Peter Nadas - A Book of Memories

He denied the act with the same unthinking courage that he'd displayed when his hand had reached toward me that time.

To avoid embarrassing himself in front of the others, he renounced his own most intimate gesture; but now, as if trying to make up for his betrayal by those swear words, he seemed to be thanking me for being here.

Which released such a flood of emotion that the less said about it the better.

And I could not tell any of this to Maja, just as I could not talk about girls while resting my head on my mother's arm.

Without a word, the two of us got drunk on the brandy.

If one could learn the most important things in life, one would still have to learn how to keep quiet about them.

We sat there for a very long time, staring drunkenly at the kitchen table, and for some reason, after his swearing, we didn't look into each other's eyes anymore.

Even though those words cleared up everything, for a lifetime; above all, they spoke of ultimate loyalty, of how no one could ever forget anything.

He started fidgeting with the lamp, trying to put it out, but though he lowered the wick the flame would not go out, it only started smoking even more; and then he took off the glass cover so he could blow out the flame, and while he was blowing it — he had to make several attempts and he started laughing because he couldn't hit the flame, always blowing next to it — the hot, smoke-darkened glass slipped out of his hand, fell, and broke on the kitchen floor.

He didn't even look down.

It felt good to hear the sound of breaking glass shattering into a thousand pieces.

Later, it seemed to me I was quite alert as I drifted into this pleasant state of feeling good, or as I simply got lost among my own thoughts, though I couldn't have said what I was thinking about or whether I was thinking at all; the feeling of sensations dulled by drunkenness had become this state of thinking without thoughts, and I didn't notice that at one point he got up, put a large wash bucket on the floor, and poured the leftover hot water into it.

The image wasn't blurred, only distant and uninteresting.

And he simply kept pouring the water.

I'd have liked to tell him to stop pouring, enough.

Because I didn't notice that he was now pouring some other water into the bucket.

From a pail.

And I also failed to notice when he threw off his long johns and stood stark naked in the wash bucket; the wet soap slipped out of his hand and scooted under the kitchen cabinet.

He asked me for the soap.

I could hear in his voice that he was also drunk, which should have made me laugh, except I couldn't get up.

The water splashed and sloshed, and by the time I managed to get up he was already scrubbing himself.

His wasn't nearly as large as a horse's, but rather small, solid, and thick; it always stuck out, overlapping his balls, pushing out his pants; he was busy soaping it now.

I was already on my feet, and realized it hurt, really hurt, that I'd never know whose friend I really was.

I don't know how I made it from the table to the wash bucket, the decision must have carried me unnoticed over the time necessary for the trip; I was standing before him, motioning to him to give me the soap.

This closeness, past love's passion, was the kind I had longed for with Krisztián, this nearly neutral feeling of brotherhood which I had never managed to reach with him and which is as natural as seeing, smelling, or breathing — the genderless grace of human affection; and perhaps it's no exaggeration to speak of the warmest gratitude here, yes, I was grateful and humble, because I got from Kálmán what I could never hope to get from the other, and what's more, I didn't need to humiliate myself or be grateful to him; gratitude was just there all by itself, simply because he was there, the way he was, and I was there, just the way I was.

He looked at me hesitantly, tilting his head a little, trying to look into my eyes, but could not catch my glance, yet he understood me immediately, because he thrust the soap into my hand and crouched down in the wash bucket.

I wet his back and began scrubbing it carefully, I didn't want it to be dirty.

I knew the only reason Prém said that idiotic thing was because his was so big; Krisztián sometimes asked him to show it to us and we would stare at it, laughing with pleasure at the possibility that it could be so big.

I was indescribably happy that Kálmán was my friend, after all.

I got a whiff of the pigpen's smell rising from his sudsy back; I had to rinse him really well.

And the only reason Prém had said what he said was to stop Kálmán from getting close to me, to make sure he remained their friend.

But the soap slipped into the bucket, sank, and disappeared between his spread legs.

That minute I hated Prém so much, I just had to go outside for a breath of fresh air.

My foot felt something soft.

I hated him so much that I felt ill.

It was the dog, sprawled out on the porch and sleeping peacefully.

My hands were still soapy.

I was lying on the ground, and someone must have turned off the light, because it was dark.

The stars had disappeared, the muggy night was silent.

For a long time I thought I should be going home now; go home; I could think of nothing else.

But in the distance the sky flared up with lightning, followed by sounds of rolling thunder.

And then my legs were carrying me, my head was pulling me, my feet felt a path that was leading to some unknown destination.

As the rumbling thunder brought the flashes of lightning closer, the air itself swirled and thickened, the wind howled into the tree crowns.

Only when my mouth felt something hard and cool, the taste of rust, only then did I realize that I'd gotten home: below, among the trees I could see the familiar windows all lit up, and this, then, must be the gate, its iron hinge must be in my mouth.

It was like entering a place that was already familiar for the first time, as if I had seen before what now seemed so strange.

I had to look well to see where I really was.

In the cool of the gathering wind, large warm raindrops began to fall, stopped, then started again.

I lay there for a while, in the light under the window, and wished that no one would ever find me.

I kept watching flashes of lightning slide down the wall.

I didn't want to go inside, because I loathed this house, yet it had to be the one and only place for me.

Even today, while attempting to recall the past with as precise and impartial perspective as possible, I find it difficult to speak objectively of this house where people living under the same roof grew so far apart, were so consumed by their own physical and moral disintegration, were left to fend for themselves, and only for themselves, that they did not notice, or pretended not to notice, when someone was missing, their own child, from the so-called family nest.

Why didn't they notice?

I must have been so totally unmissed by everyone that I didn't realize I was living in a hell of being absent, thinking this hell to be the world.

From inside the house I could hear the fine creaks of the parquet floor, other small noises and faint stirrings.

I was lying under my grandfather's open window.

Grandfather switched day and night around, at night awake, wandering through the house, and during the day dozing off or actually sleeping on the couch in his darkened room, and with this brilliant stratagem making himself inaccessible to the rest of us.

If there was a way for me to know when this mutually effective and multifaceted disintegration had begun, whether it had a definite beginning or when and why this commodious family nest had grown cold, I would surely have much to say about human nature and also about the age I lived in.