Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

Prém and I have remained the best of friends to this day. He didn't become a soldier; he is an auto mechanic. And, like myself, a settled family man. If you're looking for faults, well, maybe his tax returns are not quite above reproach. A few years ago, exactly at the time my friend returned from Heiligendamm and I gave up my lucrative job as a commercial traveler, Prém opened his own shop. While the two of us went spiritually bankrupt, Prém got rich. When something is wrong with my car we fix it together, on Sunday afternoons. Prém is an absolute terror tracking down a malfunction. In the way we huddle in the greasy pit of his workshop, or rub against each other while sprawled under the car, making contact as we handle parts of a lifeless mechanism, in the way we curse and quarrel and fume or, in perfect agreement, we acknowledge the other's move to be perfect, just right — in short, in the way we enjoy each other's physical presence, there is undoubtedly something ritualistic that goes back to our childhood bonding, and it must reawaken in us the need for such bonding.

As children we made a pact and sealed it with our blood, though I no longer remember what prompted us to do it. With a dagger that belonged to my father we pricked our fingers, smeared the blood on each other's palm, and then licked it off. There was nothing solemn about this. Maybe because there was no real gushing of blood. We were embarrassed about our ineptness. Still, sealing our mutual aspirations with blood proved to be our deepest and strongest bond. What others used words for, we entrusted to the language of our bodies. And I am convinced the body has words that have nothing to do with eroticism. For the sake of an end to be achieved, we turned our body into a physical means. But our bodies had the goal in mind, not each other. And what reinforces this conviction is that it never occurred to us to consider each other a friend. To this day we call each other buddy, which to me — because I've been infected by intellectual self-consciousness — sounds a little phony, but which to him, precisely because of the differences in our background and social position, is a word that carries a most important distinction. He has other people for friends. But when it comes to straightening out his petty though by no means unprofitable financial indiscretions, he can always count on my professional guidance.

For us to become soldiers, we knew we had to outsmart the existing social order. Actually, neither of us could have picked a worse profession. I was the son of a captain on the general staff of the prewar Hungarian Army, and his father had been a fanatic fascist. My father fell on the Russian front. His father laid his hands on confiscated Jewish property, served a five-year sentence after the war, and then, six months after his release, was relocated to a camp for undesirables — much to his family's relief. The reigning spirit of the new age, in its shrewd cynicism, conveniently blurred the distinction between two lives that were predicated on ambitions and values that could not have been more different. We were both considered children of war criminals. Unless we wanted to appear stupid or insane, we had to keep our plan secret. And we didn't talk about it even to each other; after all, we didn't want to be soldiers of the Hungarian People's Army, just soldiers in general.

But all this needs some explanation.

Up until the mid-1950s, I could still hear members of my family voice the seemingly pragmatic and well-founded view that the English and the Americans would soon relieve our country of the Soviet Union's military presence. And the fact that in 1955 Soviet troops did withdraw from Austria kept these expectations alive, up until November 4, 1956. I considered my family's situation outrageously unjust, but with a child's unbiased sense of reality I also noticed that people around me did not really believe what they were telling each other. When my aunts and uncles discussed these matters, their fear and self-deception made their voices nervously thin and hushed. I had an aversion to these distraught and fretful tones. I must admit, therefore, that for lack of a real choice I would have wanted to become a soldier in the People's Army. Still, I had to realize my ambition without betraying my family. And in my morally dubious ambition, the example of my grandfather's life came to my aid.

As the fifth among a village schoolmaster's eight children, my grandfather had only two opportunities to utilize his exceptional mental abilities, already apparent in early childhood: a military career or the priesthood. As he was an irascible, unruly child, a priestly vocation was out of the question. His military ambitions were at first blocked by my greatgrandfather's unshakably nationalist, anti-Austrian sentiments. In his stubborn opposition he went so far as to prevent Grandfather from joining the Hungarian Territorial Army, even though the language of command in that force was Hungarian, and according to the historic Compromise of 1867 with Austria, the Territorial Army could not cross the Hungarian frontier without Parliament's approval. It's still a joint army, he grumbled, and no son of his would rub elbows with traitors. Then, in the heat of an argument, my grandfather said to his father, If you won't let me join up, I'll run away and become a professional dancer. For that he got two huge slaps on his face, but the next day he also got the necessary paternal consent. He graduated with distinction from the Military Academy of Sopron.

In short, we were preparing to be good soldiers in any Hungarian army, and to that end we put ourselves through the most difficult tests possible. With knapsacks filled with rocks, we went on long marches in the most sweltering summer heat. In winter we'd crawl in ditches filled with icy water. We had to learn to climb any tree and jump off the tallest one. With no clothes on, we'd cut through thorny bushes, and we wouldn't go home to change even if our clothes got sopping wet or stiff with ice in the freezing cold. I am neither hungry nor thirsty, neither cold nor hot, I am not afraid, I feel no fatigue, disgust, or pain. These were our basic principles. We frequently sneaked out late at night, and without first designating a meeting place, we had to find each other. In doing that, the functioning of our instincts was truly remarkable. We slept in haystacks or stayed up all night, especially in the snow, experimenting with ways of avoiding fatal frostbite. And on the days following such exercises we'd show up in school as if nothing had happened. We challenged each other to see who could hold his breath longer. We repeated the experiment under water. We took care of each other, not with the warm attention of lovers but as two people guided by mutual interests. We learned to creep silently over dry leaves, to imitate birds. We built a snow bunker, packing it so hard we could light a fire inside. We lifted weights, climbed rocks, ran on the toughest terrain, dug trenches. We designated no-food or no-water days, or ate and drank the most outrageous things. Lapping up water from puddles, eating grass or raw eggs snatched from nests were not unusual assignments. Once, I made him eat a slug and he had me swallow an earthworm fried on a spit; these, too, were only tests, not acts of cruelty. Naturally, our bodies were always bruised and covered with scabs, our clothes were in tatters; Prém was often beaten at home, and I had to resort to all sorts of artful lies to comfort my worried mother.

I remember only one instance when I couldn't come up with a credible explanation. But even this experience, jolting as it was, did not break my will. The incident did expose me, yet I was not about to give myself away. I've been a practicing liar ever since, a prevaricator and concealer in matters small and great. I can't help it, but it is with considerable indulgence that I observe the transparent duplicity of my fellow humans in their search for unequivocal truths. But now I'd like to relate the incident.