the weaker one, which, in turn, was like telling him he wasn't as much of a man as he'd like me to believe, forgetting for the moment that letting him have the better position gave me much more pleasure; yet precisely because there is no perfect symmetry, only a striving for it, there can be no gesture without the need for another to complete it.

The fight turned into a real one; though we both tried to keep it playful, it became increasingly rough, and it boiled down to a question of who could push, shove, squeeze, or throw the other off the couch, gaining a decisive and incontestable victory. The blanket got caught between us and then must have slipped off; naked and sweaty, we kept pummeling each other as much as the cramped space would allow; laughing when we started, we slowly turned silent, only now and then emitting what we imagined to be battle cries, trying to threaten each other with the sound of certain victory at any moment; we tumbled over each other, biting and scratching, thrusting our legs against the wall, straining against slippery skin, against shoving and twisting hands; the couch creaked, the springs moaned and groaned, and in all probability he was as happy as I to see that in this struggle for victory all the real pain we had caused and all the hostility we had felt toward each other rose to the surface out of some hitherto unseen netherworld.

Our bodies, which only moments earlier had given such symmetrical and palpable proof of their desire for each other, now found — without our noticing the change or the moral dangers hidden in it — a different kind of occupation, just as elementary and passionate, and this change completely transformed our feelings, turned them inside out, I might say: my muscles and bones, without the tenderness of desire, were now communicating with his muscles and bones in the language of violent emotions.

Until with a huge thud I wound up on the floor.

I tried to pull him down with me, but he punched me in the face, and then, pushing against my face, worked himself back up on the couch.

He was on his knees, grinning down at me; we were both panting, and then, since neither of us knew what to do with our respective victory or defeat, he suddenly flipped over and lay on his back, and I also lay on my back, on the soft carpet; in the sudden silence we kept breathing, waiting for the panting to subside.

As I lay there with my arms spread wide, and he lay up there also breathing hard, with his arms spread wide, he let his hand hang down, maybe inviting me to touch it; I didn't, I let it hang right in my face, that's what made it nice, the lack of touch, this little gap that could be closed at any time; it seemed to me I had seen the ceiling before, the way the late-afternoon light, broken into three separate strips by the arched doorway, was chasing the shadows cast by the swaying branches outside; I had seen this dead hand before, twisted on its wrist; incredibly, everything happening now seemed to have already happened to me here once before.

At the time I neither found nor looked for an explanation, though the image was not so far from my feelings that I couldn't have reached it, but sometimes the mind, keeper of all memories, does not provide the place of a stored item, only hints at it; for some reason the mind would not call the desired item by its name, and it's very considerate of the mind to be in no hurry to spoil an otherwise enjoyable situation by clearly identifying secret data relevant to it.

Perhaps if I had reached out and held his hand.

For twice in a row, as if compelled to free himself of some deathly anxiety, some choking, harrowing pain or insane joy, he let out a howl so powerful it made his whole body contract, as if all his strength were being forced into his chest and throat, he roared, he bellowed himself into the silence of the room, which hit me as unexpectedly as any blow or grace of fate would; long seconds must have passed while, unable to move or to help, I watched the agony of the large, prostrate male body: the truth is, I thought he was playing, still fooling around; his hand was still hanging down, his eyes were open, glazed over, staring into space, and his feet were flexed.

Now he rose slightly; his chest, filled with air, heaved and quivered, the heaving and quivering coursing through his whole body and then rippling back; I saw he wanted to scream a third time, perhaps hoping to expel what he'd failed to eject twice before, because if he couldn't, his heart would break.

Maybe the reason I couldn't move or help was that he looked beautiful.

And not only was he unable to scream the trapped air out, but all the oxygen seemed to have been used up by his lungs, now swollen to bursting, and no fresh air could enter them; to keep from choking, his body tried to straighten out, jump up, run off, or maybe just sit up, but without enough oxygen it had no strength, only reflex motions seemed to be at work, struggling with themselves, until the straining muscles finally squeezed out a sound, high-pitched but clearly coming from a great depth, a whimper, a broken, breathless whimper that grew longer and stronger as he managed to take in more air.

Shaking, looking ugly, racked by bursts of loud sobs, he wept in my arms.

We do well to praise the wise inventiveness of our mother tongue when it speaks of pain as something ripping open; language knows everything about us; yes, we do make caustic remarks, our hair does stand on end, and the heart does break; in these set phrases language condenses thousands of years of human experience, knows for us what we don't know or don't want to acknowledge; with my fingers, with my palm on his back, I did feel that something inside, in the hollows of his body, really had ripped open, as if the membrane of a mucous organ had been slashed through.

My fingers, my palm could see into the living darkness of his body.