Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

I don’t know , Elisa kept shouting, now more desperately, reproachfully, I don’t know , her enormous blue eyes all but throwing sparks as they darted, rolled, and flashed.

Elisa never failed to surprise Irma each time anew with her sorely ravaged beauty. As if, despite all her misery, she was radiating it still, as she had done long ago when Irma saw her for the first time, at twenty, from a distance. And later, to be honest, she had had grave doubts about Professor Bókay’s diagnosis when he’d been called in as a consultant. She would never have told anyone, but her decided impression was that, independent of her grandfather’s youthful syphilis and her father’s wildly fluctuating blood pressure, Elisa’s cerebral hemorrhage had successfully thwarted the breakout of a well-developed schizophrenia.

She couldn’t forget that a week before that catastrophic event they had had lunch together on Margit Island on the terrace of Palatinus Strand, and by then everything about the latent disease was visibly present. Could schizophrenia induce the same process in arteries that arteriosclerosis or syphilis did, that was the question. She was with her children, which required that she divide her attention, but during the short quarter hour when Mária was getting dressed in her cabin, Irma observed something in the seemingly gentle but in fact ruthlessly icy blond woman, something that would have been hard to put into words.

It was becoming overcast.

She would have liked to warn Mária, but kept her peace.

Above them, the wind gently flapped the giant blue-and-white-striped canvas umbrella; still, the air seemed not to move.

A light-music orchestra was playing on the terrace, which the young woman found too loud, and the smell of bacon too strong. It is possible that she was indeed suffering from a constantly changing accumulation of impressions that she could not process properly, from the strength of those impressions, from the incredible fact that everything in the world is present at the same time and with great force; nevertheless, what emanated from her was a benumbing indifference and icy tranquillity. She spoke of herself excitedly and with great agitation as if representing another person, a complete stranger. Which made the blood run cold in the veins of everyone around her; the boys were especially alarmed by her. First, she had a problem with the soup, which she said was sour, then she claimed that the smell of the cucumber salad was unbearable, the vinegar in it, and she asked the two boys not to squeeze any more lemon on their fried veal cutlets in her presence.

I want to tell you, she said, smiling enchantingly, everything around me is too rich in acid reaction.

She issued such reports about her impressions in precise, impassively spoken sentences.

This may be understandable, but she didn’t want people neutralizing her own personal chemical reaction.

Otherwise, she had nothing to say or ask anyone, she talked continually about herself, this other person, or she sat quietly observing this other person in herself.

Usually it was hard to restrain the two lively boys, but now, without a word and looking frightened, they placed the half-squeezed lemon slices on the rims of their plates. This woman is far from being as ready to smile as she tries to pretend she is; she is busy with that grim self of hers, whom she treats as a stranger to be indulged.

She has taken on the dark loveliness of this stranger, though in none of her parts or traits is she identical with that stranger.

The combined din of the tugboats was becoming unbearable; the air shook and vibrated above the terrace restaurant. A pervasive odor of crude oil overwhelmed the river’s evening coolness; heat and the engines’ nauseating, stinking particles of combustion filled the air.

One tugboat was pulling some loud dance music upstream, maybe that’s what reminded her of the orchestra playing light music.

Yes, I know, you’re right, damn my rotten forgetfulness. I forgot again to put your chair here for you, shouted Mária over the noise, giving the impression that despite her contrition, she would not be rattled by the other woman’s agitation.

Since those days, of course, Mrs. Szemző too has looked at everything differently.

If only because misery had fundamentally changed the blond woman, making her attentive, almost humble, which meant that not merely did she suffer but she also managed her suffering. She has softened and warmed up because of her terrible illness; heat emanated from her bare neck and naked arms. But Irma dreaded the very sight, the proximity of this change. She could not rid herself of the notion that in certain cases only at the expense of a physical catastrophe can the human constitution avoid a mental catastrophe. And if this were indeed so, then occurrences in this world must have not only reasons but probably purposes as well. But then she was faced again with the stupid question of who was at the helm, or what could be the thing that had a purpose. And she should also ask who took her children away, why, and why had she been left alive.

And that she’d rather not be.

Which may have been easy to say, but its consequences were unbearable, and then her mind began the cycle all over again, like a squirrel in a cage.

The wheeled armchair was there but out of reach, that is to say unreachable but close enough to annoy the sick woman greatly. She must have made unsuccessful attempts with her cane somehow to yank it closer. The chair was a beautiful museum piece, from Steindl’s famous early nineteenth-century carpentry workshop, now in rather poor condition.

Varga had attached a tip-up footrest to it.

I don’t know , replied Elisa, I don’t know , she kept repeating, though this time very differently, the yells sounding at once satisfied, almost cheerful, and also irritated. She was making her voice bend, rock, and sway in an unusual way but very sensitively and understandably. Which meant, on the one hand, that Mária understood and with satisfaction acknowledged Elisa’s response as splendid, and, on the other hand, that many things were still to be clarified.

There, Mária said, as you see, there’s not a problem in the world. I broke the dishes from Urbino, every last piece, but that’s all it was, not an air raid. We threw them all out. I cut my finger a little.

That made Elisa stare at her, frightened and at a loss.

And Mrs. Szemző, Irma Arnót, felt it was not nice to lead Elisa astray and the time had come to intervene.

Sometimes Elisa’s face showed that she did not know what to do with what she had heard, or that she could sort out even the simplest things only very slowly if at all. Her reflexes had recovered almost completely after her cerebral hemorrhage, she followed every movement with her eyes, lazily but accurately, and it seemed that she comprehended everything immediately. She remembered and could be reminded at any time of events in the distant past. But some parts of her brain had been irreparably damaged. Mária’s experience had taught her that there were no longer reliable passages between certain brain areas, or that direct communication between them had ceased completely. Elisa could probably locate the areas that still communicated, this was visible on her face, but she could not make the other connections. It was interesting to watch her facial features when she tried; at such times she appeared to be searching more than suffering. Or, as if it were possible to make the missing contact via a different approach, one could see in her heightened attention that she was trying out different detours and hoping to reach her goal. Something was missing, something was not functioning, but obviously she had no conscious reflex to deal with this lack. And once she realized she could not find her way between two or more things, she became quite oafish. On such occasions, her back had to be tapped and her face gently slapped. Which returned fatigued calm to her face, though she seemed to have forgotten what it was she’d been trying to find.