Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

The smooth muscles under my hand were hard, incredibly powerful, my palm was at a loss on them, seemed weak and insignificant, as if I were touching him in vain, for not only did this reveal nothing of his inner nature, it didn't even let me touch the surface, as if this surface, which of course I could feel, were only a cover on the real surface, a protective armor hard to the point of insensibility; this is what I could have thought if I had thought of anything, for it was clear that just as I could not register any reaction in his eyes and mouth or other features of his face bending over me, now I could not do so in his flesh either, no embarrassment, no consent, no rejection; his skin, face, and muscles remained as neutral as all his movements had been; I was the one who wanted to make this cruel neutrality my own, I reacted to him, not he to me; he didn't feel me, seemed not to understand me or, more precisely, didn't think there was anything to feel or understand.

It always seems pointless to make sweeping statements, but still, I have to say that never in my life, not before or after this incident, have I made a more senseless gesture.

By making it, though, I felt I had reached the peak or the bottom of my strange inclinations.

I couldn't just pull back my hand, anyway the gesture couldn't be undone; at the same time I felt nothing, even though I left my hand there; still working on my neck, he was untouched, as if my move had been only a figment of my imagination, which of course couldn't possibly reach him.

I wouldn't have minded if he had slit my throat at that moment.

If with a barely audible crack the razor had cut through the delicate cartilage.

And I couldn't close my eyes, waiting still for a telltale sign.

To shake into the bowl the lather accumulated on his finger he had to turn aside, which was the only reason he moved his thigh away from my hand.

The orphaned hand, a strange stump still part of my body, was empty, left hanging in the air.

He dipped the sponge in the water and, supporting my head with his arm, washed off my face.

In the meantime I could finally close my eyes.

"This is a cursed place, sir!" I heard him say in my darkness.

By the time I opened my eyes he was again leaning aside to throw the sponge back into the bowl, and there was no telltale sign.

"Some eau de cologne?" he asked, without turning around.

His perfect poise, seeming neither offended nor reproachful, cheered me, for it was as though together we had relegated my failed overture to the world's great junk heap of futile experiments.

"Yes, why not."

At the same time it also occurred to me that his strange statement may have been a secret allusion to those frightful nocturnal noises, the cries and shrieks that woke me from my first sound sleep, with which, for all I knew, he may have had something to do.

In which case my gesture was not an insult and may not have been completely in vain.

Holding the back of my head with one hand, pressing his little finger to my neck and sinking the others into my hair, he used his other hand to splash alcohol on my face.

He fanned my face with a cloth to make the alcohol evaporate more quickly — at such moments we always feel especially refreshed — and for the first time in a long while we looked into each other's eyes.

He must have known something, the place may have been cursed, but the little event I had managed so successfully to force out of ourselves now made the place of my memories cozy and intimate, suggesting I wasn't mistaken, after all — his glance remained dispassionate — yes, I'd be just fine here, the fire crackled away cheerfully in the stove, and I could hardly wait for him to gather his things and leave; as if driven by a slight fever, I was ready to pounce on my black briefcase, snap open its lock, spread my papers over the clear desk, and get to work, even if my bitter experiences warned against haste; things are never so simple as our desires would like them to be; one must delay things, one should skim the foam of tension from the bubbling brew of sensations, let it thicken and mellow, for the moment is never ripe when it appears to be! so when at last he closed the door behind him, I first stepped up to the window, then drew aside the white curtains, and the splendid sight indeed cooled me off.

I had a whole hour to myself before the little bell would sound, calling the guests to our commensal breakfast.

The autumn sky was bright, the slender red pines now stood motionless in the park, the night winds having died down completely, and although I could not see the sea from here, or the promenade along the shore, or the bathhouse, or the wide road leading to the station, or the seawall, marshland, and woods behind, yet I knew they were there, within reach, everything that could be important and painful was there.

I saw a few fallen leaves on the decorative tiles of the terrace.

Yes, everything was here, and therefore I could afford not to be here but in my imagined story.

To forget everything.

But wasn't this feeling of lightness nourished by the hope — so lovely because unrealizable — with which I was deceiving myself that, having finally broken free of my future bride, now this young obliging servant was near me and I could summon him any time I wanted to? but then wouldn't I again be caught between two human beings?

Where, then, was my yearned-for solitude?

The thought unpleasantly linking the two of them in my mind was a pain at the pit of my stomach.

Why were they here, crowding me even in my solitude?

My mood did not darken, though; on the contrary, I was like someone who suddenly glances at his own body with a stranger's eyes and finds its proportions pleasing, not that he doesn't see its flaws and imperfections, and realizes, finally understands, that a living form is always delineated by the relationships among details which are shaped by unalterable processes; the imperfect has its own laws, which is what is perfect in it; functioning itself is perfect, existence is perfect, the unique and unalterable order of disproportions is perfect — why was this made clear to me only now, on my thirtieth birthday, I wondered, why at this mysterious turning point in my life? after all, ever since I could remember, ever since I had become aware that one's body has a life of its own, I had suffered from a sense of always being cast between two things, two phenomena, two people, as though between two crushing millstones! this was part of my earliest memories! for example, when, divided yet unshared, my body was between those of my mother and father on our long late-afternoon walks on the waterfront promenade, my parents may have been full of mutual hostility and murderous rage toward each other — because their bodies were irreconcilable — yet I not only felt identified but wanted to identify with both of them; I neither could divide myself between them nor had any intention of doing so, even if they had wanted to tear me apart; and indeed, I may have been torn apart, for my features, build, and character were undecided between them; I took after both, and after others as well, many others; only for the sake of simplifying things do we speak of a dual division, a dual likeness, for in reality I also resembled my dead forebears, who lived on in my features and gestures; but now it made me quite happy that these two people, my bride and this valet, strangers to each other, wound up so disturbingly close in my thoughts, for how could I possibly decide, know for sure, or have a say about what I was permitted or not permitted to do if I knew nothing about the origin of anything? how could I share what was unsharable in me? everything is permitted, I decided: yes, I'd be the most obstinate anarchist, and not only because fortuitous events in my youth had led me into the company of anarchists (and those years couldn't simply be dismissed, nor the fact that it wasn't high-minded goals and intellectual aspirations that made me join them), but also because I have always been an anarchist of the body, believing that there is no God besides the body, and that only a completed physical act can redeem my body, when I can feel the infinite abundance of my possibilities.