Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

Between two gas lamps, one blended into the mist-filled dimness of the riverbank.

I could hardly wait to reach the next lamp and pronounce the second sentence of the secret language. If someone didn’t stop at the next lamp, that had a very different meaning. That was where I would cross over to the other side of the promenade, making my intention obvious. Then I’d slowly stroll back, and that would be seen as a confession, an advance on my body offered up in sacrifice.

In his excitement, he’s already stamped out his cigarette and stepped a little way out from the shadow of the trees. This would be his response. He’ll open the fly of his loose pants so I can see it: I’ve opened my fly for you.

I had a feeling it might not be him after all, that I had made a mistake. Just a figure partly concealed behind the budding jasmine. We no longer had doubts about each other; we understood each other. Even though I obviously couldn’t exchange more than two sentences with this marvelous man; what would we talk about anyway. He too should right away gauge the distance between us. So much comfort and reassurance emanated from him, such mute laughter, that I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him, no doubt of it.

Or at least my imagination had a comfortable niche in which this too seemed possible.

Until I return, he won’t whip his prick into an erection for someone else. As I approach, I can see on his shoulders and neck how brutally he is working at it under cover of the bushes. I stop at a respectable distance, turn my back to the water, the jasmine conceals me too, from everyone else. I knew how it would be, I wanted to do it the way they did it; there must be no misunderstanding between us. What we do should mean that we want each other and nobody else; for my sake, he should leave his mustached assistant too. I also open my fly, at last we can stare into each other’s face over the bushes hiding our bodies, I reach into my underwear and lift out my cock, which had shriveled, I felt, in my abject fear.

It happened exactly as I imagined it would, only it was not the older man standing on the other side of the bushes, not the black-haired giant in his ugly gingham shirt two sizes too small. I should have noticed earlier that this was a coarse sailor’s shirt with horizontal stripes. Sometimes one sees simultaneously what one sees and what one would like to see. Two darkly brilliant, frightened, slightly amazed little eyes in a bright face shone on me.

I could not leave, though in my disappointment I wanted to get away instantly.

As if he were still a child, at least his countenance was childish, but sharp dark grooves sat in his features; on his dented forehead two vertical grooves cut across three horizontal ones. His small lips, red and swollen with blood, fitted between two grooves that sliced his stubbly chin in two, and one sole groove ran across his thin face. As if his face were a surface on which two human beings had been drawn. His matted dark hair, divided in long individual curls, clung in waves to his forehead and fell in unkempt batches on the frail, childlike nape of his neck.

He undoubtedly captured me with his exterior, though I knew right away that I’d leave him on the spot for the giant.

He had a long thin nose, a powerful Adam’s apple, and in his excitement he kept swallowing. The long sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to the elbows of his strong, long arms.

It was not attraction but rather pity that I felt for him, but this feeling filled me completely.

I was still shivering a little with the animal excitement I felt for this older man, with my attraction for him, with fear of what he might do to me and whether he would accept me for a whole long life, but the boy on the other side of the bushes could notice none of this because I kept my agitation under control. The trembling did not get out of hand or become as vehement as it had been before. Stealthily I looked around again to see whether my man wasn’t nearby after all. I was actually glad that the trembling, which had to do with his size and beauty, no longer hindered me in what I was now ready to do.

With anyone and at any time.

If he wasn’t here, well, he wasn’t. He didn’t seem to be around anywhere. Either he willfully deceived me or my imagination had played a dirty trick on me. I felt my body drying out; when I blinked or swallowed, my eyelids and my esophagus literally clicked. My trembling for him was coursing through my flesh; though not strong, it was becoming permanent.

I could not see behind the bushes but I could discern that with his milk-white, thickly veined arm he was working more slowly now. His prick must have filled and become distended. With his arm movements he deliberately showed, or even exaggerated, the proportions of his member to make it seem even more imposing. Every man tried to show himself in the most favorable position so the one watching would imagine him as strong and mighty as possible. Actually, they hoped to captivate one another not as real humans but as parts of secretly nurtured fantasies, which is what ritualized their encounters. They knew what fantasies the others were nurturing.

They built their secret language with different dialects of their shared imagination.

He also wanted to see what I was doing with mine; that’s why he kept standing on tiptoe. It would have been terrifying to think that in this very instant everything would be decided. I was gripped by my empathy for him, but my burning excitement completely vanished because my interest was not directed at him. I had nothing more to do. It was enough to see how his arm and shoulder moved, to discover in the position of his white, fuzzy-haired neck the pleasure of his erection, and my imagination disloyally abandoned the older giant and willingly followed the boy.

It grew stone-stiff in my hand, rearing up impetuously, aggressively and painfully, I was holding the beak of the foreskin so as not to let it slip back in, for the sensitivity of the naked bulb would inevitably have resulted in an ejaculation. For the same reason, to hide it from him no matter how hard he tried to see it, I covered it with my other hand. Which was an exceptionally important expression in the ritual language. He was requesting an advance from me, so the sight of my cock would strengthen his erection, which my presence would make perfect when the most propitious moment arrived and he revealed his to me. I should feel the strength of my seduction in him, and be completely unable to avoid the perfection of his penis.

I was striving for unconditional mutuality, however, nothing else, and therefore imagined that the ceremonial introductions should occur not separately but simultaneously. I could not give him an advance that he might forge into a business advantage.

The lack of mutuality offended my taste. I wanted him to understand that.

Otherwise I was going to leave.

In the words of the sign language, the relationship would then still retain an exciting business condition. I would not budge from my position.

This in turn created a shared question: which of us could impose his will on the other, or, to put it in my terms, would my sentimental desire for fraternity prove stronger than my primitive curiosity. This turned out to be such a nerve-racking question in the motionless summer night — which of us would first show his to the other — that I could feel my suicidal intentions evaporating along with the black-haired, dark-skinned giant.

The hyperemia in my mind left no room for him.

I grew so weak it no longer mattered whether I showed it to him.

Look at that, look what a pecker he’s got, he cried enthusiastically, goodness gracious.

His reddish fleshy lips, a little offended and excited, trembled in amazement.