Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Beyond the Árpád Bridge, where the industrial quarter of Angyalföld illuminated the vaporous nocturnal sky with its reflectors fastened above barbed-wire fences and brick walls, a steam hammer rumbled occasionally, would strike and pound; for a short while its battering would resound through the city, making eardrums, walls, and ground quiver, and then it would fall silent again.

I had been thirsty for hours, I felt completely dehydrated and slightly nauseated; I chose the latter route.

Under the giant plane trees was a quietly bubbling drinking fountain. If it hadn’t been for an occasional light breeze, I might have fainted; my knees had grown weak with exhaustion and excitement.

It bubbled among the stones.

If you leaned over and pushed a button, the water, flavored by rust, would shoot up to the roof of your mouth.

I couldn’t wait much longer with my urge to urinate.

I wanted to die, yet I had no place to run to from the eyes around me that hoped to discover my intentions. Unnoticed, they weaved through the night darkness and tore it to shreds; I had no tactics to outwit them with. Which made my decision laughable; it made me seem frivolous even to myself.

The place itself was tragic, yet many things here that were meant to appear very personal or tragic became comical in the eyes of an observer. If, for example, I chose the shorter route and with my suicidal intentions went along that irritatingly creaky section of the promenade between the trees and the echoing wall of the smooth white building, where ominous darkness seemed literally to be trapped and anything might happen, that would be construed as my reply to any of the men standing by, ready for anything, and would be interpreted as saying, come on, follow me, I want to be yours. That stretch of the promenade was an attention-grabbing area, where the tribal warriors did their business with their wide-open buttocks in the air and where the boys for sale sold themselves. Anyone going there had to count on the possibility of his own death. But if I went past them without signaling to anyone in particular, all four would follow me, each telling himself, let’s just go and see what happens, because they did not generally insist on doing it in pairs. That also made my jaw drop. In my other life I imagined that this was something impossible to do except in pairs. I’d have to shake them off, one after the other, before I could kill myself in peace. Or first I could drink to my heart’s content from the rusty water, then drown myself in the Danube.

And it would be embarrassing, too, if I simply swam out of the water.

And that is why about ten minutes before my planned death, when all of this occurred to me, I could barely restrain my jubilant good mood.

And indeed I failed to restrain it; the sheer idea of how the mind herds together so many opposing, disparate thoughts made me laugh out loud in the darkness, how far a decision is taken from one’s guiding instincts, how far the intent of an action from its pure effects. Out loud I laughed into the darkness, like a lunatic. Wildly, involuntarily, too loud, even though the reason I laughed was that I couldn’t have been more somber and sober.

And the response was whistles from various places.

Again I did not understand.

They could see from under the trees that the young gentleman in black, before taking off for anywhere, was frozen in his tracks and listening like an animal.

I saw myself as a young man gone crazy who nevertheless deliberately chooses death over his undisguised fate.

They warned one another of some danger with their whistles.

From the sinister darkness, from the depth of the shadow cast by the white building came the first whistle, but I didn’t see anyone there. Three of the four figures instantly vanished in the blooming grove. Or maybe they just withdrew into the thicket, I don’t know. As if, along with themselves, they had drawn their own whistling into some echoing space.

The silence thickened.

Anything might happen in it. These people were defenseless against one another.

Irresponsibly I hoped that the one man left was after all the marvelous giant who had pursued me, who despite the whistles did not take off and who stuck to his place. And a possible danger was the police too.

At the moment, no danger fazed me. I was ready to do great things.

I started toward the Árpád Bridge and I knew exactly why. I was in no hurry. I copped the method from them. And I stayed close to the water so that my leisurely steps would make no noise, on the narrow edge of the paved riverbank where the slag and whinstone strips met. One missed step would be enough for me to lose my balance and fall off the steep embankment, but I did not even look down at my feet. I had never felt my body to be so safe. As someone who has suddenly grown above himself. And sees the surrounding world from a higher viewpoint. The soles of my feet barely touched the creaking slag and uneven stones, my steps carried me rhythmically, almost melodiously forward. My neck lengthened too, the butterfly wings of my shoulder bones did not hold it back. I no longer had the feeling that I was not myself and that all this was happening to someone else. Still, I did have the peculiar feeling that there were people accompanying me. In fact, it was for them that I showed what I knew, how complete and light I felt my slender body to be. I became elongated in the waist, my shoulder blades and collarbones adjusted themselves, conformed to the new shape. Every one of my joints and muscles defied the dangers waiting for me. I showed my bodily safety to him, to the giant. I showed him my shirt, taut across my chest, clinging to my waist, my hard ass inside my shamelessly cut pants, and in the much-too-small underpants my semi-erect prick, shoved to the side at its base and adhering to the crook of the thigh, on which the too-tight foreskin now slid painfully back in all the excitement. In my way of walking I demonstrated all the good feelings nourished by my physical being.

With my walking I also showed him the sensation of the cool breezes as they pleasantly chilled my hot skin, and I showed this together with the taste of sweat. I showed it to the giant, who — with his massive, thick, and closely shaved neck, with his stubborn head and pitch-black hair, which kept falling on his forehead — was staying, I thought, under the trees where the trail and the promenade intersect.

What could this man be, I didn’t know.

One could guess the enormous configuration of his loins through his overalls; his powerful ass protruded abruptly. He had thick, dense eyebrows that met above his nose, his nose was short and strong, and on his jutting cheekbones the dark brown skin was so taut it seemed bluish. A navvy — this old-fashioned obsolescent word came to mind for him, the weight of dirt and its autumnal wet fragrance. Or perhaps a carpenter, a stonecutter, a cutter of wood or stone or something that must be grasped by hand. I couldn’t take my eyes off his head, his limbs, his face, his jaws, while we walked around or pursued each other on the trails. I could not forget, either, his suddenly flashing, suddenly vanishing smile.

It was a quick, mute smile.

I could even imagine that he was unable to read or write. I’d stay with him anyway; I didn’t care if he was illiterate. He must be staring at me now, with his dumb head, his partly open, fleshy lips and his eyes with their metallic luster, but in showing myself to him, I was also showing myself to anybody who was looking.

I knew what I was doing; I knew he understood, or several of them did.

I’ll go as far as the next lamp.

That was the second sentence in the mute language of attraction.

I resolved to speak their secret language. The gas flame imprisoned in its glass globe emitted a strong sharp light that turned from yellow to white and white to blue, but the moment the light left the globe it lost its blue, and its yellow grew tired as the night filled it with various hues of gray.