Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

He turned icy cold toward him in the warm early summer night as he realized he had secretly loved him and still did. There was a possible life ahead of them that he would gladly spend with Kristóf.

He would make use of him.

He would wait until somebody else finished with him and only then would he talk to him.

When liberated and pursued by his own shame he would run home to his sweet little auntie.

It would be best to accost him on the empty bridge. He’d expose him, annihilate him. Even the tip of your black shoe shows jism, my sweet, that’s all he’d say. I just thought I’d call your attention to it, with your permission, of course. Because of the long wait and the anticipated excitement of betrayal, his beautiful naked thighs became covered with goose bumps. He had never hoped for so precious a prey at so late an hour. Glad of his discovery, he imagined himself rubbing his hands together in anticipation of huge profits. He wanted to take revenge on him immediately; and he had reasons.

He hated him from the depths of his soul exactly the way he hated himself, and that is why the other man’s vulnerability made him happy.

Now I’ve got you in my claws, you rotten little Jew.

In the meantime, Kristóf was unsuspectingly enjoying the deadly silence and wrestling with the different persons living within himself.

His other self living within him did not tell him to go down to the water, where on the grayly gleaming steps the rocking duckweed made bubbly sounds.

True, that self did not say not to go either.

It’s safer to jump from the bridge. Neither did his other self say he should hurl himself to the depths from the bridge, even though he picked a good spot on the bridge from which it would be most advantageous to jump. Without slamming into the pier while falling; that’s how he wanted to end it. The water would carry him away as it had carried away the dead and wounded shot into the river by Arrow Cross men.

Without a trace.

It may have been a third person thinking like this within him, this is no longer me, he thought, because this person had no empathy, even though at other times it mutely signaled what feelings it harbored for him in connection with anyone.

At any rate, for some time now he has suspected the presence of someone with some sort of design on him.

He did not look at his watch, even though he felt like leaving, not because he meant to keep things from happening tonight, or to keep the giant from luring him away, but because he felt that time was running short.

Quickly away from here and let him finally finish himself off.

He concluded at last that he did not need to wait any longer. In this other life of his, it was inadvisable to acknowledge the passage of time.

These nights could not end in glimmering semi-darkness because they had no dawns.

Please, I don’t want you putting down roots, said Mária Szapáry quietly, and took the glass from Irma Arnót’s hand. Today it’s your turn to cut.

This made Elisa fall silent in the wheelchair, and Margit also understood Mária’s stern warning. She had to get ahold of herself. Wildly she began to look for her hairpins. First in the mass of her undone hair and then with her fingers searching blindly in the leather sofa’s folds and gaps. Now Izabella’s silk dress swished as she got up, almost as a response to Médi’s efforts, but before she left the room she tipped her head like a little girl, pretending to do it absentmindedly, and called back to them.

While I’m getting a washcloth, Médi will have time to apologize to Mária. Tout de suite , she said warningly, et pas d’histoires .

I can do that right away, of course, if you want me to, replied Margit Huber almost indifferently, and one after the other snapped up the found hairpins with her lips so that with her free hand she could pin up the crown of hair again. I beg your pardon, she said rather mockingly, speaking through hairpins and clenched lips. Je te demande bien pardon. But if you allow me, I’d love to have a repentant smoke.

Please, je t’ai pardonné il y a longtemps , answered Mária Szapáry. Go ahead, no problem at all.

Margit Huber had stood up from the leather sofa; they looked into each other’s eyes, long and cold, and did not know what to do with their mutual hatred. Everything turned cool. Médi kept herself busy with her hair, pinning it back with blasé nervous little movements, but she realized there weren’t enough pins; she was observing herself with Szapáry’s critical eyes. Her flame-red thick soft-leather belt was askew, her blouse had slipped out from under it, she had rumpled her snow-white petticoat, which somehow was stuck to the calico skirt, and with her tears she had smeared her makeup.

Before you tell me I look ridiculous I’ll go tidy up.

It won’t do you any harm, replied Mária Szapáry.

Médi, offended, hurried to the bathroom while Mária Szapáry and Irma Arnót remained, awkwardly, at the table. Elisa, hungry and jealous, was watching them. They could not know whose partners they would be in the card game or where they should sit. The spilled drink did not spread on the green felt table cover nor did the felt absorb it. It lay before them on the table, convex and opaque, like an antique cameo waiting to be worked on. This image occurred to Mária Szapáry because only a few weeks ago she had pawned her penultimate cameo and had been waiting for the mailman every day to see if they could make it on that money until the end of the summer. Now she has only one left, the most beautiful of her cameos. They neither said anything nor looked at each other. Elisa again injected a little whimper into their silence, slyly and quietly. Perhaps the tension in the wordless moments hurt her. Long minutes went by until Margit Huber returned and offered a cigarette to Irma, who smoked occasionally. On top of it all, Margit smoked Gauloises, and when people asked her how she could be so inconsistent she would answer, moving not a muscle in her face, that she did not have to sing, her students did, and she wasn’t teaching them with her throat — and she’d tap her forehead with her fingers. She’d obviously given herself only as much time in the bathroom as it took to tidy up her clothes and makeup. She did not want them to wait so long that they might have the impression she’d fought with Dobrovan in the bathroom.

Which, of course, she had.

Singers and dancers brought her Gauloises from distant cities and airports, sometimes from places where none of them had ever been or ever would be.

The two women lit up with great pleasure, both of them longing for the first deep puffs.

In the silence not only the clicking of the gilded leather-covered lighter could be heard but also the burst of its flame and then the crackling of the tiny tobacco embers. Mária Szapáry could not bear cigarette smoke, but every night she politely placed an ashtray on the tea trolley for the two neurasthenics. She glanced at the trolley and was surprised to see that a small Urbino dish used as an ashtray was still intact. If she wanted them to come to her house she had to be lenient in matters that were not quite to her liking.

Finally Dobrovan came back too, swishing in her silk dress, but she was equally silent. She held out a wet washcloth for Mária to wipe her sticky fingers on. When that was done, with quick, surprising, and unjustified agitation she blotted up the opaquely glistening cameo. In her swishing silks she hurried out with the washcloth. She walked as if carrying an important object. She heard the shout, as if hearing it again over the distance of several decades. The other women stared after her. Suddenly she felt herself inside the brilliant plum-blue silk costume with shoulder straps, her knees bare. She shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, then rose on point and with rapid little steps hurried forward and became blinded by the footlights. Pas de bourrée with the feet lightly alternating devant, derrière . She stretched her arms ahead of her; on turned-up palms she was carrying the bluebird of happiness. It took wing. Left her here on earth but with the strength of flight she was on her toes again. She’d love to fly away with it, how she’d love to. She gazed at her empty hands en désespoire . She did not understand how she could so sharply recall that shout of long ago, et c’est fini .